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jinxvex · 3 months ago

Note

can we get jinx w a very doting gf :3

♱ gf!jinx x doting (affectionate)!reader ♱

yes!! i love this request! 🖤 oneshot vibes fr!

cw: a bit angsty at first, little snippets of act 1/season 2,SFW & NSFW!!!, smutty drabble at the end, jinx pushes you into a wall once, you're very affectionate (obv), kissing, hugging, dirty talk, tribbing, praise, dom-ish!jinx & sub!reader, etc etc

wc: 1.4K

jinx had nothing; no one.

not after the her attack on piltover.

her unhinged, yet powerful act of rebellion ultimately caused a war between the city of progress and the dangerous underground city of zaun.

and had forced her into hiding…

i mean, what was worse? being caught by the stuck-up, zaunite-hating, piltie goons who murdered her mother and father or being alone?

she often contemplated that question.

she contemplated her future.

was any of it worth it now that her sister wanted nothing to do with her? now that she’s laid her adoptive father to rest in the contaminated murky river? now that she has a bounty on her head?

she wasn’t sure.

she wasn’t sure if anyone even gave a damn about her or whether she lived or died.

“it’s all just… pointless!” she replayed on a loop in her head, the place that has always been too loud and too daunting for her comfort.

jinx was alone.

well, until she met you.

as jinx sneakily roamed the dark and dingy alleyways of zaun in her not-so-discreet disguise, she was met with (almost) complete and utter silence. which casts an eerie feeling of unfamiliarity within her bones.

the lively (although still dangerous) streets of zaun were usually bustling with people. drunks, shimmer addicts, salesmen, crooks, and goons alike typically overcrowd every inch of the sunken city, which used to allow her to go wherever she pleased without anyone noticing her.

since the enforcers started raiding the city and imprisoning the people of zaun, a petty punishment for her own wrongdoings, many zaunites didn’t feel safe. they opted to stay inside, shut themselves out, and draw the blinds closed to prevent them from being taken too.

as jinx continues to walk towards her destination, “home”, a wave of loneliness washes over her, a feeling she so desperately had attempted to rid herself of for years.

she isn’t inclined to speak, though. not out loud to empty space or to the voices. maybe she’d save that for home.

as her head is angled downwards, looking at her dragging feet, she turns another corner in order to make her way back to her humble abode.

and all of a sudden, she bumps into a hard, human-shaped object? as she backs up menacingly after plummeting into something, she slowly brings her head up and is met with the sight of… you.

“a girl?” she exclaims in her head.

“a pretty one.”

“does she live near here?”

“wait! does she know who i am?”

“is she here to kill me? take me away?”

“no. no! i can’t let her.”

“not now…”

“damn it!”

her thoughts overflow with endless possibilities and scenarios that cause her to grip your shoulders and harshly back you up into the hard surface of a cement building without warning.

you gasp loudly, but as you bring your hands up to fight back and protect yourself from whatever is about to come, your moments are suddenly still.

as you look into her pinkish, vibrant eyes, you’re met with fear. you’re met with anger, loneliness, and suffering, which prompt you to freeze. her face is littered with fresh cuts, scrapes, and scars. your heart squeezes in empathy as you look into each other's eyes—jinx not even having the energy to reach for her gun out of concern for herself.

“you’re hurt.” you mutter softly. your caring nature immediately wanting to help her. jinx. and yes, you know of her. that doesn’t matter to you now.

her eyes still gaze into yours, even as she removes her hands from your shoulders.

“yeah, tell me ‘bout it, sweetness.” she laughs almost mockingly, not towards you, but at herself.

“want me to clean that up?” you point your chin up at the wounds on her face.

she blinks at you incredulously before allowing a smirk to grace her features for the first time in what seems like forever.

“damn! take a girl out to dinner first, babe.”

you smile.

… ( mini time skip!! a couple months)

jinx wasn't used to physical and emotional affection. love. let alone romantic gestures. silco looked after her but struggled to give the affection a parent would once he took her in all those years ago.

at first, she was incredibly taken aback by your willingness to help her even though you knew who she was. you knew who she was and still allowed her to lead you back to her workshop to patch her up. after that day, spent cleaning her wounds, you never left.

she was enamored by you.

by your ability to love.

you were moderately affectionate in the beginning, but as the weeks passed, your excessive praise and doting intensified. at first, it was lingering touches on her face after you insisted on "checking" her facial bandages. then it was moving her hair out of her face and caressing the sides of her head when she's in an episode.

once you started coming up behind her as she was working on her gadgets to link your arms around her waist and lay your head on her shoulder, she was hooked on you.

she did initially flinch and curl out of your touch, but as she took in your scent and realized it was you, she relaxed. she accepted you.

...

"just me!" you exclaim happily as you nudge your face into her neck, and she softly gasps when you give her small, gentle pecks.

"hmmph! you're too sweet to me, buttercup! scares me sometimes..." she fluctuates the tone of her voice from happy to unsure and back to happy again.

one thing she is sure of, though, is her love for you.

as you peer up at her from the side of her neck, you tighten your arms around her, "you deserve it. all the hugs, kisses and love!"

you both never felt a need to verbally establish a label on your relationship.

the night you took each other's first kiss, there was a mutual understanding. you were hers, and she was yours.

when she's with you, the voices quiet, and the visions aren't as prevalent anymore. she feels safe. not just because she's in hiding, still successfully dodging piltover, but because you're there.

although that is the case, you still make her crazy for you.

your unconditional affection ignites a fire inside her that loving you could only put out.

...(nsfw incoming!!)

"s-shit, babe! fuck!" her voice echoes throughout the seemingly endless depths of her workshop as she circles her hips and drags her wet cunt against yours.

your moans and little "oh my g-god!'s" adding to the music that is your pussies grinding together to make filthy sloshing noises.

"fuckin' pussy is so so good, bunny! pl-eease!" she begs you, although she's the one above you, her hand pushing one of your legs up to rest on her shoulder and her other hand pressing your leg down onto the couch. her ass is perched on your upper thigh to allow her to buck her hips up into your cunt as close as she possibly can.

"yes! yes! more, baby! you feel so good!" you babble as you lay back, looking up at her through your eyelashes. she's sitting right side up as she continues to hump your cunt with her eyes glued shut in concentration.

she can feel every pulse, every throb of your heat as she chases her high, and it affects her deeply.

"you're perfect, y-you know that?" you question. "fucking perfect. i love you so much!" she almost stills. that "perfect" word causes her heart to beat out her chest. she slows down slightly as she opens her eyes and looks down at you, looking back at her lovingly.

now inspired by your praise, she then speeds up, even faster and rougher than before.

"yeah? yeah? 'm perfect, baby? you loveee me?" she asks you mockingly as she stares into your eyes.

"yes! you feel so good. so perfect! fuckin' love you! need ta' cum! you scream out.

"mhm! thought so. then show me how good you're feelin' and cum all over me." she demands of you. "make a mess on this pussy, toots."

she lets out a "give me that shit, baby" and a "need my sweet girl to cum, so fuckin' nice to this pussy" to urge you on.

"fu-uck! right there! i'm cumming!"

"shit, me too!"

...

as you both come down from your high, she eventually lets your leg down and sits you upright to hug you tightly.

she feels so appreciated, so loved in the moment that she cups your jaw with her shaky hands and kisses you hard.

"i love you, hon. you're so..."

"i love you too, pow."

...

and y'all live happily ever after, and the events of act 3 NEVERRR happen!!! 😜🥳‼️

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bunny-jpeg · 4 months ago

Text

all bark, no bite

max verstappen - team principal au

tags: smut/pwp, halloween fic, costumes (reader dresses as a puppy), collars, team principal!max, driver!reader, age gap (20s/40s), power dynamic, semi-public sex, quiet-ish sex, clothed sex, dirty talk

a/n: have a happy halloween, i'm writing more team principal au, if you have any suggestions for future installments, please send them to me. i love hearing what ya'll come up with!!

"you are not going to the party like that." you felt like you were being scolded by your father rather than your boss. you made a face and looked over to see your team principal near by.

you stuck your tongue out, "too bad." then started to walk further away from your driver's room and towards the exit. but, you didn't get far, not while your boss had a longer stride than you.

he captured your wrist and pulled you back, closer to him. in your heels, you staggered backwards. you looked up at him and frowned. he said, "i said, you're not going out like that."

"i don't have another costume." you bit back.

max made a face, "go as a verstappen racing fan. i don't know. but i'm not having you cause a scene because you decided to dress like a whore."

you had a complicated relationship with your team principal. you had seen the jokes over the years of tps having interesting dynamics with drivers, even drivers not on their team. you had even seen memes about your own dynamic with max verstappen.

if only they knew.

he had you pinned to his chest, with his hand on your wrist as he examined your neck from the odd angle. he clicked his tongue and said, "what is this costume even supposed to be?"

you replied, "a puppy."

"a puppy, huh? usually puppies have some manners. they at least look a little apologetic when their owners are mad at them." he sad as he used his other hand to touch at the collar around your neck, "you're not very apologetic towards me."

"you're not my owner."

he replied, "you may not have my name around your neck. but you have my logo across your pretty tits every time you race. i'd say that's about the same thing." you are max verstappen were intimate in a way that would send the press into a heated frenzy. you gave him racing results and he gave you the world.

but he had such a possessive streak through him. a jealous old man. you whined when he held onto your throat a little tighter. you shifted a little under his touch.

he leaned in to kiss you on the lips and squeezed the collar a little, thus squeezing your throat. he groaned, "if you wanted me to fuck you on halloween, you only had to ask." he held on a little tighter.

there was no one else around. there wouldn't be. halloween was on a thursday, practice didn't start till tomorrow. you eventually ended up on the transport boxes with the skirt of your dress hiked up.

you were dressed like a dalmatian, except anyone could make out the shape of your body. max had expectations for you as a driver for his team. he knew what it was like to be young with the world at your fingertips. he was meant to guide you. especially with how everyone recorded anything.

"hoping to get lucky tonight, puppy?" he asked as he pushed the dress up, exposing the thin, white cotton panties underneath. he licked his lips, "we could've gone back to my hotel room and played all night. fetch, tug-o-war, maybe you'd even get a bone by the end of the night." he licked his lips.

your face flushed and you shifted against the metal and plastic of the boxes. the surface was uneven and left your back feeling sore. this felt so public, it wasn't in the most excluded area. you swallowed, "oh my god, shut up." and whined when he kissed at your neck. your panties were around your ankles.

and when he kissed you, you heard the clink of his belt buckle and the zip of his jeans. he loomed over you. he was boarder than you, he could easily overshadow and overpower you. you whined when you felt his cock rub up against your slick entrance.

he said, "aw, look at that. they're kissing." he was talking about his sticky cock up against your slick pussy. the blunt head up against your clit. it made you feel a rush of pleasure through you.

you could feel the excitement, the risk of it all. if some stray reporter came through here or a security guard. you knew what the headlines for the weekend would be.

young, promising driver takes a ride on her team principal.

he sank into your sweet cunt and your ached your back. you let out a small noise and max put a hand over your mouth. your nose was left uncovered so you could breath. his other hand was on your thigh as he rocked against you. he said in a low voice, "you know i love when you're loud, but you have to to stay quiet. you can be a good puppy, right? be a good girl for me."

his praise made something bloom in your stomach as he moved against you. you had a total kink for his praise, that was why you always pushed yourself so hard on the track. it was why you were over a hundred points ahead of the second place racer. you thrived off of it, to have someone like max give you praise.

you moaned against his hand, your voice muffled as he rocked against you. his cock slotted in you so well. you exhaled deeply through your nose. you couldn't feel your headband anymore and hair got in your face as he fucked you in such a public space.

