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yesimwriting · 1 year

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Pulling Away

A/n did i write smut for once? yeah. also timeline wise is this perfectly accurate? it’s iffy,, but this fic isn’t about the plot too much so it’s okay

Summary: You’re not the only one that’s feeling a little territorial thanks to the influx of people you’re around in Jackson.

warnings: 18+, implied age gap, no condom, a tiny bit manipulative if you squint, brief mention of losing virginity.

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He’s not a force of nature, no matter how hard he might pretend to be for the sake of those around him. Joel can’t actually change anything. So the shift in temperature you feel as Joel stills has to be a byproduct of what’s in your head.

The kind of burning cold that better fits a fever runs through you and you hate yourself for it. This isn’t the first time you’ve been delusional when it comes to him.

You’re working off of a quarter of his face against low lighting. It doesn’t make sense for you to be able to feel so much from the little of him that you can see. It’s not anger. Or at least, not just that. There’s definitely a subdued rage radiating from him, but it’s undercut by something that punches you straight in the gut.

Maybe you’re being a little unfair, but you have a right to it at this point. You can’t follow him around blindly like some kind of puppy forever. Especially now that you’re both settled enough to be able to think of things outside of pure survival.

“Ellie’s asleep.” A flat observation that you can’t explain. Maybe it’s the need to break the silence, or maybe it’s a genuine attempt at making things feel normal. You two should still be able to talk. You never wanted that to end. “Swore she wasn’t tired, but passed out as soon as her head touched the mattress.”

Joel lets out a small sound from the back of his throat. It’s a spike in the atmosphere. “Think I’m gonna go to bed, too.” You don’t understand your awkwardness or the urge to create distance. It’s not like Joel would hurt you, but then again, the buzz of adrenaline doesn’t seem to be coming from a place of fear. It’s an uneasy burning that worsens when you raise your eyes enough to meet his. “Night.”

The one word is a little better and somehow so much worse. Not aggressive or trying to make things better. It’s just there. Civil.

When he says nothing, you take it as your sign to call it a night. Tomorrow could be better. Sure, your rocky dynamic might be going through growing pains while you set boundaries that should have been established long ago, but you’ll likely survive this. You’re all staying together in the same house in Jackson for the time being and you both care too much about Ellie to separate over something small.

Even if Joel won’t directly admit to it, the part of your relationship that feels like co-parenting is sacred. That’s part of the reason why the feelings you’ve been fighting with yourself to dismantle are so complicated. He cares about Ellie more than he wants to admit and the last thing you need right now is to tear away the little stability she’s finally been given. Not over a few awkward conversations and stiff moments.

The weird irony that vaguely reflects the issues of the world before isn’t lost on you. If someone were to squint at the situation, you’d seem like a wife trapped in a marriage for the sake of her children. Maybe if it was happening to someone else you’d have enough energy to find it funny.

You turn carefully, like a too loud squeak of your shoes could be what snaps the thinning thread tying you two to a hint of casualness. You don’t need to pass him to get to where you’re sleeping. The three of you had been set up in a space that allowed for each person to have their own room. It’s like that in theory, but in practice it’s more like Ellie’s room, Joel’s room, and the spare.

A comfortable enough bedroom that you’ve maybe spent the entire night alone in twice in the weeks you’ve been here. You can’t even pretend that you keep the few things you own in there either. Joel’s an even lighter traveler than you, so slowly your items made their way into the drawers in his room. Now, your room is basically just where you go to change into and out of sleepwear.

You’ll get used to it, used to the draft that originally led to you giving up on rocky sleep the first night you ended up sleeping next to Joel. Your dreams kept you up even more than the cold, but when Joel’s drowsy voice called out to you in the dark, asking why you were awake, you blamed the night’s chill. That’s how it first happened.

It was a mistake you should have never let turn into habit. You’re correcting it now. Setting boundaries to prevent heartbreak. It’s only a matter of time considering the way the women here look at him.

“Since when do you sleep in there?”

His voice is so gruff it instinctually freezes you. Any sarcastic comment at the back of your throat vanishes immediately. The both of you are fully aware of how you end up each night, but it’s a boundary in itself not to mention it. You’re not sure if it’s more him or you, but what happens at night and early in the morning is never mentioned.

It’s a dip into another reality. A space where Joel’s a little lighter, almost more open. Sometimes he’ll drag your arm with him when he moves onto his side, a silent way of asking you to stay close. On the best nights, he’ll joke about it, letting your limbs meld together under a blanket and swear he’s just trying to keep you warm out of the kindness of his heart.

His humor is the worst. The kind that some might justify as a result of years of it being at a stalemate for years considering the tragic state of the world, but you know better. They’re the kind of jokes that take a second to settle because of his general exterior, but are meant to be so dumb they force out a smile. In another life, the little comments are dad jokes.

The peace bleeds into the mornings now, he’ll keep the closeness and remind you that you don’t have to get up immediately by mumbling something about Ellie still being asleep. Like she’s the only thing significant enough to get you two to return to reality.

You’re convinced that these moments exist because neither of you mention them. He’s crossing a line you didn’t realize meant so much to you and he’s being dramatic it, too. It’s not the rarest thing for you to ‘attempt’ to sleep in your own bed. Sure, you’re more likely to lay in that room for a few hours on nights where Ellie stays up a little later, but this isn’t the strangest thing you’ve done.

He’s ripping any chance of returning to that separate world away from you. It stings more than it should. “Thought I’d give it a try,” you voice is too low, too defensive, “It’s not a big deal.”

The defense sounds so weak in your own ears, you don’t even want to imagine what he took from it. “Bullshit.”

His voice comes out in such a low huff you feel it more than hear it. If the sound had felt any less dangerous, you would have pretended to mistake it for another wordless grunt. Your lips part slowly as your mind struggles to create any kind of logical response.

Pretending is clearly getting you nowhere. The only reason you ever pretended it would was pure delusion. Joel has always been able to see through you, through any shift in mood. Even when your lies are better, his ability to sense them is uncanny.

He turns with no warning. Joel crosses the space between you before you can even fully register his steps. Your body tenses as heat rushes to your face in result of an oddly charged parody of fight or flight. You almost step back, one heel shifting back, but then you meet his gaze and the determined glint behind his eye is enough to melt you into place.

There’s something else there, too. A focus that pins you into place even further. Holds you there better than the barrel of a pistol could.

The absurdity of the warmth rooted in your chest should be enough to make the feeling go away. It doesn’t, so you force your lips to part again. You need to say something. Anything. “Joel?” Not that. Not just his name in a voice that feels violently small.

“You’re pullin’ away.”

The accusation in his voice leaves no room for argument. You try anyways, “No.” The rest of your thoughts can’t come out while you’re looking at him at the same time. There’s shame in dropping your gaze to focus on your shoes and the little space between you. “It’s not like that.”

Joel lets out a low sound. The creak of the floor as he steps forward again snaps you out of your trance. You step back in a desperate attempt to keep the space between the two of you equal. Your back hits the wall before you can come close to achieving your goal. It’s a knee jerk reaction that leaves your face feeling even warmer than before. A part of you expects Joel to laugh at the sound or at least comment on it. He doesn’t. He continues forward until his mouth is so close to your ear the warmth of his breath lingers when he exhales.

He takes a second there, relishing in your stillness. “Don’t lie to me.” Joel pulls away just enough to look you in the eye. “You don’t want to talk to me, you’re talkin’ about leavin’.” The southern drawl of his voice is increasing with his frustration. It’s distracting in a way that feels too convenient. Like he’s doing this on purpose.

You swallow once. “You found your brother. I have a sister out there, I’d--I think now that things are more settled with Ellie it wouldn’t be the worst thing for me to look for her.”

“And you don’t want us goin’ with you, but you’re more than willing to let the guy that’s always lookin’ at you--”

“Oh my god, is that what this is about?” You are insane. Of course his issue is who mentioned it. John knows travel, leaves Jackson and comes back in one piece when he needs to. He wouldn’t be the worst person to have with you if you did want to start a rudimentary search for your sister. “I didn’t make any plans with John, it just came up.”

“You don’t want us goin’ with you.”

Your throat feels dry. The thought of it makes you feel cold. You haven’t seen your sister in a few years and so much has changed. You’re no longer in the QZ and your sister has no way of knowing that. She can’t reach out if there’s trouble or good news and she has no reason to assume that you’re safe. You know where she lives, and if she’s not there, you know a few of her usual spots. She doesn’t typically stray too far from her bubble. It wouldn’t be a long trip, just long enough.

Long enough to give you some space. Long enough to remember what it’s like to not be around Joel all the time. Long enough to feel less about him.

And you’d come back. You wouldn’t just walk out of his life and Ellie’s forever. The little bit of space you’re trying to get would make it easier for you to stick around in the long run because it’s the only way you can think to get rid of the feelings that are trying to ruin everything.

“We haven’t been here that long and Ellie’s finally starting to feel settled. I don’t want to drag her out of that yet and make her feel like her entire life is just going to be her being dragged around the country.”

Your words are a jumble, rushed together in a way that makes the honesty of them less effective. It’s a good point. Ellie just called her room hers the other day and even asked about moving the bed against a different wall.

Joel lets out a low breath, eyes hardening. “You’re right. She’s settlin’ and she needs you.” He knows he’s hit his mark when you don’t respond. “How do you think she’s gonna take the news that you’re leaving?”

“Leaving to visit my sister.” You struggle to swallow. “Temporarily. It’ll take less than two weeks.”

His lips pull into a frown as his eyebrows together. Moody and brooding. The look you’ve openly referred to as his old man scowl. “With John.”

Ugh. This again. Why does it matter? Yes, John will be there, but it’s not like it’s just you and John. Your sister isn’t that far and she has access to supplies that aren’t common, she has an understanding with people that have easy access to medical supplies.

But even if it was just you and John, it doesn’t matter. There are a lot of areas in which you factor in Joel’s opinion, but this is definitely not one of them. You two aren’t together and with the way he does nothing to show any discontent when the girls here start to look at him, he definitely doesn’t need you keeping his bed warm at night.

“If I go, he wouldn’t be the only one there.” The fact that you’re trying to justify John’s presence leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You’re a grown woman, free to associate with whoever you want. You might jokingly call him your old man from time to time, but he has no right. “And if even if he was, what does it matter?”

His jaw locks and the downwards tilt of his chin erases the little bit of confidence you’ve managed to build. “You’ve seen the way that boy looks at you.”

You have to bite your tongue to avoid from blurting out that he’s also seen the way majority of the women you see on a daily basis look at him. Joel’s also exaggerating. John does not have any feelings for you, and if he did, it wouldn’t matter. It’s not like you see John as anything more than a friend. But even if you did--it is not his business. At all.

“He doesn’t.” There’s little point in saying that, Joel’s not one to have his mind so easily swayed and he’s been wary of John since the beginning. Sometimes it even feels like the more you insist that he’s a good friend, the more Joel seems to dislike him. “And if he did, it doesn’t matter.”

Your words feel like a retreat they shouldn’t need to be. Small, the meaning of the sentence compacted and straining against the limited syllables. A part of you expects Joel to understand what you do mean. That it doesn’t matter because it takes two interested parties to form any kind of relationship. That your mind isn’t even there in terms of feeling safe...that the only person who has ever made you feel safe enough to imagine anything beyond friendship is right in front of you.

For the first time, Joel doesn’t pick up on the relevance of what isn’t said. You can feel his lack of understanding in the way he moves, placing one hand on the wall, near your head. You blink, trying in vain to explain the motion, explain his proximity. He’s caging you in.

The heat of his body is practically inescapable, amplified by the way he smells. Joel showered a little earlier, his natural scent combining pleasantly with that of plain soap. After so many nights next to him, you would think you would have developed a tolerance. You haven’t. And even if you did, you doubt it’d matter...this is different. Dizzying.

“Doesn’t matter?”

He’s somehow even closer and somehow not touching you. The realization that that’s the worst part of this leaves your stomach fluttering. You need the feeling gone, so you force out the first words that come to mind, “It matters as much as all the girls that look at you like that.”

It feels more bitter than it comes out, leaving a metallic taste on your tongue. You need out. You need space. You need sleep. Joel’s silence feels like opportunity, so as subtly as you can you try to shift away from the wall. Your back is off the wall for less than a second before you’re pushed back against it.

Your body hits the wall before you can realize that Joel’s hand is on your hip. There’s too much surprise for that fact to settle, so you look up at him almost bewildered. You expect him to let go or at least look somewhat apologetic. He does the opposite, moving the hand on the wall under your jaw and closing the distance between you in a motion so quick you can barely register it.

His mouth is on yours before your mind can catch up. It makes no difference to him. He’s rabid in his patience, taking what he wants without forcing your lips to part. His hand squeezes your hip and all at once it connects. You gasp and Joel pins you to the wall even more securely, deepening the kiss with an expert’s ease.

It lasts until you can’t breathe and ends with his teeth grazing against your bottom lip as he pulls away. “All of this,” the words are exhaled lowly, “’Cause you’re jealous.”

The kiss left you so light headed your first instinct is to just agree. To not think and do or say whatever you need to in order to get him that close again. But his tone is too sure, too teasing, and the implication isn’t something he can just get away with. “Jealous?” His smugness is hard to take with him holding you against the wall like this. It’s too vulnerable, like this might be some kind of game to him. It makes you feel transparent. Hollow. “Fuck whoever you want, I don’t care.”

It’s like you’ve said nothing until Joel has the audacity to squeeze your hip. “Whoever I want?” His hand shifts up your hip, your shirt moving with him. “Hm.” His hum settles beneath your skin, effectively silencing you as his eyes take their time raking over your face and down your body. “Those were some big words from you.”

Heat rushes to your face. It’s ridiculous--you curse more than that on a regular basis. He’s playing into context, too aware of what he’s doing. The urge to push burns twice as hard as buzzing in your chest. “They’re true. We’re not--we’re not anything, so if I want to go with--”

“I’m not losin’ you.” There’s a desperation in there that comes out so hard it circles back to vulnerable. “You wanna go see your sister, we go see your sister. That’s how we got through everything else.” The hand on your hip moves down, his fingers dipping beneath the elastic waistband of your shorts. You hate yourself a little for the way your breath audibly catches. “Understand?”

His hand lowers even further, long fingers pressing against the fabric of your underwear. You’re not breathing right and you can’t bring yourself to care. The only thing you can think of is closer. “Y-yes.”

“’Yes’ what?” No sympathy in his voice or anything that would give away that he has a hand shoed down your pants.

His touch picks up pace, rubbing against you until a whimper escapes your lips. “Yes, sir.”

Joel moves his hand away with no warning. The whine that escapes your lips doesn’t feel like your own. He’s barely touched you and you’re already like this. “Barely touched you and you’re already listening.” He hooks two fingers in between the band of your underwear. “Should’ve done this awhile again, then.”

You’re burning all over, the only thing you can manage is a quick, “Shut up.” It lacks any bite.

He pulls at the band of our underwear, letting it snap back into place. If you didn’t know any better, you’d consider the flash of something softer across his face as amusement. “If you want me to stop, you’ve gotta tell me.”

Your nod feels desperate. Your entire body feels desperate. For the way he kissed you, the way he touched you. “I-I’ll tell you.” He’s still not moving, not doing anything. It’s some sort of punishment. It has to be. “Joel...”

“You going to say ‘please’?”

You have half a mind to tell him to fuck off, but then his fingers hook around your underwear again. A promise. “Please, Joel.” This is all unfamiliar but you trust Joel to get what you want, what you need. “Need you.”

