#bc that was the only path he could see to autonomy

[gumclones]

part of the reason I’m very defensive of Gumbald is that I feel a lot of criticism of his actions comes from a very deep misunderstanding of where he stands in relation to Bonnie

because, like… she isn’t his niece. she created him. she is the one responsible for his entire existence. and she assigned him to the role of caretaker with zero input on his part!

and, like, obviously this wasn’t some malicious thing she did to consciously exert control over him. she had no idea the ethical mess she was stumbling into! but the fact that she was at the time unaware of the responsibility she was creating for herself neither erases that responsibility nor UNO reverses it onto Gumbald, you know?

[bowserssupermariopartylaugh]

once again regarding beauty and the beast, bc of that one post about who gaston could be

i just think mario would fit the gaston role best, though he doesn't exactly have to be straight up evil like the character. (he's not necessarily the villain, just an antagonist.) he just, struggles to move past his own understanding of his world. like in the didney movie, everyone in town/the kingdom is set in their ways. mario is the hero, everyone thinks he knows best, surely that counts for something?

that way of thinking falls most heavily on luigi. family members can be overbearing enough as is. imagine your brother is the hero of the entire kingdom! mario is usually well intentioned, but the fact of the matter is that he ends up dictating a lot of how luigi should live his life. mario /sees/ that luigi doesn't fit in, and is trying to help! but what he mostly ends up doing is constantly correcting luigi's decisions, basically making them for him.

but then luigi leaves the fold, and peach tells mario about how luigi had sacrificed his freedom to a monster for her sake. ofc mario goes to rescue his brother, only to find that luigi wants to /stay/ with the monster. but that doesn't make sense. luigi is choosing incorrectly once again, and it's up to mario to set him on the right path.

this /beast/ kidnapped the princess and held her prisoner in his castle; he had kidnapped his brother in exchange. the beast clearly needs to be stopped. and who else to do it but mario?

excuse the shorthandedness, i just wanted to roughly explain one of my interpretations for this au (again lol)

and it doesn't have to fit all the didney characters anyway. you could have mario play a combination of gaston and maurice's roles. or like some people said, you could have peach be gaston, worried about her kingdom as a whole as well as luigi.

but i stick with mario as gaston bc he's the one who has the most personal investment in luigi's character. that's what makes the gaston character more compelling. he wanted belle for his wife (tho his feelings were less like love and more like ownership). the dynamic between mario and luigi—this tug of war between luigi's autonomy and luigi's (perceived) wellbeing is just, implicitly more compelling bc they're /brothers/.

the literal tug of war between bowser and mario for luigi is just, a physical manifestation of it. its what finally forces these characters to confront their feelings about each other and act on them. and it arises /because/ of mario and luigi's relationship, not bc of any animosity between mario and bowser. (though, if the au isn't strictly following the didney movie, then ofc both mario and peach are /especially/ viable candidates due to their pre-established relationship as enemies of bowser)

Man i got off topic lol. I wanna write lmao but im already chicken scratching some other thing. Also beauty and the beast is too dramatic, i have no energy for it lol

[aces-and-angels]

i understand this would take a lot of time so this is not a request and rather just a query, but would you consider doing character analysis for the relationships but with all 3 routes (blood/merge/shadow) ? 🙂

Thanks for the message anon! To answer your question: I have and haven't done what you're asking lmaoo- lemmie explain (adding a read more bc tis long and I am incapable of simple saying yes or no, I gotta get into it lol)

---

My methodology when developing my 'final thoughts' posts is fairly simple:

Use my main route save as a reference

Use Rowan's greatest desire seen in the Power realm to determine their ending (blood/mixed/shadow)

See where that takes me lol

I have the ability to see how each route (blood/mixed/shadow) can end with each of the characters. In fact, I have played through each of them with Abel, Amalia, and Matthias. Looking at the other variants was mainly a tool for me to help strengthen my talking points for my canon endings (and to see what could happen, obviously lol) For example: I used MC losing all their nerve if they chose to merge with their Power-half to add to my discussion on why they ultimately become human in Amalia's route.

For Matthias- I responded to a very sweet message (which may or may not be you as well 👀) which you can read here; it goes into Ro's shadow ending with him if they split the Power between themselves aka the 'Power Couple' ending. Highly encourage peeps to stick around till the end of that post bc there's a bonus question that I'd like answered ♥

Since I have seen every variation for his end routes I'll fulfill your request for Matty right here, right now ☺

As for a mixed!route with him- to the best of my knowledge- there isn't a way for your MC to stay with Matthias without merging with the Power. If there is, it really puts a damper on my whole Matthias is only loyal to the Power rhetoric I've been harping on about lol. I think my statement here pretty much covers my thoughts across the endings he can have w/ Ro: humanity and Matthias do not mix. Period. If MC is rocking with Matthias in any way, it points to a very deep character flaw (or slay if you wanna think of it that way lol). They mirror Matthias' insecurities, ambitions, and drive. They both believe that as they are before the conclusion of the series, they are not enough. Utterly desperate and ruthless in their quest to make their desires a reality.

Ro's choice to side w/ Matthias and then betray him as well is a very good twist on a similar thought I had with Abel x MC mixed ending. With the end of their route, I see Abel and MC as a couple proving their words ("But if we truly love each other, we won’t hold each other back.”) with the progression of their relationship post-finale. Whatever transpires between them, it happens with the intent of seeing each other achieve their greatest potential. The double-cross ending is the ultimate I am choosing ME story. Ro chooses themselves over Matthias. Over their 'true purpose' made by Loha. Over the bonds they may have formed between the members of the ILW crew. All of that is cast aside in favor of possessing an unimaginable amount of power. To someone who believes they've never been granted the opportunity to forge their own path, receiving this level of autonomy is gratifying. Absolutely nothing holds Ro back from getting what they want. And nothing ever will again.

---

Luckily for me, I was able to unlock all three endings (blood/shadow/mixed) amongst all the LIs with my main saves.

Abel: mixed

Amalia, Lincoln, Matthias: blood

Jocelyn: shadow

The plan I have right now is to write out my full thoughts on Jocelyn's route first because I have yet to analyze a shadow ending that doesn't end with Rowan and Matty burning the world to the ground lol.

My approach with Lincoln will be slightly different.

By the time I get to writing his post, I will have shared thoughts on all of the possible endings at least once. My main save with Linc allows Ro to successfully achieve each end without losing too much nerve that they need to be revived/killed. Because of this, I decided that I will choose the ending, and not solely base my choice on what is seen in the Power dimension.

---

So after a very lengthy how-to, where does that leave this anon's query? I think I will have a better understanding on what I want to say about each of the routes (blood/mixed/shadow) in regards to each character when I've completed going through all my save files. For now, here are my initial thoughts on alt. routes for the LIs. I will make additional posts if I come up with anything substantial worth mentioning in regards to a specific LI ♥

A mixed ending with Joss as an LI has the highest probability of lasting out of the mixed endings with the other LIs. Disclaimer: I have yet to see Jocelyn's route, but I do know that she is the only one who chooses to stay and help hunt horrors. The others express their desire to leave those days in the past.

The shadow route just hurts- I can understand why it's difficult for players to want to end their journey like that and why it's slipping in the polls LMAO fr tho yall need to give shadow route more dang love its achingly wonderful

But seriously, it's altruism to the extreme. This is a stark contrast to Rowan's reasoning to claim the Power as their sole form in Matthias' route; Them severing all ties to their humanity for the sake of saving the rest of the world is the ultimate sacrifice. What's even more heartbreaking is that the majority of the world will never know of it.

The ones that do (the LIs) hold the heavy burden of trying to honor that sacrifice by enjoying the healed world around them while simultaneously grieving the loss of what they considered to be their world: Rowan. It's a love story that transcends realms- expressed not with soft caresses- but in the soft breeze in the air, the gentle warmth from the sun that hits their skin, the stars that shine brightly in the sky. A physical representation of the peace that was restored by paying the ultimate price.

Blood route: As of 3-9-23, this route is leading the polls as players chosen ending. I've said before that I connect most with a mixed ending. So it is a bit more difficult for me to frame Ro as solely human by the end of the series. If I'm strictly just answering the question of 'will they last?' the Blood route offers the highest potential of achieving a long lasting, established relationship for Ro x their LI simply because the majority of the LIs are ready to move on from their involvement with the Power. Makes sense. They are, in fact, human lmaoo. The drawback with this route is Rowan's guilt for leaving the Power behind. A somewhat selfish, albeit less extreme version of the double-crossing option, choice to put themselves over others in order to achieve their version of happiness.

Overall, each of the LIs will help Ro through this grief. Their approach may differ slightly, but the goal is the same. My main talking point that I think is worth mentioning is how Ro's guilt will manifest post-finale/the consequences of that.

The end scene right before credits roll is Rowan suffering from another nightmare- an indicator of their survivor's guilt. Their ability to move past that guilt is determinant on a player's interpretation

My take: To be connected to the Power for that long, to have it be an integral part of your identity- I cannot see Rowan not getting back into the fold in all things Power-related. Maybe it's my personal bias of wanting a mixed route, but I truly feel that Ro pushing themselves towards 'normalcy' by going full domestic isn't the answer to them overcoming their guilt (except maybe in Amalia's story, since I played the ultimate bff to lovers story) This might not be the case with other MCs. If you played as someone who yearned for that lifestyle, I think your MC will have an easier time coming to terms with their life as a human. How I view MC in the majority of my routes however, makes me think otherwise.

I'll refer to this line from Devon to Rowan to frame my stance:

Devon: Think we can count on you to help us out with that? Rowan: Me? But I'm just a full human now. Devon: So? Most people are just regular humans. I might not be anymore, I guess, but all of our other friends are. Rowan: I... I'll think about it.

This moment alone gives enough opportunity to speculate the POSSIBILITY of Rowan turning back to the life of the Power. To what degree? I can't say, but I play Rowan as someone who has deep ties to their connection to the Power, even if by the end of the Blood route, they have no physical ties to it.

Whew. That was a lot. If you made it this far- CONGRATS! Here's another secret poll so I can see how many people made it to the end 😊

[llycaons]

ep25 (pt 4): ships nearly passing in the night

GODD THIS SCENE IS SO FUCKING HAUNTING. the music is gorgeous, the cinematography dreamlike and surreal and symmetrical, the acting deliberate and impactful

I like that it doesn't rely on shock value for the power of this scene. there's wen qing, and there's wwx. and their courses may or may not collide. they're both wandering. wwx is drinking heavily, unwilling to play nice at the banquet and probably feeling a little abandoned by jyl. wq is bereft, hungry and alone and desperate to find her brother and utterly without hope

shots from each character's position. the audience can see the other in the distance, but they don't see each other.

I LOVE this shot. absolutely stunning and says so much. though the market is crowded with people, these are the only two that matter. will their paths cross?

wq coughs, too focused on the ground beneath her feet to notice the eye-catching and distinctive cultivator she knows so well. there's a barrier between them. wwx doesn't see wen qing's face, only the back of her hood

she's shoved down, he turns. she looks up, they see each other, allies in another life. they stare at one another for a long, long moment

they are the only two in the entire market

and just like that, everything changes

this would have been a killer romantic scene, but I absolutely adore it for what it is instead

AND AS IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH. we end on another classic line

lwj has been weirdly distant and passive this entire episode. there are so many other characters in this episode that he did get pushed to the side, but even at the target practice he was unmoved

YEAH YOU DO

I didn't think much of this line on my first watch, because...yeah, lxc was probably right. but if you read the novel it then becomes a whole thing bc lwj DOES bring wwx-as-mxy back to CR against his will and keeps him there so there's this whole debate about lwj's 'darker urges' and whatnot that I personally find very silly? he definitely has a protective streak, and maybe even a little possessiveness, but he's never violated wwx's autonomy in cql, even when wwx was killing himself, and I never thought he ever would. or even could, actually

my preferred interpretation was that it was one of the only ways he could see to protect someone he cared about (didn't have many other role models), but he never would have acted without wwx's permission and he also felt a lot of guilt about it given his father's crimes. and you can see how he lets wwx go at the very end as well because he's not the kind of person his father was. it seems pretty mild to me, on the whole

like I see the appeal in making him a more flawed character and giving him more to overcome but I think his flaws are enough as is and fit the story perfectly already, and in cql I just don't see the evidence for him having such a powerful need to dominate or possess wwx to keep him safe. but you see a lot of meta where his desire to protect gets really tortuous and dramatic and I just don't think it's that deep.

personal highlights: WHERE TO START. this episode was THRILLING

wwx waving to jyl with his flute to make her laugh. always makes me smile

sexy sexy blindfolded archery scene

wwx remembering lxc's words and turning away but lwj leaving the narrow, straight path and coming to meet him anyway

I WILL RISE UNPARALLELED AND LEAVE YOU ALL STARING AT ME FROM BEHIND

jyl tearing jin xizun a new one and wwx crying in the background

A-XIAN IS MY DIDI

jzx's awkward confession and then flight from the clearing

the GORGEOUS gorgeous reunion scene between wwx and wq

I want to take a man to cloud recess...take him there and hide him

[comfyswitcherblanketfort]

Comfy, my darling, I come requesting the delight that is Jaskier as Persephone! Please and thank you 🐺🌼

HAPPY FUCKIN BIRTHDAY BABE!!!!