"fuck." he groaned, "you have no idea what you do to me.' he moved against you further, "i never know i liked costumes. maybe next year, you should go as me." he chuckled as he curved over you and got at a deeper angle, "but i sort of like you in a collar better."

you groaned and reached for his shoulders. you clutched onto his shoulder tightly. his cock hit up against the softest parts of you and it made you see stars. you panted heavily and tried to keep quiet even though max's hand was good at muffling most of the noise.

you pretty painted black nails dug into his shoulders through the verstappen racing t-shirt he wore. you looked good with his logo across your chest, but he looked just as nice in a black t-shirt.

hunger ran through you as he fucked your feverishly. there was no time for tenderness. while he loved taking you apart with his tongue and fingers. there really was no time to waste.

you felt the heat on your body, your costume stuck to you in a weird way. the blank tag on your collar bounced with the movements of your boss' thrusts. something about this felt wrong, it was wrong. you were certain there had been casual affairs throughout the decades of formula one.

but nothing quite like this. the protege of one of the greatest being fucked by her boss. your pretty tits bounced with a whorish movements as she got railed in the paddock of her team. quite the scandal if it got out.

most thought you fucked your way to the top. but, in all fairness, max saw how you drove before he saw the sway of your hips. he valued your skill more than your ability to suck his cock or take his thick fingers in your slick pussy.

you were his champion, sex was just a component of it. he took your virginity, and you gave him the points he needed to win. you tightened your legs around him as he continued to drill his cock into you. the pace increased as you felt the swarm of pleasure in your head.

you weren't going to the party tonight. you could already tell.

"next time." he said, "i'll get you a proper collar. something a little more padded. with a tag with my name on it. if you're going to be my puppy then, you'll have to look the party. don't worry about a tail or ears. you'll do just fine in lacy lingerie that i can tear off with my teeth."

you swallowed, your cunt clenched around him as he continued to fuck you with a heavy pace. your felt any sense go out your ear, fully engulfed by the heat between you two. max knew how to make you feel good, he knew exactly how to get your yearning for more. if you were a puppy then he was the big, bad wolf.

you whined around his hand and he pressed his palm further against you. he shushed you and held onto your hip tighter as he thrusted against you. he watched your eyes roll a little from the pleasure of the entire situation.

he could feel the leap in his chest and the sweat on his back. he didn't often fuck you in such a public place. but he couldn't help himself. you got to prance off to some luxury party hosted by drivers of another team. you were going to be with liquor, boys and whatever else money could buy.

of course he was going to be concerned about his darling driver. his superstar. after all, he had high expectations for you. you were going to be the best if you weren't already. and he wasn't going let you ruin it over some cheap shots and boys with small packages. he knew you needed someone older, someone like him.

the pace became faster, erratic with little formalities. there was little rhythm to it as his cock kissed the hottest parts of you. the parts that made you pant under his hand. your gaze became unfocused and your blood pumped in your ears.

you clutched onto him and whined something that max couldn't hear. he replaced his hand with his lips. the kiss was hot as you held onto him tightly. it was all too much, the pleasure crossed through you like a heated sword and you came around his cock.

he groaned when you clenched around him. your nails dug into his skin. it only fueled his need to fuck you harder. while not the most ideal position. he'd make due. when you broke the kiss, you panted heavily with your gaze unfocused. you looked whorish, but max loved it.

the pace continued, and max made sure that your body was wracked with more lust as he continued to fuck you. he cursed in dutch under his breath as he gave it a few more thrusts before he finished inside of you.

you both moaned a little louder than you hoped for. you leaned forward against him. your pressed your cheek against his clothed chest as you tried to catch your breath.

max composed himself quickly and combed his fingers through your hair tenderly. he groaned, "good, puppy."

you looked up at him and asked, "can i go to the party tonight?"

he chuckled and patted your cheek with a little force. he chuckled, "cute. no, no. you're going to get your messy panties back on and we're going back to the hotel. i'm not letting a good puppy like you get into trouble." he pinched your cheek which made you whine.

"plus, i think you need some more training."

the following morning, your teammate was walking through the paddock beside you. the two of you were chatting, but your stomach dropped when he looked over and noticed something over one of the boxes.

you two stopped and before your teammate could say a word. your teammate pointed at the headband. you felt a cold sweat as he asked, "are those... dog ears?" then looked at you, "those look like the ones you were supposed to wear to the party last night... you never came to that."

you chuckled nervously, "well, i got tired... but mine are in my hotel room." you heard whistling and looked over to see your team principal walking by. you called for max, "max, isn't my costume in my hotel room."

he perked up and looked over. he pointed to the headband on the box and replied, "oh no.. those are yours." your boss broke into a grin. and your eyes went wide as he walked away.

you could feel your ears burn as your teammate asked.

"where were you last night anyway?" <3

this is part of the max verstappen team principal au

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colleendoran · 1 year ago

Text

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

Go me!

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news.

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work.

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work.

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way.

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry.

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings, enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks.

#good omens graphic novel #good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dunmanifestin

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lalunanymph · 13 days ago

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💭 thinking about . . . . going furniture shopping with caleb

tw. caleb x fem!reader, suggestive content, domestic caleb, crack-ish, inspired by that one tiktok of a couple playfully testing out furniture ergonomics in the ikea showrooms, 760 words

Maybe a trip to Ikea with your boyfriend slash ex-older brother figure wasn’t such a good idea when you take into consideration how pent-up you are from the mere sight of furniture.

While that might sound strange, it’s nothing compared to the thoughts that arise when your gaze lingers on a few sturdy couches, your mind wandering to what it would be like if Caleb had you bent over the arms, the hot press of his body moving against yours desperately, his mouth on your neck, fingers tangled in your hair, trying to get you to that feverish peak—

“... and we could have the lamp near the desk—Pipsqueak?”

His voice breaks you free from the reverie, and you startle slightly, turning your wide eyes to him.

“Hmm? What was that?”

Caleb is looking at you with a shadow of concern in his eyes, his brows pinched in thought. “Are you okay? You zoned out and I coulda sworn you were about to break the stratosphere.” He takes your hand in what is supposed to be a comforting gesture. But, all you can think about is how those warm palms were just pressed to your hips last night, pinning you down as he got his fill of you.

The deepening warmth in your cheeks can’t be hidden. Caleb notices it instantly, years of intimately knowing your reactions and now, as your boyfriend, your little cues which point to one thing lingering in your mind.

He grins. “Oh?” Despite being in a public setting, he corners against a fake console table, a smirk on his handsome, devilish expression. “Is my princess feeling a little bit… frisky?”

Caleb guffaws when you pout and push him away, the heated points of your cheeks undeniable. “Caleb, you big dummy—”

“Come on, princess. I was just messin’ around with you.”

Slinging an arm around your waist, he drags you closer to his broad chest, the ends of his bangs tickling you when he leans in to smooch your cheek in the middle of the fake Ikea living room. Another couple walks past, their curious gazes darting to the two of you, and you feel the weight of judgement—the understanding of why your boyfriend is being so touchy-feely with you right now.

Caleb decides to humor you, wanting to make you feel comfortable by interjecting lame jokes whenever the two of you drift to a new Ikea showcase. He pretends to measure the height of the kitchen counter in comparison with you, a half-serious thoughtful look on his face as he cups his hands by his side and bends slightly, trying to picture how you would look like sprawled out over the slick tiles and gasping while he—

Oh.

He can definitely see what you’re on about now.

Shopping for furniture suddenly stopped feeling like a chore, especially when you can amuse each other by speculating on just how sturdy the fixings would be for future, intimate encounters.

You would test a table’s resilience by sitting on it, and Caleb would give you a knowing look and a smirk. In the bathroom aisles, he slips inside a makeshift shower, pretending to measure the dimensions of how your body would fit pressed against the glass.

Things get a little too real in the bedroom section. Caleb chuckles as you discreetly kneel by the edge of the bed, turning back to look at him with a heated tint in your cheeks.

“Peak comfort, Colonel?” You tease him and he pretends to mull it over.

“Sturdy as can be, soldier… though the Malm does look more cosy…”

Caleb pinches your arm in warning when you slump over the sofa bed and spread your legs, trying to picture how ergonomic it would be when he has you folded like a lawn chair and is rocking your world apart. “Princess, behave—” he hisses, shielding you from an elderly couple who strolls by, oblivious to your mischief.

Hand in hand, Caleb and you make a mental note of each piece of furniture that passed the degeneracy test when you finally load up the trolley.

He glances at you as you’re deep in thought over some light fixtures, and wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to kiss the top of your head.

When he first bought his house in Skyhaven, he gave it little thought—letting moving boxes pile up, and leaving it sterile and empty. Then, you came into the picture and what was once four blank walls became his favorite thing in the world: a home—a real home—with you.

♡ feedback and reblogs are appreciated

#🦢 writes #caleb drabble #caleb x reader #caleb x mc #caleb fluff #lads fluff #lnds fluff #caleb lnds #caleb love and deepspace #caleb lads

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strangersteddierthings · 1 year ago

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Here's a lil idea that I simply do not have the time to make a full fic of, but I gotta get it out or it won't leave me alone.

Steve thinks he's in a happy, fulfilling relationship with Eddie, while Eddie's insecurities have him believing he's just a place holder for the future Mrs. Harrington.

It comes to light when Steve does something cheesy and romantic and Eddie, not able to handle it because it's too romantic, tries to joke about it like "why would you bother to put all this effort in just for me?"

And Steve like "what do you mean? You're my boyfriend and I wanted to"

And then Eddie like "yeah, no, I know that. I just don't understand why." And then he goes on a little self-deprecating rant, explaining all the ways he's not good enough for Steve, all while Steve just stares at him, brow furrowing more and more as Eddie speaks.

When Eddie finally runs out of words, Steve says, "I don't understand? What have I done to make you think this?"

And Eddie kinda blue screens. Because Steve hasn't done anything to make Eddie think this; he's been a perfect boyfriend. It's just... it's inevitable, isn't it? That Steve'll move onto to bigger, better things? Eddie says as much.

"Why?"

"Because it's- because you're Steve Harrington!"

Since Steve's brow can't possibly furrow anymore, he starts to frown now. "I still don't understand?? Why did- do you think I'm just going to be going through the checkout at Melvald's and just decide I want to marry some random woman instead of being with you?"

"What? No. It's not- I don't think you'll intentionally decide you want someone else more just randomly but, like..."

"There's no 'but' here, Eds. I asked you out because I want to be with you. You said yes because, I assume, you want to be with me, too! Was I wrong to assume-"

"NO! No! I do want to be with you!"

"Then.... you think I don't want to be with you?"

"I didn't say that."

"Sorry, it felt like you were implying it. So. If I haven't done anything to make you think I don't want to be with you, and you just said you want to be with me, then what... I don't understand where these thoughts have come from. Have you- were you just going to go through our whole relationship waiting for something bad to happen?"

And Eddie can just look down and shrug because, well, yeah. He had been thinking that. He has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And now they're having this conversation and he's ruined Steve's sweet, romantic gesture with his own bullshit. So, even if the shoe wasn't going to drop before, it will now, because he's gone and fucked it up by putting his insecurities onto Steve and-

"What can I do to help you believe I'm in it, for as long as you want me?"

Eddie looks back to Steve then, because that's not what he expected to hear. "What?"

Steve steps closer, the furrowed brow and the frown gone, replacing it instead is the sappy look he catches on Steve's face every now and then, when Eddie's doing something particularly Eddie-ish. "Tell me what I can do to help you believe in this. In us. And I'll do it. Every day until we die."

"Steve," Eddie warbles out, surprised by his own watery voice. "I-I'm sorry. I-"

"Hush," Steve says, gentle and sure as he takes Eddie's face in his hands. "No apologies. I get it, so you don't have to apologize. Just. Talk to me, okay? Because I'm not holding out for something better. Not when you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Besides Robin."

"Besides Robin," Eddie agrees, nodding his head as much as he can in Steve's grasp. "But, uh, things like this. This helps." He gestures at the romantic candle-lite dinner slowly getting cold. There are flowers in a vase, and a cheesy little Garfield plushie sitting on the table, leaned against Eddie's wine glass. It's a Tuesday night in June and nowhere near a birthday, or holiday, or anniversary. Steve's just made him a sweet, romantic dinner just because.