With no warning, he yanks down your shorts and underwear. They fall down your legs and you blindly kick them to the side. “Need me?” He tilts his head down, pressing an open mouthed kiss against your cheek, then two to your jaw. “Need me where, sweetheart?”

God. Anywhere. Everywhere. Your desperation reminds you of how incredibly unfair it is that you’re already down to just our t-shirt and Joel’s still fully dressed. You move your hand slowly, carefully tugging at whatever piece of clothing on him you can reach.

He’s unimpressed. “C’mon, use your big girl words.” His hand is in between your thighs, his fingers teasing at your entrance in a way that makes it impossible to focus on anything else. “You were usin’ them just fine a second ago.”

“Joel,” he kisses your jaw again, forcing away all train of thought. It has to be intentional. “Joel,” again, too soft.

“I know,” he exhales the words against your neck, “I know, sweetheart. Need me to take care of you.” Joel doesn’t wait for a reaction, just pushes his fingers fully into you. You gasp too loudly, Joel moves his free hand over your mouth. “Be a good girl and be quiet. Can’t wake up Ellie.”

Shit. How did you not think of that? “You’ll be good and quiet for me? Let me stretch you out a bit first?” There’s a knot in your stomach that’s slowly taking over all of your senses. As long as Joel keeps working at it, you could promise him anything. You nod against the palm of his hand.

You bite your tongue to keep from whimpering too loudly. “Need you to relax,” he presses into you even more firmly, “Get you ready for me.”

He slowly eases his hand off of your face. “Joel, please.” You’re not even sure what you’re asking for, you just know you need more. You want him to consume you entirely. Feel him until he’s all there is.

You hear the sound of a belt buckle and his jeans shifting. Instinctually, you move a hand towards him, wanting to help, wanting to feel him. “There’ll be time for that, right now it’s about you.” You’re about to argue when he skillfully adds another finger. Fuck. “You’re tight,” he breathes, “No one’s ever touched you here?”

His fingers curl inside of you and you have to burry your face into the fabric of his shirt to keep from crying out. “Only you.”

“Look who’s found her manners.” He’s picking up the pace and smoothing down your hair as you squirm against him. “Should’ve done this sooner.” Just as the coil in your lower stomach tightens, Joel takes his hand back.

You push yourself off of him, staring at him with an expression you know he’ll consider pouting. “Why’d you--”

“Because I want you to remember this.” He pushes you back to the wall, pressing his body against you. The head of his cock brushes against your entrance. With no warning, he pushes into you. Your sharp gasp overlaps with Joel’s low groan. “Y’need a man to fuck the attitude out of you.” He moves slowly, the friction unbelievably overwhelming and somehow not enough. “That boy wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

Joel presses you further into the wall, sinking into you as deep as possible before pulling out just to sink back in. His pace is even until his breathing picks up. You’re a mess against him, hiding your face in his chest when he starts fucking you with full force.

“You’re squeezing me so good.” Joel practically pants the words into your skin. “Fuck, ‘m going to--you gonna finish with me, sweetheart?”

Your mind is mush, you can barely nod against him as his thrusts start to lose their focus. You’re pushed over the edge as Joel’s teeth graze against your neck. He pulls at your orgasm, dragging it along until your legs are jelly and he’s pulling out in order to not finish inside you.

The two of you stay holding onto each other for what feels like a long time and not enough. “You’re not goin’ anywhere, okay?”

You pull your head off of him enough to look him in the eye. “Not without you.”

He smiles, lines that you can imagine kissing forever etching themselves into his skin. “That’s my girl.” Joel runs a hand up and down your back fondly. “Let’s go to bed,” he presses a kiss against your jaw, “Give me the space to properly appreciate you.”

The thought makes your body burn all over again. “You sure you aren’t tired out, old man?”

Joel huffs out what’s almost a laugh, “We’ll see who’s tiring who out, sweetheart.”

#joel miller x you #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #tlou fanfic #tlou x reader #the last of us x reader #pedro pascal x reader

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jaegerrb0mb · 9 days

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Miss all American </3

Note: this is part two of my hot garbage fic

even if it hurts <3 and this one is just as bad and I also didn’t read over it as well.. 😐

Summary: Visiting her favorite cafe in japan reader runs into her ex bf

Warnings: jokes of being engaged, talks of marriage/having a baby, my horrible grammar, and somewhat fluff?

Pairing: ProHero! katsuki bakugou x ProHero! Fem Reader

"Hello, H/N, what can I get for you?" The cashier asks with an admiring expression, yet he is trying to play it cool that a top-ranking hero from the US is standing right in front of him. "Can I get a (your coffee or tea order) and one of those pumpkin muffins, please?" You point at the little dessert window and give the cashier a bright smile. "Yes, of course, Miss H/N," he says, moving quickly to make your order.

It’s been awhile since you were in Japan; in fact, you haven’t been here since graduation. You moved to the US quickly after finishing school when you heard there were more villains and not a lot of heroes out there, and you wanted to help in the most possible way, so you went abroad. You're out here visiting; it’s the first time you’ve been back to Japan in 5 years. You’ve been considering moving back, seeing as much as you missed it. Especially the cafe you’re in right now,

Taking a look around, it hasn’t changed one bit and still looks like it did when you were a teenager. Memories quickly flood your mind.

and you can’t help the bittersweet pain of nostalgia that burns through your chest.

"Here ya go!" The cashier hands you your order with a huge grin that pulls you out of your short thoughts. "Oh, thank you. How much will this be?" tilting your head to the side when he gives you a funny look. "Didn’t you hear me earlier? I said it was on the house." He laughs a bit at your confused expression. "Erm.. why?"

He leans over the counter a bit. "My family is from America; my mom told me a story about how you saved her life, so take it as my way of saying thank you." You smile softly at his words when he finishes. 'That explains why he recognizes me; I didn’t think anyone in Japan knew of me.

"Well, t-

"Heeey dynamight! Would you like your usual?" The cashier completely ignores you, focusing his attention fully on the male behind you. 'Dyna, wait, katsuki?' Quickly turning on your heels to face the man, it is in fact him and even more handsome than you remembered from your high school days. He’s wearing his hero uniform without the gauntlets, but it definitely has a lot of new upgrades. He's got a few scars on his arms and neck, some look old and some look more fresh; his hair is no longer the uneven choppy locks you used to love running your hands through; it's now an undercut, but the spikes still remain at the top; he always had a large, broad, and strong body, but now he looks more toned; his muscles are more defined, making him look in better shape than ever; he's a lot taller; and his eyes don’t hold as much hostility as before. He looks mature now. And a lot hotter if that were even possible.

"what’s the matter? never saw the No. 2 up close?" He taunts at you, but he gets no response except your dumbfounded expression. He steps a bit closer taking you in, his own eyes widen before turning to a more softer gaze, "l/n? Ain’t you some american hero now?" his voice is smooth as honey and It takes a second for you to gather your stunned self to try forming words "I am, I’m just visiting." he hums in response. "If you have time, I’d love to chat and catch up with you, Mr. No. 2," you joked before grabbing your stuff and making your way to a nearby table to sit so that you don’t hold up a line by the front.

Sipping from your drink and scrolling through social media on your phone, not really paying attention as you keep glancing up watching katsuki pay for his order until he finally makes his way over to you, now sitting across from you.

"So, what’s it like in America?" He asked, taking a sip of his own coffee and leaning over the table a bit. "It’s nice; I like it a lot, but I was actually thinking about-

"Do you have a boyfriend?" He catches you off guard almost making you slice your finger as you were about to cut your pumpkin muffin. "Oh, straight to the point huh?" you laugh to play it cool, but your heart has been hammering in your chest since you laid eyes on him. "Just answ-

"no, I don’t.. I haven’t dated anyone cause I’ve been focusing on my hero work and it’s quite hard to find the time for it, you know? How bout you?" Sliding half of a muffin over to him. and taking a bite out of your half. something you always did as teenagers when the two of you came to this cafe in the middle of fall was split a pumpkin muffin. they were always out of them and you could never get your hands on them. and since you got the last one you decided to offer him half. it wasn’t anything special but you hoped it sparked the same nostalgia you’ve been feeling all day onto him. and you know it did when you catch the corners of his mouth quirk up into a small smile.

"I’m engaged."

His sentence throws you into a coughing fit as you look up to see him untuck a chain under his hero uniform from around his neck that holds a sliver ring, but he’s quick to tuck it back before you can even examine it.

he leans back crossing his arms over his chest with a smirk as he watches your coughing die down.

"Oh, I-wow, congratulations, bakugou." Your smile is forced as you blink back tears from coughing and from pain before leaning down to take another sip of your drink, and he can tell your smile was fake as he begins to laugh. "No need to get jealous now; I’m messing with you." He untucks it again to show it to you.

It’s the promise ring you gave to him when you were 16.

You feel relieved, but your eyes still widen. "You kept it all this time? Why do you still wear it?" You quirk an eyebrow while watching as he takes a bite of his muffin and wait for him to answer.

"I guess to mess around with idiots like you." He finishes his coffee before he continues. "Well, to be honest, I never really could’ve found the heart to throw it, and it’s the only thing I've had from you since you left. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? You didn’t tell anyone, and you never called either. I had to find out from damn endeavor out of all people." He toys with the ring around his neck as you frown. "I couldn’t find the heart to say goodbye to you or our classmates. I felt like a jerk, but I knew it was for the better, at least at the time. I don’t know, Kats-Bakugou."

"You don’t have to correct yourself; you can call me by my first name, Miss American." He jokes, trying to make the conversation lighthearted while tucking the ring back once again. "What is your rank there anyway?"

"I’m the No. 2 hero, like you." You stick your tongue out at him before finishing the remains of your muffin. "Wow, with a brain like yours, I figured you’d be at least in the 50s," he smirked, making you lean over the table and hit him lightly. "You’re so mean, Katsuki," you pout playfully. "It’s called honesty, y/n." He laughs when you roll your eyes and slouch back in your chair. "You know you’re lucky you’re handsome, or I’d really be offended right now." You sip your drink. "Oh really? You think I’m handsome?" He rests his arms on the table, leaning forward. you smirk, coping his actions. "Yeah, but it’s too bad you’re engaged." You throw his joke back at him.

"Haha, so funny."

"You’re the one that said it, not me."

"Forget about that. Wanna come back to my place?"

"You shouldn’t cheat on your fiancé."

You smile playfully as he shakes his head, leaning in a bit more.

"The only woman I’d ever be engaged to is sitting right in front of me, but it’s too bad she decided to leave the day after graduation. not even caring to give me a phone call." he playfully clicks his tongue. "Yeah, but the phone works both ways," you shrug.

"doesn’t change the fact that you ruined my plan to take you back after school." He leans back in his chair, now crossing his arms once again. you scoffed. "That’s bullshit, and we both know that."

"Me asking you to be my wife was bullshit? I had the whole thing planned for how I was going to propose, and if you didn’t go Miss all American on me, I bet we’d be married with a baby on the way. That is what you wanted when we were together, right? to have a family young?" He makes a "tch" noise, tilting his head up at the ceiling, causing you to frown. "You shouldn’t joke about that, Katsuki."

He quickly turns his attention back to you.

"I never said I was." His words are followed by silence besides the other people around chatting, but still enough to leave thick tension in the air.

"Katsuki, I-

He suddenly reaches for your drink, taking a sip from it and taking you by surprise. "Hey! I never said you could-

"And it’s still not too late for that." his voice holding a deeper rasp as he clears his throat. "Listen, y/n, I’m going to be straight forward with you because there’s no reason for me to lie. I always loved you, and I never stopped loving you. I don’t care if you live in fuckin’ Guam, Canada, or wherever; I know I can make long-distance work for however long you want it to work. Remember back then when I said I’d take you back in a heartbeat? I still stand by that. So if you still want that future you planned with me, try giving me a call; it’s the same damn number I’ve always had." He places your drink down and gets up to leave, but you catch him by his wrist. "Didn’t you ask if I wanted to go back to your place?" giving him doe eyes while your fingers danced their way up his muscles. He leans down so he’s face-to-face with you. "Gotta finish patrol; don’t worry, babe; promise, as soon as I’m off the clock, I’ll take you there." He gives you a smug smile, turning back around to leave. You call out to him once more before he makes it through the door.

"Katsuki!" He stills but doesn’t turn. "I’m here for two weeks."

"Better be ready; I’ll make it worth your while."

With that, he went.

Tags: @sofilsword @the-dumpster-fire-of-life

#bakugo katsuki #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #mha #bnha #fem reader #bakugo x y/n #bnha bakugo katsuki #katsuki x you #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou fluff #bakugo fluff #bakugou angst #bakugo angst

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sweetnsour1 · 1 month

Text

9:36:01

Angsty fluff, Bakugou x fem reader

Part 1 of Broken Collection

Go back to part 0

“An echo.”

“An echo?”

“Yeah, ya know-“ you interrupted yourself with a few waves of your hand…an attempt to summon some sense of understanding. “Like the same thing, but not…and it comes later.”

Your thoughts faltered when you looked up at the sound of a chuckle, but your timing was off. The evidence was already being erased from his lips with the pass of a scarred hand. A quick cough and eye roll reset his expression before he tried again.

“Yea, I get what an echo is. Don’t get how one brought ya here.”

You huffed, returning your gaze to your lap. This was all frustrating and so…so stupid. You were frustrating. You were-A slippered foot nudged your leg. He bent to your sprawled-on-the-floor level, hooking a finger beneath your chin, raising your probably bloodshot eyes to meet his naturally red ones. Your eyes watered as they widened at the close proximity. Fuck, he looked so good…and you were so tired.

“Hmm…fix your face.”

“Ugh, I know. I haven’t slep-“

“No, this.” Something ran across your lips, tracing the frown you didn’t know was on display. By the time you could process his touch, it was gone. He was standing in the doorway again. This time with his hand down, palm out. “Well, come on.” The rush of panic was instant, your head was throbbing, your ears were ringing, your thoughts frozen before they could start.

“Huh?”

“Did ya wanna sleep out here?”

“No.”

“Okay then.” He moved closer, and you let him help you up.

Ugh, standing felt like such a pain after a night of dancing with Mina and Kaminari. They were probably still out. You’d bailed after the third spot…once you realized you were in walking distance to-

“Ya good?”

You nodded, seeing he’d led you to the bathroom. “Soft,” you mumbled into the pile of folded somethings he pushed into your arms.

“Remember where everything is?” He paused for an extra moment while you blinked up at him. “Nothing’s changed.”

You must have nodded because he seemed satisfied before heading off to the kitchen. You wandered to the mirror, ignoring your reflection, and placed the clothes on the counter. Nothing’s changed. What a lie. So many things had changed.

However, he wasn’t wrong…quite a few things seemed to have remained: The extra loofahs beneath the sink, the clean towel hanging on the shower door because you’d always forget to grab one, lavender bodywash, color protecting shampoo, the drain cover to catch your hair before it wreaked havoc on the plumbing.

You let the water burn, and steam fill the room. Anything to hide these markers, these tiny headstones detailing who was here for a moment before having to move on. Eventually, you groaned and shut the water off. You couldn’t hide in here forever.

“What am I doinggg?”

“Using all the hot water in the building.”

“Shit!” You wiped at the shower door to reveal an empty bathroom. “The fuck?”

That same chuckle floated toward you. “Don’t worry, still out here.” A hand waved from the hall. “Ya didn’t shut the door.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry, idiot.”

“Sor-“

“There’s food when you’re done.”