Ily and i’m very glad we’re interweb friends!!!

Pomegranate Seeds

I took some heavy creative liberties here and twisted the myth a little bit for the sake of the vibes. Geralt is Hades, Jask is Persephone and that’s the only character crossover bc I wanna give them all my attention. There will be more too 🥰

Warnings: ...none? jask runs away? its greek but like we got rid of the shitty bits.

______________

Geralt seethed as he stalked up the winding path through the gardens of Mt. Olympus. He liked the underworld. It was his home, his realm, and more importantly, his brothers never ventured there without warning. He grumbled about the ‘fucking humans being needy and bothering him’ as he cut through an orchard.

As he neared the largest tree, he slowed his walk, feeling his irritation melt away little by little as he heard an entrancing voice floating from its upper branches. The song was sorrowful and filled with a simmering resentment Geralt had never heard anywhere but his own thoughts. He came to stop under the tree and leaned against its trunk, listening in rapture. 

When the voice went quiet, he spoke without thinking, “That was beautiful.”

There was a yelp and a couple cracking branches before a young god dropped almost gracefully to the ground, “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”

“Is it?” Geralt chuckled, still leaning against the tree and watching the god closely as he righted himself and brushed his soft brown hair out of his eyes, “I live with the dead. They don’t talk much.” 

“Oh?” there was a flirtatious glint to the younger god’s blue eyes before he finally put two and two together, “Oh! Oh no, you’re- shit- My apolog-”

“No need,” Geralt interrupted, “I intruded on your singing,” he hummed with a sly smile as he brushed past the confused god to amble along his path to the wretched meeting he was due at. 

“I- well, yes you did! Why?” the god seemed to get his wits about him as he jogged to catch up. 

Geralt shrugged, slowing his walk, “I… appreciate the lyrics.”

“I’m Jaskier. By the way,” the singer bounced along in front of Geralt, walking backwards as he chattered, “You appreciate my mourning the loss of my autonomy? That I am forever to be singing in a garden to make things grow just because of my mother?” 

“Demeter’s Jaskier?” Geralt frowned, knowing very well how Demeter liked to control her human pets. He couldn’t imagine how… well yes. He could imagine what kind of a controlling mother she would be. Gea had been no picnic after all. 

Jaskier wrinkled his nose and nodded. 

“You don’t want to sing?”

Jaskier spun on his heel and fell into step next to Geralt, “I love to sing. But I want to do it for me. Making it a duty sullies the… the…” he trailed off for a bit, staring at the blossoms and fruits in the trees with his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. Geralt found it unreasonably endearing and waited patiently for him to find the word.

“When I sing for myself it is cleansing. When I do it for others it feels disingenuous and wrong.” Jaskier decided. Clearly, he had been spending time with the muses. 

Geralt nodded, “You want more than what you’ve been offered here.”

“Yes!”

They had, to Geralt’s dismay, come to the edge of the orchard.

Geralt stopped and faced Jaskier, a slight upturn in his lips, “Maybe you should find what pleases you.”

Jaskier smiled like the glittering diamonds embedded in the walls of Geralt’s palace, nodding fervently as Geralt turned to go. Just before he was out of reach he heard the singer whisper, “I think I just did…” 

_

Geralt paid even less attention to the discussion than usual, his mind wandering back to Jaskier. He decided, as he glared at his brother boasting of his bastard child and that bull thing he’d made, that he would find Jaskier and… and what? He wanted to whisk him away to his realm and spoil him with fine jewels and the most delicate of silks. He wanted to hear that voice and see that brilliant smile everywhere he went. 

But that was selfish.

How could someone so full of life and ambition ever be happy in the underworld? He couldn’t possibly expect Jaskier to leave the color and warmth of the surface world behind for a shadowy cave system that barely qualified as Geralt’s palace. There would only be Geralt and the Furies for an audience, for the most part, and the only trees in his courtyards were haggard at best. No child of the harvest would flourish there. 

He left the way he’d come, hoping to find Jaskier in the orchard again, but he was long gone by the time all the other gods had aired their ‘concerns’. 

Weeks passed and Geralt found himself even more withdrawn than usual. 

His time was spent glaring down at his pathetic little courtyard with the one tree still bearing fruit. He had always been resentful to have been stuck below ground, where the humans feared him and the other gods judged him for having made a home. Bitching and moaning wouldn’t make anything better, so he played the hand he was dealt and enjoyed his solitude. But now? Now he was simply bubbling with rage. Had he been made god of the sea this wouldn’t be a problem. He would pick a comfortably private but not secluded inlet, build his lovely little singer a castle, and spend all their free days wandering the beach.

Not that he’d laid awake at night thinking about it. 

He dealt with his duties with a biting tongue and vicious sneer as he pondered what to do with himself. 

Nothing seemed to satisfy.

Finally, he made a decision. He would pay Jaskier a visit and ask to hear the song one last time. Just once before he promised to leave the lively singer alone. 

When he arrived at the gates to Mt. Olympus, he expected to have to search for Jaskeir or at least search out his voice.  

Jaskier, however, was furiously charging down the path, his angry scowl turning into a feral grin when he recognized Geralt, “Oh! Hello! This is perfect! I was just coming to find you!” 

Geralt blinked, “Find me? Where would I be but home?” 

“Here. Apparently,” Jaskeir pointed out, with raised eyebrows.

“I’m here to find you,” Geralt smiled, feeling something akin to hope soothing the loneliness that had nested in his chest. 

Jaskier positively beamed, “I have chosen to find what pleases me. And now that I’ve found you, I would be eternally happy if you absconded with me to your realm.” 

If he were nervous or hesitant in the slightest, Geralt couldn’t see it even as he looked for any hint in his features. 

“You want to come with me to the underworld?” Geralt frowned, not believing his ears.

“Sounds more fun when you say it my way,” Jaskier answered, rubbing at the back of his neck, that little bit of embarrassment and worry finally showing through his facade, “but yes. That is exactly what I want.”

“I have no gardens.”

“All the better.” 

“I would be your only audience.”

“You’re the only audience I’ve cared about since I met you,” Jaskier’s tone became defiant as he puffed up his chest just enough for Geralt to think he did it unintentionally.

Geralt let himself melt a little bit more with his every reply, “The sun doesn’t warm your face in my home.”

“Are your eyes not a brilliant golden warmth enough?”

Geralt blushed for the first time in centuries, “If it is truly what you want…”

Jaskier hesitantly stepped closer, staring Geralt right in the eye, “I want you.”

[babineni]

I am once again thinking about the lost potential of anti-LK Aloth in Deadfire or maybe Deadfire Aloth in general but since I don't know what pro-LK Aloth is like I can't really comment on him

Because the way I see it, while responsibility has always been a primary trait of his, how Aloth handled responsibility itself has always been determined by how he handled power/privilege. He basically thought in PoE 1 that "with great power comes great responsibili- I mean lots of room to abuse it". That is why he detested animancers: he saw them as powerful people (since they had the privilege of education) irresponsibly meddling with things they don't understand and hurting people who didn't have the same power in the process. And that is why turning away from the LK also involved him re-evaluating his stance on power and responsibility and in doing so, he started to prioritize autonomy instead. That is why at the end of PoE 1, Aloth voices concerns over the Watcher being put in the position of ending the Legacy: it messes with the Dyrwood's autonomy. Basically he goes from a person who thought power should be used responsibly to a person who outright rejects power.

And instead of expanding on that, Deadfire kinda just had him retrace the same steps but not kinda idk I'm rambling. Or at least it arrives to a similar conclusion. The final dilemma of his arc is whether he should keep up with his mission to hunt the LK (hold on to the power to change communities) or give up the mission (abdicate the power to change communities). Which on its own is kinda lazy already. But if you combine that with the fact that every time Aloth considers giving up on his mission, he sounds... self-defeatist??? As if it's just his insecurity talking and surely you, the player, should outright ignore it if you want to be supportive (or idk it kinda sounds like that to me). Which is just... ugh

Imagine how much more interesting Aloth's Deadfire story could've been, if the mindset Aloth had at the end PoE 1 was expanded and its flaws were explored. Imagine how different his timeskip story would've hit if the issue wasn't "well he just didn't understand the LK as much as he thought 🤷🏼‍♀️" and instead it was a conflict of his new moral code that valued autonomy above all else. Imagine if he could rationalize killing that mayor bc he saw his actions as removing obstacles for social change but he drew the line at guiding the village down a different path bc ✨aUtOnOmY✨. Imagine if his arc was centered around exploring where respecting people's autonomy ended and where toxic non-interference began.

It would've not only made Aloth a more thematically relevant character considering that the main plot with Eothas and the gods touch on similar ideas which is to say Deadfire Aloth already parallels Eothas in a way but you really need to squint to see that parallel it would've also added an interesting twist to his dynamic with the Watcher, regardless whether they're friends, frenemies or lovers.

[parismystere]

It doesn't matter that Adrien is a sentimonster. They're not gonna kill him off or anything like this doesn't mean that he's worth less because he's. one. of. the. main. characters. And also the audience's favourite!! So nah, all this meta abt how if he's a sentimonster then he's non-human is dumb. He's one of the main characters and him being a sentimonster doesn't make him less human or important at all! He's literally The most important character of the show (in a very unbalanced way w marinette btw who has only half a personality, sadly). And no, the fact that the other sentimonsters were treated like nothing doesn't mean Adrien will. Yes this is an inconsistency but also Astruc is a shitty af writer. He's ADRIEN they're not just gonna disappear him lmao. Imo I think people are projecting their own personal issues w their own parents on ML, something I understand but it's also good to take a look back and see the context. Sentimonster Adrien thing is nothing but a shitty metaphor for abuse in a way children can understand bc that's the audience. Sure, the show could be smarter and more serious but it is what it is.

anon, i know you mean well but i'm gonna be a bitch for a second and say that i obviously don't think the meta i reblogged is dumb, and if you think it is, you should go debate that with the writers of these metas instead of commenting on their posts like that in my askbox.

that being said: the issue isn't exactly adrien's future as a sentimonster main character, the issue is what are the implications of this writing choice, how does it fit into the whole narrative (hello, plot holes), and what message are the writers communicating.

you are very right that adrien being a sentimonster is, at the end of the day, irrelevant. implications for his worth aside, of course he isn't going to get killed. in fact, we might even get an arc in which adrien uses the wish to become a Real Boy. which begs the question: why even make him a sentimonster in the first case? for shock value (i guess for the little kids watching)? for the #drama? when it's possibly the least original and interesting thing to do with the agrestes?

what does adrien being a sentimonster add to his character? well, nothing but more angst and more trauma porn that goes unaddressed. i think s4 proved pretty quickly that adrien and the agrestes are nothing but a Mystery Factor to add an illusion of depth to the show, but at its core, the show isn't interested in helping adrien gain autonomy. the show isn't interested in adrien getting better. the show isn't interested in helping him find a way out of his inferiority complex. the show doesn't see him as a full-fledged character with a ton on his plate - he is a prop, he is the genderswapped love interest, he doesn't matter at the level we want him to matter.

that i was projecting really hard became clear to me when kuro neko aired. [thomas astruc to me: you have a very personal understanding of things] [funny because i described gabriel as abusive in my tweet to him] call me dumb, whatever. but the fact that this entire fandom got fooled for years is hilarious. apparently this show was so vague and wishy-washy that we were being sold one message and understanding something completely different.

i am going to end with something i found in my drafts (i think it's pre-kuro neko) but didn't want to post at the time:

overall, we can conclude that what is happening to adrien in s4 is to break him down until his anger explodes and he becomes more assertive, but a good question is if this the right way to portray an abuse victim gaining independence, as it's completely unrealistic (imo) for children at home, and it's a bizarre path to see, given astruc's insistence that the show works with psychiatrists and child psychologists. instead of adrien meeting people who build his self-worth with kindness and understanding, or instead of adrien being put in situations that ask of him to take a risk that pays off and that builds his confidence, adrien is consistently presented as unappealing to the people important to him when he's chat noir, he's repeatedly shut down for not being a little doll the few times he tries to open up as his civilian self, he never got the chance to build a relationship with the man who chose him to wield one of the two most important miraculouses, and he obviously can't be in situations that demand growth of him if he's struggling to get screentime against temp heroes and third-rate characters.

adrien becoming angry to the point when he snaps on his household members (or ladybug) in the end won't make his situation better in any way; even though he's angry at how he's treated, he's still willing to do what others want of him instead of standing up for his needs; and even if he stands up for himself, gabriel suddenly going "oh, you're right, adrien, you can do whatever you want now" would be laughable, ooc and an insult to the previous episodes that portrayed adrien's situation as abusive. adrien's problems can only be solved when gabriel is out of the picture.

[ialwaysgobacktoit]

Azriel surprises Gwyn for her birthday PART. 6

Guys just so you know i need to think of a better name for this bc like THIS IS GETTING BIIIIG (I have a playlist on spotify called "what would gwynriel sing" and i think i'll draw inspiration from there lol)

IT'S GWYN'S POV AGAIN (and this one's a little shorter lol i'm sorry... Rhys is in this chapter bc i honestly share the headcanon that Gwyn and Rhys would be close friends!)