"Oh good. You have no idea how much I'm restraining myself by not doing this weekly," Steve whispers before placing a kiss to Eddie's forehead, nose, then lips. "Now. Let's eat dinner before it gets too cold."

And it might take a while, for Eddie's insecurities to fade, but Steve keeps being Steve, which means perfect if not a little snarky, and then the next thing Eddie knows, it's been several decades and Steve will walk with him hand in hand to the courthouse and stand in line for hours to quickly get married. (They'll spend another two years planning the actual wedding because Eddie's dramatic and Steve's a perfectionist.)

#steddie #my fic #i just like the idea of steve having already worked out his insecurities with the help of his bestie #so hes better equipped to help eddie through his #is it realistic? who cares. its cute and thats more important

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justasecretflower · 6 months ago

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🥀- dating Eyeless Jack! Before! He was sacrificed

Synopsis- dating eyeless Jack when he was a human in college.

College! Au

~fluff

___________________________________________

- You guys met on the college campus, started talking and realized you couldn’t stop talking. So you exchanged numbers before you ran to your class:).

-You clicked immediately, he mainly listened to your stories and put in his two cents throughout the story, and some questions.

- eventually, he ended up opening up to you, and you’d call everyday. Even in silence while he studied and you took a short nap.

- he intertwines your fingers and kisses your knuckles🤍

- the way he looks as a human, deep blue eyes, chestnut brown hair medium ish length and ivory skin. He’s not too tall but not short, like 5’9.

- in the quiet of his dorm, while his roommates away partying or getting laid somewhere he holds you in his arms and kisses your forehead. Soaking in your soft embrace and your breathing synchronized.

- he gets you coffees in the morning with a little handwritten note with a heart or him complimenting you.

- he dreams about his future life with you, as cheesy as it sounds. A quiet, historical home near a small pond and the forest, a little garden and some little ones running around while you hold his hand with your huge diamond on your ring finger.

-of course, we all know what he ends up as but that’s not relevant.

- play with his hair😔

- “how was your day?” “Tell me everything” “tell me about that new video game you like.”

-he’s such a great listener.

- he teaches you some random medical facts just for fun, which ends up with him going on an hour long rant.

- tells his mom about you.

- whenever he looks at you his eyes visibly soften.

- stargazing dates.

- “love”

- actually so sarcastic it’s really funny.

- doesn’t get jealous easily. He doesn’t doubt your love or loyalty

- gives you his hoodies. They smell soft and clean.

___________________________________________

You seem lost… visit my garden?

I love college boy Jack

I NEED REQUESTS😔💔

Tags

#eyeless jack #eyeless jack x reader #creepypasta fluff #creepypasta #college au #romantic #creepypasta x reader #i love you #ej #reqs open

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celaenaeiln · 3 months ago

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i once saw a post saying something like that was like, out of dick, jason, and tim, dick should be the one traveling the world as he just feels like a free spirit, jason should be the one staying in gotham as he’s the one whose goal was always to help gotham citizens, and tim should be the one getting his own city so he can step out of the shadow of batman and robin. what are your thoughts on that?

I totally see where they're coming from because I used to think that way too. I still sort of do but some things have changed.

Let's start off with the first one -

"dick should be the one traveling the world as he just feels like a free spirit"

They're very right because this 'free-spirit' trait of his is actually explored in the comics. Like Dick!bats and Barbara actually have a full on discussion of this:

Detective Comics (1937) Issue #872

And this isn't the first time either! Dick LOVES travelling, he can't stay in one place. Actually, in one alternate version of the future, Tim gets mad at Dick because he decides to leave gotham after Bruce dies and Tim wanted Dick to stay as Batman.

After bruce dies, things continue on as always but they don't. Like we know in the brief time that Bruce was lost in time, Dick was forced to become Batman. But we also know that he hated it. But that was temporary right? In the future, Bruce officially died. And Dick HAD to be Batman forever. And he tried but Dick, ONCE AGAIN, HATES being Batman but the bigger issue is, he refuses to be chained down and the batsuit was a suffocating mantle of darkness. A coffin in a costume for him. So guess who becomes Batman in that future? Tim.

Tim becomes this evil-ish Batman in Dick's place. In the detective comcis, Tim meets his Batman self. He's shocked because like Dick, HE doesn't want to be Batman either. People who really understand the weight of the legacy don't ever want to be it. But this is what Future Evil Batman Tim says this to the current Tim:

Detective Comics (2016) Issue #966

Dick is always bouncing from place to place - New York, Chicago, Bludhaven, Gotham, outer space, different cities - he's all over the place. So it sees irrefutable that he shouldn't be tied to once city right?

Well, that person is so right. Because he isn't.

The only reason Dick has stabilized in Bludhaven, is because he's not settled down at all!!

The detective comics and villains address this too!!

Detective Comics (2016) Issue #1039

Like forget the titans for a sec, the villains are so aware of the effect Batman has on Nightwing and Nightwing has on Batman.

but no, the point is. Dick isn't tied down to Bludhaven because Bruce always drags him back to Gotham!

Gotham Knights Issue #1

The New Titans (1988) Issue #61

Dick literally turns back to Gotham in the middle of his way out because Bruce needs him but also Bruce calls him back! He contacts Titans Tower in MANHATTAN, NEW YORK to tell Dick that he needs his help in GOTHAM, NEW JERSEY.

Not only that, but Dick is constantly working with the titans while he's fighting crime in Bludhaven. Titans (1999) while also in Bludhaven and Gotham

The Titans (1999) Issue #14

The Titans (1999) Issue #3

He's literally running in and rushing to switch uniforms from being an officer in Bludhaven to being Nightwing in New York.

But main point with all this, is that Dick is 100% a free soul and his lifestyle now, as Nightwing, allows him to still be that. Bludhaven is his base of operations, his crownpiece, but the reason Dick doesn't feel restricted is because he's still EVERYWHERE. Those boots are continuously flying. He's not stationed there in bludhaven like Bruce is stationed in Gotham.

His need to travel the world is satisfied through his Titans involvement. And another reason why Dick can't be traveling to like China and Brazil constantly is because Bruce needs him. He's Bruce's second in command and confidant. So Bludhaven is the sweet balance between staying near enough to Bruce while being separate and the Titans are his way of flying free since they're fighting all over the world.

The only feasible way for him to travel the world as Nightwing as a lifestyle choice is to cut ties with bruce which he definitely won't be doing because Bruce is his crutch -meant both positively and negatively. (Privately, I agree with the person who said that quote tho even if Dick refuses to choose it).

"jason should be the one staying in gotham as he’s the one whose goal was always to help gotham citizens"

100% agree. Jason was born in gotham, raised in gotham, and died in Gotham. And made his comeback in gotham.

Suddenly he's in the middle of buttfuck nowhere fighting crime? Are you kidding me, DC? This boy, WHO LITERALLY FOUGHT BRUCE OVER BEING MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE CITIZENS THAN BRUCE WAS-

Batman (1940) Issue #645

Nightwing (2016) Annual 2021

Batman (1940) Issue #422

Batman (1940) Issue #635

-all this and he suddenly abandons his raison d'être to fight crime in who knows where???

At the very least, I'm glad DC brought him back and stationed him in Gotham.

The only thing I would change about their statement is 'his goal is helping gotham citizens' to 'gotham women and kids'. My bro has no qualms about killing the men of gotham and this is also a very important distinction between him and Bruce.

Bruce cares about all of Gotham but his focus is on keeping Gotham functioning. While loss weighs heavily on his soul, a 50 year old man is the same as 32 year old woman in his eyes. His goal behind creating batman was to become a symbol of hope - that even if it seems like there's no one coming to help, there is actually one person who is there on the look out.

Jason's ideology is more effective because he has a certain target he pursues. His cases are likely those that target specifically women and kids where as Bruce's cases are just about anyone.

But the reason I'm bringing up Bruce, is because it relates to Tim.

"tim should be the one getting his own city so he can step out of the shadow of batman and robin."

I disagree. Tim should be stationed in Gotham because out of all the Batkids, he is the one that is most alike to Bruce in his ideology of Batman.

Tim has EVERY RIGHT to Gotham as much as Bruce and Jason. He, like both of them, was born and raised in Gotham his whole life.

Just like how Bruce's KNOWN for representing Gotham and being Gotham's hero, Tim has the exact same life circumstance as Bruce. He, like Bruce, was born and raised rich. He and Bruce are well-used to navigating the upperclass social circles or Gotham. Both of them went to school in Gotham until college.

So what if Tim was born rich. Just because Jason was born poor and knows the dark side of Gotham, it means that Tim doesn't? Tim's background is identical to Bruce's. Bruce Wayne - Batman - is known as Gotham's hero like Red Hood is known as Gotham's antihero. This is whole life! Like where is he gonna go?

Tim LOVES Gotham as much as Bruce does. When Tim became Robin, he became Robin not because he particularily cared for the well-being of the man under the mask, but because Batman's reckless state was affecting the city.

His story is literally how he was obsessed with dick and thus found out the identity of Batman and Robin and he wants Dick to become Bruce's Robin again because Dick healed bruce's mind in a way that Batman's behavior was reflected in his action on the city.

Batman (1940) Issue #441

Listen to his selling to Bruce why Batman needs a Robin-

Batman (1940) Issue #442

"I don't know why you decide to wear that costume-- but it makes you a symbol....And this isn't just a symbol of the law, it's a symbol of Justice. When one policeman is killed, others take his place because justice can't be stopped."

Tim loves Gotham. His reason for becoming robin was because Batman was a symbol of Justice. With the symbol of Justice out of commission, the crime in his city runs rampant.

When Bruce is lost in time, Tim begs Dick to become Batman because his city needs it.

Battle for the Cowl Issue #1

I hit the image limit but Tim gives up on asking Dick and decides to become Batman himself. At this time Jason is acting as a murderous Batman but Tim knows that the city cannot continue with Jason as Batman because the symbol of Justice playing killing and playing favorites? The man would end Gotham in blood battle and none of his actions are anything like Batman's which is what Tim's getting at.

So the main point in all this is, Tim will do anything for Gotham. His thoughts about this in Detective Comics (2016) Issue #966 where he's evil Batman in the future is also explored deeper and he talks about all the things he's done to the current Tim. In the future, he implies that he kills Damian who acts as batman because Damian runs the city into the ground with his actions and current Tim is horrified, calling him a monster.

Detective Comics (2016) Issue #966

Tim might love Gotham more than Bruce does and Bruce is known for it.

So Tim should absolutely not leave and set up station in another city.

Tim should also continue being Robin because he was made for it. Tim, more than anyone, understand what Robin means. Dick created the symbol and personlity and dynamic Robin should have. The thing is, he and Bruce have an inherent bond. Like, something about them just clicked. Bruce loved Dick's hope, thoughtfulness, and personality. They meshed into something inseparable. But Dick didn't actively think about any of his actions having a consequence on bruce when he was Robin. He was just doing his own thing, being his own person, and Bruce really loved him for who he was. No one expected that he would leave Robin one day or that there would be a second Robin.

And this is where Jason comes in. In the comics, Bruce actually tells jason when he becomes Robin that because he is taking the mantle of someone else, everything he does as Robin will always be tied to the mantle the first person created - the good and the bad.

He essentially proceeds to tell Jason that you will never be your own person when your wearing this symbol because you're merely inheriting the legacy of someone else. This is made worse than usual by the fact that you're wearing a mask.

So Jason internalizes this, but so does Bruce. Bruce wanted Jason to be Dick and was disappointed in his actions when he proves to be otherwise and this is what Alfred talks about in the Batman comics.

Now, while Jason internalized this and fought it, Tim reveled in it. He knew exactly what it meant to be wearing Dick's symbol on his chest which is why he gets hurt by Damian's replacement and grateful that Dick made him robin. His thoughts on this are explored in the Red Robin comics where he talks about how he adores Dick and Bruce.