It felt so fucking good to be clean. You were halfway through putting lotion on, freezing mid-thigh. You’d bought this…for him at first, but then a larger size when you ended up loving the scent. Now it was just something else on the long list of things you had avoided for months. You finished getting presentable enough to journey to the kitchen.

He really did look so fucking good. His shoulders were relaxed, no longer grinding up towards his ears. His breaths seemed calmer than before. His back and shoulders had gotten bigger in all the best ways, while his waist seemed smaller somehow. He finally had the undercut you’d pushed for years ago, but he’d never wanted to try. He really, truly seemed like he was doing so much fucking better. But you knew that…you knew…you had said…you-

You jumped as his hands grabbed your face. When the hell had he turned around?

“The hell? You okay?” His thumbs traced along your cheekbones. Oh, tears.

“Yea, yea…just tired.” You tugged free of his grip, backing away to sit in the living room, burrowing into the corner of the sofa you used to like best. He half followed, and you could feel the question coming. He opened his mouth as you rolled your eyes. “Promise.” He shut it again with a tch, disappearing into the kitchen again. It’s like you were running lines from a script you’d memorized.

The food he finally brought over was probably delicious. You could only register it was warm and filling. It was hard to focus on anything really. Too much alcohol, too little sleep, too many memories, just too much.

“So an echo?”

You paused, noticing you had slid a pillow between the two of you at some point.

“Mmm. It’s probably better if we don’t unpack that.”

The cushions shifted as he stretched his long arms up and back down to rest along the back of the sofa. You found your gaze ripped away from the shoulders you couldn’t stop staring at by that same soft laugh you’d missed so much.

“Probably. Still wanna hear it though.”

“It’s just a theory…”

“Ya love those.”

“Mhmm.”

“So what is it this time?”

“It’s just…we broke up.”

“That’s true.”

“Well we broke up because we thought-“

“We?”

“Well we broke up because I thought we weren’t bringing out the best in each other anymore. Everything was harder and stressful and exhausting. We both put work first, but that made us feel shitty at home. But if we took time off to be at home, we felt shitty about not being at work. We were too similar and enabled so many bad habits.”

“Yea yea, I remember all that from before. Now what’s this echo?”

“Yea, so…we broke up because I thought that might be true. Now it’s been a while. And we’re both doing much better. Great even. And it’s just like a shitty echo of the heartbreak. Ya know? Because it’s like proof that we’re better apart than together. And…”

“And?”

“And so I guess that’s why I’m here.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Doin’ great, huh?” His fingers ran through his blonde hair. “Are you doing better?”

“What? I mean…I’ve never been ranking higher than I am now. And the agency-“

“Not what I asked.”

“You asked-“

“Not work. Are you doing better?”

“Oh…yes?” Finally you were looking when his eyes crinkled and his laugh was set loose. Pretty.

“Now ask me.”

“Ask you?” He was no longer laughing but his mouth looked ready to release another at any moment. “Um, are you doing better?”

His hand was just warm enough for you to not flinch as it made contact with your neck. His thumb stroked the side of your face. Your eyes closed and you leaned into the touch you’d stayed away from for most of the year. You opened them again, unsure of how long he’d let you rest in the literal palm of his hand. He was fully grinning now.

“Not at fuckin’ all.”

“Not at fuck-wait not at all?” Your thoughts were getting more sluggish by the minute.

“Nope.”

“But-“

“Yea work’s great, but I’m always great at work.”

“But…You seem so relaxed and happy and I dunno…different?”

“No shit. You showed up at my door like I ordered delivery.” He laughed at your pout before it was fully formed. “Guess you’re too exhausted to wonder why I was awake at two in the fuckin’ morning.”

“But…but you go to bed at eight.”

“Been a while since i could do that.”

“Why?”

“You’re not the only one getting chased by echoes, kid.”

“Oh.”

Mmmmmm still unsure where this one is going, but these two are tugging me along. So we’ll see

Next part

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#bakugou #bakugou fluff #bakugou x reader #bnha fluff #bnha #bnha imagines #bakugou imagine #bakugou drabbles #fluff #bnha bakugou

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andhumanslovedstories · 4 months

Text

hey here's another question that I've been thinking about for about a week with no particular breakthrough. I'm so much on the healthcare side that all my advice is on that side. Dude, I read academic articles for this and didn't come up with anything particularly useful. That's why I'm answering this publicly, so other people hopefully add something useful. (Also I know you said you're not looking for opioids. I'm gonna talk about opioids anyway they certainly affect perceptions of chronic pain. In your case, try making clear early on that you don't want opioids.)

I'll say some things that I've noticed from my work to maybe provide some insight into healthcare's side of the exchange. I'm not saying this is the way things should be, I'm giving advice based on how I see things are. I wish I could say this wasn't the case, but when there's a pain medication standoff, the two ways I've seen it work out best for a patient are:

A third party advocates for the patient. (like family, nurse, social worker, different specialist, patient advocate, etc)

Change in caregiver.

I don't like those as the top answers, but that's what I've seen and it's consistent with a lot of the accounts I encountered. There is also a third way that the pain medication standoff can quickly end in a patient's favor:

3. New evidence (new symptom, imaging, vital signs, lab test, etc) forces a reexamination of how we're thinking about the patient.

This is also the "oh shit they seem worse" method, but it can also be "we have gained new information that re-contextualizes the information we already knew." This is like hey the xray came back, your whole bone is dust, or hey your blood pressure is now significantly higher, or hey oops your appendix exploded.

In all three cases, something new happens to change the dynamic. This works for healthcare providers operating in good faith because someone comes in fresh and/or the new dynamic causes the healthcare team to do a new assessment and cost/benefit analysis with this updated information. This works for healthcare providers operating in bad faith because they are either removed from the situation or put in a position where giving pain medication is less onerous than not giving pain medication. I genuinely, genuinely believe far more healthcare employees are operating in good faith rather than bad faith, although the end results can look the same from the patient side. This means I think that far more people are swayed by additional information that makes pain management have more benefit and less cost.

I don't know how actionable any of this is from the patient side unfortunately. I don't love being like "my advice? wait till shift change, see if you can shake it up." Bring someone to the emergency department with you if you have someone available, preferably someone prepared to make a fuss on your behalf. If you don't have a third person, see if you can get one. Hospitals can have patient advocate as a job. If they aren't available, is there someone on your healthcare team that seems most sympathetic? Try asking them if they have any advice. They might be able to give you some, they might advocate for you. Be careful about badmouthing staff to other staff and avoid compliments to one member of the team that relies on insulting another member. You don't know the relationships at play, and it's sort of like how you shouldn't trash talk your old job when interviewing for a new job. You may be completely right in everything you're saying, but being like "my boss was a crazy asshole who refused to recognize my work," doesn't come off as objective. It can undercut your credibility and introduce hostility into the conversation where it is not productive.

I'd also be prepared to talk about what you already tried to relieve the pain. Again, with you I'd mention upfront that you don't want opioids because they don't work for you. Then say what you have already tried at home before you came in (tylenol, ibpurofen, heating, ice, exercises, stretching, shower, other meds, etc) and the effect of both the pain (can't sleep, makes you nauseated, had to call off sick from work, aren't able to be a caregiver to someone, etc) and your already attempted interventions (no significant pain control, symptoms got worse, called PCP, they said emergency was the next step, etc). If your condition is chronic, compare it on the pain scale and the functionality scale to your baseline. (i.e. "I'm always at least a 3 out of ten on the pain scale, but it doesn't usually leave me bedbound." "Normally Symptom improves after Intervention At Home, but that didn't work this time.") Something that can make providers hesitant is if opioids, benzos, or other powerful drugs are the first and only thing a patient says will help and they're unwilling to try anything else, so sometimes demonstrating flexibility with your pain plan can signal "I'm not here for oxy to sell, I'm here because I want my symptoms to stop (and, if relevant, figure out what is causing them)."

Also if you can and feel safe doing so, consider providing feedback to the hospital. Nothing changes without something documented.

#nursing tag #please ppl on more pt and ed side feel free to weigh in #sorry if any of this seems condescending or super obvious like 'yeah obviously i do that already'#me: don't know what to say :/#also me: six billion word reply

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imaginaryf1shots · 11 days

Text

My Girls | Crash

WC: 2K

Driver!oc x Max Verstappen

Warning: cursing, car crashing, fire?

A.N: This doesn’t follow the time line and could be read as a stand alone.

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Zandvoort, Netherlands.

Max’s home race, the crowed were all cheering for the man. Cecilia had made the move to Mercedes this year, and so far she’s so happy with team, they had welcomed her with open arms, and she’s gotten well with Lewis, the pair weren’t as close before they became teammates, not because she didn’t like him, but Cecilia usually ran with the guys in her age group more. And to be honest she looked up to Lewis when she was younger so her racing against him, like Seb, left her breathless. She never thought that by the time she’d make it to Formula 1 he’d still be doing the amazing things he’s doing.

The race had started Cecilia started from P4, and she made good progress after the first turn she dropped to P6 by lap 30 she was back in P4 trying to overtake Carlos and get to P3. The weather took a turn and it started raining heavily.

Lap 34

Cecilia, box. Box.

You’re going in after Lewis.

Cecilia

Okay, don’t fuck it up for me, my daughter is here today.

We won’t.

And they didn’t, in true Mercedes fashion they double stacked, and she was out in two seconds.

Lap 35

Ferrari made a bad decision when they pitted Carlos, Cecilia was able to undercut him and took his P3, he dropped to P5.

Lap 43

Cecilia

How long will it rain for?

For another ten minutes or so

We’ll keep you updated

Lap 70

Lewis and Max were in front of her, she didn’t try to overtake Lewis following the team’s strategy. It was still raining, and she’s close to finishing P3.

Stroll is behind you, he’s 0.5 behind

Cecilia

Copy

Lance was closing in on her, but Cecilia was ready to defend, turn after turn she blocked him, she’s not losing her podium, she's third in the championship and she’ll hold her position with her hands and teeth. She only has two laps left.

However mother nature had other plans Lance lost grip and his car gilded over the ground with no tire grip at all, his car twirled around and his wing took out Cacilia’s back tires.

Cecilia

FUCK! FUCK!

Her car turned in circles, hitting the tire barrier pushing her back into the track, other cars had to swerve not to hit her as she hit the other barrier, the car started flipping, breaking into pieces. A red flag was called instantly, all cars were called back to the pit. George and Yuki already DNFed and were watching the crash happen, Lance's car was also destroyed but he hit the fence and stopped. Cecilia’s car landed upside down.

Toto

Cecilia! Are you okay?

All that could be heard was groaning, the safety car was out and the marshalls were running to the car that finally stopped moving. Cecilia was disoriented, she lost consciousness for a second. Everyone watched with bated breath, Merc’s garage was silent, everyone waiting for a response as Toto tried to get a response again and again. Every second felt like a lifetime. Both Max and Lewis pitted, they were informed of what happened, and both men panicked, one of the screens was playing back the crash.

Lance had gotten out of his car and was running to Cecilia’s.

Groans are the first thing Mercedes engineers heard, she was alive, but in pain.

Toto

Cecilia, are you okay?

Max ran to the Mercedes garage since the radio wasn’t being broadcasted, the only place he’d know if she’s okay is in the Mercedes garage. One of the engineers gave him his headphones to listen.

Cecilia

I’m smelling petrol

The female groaned, she tried to move but there wasn’t much she could do, until the car flipped, meanwhile blood was rushing to her head.

Toto turned and informed the crew to tell the marshalls. Lance was the first at the car, he had no idea about the leaking petrol, the car could light up at any second.

Toto

How are you feeling?

He wanted to gauge how she’s doing physically.

Cecilia

Not- not so good

Toto

They’re almost there

Cecilia

Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

Toto

It’s not your fault it’s okay

Cecilia

Na-nathalie, don’t let her watch

Toto

Don’t worry she was taken away

Just focus on yourself

The marshals reached the car and with Lance they flipped the car, Cecilia sounded out of breath down the radio, once the car was the right way she didn’t move to get herself out. All they could do at the garage is wait. Lance was led away, they tried to have minimal people around the car since they knew about the petrol, two ambulances were near, Lance was led to one, the guilt eating him alive.

A marshal unbuckled Cecilia, with the help of another one they pulled the female out of what was left of the car, she offered no assistance. All she did was groan and mutter to herself incoherent things. They laid her down on the ground to take her helmet and balaclava off, they didn’t want to move her around too much not to cause any more damage, but just as they laid her down and with the medics running towards them all in the rain under the gloomy skies, a spark and then fire, blazing fire. The Marshalls ducked down.

Max’s heart dropped to his feet, he couldn’t stay there, he couldn’t. Turning to leave, an arm on his shoulder held him tight. His eyes met his rival’s.

“Don’t go mate, there’s nothing you could do.” Lewis was firm, he understood why Max wanted to go, but there’s literally nothing better he could do than stay here.

“I can’t just stay here.” Max tried to move again but again Lewis stopped him.

“You want to do something, go check on Nattie, that girl saw her mum’s crash.” Lewis told him and Max turned to look at where your driver’s room is. “The medic will get her out.”

“Lewis is right, we have to stay here for Nathalie.” Charles said, sounding out of breath as he ran to the Mercedes garage, for the same reason as Max, Mercedes will have the first information about Cecilia.

The marshals did the only thing they could do, they grabbed her from under her armpits, they were close to the ground, and they started dragging her, the medics met them and quickly placed her on the stretcher as a fire truck was driving up. Cecilia was then rushed to the nearest hospital.

“She’s breathing, they’re rushing her to the hospital.” Toto told the drivers, rushing over before he saw the Ferrari driver. “You two-three can’t leave yet, but I’m rushing there with her father.”

He left no room for discussion, the race is over, everyone will be placed where they were on pole based on where they were when the red flag was called.

Max knew he’d be needed in the RedBull garage but he went to Cecilia’s driver room, her name on the door, walking in he saw Nathalie being comforted by one of the Mercedes team.

“It’s okay, I got her.” Max told the woman who gave Max a small smile before she left. Nathalie threw herself at Max, he crouched down to be able to hug her. “It’s okay, momie is okay.”

“I saw her crash!” The girl sobbed, shaking.

“I know, but you know she’s a superhero with superpowers, she’s a little hurt, but she’s okay, she asked for you.” Max comforted pulling her up in his arms, as he stood up.

“She did?” Nathalie’s face was red, her lips turned down, an expression he saw on Cecilia a few times.

"Yeah, she did." He comforted her until she had calmed down. "Want to come with me to RedBull?"

Natalie nods and Max carries her to his team's garage. All he wants is to leave and go to the hospital. The race is over with anyways, even if he got pole position there’s no happiness there. Leaving the Mercedes garage Charles was talking with Lando and Lewis, when Charles saw Nattie's red face he tried to cheer her up, and he managed to get a small smile out of her, the favourite uncle’s privileges and all.

Half asleep writing this

Max was finally given the green light to leave the paddock and go to the hospital, Nathalie and Charles were of course with him, the group was driven there. Börje, Cecilia’s dad called and said that she’s stable and okay, she looks worse than she is. Max doesn’t know how to interpret this to be honest, so he just wants to get there.

When they made it to the hospital, Toto was outside on the phone talking furiously. He saw them and pointed for them to go in, still decked in their team’s kits the moment the trio walked(Nattie was in Charles’ arms) a nurse led them to a waiting room where they saw Börje. The man looked stressed his leg bouncing. He got calls from his wife and son asking about their daughter/sister, he had to try and be as calm as he could, but that’s his baby girl.

“Börje!” Charles called for the older man, he’ll always hold him in high regard, he did so much for his family when they were going through tough times.