MY GIRLS: @starbornsinger @madie2200 @katiebellf here it is!! And check out the Chapter List here

Gwyn couldn’t deny. She was nervous. That morning the words just rushed out about leaving the library, because she truly felt inspired by Diane’s words. She had spent the previous night awake, even if Emerie and Nesta had long fallen asleep, thinking about what she had to do next. She was feeling braver. Maybe it was because that was the best birthday she had since Sangravah, or perhaps ever, due to the circumstances. She still missed Catrin like crazy during the day, still felt that familiar ache in her chest when she worked at the library in the afternoon, or went training in the morning. But somehow, after everything that has happened in the evening, the lingering image of her sister started being more of a comfort, a companion, than the sorrow and guilt she was accustomed to.

Still, she was nervous.

She did really want to leave the library, and Clotho seemed happy, maybe even proud, to let her go. Merrill didn’t care as long as she kept working for her, at least a couple hours a day. One day, Gwyn thought that would change too. But for now, one step at a time. The night she went to the Town House and dined with the Inner Circle was one of many small steps Gwyn’s been giving these last few months towards more autonomy, independence, and strength. Towards the life she wanted for herself. And now, the day where she decided to move out of the library was the day she took another one.

And Azriel… Honestly, she thought she would be more scared about the prospect of having a mate than she actually did. Most of all, she was happy. She felt lucky and had the confidence that if anything were to happen between the two of them, they would take it slow, at her pace. She wouldn’t have it any other way. That if Azriel were to find out about the bond any time soon; or if she would summon enough courage to tell him. Because if he did know, he would’ve said something by now, wouldn’t he?

Yep. She was very nervous.

What she dreaded the most was the fact that Azriel, well, he may not feel the same once he found out. The Cauldron could be wrong, after all. And all these last months of getting closer to each other, training in companionable silence, laughing together, bantering… She was more than grateful for their friendship, but she knew that Azriel still had some things to figure out – about Elain. If he truly still felt something towards her, that was enough to strain Gwyn’s hopes for the moment. To maintain the quiet feeling to herself, and what it meant; that she was indeed worthy of happiness not only alone, but with another one.

She tried to push all those feelings aside as she was getting ready for dinner at the River House, the High Lady and Lord’s official estate. She looked at herself in the mirror, spinning side to side. It wasn’t much – after all, she didn’t have any clothes besides her robes, nightgowns and training leathers – but the outfit the House provided was more than enough. Her baggy turquoise linen pants and her white, loose crop top made her extremely comfortable, even if the latter was slightly shorter than what she was accustomed to.

She still wore the necklace Azriel re-gifted her. When he told her a few months back about the whole story, she truly understood him. He was in a bad place at the time, but so did she. And even if he had indeed made a mistake, she was glad to have it now. To know that someone gave it to her willingly, that was the thought she held on to. First person considered or not. And besides, it looked great against her freckled skin.

A gentle knock on the door of her new bedroom sounded. “Gwyn, you ready?”

“Yeah, come in”

Nesta opened the door and something sparked in her eyes as she stared at Gwyn through the mirror.

“You look beautiful, girl”

She spun on her heels and smiled at Nesta.

“I do, don’t I?”

They both laughed as they linked their arms and left the room.

“So” Nesta begun, as they walked towards the main entrance together “How are you settling in?”

“It’s very cozy, and I just love that view. The House is providing me everything I need at the moment. Thank you for inviting me to stay.” She gave her sister a grateful smile

“Well, I was serious; you can stay with us for as long as you want.”

“That means a lot.” Gwyn couldn’t contain her smile as she gently nudged her head against her sister’s.

“Don’t mention. I know you’d do the same for me.” And Nesta was right. Without thinking twice, Gwyn would have done the same for both of her newfound sisters. She was so grateful and thrilled their paths had crossed this way.

“By the way” Nesta mentioned innocently when they reached the common area “The room you chose, well, that’s three doors up from Azriel’s. If you have a problem with that, feel free to say it.”

And as she was summoning his presence, that was the moment the Shadowsinger came to vision, talking to Cassian in the balcony – waiting for them.

Gwyn drew on a breath, staring straight at him. When he caught her eye, she couldn’t help her smile. And when his eyes glittered, scanning her from head to toe, she answered quietly to her sister:

“No. I think that’ll be fine.”

*******

The River House was beautiful. Gwyn admired it as the four of them stood by the front door. It was big, but the decoration made it seem comfortable and cozy, despite its size. A true home, Gwyn thought.

Feyre opened the door, a warm smile instantly on her face.

��Come in!”

As soon as they stepped on the entrance hall, Gwyn marveled at the big painting on display. It was a portrait of Nesta as she held the line at the Pass of Enalius. Her cunning eyes seemed to look directly at anyone who came in, daring and challenging. “This is amazing.” She said, tearing her eyes from the image at last and looking at Feyre. Cassian and Nesta had already entered the living room and Azriel stood by the doorway, lingering.

Feyre was still smiling at her when she answered. “Thank you very much, Gwyn. I have others I can show you later, if you’d like.”

“I would love to. You have a beautiful home.” And she could barely conceal the emotion in her eyes as Feyre held her hand and sighed gratefully. She, maybe more than anyone, was well aware of how lucky she was to have such a family.

“We do.”

It was just when she reached the living room and beheld all of those who Feyre and Rhysand loved the most she felt Azriel’s presence still a few steps behind her, his eyes fixed upon her. A tendril of shadow curled up slightly at her wrist, as if saying We’re here. So she looked back for half a second before entering further into the room, only enough to meet his cryptic gaze and give him a half-smile. And couldn’t help the sparkling feeling in her chest when he gave her a reassuring nod.

*****

The night was going on peacefully. Gwyn didn’t say much, and it was rather content in observe. That way, she didn’t feel exposed, and also could get to know the Inner Circle better: their dynamics and bantering, how they acted around each other and discussed both serious and light topics. Elain, for example, was sitting in a chair in the corner, drink in hand. She only joined for dinner, ate quietly and then excused herself from the table for a long time. Rhys and Feyre took turns in watching Nyx, since this evening he went to sleep early. Emerie and Mor were having what seemed to be a very intimate conversation, knees touching and heads close, and Nesta and Cassian, well… They were being their usual selves.

And then she landed her eyes on the Shadowsinger. He was definitely the quietest of them all, even if during dinner he had participated in the more serious subjects of conversation and exchanged a few casual words with Gwyn. She could observe enough to notice he didn’t once glance at Elain, or her at him, and that they kept their distance. He actually seemed to have spent the evening doing the same thing Gwyn was, which was observing; except for him it was natural, a second skin. He certainly had enough time these hundred years to know well about the rest of his family, while she was doing that precisely to learn more about them. If it was easy for her to be like this, for him was instinct.

She couldn't stop but detain herself on the details of his face, though, as he now spoke to Mor, who had subtly approached him. He wore that inexpressive mask, but she could see the way his brows were slightly furrowed, his jaw set just slightly... There was something concerning him, making him uneasy. She wondered, maybe for the tenth time, when she would tell him. Or if she should let him find out by himself. And again, her heart fluttered as he put his hands in his pockets and nodded along, listening to Mor.

How could the Cauldron have chosen this? To have defined them as mates... He was the one who saved her, who’d seen her low, who helped her at the very worst moment of her life. And although she would be forever grateful for it, she was aware he had enough on his plate – to burden him with her feelings... She didn't know what to do. It was at that moment their eyes locked across the room. She didn't realize she had still been staring, and quickly darted her eyes away.

Only to meet with Rhysand’s staring at her from across the table.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry.

Oh, shit. Shit. Gwyn contained her gasp. He heard her. She didn't know for how long, but he could read her thoughts.

I was just going to ask you if you were feeling okay.

She knew what he meant. But still...

"Please. Please don’t say a word". She managed to whisper to that presence in her mind.

He doesn't know? She could feel his curiosity. Although they were still staring at each other, his face yielded nothing.

"I don't think so. Please, just…"

Don't worry, Gwyn. I won't tell him.

She could've cried in relieve. "Thank you."

He only nodded at her and raised his glass, and she could feel his presence fading from her mind.

*****

When they arrived at the House of Wind, a few hours later, Gwyn was still a little uneasy. She needed to learn how to shield her mind properly; even if she felt she trusted Rhys’s word, she couldn’t feel relaxed at the thought that someone else knew about what she’d only recently discovered and were still trying to figure out.

She could barely stare at Azriel when they flew all the way back. They remained silent all the way to the House of Wind, and her gaze remained fixed on the city landscape below them, or on the skies above. Never on him or their closeness, even if she’d caught him glancing at her a few times. They landed just a few minutes after Nesta and Cassian. When she meant to let go of his hand, he held it just for a moment longer:

“Did you have fun tonight?”

She nodded, managing to bring a smile upon her face. She didn’t want him to see how nervous she was; they were never like that around each other.

“A lot. Your family is very…”

“Extravagant?”

“I was going to say kind. But they might be a little extravagant, too.”

The corner of his lips tugged upward, and she let out a quiet laugh. “Are you going to sleep now?”

“In a few hours, maybe. I think I’ll hit the training ring first.”

She nodded. His shadows swirled a little at his shoulders. She seemed to forget about her nervousness for a second as she noticed his slightly furrowed brows, as if he was concentrating: “You know you don’t have to restrain them, if it tires you.”

“They should behave better.” It was all he grunted back, slightly annoyed at his dancing shadows.

“Well, I don’t mind at all. I like them. So at least around me, you shouldn’t worry about it.”

The seconds her eyes held his stare were enough to make Gwyn feel like she could burst – or touch him, again. So she turned away and smiled over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Az.”

All she felt before reaching the stairway was a tendril of shadow gently curling around her arm.

[chrisevansgoodgirl]

light of my life, fire of my loins. be a good baby, do what i want.

summary: requested: Andy Barber gives me such strong sugar daddy vibes I haven’t watched the show but he just looks like the kinda guy who would spoil the shit outta someone

warnings: smut everywhere. and you know, sugar daddy shit, so. also, doesn’t make a lot of sense. I have a lot more that I actually wrote, I just wasn’t sure where I was going with this. so...prompt sugar andy daddy if you want more???

word count: around 10,400

pairing: andy barber  x reader

a/n: anon! I want you to know that I started working on this as soon as you requested it! I just wanted to make sure I really got sugar daddy andy down and that it wasn’t steve rogers that I was writing. I am so sorry bc you definitely deserved this a very long time ago! if there are any typos, I apologize, I just needed to get this posted before work.

When you met Andy, you had been juggling three jobs, gaining more debt than you would probably ever be able to pull off even with a degree, fairly sucky grades caused by how much you worked, resulting in stress, anxiety, all that great shit that comes along with being someone in America that dares to want to pursue higher education.

After a few months dating Andy, you had one job that you only kept for autonomy reasons, shrinking debt, excellent grades, and truly, no stress at all. Instead of spending a night waiting tables at the restaurant near the campus, where disgusting men would flirt with you because you were on the clock and literally could not leave, you were in a tiny ass dress, covered in diamonds, drinking champagne, and trying not to be too obvious about the cum dripping down your thighs.

Obscene was often a word that you played with in your mind whenever you were with Andy. Your outfits were indecent because he loved seeing as much of your skin as he possibly could. Your behavior was shameless, you showed up, you laughed, you hung onto him the entire night with the smuggest of smiles. Your willingness, especially in public, was vulgar, the way you let him touch you in front of everyone. Salacious. Indecorous. Immoral. Debauched.

These parties that he took you to were only half of it. According to his son, Jacob, Andy hadn’t been one for socializing before the divorce. He claimed that this was something new his father picked up, something that he theorized was the consequence of loneliness. You figured that you also fell under that category. These people weren’t actually his friends and you weren’t actually his girlfriend.

Andy wanted a distraction and you were just fucked up and high-maintenance enough to be perfect for the job. Getting into the swing of things had been quite the task at the start, much to your surprise. Who didn’t want a gorgeous man to spoil them? Apparently you, if your earlier behavior was any indication.

You had started this with wanting to be as professional as possible. When you had pictured how this would look, it was you listening to him speak whenever he wanted, you would respond when prompted but it would be short, succinct, and your main concern would be maintaining your physical attractiveness. You tried to think of him as your employer, you were his employee, and that meant that there needed to be respect and boundaries. You pictured a lot of pretending. Pretending to laugh, pretending to care, pretending to enjoy his company, pretending to come.

You had also thought you were going to smart. This wasn’t some stupid Lifetime movie and you had dreams and goals and if you played your cards right, this man could put you on a sure path to reaching all you had ever hoped to accomplish. At least, that was what you were telling yourself when you’d had the mental quandary: were you a prostitute?

Thankfully, both phases of resistance had been dropped—possibly around the first time he went down on you. You were no expert, but “professional” probably barred him from fucking you in about 90% of his chosen locations. And whether you were a “prostitute”, an “escort”, a “hooker”, or whatever other demeaning word anyone could come up with, was another unimportant matter. Anyone could call you anything, at the end of the day, you had money.

It was supposed to be clean, a black and white exchange where you showed up and he paid you. At any point, you could step on the brakes, he could step on the brakes—something you had once found relief in, but was now a source of insecurity, not that you would ever tell him that. He didn’t need to know about your life, what you wanted to do after school, who your friends were, your shaky relationship with your parents, the reasons why someone like you wanted to enter this relationship.