This is also why Tim consistently talks about how Dick is the best robin (Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War: Scorched Earth and Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1). And also what he's talking about when he says Robin is a symbol-

Just like how Batman is known to be the dark avenger, Robin is known to be batman's light-hearted partner. The counter-balance. Because this is the dynamic Dick inadvertently created with Bruce.

Because every time a robin, as Tim understands it, steps into his suit and mantle, they are emulating Dick. Which is why Dick is the best Robin in Tim's eyes because not only can no one be Dick, but also Dick exceeded in his responsibility as Bruce's counterweight. To be his partner. (Nightwing 1996 Issue 6).

(On the flipside, Dick think Tim is the best robin. These two <33).

But anyway, Tim deserves to be Robin because he's aware of the meaning more than anyone else. I cannot think of anyone more fitting than Tim to be Batman's robin. To understand the weight of the legacy and to serve the city he loves? He told Dick that he dreamed of being Robin when he was just a civilian watching him and Bruce. Tim should absolutely stay as Robin.

I love Damian, I really, really do but Damian was Dick's robin. His whole breaking free of Batman thing after Alfred's death was proof of that. If there must only be one robin, I believe it should continue being Tim because Damian, based on his thoughts, should grow into a new identity. Because for Damian, being Robin doesn't mean anything in the sense of being Bruce!Batman's partner. They don't mesh. He did specifically for Dick. Something about the cheery/patient-sassy/grumpy dynamic. It doesn't work when both Batman and Robin were both grumpy. But since Dick is Nightwing, I think DC should create a new identity for Dami. I still believe he should still be Batman though and I do like him as Robin but if I really had to choose, Tim was created to be Robin. He understands.

#dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #damian grayson #bruce wayne #batman #robin dick grayson #cl asks #robin jason todd #robin tim drake #cl anon asks #thanks for the ask!

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cy-cyborg · 4 days ago

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Please remember I am trans/nonbinary, my pronouns are xe/they.

I am starting to get genuinely annoyed with people’s shocked or doubtful reactions to hearing I want to have kids in the near-ish future. And I don’t mean strangers. Strangers say weird things to me all the time lol. I mean my family, my doctors, people who have known me for decades.

My mum in particular has made several comments now ranging from just genuine shock at the mention my partner and I are planning for kids during a conversation about plans for the future (I’ve literally talked about wanting kids to her since I was a kid) to outright saying during a casual conversation that “they (referring to doctors) probably wouldn’t let me carry to term”. Over Christmas my partner also told mum that we had some news we wanted to share in person, and her first reaction was “Cy’s not pregnant are they?” My partner said no and she responded with “oh thank god!”

My sister and dad have also made similar comments. Dad has brought up valid concerns (mainly about some genetic stuff that caused complications for my mum) sprinkled with the same ableism my mum always goes to. My sister I’m willing to give a bit more leniency, since she’s the only family member I talk about my transition with and she admitted recently she thought i was already medically transitioning and she thought that made you infertile so she just assumed kids were off the table. Neither of those things are true but her doubts at least aren’t tied to my disability, just bad info.

But it’s the doctors (and other healthcare professionals) that are the most frustrating. It’s not one or two. It’s nearly every doctor. Every nurse. Every medical technician. If the subject comes up, they all have something to say about it.

I don’t want to go into pregnancy blind, I know I would be at higher risk than the average pregnant person and I want to know what those risks are before I agree to them. I want to know what recourses are available. I want to know how me being in a wheelchair will change the process of things like giving birth. I want make sure the local hospital is equip to deal with that and I won’t be having to educate people while I’m in labour or if I’m better off going somewhere else.

But every doctor I’ve tried to discuss the subject with has shut the topic down and hand waved it with “we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it”. Like it’s something I’d obviously want to avoid that I probably don’t need to worry about. Even trying to get my contraceptive replaced, get a fertility test done or even getting a damn pap smear has been a nightmare. why am I fighting to get a Pap smear??? I’m nearly 30 and still haven’t been able to get one because several doctors seem to be under the impression I’m not sexually active, even when I bring my partner into the appointment. If they say it out loud (half the time they dance around the subject) and I correct them, they are genuinely shocked, then tell me we’ll worry about that later. Nurses and other healthcare providers are no better. There’s been several occasions where I haven’t been asked the mandatory “could I be pregnant” question when going for X-rays or CT scans (and I know they were supposed to ask because if I ask to see the paperwork, it’s always there and they’ve just checked “no” without asking), or if I am asked at intake, they say something to the effect of “I know the answer is probably no, but is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

Though I take back what I said earlier, there’s one comment from strangers on this front that pisses me off, and it’s “be thankful you don’t have to deal with being pestered about having kids”.

No, I won’t be thankful when my reproductive health is ignored, my family are telling me constantly they think I shouldn’t have kids or expressing surprise that I’m even “allowed to” and I can’t even get any answers about what it would look like if I DO get pregnant. My heart goes out to the people who are harassed and pressured into having kids, and to the people whose health is ignored for the sake of them being able to have a baby. Both my mother and sister have dealt with that, my mum almost died because they didn’t want to do anything that would prevent her from having more kids she didn’t want after my younger sister was born. But BOTH things are terrible and shouldn’t be happening!

Im not unreasonable, if someone brought up a decent, genuine concern to me that wasn’t just “can someone in a wheelchair even look after a kid” or “I didn’t think someone like you even has sex” I would reconsider. If it was found I would be likely to experience serious complications for myself or the baby, I would reconsider. If I found out I wasn’t going to have the needed supports to raise a kid, I would reconsider. But everyone assumes that’s what I want. If I were infertile, or any of these things were true, I’d reconsider, but I’d be upset about it! I’ve always wanted to be a parent and if that was something that wasn’t actually possible, I would be sad about it.

But my family members talk to me about it in the same way they did when I was 10 and didn’t know where babies came from, doctors are shocked at the idea I’m even sexually active let alone thinking about children. I’m genuinely worried the people in my life other than my partner would treat any fertility issues like a good thing, or be shocked that I’d be upset if kids weren’t actually on the table anymore.

#disability #disabled #cw: ableism #ableism #reproductive health #rant post

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roses-r-rosie3 · 1 year ago

Text

Best Friend’s Brother

Jason Todd x M!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, implied smut, crack-ish

Summary: Jason meets Roy’s brother (the reader) and they start dating

Quote: “OH MY GOD STOP TEXTING Y/N AND GO TO SLEEP!”

✁ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You and Jason first met when your brother, Roy, invited you to hangout at his place. Jason knew that Roy had a brother, but he had never seen you up until that point. You however, haven’t heard of Jason at all. Needless to say you were immediately mesmerized when you first saw Jason.

“Roy never told me he had such hot friends” you flirted.

“And Roy never told me how hot his brother was” Jason replied.

“Ew, Go get a room” Roy Fake-gagged.

Needless to say, you both ended up getting each other’s number by the end of the night. You two texted the whole night. Roy could hear Jason giggling and chuckling through the walls.

“OH MY GOD STOP TEXTING Y/N AND GO TO SLEEP!” Roy yelled out.

Little would Roy know, he would have deal with more of that in the future.

While texting you, Jason found out that you were also a vigilante going under the name ‘Arrowhead’. You still vividly remember Roy making fun of you when you picked out that name (he still does).

Fast forward a few weeks and you and Jason went on your first date and started dating shortly after that. As much as Roy pretended to not be a fan, he secretly (not so secretly) supported the both of you.

After the two of you got together, you had lots of dates with Jason. Some of them at a restaurant, some of them at amusement parks, some of them at museums, but a lot of them were at Jason and Roy’s apartment. Even though your dates would sometime be interrupted by Roy accidentally walking inside, it was always something special.

While we’re on the topic of Roy accidentally walking in on things, he has walked in on you and Jason making out on Jason’s bed countless times, even to the point where Roy doesn’t even try to act surprised anymore.

You also started going on missions with them. Jason had never seen you in your vigilante costume up until that moment. But when he did, he quickly pulled you in a random alleyway… and.. let’s just say you both had to give your suit a deep clean after that.

What Jason also noticed though, was that you were extremely skilled with a bow and arrow, dare he say maybe even better than Roy. And oh boy, as soon as Jason even mentioned your skills to Roy, Roy would immediately tell embarrassing stories about you.

“Hey y/n said that-”

“Oh he thinks he’s mr perfect? Did you know that when we were little he used to be so scared of bunnies that if u even held one near him he would start pissing his pants?! HA! SUCK IT!” Roy blurted out.

“ROY!” You shouted.

“Uhhh.. I was just going to tell you that y/n said he made dinner” Jason said.

“Oh… ignore what I said!” Roy laughed nervously.

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s-4pphics · 10 months ago

Text

moth. (e.w.)

Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light.

𝓟𝓡𝓞𝓛𝓞𝓖𝓤𝓔

SYNOPSIS: knights of the devil, you all are to be conquered.

WORD COUNT: 2.2k

WARNINGS: vampire!ellie, vampirekiller!oc, a lot to come FUCK, violence… so blood(drinking), death, murder, gore, suicide, religion briefly, cult-ish bindings, ellie's coven is so cunt, mentions of witchcraft, future tags: hypnosis, abducting, crazy smut

teaser.

1927

Dawn. Combat. Nightfall. Rest.

The cycle formed over the last decade has revolutionized you. It is all you know; the only remainder of solace you have in this dastard domain. The older you've grown, the more burials you attend. For strangers, for comrades. For children who have been brutalized and left to rot like swine. All enacted by the Devils that lurk in darkness. Radicalization overcame your senses; first writhed beneath your bones at the age of thirteen when intent to kill the Earth’s torturers flourished within you. Welcomed your stout standing with an offered, sharply angled wood. You have read. You have fought. You have been scarred and beaten bloody by the Overseers; suffered numerous nights of unrest due to the wails of your comrades under their scrutiny.

Another burial, another Overseer. A prime Hunter that controls your underground dominion, trapped trenches below civilization that beam with only candlelight and the creeping rays of the flaming sun.

Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light.

The lines you march alongside your comrades are congruous; heads covered with black hoods, dozens of silver-soled heels echoing against the tunnel walls. Not one Hunter out of place. Gruesome symmetry. The narrow halls of the tunnel spread into a perfect sphere near its end. Hunters due their promotion disperse along the widening space, encircling the flaming Crest in the center of the chamber. Both rows of teeth are inseparable; a dull ache in your jaw.

Your heartbeat is reminiscent of drums. Each step is calculated. A second of delay, and… your brain cannot fathom the consequences.

Rows of comrades enclose and tighten, standing strong before the risen floors where the Overseers inspect their battalion, hoods removed and insignia burning through their black capes. You sneak glances at them despite the rules of a downcast gaze in their presence; no longer than a second. Their years of battle have overtaken their appearance; gray drapes of wool that cascade their shoulders, creases by the eyes and mouth, hands that tremor.

“Rise.”

Necks crane until straightened. Palms raise for the Uncovering, hoods pushed until they lay flat at the peak of spines. The first time your heads have seen the unnatural light of the underground. Your Overseer from your recruitment has been replaced with anew; woman, tall and eyes as kind as a doe, but just as ruthless, just as conniving as he. Her lips spread around her white teeth, somehow more venomous than the ghouls that taunt the lands.

“Welcome to the commencement of our Prodigies.”

Despite you being only three rows from the raised platform, the Overseer sounds miles away. The rushing in your ears; the thumping in your chest is intruding.

“You are all here to be recognized for your efforts. You should be proud of choosing the path of righteousness. Your dedication does not go unnoticed, and today marks the finality of your attainment.”

“We bless you all with our thanks. For this night embarks society’s next generation of Hunters. You have all accepted your duty as a protector. A leader. A virtuous soldier for our Lord.”

“The battle against Demons will be unkind… Many will be lost, but after years of sacrifice, use this night as a celebration of your bravery…”

Silence. Then a seized breath. Faulting from an Overseer is unforeseen.

“It may be your last chance to witness a night of peace… Of unity.”

Her sudden somber timbre jostles your comrades, backs stiffened under their cloaks. Empathy: considered a display of weakness from your leaders.

The winds of the tunnel shifted, aimed to suffocate.