“Grand-père.” Nathalie wiggled out of Charles’ arms and ran to her grandfather who had his arms out for her, he hugged her close, pulling her up to sit on his lap.

“How is she?” Max asks, stressed and worried, he tried to hide his feelings but they were seeping through him.

“They're doing their last check ups, but there's no broken bones, a slight concussion and a lot of bruises.” Börje said and Nattie snuggled into him, hiding her face into his neck.

“When can we see her?” Charles asked.

”I think Max can go in.”

Max didn’t wait for another word, he knocked on the door and a nurse opened it for him, once knowing his relation to Cecilia he was let in. The doctor was finishing up telling Cecilia everything, when Max rushed to her side. He couldn’t see any visible injuries besides a couple bruises on her arms. The doctor and nurse leave, letting the couple have a moment.

”Hey.” Cecilia says with a small smile, Max had no idea how she could smile, he watched her crash, he thought she had died. Max is a strong man, he never cries, he’s been too much shit for him to get overly emotional like this, but here he is trying to not let the tears gather in his eyes, fighting everything in himself to get it together, he wasn’t the one that crashed.

”Hey.” Max’s voice was heavy with emotion, he sits beside her on the bed and takes her hand gently in both of his, like it was his life line, to him it felt like it. “I-uh- I-um, Schatje…”

”Amour.” Cecilia says gently and cups Max’s face with her free one, Max crumbles, he puts his head on her shoulder and his body shakes lightly.

”Fucking hell, Cilia, I thought, shit, I thought I lost you.” Max manages to get out and Cecilia pats his back in comfort kissing the side of his head.

”I’m okay, Maxie, I’m alright, amour.” Cecilia whispered and keeps kissing the side of his head, teats gathering in her own eyes.

”I only managed to hold it in for Nat.” Even when he wants to break down, your daughter is his first thought and priority.

“I knew that you’ll always think of her first.”

“Believe me I wanted to run to you, but Lewis stopped me.” Max says and pushes himself back to be able to look at you, you take the time to wipe his tears away, and give him another smile.

”I’m glad he did.” Before Max could reply the door opened and small feet ran in and to the bed.

”Mommie.”

“Mon ange.”

charles_leclerc added a story

Captian: (she's fine everyone ❤️)

Ceciliahansson15 added a story

Captian: ( thank you for all the love, I'm alright 👍 already out and on my way home 💋 )

Taglist:

@luciaexcorvus . @vellicora . @tpwkstiles . @belennasif . @eugene-emt-roe . @fanboyluvr . @fangirl125reader . @christianpulisic10 . @belennasif . @itsjustkhaos . @crashingwavesofeuphoria . @mynameisangeloflife . @mirrorball-6 . @skynel09 . @barcelonaloverf1life . @lilipiggytails . @rebelatbay . @christianpulisic10 . @ironmaiden1313 . @dark-night-sky-99 . @amalialeclerc . @bborra . @allsouls-emma . @buckybarns4life . @distancedss . @xoscar03 . @aquangxl .

#f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 scenario #max verstappen one shot #max verstappen #max verstappen imagine #my girls #max verstappen x oc #max x oc #driver oc #f1 x oc #oc #f1 driver oc #formula 1 imagine #formula 1

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transmutationisms · 7 months

Note

I would love to hear more of your thoughts on House & its relation to the detective genre ! I think that house (completely accidentally and very badly) stumbles into a good critique of how doctors & medical structures view addicts & disabled people, with house being a horrible hegemonic mr malpractice to his patients frequently yet half is series is unironically just about all the injustice/mistreatment he faces because his doctor colleagues can’t see him as a person but only as a problem to be solved/rehabbed/therapized/institutionalized/treated like a child with stolen candy/treated like a criminal. and then it also randomly takes an incredibly pro MAID stance. which isn’t really part of this but I just remembered how batshit insane that show was. and then chase killed a dictator and I feel like the show was squarely on his side for that one. Anyway. Do you have thoughts? I really like house.

ok here's my house md take. like a lot of medical dramas, the show essentially relies for its dramatic appeal on the construal of patients as gross, weird, and stupid—rubes who are too uneducated and self-serving in their petty lies to solve their own bodies, and thus need the intervention of house to fix them. this is standard for the genre, although slightly meaner on house than on some other examples (cf. grey's or even the older and soapier generation of these shows). i don't even think house committing malpractice is all that new; it's relatively common as a plot point that positions the noble rule-breaking doctor as someone who 'does what needs to be done' and skirts the bureaucratic red tape to follow their own superior judgment. what makes house more interesting is that from the get-go, house himself is both a doctor and an unwilling patient. in itself this isn't a tension that's new to the medical soap (injuring a major character is pretty par for the course) but house's particular interactions with the ruling biomedical epistemology are, as you point out, characterised by hostility and resistance, and the show frequently either sides with house, or at least leaves it somewhat up to the viewer to decide whether house is right to resist the pathologisation that cuddy and wilson try to impose on him.

this is kind of a tricky line to walk for 7 seasons or however long the show is. my recollection is there are episodes, for example, where it's very clear that house's pain is physical, and the writers use this to morally justify his vicodin use. this is obviously not a full-throated defence of opioid users, but it is at least pointing to a position on chronic pain that allows for the possibility that for some people, long-term use of drugs with a high addiction potential and side effects is legitimately the best thing. but, this messaging is also undercut by the fact that it's primetime television, they need to make drama, and there are definitely also episodes where house is framed as potentially lying about his pain, or at least mistaking a somatic problem for a physical one, which the writers often (not always, but often) present as evidence that actually, house shouldn't be trusted to make his own decisions about drug use, and ideally should be 'de-toxed' and probably sent to cbt or whatever. of course all of these considerations are also contextualised by the fact that house is, again, not just a patient but a doctor: his right and ability to make these types of calls for himself is, it's suggested, a result of his having attained medical education and credentials. the patients who come to be treated by him are seldom, if ever, given this same level of consideration or presumed to have sufficient self-awareness to make their own medical decisions. this isn't to say they're portrayed entirely unsympathetically, but ultimately the narrative engine of the show relies on house being the smartest guy in the room (though ofc, sometimes tragically 'held back by his addiction').

so, although there are moments on the show that genuinely transgress some of the norms of the med-drama genre, i have never agreed with people who thought that the show as a whole was presenting any sustained critique of the medical system, the treatment of chronic pain/disability, or the power-imbalanced doctor-patient relationship. ultimately all authority on house md is supposed to emanate from the physician, or the physician's superiors (cuddy as a 'check' on house, though sometimes a failed one! again because of the need to generate drama for like 140 episodes), and at its most radical the show is really only capable of presenting house himself as an out-of-control aberration whose existence strains the existing system rather than being produced by it.

this is where i think the comparison to the cop show genre becomes more clarifying. house md never made a secret of being an interpolation of the detective genre, specifically sherlock holmes. however, i'm not sure i've ever really seen writing on the show that analyses what effect this actually has on house. like police, doctors are tasked with maintaining certain social norms; the dichotomy between policing and medicine isn't even a solid line, as criminality is frequently rhetorically construed as a pathology in itself and medical authorities can and do have recourse to carceral systems in order to discipline and confine recalcitrant patients, the 'criminally insane', addicts, and so forth. (policing has historically also been understood in a more expansive sense than how we use the word today; our understanding of the medical/public health system as separate from police authority is arguably more to do with university credentialling than the actual exercise of social and political power).

so, if we want to be serious about the portrayal of medicine in popular culture (i am always serious about this) then we're necessarily talking about broader systems of power, social control, and discipline, and doubly so on a show like house that is explicitly inspired by detective fiction. this is where house md is most ideologically objectionable to me: as with the trope of the cop who breaks all the rules, house is basically positioned in one of two ways throughout the show. either he's a lone genius who alone is willing to achieve noble ends (cure) through distasteful means (breaking into patients' homes, berating them, performing risky interventions on them, &c), or—and this is rarer on house but does happen—he's portrayed as genuinely crossing an ethical line, in which case he's a kind of monstrous aberration from the normal, ethical functioning of the medical system, often represented metonymously by the objections that cuddy, wilson, or house's underlings raise. in both of these cases, as with copaganda, the function is ultimately to reinforce the idea that doctors, though occasionally capable of human error, are prima facie wiser than their patients, looking out for their patients' best interests, and performing noble social roles as healers. house, ofc, is very rarely willing to admit that he has any underlying ethical motivations, though much of the show is driven by the flashes where he is revealed to 'secretly' care about another person (often wilson) and anyway, the construction of an ethical society in which all individual actors are motivated solely by selfish interests is a very established rhetorical move for those interested in defending liberal capitalist societies (cf. charles darwin, thomas malthus, adam smith, &c).

because of television's need to generate profit via audience engagement, house md always relied on a certain level of shock or at least provocation in order to sustain itself. so, there are certain aberrations from the more overtly doctor-valorising medical dramas, like the suggestion (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) that house was better at his job when he was mildly high on opioids. this was, for the reasons outlined above, never a serious entry into political critique, but it was at least refreshing in a certain way as a departure from, eg, the portrayal of addiction and drug use that we see on grey's, which is completely limited to the medicalised AA narrative of 'recovery' as a battle against the malevolent intervention of an external chemical agent. which is to say that although house md is ultimately reactionary in the way we should expect from an american tv show, it did at least dabble in a certain level of caustic iconoclasm that allowed limited departures from the genre conventions. even with what was ultimately a pretty solid vindication of the anti-opioid narrative, the show does stand out in my mind as one of the few very popular presentations of any kind of alternative stance on chronic drug use. that it's usually put in house's own mouth means it is occasionally legitimated by his epistemological authority as a physician, though ofc ultimately this authority is challenged not through a critique of the medical system, but by presenting house as individually and aberrantly licentious, undisciplined, and insane—and his chronic pain/disability are both a justification for this, and a shorthand for conveying it.

#house md

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writeroutoftime · 1 year

Text

Safe and Sound

(this picture is not mine and credit belongs to this twitter account here! if you are the owner and want me to take it down, please let me know)

pairing: eddie munson x reader (gn)

summary: (based on the fanart above) after everything in the upside down, eddie was recovering in the hospital, never alone with his faithful members of hellfire. one day you come to visit and see the above scene before finally letting the emotions of the past few weeks catch up with you

warnings: none

words: 1.2k

a/n: soooo, I've had this idea forever and think this fanart is so insanely cute! please enjoy because this was so much fun to write, and I would love to know what you thought! have a lovely day!

oOoOo

Your footsteps echoed against the linoleum floor as you made your way down the hall. This journey had become an almost daily experience. So much so that you barely noticed the strong smell of disinfectant that lingered in the air. You shifted the bag on your shoulder, smiling briefly at the crinkle that resulted from the snacks you had brought.

Just a few doors away from your destination you heard shouts of screaming and scuffling. Instantly, your heart began to beat faster, and you hurried your steps until you stood right outside your boyfriend's room. You were about to enter, ready to take on whatever danger awaited you on the other side when you heard Eddie's voice ring through, laughter undercutting his threat.

"You are so dead for that, Wheeler!"

Leaning against the doorframe, you peaked your head into the hospital room and relaxed the moment you saw the scene before you. Four teen boys surrounded your boyfriend as he sat up in his hospital bed. On top the blankets was an intricate board game, pieces scattered about, and a D&D guidebook near Eddie's lap.

A soft smile crossed your face as you continued to watch the five of them so involved in their fantasy world. You knew it was a welcomed distraction for Eddie who had been restless over being stuck in his scratchy, hospital bed for the past week. The way Eddie's face lit up as the story continued made you feel warm. It wasn't until the droplet hit your cheek that you even knew you were crying.

The tiniest groan from inside the room caught your attention, and you noticed the way Eddie shifted, trying to find a respite from the pain his scars and healing wounds caused. Silently, you wiped the tear away and straightened the non-existent wrinkles from your clothing. Clearing your throat, you revealed your spot from the doorframe, pulling the boys out of their game and back to reality.

"Sorry to break up the party, but I think it's time to call it a day." you encouraged, stepping inside to press a kiss to the top of Eddie's curls.

"You heard the boss, boys. We'll pick this up next time." Eddie echoed, closing his guide and helping to collect all the pieces. "And don't think I'll let your betrayal slide, Wheeler. You better watch out." Eddie warner, pointing a figure at Mike as he walked out of the room, rolling his eyes good naturedly.

The rest of the party followed, all offering various shouts of goodbyes to both you and Eddie. As they cleared out, you dragged your designated chair next to Eddie's bed and pulled out the snacks you knew he had been craving.

Laying them all at before him, you offered up a sly grin. "I figured you were sick of the slop they call hospital food, so I brought you some treats from the outside world."

"And this is why you are the best and I love you!" Eddie groaned out, immediately digging into a can of pringles. "Oh, this tastes amazing, I could die I'm so happy right now."

You flinched at his choice of words and once again when Eddie's groan of satisfaction morphed into a hiss of pain moments later. Immediately, you rushed to help him lay back and get comfortable in a position that wouldn't aggravate his healing wounds. Once settled, you sat back down and grasped Eddie's hand tightly.

"How have you been feeling today? Do you want me to grab a nurse? We could get you something for the pain, I'm sure." you rambled, wishing you could do anything more to alleviate his pain.

Eddie's response was to lift your hand and press a soft kiss across your knuckles, offering you his signature puppy dog eyes. "No more than yesterday." he promised. "Besides, I don't want to be relying on those pills. Having you here with me makes it all better."

His words did little to ease your worries and you could feel the dam burst inside you as all the emotions from the past few weeks spilled out. After everything that happened with the Upside Down, you felt as though you had to be the one to keep it together; to be strong not just for Eddie but for everyone else involved.

It was you who stepped up and offered to be the shoulder to cry on, to deal with the lies you told Hawkins Hospital, and everything else that came with the aftermath of dealing with the supernatural. But in your mission to be the strong and tough one, you had never allowed yourself a moment to grieve and process what happened, which is why it all poured out in that moment.

Shoulders shaking, you let the sobs escape your lips, thankful Lucas had shut the door on his way out. Exhausted, you fell forward onto Eddie's bed and buried your head in his lap. You had almost died. Eddie had almost died. You had watched as he bleed out before your eyes and nearly subcumed to his injuries before the staff at the hospital could save him. It was you who had been dealing with nightmares for the past few weeks and relieving the worst moment of your life each time you closed your eyes.

Eddie looked down upon you stunned and unsure of what he could do. His strong hands rubbed up and down your back as he encouraged you to let it all out through soft whispers and gentle "shhhhhs" until you could calm down. Minutes later you lifted your head, hair askew and eyes puffy as you looked into Eddie's eyes, feeling slightly ashamed.

"I'm sorry, Eds." you mumbled, scrubbing at your eyes. "You didn't need that when you're still trying to heal."

"Hey, hey." Eddie interrupted, cupping your cheeks as carefully as he could. "You don't need to apologize for a second. I know life hasn't been easy on you these past few weeks. Talk to me, babe. What's going on?"

You opened your mouth, closed it, and took a deep sigh before you finally allowed yourself to voice your fears and frustrations. "Eddie, you nearly died." you whimpered. "I held onto you as you were bleeding out and we tried to get you to the hospital in time. I know you were trying to save us, but I-I just can't those images out of my head.

And I'm just so scared, all the time. Scared that I'll blink or won't be here and you're going to slip away from me again. I can't lose you, Eddie, I just can't." you admitted, tears streaming down your cheeks once more.

Stunned into silence, Eddie engulfed you into his arms as best he could from his spot on the bed. His heart ached to know you had been carrying all those thoughts and feelings around. He knew what he did had been reckless, but he did it to save you.