But he asked about those things because rules seemed to either not exist to him, or they just weren’t meaningful. And you hadn’t felt pressured to answer or anything, if that was the case, you would have just lied. The fact of the matter was that eventually you told him these things because you didn’t mind him knowing about your life.

He was not supposed to be kind or smart or interesting. He was not supposed to be a good guy. Clearly, he didn’t get the memo. There should be an official organization that lets men know you can’t just be perfect and spoil someone if you look anything like Andrew Barber.

It was the middle of April in Massachusetts and that meant it was still just a little too chilly for the slinky slip Andy had picked out for you, but that was what all the champagne was for. You were buzzing and it wasn’t just that you were getting drunk. Summer was approaching and he often spoke about all of the things he wanted to do with you now that you had more free time and he gave you these looks and you could just get lost in his eyes and plans even though you knew better.

You had been doing this long enough that people had finally stopped staring. The first few times Andy brought you, they were blatant and downright rude, but it wasn’t like you could do anything about it. Despite the disproportionate wealth shared amongst this group, it wasn’t too often that someone brought along a much younger woman that they were undoubtedly paying. Most of these men were married and either brought their wives along or tales of their affairs.

The rich people here treated this like an elite group, so when people like you were around, not everyone was welcoming. The other few women that had similar situations to yours were kind enough and tried to get to know you better—shared experiences create great friendships, right? Andy didn’t think so, he discouraged any type of communication and claimed that it was because they didn’t tend to stick around long. You theorized he just didn’t want you spending time with anyone that wasn’t him.

The woman across from Andy, Francesca, had been around for as long as you could remember. She had long, dark brown hair, flawless eyebrows, a great jawline, and an even greater ass. She was a few years older than him and several older than you.

You often pondered just how much more interesting than you she was. See, she had never hidden that she was attracted to him, but Andy seemed oblivious. You couldn’t tell if he actually was or was just pretending not to notice. You told yourself it was deeper than just the age, that there was another, much different reason that he wasn’t interested in her.

But, of course, you couldn’t ask. You couldn’t talk to him about other women because that was teetering on the edge of possessiveness and jealousy. Those were two of the few luxuries that you would be denied. Romance would not be found here, just a lot of mutual lust and understanding.

She laughed at something he said, pulling you back into the moment. As you sipped on your champagne, you returned to your favorite activity at these parties: people watching. You were starting to pick up on some of the drama and whatever blanks were left at the end of the nights, Andy usually filled them for you.

There were certain types of men that always bred the most scandalous scenarios. Those are the same few men that had only just recently stopped trying to buy you away from Andy by offering you more money than he was paying you. Yes, technically, that was what you were here for, but Andy was not like these men.

For starters, most everyone in attendance was a lawyer. They followed the model of: the worse the job was, the better the pay. Unlike them, Andy didn’t represent sleazy, rich rapists or murderers. That was just the start of the differences. He didn’t get so drunk that he caused a scene at these parties, he didn’t touch drugs, and he wasn’t going through some tragic midlife crisis that he was trying to placate with cars or women.

When you looked back at the pair, Andy was texting and Francesca was eyeing your hand around the glass were sipping from. She was looking at your rings—oh, your rings. You loved your rings.

Originally, you’d thought you weren’t going to ask for or accept anything stupid. You just needed your bills paid, your rent, your car. You wanted to be able to eat more than once a day. Andy quickly realized that you wouldn’t ask, if he wanted you to have something, he was just going to have to give it to you.

(On your very first date, he’d given you a diamond bracelet. You had been stunned, maybe even a little uncomfortable. It was hard to accept such expensive items from strangers. However, you did like it and wore it almost every day even though it made no sense with most of your outfits. You’d simply grown fond of it because it had come from him.)

(On the fourth date, he gave you a three-strand diamond necklace that strongly resembled a collar. You adored it, not the way you adored your rings, but it still gave you butterflies whenever he would clasp it around your neck and then kiss the skin directly under it. These were things that he’d called gifts, but you recognized them for what they actually were, signs of ownership.)

The first ring had been a reward. You’d made it through midterms, so he took you to the jewelry shop that’s on the way back to your apartment from his house. After three hours and a lot of wine—you’d needed to be drunk the first few times you knew he was spending money on you—you left with the tiara ring for your pinky finger. It was a loud piece of intricate curls on top of and underneath a row of tiny hearts. This ring was the most special, the first, you rarely ever took it off—only for school.

The second had been an apology. He’d convinced you to spend the night at his house even though he knew you really didn’t want to. He had kissed your neck and your face and had two of his fingers inside you, he had whispered all the things he still wanted to do to you that night. Around two in the morning, you’d gone to get water from the kitchen. You were in a pair of panties and one of Andy’s shirts that you didn’t bother to button up. That was how you were dressed when you met his son for the first time. Two days later, you had the butterfly ring in its spot at the base of your index finger. It was gaudy and expensive but did little to quell your anger and humiliation. You loved it, nonetheless.

The third had been an anniversary present. This relationship had reached its 100-day mark, he took you to his favorite restaurant, the same one he had taken you to for your first date. Which wasn’t romantic at all, there were a lot of terms being discussed. This time had been much different. He asked you for your hand and slipped the ring onto your third finger without a word, he merely eyed the only empty finger with the unstated promise that that finger would soon have one as well. It was this huge oval cut diamond that covered the width of your finger, atop two bands of smaller but still fairly large identically cut diamonds.

A little less than three weeks after that, it had been…well, you still weren’t quite sure what the fourth ring was. It wasn’t often that Andy didn’t drive you. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you had only one class so he would drop you off and pick you up during his lunch break so you could get coffee together. On Wednesdays and Fridays, you had more than one class so he would drop you off and he would pick you up when he got off work.

One Wednesday morning, your first class had been canceled so you ended up driving yourself. Andy took Wednesdays and Fridays as his early days off because he didn’t want you waiting in the library too long after your final class let out, so those had become the simple nights when he would come over to your apartment even though he really didn’t like it there—you figured he was struggling with the urge to buy you a much bigger apartment, one that would probably coincidentally be closer to his house as well.

You had made the plan to cook dinner that night so before heading home, you drove to the grocery store… Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, at your place just in front of the stoplight, a car in the turn lane drove right into your car. Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal considering your life of absolute privilege and you just wanted to get the whole thing over with.

Andy wasn’t quite as level-headed. The other driver was a middle-aged man so Andy felt no reluctance in throwing a fit. You had been torn between being humiliated that he was fussing so much over you, flattered that he cared, angry that he was treating you like you were a fragile vase, or maybe just a little turned on because he was so angry.

That night, instead of your place, he took you to his house and spoiled the hell out of you. He undressed you and kissed you everywhere, he bundled you up in one of his sweaters and a throw blanket, sat you down on the bed, and made you hot chocolate. You were not allowed to lift a single finger. That was the first night you spent at his house, and since Jacob wasn’t there, Andy didn’t hesitate to fuck you for hours and make you scream as loudly as he wanted you to.

The next morning, when you woke up, the black velvet box was set on the pillow between you and him. He was propped up on the headboard with his laptop and the clock on his bedside table was saying that it was well past noon. Clearly, he decided to stay home from work and if there wasn’t jewelry in front of you, you would have given him a lecture.

It was a princess cut diamond—which he would later explain with ‘you are my princess’—with a double halo and a diamond-encrusted band. It was smaller than all the rest but somehow just went perfectly.

You weren’t bragging, at least not in a petty way. It was just that any time you noticed someone staring at your hand, you couldn’t help but try to draw more attention to it, or the other jewelry Andy showered you in.

You supposed that maybe that meant something, maybe during your little back and forth a few hours prior when he had accused you of being spoiled, he was onto something. Regardless, the only person who could be blamed for that was him.

You almost got lost in the diamonds on your hand when Andy reached out to you, pulling some hair over your shoulder. You looked up at him, he was smiling softly. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Are you ready to go?”

He really didn’t like these parties; he was always the one that wanted to leave and would slyly place the blame on you. You were tired, you weren’t feeling well, you had a tough week and you just wanted to go home. You never minded because it wasn’t as if you got anything out of these parties either, and if that was the easiest way to pull him out of there, so be it. It was Sunday anyway, he had to work tomorrow and you had to go over your weekly schedule with him before the night was over.

“Sure.”

It started as a quiet drive, just like it always did, but then he placed his hand on your thigh. You glanced at him, arching an eyebrow. He simply smirked and kept his gaze on the road. You opened your legs wide, guiding two of his fingers inside you. “Can you feel your cum in me?”

“Not enough.”

“You’re the one that made me stand for almost an hour.”

“I’ll fill you up again before you go to class tomorrow.”

You snorted. “Lucky me.”

He shot you a look. “Oh, you don’t like it?”

“Never said that.”

“Well, if you don’t, I don’t need to—”

“I was kidding,” you whined.

He gave you a look, pretending he was unconvinced. “You’ve had an attitude all night.”

“You spanked me,” you reminded. The memory, the sore feeling on your ass whenever you sat down, had kept you wet all night. “Hard.”

“You talked back.”

You had because you wanted him to spank you. The first time he had, it was quite the discovery. It was after a drink, after you were feeling a little daring. He told you no, and you really hated when he did that. You couldn’t even remember what you had said, but it was bad, it was enough to get your skirt torn down, you bent over his knee, and well, the rest was a blissful blur.

This time it was because he was in a mood. You were getting dressed and he was watching you and that always meant something. You weren’t sure what exactly, but there were a few things you picked up on with Andy. When he wanted to be in control, he didn’t necessarily just want you to submit completely. When he gave you a look, you knew that he wanted you to fight just a bit. So, he told you to wear a specific dress and you refused initially. Cue the spanking. After your whole body felt hot and flushed and your legs were shaking and your cunt was dripping, you obliged, and he was so damn smug about it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, because my fingers are inside you and you want me to make you come.”

“Well…yes.”

He laughed and you couldn’t help but smile. You loved the sound of it. Andy so rarely laughed but you took it to mean that he felt comfortable enough around you. “If you can be patient, I’ll fuck you when we get home.”

Home. His home. Whatever. “And if I can’t?”

“Then you’re going to have to wait until the morning and I might not feel like letting you come. Deal?”

You nodded. “Deal.”

But he didn’t play fair. He drove slower than usual, fingers still buried inside you, and he moved them. A lot. He tried to cover it with stupid things, like driving over a pothole or making a sharp turn. If you moved your hips once, just barely, you lost. So, you sat there, completely still, gripping the seat like it was a lifeline.

Upstairs, you waited for him to make the rounds. Jacob wasn’t there, thankfully, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there earlier. Andy went around every door and window and made sure they were locked.

In that time, you got undressed and waited for him. You had a couple of red marks across your ass that you could see in the mirror on the opposite end of the bedroom. He always liked seeing your skin marked up in some way if he was the reason.

When he entered the room, you were sitting on the edge of the bed. “Stand up.”

You quickly did so, turning your back to him so he could see your ass. His palms lightly felt along the marked skin there. “It doesn’t hurt.”

He rarely asked, but you found that he fucked you better when he knew for sure. You just started letting him know and it seemed he trusted you enough to voice any boundaries you had if he ever crossed them.

One hand slowly trailed up your spine and slid across to your shoulder. He pressed you down quickly and you caught yourself on the mattress with both hands. You could hardly stay still as you heard his belt and zipper.

He easily pushed into you, body flush against yours. He let you adjust around him, staying perfectly still as he leaned over you and kissed your back, neck, and shoulders. Andy didn’t move until you angled your hips and pressed back a little more, whimpering nonsense.

This was so unlike the two times earlier. In the closet, after he spanked you, he sat you on top of his lap and made you ride him. At the party, in the bathroom, he stood you in front of the mirror and gently fucked you until he had filled you with his cum. This was fast, rough, and maybe a little detached if you really thought about it.

Andy took your waist in both hands and held you in place as he pounded into you relentlessly. Slapping skin, your soaking wet pussy, the bed banging against the wall on his particularly hard thrusts, these had become noises you were more than used to, noises you had grown to crave. Being with Andy was never supposed to be like this, but you didn’t have a single complaint.

You buried your face in the blankets, hands clutching tight at the sheets around you as your muffled screams filled the room. You knew he was close when his hands began to wander. One carded through your hair and pressed you down more, the other moved under you to reach your clit.

“You were such a good girl in the car.”

Your response was unintelligible, but yes. You had been more than just good. You had waited for him even though he was being a tease, and now, you wanted what he owed you. Which he didn’t deny you, not for a second.

He made you come. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. But after that, it was all just nonsense, satisfying, endless nonsense. He was still holding you by the hair, but he’d turned your head so you could breathe, and he was still circling his fingers around your clit.

Your back arched, allowing him in deeper—one of the tells of your approaching orgasm. You felt your pussy tighten around his fingers and began begging him to let you come. Even in this hazy, fucked-out state, you wanted to please him, you wanted his praise and approval.

He gave you permission like he always did and fully intended to fuck you through it. He only paused because he felt you spilling down his thighs, felt the wet sheets against his skin, heard light drops on the hardwood floor. Fuck.

He pulled you against him immediately, your sweat-slicked back to his chest. One arm draped across your chest, the opposite hand wrapped around your neck. You were watching him, eyes clear with curiosity. “You just squirted, princess.”

You blinked and attempted to voice your confusion. Problem was, his hips were still moving. You had no time to recover and there was no chance your brain had at making sense of anything in that moment.