“Live as kings for this last night. Eat, drink… dance if you must. Because come dawn, you will abandon comfort, and return to the higher lands where anguish awaits.”

One overseer, the man closest to the orator, extends a black, velvet pillow to her. A silver chain dangles from her wrinkled hands; a Hunters pendant, bordering a lit flame.

“As the world’s Hunters, you will be honored with our sanctuary’s Crest. This will be your protection against the Lustful… They have demonstrated a great deal of power as they develop… Their spread is alarming… To even us.”

“Do not fall victim to their allure. Their only desire is our demise. Deceit is their only weapon… But it will never compare to the light in your hearts.”

Rumors have spread through the training grounds; ones of Hunters, Overseers, being blinded by their darkest desires. Controlled by the Devil’s knights to turn against each other. Entranced by pleasure, by riches. By immortality. Their desperation of becoming the rulers of society, tyrants of the land, past the seas… Brought them to their end. Many believed they were created to birth disarray — distrust between comrades. You, still, are not sure what to believe.

“… All of your souls are blessed… Even in death.”

Your palm rests over your pounding heart in oath recitation, promising to die for the cause of freedom. For humanity. The remainder of the ceremony hazes as cloaked patrons emerge from the depths of the cave as the Overseers disperse, dressing prideful Hunters with their pendants. They hang perfectly at the center of the sternum, the flames roaring the closer it lays to the heart.

Your eyes do not wither from the ground, even with the silver shoes before you that penetrate the dirt. An Overseer is not often chosen to promote a Hunter, but she — the orator — blesses you. The heft of your pendant weighs heavy on your shoulders. You sigh a breath of relief at the glow behind metal.

“Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light.” You say, dismissing your shock with a hand on your chest.

“Guarded, you are…”

Her declaration is barely a whisper. She pauses, trembling pupils entangled with the glow of your chain, hypnotized by its glimmer.

“Child.”

You remain indifferent at her condemnation, against the gulp from your throat. She inspects your stance with the strength of a stalking lion before vanishing, cape gusting up dryness from below.

“Someone’s special.”

A hushed snark airs from behind you. Made to be a laughingstock for your comrades once again. But you are not 13. All naivety has been torn from your consciousness, and your vacancies are filled with revenge.

The cave, for the first time since your recruitment, is undisciplined. Bass from the celebratory drums. Laughter… Laughter from your comrades, Overseers, patrons you recall from passing as they cheers with the finest wine. Intimidation and constraint are no longer. And still, you take no part in true fellowship. Jollity is forbidden. Leisure is forbidden. Benevolence is forbidden. You, and others amongst —children— were trained to hunt. To slain those who left the world in shatters. A morphed weapon of justice.

A laid hand on your shoulder makes you jolt, left frozen when you're met with the orator from the commencement.

Come, she whispers, and you follow her path through the tunnels of the cave. She retrieves a lantern from the cavity floors and leads you to its corners, deep and untouched. Never once have you seen an Overseer smile, but she is. A pitiful one.

“Why do you worry, Child?”

“I do not worry,” You bite more than needed, “And I am not a child.”

She takes no offense, “Pardon me. Why do you worry, Hunter?” Her tone is mocking, and your blood churns.

One slip of tongue could earn a blade in your chest. You self-soothe with the foggy air expanding in your lungs. Your agitation calms, only briefly.

“I do not worry,” Easier on the ears, “I am believed to be more than prepared—“

“There is no preparation against the Devils.” The hiss of a viper, her mouth turned down in dissatisfaction of your attitude. Your brows pinch.

“Why have you brought me here?”

Her chest rises and falls and her hands interlock.

“Do you know your history, Hunter?”

“It is all I’ve ever known, Master.” You retort with similar irreverence.

“Not the history of the Devils, you imbecile. You. Do you know of your lineage?”

Your head rattles, “Surely not… A-All outside knowledge of history is forbidden. That is all we’ve ever been taught—“

“Shame on your mother for leaving you useless.”

Her slander resonates through the tunnel and your conscience dissolves. The blade you always wield in your sheath presses against the throat of your superior, indented around the aged skin.

“I did not follow you to be defamed,” You rebuke with bared teeth, “Do not speak of my mother.”

“What spirit…” Others would not blink twice at the mention of their family, dead or alive.

“The Devils starve, Child.” She whispers.

“What.”

“They starve… Desperation grows within them as they migrate. They kill anything they can.” Distress grows in her face as she blathers. “Black magic. I have seen its bounds before my eyes. They have tormented and feasted on the blood of your ancestors! The controller of all Devils… She waits to enslave the last of your name—“

“I HAVE NO NAME!”

Why must she lie? Why are you only hearing of this now? She lies. A shout that cracks through the underground.

“Your lineage is most susceptible to the curse! You…”

Tears hang from your lashes before splintering your cheeks. Panic-struck heaves hit your leader’s, her flyways brushing against her nose.

“They’ll torture you, Child.”

Sympathy. Survival. There is no difference.

“What does it matter?” You whisper painfully, and your blade drops to your side, weeps unmasked. “So many have died before me. I-I do—“

“Your mother was one of us.”

Her wails are quiet and urgent.

“Ask… pray for her guidance.”

“Mas—“

The Overseer advantages the weakness of your wrist; snags your blade from between your fingertips and glides the edge across her jugular, maroon coating her hands as she chokes on her own blood, her eyes glazing as she slides down the wall. You holler, knees weakening when her gargling form collapses into your arms. Life drains from her eyes with every exclamation you throw to the Heavens. You shout for help, but the depths are too narrow.

No one comes.

You, by the grace of your Lord, somehow managed to flee the concaves without being spotted by your commune, cloak submerged in blood that is masked by its darkness. Anxiety forged in the pit of your stomach; unable to return to your base for the last peaceful rest, you ran. You cowered. Just when you believed it was out of your nature.

An Overseer committed suicide, and you were the only witness.

You went to your chambers after the accident—warning? — stuffed what you could into your satchel, and escaped the iron gates of your former home. Scaled them like a rabid hyena until your bandaged soles combined with tall greenery. The scene of never-ending land doesn’t ease your nerves, but you sprint until your lungs burn and your legs give out.

Your path is blind, but your end is near.

All fingers point at you.

The greatest form of betrayal.

The lifeblood of the wealthy always curdles: from concealed shame. From ego. From both; It always leaves a sour film over her tongue. Despairing times. The rosewood floors are bathed in red as the last breaths of her victim shake through her bedroom. A beautiful one, she was; dressed in skirts and stockings that ripped at the lightest touch.

Blood drips down from Ellie’s mouth to the collar of her unbuttoned shirt, stains seeping into the crew of her undershirt. Barely any effort was needed to lure them all in. Desperation makes obscenity much sweeter.

A knock erupts from the other side of her door before a sugary utterance echoes, “May I come in?”

Ellie scoffs at the pester.

“You may…” She replies.

The door opens, and she’s met with soft eyes twinkling with brown and burgundy.

Her brow arches, “Not.” She concludes.

The raven-haired girl squints playfully and shuts the door behind her, “Hush, now,” Her strides are strong and assertive, puddles of red soaking the bottom of her heels.

“Quite the mess,” she mutters at the scene with an upturned nose, “It smells.”

“Who am I to complain?”

“The only one that complains,” Her soft hands land on Ellie’s shoulders, and she sighs, taking in the worn appearance of her partner: under eyes darkened and sunk in, dry lips, voice hoarse.

“I bare news.” Dina whispers.

Ellie curls a tweel of black hair around her finger, “Hm?”

Dina leans in close, arms locking around the back of her lover’s neck, lips brushing Ellie’s ear.

“Our little flower is on the loose.”

Ellie’s body locks, and pressure grows in her fangs. “Liar.” She gasps.

“Nuh uh,” A kiss is planted to the corner of her stained mouth, “Word is she’s fled the sanctuary. Searches are apparently ongoing.”

“Where.” Ellie presses.

“Not sure… I came to ask if we should plan for her… arrival while the ladies are away.” Dina suggests with a conniving smirk.

Ellie’s lips curl dangerously around her sharp teeth, a blinding white. She lifts her darling off the ground, spinning her in celebration as she squeals, droplets of evidence seeping deeper into the floorboards.

“Absolutely.”

wittle taglist :3 HIII DEAR: @elliewilliamsblunt

#ellie williams au #ellie williams #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams tlou #vampire!ellie #lesbian #works 𖧧࣪#ellie x reader #ellie x fem reader #ellie williams angst

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gerec · 9 months ago

Note

Do you have any canon movie fics to recommend? (could be canon divergence too)

the best ones of course

Hi Anon,

It's impossible to define 'best ones' when it comes to fic as everyone has their own set of preferences but I'm happy to share some of my personal favourites. :D And this list barely scratches the surface of all the incredible fic we've been blessed with in this fandom so def. do your own search on ao3 and filter for your preferred tropes! Also, feel free to check out some of my previous fic recs posts on my blog for more options! Happy reading!

XMFC

never too late to be who you might have been by acetamide Erik wakes suddenly and takes a deep breath, and realises that there is nothing.

Replay by SlightWeasel (series) After Magneto of an X2-ish future succeeds in the unthinkable, Charles sends his consciousness back to 1962 to guide Erik away from the path that will lead to the genocide of the human race forty years hence.Charles knows that Erik has always loved him, and intends to use this knowledge + sex to seduce Erik away from his ideals in his youth.There’s no way this well-thought-out, sensible, debugged and 100% bulletproof plan can possibly go wrong.

When We Two Parted by nekosmuse At the end of X3, a still depowered Erik travels back in time to meet 1962 Charles. Cue angst, desperate kissing and happy endings for all. Written for the x-men kink meme.

Lucid Dreaming by listerinezero Magneto finds himself in 1962, on the morning they go to Cuba, in the bed of the young Charles who’d spent months letting him think they were in love before breaking his heart. But he is not the same man he was forty years earlier, and as he gets to know young Charles again, he discovers that things might not have been exactly the way he remembered them after all.

Time to Grow by zarah5 In which you'll find chess dates which aren't dates (or maybe Charles is wrong about that). -- Based on First Class, this turns (slightly) AU during the beach scene.

Not Half As Blinding by keire-ke Cuban beach AU. Charles discovers that death does, in fact, solve everything.

Blood and Steel and Miles Between by dreamlittleyo (Post-movie AU.) On a beach in Cuba, Charles manages to talk Erik down from the edge. But even after the missiles have been diverted, compromise is impossible. There are two different futures to build, and Erik and Charles will always be separated by their principles. But when Charles is kidnapped and the X-Men can't find him, Erik will get him back no matter the consequences.

Homecoming by nekosmuse Five years after they part ways on a beach in Cuba, Charles sends a telepathic message: We are under attack.. Erik drops everything to rush to Charles' side. In which battles are fought, war is avoided, a middle ground is found, and happily ever afters do exist.

how near to fairyland by ikeracity Since childhood, Charles has kept all the things he can't let go of in a beautiful room in his head. Cuba brings his precarious balancing act crashing down.

The Line in the Sand by ikeracity The CIA agents on the base are bullying the children, mocking them for their mutations. Charles will not tolerate it.

DOFP

Hope by daymarket A near-decade of hatred can't be wiped out with a single summer, no matter how eventful that summer might be. When Erik shows up uninvited at the mansion, Charles is just barely civil enough to not throw him out, but that doesn't mean he'll let him stay.

Mile High by cygnaut There’s only so much time you can spend sublimating your emotions into chess.

Spark Me Up by blarfkey “This is Erik raw. This is Erik lost. This is Erik looking at Charles like he is the only piece of wreckage in a vast ocean. The only star in the sky.

And such a look does things to Charles.”

After ten years, they are both starving for each other.

XMA

third time's the charm by Gerec XMA ficlets and missing scenes

Regrets by SlightWeasel After Apocalypse, Charles and Erik sleep together—but it’s way too soon for Erik.

as it arcs towards the sun by pearl_o

night by night by pearl_o

things worth fearing by pearl_o

Dark Phoenix

After the End of the World (One Bad Day) by kianspo Set during and immediately after the events of X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Everyone deals with the aftermath of Jean's transformation and everything that comes with it in their own way. Could there be found a measure of peace and happiness after everything they've lost?