"Sweetheart, look at me." he said, lifting your head up, taking your hand. He pressed your hand to his chest where you could feel his heart thump against his ribcage. "Feel that? I'm still here. I'm still with you, and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I'm sorry you had to go through all that on your own." Eddie comforted, pressing sweet kisses anywhere he could on your skin.

"I know it's not as simple as telling you all that," Eddie continued. "but together we'll heal and move on from this together."

With a watery smile, you nodded your head. "Together." you echoed. Things wouldn't be solved in a day, but you knew your future was bright with Eddie by your side.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #rita writes

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kingofanemptyworld · 2 months

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Rin, identity issues, and the complications of being an isolated, alienated teenager

It feels sort of weird to say but I generally don’t head canon characters as having particular sexualities. Whatever people go for in fics is usually fine with me - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, something more general like queer. As long as it makes sense for the story they’ve built and the character they’ve shaped to fit it, I’m good. Unless you’re ignoring a canon LGBTQ+ sexuality, in which case, yeah, I’ll take issue with that.

But anyway. Rin.

I’ve got my personal ship for him (BonRin my beloved), but regardless of the pairing I see him as bisexual. He’s so open with his infatuation with Shiemi, and okay, sure, fandom likes to ignore the love interest in shounen for the most part because we’ve got gay ships to peddle. But I don’t see the point in that unless it really reads like it’s a front, or a result of a character suppressing themselves for one reason or another. And with Rin, I think it’s pretty clear his affection for Shiemi is sincere. You technically have the in-universe evidence of the demon that brought out his true desires to back that up, but even without it, Rin likes her. It’s complicated because of Yukio and Shiemi’s own inexperience with romance, and yet I never once doubt he really likes her.

That being said… he’s very appreciative of the guys in his life, too. (Peddling my gay ship here) Bon in particular, considering he’s often admiring how cool he thinks Bon is, that his haircut suits him whether it’s the blonde rooster look or the undercut. If you don’t want to see it as romantic interest, that’s your prerogative, but to me Rin comes across as seeing cool and cute as different traits he finds attractive (in Bon and Shiemi respectively).

I also think his bisexuality would fit neatly into his narrative struggles to “pass” throughout the early parts of the series. Rin has grown up as the neighborhood problem child, ostracized for being violent, and eventually he decides he’s fine with just his brother and his father — and the rest of the monastery, presumably — for company. (Except that’s absolutely not true and clearly he’s starved for friendship and support.) People looked at him and saw a monster, even before his demonic heritage made an appearance; why would he bother giving them even more ammunition when it comes to reasons to hate him? So no matter when he figured out his attraction to guys, he’s not going to lean into it, because he also likes girls, right? (Ignoring for a moment that bisexuality is a lot more nuanced than that.)

Rin likes girls, Rin is human — that’s what’s going to get people to like him, or at the very least tolerate him. That he likes guys, that he’s half demon, he can shove that shit down and pretend it doesn’t exist. Lock up any stray thoughts and keep the sword sheathed around anyone who doesn’t already know.

(Excuse me for being amused by Rin wielding his humanity and supposed heterosexuality as a sword and shield.)

The problem, of course, is that he can’t keep up the facade forever. The narrative won’t let him. Rin has to embrace his demonic side, because it’s the only way to move forward and to continue to help his loved ones. And once he’s moved past the issue of his friends being upset over the deception, when they understand he’s still Rin despite what he’d hidden from them, Rin is finally allowed to be himself. He uses his flames, he lets his tail move freely in the open around the Cram School kids. Rin still doesn’t like this side of himself — it’s inextricably tied to every moment of pain and isolation he’s dealt with his entire life, including the death of Father Fujimoto (and, y’know, his mom). But he is moving forward, he’s trying to adapt.

And isn’t that some great fucking subtext for his bisexuality, too?

#king’s court #blue exorcist #ao no exorcist #okumura rin #rin okumura #bonrin #because I love them #anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk #I probably made more sense in my head than I did writing everything out #but oh well #there’s a similar conversation to be had about yukio and his suppression/obsession that develops #but I am not qualified for that one #also I promised myself when I made this blog that I’d try to be engaged with the fandoms I got into #because the one I’d sunk a lot of time and effort into on my main no long brings me much joy and I miss interacting with people #so. uh. here I am I guess #god this is probably less compelling than my season 2 analysis of bnha seven years after it aired

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miasmaghoul · 10 months

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i see your idea about pre-concert swiss and raise you: him asking aurora nd mountain to facefuck him so he can be reminded of BOTH of them during the show

hey how about this:

Swiss groans low in his throat, gaze heavy where it rests on the couch across the room. He's floating, surrounded by the lewd, wet sounds of his own hand and those of the pair across the room. The air is thick, sex and fresh sweat undercut with set-in smells of stale beer and cigarette smoke. His eyes never leave the entrancing sight before him, no option but to leer.

His golden stare sits squarely on Aurora's chest, taking in the way Mountain's long fingers sink into soft flesh. Kneading, massaging, squeezing. Occassionally shifting to tug at a taut, pink nipple. Aurora gasps with every pinch, her thighs shaking where they sit beside Mountain's. Swiss can't get over the contrast in their skin - the ghoulette pale as moonlight, the earth ghoul sun-kissed and freckled. She gives a high, breathy moan and Swiss's gaze sinks south, pulsing in his palm at the way her pretty pink lips cling to Mountain's slick-shiny cock with every roll of her hips.

"How's she feel, Mount?" Swiss rasps the words with a dry tongue, the hand on his cock pausing so he can rub rough fingers over the frenulum. A blurt of pre leaks from the slit and dribbles over his digits, sticky and warm.

Mountain detaches himself from the pale column of Aurora's throat and peers at him from over a slight shoulder. His green eyes shine in the fluorescent lighting, glassy and heavy lidded. He paws at her tits again and the ghoulette moans, a high, breathy sound that shoots straight to Swiss's balls.

"So good," Mountain slurs, nosing behind her ear and sliding his hands down to her waist. "She's so tight." His fingers overlap at her belly button and the sight of it may yet drive Swiss insane. "So small."

Aurora whimpers, letting her head fall back onto Mountain's shoulder and reaching up to grip a handful of his mussed hair. Swiss huffs out a pained noise, squeezing himself at the base and biting his lip. He knows from experience that Mountain is right; none of them thought anyone could feel smaller than Dew. Oh how wrong they were. His strokes speed up, tight fist twisting over the head and wringing strained sounds from his throat.

Aurora's head rolls to one side, peering at him through thick lashes. Her cheeks are flooded with pink, her lips bee stung, her pale eyes sparkling. She gurgles out something unintelligible and the three of them echo one another's moans. The ghoulette shudders when Mountain's grip tightens; she stills her hips and relaxes back into him, and it's all the encouragement Mountain needs to starts moving her.

Swiss wants to keep talking. Always wants to keep talking, if he's being honest, but especially now. Sitting here, sweating into his uniform while the pair across from him lose themselves in each other, he finds his tongue utterly useless.

At least for the moment.

Swiss's free hand slides up his torso, trying to rub at a nipple through the layers of his uniform with minimal success. A little more stimulation. He wants to launch himself across the room and bury his face between Aurora's perky little tits. To tug at their pebbled tips with his teeth and lick his way down her narrow chest. Taste her sweat and the remnants of sweet, fruity perfume soaked into her soft skin. To get his mouth on the swollen bud of her clit and make her cum so hard her bones dissolve.

But he was the one that walked in on them, so that wasn't in the cards today. Instead, he watches and waits for his turn. Judging by the punched out grunts Mountain's giving, it'll be any minute now. Mountain lifts Aurora off of him entirely, holds her in the air like she's a toy, and shimmies. Spreads his thighs so Swiss has the best view, a real eyeful of his wet cock and full balls. Mountain grits his teeth, lowers the ghoulette back onto his twitching length, and the noise she makes is so deeply pleasured the Swiss can hardly handle it. Mountain holds her in place, starts bucking up into her, and it signals the beginning of the end.

"Touch yourself," Mountain growls into her ear, just loud enough for Swiss to drool over, "let me feel that pretty cunt cum on my cock."

Swiss's eyes glue themselves to the place where Mountain splits her open, laser focused on the way manicured fingers skate over her stomach and settle at the apex of her thighs. She starts to rub, quick circles that have her arching in seconds, and Swiss has the singular pleasure of watching Mountain's balls draw up. If he squeezes his hand just right, he can imagine Aurora clenching down on him instead.

"Just like that," Mountain urges, lips pressed to her temple, "squeeze me, milk it out. Take it from me."

Aurora's hand stutters, her mouth drops open, and her whole body goes taut as she cums in silence. Mountain chokes on his inhale, fingers digging into her skin while he ruts up into her spasming form. He only lasts another handful of pumps, snarling behind grit teeth as he spills deep inside the ghoulette's trembling figure. Swiss watches his cock pulse with every squirt, and the sudden knot in his stomach nearly forces him to double over.

He watches them come down, strokes slowing despite the ache between his legs. Watches Mountain's large hands graze over her body while he murmurs what are undoubtedly words of the most genuine praise into her throat. Grounding her, slowly bringing her back down to Earth. She twitches and hums, nuzzling Mountain's hair affectionately and resting her hands over his.

It's a few minutes before she turns her gaze back to Swiss, and every moment is agony. She eventually pats Mountain's hand and the ghoul lifts his heavy head enough for her to mutter something into his ear. Mountain smirks, nods, and gives her one last squeeze before releasing his grip. Aurora lets a lascivious smile spilt her face and shifts her position, lifting herself from Mountain's lap and letting his softening length slide from her ruined hole. She cups her cunt as she stands and stares Swiss in the eye, raising her other hand.

"Your turn," she chirps, and when she points at the floor Swiss swallows hard. "Down, boy."

He tries not to look too eager as he scrambles to obey, slipping from his seat to lay on the old carpet at her feet. Aurora tips her head with a saccharine little smile, lowering herself to her knees and straddling his head. Swiss brings both hands to her thighs, tucking them to his ears and earning a light, chiming laugh for his efforts.

"Good doggy," the ghoulette lilts, threading elegant fingers through Swiss's curls. He stares up at her, soaking in her flushed cheeks and the halo of disheveled platinum waves falling over her shoulders. She tugs at his hair and Swiss feels his aching cock leak onto his waistcoat. "Open up for your treat."

Swiss moans, wanton and whorish, and obeys. Lets his tongue fall against his chin and holds tight to her thighs. Aurora gives him a purr of approval, moves the hand cupping her mound, and Swiss nearly passes out at the sight of her messy cunt. He doesn't even give her the chance to get fully seated on his face, burying his face in her swollen folds and lapping at her like a man starved.

Swiss can't keep still as he devours her, hips rolling up into nothing at his cock begs for stimulation. He whimpers when he sinks his tongue tongue into her slick hole, the salt-rich tang of Mountain's cum melding with the heady sweetness of Aurora herself. The combination has his eyes rolling back, utterly lost in the act of drinking them in. The essence of them is sure to linger in his nose and on his tongue long after the show is over.

"Someone's hungry," Aurora trills, rocking her hips and dragging her still-swollen clit over Swiss's nose. Using him for her benefit. Behind her, Mountain chuffs. Swiss can feel his foot rubbing absently against his thigh.

He stares up at the ghoulette, unwilling to so much as blink lest he miss the flutter of her lashes. She groans and leans back to look at the other ghoul, and before Swiss can so much as whimper his displeasure his back is arching.

"That's a good boy," Aurora croons, tightening her grip on his hair. Mountain's foot rubs against the tender, sticky head of his cock and he shakes, wide eyed. The ghoulette smiles at him. "Go ahead and hump, puppy," she encourages, clenching around his tongue, "make a mess so I can rub your nose in it."

Mountain's foot starts to work him, and Swiss can't hide the way he shakes.

#miasma's work #the band ghost ficlets #swiss ghoul #mountain ghoul #aurora ghoulette #mountain/aurora #aurora/swiss #counting this as bottom swiss btw

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tackytigerfic · 3 months

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im soo hyped for that wartime fic :O do you have any entire how long in terms of chapters it will be?

Hello Anon, thank you so much for being excited about this. It really is such a kind thing to tell me, esp after I've been writing this fic for so long and having absolutely zero perspective on it anymore.

I am hoping to post it in chapters, as I have never had a fic long enough to do that with before! And it might be my only chance. It's currently nearly 220k with a bit more to write (but not much more!) though I am going to try to cut it back as close to about 150k as I can get it. And then I'm going to try to divide it into about 15 chapters or so, and post a chapter every 2 days for a month. They will be big chunky boys, those chapters! I know a lot of people don't read WIPs and I don't mind if people don't follow along, but I have read along with a handful of WIPs myself and it was such fun that I thought I'd like to try it from the other side. I do also have a smut epilogue planned which I might have to post a bit later, depending on how quickly I get through the editing process.

Here's a little snip from the fic too, just while I'm here, and since it's still WIP Snip Sunday! In this scene, Harry and Draco are no longer friends, after Draco ran off to France. They have just been humiliated to learn (through drinking a charmed drink) that they share the same happiest memory, and it involves a day out they had in London together many years before.

"It’s obviously some sort of error in the charm, like you said.”

“Exactly.” Draco had the steel of conviction in his voice. “But even if it wasn’t… if that really was your happiest memory, I mean. Well, you know I’m not judging you.”

“Well, you’re not exactly in any position to judge me, are you?” Harry said nastily, hating himself a bit for it. “After all, it was your happiest memory too.”

They were quiet then, Harry weighing up Draco’s silence, judging it for what he knew it was; a confession.

“Well,” Draco said, and cleared his throat. “It really was excellent ice-cream.”

“Hermione says we all have some sort of trauma reaction from being at war for so long, and she thinks I’m latching onto anything that isn’t completely terrible in my past.”

“Oh, cheers,” Draco broke in. “Though I suppose not-completely-terrible is a fair assessment.”

Harry wanted to tell him that there was a time when he was pretty much the exact opposite of terrible—the counterpoint to all the shitty things Harry had to worry about, the thing that undercut all the misery and drudgery of the war Harry was locked into. But Harry couldn’t remember feeling the purity of those feelings anymore, not since they’d been all muddied up by Draco leaving, the awful gasping pain of the surprise abandonment, the sick relentless ache of the realisation that Draco really wasn’t coming back.

“I miss London,” he said instead. “Sometimes I even miss Grimmauld Place.”

“That’s another thing he’s ruined,” Draco said, shoving his sweating plastic bags of takeaway onto the small table. “London always felt so safe. It was so big, so anonymous. I could be anyone I wanted there. And now he’s everywhere, like a virus. How often do you get back there?”

“Hardly ever,” Harry said. “When I went to meet you, that was the first time in months. The Council thinks it’s too much of a risk, me going into his territory. His warding system isn’t as sophisticated as ours yet, of course, but he’s working with a lot of innate power there, and it’s concentrated stuff. If I fall into his hands, it would be all over for us.”

“Lots of magic per square foot in London,” Draco agreed. “I do worry about that. If he gets back to his full strength at any point, with all that magical energy behind him…”

“I know,” Harry said. “It’s one of the things that keeps me up at night, to be honest.”

“There are probably quite a few of those,” Draco said, lip curling not unkindly. “Do you— I mean, I always order too much…” He waved his hand at the bags of takeaway. Harry could see a curling bag of brown paper with the corner of a herb-dappled naan poking out, and he felt ravenous again, all of a sudden.

“Yeah, I could eat,” he said. “If you’re sure.”