“It was fucking hot and you’re going to do it again.”

Needless to say, you skipped classes the next day.

Andy liked to celebrate the monthly anniversaries.

He was big on creating traditions, you assumed that was just that part of him that had been hardwired to crave a normal family. He hadn’t told you much about his life and you didn’t want to pry—his dad wasn’t around and his mom had been but she died when he was pretty young. He shared this only after he asked about your parents.

The most personal he had ever gotten with you was one night when he had intended to take advantage of your drunk and thoroughly fucked state, obviously convinced that you wouldn’t remember the question in the morning. Do you believe in love?

It was weird given the setting and that you and Andy simply didn’t talk like that. It was dangerous because this could never be more than it was. You were both only allowed feelings of lust, maybe even obsession, but nothing of the usual sense. And Andy was so strict and controlled, you were surprised he would cross any sort of line.

You tried to play it off, tried to tell him that you had more important things to worry about. He didn’t like that response. He pressed because he was just like that, his career was all about pressing and sometimes, he brought it home. You ended up telling him that you viewed marriage as a waste of time. Your parents divorced, all your aunts and uncles, even the younger friends who got married out of high school were on the fast track to messy court dates and vicious custody battles. You also pointed out his situation. If someone as perfect as him couldn’t stay married, no one could.

It was then that he told you the happiest moments of his life were carving pumpkins or decorating the Christmas tree with Jacob. He had loved Valentine’s Day with Laurie, he was the one that had always insisted on doing something. He even looked forward to the smaller holidays, Independence Day, Memorial Day, any day that got Jacob out of school and him an extra day off so they could have a cookout in the backyard.

It wasn’t his intent, but it had sort of created a barrier between you two. You wished he still had his family even if that meant never meeting him. He was that kind of man, a good man, and you could tell that it weighed on him every day that he no longer had his perfect family.

He’d never pictured his life like this, a failed marriage, a child separated between his parents. He never would have entertained the idea of needing someone like you. He didn’t say that last part, but you knew. Sometimes, it was just in the way he looked at you. You feared he would grow to resent you one day, but you always tried to push that thought far away.

Regardless, the distance was there and he realized it even if he didn’t say it. There was also the matter that school had just let out meaning you had zero excuses for saying no to him when he proposed the trip to New York that would coincide with the 7-month mark of your relationship.

You’d never been and you’d always wanted to see Moulin Rouge on Broadway. He’d decided to drive to New York because you had once made the mistake of telling him you hated airports. It was a short road trip, one you weren’t entirely unwelcoming of. Especially not when he kept his hand on your thigh most of the time. It was late when you made it to the hotel and surprisingly, he had no issues with you diving straight into bed.

The morning was quite different. The hotel window had a perfect view of the city and he felt inclined to fuck you against it as soon as you both woke up. Then, he wanted to take you shopping. For nearly two entire days, he spoiled the hell out of you. Anywhere you wanted to go, he would take you. Anything you glanced at, he wanted to buy it for you.

On the night of the show, he finally took you to Victoria’s Secret. You’d seen pictures of it before, but you had not anticipated how beautiful it would look in person. You went crazy, you took him to the fitting room and tortured him on every single floor with both clothing and lingerie. Several hours had been devoted to teasing him and he let you know that after the show, you would regret your decisions.

Before you managed to get him back to the hotel so you could get ready, he needed to spend another awful amount of money on you. There was a jewelry shop just down the street from Victoria’s Secret and he couldn’t let you leave the state—as he claimed when he saw you frown—without at least one diamond.

You wanted nothing, but you knew the chances of him allowing that were nonexistent. So, you told yourself to keep it small, but one thing that had become a harsh reality since you met Andy: you were a sad, pathetic victim to larger, shinier diamonds. You immediately fell in love with a short string of sizable heart-shaped diamonds, the one larger heart dangling in the center is what had caught your eye.

Regardless of this terrible habit you had developed—this feeling that you craved, the pure joy that you got from people knowing that Andy was buying you diamonds—you tried to protest when he caught you staring. You just wanted a bracelet, really. He rarely ever gave you bracelets.

Instead, he sent you off to get coffee. You knew exactly why that was. He often got rid of you when he was about to make decisions that he knew would make you feel bad. You wanted to refuse, but what was better? Blissful ignorance or sitting there just watching him toss out the money for that necklace?

Learning what Andy liked at Starbucks had been a process. He didn’t like his coffee sweet so that eliminated 90% of the menu. His home coffee was some brand you’d never even heard of, the shops he went to were all nearly older than him. He liked cappuccinos with extra espresso, but he preferred the straightforward coffee he would get anywhere else, so he claimed. However, you knew he liked pumpkin spice lattes. You planned to prove it the day they released them for the year.

When he came out, the bag in his hand was much larger than one that would be used for just a necklace. He smiled at the horrified look you shot him and claimed that he was given a great deal for the entire set.

While you were getting ready for the show, you realized that this was the most normal you had felt with Andy in a while. There had been tension that neither of you wanted to address, but this trip was making you realize just how stupid that tension was. One day, this was going to end. It was impractical to think an arrangement like this was going to have a long shelf-life.

Shouldn’t you just enjoy it? Being here with him was fun. You liked the city and all the noise and bustle. You also liked being with him away from home and the lives you two had created long before you met one another. This was just you two, isolated together. Normally, you couldn’t ask that of him. He had his job and he was a father and you understood that completely, but you liked this.

During the show, Andy whispered to you several times. He couldn’t wait to be fucking you. He couldn’t wait to taste you. He couldn’t wait to hear you scream and cry and beg. He placed your hand over his lap just so you could feel how hard he was.

Back at the hotel, and maybe it was because of all that he had said, you didn’t want to tease. Almost immediately, you stripped completely naked—fuck all of that expensive lingerie, apparently.

He finally gave you your diamonds. He started with the necklace and you couldn’t even be upset. It fit you so well, you loved seeing it against your skin, you loved seeing how he looked at you while you were wearing it. Then, he gave you the matching bracelet. You had said you wanted a bracelet, right? You couldn’t complain. The earrings, you told yourself, were fine because you didn’t have a pair of diamond earrings yet.

You felt weighed down by these diamonds but not in a bad way. You felt tied to him, owned like you were one of his prized possessions. It was temporary, you reasoned, so was there any real harm in that? He watched you climb off the bed he had ordered you on mere minutes ago, arching an eyebrow as you lowered to your knees before him.

Andy rarely had the patience to let you go down on him, despite loving the feeling. Mostly, his main source of pleasure came from the things he could make you feel. He also couldn’t understand what you got out of letting him fuck your mouth. You weren’t much of a fan before Andy, you could admit since you had a total of zero pleasant experiences, but you felt that this was your only way of spoiling him.

It was nonnegotiable tonight, you would throw a fit if needed. You looked up at him for a moment, almost asking for permission. But not quite, maybe more for compliance. His promise was made by unzipping his pants for you and then letting his hands fall to his sides.

You took him out of his pants and opened your mouth. Staring up at him again, you took as much of him as you could. He was fine until he felt you gag, then his jaw set and his hands became fists.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

Moaning around him, you slowly pulled back. One of his hands disappeared in your hair before you could get too far. He had to keep you there for a moment, attempting to calm himself down because he could tell how much you wanted this.

He brought his hand forward, touching your cheekbone. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” He slipped his fingers under your jaw and thrust his hips forward gently. He didn’t go too deep and it was at a torturous pace that he pulled out. This man’s control was one of the sexiest things about him. It made him seem so powerful and stable and that was what you craved more than anything in this world.

“Touch yourself,” he directed.

Your hand dove down, two fingers instantly burying inside your pussy. You moaned loudly around him and he cursed again.

“You want me to fuck your face?”

You nodded as well as you could.

He nodded, taking another deep breath. His hold under your face tightened just a bit, thumb and fingers pressing into your jaw. He didn’t thrust, instead, he moved you with his hand. Each time he brought you down on him, he made sure to choke you a little because he knew you liked it.

By the time he was close, your jaw was sore, made worse by his tight hold, your ribs hurt from how hard you had been gagging, the back of your throat was testament that he had lost it a couple of times, and went a bit harder than he meant to. Your entire hand was wet, your thighs shaking and your hips still rolling.

He told you to come with him, told you he wasn’t going to until you did. You pressed the heel of your palm down on your clit and fucked your hand harder. Andy brought you down as far as your throat would allow and held you there, moaning as you attempted to swallow around him.

His hand slid down to your neck and he began to squeeze when he knew you were close, hips moving fast and sloppy. You placed one hand on his thigh to keep yourself balanced, turning your gaze up to him once more.

You felt him start to spill down your throat. He moved harder, hips jerking and cock slamming into the back of your throat each time. The cum that was in your mouth was now beginning to slip out from the sides of your lips.

He pulled out before he was done, one hand in your hair to angle your head back, his other hand stroking his cock as his cum leaked out along your jaw and neck. “God damn, you are fucking gorgeous.”

You stared at him as the tip of your tongue came out to the corner of your mouth where you felt some of his cum.

Immediately, he pulled you onto your feet and shoved you back onto the bed. He was on top of you instantly, using his fingers to collect his cum off your skin so he could feed it to you. As you laid there, licking his fingers, he brought his opposite hand down to your pussy.

“I love feeling your cunt after you’ve just finished.” He teased you several times, just dipping the tips of his fingers in before he pushed two inside you.

You whimpered, lips closed around his fingers. Once he pulled them out, your mouth was free to speak, which was rarely ever a good thing when you two were in bed. “Well, are you going to get inside me, or did you need a minute?”

He arched an eyebrow—it didn’t bother him when you joked about his age, but he pretended it was grounds for true punishment. “Maybe I need several minutes, I guess I just have to keep you coming until then, huh?”

You hummed in protest.

He brought his hand up to grab your jaw, wet fingers pressing tightly into your skin. His lips hovered over yours as he asked, “You’re such a fucking brat, you know that?”

You smiled. “Yes.”

He scoffed. “You’re shameless. I don’t know how you got this bad.”

But he did know, and he would do whatever he possibly could to ensure that you would just get worse. Andy’s success was measured by your bratty episodes. It showed how comfortable you had become with him but also just how much you wanted him.

For the record, you weren’t accusing Andy of being some evil mastermind who had planned this whole…ordeal. That would be insane because it would imply a lot of things that you knew were simply not true about him. He wasn’t a bad person, he was actually one of the best that you had ever met.

But…he was a lawyer. He had picked up some bad habits that came along with that. That meant, that though he didn’t plan this, he was enjoying it thoroughly. In short, you were accusing him of being an opportunist.

The first time you met Andy, he had brought Jacob to that hellhole of a restaurant you used to work at. So, technically Jacob knew you, but he was on his phone the entire time and they were low-maintenance customers, so he’d maybe seen you for a total of 5 minutes over their 2-hour stay. Andy did come back and bring Jacob several times, but it was always the same. He never paid you any mind, and why would he?

So, when you “met” him, half-naked and covered in bruises and bites—something that still made you glare at Andy if you thought about it too much—Jacob already knew you. He just didn’t know you. And after that one encounter, you couldn’t imagine what he thought of you.

This made you realize just how worried you were about how temporary you knew you were. Andy hadn’t said anything so you wondered if Jacob just didn’t tell Laurie. You wondered if she would even care if he had told her. Maybe Andy did this all the time, maybe she just couldn’t be bothered because they weren’t married anymore. You had no idea because Andy rarely spoke to you about Jacob and never spoke about Laurie.

Your grand solution was just trying to avoid Jacob at all costs. Mostly, you were successful, and Andy didn’t seem to mind, per se, but he did not encourage it. He loved his son and he didn’t want part of his life to be completely unknown to Jacob, but you kind of did.

It was one terrible morning when you were a bit hungover from the night before and Andy was making breakfast. He’d just set down a plate of pancakes in front of you, kissed you on top of the head because you were letting him baby you, when Jacob came in, so you didn’t even have an excuse to leave. It would be pathetically clear what you were doing. Were you seriously scared of a 17-year-old boy?

Yes. But you could pretend you weren’t, and you would pretend. There was no other choice. It wasn’t until you were all sitting down for the world’s most awkward breakfast that Andy’s phone rang. He often got calls in the morning and you never minded. Until then.

You shot him a threatening look that he clearly didn’t take seriously. He excused himself and with each step further away, your desire to suddenly die increased.

There was more painfully awkward silence and you wracked your brain for ways to fix it. You could ask him about school, his plans for the day. But that was the easy part. How were you going to word the question casually, unforced? You didn’t have to think on that much longer because he decided to speak first.

“Is my dad your, like, sugar daddy?”

And before you were subjected to having to respond, his friends showed up. Which was great because you couldn’t have formed a response if your life depended on it. But that shock had well worn off by the time Andy returned. He was throwing out apologies and explaining that he was being given an update on one of his cases. He seemed unaware of your silence until he realized Jacob was gone.

“Where’s Jake?”

“He left with his friends.”

“Oh.” He sat down at the table and you glared. “Come on, I didn’t know he was going to be here—”

“He just asked me if you’re my sugar daddy!”

“Well, I am.”

“You are not.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Then what am I? I pay your bills, I buy you things, in return, you spend most of your free time with me. What does that make me?”

You were mad but not about the idea that he was your sugar daddy. Of course, you’d played with that phrase a few times, but it seemed so unrepresentative of your relationship. At least, to you. He clearly saw it that way, and maybe you weren’t even mad about that.