Never a Place by kianspo It takes some getting used to. Charles hasn’t seen Erik cheerful, actually cheerful without a homicidal intent of some sort in a very long time—perhaps never. Or. Charles takes Erik up on his offer while trying to process everything. Erik is remarkably patient until he isn't.

rue de la paix by Ireliss Post Dark Phoenix. Charles, Erik, and the winding road towards peace.

The First Move by TurtleTotem Charles and Erik live together now, in Genosha. They get up together, spend the day together. And then... go to sleep in their separate beds.

Charles is going quietly crazy.

#gerec rambles #fic rec #gerec's fic rec #canon fic #canon divergent fic #cherik

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sourbites · 4 months ago

Text

Wildsun

Pairing: James Hetfield/Reader (circa 1997) Contains: Cowboy/Rancher James AU, stupid banter, mentions of a breakup, overall just James and reader self-sabotaging, slowburn-ish (i time skip a lot), sappy James at the climax and resolution of the fic, and smut (i had to stay on brand). Notes: FIRST AU HOW ARE WE FEELING. hopefully i didn't keep you guys hungry for cowboy James for too long. if this was enjoyable (it sparkled and pleased with the masses), please let me know you'd like more AUs for future sourbites posts <3 Word count: 7,716

The only thing that is ever guaranteed in life is change. The backbone of life: progression. You needed that. Desperately. No more did you revel in bustling city life or cheesy billboards at every glance. Or the fact that no one seemed to stick. Your world had quickly morphed into an unknown landscape where your heart no longer had the zeal to beat.

James Hetfield had recently rescued a thoroughbred racing horse whose career was cut short. He had an accident, leaving him unable to race again. His original owners were going to euthanise him. Instead, they sold him to James. The horse, originally named something stupid like Mustang Haze, wasn't strong enough to be transported back and forth to the nearest place that was qualified to care for horses. Which also happened to be where you were employed. You, needing a change, and James, needing a professional to handle Blue (his James-given name), seemed to come to an agreement.

It's all so new and exciting. The sun's premature sunbeams scatter on the horizon, the mountains scraping the light around until it looks washed out. The fields are wide and open— the wind is screeching in your ears, amplified by the trees, prickling with its needled breeze at your spine. It's so flat; there's not much architecture to shield you from the wind or the sun. It's barely even daybreak. James wanted you here early for your first day. (You suspect he thinks you're some city-slicker, as the cowboys say.)

Just before the train ride to the ranch, you had researched him a little. Just to know who you're working with. He's a simple guy who keeps to himself, it seems. Unlike Blue, who's decorated in plaques and rosettes for his shows. It's a shame he won't be able to perform again— though something within you is glad he's out of his jockey's hands because the facts tell you he wasn't being loved in his former life.

"Hi," You offer James a professional, friendly smile. "I'm here for Blue?" He's got massive shoulders. He's kneeling on the floor of the barn, you think either tying up or cutting the string keeping a haystack together. Wind rocks straight through you as you wait for him.

His acknowledgement comes in the form of a grunt. "Stables." James answers, monosyllabic, his well-muscled back facing you. Weren't cowboys supposed to be, like, charmers? Isn't that in all the Western movies? This guy's so rude. Foolishly, you stand there for a few moments, expecting something. Maybe he'd shake your hand, welcome you, introduce himself. Or at least point you in the direction of the stables. Nope. Nothing. As if you're not even there, he ignores you, going about his business.

Eventually, you just kind of... shuffle off.

Okay. Bad first impression. But maybe he had just woken up or something. Maybe he was in desperate need of a cup of coffee.

The ranch seems to stretch on for years. Total neverending, ancient-looking land. Like a set for some 60's folk horror movie. The spindly trees are lonely, naked without their greenery. Spring is hesitant to arrive here. The fields were boundless and near-empty. As you navigated around, you couldn't shake the feeling that you were being watched— but maybe you've got jet lag or something. (If that even happens on trains.)

The stables inside were quiet. Thick with the smell of leather and hay, tickling down your throat. Blue is in his stable, visibly guarded off, his ears turned back. He's mostly brown, with a cute marking on his head that looks like a milk spill going down his forehead. In a way, you and him are alike: in this new place, hoping it'll heal your wounds. For a moment or two, you just observe each other, exchanging an animalistic intimacy.

Hm. There are a couple of scrapes and blotches of lost fur starting from his neck and going down. You know well enough not to go prodding with a strong, skittish horse in a new environment. You purse your lips, thoughtful about what can be done immediately.

The easy, soft thud of footsteps comes from behind you. "He's in a bad way," You turn your neck, sympathy gleaming in your eyes, glancing at James from over his shoulder. He's cutting up an apple with a knife. You cringe each time the blade meets the pad of his thumb, but it doesn't end up slicing him.

"He's tough. He'll make it." James doesn't even spare you a glance. His voice is so low, so certain. Taking the chance while you have it, you turn properly to face him, studying him. He seems more feral than his animals at this moment.

⸻

It turns out that the wounded, anxious horse wasn't the tough nut to crack at the ranch— but its owner.

In the bleakness of April, when everything seems to be keen on swallowing grief, Blue appears to be born again. He's got quite the personality.

The gravel crunches under your boots (you had to swap out loafers pretty quickly on a ranch, you had realised) as you near the stables. James, the early riser that he is, is already there, going about his duties. He hasn't noticed you yet. This means you get to watch him, study him, coloured fascinated. He seems to have an affinity for strays. He'll pick up any pellets of feed that fell from the cup and put them back in, appearing to pluck the exact runaway pellet each time. He'll give Blue two sugar cubes just because he can.

"I can do that," You offer, watching James get a good grip on the horse brush handle. He barely lets you do anything. You're beginning to wonder if he thinks of you as incompetent. He gives you a blue-eyed look of surprise. Wordlessly, he surrenders the brush to you as you step forward to claim it like a trophy.

You smooth a palm over the side of Blue's neck. "Hi, buddy," You speak softly, gliding the brush through his coat. His ears twitch, tilting forward.

Blue isn't the only one observing you. "He doesn't like when you brush like that."

Initially, you want to argue with James. Animals have ways of showing discomfort, don't they? Blue's fine. But then your whole body does that flaring with embarrassment thing, realising he was judging you so intensely. Sighing, you look to him, "How would you do it?" You ask. You extend the brush to him. Show me, then.

And fuck. His skin is so hot in that brief morsel of a second where his big hand swipes against your own. For someone so rugged, he's so tender with how he interacts with the world. Then it's an awkward stare-off where the hair at the back of your neck stands up.

True to his word, James schools you like a pro. One broad hand scratches at Blue's coat in a downward motion, and then the brush follows. You've worked with animals long enough to know when to push and when to leave it be. But after two, three beats of silence, you square your shoulders and clear your throat.

"So..." You begin, stomach immediately twisting in knots at your impulsive decision to be chatty. You're not sure what you expect from him. This distance between the both of you is heavier than the awkward silence that hangs in the air like a noose, swinging around and around no matter how hard you try to catch it and unwind it. "You, uh... going to do anything with Blue once he's better?"

James pauses. Glances at you. You can't read him— he looks at you like you spoke in a foreign language. Sheepish, you smile, seeking and searching to understand him. To make your job go down easier. Sure, the city was awful, but at least you had human interaction then. Even if it was just ordering coffee or getting hollered at by a motorist when you jaywalked. But here? You're going crazy. Not in the cute I love Jeff Buckley crazy, but the drawing on walls and singing nursery rhymes to myself crazy.

One low, rumbling hum comes deep from within James' chest. "Nah." He decides coolly. "Jus' gonna let him be. Let him live. He's done enough in his life." He adds, brushing Blue, looking at him with so much respect— so much regard. You'd kill to be viewed by James like that.

Contrastingly, something within this moment unfurls. Noiselessly so, creeping up upon the both of you. Your hands swipe up the horse's coat, doing it for the love of it, soft fur scraping against your skin. You mull over what James said. He won't put Blue to work. He'll give him a noble life, just being fed and caressed and free. That's not very entrepreneurial of him. However, something within you likes that. He didn't see this broken-down, injured horse as a business opportunity— but a life. To be respected and cherished as life should be.

There's no real need to ruminate, but you do regardless. When your district manager sent out a mass e-mail detailing this job, you didn't accept it solely because an animal was in need. Guilt gnaws at the marrow of your very bones. You saw it as an opportunity. When you had given your yes, you had imagined yourself as some outlaw, freed from the weight of your life's missteps, wind in your hair, the whole nine yards. That maybe... wasn't the noblest of your decisions. But James? He had visited Blue multiple times. Invested time, and money, and love and fuel (yes, that's important. Have you seen fuel prices?) into him. And not because Blue had a use for him, a benefit. James didn't need any more incentive other than he was needed. So he answered.

Stupid, girlish embarrassment writhes within you once you realise you haven't exactly replied to James. You flick your eyes over to him, wide with what could only regally be described as mortification, already rolling around generic responses in your arsenal. But James... doesn't even care. He's contented with the silence, which honestly makes sense now that you think about it. He does have a weird tendency to lean towards solitude.

You genuinely try not to think about him too much. You're just so hyperaware of him. Aware of every soft sigh, of how he shifts his weight on his long legs, of how some metal will clink if he moves too much: his belt buckle, his ring against his necklace if he adjusts his collar. Your heart is racing— why is it racing? You're just... petting a horse. You're not a gazelle being hunted for sport. Why can you feel every pulse of your heart, rattling the bones of your ribcage?

Maybe you're just psychic. James slides the brush into your hands, his burning hot palm on the back of your hand, guiding you, moulding your dexterity to be sufficient for his impossible standard. He smells like leather, obviously, but also some hazy, nostalgic molasses-sweetness. Citrusy, you realise. He smells like a fucking elixir. You can physically feel every single atom of his against yours. He holds your hand (and the brush by proxy, but who cares about that) with so much skill, and yet you get this taste in your mouth that tells you he's withholding himself. His fingers flex around the sides of your hand hesitantly, the fingertip of his pinky finger unintentionally - or maybe intentionally. You pray it's intentional - sweeping down the base of your hand, hooked under the side of your outer wrist. You shudder. In your head, you blame it on the cold wind. But that excuse won't be around for much longer when May comes bumbling in like an idiot.

He mystifies you, just standing there behind you.

"You're good with animals." The words tumble from your mouth before you can stop them. You're pinned between Blue and James. Each heavy thump, thump-thump, thump of your heart drums within your ears between every syllable you speak. You don't really expect a reply from him. Monosyllabic as he is, you thought you'd get a low-effort, Mhm, and nothing more.

"I find 'em easier than people." James lets his hand uncurl from your own. Palm flat against your forearm, where it drags up until the inside of your elbow, then he cruelly withdraws all that safe body heat from you. "Most days." He adds with a smoky chuckle, the vibration within his chest smothering against your back.

He's reeled you in perfectly. Sucker. "I'm listening, James."

He seems pleased by your words because he leans in to pat Blue's flank, giving you a nice view of his juicy forearm, tanned from working outside all the time, his sleeves rolled up an inch or so before his elbows. "There's no judgin'. No hate, war, violence. Anything they do is to live and persevere. S' noble, don'cha think?"

Your smile slanted into a thoughtful frown. There's more to James than expected. Maybe you're overthinking it; maybe you want to be close to him because you know he's the only human connection you've had in three weeks and, by the looks of it, for a few months more. Humans are social creatures, after all. You just want to know him, understand him. He wants to be understood— doesn't he? Or is that you projecting? Point is, you were too critical of the poor guy. He speaks with so much clarity, yet so absent of vehemence or frustration. Like he's just accepted it all.