#tacky's fth #wip snip #drarry #drarry fic #six sentence sunday #six paragraph sunday more like #asked and answered #rowing and chatting #thank you anon most sincerely #i hope you like it when it does post

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ivanzplaid · 10 months

Note

I saw those praise headcanons and it reminded me of an idea I’ve been sitting on for awhile.

A male reader who brings up the idea of spanking to Lawrence Gordon, Peter Strahm, Patrick Bateman, and Bo Sinclair.

The readers kinda shy and nervous about it too. I’ve just been sitting on this brain rot for awhile and I wanted to share it.

-📼

LOVE YOU CASSETTE ANON YES OF COURSE. i love when yall share the brainrot with me because when i see these requests i literally jump with joy, share all ur thoughts with me i love this idea sm😭😭😭 these characters are perfect too because we have a nice mix between stern and classy to rough hungry and im literally screaming running around thinking about this THANK YOUUU. also im labeling this group as slashers even though all dont fall under the category, its just easier this way

my progress got deleted halfway thru bo's section so im so sorry if its sloppy i was just fedddd up w tumblr

requests are open, masterlist is up!!

Slashers x M!reader + Introducing Spanking | Headcanons

Warnings: nsfw undercut, dirty talk, man handling, praise & degradation, caring!lawrence & bo (but also some mean!dom! energy.. just how its gotta be), dom!slashers, sub!reader, punishments, we all expected mean!patrick lets be real here

Lawrence Gordon

lawrence loves to hear any ideas you have, he thinks its healthy to share new ideas and experiences with eachother. yet he also gets a slight suspicion that youre holding out on him the next time youre in the bedroom, he knows you well and can memorize your body language, so when he sees you avoiding eye contact and talking in a hushed or awkward manner, he wants to know whats going through your mind

he'll lay down and have your head on his chest while he plays/pats your hair, trying to ease you into saying it, snd is pleasantly surprised with your answer

"Tell me whats wrong darling, speak to me."

"I was thinking.. maybe we could, try something new? We don't have to do this if you don't want to, its fine, but, could we try spanking?"

his eyes meet yours and he sees how reluctant you were to telling him. as his hands find your chin, angling it up to meet his eyes, he smiles and says sure, whatever will give you a better experience is something hes willing to try

he thinks its funny how nervous you were, since hes open about a lot of things. hes a stern and classy dom, utilizing punishments and keeping himself composed a lot, he likes to see how youre such a mess when hes commanding over you, how his slight touch and gaze make you whimper

loves to see your vulnerability, he wants to see you exposed and at his will, he wants you to be vocal for him and show him how much you love it, it fuels his ego and reassures that he isnt doing anything wrong (because in the end hes still lawrence, and he cares about you more than his own life)

will mock you as he does it, it is a punishment after all. loves to see how obedient or defiant you are during and after, he likes to make you seem pathetic for your reactions

"What? Can't take it? Oh but handsome we just started.."

will have you count how many times he does it, he wants to hear your voice sputter and moan, it will get him hard and he will use it against you ( using it as an excuse to fuck you hard, saying that "he couldnt resist your lewd and obscene moans" )

loves to force you to look at him as he does it, he wants to see that pretty face of yours, whether you cry, whine, or try to hide your face

does that thing where every time you squirm or move on him, he chuckles darkly saying "Oh Baby, you're making it so hard for me to not hold you down right now.. and just show you some fucking manners.."

he is seconds away from making you cockwarm him as he laughs at your attempts to get off. he will overstimulate you by slowly stroking your dick and then going "ah-ah-ah.. you have to stay still, its still a punishment"

he loves to stroke or pat your hair as he spanks you, he loves to feel you flinch as he inflicts pain. after he does it, he'll rub your tender spots and say how well you took them, and how pretty you sounded as you did (or, if you were bratty, how depraved and pathetic of a sight you were)

he'll take such good care of you, giving you proper aftercare and everything, but for now, hes got you ass up, displayed nice and neat for him

Patrick Bateman

hes more than excited you are, as he is more into impact play/things along that line. he just loves to see how your body contorts to his advances and how his fingers just gently gliding across your ass make you whine, both from how tender it is and because his touch is so gentle you need it

he also thinks its hilarious that you were nervous about asking, because hes a pretty dominant/open man, hes into some kinky shit, and hes not afraid to talk about it.

he will mock you about being nervous, then taunt you with that fact, making the experience all the more exciting/intense, just as he'd prefer. he will rub your face softly and say how delicate and precious you look, and say that this for the better, then begin spanking you

"Darling-Darling.. don't cry now. I'm not even close to being finished."

his voice is always smooth and calm, which coupled with his confident exterior, is terrible for you. he will stroke you and play with your ass while he spanks you. putting a cockring around your dick if he knows youre getting too close to cumming when he spanks and teases you, he needs you to be ready for him after, when he has you gripping at the bedsheets while he fucks and degrades you

is honestly a slight menace when it comes to things like this, he'll talk you through the spanking snd make sure that youre whiny and rubbing up against him for more, he gets off by seeing the physical effects of his work, making him hard asl

"Good Boy.. thats right, take what I give you.."

likes for you to make eye contact, and will grip your chin just to face him so he can see your face give out a pathetic moan (may even take a photo.. just for safe keeping)

and he will be mean about that, asking if his personal slut couldnt take what he asked. in a mocking tone he'll say if he should go lighter next time, or if you like it hard since you moaned his name the entire time

will have you suck his dick after, because he thinks you enjoyed it too much, and if he did all that for you, he should get something in return. but dont worry, he'll guide you and say how your mouth was meant for his cock and his cock only, and how well you take him, especially after how sore you are

he notices you staying off/putting less pressure on your ass as you suck him off, and it makes him proud. the whole kink makes him proud, because hes happy to see his hand prints on you, knowing that his gorgeous boyfriend took it, and thanked him after for it, thats his art

i wouldnt be shocked if he had some handcuffs or toys.. he experiments and he pulls hoes so. but because of this, he may incorporate some bondage in and handcuff your wrists/ankles to the bedposts, having your stomach on the bed, and then deliver the spanking there.. he likes to see the cuffs rattle and your body shake

would obviously have you count as he spanks you, not because hes tryna be classy like lawrence, but because he knows you cant, and likes to hear your voice die out the moment he starts, and he will go on and on, having you count to the 10's, 20's, and if he thinks youve deserved it, 30's

"C'mon sweetheart.. don't stop counting. What number am I on?"

aftercare is exquisite, taking absth and applying some nice little lotion, just so he can abuse you the same the day after

Bo Sinclair

hes also a bit of a rough yet concerned man. he wants to try this out, because it lets out his sadistic side a bit more, but if he could get lost in the pleasure he gets from it, or, if he hears genuine pain from you, he gets anxious. he'd never want to actually hurt you, but if you give him the go ahead, he indulges in it. something about seeing you like prey under him makes him go nuts

is like an animal when he loses control, he will make you cry, he eants to see you beg for him to keep going (or for him to stop), he wants to see how much he can break you before your all fucked out beneath him

he lowkey likes having control and dominance over another guy, it really boosts his ego, definitely some uncovered trauma but either way, seeing you whimper from what he gives you gives him a massive hard on

will ask you teasing snd taunting questions just to get you to cry out and squirm. sayin something like "Are you likin' it doll? Or should I just stop and leave ya all needin' for me.."

please moan his name, because he will not only spank you harder, and rub where the tender spots are, but after he will lay down, have you sit on his dick and shove himself inside of you as hard as he can. hes gonna show you a reward you get for sayin his name all pretty like that

he loves to put you into doggy style and spank you as he fucks you, its his favorite thing for easy access

he also loves to objectify you, using nicknames like "pet, toy, doll, etc."

"Ah ah.. look at me, keep your eyes on me sweets. It's not that hard." he says this as he literally pounds the shit out of your ass, gripping your chin so that you cant look away

speaking of this, he loves to force you to look at him. he cannot get enough of it. he wants to see your every move, every way you contort, and every sound you make, because he needs your reactions

he wants you to touch snd to grab him while he spanks you. him imagining you gripping his thighs or having you sucking him off will result in a spank of encouragement, his little treat. he loves it, he wants to feel you on him

also loves overstimulation while spanking you.. find his hands wandering and stroking your dick, or massaging your ass while he spanks you to increase your pleasure

out of the bedroom he continues this behavior. if youre in his shop helping him, he'll tap your ass before squeezing it, loving how shocked you get at his roughness in public

"Theres my little pet.. takin' this spanking all too well.. almost like you want me to make your ass more tender than it is!"

loves to ask you rhetorical questions to tease and taunt you. he wants to see you get all worked up over his nothing, his voice lingering in your ears to belittle you. he'd ask "oh sweets.. was that too hard? would you want me to be nicer? cause that pathetic moan you let out tells me a different story.."

is all for having you be loud and proud with your cries, god knows he gets loud, whether its dirt talk, grunting, or even a deeper growl, he does it, so he wants to hesr all those pretty sounds you have for him

he really loves to have you beg for him, something about having you so needy that you cannot restrain yourself makes him lose it. he wants you to cry, whine, beg, or stutter his name and beg for whatever he'll give you. because after that, hes fucking you so hard jnto the bedsheets, having you grip onto them with no signs of stopping. and trust that every plead is another spank, with him going "oh.. my dirt little toy loves it when I use their body snd treat them like the pathetic slut they are?"

is all for rubbing your tender spots and seeing your body jump from the feel of his calloused fingers running over you. he sometimes intentionally slaps the same soot because he needs to hear that lewd moan come from your mouth that makes him so hard

Peter Strahm

now he is a very stressed pent up man, he doesnt have a lot of outlets, so when his boyfriend introduces the idea, he looks into it for a bit before acting on it, hes not a really kinky guy

however, once he figures everything out, hes all for it. he finds a way to express his frustration sexually, seeing you under him as he fucks into you, moaning for his touch, it is therapeutic for him

he loves how his rings add a bit of a sting when they spank you, he loves how the specific marks on them show up and how you whimper, and honestly he loves to hold you down when he does it

the control he finally feels is a much different type of control than what he has at work. this control is stress free, he doesnt feel like he has a weight on his shoulders from conditions or cases he isnt meeting. he feels totally, and indescribably in power, and it turns him on so much more

hes never really experimented with kinks before, so expect him to find a new type of bliss with this. hes going to be as into this as you are, stroking your cheek with his pointer finger as he pleases both you and him

is more into praise than degradation, loves to say how pretty and sweet his boyfriend is. "My good little boy is taking it so well.. you cant get enough of me."

really loves to have you facing towards a mirror while he does it, he wants to see your face and he wants you to see how you look. having his dick slide in and out of you, your moaning face unnable to form any sentences, seeing his hand come up, only to roughly come down on your ass while he says how perfect you look

wants the verbal affirmation of how good it feels, he gets off on how he knows that hes doing good, that you cant help but tell him how good it feels

"There he is.. thats my boy. Thats right, take it, youre doing so well."

wants to have his hands all over you when he fucks and spanks you. on your thighs, on your shoulders, on your hips, or even spreading your ass to get the perfect view for his work

this section is so short im so sorry but it literally got deleted after i SAVED it so i gave up a little😭

thinks the way that you squirm when he holds your hips down/chokes you is hot, he loves to feel you moving and struggling for more against him

#lawrence gordon #lawrence gordon x reader #saw #sawposting #peter strahm #peter strahm x reader #bo sinclair #bo sinclair x reader #house of wax #american psycho #patrick bateman #patrick bateman x reader #slashers x reader #reader x slasher #slasher x reader

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corazondebeskar-reads · 2 months

Text

live to rise - chapter eight

live to rise series

eight: ashes of another life (final chapter)

series masterlist | prev chapter

gladiator!Din Djarin x f!reader

word count: 4.5k

summary: your journey at the arena comes to an end.

chapter warnings: CREATOR CHOSE NOT TO USE WARNINGS. This chapter contains many very dark themes. I have omitted them as they are all spoilers. Please feel free to DM me.

Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey.

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

When morning comes, it brings no mercy.

Instead, it brings the trumpet of an all hands assembly as the suns rise.

You and Eli have both survived the night and are awakened by the sounds as the full force of the arena staff and prisoners are gathered for the second consecutive day in the arena. It’s practically unheard of.

It turns your stomach, and a tiny, resolute part of you wonders if it will bring you death.

But once again, you’re reminded that Gideon will not show you that kindness.

He has something else to show you, instead.

Eli figures it out first. “Oh, maker. Don’t look,” he hisses urgently. “Don’t watch, don’t watch.”

But you do.

You watch as the troopers line them up. Eighteen servants. Eighteen very familiar faces.

Stellus. Hali. Sessa. The entire barracks staff—each caretaker and attendant on their knees with their hands behind their head.

“Don’t,” Eli whispers.

But you have to.

There’s no showmanship. Gideon doesn’t ignite the saber. There are no cameras and no theatrics.

Just a standard execution. The quick, sharp chirp of blasters and the thump of bodies on the sands.

Eighteen lost souls whose only crimes were association. For sleeping in the same room, for sharing the same meals.

It was no loss to the facility; they’d ship in new prisoners to fill the spaces left behind. And Gideon would sleep easy knowing the threat of anyone who might have dared to conspire or be inspired by either of you had been eliminated.

Silence fills the arena when the firing ceases. It echoes in your ears. No one dares move or speak.

“There will be no fights today. All staff are to return to their barracks under lockdown,” a Commander announces after Gideon has swept off. “Regular schedules resume tomorrow.”

An execution and a lockdown. Your mind races. Eighteen lost souls, and no meals or medical or anything for those who survived.

You turn to Eli to share your distress and are startled to see a dangerous smile on his face.

“What’s wrong with you?” You hiss.

“He’s scared,” Eli says, his voice low and rough, nothing you’ve seen before. “Much more scared than he’d be if it were just the Mandalorian’s escape. That means something is happening out there.”

The hope from his revelation is undercut when you realize everyone has left the arena.

The weight of the full lockdown sets in. They aren’t sending a cleanup crew.

They’re going to leave you there with the bodies.

Eli makes you turn around after a while but it doesn’t make a difference. The vacant eyes of your friends and comrades burn worse than the darksaber’s scars.

He slumps more and more as the day creeps forward. The pain from his leg is wearing down his resolve but he still spares energy to try and bring you comfort.

“This wasn’t because of you,” he says. “This is on me.”

You know he means well. But you find it doesn’t matter in the end. They’re dead, and your actions, direct or indirect, led them there.

The next morning, the arena returns to life. The corpses are removed and burned, the sands are swept, and the fights return. It’s easier to look away down here than it was from the box. Easier to just turn enough that you can’t see.

Eli stays awake less and less as the day drags on. You wait and wait for the same to come over you, for your body to pull you gently to the depths and let the current take you. You don’t want to watch him die, too, so you pray again for mercy.

It doesn’t come, but something else does.

In the silence of the third night, you think it’s a hallucination. After the oppressive heat of the long days, the high summer sun holding neither kindness nor cruelty but just by her nature scalding your skin, bodies withering without water, she comes.

You blink slowly, the light of the twin moons making her armor spark and glare. It’s the strangest Mandalorian armor you’ve ever seen—which doesn’t mean much, since you’ve only seen the two kits. But it’s undeniably Mandalorian.

It doesn’t matter. You lurch back away as they cut the bars with a laser and ease the metal quietly to the ground.

They offer a hand, and you stare at it.

“Look, I’m here for the saber, but I promised I’d try to free you. You can go wherever you’d like. If you don’t impede my mission, I’ll give you a ride—” She stops and assesses Eli for a moment, who hasn’t woken at the commotion—“But I’ll leave without you if I have to.”