You might not have been mad at all, maybe just scared. You knew that Andy was in love with his ex-wife still and he always would be. She was this terrifying person that you’d never met that essentially held the cards to your life. You figured that if she expressed any anger towards Andy’s relationship with you, that you would be gone. You would have to go back to your life before, like when the carriage was a pumpkin. And the scariest part of that was not that you had no money. It was that you two would just be done as if you never even happened at all.

“Your boyfriend?” he pressed.

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he warned.

“I’m going home.”

“No, you’re not.”

Once more, you rolled your eyes. You pushed away from the table and stormed out of the kitchen and to his bedroom.

He came in moments later after you had thrown his shirt on the bed. You were in nothing more than a pair of panties as you searched for where he’d tossed your clothes the night before. He shut the door and locked it, but you refused to respond to his tactics to make you talk.

“Get on the bed.”

You scoffed incredulously, turning over your shoulder to him with raised eyebrows. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

His hand wrapped around one of your arms and he spun you back to him. You set your hands on his chest to push him away, but he pulled you in so tight that you couldn’t move. He kissed you like it had been years since he last did so, in reality, it had been a little over an hour. It was demanding and fast, he left you no room to protest, but it wasn’t like that mattered because with each passing second, you were giving in.

His free hand slid down between your legs and you broke the kiss to moan. Your head fell back, your body pressed closer to him. It wasn’t a surrender exactly, just a promise that you would get over it and never bring it up again.

But then he said, “Call me daddy.”

You froze, turning your head back to him. “What?”

“Call me daddy,” he repeated. “You want to come? Tell daddy how to make you come.”

It was just a matter of time before it was brought up. Unbeknownst to him, it was on your mind. Unbeknownst to you, it was on his. He hadn’t been the kind for it, then he met you. There was something primal inside him that was triggered when you would whimper and whine, when you were choking on his cock and staring up at him with your beautiful eyes, when you were crying his name. And sometimes, it didn’t completely sound unlike daddy. When you were breathless and fucked good, and nearly mindless. Sometimes, it was close enough that it made him wonder what it would be like.

And you’d been curious too. Ever since he spanked you the first time. You saw Andy as this powerful, good man. He was perfect and didn’t even know it. But all of that was what everyone could see. There were these dark parts of him that made you wet just thinking about. You would never tell him, but once, just one time, he was busy and couldn’t see you one weekend. Meaning you had to take care of yourself. Your dreams were vivid and filthy, and you might have called him daddy in one…so, yeah.

“I’m not going to touch you if you can’t follow orders, princess.”

It took you a moment to find your voice, especially with the way he was looking down at you. “I…don’t know…” It felt weird, like you were admitting this terrible secret. You were aware he had asked you to, but it still felt wrong. Kind of.

“Well,” his fingers slid over you again, a teasing touch that was too light for any real relief, “do you want daddy’s fingers?”

You nodded.

“What about daddy’s cock?”

“Yes.”

“Or maybe daddy’s mouth?” He kissed your forehead first, then your cheek, and finally all over your neck. “Hmm?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want.”

“You know what I want,” he pointed out, pulling back to look at you. “Tell me what you want first.”

He was not letting you out of this and did you actually want him to? Andy was a complete daddy. He spoiled the hell out of, almost literally got off on taking care of you, and he was a kind, beautiful man who had no problems fucking you like he hated you.

“Will you eat my pussy, Daddy?”

Wordlessly, he sat you down on the bed and pushed you onto your back by your shoulders. His eyes on yours, he took you with his mouth over your panties and any doubts you had about this just faded away.

Your breath was shaking as he held you down, his hands gripping your arms tight. You draped your legs over his shoulders and pulled him closer. He pressed his tongue flat against you each time he licked up your aching cunt. “Oh, god,” you blurted out when you felt him at your clit.

He turned his head, nipping at your thigh. It was a prompt.

“Daddy,” you breathed, and he returned his mouth to you. “Daddy, please.”

He hummed. What are you asking for?

“Please, take them off,” you begged.

His fingers slipped under the band of your underwear and he tore them into pieces, without any skill whatsoever, as his tongue sought out bare skin. You’d heard several tears by the time his tongue was inside you.

You arched your back and grabbed a hold of his hair with both hands. He almost instantly took your hands and held them down to the bed again. “Daddy, don’t stop. Please don’t stop. Please make me come.”

He pulled your clit between his lips and you knew that you weren’t going to last much longer. You knew this was your biggest loss so far. He was never going to let you forget that you’d come up here throwing a fit, trying to push him away, only to beg him to eat you out.

Your hips rolled against his face, he seemed surprised for a moment, but he moaned against you, so you kept doing it. “Can I come, Daddy? Please?”

He hummed again, a confirmation.

When you moved instead of waiting for him, you could feel his beard. That was the only reason you kept canting your hips up to meet the swipes of his tongue that were toeing the line of being too good.

He let his tongue drop down to tease your entrance, earning a frustrated whine from you. Your clit wasn’t neglected for long, you felt the tip of his nose hovering just right there. So, if you were to move, if you bucked your hips just right, you discovered quickly just how to get the right kind of pressure there.

Andy loved every second of it, he loved the smell of you and the taste of you, and he knew he was never going to be a better position to indulge in both. You were wild even though he was pinning you down, you were hardly ever this desperate, this upfront with your desire. It was the sexiest thing he ever witnessed.

You finished on his tongue and he let no drop of you go to waste. He was selfish in the way he ran his mouth along the oversensitive parts of you. Before reality had even made its way back to you, he’d placed you on your knees before him. Your body was moving without your brain, like pure instinct. Your mouth opened for him before you even knew you were on the floor and you took him in as deep as you could.

He took a handful of your hair and held you in place, hips slowly, gently moving back and forth. You were gagging around him but he was letting you get used to it, telling you that you were such a good girl, reminding you how well you knew how to suck his cock, how you’d always been so good at it.

He didn’t want to come in your mouth, he just wanted to get close. He threw you down on the bed just as soon as he’d gotten you back on your feet and then he was on top of you. His hand wrapped around your neck as he slotted his hips between your thighs.

His eyes locked on yours, he slowly sunk into you. It was damn near painful the kind of restraint he was using, how he was denying you that fast kind of fucking he knew you loved. He pulled back, using his knees for balance, and kept his hold on your throat.

His thrusts were too gentle, several agonizing times, until you were squirming and whimpering. He didn’t seem concerned with what you wanted then, he merely kept his eyes moving over your body.

“Andy,” you complained.

He tsked. “Baby girl.”

“Daddy,” you corrected instantly. “Daddy, please. I need you to fuck me.”

Instead, he leaned back down and kissed you. He started at your mouth and then moved to your jaw. His hips barely moved, just enough to keep you on this edge of murderous rage. Seriously? After what you just went through? He wasn’t going to fuck you to make it up to you?

He sat back again and tightened his hand when you opened your mouth. It was the nicest way he was ever going to tell you to shut up, but he was telling you to. You were too scared to show any signs of disobedience at this point.

He pulled out and you whined unintelligibly. You received nothing more than a brief ‘hush’ before he was laying down next to you. He was on his side, propping one of your legs over his hip as he slid back into you. He lifted you up so you could lay your head on his bicep and used that arm to grab your opposite thigh, pulling it out to the side so you were completely open for him.

“Daddy,” you mewled. You couldn’t keep doing this, you needed to come. You needed him to make you come. He dragged his cock out and then shoved back in, earning a strangled yelp from you. You brought both hands up to hold the forearm that was still pressed between your breasts.

It was then that he started this horrible pattern of fucking you hard, hard, until you were just about to come. You would be shaking, begging like you never had before, promising you would never talk back to him again, and then he would just stop.

He never denied your orgasm. If anything, he just threatened to, didn’t follow through, then made weak threats that he would next time. It was a nice routine and you weren’t sure why he wanted to ruin it.

He told you to leave your thigh where it was and then brought that hand up. He started at your mouth, he ordered you to close your lips around his fingers. He was choking you still and now gagging you and you were abruptly lightheaded. He’d never given you a safe word, you were sure he never intended to go too far. The idea that he might, though… Ugh.

He pulled his fingers from your mouth and they were soaking wet because he didn’t give you the chance to swallow. He dragged them down your body, stopping to pinch one of your nipples painfully until you gasped, and then down to your pussy.

Tears filled your eyes immediately as he pressed his fingers down on your clit. He kissed the side of your face several times before stating, “I can’t keep giving you what you want if you’re going to be such a brat, baby.”

“I’m not being a brat,” you protested.

“You’re not?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he scoffed. His fingers began to rub circles into you.

You shot him a desperate look. “Daddy, please I need you to make me come.”

He arched an eyebrow, hips still but hand moving. “Oh, you need me to?”

“No one else makes me come like you do.” It was clear that you were just saying anything you could think to make him give in. True? Yes. But were the words sincere? Not at all, and you didn’t want him to know that. Yes, you liked spending time with Andy, you even loved fucking him, but this was not a relationship. It was an arrangement first and you had to protect yourself.

He rolled his eyes at you. “Transparent.”

You let your head fall back into the pillow with an exaggerated sigh. “Please?”

“No.”

You looked at him instantly, eyebrows pulling together. “What?”

“No,” he repeated slowly.

He’d never just told you no. Maybe in a roundabout way, he’d talked his way through the fact of no, but never once had he just out and said it. You had no idea how to reply. After all, he was in charge here. If he said no, did you have to accept it?

He brought his fingers down to where your bodies were connected and pulled out completely. He dipped his fingers into you at the same time he was easing his cock back in.

You bit down on your lip, willing yourself to relax. He was always a tight fit, even without the addition of two of his thick fingers, even on those weeks when he fucked you every day, numerous times a day.

“You’re okay,” he promised. “You can take it.”

You tried spreading your legs even more, hoping that would make him easier to take.

“Good girl.” He pulled his cock and fingers out briefly before working them both back in simultaneously. “How’s it feel, baby?”

“It hurts a little.”

“But you can take it, can’t you?” He kissed along your cheekbone. “You want it, right? Because you’re my good girl.”

You were nodding before you even truly thought about it. You wanted anything he wanted to give you, in reality. You supposed this was not the exception to that rule.

He continued pulling out and teasing back in, going just a little deeper each time.

Your cunt was aching by the time you propped yourself up on your elbows to see. The sight of him inside you was sinful and delicious.

He felt you flutter around him and kissed the side of your face again. “You like when I stretch you out, baby?”

You nodded. That was exactly how you felt. Stretched. It still hurt but not in any kind of way that you didn’t like. Your cheeks were flushed since he’d been denying you a finish, otherwise, you would be blushing terribly. It was a toe-in-the-water of humiliation, you felt a little objectified, or reduced to a single body part. Again, not something you were opposed to because your mind was fucked up enough that your body would respond ecstatically to anything Andy wanted to do to it.

“Do you want another one?”

You weren’t sure, but that didn’t stop you from claiming you did. You watched the tip of his third finger collect the slick on the base of his cock and slide into you. He began pulling out and gently pushing both fingers and cock back in until he was buried several inches and two knuckles into your pussy.

“You are soaked, baby.”

Part of you hated that. How bratty could you be from here on out if you were this wet for him? If your cunt was literally begging him for more of his fingers? That was the pride part of you. The sick part of you stopped to think about how he had 7 more fingers to fuck you with, if he wanted. “Can I have another?”

He smirked. “I think 3 is enough tonight, princess. I don’t want to hurt you too much.”

“I want all your fingers inside me, daddy.”

He scoffed. “Not sure that’s possible, you’re still so tight. But I do have a little more I can give you.” As he pressed more of his fingers in, beyond that second knuckle which made you gasp and squirm because it burned, he also gave you more of his cock.

You were shaking, hand settling on his forearm once more. “Oh, daddy…I feel so full.”

“And your desperate cunt still wants more?”

“Anything from you, daddy. Can I please come?”

He didn’t answer, his hips merely began moving. He roughly fucked into you as he pulled just so with his fingers to keep you painfully stretched.

You were getting close again. That stinging sensation was starting to fade away with the building pleasure. When he angled his hand and let his thumb massage your clit, you knew you wouldn’t last much longer. “Daddy, please.”

“You can’t come.”

You whined. “Daddy!”

“I said no.”

You pressed your hand to his stomach to still his hips, but he paid you no mind. “Daddy, I’m going to come.”

“You better not,” he warned, but didn’t do anything to help you want that. If anything, his hips snapped a bit harder.

“Please stop, daddy,” you begged, voice pathetically small and whiny. You didn’t care how you sounded or looked, you just didn’t want to come without him letting you. You didn’t want to disappoint him. “Daddy, I’m close. Please stop.”

He scoffed, free hand coming up to your face. “You’re such a good girl, you know that?”

You frantically shook your head. You weren’t so good that you wouldn’t come, so really, you needed him to stop.

“You don’t want to come without my permission?”

“No, daddy.”

He pressed his thumb down harder and rubbed faster, earning an unintelligible, sad sound from you. “It’s okay, baby girl, you can come. Daddy wants to feel you coming around his cock.”

You lifted your hand back up to his arm, trying to turn into his body as much as you could. He understood immediately and moved his hold from your neck to drape his arm across you, resting his hand on your back. You set your head in the bend of his neck as you started to come.