"You're wrong." You murmur, unsure if these are the right words. Unsure if they're your words or someone else's, like a book character or a politician. They can be borrowed words, then. "About people, I mean," You add quickly, not wanting to slander any cute puppy or silly little chipmunk. "Hate and war comes from humanity, not humans. And animals are violent, too, with their prey or to assert dominance." The brush against Blue's coat pauses for a moment. "Humans are just as capable of love and art as they are of some nuclear blast. Good and bad in everything, y'know?" You end awkwardly, trying not to come off as too philosophical. You're a hired hand on a ranch, not Socrates.

All the warmth you've ever known is filtered away from you as James withdraws, not without a parting pat to Blue. "Yeah," He wipes his hands on his jeans, "maybe you're onto something, huh?"

⸻

"I'm fine— stop fussin' over it." James gruffs out, steering your hand away from his own. You grumble, exasperated. The stupid idiot basically punctured his finger with a nail. Summer thunderstorms are kicking up, which means the inevitable weather wreaks hell on manmade structures outside. James was repairing a broken fence when it happened. He didn't even tell you he was hurt; he just soldiered on as usual. You only managed to notice he was hurt because you've recently been, uhm, attentive to his hands, one could say.

You try again, reaching for his hand. He flexes it, hesitant, but somehow doesn't recoil from your touch just yet. "S' fine. Wasn't rusted, so I don't have tetanus or anything. Leave it." He urges again. Through your eyelashes, you glare at him warningly.

"You don't get tetanus from rust, James. Try literally anything else. Like dirt." You deadpan. You've learnt that James listens most when you're blunt and honest. Though he's smart enough to decipher any flowery language, he doesn't prefer it most days. You wonder if he'd be any good at writing those sappy birthday cards people throw in a scrapbook.

His brows raise, those mesmerising blue eyes gleaming as he smiles. "Seriously?"

You wonder how he managed to get by alone for so long. He's no sage, that's for sure. Maybe a nomad? You know he moved a lot when he was younger. And besides, his accent is a funny amalgamation of valley girl meets brooding cowboy. By the threshold of his doorway, on the welcome mat, he looks as golden as ever. The sun dips low into the horizon, reaching out by the sunbeams to caress and lave all over James' complexion. You cannot bite back the smile that infects you. James already forgets about the pulsing cuts on the back of his knuckles.

To humour you, James walks through the entryway and into his kitchen, sitting comfortably up on the countertop. He points you in the direction of the first-aid kit (you're surprised he knew where it even was, considering he likes to walk any injury off or some stupid thing like that), watching you with some unfamiliar yet welcome glimmer in his eyes. It is sturdy, unwavering as he observes you like some long-lost friend, with the same heat of a lover and the same affliction of a betrayer. He studies you like poetry. Unsure how he feels while trying to assign a meaning to you. Interpret you. While furiously dissecting you piece by piece. But you can't prosecute him for his curiosity— you do the same to him.

"I can't believe you managed to whack yourself with a nail like that." You laugh, preoccupied with rolling gauze around the base of his finger and the side of his hand. James' legs are between you, brushing against your side ever so slightly. The slight touches of your skin on his births brief bursts of electric contact. There are tiny little flecks of blood staining where the gauze settles onto James. You watch in real-time as his cheeks colour red, his lips pursing nervously. You didn't realise he was squeamish.

"I know," He agrees. It almost sounds like a thank you in that masculine, velvety timbre that you've grown to recognise (and revel in).

Once you give him a once-over, ensuring he'll live, you step away, satisfied with your work. "All done, Cowboy." You call him, decided in a fraction of a second. Impulsivity seems to suit you— because James is more than pleased with your nickname, giving you the best performance of schoolboy shyness on a man's face and build. He throws in a little aw, shucks, scraping his uninjured hand over the stubble along his mandible, palm eventually falling down into his lap.

James watches you for a moment, wetting his lips with his tongue. There's a hesitant gleam in those blue eyes of his, reaching out and staring at you. After living alongside him for a few months, you can tell when his nerves are needling around in his guts. He clears his throat, looking at his hands in his lap for a second— gathering his bearings. You watch him, amused and admittedly a little curious. "Thanks. For, uh, for being here. You're actually a good help."

You raise your brows, smiling. Your open palms press into his hands gingerly— because they're resting on his lap, and he's been messing with them all day, and they're right there. The perfect place for you to rest your hands. His skin is so warm; it climbs up your arms in steady, tingling bursts. A deep, low sigh drains from James, his shoulders un-tensing. He squeezes your hands back, revelling in how it feels to be touched like this. He hasn't had it in a while— touching someone, feeling the tender stumble of girl's hands along his skin. His heart lurches and writhes within his chest.

A warm, steady palm cups the swell of your cheek. Your entire nervous system implodes with all those good, buttery and fluttery feelings. Maybe there is a God above— because things don't just feel like heaven if you haven't had a taste of it yet. The easy, subtle throb of hot skin against your cheek lures you in. You look up at James, peering at him through your eyelashes. You want to peel that armour of his, strip him to the bone until you can see all those wires that make him tick.

He slowly eases off the countertop, and he's still infuriatingly tall. The other hand (the one not cupping your cheek) coasts down the length of your arm. You could sit with this feeling for hours. You're scooped in his arms and herded into his steady chest. In a matter of seconds, you have fallen terribly in favour of how all that spiked loneliness drips from your organs like tar, falling asleep the moment your ear rests over his beating heart in his chest. You flatten your hands against him, just under his ribcage. You reach out to each other wordlessly.

His breath is hot against your skin, you want to close your eyes and bask in it like it is your own sun. James' hands on you ease you into him until you're standing chest-to-chest. He dips down low, the tip of his nose gliding against your own for a second. Then, you barely tilt your head up, your lips catching his. You lay your mouth onto his in a burst of impulsivity, and yet, ironically, it was always going to end up this way. You squeeze his tricep, urging him to react. He hums lowly, like an engine purring, vibrating against your frame. He inches closer, his stubbly facial hair rasping across your skin, sinking into you: a steady anchor within a tempestuous ocean. It's one of those kisses that should be framed for the work of art that it is because you can taste his soul through this sugar-lipped kiss, and it tastes like red. Palms outward on his Herculean-chiseled body, you're in his teeth, and he's kissing you with a mouth that tastes like everything you've searched for— looking for it at the bottom of a bottle, in the pages of a book, in the eyes of everyone you've ever been hungry enough to gaze upon. It's all him, and he's right here, holding the side of your face in his hand as if he had never let it go. It puts everything into perspective for you; every single puzzle piece falls into place, every riddle solved, because the two of you have spent an entirety of four months alone, but together. He's here and he wants this. His atoms tell you so.

"Wow," You're stupefied, head fogged with the smell and the heat of him. "That's one way to thank me."

James chuckles, his mouth brushing against your temple, unwilling to truly part so soon. You've never seen him - or any man, really - wear happiness this way before. "Easy, Darlin', don't swoon too hard."

Your fists curl around the collar of his shirt, your back arching felinely as you tiptoe up to reach him since he's not helping you by swooping down like last time. Last time, your heart trembles. Last time, when you kissed him. "Don't backtrack now, Cowboy."

⸻

Late August bites you by the wrists, the sun saturates the earth and refuses to let up. The familiar crunch of gravel under weight creeps up behind you.

"Hey," James rasps, wiping his hands on his jeans, trying to get that sticky, annoying palm sweat off his skin. "Can we talk?"

You pat the warm slate you're perched on, inviting him to sit. You get a morsel of a cool breeze as his weight shifts through the thick, densely heated atmosphere to accept your invitation. Things between you and James have been difficult lately. Not to be a chicken or coward or anything else that would elicit a bunch of nine-year-olds to hurl their meanest insult towards you, but you've been toying with the idea of leaving the ranch.

Two weeks ago, the both of you were playing poker. Or, James was playing poker, and you were emptying out your wallet with the flushed cheeks of a sore loser. You both got talking, just some innocent conversation about your lives before a few months back. To before you had met. "I want to know everything I can about you," James had said, shuffling the cards for the billionth time. "You've got your head screwed on, I'm surprised you came from the city. What were you there for?" He had grinned, pushing the wads of money over to his growing pile. Knowing James, he'd be a good sport and find a way to give you your money back. Save for five dollars or something— just to teach you a lesson. You were giving him a lot of smack-talk in the beginning before he schooled you so hard you're still embarrassed.

"Work, mostly. And some guy I was seeing, but we split up." You dropped your measly hand (a two-pair) onto the table. "Oh yeah? You break up with him?" James eyed you carefully. You nodded: "Yeah, he was cheating on me with a colleague. That's why I'm genuinely grateful for the opportunity to work away from the city, clear my head. I was really lost, you know."

"M' sorry for what I said," James murmurs, taking a cautious glance at your expression.

"Wait, when did you end it with him?" He paused, leaning back in his seat. There were cards and cash scattered over the table. "March. A week before I arrived here." He had scoffed at that. You didn't like that noise. It stung you. "So that's why you're really here, not because you care about helping others. Because all of this - me - it's an escape to you."

"It's fine," You shift your melting limbs in your spot on the stone. Your tone doesn't quite match your words. The air is blurry and fiery, the day is plagued with a heat that gnaws away at your synapses.

"What? No, that's not it at all. It's just that— I don't know if I would've been brave enough to move if I didn't need a fresh start, that's what I was trying to say, that being here's a good thing for me." You had scrambled to salvage the evening, drenched in your own nerves. "Fresh start," James echoed in disbelief. "And what happens when you're bored of playing house? You're going to pack your bags and leave, aren't you?" You bristled at that, too. His voice was growing in intensity, and you felt he was patronising to you, trying to get you backed into a moral corner. "Did you expect Blue to need my help forever? It's a job, James, I came here to make him better, and yeah, I'll probably leave when he's good and healthy— because it's my job."

James had shook his head. You'll never shake that look on his face. He looked so mad, and so hurt. You couldn't fathom how the evening had soured so quickly. You remembered, strangely, that you wanted to pull at his throat and hope he'd reshuffle those syllables into something kind. "Don't hold your breath, now. He's right as rain, so you can leave any time you'd like." James spoke, the final nails in your coffin. The wooden chair squeaked a cry against the floor as you stood up, erect and furious, and nursing an aching heart full of raw upset.

"No," James sighed, pushing a hand through his hair, the other holding onto his hat. "No, it's not. I shouldn't have questioned you like that. It wasn't my place, an' I'm real sorry, Darlin'." His voice is velvet-smooth, softly insisting, coaxing you to melt. You cross your arms, frowning, wuffing out a breath.

"I'm not that mad because you questioned me. I'm upset that you just flipped out on me." Your chest aches. With every deep inhale, your lungs hit this knotted-up cramp as they expand.

He rests a palm on your knee. "Look, I know I treated you awfully. I'm trying to apologise here, okay? Lemme make it up to you, I know you're not using me for an escape or distraction or whatever it was that I said."

Your guts are a mangled mess of guilt and hurt and shame, and it all conflicts and festers off each other, growing like steel and tar and acid all at once. You're not sure about it anymore— are you using James? You do like him, but he's not like anyone else you've ever known. You want these feelings to be real. As much as it hurts, you push his hand off your leg. You can't risk it. Hurting him. Or yourself, because you'll eventually leave the ranch, and probably sometime soon considering how well Blue is doing, and if your feelings are true, and you end up ripping yourself away from a man you have genuine feelings for, then you're an idiot. You feel like an idiot anyway— for letting it all get this far. At the first spark when he touched your hand with his, at the first sign of butterflies in your stomach at his voice, you should've turned back and ran. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is what you get for jumping the gun, thinking you're ready for such a huge change: people get hurt.

"Darlin', please," James speaks again, his expression crumbling. Fuck, how does he manage to look like a kicked puppy?

"I'll get back to work." You slide off the stone wall, shoes hitting the ground with a crunchy thud. You give him one glance before you walk away, maybe just to punish yourself, seeing that slow, skin-burning upset of James' pretty blue eyes and handsome face sink into your memory.