“Where’s your ship?” you say.

“Just follow me.”

“What about the rest of his armor?”

“We’re not risking getting captured for that,” she says, starting to walk away.

“He’d rather have the armor than the saber.”

She sighs and turns back to give you the location of her ship. “If you’re not there when I leave—“

“I know,” you say.

It hurts like hell to get up and even more to rouse Eli and loop his arm around your neck. The chances of getting him safely there are slim, but you’re fairly sure the guards will shoot to kill if they catch you, so there’s not really a bad option.

Either path is better than shriveling up and wasting away in the cage.

You leave him against a wall near the exit closest to her ship, and he tries to stop you before the pain overtakes him again. Dread fills you at the thought of finding him already gone when you return, but you have to do this.

It turns out, though, that you didn’t. The New Mandalorian is already there when you reach the lounge.

“You were right,” she sighs. “It’s one or the other.”

She ends up hauling most of the armor, which is good because you hadn’t thought about how you’d manage with one hand. She also dispatches the guards you encounter without breaking a sweat.

On the ship, you try not to act surprised when she takes her helmet off.

“Bo-Katan Kryze,” she says with an extended hand.

The way she says it makes you think you’re supposed to know who she is.

“I’m going straight back, and we’ll get him healed up enough for a new assignment. But we can try to arrange transport elsewhere for you once we’ve landed,” she tells you.

“I’m retiring,” Eli groans from where she’s secured him to a row of dropseats.

“Unlikely,” she says.

You sit with your hands folded in your lap. It’s not really set in that you’ve made it out. You have nothing to your name but the torn rags that hang loose and limp with singed edges that scrape against your skin.

You can’t go home. You’ll be lucky if they haven’t killed or captured your family as it is, for the sin of knowing you.

All you ever wanted was to protect them. That’s why you had paid their tariffs instead of your own. That’s why you consigned yourself to five years of slavery, of suffering the loss of life and loved ones daily for four kriffing years.

And you risked it all for one man.

And yet, it feels like more. It always had. You risked it for Din, yes, but also for his son and the green Mandalorian and the woman in front of you now, who risked her life to restore his reign, and you think of the hundreds of beings that gave everything in the name of this one man .

And you’d do it again. He had confessed one night that he didn’t find himself deserving of the loyalty sworn to him, but you see it, she sees it, everyone sees it.

The karking Rebel Alliance sees it.

The galaxy needs the Mandalorians. Without them, the Empire will never fall. And the Mandalorians need their king, their leader who would have sacrificed himself a thousand times over for them to survive.

So you clench your jaw and square your shoulders and think of how to live.

You feel the heat of her gaze before you see it, but when you look up, the woman is unabashedly watching you with a raised eyebrow.

She looks you over, now that she has your attention. “Shand will be glad to know you survived,” she says, almost lazily.

“Oh?” you say, forcing down the trace of disappointment. Yes, you had assumed Din was the one who wanted you freed. But any kindness is enough.

“Yes, she said she grew quite fond of you.”

“Hmm,” is all you can reply. Fondness was not really how you had grown to feel, though the last two days had thrown you off track.

Before that, though, you don’t think you could feel fond of someone who would own a being like that.

But you don’t play her game. You don’t dance around the subject. “How is he?”

“He didn’t come back for you, and you’re concerned?”

“It would have been the stupidest move in the karking galaxy, and if you all are such skilled and legendary warriors, you should understand that.”

Silence falls in the cockpit. And then she laughs. “I didn’t expect you to have any bite.”

You don’t say a thing, but you do scowl.

“Well, I didn’t. He calls you kar’talyc. ”

“So?”

“Do you even know what it means?”

“Of course I don’t, I’m not Mandalorian.”

“That didn’t stop your little message.”

Your head snaps back to her. “You saw that? Did…”

“Did he show an uncharacteristic lack of composure when you used a secret Mandalorian code to apologize to him for being tortured on live holo? Yes.”

She succeeds in shocking you into silence. You sit and turn it over in your head.

“It wasn’t for that. It was for breaking.”

She rolls her eyes—like, actually rolls her eyes at you while you relive the absolute worst moments of your life in your head. “Everyone breaks,” she says. You didn’t know enough for it to matter.”

You can read between the lines. You didn’t know enough to matter. To her, anyway. Your feelings aren’t hurt, though.

“It means you’re a bleeding heart. A sap,” she says, pulling you back into the previous conversation.

You sit for a moment with the new knowledge. “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” you say.

She shakes her head with a hint of a smirk. “He certainly means it as one,” she says in the way of having known someone too well for too long.

It’s near chaos when you land but you manage to go unnoticed. Bo-Katan is talking to three different people as soon as the ramp lowers, and you direct the medic team to Eli with your good hand, hanging back in the shadows.

The feeling of hyperspace hasn’t left your bones. You’re adrift in the great cold darkness. Your skin feels cool to the touch, even in the blistering expanse of sand and suns.

The docking bay is makeshift. Cobbled together from sandstone that’s already cracking under the weight of the ships and scrapyard rejects.

The ebb and flow of bodies is endless. Humanoids, aliens, and Beskar blend together and no one pays attention to the lost little girl that you feel like, now. It’s like you’re stuck on the other side of a laser gate—all the cacophony blending into an overbearing hum and the movements all blurring and crackling beyond your reach.

In the end, you sit at the top of the ramp and just watch. Maybe Bo-Katan will come back. Maybe not. But here, you’re out of the way.

She finds you, in the end. Shand. You suppose you’re glad for a familiar face, especially now that the twin suns are drifting toward the horizon and a strange chill has taken over the desert. Not that you noticed. You’ve been shivering all day anyway.

She doesn’t say anything at first; just leans against the post at the end of the ramp and raises an eyebrow.

“Hi,” you say cautiously.

“C’mon,” is all she says, jerking her head behind her and turning to walk away.

You follow her without another word between you. The throngs of bodies part for her despite her small stature, which makes it easy for you to stick close.

You’re surprised to end up in the medbay. You open your mouth to protest, and she gives you the most reproachful look you’ve ever withered under.

“The entire galaxy watched you get fileted, and you’ve clearly got an infection,” she says.

“I don’t want to waste—”

“Fett has a bacta tank. Don’t be foolish,” she says before turning you over to an equally strict looking Aqualish who doesn’t care to hear what you have to say, either.

Din’s there, somewhere, but you don’t see him. Well. You think he’s there. They mention him in a way that sounds like he’s just down the hall or around the corner, but you don’t actually ask.

It seems better that way. Safer. Truthfully, you have little time to think of him anyway.

But there are signs.

The palace, which you learn belongs to the man called Fett, is massive. And it seems to contain half of the Rebellion, including the Mandalorian survivors who have been absorbed into the movement whether they like it or not. But still, you can go through countless halls without seeing a soul.

You get put in a room by yourself on one of the upper floors. You know they’ve been converting the lower suites into bunk rooms. That those rooms are even considered more desireable, since being underground protects them better from the heat.

But when you question it, the tall bald man who escorted you to your room just laughs and says, “I was told you were to never be stuck underground again.”

“I don’t even know if I’m staying,” you protest to no one when he leaves. Or you think it’s to no one, but you jump out of your skin a moment later when Shand says, “You’re staying,” from behind you.

“I don’t know…”

“I volunteered you for the medbay but they’d be happy to have you anywhere. The kitchens, the creche, the cleaning crew. You’ve got enough skills to have your choice.”

“You have a lot of faith in me for being the person who just poured your drinks,” you say wryly.

She snorts. “And managed a barrack and took care of an ornery Mandalorian.”

“I don’t know,” you say again.

“Just think about it. You’ve more than earned a place here,” she says as she leaves.

You sit on the edge of the bed for a long time. It’s too soft, too endless. You think if you lay in it, you’ll sink in and drown.

So you sit and force yourself to accept the way the sheets feel beneath your palms and the mattress dips beneath your weight and how the ground grinds beneath your shoes that you wear, now, for the first time in four years.

You thought they’d feel safer, but they’re more like a cage.

Everything is wrong. Your hand is healed, the bones settled back like nothing happened. The cuts and bruises and raw, flayed flesh are the same as the day you were born. The bacta erased almost everything.

Your mind doesn’t seem to have been blessed by the bath. It still ticks and clicks all wrong, stuttering over things that used to be effortless. You jump and twitch and stop your breath for any reason, for no reason.

And you can’t stand droids.

The first time a protocol droid speaks to you, you find yourself in a storage room two floors up. You don’t know how you got there and you don’t know how long you were gone. Its voice isn’t even the same, but something in you is irrevocably broken. The astromechs are worse. The whirring of their motors doesn’t send you fleeing.

No. You just fall apart.

It’ll get better, you tell yourself. It has to. You can’t avoid droids, but you can certainly try.

One time, when you’re pulling yourself together after an unfortunately literal run-in with a probe droid, you find yourself in the lower levels of the sprawling complex. But you’re not alone.

There’s someone running past the door as you exit whatever empty meeting room you have found yourself in. They trip and fall just as they pass.

“Hey kiddo, you okay?” you say, crouching down to the small child.

The little green toddler pushes back up to their feet, though, looks up at you with wide brown eyes, and squeals something unintelligible.

“Oh, I see. You’re a tough one, huh? Good. Great job.” You hold your hand out for a high five, but they just gently press their tiny palm against yours.

“That works too,” you assure them.

“C’mon, buddy,” an exasperated, foreignly familiar voice says from behind you. “I know you don’t—”

The little one, who, as your stomach sinks, you realize must be Grogu, babbles excitedly and grabs your hand to show you his father.

You stand and let him, though you need no introductions.

The Mandalorian stands before you in all his silver glory. You know that Din is the armor and the armor is Din, but it’s startling to see him this way. He’s not soft or dimpled or warm, now.

But he’s still Din. You can feel it.

Inexplicably, you’re being dragged back by an invisible hand, your worries manifesting into something with more control over your body than your hopes.

You take a step back, leaning your weight on your heel for another.

“Wait,” he says through the unfamiliar crackle of the modulator.

And then he does the last thing you expect in this moment.

He takes the helmet off.

You stand, caught in his orbit, your mouth parted just so as you take in the face of the man you thought you’d never see again, one way or another.

You blink a few times, uncertain.

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” he says in a rush. “Every time I try to find you, I’m too late.”

“You’ve been trying to find me?” Your breath catches noisily in your chest, interrupting yourself.

“I… of course,” he says, brows furrowed.

The way he says it is so blunt, so assured, so Din that you can’t believe you ever doubted. Of course. Even if it wasn’t for the things you shared, that’s just who he was. Of course he’d want to find you, to see with his own eyes that you were alive.

Of course.

You’re not sure who moves first. It doesn’t matter. The embrace knocks the wind out of you after you fail to account for the solid wall of beskar between your bodies, but you barely notice. His hands, while gloved, are clutching you to him, and he’s kissing you and everything is clicking back into place and tiny hands are… tiny hands are grabbing at your tunic?

Grogu uses the leverage of your clothes to launch himself up. Din catches him easily, unsurprised by the tiny child’s dexterity.

It should be strange, you think. This larger-than-life man and this tiny green baby. But seeing his son in his arms completes the portrait of Din that lives in your head. It can’t be strange, could never be.

Din looks at you with those big, sad baby bantha eyes, and his softness seeps away. “Let me get the womp rat back to the creche. Then we should talk.”

You don’t know what to expect, but he takes you to his chambers. The door slides shut behind you, and you blink against the heavy dark of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he says sharply, suddenly, but softens. “I’m sorry. Your parents. They’re gone.”

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. You knew, really. You hadn’t wanted to, but you knew.

“We sent someone,” he adds quietly. “It was too late.”

“Thank you,” you say, staring out the window for a moment, taking in the way the hazy orange sunset blends with the sands. Nothing like the divide of the wind and sea. “Do you know what happened? Or… when?”

He hesitates.

You turn to him. “I can handle it.”

He grimaces and sighs. “You don’t have to.”

“Don’t,” you say sharply, and his shoulders slump.

“Troopers shot them,” he starts, hesitating to let you back out. When you say nothing, he gives in. “After the broadcast.”

It hurts more than you thought. “What are the chances—”

“I’m sorry.”

You can’t quite swallow it. “You were right. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Somehow, as always, he knows. “You would have wondered. And I didn’t want to lie to you, anyway.” He stands up and approaches you, drawing you in by your shoulders even though you don’t want to be held.

But he knows. He always knows. And you fold, because you don’t want to, but you need to.

And it’s easier. Easier to let him envelope you, to fill yourself with the soft slopes of his muscles and lose yourself in his musk. To forget, just for now, not for always, but for a moment. To steady yourself with having one person back from the list of the lost.

You don’t have him, really, you know this. Can’t have him properly. Not the way you’d like. But you let him have you.

Oh, and he does.

He has you sprawled on the chaise lounge before you register the movement, lowering you down as he kisses you, and you just following the press of his body. He doesn’t stay above you long, his mind far more focused on lifting up your skirt and helping himself to your cunt.

He feasts and you fall. His lips and tongue taste every part of you. The difference this time is that he talks. In the stilted silence of the cell, neither of you had sweet or sultry sentiments but now, oh, now he never stops. Murmurs that fill your cunt, endearments kissed onto your clit, and growls sucked into your thighs, blossoming bruises that seep into your bones.

You can’t hear much of it, but your breath hitches with each word you can snatch from the air. Sweet, he calls you as he speaks of his need and ache. You fall apart on his tongue when he calls you my brave girl.

His.

You hold onto that, rewind and replay on the lonely nights to come. Neither of you speak of it, of course, but he said it, he meant it, you heard it, you kept it.

That night, though he doesn’t say it again, you believe it. He makes you believe it. With each kiss and caress and bite and bruise. He takes and you give and give and give.

He doesn’t stop worshipping your cunt on his knees after you come. It’s not enough; he can’t be satiated. He drinks from you twice more before he can wait no longer, climbing above you and knocking your legs apart with his knee. He can’t be bothered to strip you of your clothes or him of his. Can’t be bothered to waste another second before he’s plunging the full length of him into your soft folds and gasping as if he’s nearly drowned.

Maybe he has. Maybe he’s submersed himself so deeply within you that he can’t breathe. You can’t, so you’d believe it.

He fucks into you somehow sweetly, though the pace he sets is unforgiving. His hands cradle you, though, and his lips find purchase along your neck.

Din doesn’t say it again, doesn’t call you his , but he leaves his mark on every inch of flesh he can reach.

He makes sure you lose yourself in two more orgasms before he pulls out to spill against your slit, rubbing the head of his cock against your puffy outer lips and clit.

“Stay,” he pleads.

So you do.

An hour later, you realize he hadn’t taken your clothes off not because he couldn’t be bothered, but because he was waiting for you. He was perceptive and kind as always, waiting for you to expose your scars.

Not even the bacta could erase Gideon’s “art.”

Din wouldn’t take that from you, wouldn’t make you, but you do it anyway. You bare yourself to him and he takes the offering with as much aplomb as you would have guessed.

Nothing is said, but he pulls you down after, once you’ve fucked yourself full of him, to lay against his own bare body, and his fingers trace the lines with reverence.

He doesn’t say it again, but you hear it. My brave girl, his fingertips whisper.

And you finally cry.

When you’ve run out of tears, he holds you still, doesn’t let go just because the need is gone.

Neither of you sleep that night. You can’t stop your hands and mouths and hearts from following the beat of each other. Like the quiet taps in the darkness of the cell, your bodies speak to one another and you can’t help but to listen, to answer the call.