He groaned when he felt you get tighter. “That’s it, baby. That’s what I wanna feel.”

Tears were rolling down your cheeks by the time you were coming. Your body had never felt relief so strong. Andy shushed you through it all and told you that you were so good and didn’t stop until he had you filled with his cum.

He let you settle before urging you onto your back. “You okay, baby?”

“Yes, daddy.” You were more than just okay. You were sated and aching, you were exhausted and blissful. It had been a while since he’d spent so much time on you and you felt good, doted on, paid attention to.

He carefully pulled his fingers from your cunt, eyeing your face as he did, but then quickly took your jaw in one hand and shoved the fingers into your mouth. You instantly began sucking on them. “A few things. First, you do not roll your eyes at me. Second, you do not leave the table unless I tell you that you can. Third, do not ever walk away from me. Fourth, when I tell you to get your ass on the bed, you better get your ass on the bed. Are we clear?”

You nodded, speaking around his fingers.

“Glad to hear it.” He slowly extracted his fingers, massaging your jaw with the opposite hand. “When you can walk again, I’ll take you shopping—”

You hurriedly jumped out of bed, rushing for the shower. “I’ll be ready in an hour!”

requests to be tagged:

@onetwo3000​ @chris-evans-indian-fanfic​

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

so... *inhales deeply* IN A SCALE OF 1-10 HOW HURT ARE YOU FROM THAT EPISODE??? But seriously... how are you handling Penny's character arc so far? ; w ;

*inhales deeply*

100/10

1000/10

111000001001010101010010101010101010101010010100000000000000/10

(I started ranting, so I’m putting it under a cut)

I just I can’t - have you ever had a singular moment of an episode repeat over and over again in your head that just leaves you utterly devastated?

cause that’s me with those final moments with Penny.  Like the way her voice breaks when she says ‘dad’ and then the ‘I love you’ as she’s LITERALLY PLUMMETING LIKE A GODDAMN METEOR.

I have relative confidence she’ll survive, bc it doesn’t really make sense narratively for her to die right then, but still but still

Ironwood, I know I like you quite a lot as a character, but I fucking hate you for this you bastard

I just, his dialogue with Watts (when he threw the scroll, and nice going there too dude) made me wonder if Ironwood was waiting until they were done with the Amity message to do the hack.  like to give them a chance bc some small part of him still believes in uniting the world and he can’t fucking know Penny is literally midair just then or the exact effect the hack will have on her.  But then, Ironwood could have been working with them this whole time.  Instead of trying to force Penny back to him, he could have been working with her and her friends.  Imagine if she, Pietro, and Maria had more backup at Amity from the military?  Imagine if they didn’t have to break into the military base?  But no, because Jamesy has a stick so far up his ass, none of that happened and instead we’re in a situation where Pietro thinks his daughter has died a second time, Penny has been violated, and I’m hoping Pietro or Maria calls Team RWBN to update them and have them try to find Penny on the slim chance that they can get to her before Winter and the AceOps or Salem.

*is also pointedly watching Winter and Marrow, like you two, this better be the moment of defection for you two.

Sure, I applaud the storytelling of it all.  That’s freaking brilliant.  But I just yeah, this one has left me devastated and terrified.

I want to believe things will turn out well for Penny in the end.  To have her go through all of this and come out on top and reclaim her personhood.  If that’s what’s going to happen, then this is an utterly thrilling narrative I’m glad I get to see play out as it airs.

Like Penny’s arc is about self-definition and proving she’s a Real Girl.  The way to do that is to have her jump the hurdles of antagonizing forces (Ironwood, Watts, Salem, Cinder) trying to prove otherwise.  To do so, the hurdles (the hacking) actually have to actually exist and be shown as an actual obstacle, which the narrative has done a very good job of laying out for us.

At the same time, there’s a part of me sitting here like, they already killed her off once.  That shows they’re not afraid to Go There, so who’s to say they won’t a second time?  The canon precedent is that Penny is killable.

but I do think Penny’s arc ending in her being manipulated horribly and then dying isn’t going to be how it goes in canon.  That just goes against pretty much every theme RWBY has tried to lay out.  A second death doesn’t work as a portrayal of escalation of the stakes bc that was the point of the first, and we, the audience, already know the stakes are massively high right now.  An entire kingdom (all of Remnant) is on the line!

So, ending Penny’s narrative like that would be horribly cruel and maybe fitting in a grimdark show, but RWBY is hopepunk.

Basically I’m choosing to believe that Penny will come out on top by the end of all this.  Her path to getting there is going to hurt a lot for us, but her narrative will end with her definitively claiming her autonomy and proving she’s a Real Girl once and for all.

(honestly, I have to believe that, because otherwise, if they’re truly going down a route where we just end up getting hurt for daring to care about Penny, about one of their characters, then it could, in all likeliness, flat out break my relationship with RWBY)

(again, I don’t think that’s the likeliest scenario here, but I have spent some time coming to peace with the fact that, considering how much I’m emotionally invested in Penny, if her fate is horrible at the end of all this, I will likely need to either temporarily or permanently distance myself from RWBY for a bit to cool down from the emotional high)

So, overall I feel like I’m caught between two options:

1. It gets darkest just before the dawn.  Penny is going through a lot right now, but she’ll come out on top, and that triumph will be made all the sweeter by everything she had to overcome to get there.  I feel like this option comes with the bonus that we could get an utter banger of a Penny song out of the volume ost.  Also maybe some kind of emotional scene with Ruby.  I’m personally all for this option and hope it happens.

2. The option that I don’t think is very likely, but want to have at least addressed as a possibility (mostly so I’m not in a constant, panicky emotional tailspin over fictional characters).  Penny’s first death means they’re unafraid of going down the same tragic route a second time.  Penny will be manipulated and die.

This second option is only really an option because we’re not allowed to know how the narrative is going to go, and we’re left simmering for a week before we’re allowed to know more.  As the audience, we have time to imagine the worst possible scenario, which it is.

[fmdtaeyongarchive]

q3 2021 update & plot call !!

below the cut, you can find an update on ash’s current life, career (or rather absence of), and development for quarter three, as well as plot and thread ideas! if you see anything that you’d like to plot out or write with him, like this or message me, and we can get to it! i have a lot in mind about where ash is right now, so i might add more and expand later on!

mentions of ash’s continuing struggle with mental illness under the cut in case you don’t wanna read that rn

professionally

ash is on hiatus the whole quarter so... not much going on here.

uhh basically the first two days of july he was still trying to get bc to let him take a break so schedule threads could be set then if they cross paths at the bc building! he’s going to be participating in concert rehearsals for knight to a less intense extent since bc, as of the beginning of his hiatus, fully intends him to participate in the concerts. he’ll miss about the first half of the tour, but in july and august he’ll still be attending knight tour rehearsals some to keep up. schedule threads can also be done then!

(note that he’ll be missing the bc city concert as well — i don’t see him dropping by just to support either tbh, sorry bc ppl. white knight duo ver tho let’s gooooooooooo)

ash will eventually start writing music and finding his love of that again though and that’s pretty much the most work he can do during his hiatus, so it’d be cool to maybe have him write, compose, or produce for a few people that might be releasing later this year or sometime next year if anyone is interested? :) we can see if ash would work for it. there’s also opening for him to ask a few people he’s close to to sing some demos for him when he starts trying to write again!

personally + plot ideas!

explaining how he got to his hiatus would take me all day but he basically forced bc’s hand in letting him take time off (well, he wanted to leave knight and retire ngl but his manager was like... you know that’s not going to happen let’s try a hiatus <3). you can read my badly-written solos for part of it (i still need to write more) but generally, the most other muses might know is that they might have run into him acting kinda moody/down or impulsive/irresponsible lately, he made a very uncharacteristic post on social media that hinted at being unhappy with his life currently and losing passion/excitement for even the things he used to value most highly before his social media was deactivated by bc lmaaooo. the post would have probably conveyed Something was up it it wasn’t like genuinely super triggering-level content i promise !! bc released a statement shortly after stating he’d be going on hiatus without mentioning a definitive end date.

so there’s the possibility a muse might have checked up on him after that post / the hiatus news to see how he was doing?

tbh ash isn’t going to be seeking out meeting new people during his hiatus. he’s taking time to himself and is only going to make any effort to hang out with people he’s comfortable with. those he’s not close to, he’s going to have to interact with by running into unintentionally.

he’s getting a place in jeju in the early-ish part of his hiatus. he’ll be spending a lot of time there at first because he just wants to get away from seoul, so it’d be nice to set some threads there if your muse has the time to hop over to visit him if they have anything resembling a free day. (again a certain level of closeness would be necessary, but i think one good heart to heart conversation beforehand could bring someone closer to him enough for that rn! even over text tbh lmao). chuseok would be a really good time for this !! i imagine catching up over lowkey dinners or heart to hearts under the stars, that found family ash has actively fought having lol

(that place in jeju is also going to be where he starts to want to write music again too, so music based stuff there would be chill?)

heart to hearts in general anywhere would be really good for ash right now so please give me those! they can be in seoul too for sure.

he’ll be moving into a new apartment in seoul eventually, though that will probably be a little later in his hiatus? he had some bad fan/sasaeng run-ins right before his hiatus and having so much time off makes him realize he wants to move. someone can help him house hunt or if someone else is looking for a place, they can talk together about it. i want him to realize he wants to move into a smaller place that can feel more like home

once he does move, muses are free to come over and help him set up / be his one-man housewarming party. that’s a little down the line tho !! so we might not want to plot that as a thread to write right this instant

he may also be getting a pet ! muses can come look with him at a shelter or he can run into people there!

this would be a little later in his hiatus, but it’d be interesting if once he’s doing a little better, he gets the urge to dance and runs into a muse at the dance studio. idk that he’ll ever fall completely back in love with dancing, but he might rediscover some of what he did love about dancing and ash and this muse often run into each other as he visits that dance studio a little more often and they eventually bond over it / do some dancing together.

those who still really have that passion for making music ash has lost, talk to him about it <3 he misses it. he might cry but tbh he’s liable to cry in any thread

he’s cutting his hair short and dying it back to black this month, so it would be possible to run into him at the hair salon!

ash will want to be inside at home mostly at the beginning of his hiatus, but as it goes on, he’ll start to branch out and that will offer some more opportunities to hang out. he’ll try not to go to bars and clubs really, but small music venues or jazz lounges, small indie cinemas, galleries, those kind of things will be up his alley

idk that there’s much plotting to be had around this, but this long hiatus on top of the other hiatuses he’s had and his acting out before this hiatus is going to make some of the bc team realize it might not be super wise to keep pushing him hard as a cf model (and in the long run, just less of pushing him as a major idol star within the company in general tbh) so he’ll be able to get some more tattoos and piercings and will become more comfortable, hopefully, with presenting himself how he wants to be seen / having some development in that good ol’ lack of bodily autonomy aspect ash has always had going on. he’ll be coming out of hiatus living much more of his 2021 jk fc truth with the full sleeve and the eyebrow piercing .

uhhh ? pretty far down the line but i’ll mention it while it’s on my mind :) i think it’d be cool if ash did a collab (mini-)album (or two?) at some point after getting off hiatus. i’d want it to be someone he really clicks with creatively (though they don’t have to be a songwriter — i can see it working as collaborative songwriting or as ash feeling really inspired to write for them) and wants to work with since it’s not going to be something he’s letting bc push him into it at that point, and something that just happens organically. realistically, this would work with a female vocal best by far, maybe a male rapper just based on the songs ash does / i can see him doing. probably wouldn’t want to commit to anything fully rn unless it really clicks but i wanted to throw the idea out there :)

uhmmm?? ig i should also mention ash will be paying attention to his health both mental and physical he’s been neglecting for a while. there isn’t too much to say regarding plotting here because he needs to handle it himself with trying new therapy, medications, understanding there’s some stuff beyond “just” his depression going on. coming to accept nothing’s ever going to be perfect, but that self-awareness and effort can help more than denial can. not super plot potential-y but i’ll mention it since this is all the personal update section

basically, ash is taking time to recover mentally (and physically) and ultimately hopefully leave hiatus in a better place than he started where he can be more comfortable in his career, even if just a little bit, in himself, and in his life. if he can have some good, developing threads during the time, that’d be great!

[jasontoddiefor]

(Grandpa Vader) Vader is putting Rey down for a nap and doing his best approximation of what his suit will allow for singing which doesn’t sound nice to him but his Rey of sunshine loves it

TW for Vader’s physical health bc oh boy

His throat ached. Usually his support suit forced air in and out of his lungs. It had taken long to get used to the involuntary movement, but after so many years Vader had gotten used to it. Now he loathed breathing on his own. The Emperor forced him to do so at times for his disobedience. He turned off Vader’s life support and his meager protection against Force-lightening, which meant he had to breathe manually. Not many had managed to drive him so far in battle that he had to breathe on his own, but Ahsoka did come to mind. When his pain had echoed in the Force, she had certainly been taken aback for a moment before resuming her assault.

He wondered what she would think of him now. The whole procedure exhausted him quickly, never mind how dangerous it was to his own health.

And yet here he was, all machinery turned off so he could produce a low vibration in his throat. He used to have a good voice before he fell, or so he had been told. Singing had been entertaining then, now it was just a torture he could hardly manage. Humming was much easier for him. The notes rumbled deep at the back of his throat, a half-forgotten lullaby he recalled his mother singing to him.