It’s nearly morning when you ask. He hadn’t wanted you to, if only because he didn’t like the answer.

But he gives it to you anyway.

Two days. He’ll be leaving in just two days.

You knew he couldn’t be bound here, couldn’t be nestled in the safety of the palace while there was a war to wage. Knew he would never keep to the background, would never shy away from standing beside his people and doing what needed to be done.

He has a question of his own for you and this time, you have an answer. You couldn’t promise Shand that you’d stay, but it falls from your lips for Din like nothing.

Where would you go anyway?

But stay, he pleads, so stay you will. Here, where he can find you. Here, where his son will be, for this is not the time for foundlings to flourish. No, there is far too much that will be lost in this final hour. And you know now that there’s not much you wouldn’t do when Din is the one to ask.

So you stay.

In the darkness of the early morning, the three of you stand in the hangar. It’s unsettlingly empty in a way that can only be intentional. Din removes his helmet and tucks it under his arm, tugging one glove off to cup your cheek in his broad palm.

His soft lips find first your forehead and then your lips. It’s saccharine and short; a proper farewell. He hugs his son and kisses his little wrinkled head before placing him into your arms.

The helmet goes back on, and the Mand’alor only hesitates once at the bottom of the ramp, nodding his head once. You hold his heart in your hands in every way that matters, and the two of you watch until the tiny dot of his ship disappears.

You think I remember you, so you are eternal, and hope it’s not all you’ll have left of him to hold onto.

so long, and thanks for all the fish!

*title from "45" by Shinedown.

#din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #mando x you #din djarin x f!reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #mando x f!reader #gladiator!din djarin #fic: live to rise #the mandalorian fanfic #mando fanfic

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transgamerthoughts · 1 month

Text

Abandon All Delusions Of Control

this is another cross-post. which is funny because I've paid for a domain name redirect to my tumblr since like 2016.. i never know what site is gonna explode these days. less people follow me here than anywhere but this write ups been passed around so...

I've been playing Dragon's Dogma 2 and while I'd love to talk about gameplay or interesting moments, the game's found itself something of a cultural lightning rod. It is a game with many friction points arising in a cultural moment where gamers are, perhaps more than ever, convinced that "consumers" are kings.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is not readily "solvable" and you can't min-max it. You will make mistakes. You will be scraped and bruised and scarred. Pain is sometimes the only bridge that can take us wher ewe need to go. And gaming culture, fed the lie of mastery and player importance, does not understand that scars can be beautiful. I love this game. I think it's a miracle it came out at all.

I also think in spite of the success it's found… that 2024 might be the worst possible year for it to have released.

Let's ramble about it..

It's easy to feel like Hideaki Itsuno and his team miscalculated the amount of friction that players are willing to endure and while I don't think that's true (he didn't miscalculate moreso stick to his particular vision) it certainly appears that we've reached a point in gaming where players, glutted on convenience, don't really know what to do when robbed of it. I've heard folks complain that they can't sprint everywhere or else balk learning that ferrystones required for fast travel cost 10,000 gold as if these shatter DD2 into pieces. I'm vaguely sympathetic to these concerns but at the same time they seem to spring entirely from a lack of understanding of the game's design goals. Much like how folks demanding a traditionally structured RPG narrative from an Octopath game misunderstand what that team is trying to do, players asking to sprint through the world or teleport with ease fundamentally misunderstand what Dragon's Dogma wants. The world is not a wrapper for a story. It is the story. Dragon's Dogma is a story factory whose various textures create unprecedented triumphs and memorable failure.

It is crucial to the experience to allow both of those to occur and live with whatever follows.

I'm always cautious of talking like this because it can come off as smug or superior but I think ultimately that's the truth of the matter here. This was not a well-played franchise before now and even if it's a AAA title, there's a way in which this game is meant to elide most AAA open world trends. You are expected to traverse. If you want relatively cheap and faster travel, you're meant to find an oxcart and pay the (quite modest) fee to move between trade hubs much like you would pay for a silt strider in Morrowind. Even if you do this, you could be ambushed on the road and in the worst case the ox pulling the cart can be killed. Something being "possible" in a game doesn't always mean it is intentional but Dragon's Dogma continually undercuts the player's ability to avoid long treks. Portcrystals, which act as fast travel destinations, are limited and ferry stones (while not prohibitively expensive compared to weapons and armor) are juuust expensive enough that you need to consider if the expense is worthwhile. Once is happenstance. Multiple times is a pattern. And the pattern in Dragon's Dogma is to disincentivize easy travel. It screams of intent.

Something I could not have imagined playing games growing up is the ways in which even a decade (or two) could lead to radically different attitudes on what games should provide. That's an audience issue to an extent but it's also something games have brought upon themselves. The "language" of an open world game has been solidified through years climbable towers, mini-map marked caves, and options to zip around worlds. When a game deviates from that language, the change is more noticeable than ever.

Hell, even Elden Ring (perhaps the closest modern relative to Dragon's Dogma) allows you to warp between bonfires and gives you a steed to ride. But that's also a much larger game! DD2 is not a large game and the story is not long. Yes, you can spend untold hours wandering about into nooks and crannies but a trek from one end of the world to another is still significantly shorter than bounding through most open worlds and a run through the critical path reveals a speedy game. Not as speedy as the first but brisk by genre standards.

exploration is the glue that binds the combat and progression system in place. Upgrading armor and weapons requires seeking out specific materials and fighting certain monsters. Gathering the funds for big purchases in shops mostly comes from selling your excess monster parts. The entire game hinges on the idea of long expeditions where you accrue materials and supplies on the road and then invest that horde one way or another once you return to town. It's not simply a matter of mood and tone for you to trek throughout the world without ease. The gameplay loop is built around it.

There's another complicating factor that I'm less interested in diving into and it's the presence of certain microtransactions at launch. Principally I'm against MTX in single players games, particularly conveniences of which most of DD2's microtransactions are. But I also think there's been a fundamental misunderstanding of what many of these are. Among the biggest things I've heard (repeatedly!) is that you can pay real life money for fast travel but that's not true. You can buy a single portcrystal offering you one more potential location to warp to. It's a one-time purchase and the only travel convenience offered. This has transformed, partly because of people's lack of familiarity with Dragon's Dogma's mechanics, into a claim that you can pay over and over to teleport around. I think that assumption reveals more about the general audience than anything else.

I think it is worth entertaining a question: does the existence of this extra port crystal signify a compromising of the game's goals regarding travel? That's not a discussion that folks seem to be interested in having—instead opting for more emotional and reactionary panicking—but it is the most interesting question. On face the answer is yes and that raises the follow up question of whether or not the developers had knowledge this convenience (though one-off) would be offered to players. If so, did that knowledge affect how they designed the game? Even slightly? It seems rather clear to me that these purchases are a publisher decision; there's nothing in the game's design that suggest the dev team wants players to have access to an extra portcrystal. As we've established it's quite the opposite!

They want you to haul your fucking ass around and get jumped by goblins, buddy.

Which is many words to say that as much as I care about microtransactions from a consumer standpoint, the way in which they undermine Dragon's Dogma 2's goals is a fair reminder of the ways in which they hurt developers. Ultimately, I do think that these purchases are ignorable and in that sense (combined with the misinformation surrounding them) I'm a little burned by the consumer-minded discussion. Doubly so because of the way it feels, at least in part, tied into a certain kind of rhetoric that's been on the rise lately. Instead, I find myself drawn to the question of the damage they do the devs and if more onerous plans actually would force their hands into undercutting portions of their own designs. The shift of many series into live-service chasing suggest so but even as I entertain these thoughts I don't get the sense that Itsuno and his team were forced to reshape their game world to encourage these microtransactions. The world is as they want.

If it wasn't, they wouldn't make it so failing to act quickly in a quest to find a missing kid stolen by wolves could end with you being too late. They wouldn't make it so buying goods from an Elven shop without an interpreter was a hassle. It's present in Every Damn Thing!

More interesting to consider is why this particular game became such a lightning rod of passion when I'm going to assume that most people caught up in the discussion have no particular fealty to the series. The answer is a combination of factors but there's something about the genre that ignites the panic we're seeing as much as the culture moment we're in. When people try to explain that these MTX purchases are not needed, it's confused for approval of their inclusion but that's not something we need to grant. I don't think anyone wants these things here and when they say "you don't need them" they are referring to the more complex thought that the game is better played without them. But this is not heard because the idea that you'd want to opt into friction and discomfort is not something that the general audience is likely to understand. They're wired against it. They crave ease.

not everyone, mind you. DD2's enjoyed a lot of excited reactions (there's tons of folks who like this game as it is and are happily playing it) but it has faced plenty of folks railing against "bad" design choices but the fact remains that those "bad" choices were intentional.

I'm writing about this stuff instead of, say, the wild journey I took solving one of the Sphinx's riddles because the immediately interesting thing about Dragon's Dogma 2 has been what it's become as a cultural object. It is a game suffering from success. Never designed for a general audience or modern standards but thrust into their hands due to Capcom's ongoing renaissance. Dragon's Dogma is a fine game whose cult status is well earned but the reason DD2 garnered this attention (and therefore becomes a hot-topic game) has as much to do with Capcom's ongoing success rate as anything else. In some ways, it actually IS a good time to release a game like Dragon's Dogma 2. There's certainly a curiousity in place. Partly borne of goodwill and also from folks' genuine desire to try something new.

and yet, we're in a odd moment in games. consumer rights lanaguge, having been fundamentally misunderstood and reconfigured by gamers as a rhetoric for justifying their purchase habits (I'm paying the money! why can't the game do exactly as I demand!?) has stifled many people's ability to have imaginative interpretations of gameplay mechanics. they don't ask "what is this thing doing as a storytelling device" (which mechanics are!) and rather default to "what is this thing doing to me and my FUN and my TIME". which are not bad questions but they also misunderstand the possibility space games have to offer. While we can attribute some of the objections that has arisen to players' thoughts about genre itself and the way in which Dragon's Dogma positions friction as a key gameplay pillar, the fact of the matter is that we would not be having such spirited discussion about these things in, say, 2017. not that things were great back then, but I think the audience is worse now in many, many ways. sarcastically? I blame Game Design YouTube.

Even if there were no microtransactions, we'd still be having a degree of Discourse thanks to a key game mechanic: Dragonplague. It is a disease that can afflict your Pawn companions which initially causes them to get mouthy and start to disobey orders. If you notice these signs (alongside ominous glowing eyes) then your Pawn has been infected and you're expected to dismiss them back to the Rift where that infection can spread to another player. The game gives a pop up to the player explaining this the first time they encounter the disease. However, some players have ignored that warning and found a dire consequence: an untreated Pawn can, when the player rests at an inn, go on an overnight rampage that kills the majority of NPCs in whatever settlement they are in. This includes plot-important characters. The reaction's been intense. Reddit always sucks but man… just look…

I understand some of the ire. It's a drastic shift from your pawn being a bit ornery to instantly killing an entire city. On the other hand, the game does warn of potentially dire consequences if a Pawn's sickness is ignored. Players have simply underestimated the scale of that consequence. Surely no major RPG would mass murder important characters and break questlines! We're in post Oblivion/Skyrim world. Important NPCs are essential and cannot be killed, right? Well, wrong and this is another way in which Dragon's Dogma chases after the legacy of a game like Morrowind more than than it adapts current open world trends. This is a world where things can break and the developers have decided that they are okay with it breaking in a very drastic way. It's hard to think of anything comparable in a contemporary game. We don't really do this kind of thing anymore.

The result has been panic and a spread of information both helpful and hopelessly speculative. Is your game ruined? Well, maybe. There is an item you can find which allows for mass resurrection but that's gonna require some questing. But some players also say that you can wait a while and the game will eventually reset back to the pre-murder status quo. What's true? Hard to know. Dragon's Dogma doesn't show all of its cards and won't always explain itself. We know entire cities can be killed. We know that individual characters can be revived in the city morgue or else the settlement restored (mostly) with a special item. Dragonplague is detectable and the worst case scenario is, to some extent or another, something that the player can ameliorate. Those are facts but they don't really matter.

That's because players issue (panick? hysteria?) with dragonplague is as much to do with what it represents as what it does. Players are used to the notion of game worlds being spaces where they get to determine every state of affair. They are, as I've suggested before, eager to play the tyrant. Eager to enact whatever violences or charities that might strike their fancy. They do this with the expectation that they will be rewarded for the latter but face no consequences for the former. Dragonplague argues otherwise. No, it says, this world is also one that belongs to the developers and they are more than fine with heaping dire consequences on players. Before the dragonplague's consequences were known, players were running around the world killing NPCs in cities because it would stabilize the framerate. They're fine with mass murder on their own terms. they love it!

This is made more clear when we look at how Dragon's Dogma handles saving the game. While there are autosaves between battles, players are expected to rest at inns to save their game. This costs some gold, which is a hassle, but the bigger "issue" is that they only have one save slot. Which means that save scumming is not entirely feasible though not impossible with a bit of planning. What it does mean, however, is that the game is saved when a dragonplague attack happens. you have to rest at an inn for this to trigger. which saves the game. They cannot roll back the clock. The tragedy becomes a fact. It's not the only time Dragon's Dogma does this. For instance, players can come into possession of a special arrow that can slay anything. When used, the game saves. Much like how players are given a warning about dragonplague, they're warned before using this arrow: don't miss.

If you do? that's a real shame. The depth of this consequence is uncommon in today's gaming landscape. Games are mostly frivolous and save data is the amber from which players suck crystallized potentialities. Don't like what happened? No worries. Slide into your files and find the frozen world which suits your proclivities. You are God. In Dragon's Dogma, you are not god. The threads of prophecy can be severed and you must persist in the doomed world that's been created. The mere suggestion is an affront. The fact that Dragon's Dogma has the stones to commit to the bit in 2024 is essentially a miracle.

It's easy to boil everything I'm saying down to "Dragon's Dogma is not afraid to be rude to the player" but that doesn't capture the spirit of the design. It invites players to go on a hike. It makes no attempt to hide that the hike is difficult. But that's the extent of it. It offers little guidance on the path, doesn't check if you're a skilled enough hiker. Your decision to go on the hike is taken as proof of your acceptance of the fact that you might fall down.

This is not unique to Dragon's Dogma. In fact, this is part of the appeal (philosophically) of a game like Elden Ring. The difference being that even FromSofts much-lauded gamer gauntlets (excepting perhaps Sekiro, conincidentally their best work) offer more ways to adjust and fix the world state to the player's liking. Even the darling of difficulty will offering you a hand when you fall. Dragon's Dogma is not so eager to do so. In a decade where convenience is king for video games, that represents both a keen understanding of its lineages and a shocking affront to accepted norms and expectations.

The core of Dragon's Dogma, the very defining characteristics that earned it cult status, are the same things that have caused these modern tensions. It is both a franchise utterly consistent in its design priorities and entirely out of touch with the modern audience. Dragon's Dogma 2 has come into prominence during a time where imaginative interpretation of mechanics is at an all time low and calls for "consumer" gratification are taken as truisms. It is a game entirely at odds with the YouTube ecosystem and the very things that give it allure are the tools that have turned it into a debated object.

This flashpoint of discussion is proof of Dragon Dogma 2's design potency. It's also a sign of the damage that modern design trends have done to games as whole and the ongoing fallout that's come from gamers learning design concepts without really understanding what designing a game entails. And, uh… I dunno respond to that or how to end this. That's both very cool but it also bums me out. Dragon's Dogma 2 is a remarkably confident game but games are long beyond the point of admiring a thing for being honest.

#dragon's dogma 2 #games criticism

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