The child sleeping soundly on his chest wasn’t complaining. Rey was a fussy baby. Not so much out loud, she hardly screamed or cried, Force-sensitive children rarely spoke early when they were surrounded by others who were gifted like them. Some of the calmest rooms in the Jedi Temple had been the rooms for their youngest. They only started making noise when they were around three years of age, and then spoke full sentences rather quickly. There would be no telling how Rey would develop, similarly likely with only Luke and him to look after her. They were both strong in the Force, and so was she, even if she had been born prematurely. Then again, Anakin had been born in the desert, Vader on the shores of Mustafar and Luke from tragedy and the coldness of space. If anything, they were stronger for it.

Vader breathed in again, held it for a few moments, then slowly pushed the air out of his lungs again. The movement was precise, deliberate. He exercised as much control over the movement as his suit and his muscles allowed him too.

It was supposed to be a joyful melody, the kind that made you forget about all the hardships of the day. Vader used to associate it with safety and the sky, all his hopes and dreams. He doubted it would mean the same to Rey, locked up as she was in their quarters. She was too young now to truly understand what was going on and would be for years to come, but one day in the future she would have to leave this haven. No child should be raised a prisoner, yet Vader was forcing his granddaughter and his son to endure it for their own safety. He had to dispose of the Emperor soon so he could give his family what they always out to have.

It was getting harder to concentrate. Vader could feel his control, the absolute best and sharpest in the galaxy, starting to slip. He couldn’t continue on like this much longer, but he loathed to stop. Rey was so warm, full of content and happiness in his arms where she had been crying out in the Force before. It had been so loud, Vader had expected Luke to abandon his shift all together and just return to their quarters. But his son too had a role to play, couldn’t only be Rey’s father and the wonder Vader knew him to be. No, he had to hide away as another mechanic in the Star Destroyer’s ranks as to not draw any attention to himself.

Perhaps Vader should have brought them to Mustafar or hidden them away somewhere else, but then he’d never be quick enough to come to their aid should they call out to him.

“You’re in pain.”

Vader slowly turned around to see Luke standing in the entryway of the nursery, leaning against the door frame. Tired as he was, Luke looked so incredibly young. Vader knew he had gotten a few comments about it, they had aged Luke up considerably on his forged ID, but given his wisdom, Vader sometimes even believed it. He had been a snot-nosed Padawan still at Luke’s age. Unable to move forward or truly understand how the Force worked.

“You don’t have to suffer for us, Father,” Luke continued.

“I know.”

But he wanted to. In another world, somewhere kinder perhaps, he would be able to hum or sing for his granddaughter without walking towards death's door, but not in this one.

Luke only shook his head and finally stepped close. He did not take Rey from Vader, he merely sought out the control panels that reactivated Vader’s machine-assisted breathing. He looked up to Vader and when he nodded, Luke turned it on again.

Air was pushed in and out of his lungs once more against his will, overriding his autonomy and keeping him alive. It was a blessing and a curse at once.

“It is an unpleasant sound,” Vader told Luke when he had adjusted to the switch.

“Because it’s the last thing your enemies hear?” Luke asked.

Then he snorted, his lips curled to a smile so reminiscent of his mother, it would have taken Vader’s breath away.

“I’ve never associated it with harm,” Luke said. “And I don’t think Rey does either. She likes it. Her own personal lullaby.”

His breathing was everything but a kind lullaby, yet Rey was still sleeping. She was comfortable, swaddled in a thick warm blanket, lying in the arms of a blood-drenched mechanic nightmare. He wondered if she’d think the same when she was old enough to see the gore Vader created on his path through the galaxy. She would have to witness it someday to know Vader would never let any harm come to her, and yet he didn’t want her to ever be exposed to such horrors. It was bad enough Luke got to see the worst this war had to offer even though he was stuck on the ship.

“You’re joking.”

“No, really.” Luke grinned. “I play a recording of it when I put her to sleep. It works like a charm. Doesn’t it, my little Rey of sunshine?”

Rey, of course, didn’t reply or react in any way, but she was still warm and alive and untroubled.

It was enough for now.

[shkspr]

okay so here’s the deal i need to talk about how georgie barker is ophelia. and i don’t mean to paint georgie as the hapless helpless hopeless victim girl forsaken by men and i don’t mean to paint her as someone without autonomy or agency bc i don’t think that’s who ophelia is, either. there’s a lot of temporal and philosophical distance btwn the two works and i think that georgie has a lot of what ophelia could have been, if she had a creator who loved her.

in this analogy, jon is hamlet, and the time from when he and georgie broke up until they reconnect in s3, that’s wittenberg. the institute is wittenberg. martin is horatio. in fact, the conversation btwn martin and georgie in mag149 is what really made me feel this comparison hard enough that i needed to talk about it. 

the thing is, georgie’s right. jon is on a bad path, obviously, and it is going to be bad for him and everyone around him, and she can’t make him stop. he is, in a very real sense, descending into madness. and he knows it and he’s caught btwn wanting to stop it and knowing that he needs it, and he will not stop. and georgie sees that and she loves him! she does, but she’s right: caring about someone doesn’t mean destroying yourself for them.

it’s important to note that there’s no analog for polonius or laertes in this, bc georgie doesn’t need that. georgie does it all by herself, the reasoning and the deciding and the protecting. nobody possesses georgie but georgie. it could be said that melanie is a loose parallel with laertes, as the person closest to her and the person who cares about her more than anyone else, but again, there’s no possession there, only love.

i’ve long said that hamlet is a tragedy bc ophelia doesn’t get to be a person. ophelia doesn’t get to feel for herself, speak for herself, act for herself until it’s too late. ophelia sees hamlet and his world and his issues and she wants to help so badly but she doesn’t have the resources to do it. georgie has the resources and she tries so fucking hard and jon doesn’t listen and georgie gets the fuck out.

she says i will not let you drag me down, i will not let your fucking horror show hurt me and the people i love. he’s beyond saving, beyond her abilities at least, and she sees that and she recognizes it and she says i will not drown for you. georgie gets out, in the way ophelia never could.

[1nkweaver]

For your boys.

Opal

1. How do they want to be seen by others?

Opal wants to be seen as someone that can be trusted above all else. He understands that the first impressions of him are normally people who are either afraid or unsettled, and his strange nature normally means the unsettling thing stays for a while. But in all truth, he really is just here to try and help absolutely every person that he can. Obviously this becomes hard when the party is going against “bad guys” but Opal understands that the world is like that sometimes, mortals fight each other and some people are trying to do good and some are definitely trying to do bad but most people are just scared or confused. For some people though Opal definitely takes advantage of fear in a sort of “scare them on the right path” sort of way.

When you just get down to it though, Opal just wants to be trusted, he wants to be confided in, and he wants to be -believed- So many people think he has lied to them when he hasn’t, and it’s caused more than a few problems in his past when people dont believe him.

2. If they could only save one thing from a burning house, what would it be?

I’m going to write off things like “himself” or “people” for this one because I feel like it’s too obvious. Opal was in a burning building once and not much made it out, but what he went for was his shield in that moment. His shield bore the symbol of Zemtris, and when Opal first connected with them, it was the sole physical item representing that connection, the only mark of Zemtris’ presence on the mortal plane. When the building was burning down, Opal went for the symbol, and it being emblazoned on a shield did not go unnoticed. As long as Opal held that shield, he did not die even as the flames ate up his body. I’d have to believe that such an act of faith that shook him to his very core would leave a lasting impression. Opal can restart from the ashes of anything, but he can’t lose that shield, that symbol. It’s too important.

Would Opal leave the shield to save a person instead? That’s a different question :)

3. What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person?

Opal believes that causing someone to “die” in his understanding of it, which is so much more than killing the body. What Opal refers to as a spiritual death, or the literal killing of someones soul, is worse than actual death. Things like slavery, manipulation, or oppression, things that force people to go through their lives in a meaningless way- even things such as menial jobs, it’s those things that sap the happiness and excitement of life from you that Opal feels is the worst thing to do to a person. To leave the body and kill the soul is a horrible thought to him, and his heart reaches out to those that are walking, talking, breathing, but to him are already dead.

4. What is their perception of the concept of redemption?

Opal is a believer in the fact that mortals are more powerful than gods, and it is because they are mortal that they are so. To be mortal to Opal means that you can choose, you can change. He believes that mortals are shackled to fate but it is their responsibility to fight against those shackles and free themselves with their own strength. Opal believes that immortality can be achieved through just a sheer unwillingness of a mortal to resist death, to -want- hard enough. He feels that Gods in this respect are limited, bound by their nature, and so weaker. This all ties perfectly into the concept of redemption. Opal does not believe that something like a God can be redeemed because they are unable to change, whereas a strength of mortals is their ability to always change. As such, not only does Opal believe that redemption is always possible for anyone, but it is one of the core strengths about being a living being that you can have.

Pick

1. How do they want to be seen by others?

A lot of Picks feelings are always torn between two opposites, and for Pick it’s an inherent want to be the center of attention that was ingrained into him in an unhealthy way, and a want to be completely ignored. Theres good and bad aspects of both of these, he likes to make sure everyones looking at him which can do things like make a group of people laugh, or protect someone in a fight, but he also can sometimes become overwhelmed with the stares and the attention, and starts to get angry with it. He understands that his being a goblin plays into this, and theres attitudes towards goblins that he doesn’t want to be associated with. He’s a ball of hypocrisy because he likes to be confident in his personality but then sometimes feels he’s too predictable. He gets caught in a constant loop of “look at me, look at how different I am, hah!” and “please ignore me, just see me as normal, I just want to be normal.”

On more simple notes though, he definitely wants to be seen as mature, competant, smart. He doesn’t believe he’s made it this far in life by not being those things and so he wants to be recognized for it.

2. If they could only save one thing from a burning house, what would it be?

Though I said “themself” would be cheap for Opal, I think it makes a lot more sense for Pick. He’d sooner leave all items in there if it was to ensure his own survival, because his whole life has been about what you need to sacrifice to survive.

If there’s other people it’s hard, and he’d most likely just freeze up not knowing if he should risk himself to save someone or gt out. I like to think in the moment he’d try to be the hero, but he’s also not someone who considers himself one.

If we’re just talking about items, he would either save the [redacted] that he keeps on his back, bc he feels it’s important, or perhaps Anders letter to him, as its the last words Anders gave him and also has information that he needs to continue on his search. Either of those. He’s mostly committed the letter to memory tho so more likely he’d save the [redacted].

3. What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person?

Pick believes that the worst thing you can do to a person is reduce them to something less than a person, it’s really as simple as that. The concept of some people just being “better” or “more important” really pisses him off, and when he sees people referred to as things like “undesirables” or “property” that really sets him off. A big part of it is how goblins are treated like just vermin to be exterminated, but another part does come from goblin society itself, where your worth is measured by how many people you can push beneath you.

Things tied to this hatred would be things that restrict ones ability to do things such as tying them up, putting them in small places/locking them up, being grabbed or held down, physical things like that- and then also social situations where you feel you must be forced into a lower role. These all tie back to just the concept of removing someones autonomy.

Pick doesn’t understand politics very well so he thinks the ideal world is where everyone has an equal chance to fight for what they want? I guess? Fuck big pharma.

4. What is their perception of the concept of redemption?

Revenge is taken, redemption is given. If you’re searching for it from someone else, or a higher power, friend, family, enemy, whatever, you might not get it, it’s not gaurenteed. You also shouldn’t just always give it to someone else, some people dont deserve the forgiveness that would grant them redemption. In the end it’s about whether you can do it for yourself, if you think you deserve to be redeemed. Pick is not seeking redemption, he’s seeking retribution, and in his book he deserves it, and that he isn’t a bad person at all for what he’s going to do.

Pick’s outlook on life is he prefers to think that people are inherently evil rather than good. Because to him that means that people that do evil things are weak and giving in to their base instincts, whereas the people who do good are the ones that are really trying to overcome something. It’s a..pessimistic optimism. He’d rather be born evil and try so hard to do good, than just be born good and do what’s expected of him.

[ryssabrin]

i’ve been binging all the dbh alternate ending paths on yt bc i’m honestly curious about actual decent scenes there could be hidden under all the heavy handed biblical allegory and there’s a p rare ending i guess? where markus dies and fails his part but connor manages to convert all the warehouse androids and somehow becomes the leader of the revolution instead.

he’s about to do a speech and then cyberlife tries to take control and says it was “their plan all along~” (yeah it’s as dumb as it sounds) and now they control the leader of all the deviants (if amanda had a mustache to twirl that would go here) and connor fights to regain control to actually kill himself just so cyberlife can’t get their way and honestly. tbh. the way the scene is framed and the look of determination on connor’s face as he aims the gun and you see he’s willing to sacrifice the life and autonomy and humanity he fought all along to gain and he won’t come back this time just so the androids can win and not be manipulated by the evil corporation is a much more moving and meaningful scene than any of markus’s weird pseudo-messiah bullshit. (the scene cuts away before he actually does it too which works really well tbh.)

and like i think it works so well bc it’s specific to the artificial intelligence story and has no direct analogue to slavery or holocaust imagery. like it would only work in a story about androids rebelling agains humans.

why couldn’t u just make a good android game david cage. why.