⸻

The high-pitched squeak of your bags being zipped up holds more weight than a Judge's gavel. September slices everything loose. Just like a guitar string caught between scissors, forcefully exploding, flung at two separate ends.

"Here's the spare keys," You murmur to James, your eyes on the table where you lay them, metal clinking together in protest. James didn't think you were serious about leaving. It had been established since day one: you'd show up, help Blue, and leave. But he just... didn't think it was real. Letting you go would be so much easier if he hated you. He wishes you'd have been rude off the bat, he wishes you weren't so fucking perfect. Then he'd be glad to be rid of you. But he's not, and this hurts so much he cannot breathe. He doesn't want to hate spring and summer because it's too sweet, and it reminds him of you.

"Do you need anything?" James asks, trying to buy some time— delay the inevitable. You shake your head, throat blocked with an aching lump of everything you want to say.

He steps towards you cautiously. His hands are up as if he's approaching an animal, eyeing you for any sudden shift or bristle. "Hey," He coos, laying his palms flat on your shoulders, brushing his knuckles against your jaw. "Come have a drink with me. Even if it's just to make the train ride go down a little easier."

Whiskey-lipped, your blood burns with a buzz that puts all that ugliness to rest. James is the same, shuffling closer to you on his couch, touched with liquid courage. Your head is humming and it won't go.

You lay your head on his shoulder, watching the fireplace cast tall shadows, caricatures of the furniture and your silhouettes. "Whaddya say I give you a kiss goodbye?" James' hot mouth purrs into the shell of your ear, echoing and rattling around until you can't point his words out from your own blood thrumming around your head.

He sweeps your hair from your beginning to flush cheeks, tucking it behind your other ear as you pull away from him to sit upright. His mouth is warm and wetter than you expected. He is lovely even in this maddening heartache. His breath becomes yours, and yours becomes his— in your very own symbiotic relationship. He just wants you to stay. You can taste it on his lips, you can feel it in his touch. Stay, stay, with me, stay here. You want to go back to the golden-winded days where James would chase you with an alien-looking bug, and you squeal overdramatic profanities at him.

But today tastes like an epilogue, no matter how hard you try to gorge on the niceties of last season's harvest. So you break the kiss with a heavy heart, lay a kiss onto James' cheek and whisper the best, proper goodbye you're strong enough to wield. Which is just a measly I'll see you, because you're not brave enough to actually say goodbye. They feel too final.

He follows you all the way to the front door, after a few seconds where he was too surprised to do anything but watch your frame get smaller and smaller away from him. He doesn't like that sight. You hesitate to step out the front door and onto the welcome mat. You get that familiar fear like you've forgotten something. You hope you have. You hope you forgot your necklace in his life, just so you have the excuse to come back and get it. But it's around your neck.

It's a long, gruelling road out of the Garden of Eden.

James locks his arms around you, face shoved into your neck. "Don't go."

Any protest that cooks in your brain is spoiled the second you feel those fucking-hell-big hands on your hips, with his stubble on your neck, with his hot mouth smooshing pleas into your skin as if he thinks you can absorb them like a sponge. You twist in his arms, bags forgotten, and squeeze your arms together, sitting them on his broad shoulders. He pulls you from the welcome mat and back inside.

"M' such an idiot, pushing you away like that," He huffs out, kissing down the curve of your neck, unbuttoning your shirt. His fingers blur together with the speed at which he opens you up, skimming his glowing-hot palms over your exposed midriff.

"It's my fault too. I was such an idiot." You grab onto the collar of his shirt as he swoops down, mouthing at your pulse.

"No." James quickly protests, "You're not an idiot." He stresses this belief with a kiss on your chin. A great deal of heat falls on everything. Give me more, you seem to say, fisting at his shirt.

You're eased onto the floor, which isn't as cold as you anticipated (probably because you're lying on your shirt), near the fireplace. You don't need it to keep you warm from the sinister chill of the September evening because your body is warm enough. James put this heat within you, and now he must ease it.

"Tell me you'll stay," He pleads, kissing down your stomach, his hands eagerly unbuttoning your jeans. You nod, your appetite for him creating an ache of emptiness deep within you, buried beneath all that tissue and skin. You can't even point out where it aches— it's just all over. A need so intense that you've made it corporeal, and it's demands are undeniable.

"Yes. Yes, I'll stay." You roll your hips up per his request, letting his hands strip your jeans from your legs. Humming, pleased with you, James tugs your bra down, flattening his tongue and licking across your nipple. You squirm, prompting him to nudge his knee between your legs, pinning you to the floor and forcing his bulge to smoosh against your wettening-in-real-time underwear.

He moans once he feels it: your wet cunt, drooling for his cock. "I don't deserve you." He mutters, in between sinking his teeth into your shoulder, groping handfuls of your soft, sweet thighs. It's taken you months to strip him down of all those façades, to unwind the temper and the aloofness to get a taste of the James you always knew was in there. And now you've had a taste of it? A slice of that Paradise? Yeah, you're not going anywhere.

He's got that knife-edged jaw and bewitching blue eyes, golden hair. You're not walking away from that. You slip a hand down onto his shirt, unbuttoning it slowly, with a little less dexterity than he did yours. He unhooks your bra with one clean motion, so unlike anyone else, who would always fumble to get it undone. It's as if your bra undid itself. James kisses everywhere he can think of: your tits, nose, mouth, hair, collarbones, ribs. You cup his bulge.

"Baby," He manages against your pelvis (how'd he get there?), trying so hard to be good and gentle the way you deserve. "Are you sure? I've got a lotta making up t' do first..."

You bump your hips into his, "Please, James? Need you to show me I'm wanted here." You look up at him. For you, it's just a look. For James, it's two big, gleaming, pleading, baby-doll eyes that he'll never be able to shake from his memory, so pretty and sweet his cock hardens fully at just one glance that you spare for him. There's this underlying cadence to your voice— because it's not just about sex, but about feeling like you're welcome here, like you belong, like he wants you, and not just because you're chill with his horses. But you also do want him to fuck you until your brain melts.

"Oh, you're wanted, alright." He confirms, grinning at you. This moment feels like the solution to all hardships. When you lose people, either through death or outgrowing the other, or when you spill a drink you were really looking forward to enjoying, and you think, what's the point of all this? You have your answer in the here and now.

You make a soft, happy noise in the back of your throat, easing his opened shirt off his shoulders as his fingers twist into the waistband of your panties.

"There we go, you're so gorgeous." James rasps against your pelvis, tossing his shirt and your panties aside before subtly shifting his hips. You weave your hands into his short hair, wondering what it'd look like right now if it was long like he told you it was in his early twenties. Your fingers in his hair like this are all the inviting welcomeness that he needs. The way he's kissing you, hovering over you, you know you'll be riddled with homesickness the moment it's over.

His hand cups your pussy for a moment, his mouth busy on your ribs again. James slips lower and lower, and with your go-ahead, pushes his middle and ring finger within you, his thumb, index, and pinky all splayed over the natural fold of your thighs. "Hear that?" He coos, his voice ringing hushedly and sexily beneath the lewd way your wet cunt squelches with glossy arousal. "Hear how much this pretty pussy wants me?" He dips down to press a kiss to your hardened, puffy clit. You tremble, practically dissolving into his mouth.

He gives your slit a couple of flickering licks to your sensitive cunt with his tongue, laving over you, sucking and kissing and making a mess of you. Your skin, coated in his spit and your slick, glistens in the light of the fire, the whole room all orange and pinkish from the burning flames. The raw nerves of your pussy are detangled and worshipped; until he's grinding his constricted cock into anything he can bump it against— until his cute nose is smooshed into the delicious skin above your clit.

He wants to keep going, but he has the rest of his life to indulge in the taste of your cunt. And you're acting super squirmy and whiny. You want him. You want the intimacy that comes with being impaled by a thick cock (which you know James has got, considering it's rubbing in a side-to-side motion against your thigh).

With two eager sets of hands, James rids himself of his jeans and boxers. You're winded by the sight of him. Head all juicy and pink with precum. You make a mental note to suck his cock later. And then another mental note to remember your mental note: because you're not sure how brainless you'll be by the time he's finished with you. He dips his lazy temple to rest on your knee, which is bent and steered to wrap around his waist. He watches himself, his entire length dragging up and down the length of your sex, just wetting his cock with you. A happy purr drizzles out of you, and you stir your hips a little, chasing the friction that consoles your anticipating nerves.

James pulls away. You lock the leg he had around himself, trapping him against you on instinct, both your hands digging into his arms for extra security. "What're you doing?" You ask.

He bursts into chuckles, kissing at your hairline to soothe you. "Was gonna get a condom, Darlin'."

The tensed air rolls out of your lungs in relief. "Could've asked, I would've said I'm on the pill." You lecture jokingly. James, endeared by you, smacks his wet mouth onto your nose bridge. You scrunch it up, giggling out a melodramatic ewww, although you're definitely charmed by it. Or him— just all of him.

"You're phenomenal, y'know that? You sure you wanna do it like this?" His jaw is clenched, holding back that all-possessing urge that demands he immediately takes you up on that offer, sibilating his words into the swell of your warm cheek.

You nod, teetering your fingertips down his spine coyly, feeling the delicious plane of his well-toned back. For good measure, you press your hips into his, immediately slicking up his shaft with your cunt. A bit of incentive couldn't hurt, right? You conjure up the image of James' cum oozing out of you and add it to your vision board.

You're kissed through it, face glowing with heat so intense that the fireplace seems a little dimmer all of a sudden. James inches into you, his cock is one-hundred-per-fucking-cent as thick as you assumed, forcing your hole to open up for him to roll into you enough to bottom out. His bulbous cockhead slots within the deep channel of your cunt so perfectly you're half sure that maybe soulmates are real; because no two people can match up this perfectly without being cut from the same universal cloth.

You squeal out a giddy, keening yes that trickles out from the top of your throat. You're stuffed to the brim with outlaw cock, and you blame this hazy heat on being so close and so low to the fireplace. Goosebumps prickle on your clammy skin. James pours out a low groan into the underside of one of your tits. The head of his cock slicks into your sex so pathetically easily. You can feel the thirst on James' hungry mouth for you, tongue sucking at the tender skin of your breast.

He's on his knees between your legs as you lie spread out below him, his hands scraping up your calves and sides and arms, in pure disbelief that you're still here and you're going to stay. Everything invades your senses, most notably the cindering of wood into ashes, and the smoky, musky leather that seems to constantly cling to James, with the natural earthy-saltiness of naked bodies. Your hips are dragged up to meet the needy thrusts of his cock.

James is a big guy, and it seems he's elected to forget that fact right now— because he's battering your puffy cunt until it's a wet, swollen ring around the base of his relentless cock. Every thrust punches you into and sometimes a centimetre up the floor. You're squeaking out his name like they're hymns. Why not? James is kneeling against you like you're an altar.

In fact, there's something so endearingly first-human about having sex with someone for the first time. It's just intimate learning and enjoyment. You go there, I go here, oh! You like it when I do that! The next time you and James have sex (yes, there will be a next time), he will know exactly how to swirl his tongue around your clit the way you like because he's already discovered it this time around.

He gives you his all, truly a gifted lover, kissing all around you, whispering warm, sweet, and filthy-mouthed things into your sweat-tacky skin. He feels too big for your body to physically take, but by sheer force of will maybe, your cunt easily welcomes him each time he burrows back within you. There's so much pleasure mounting at the base of your spine, seeping into your hips through your bone marrow.

The room is stuffy— and filled with the glorious sound of thick, wet sounds of his cock pounding into you in a rhythm your heart will beat to for the rest of your days. It's sometimes punctuated with the crackling of fire consuming the firewood.

You think James cannot get any better— and then boom! He does! The pad of his thumb scrapes against your clit, and you tighten around him like a wind-up toy, just all springs and well-intended consequences.

Sobbing - truly sobbing his name - you shudder, your cunt tight as a fist as it pulses and gingerly squeezes around him with every rolling wave of your orgasm. You crash against the shore of the hardwood floor, pawing at his thick, broad shoulders. James whispers poetry books full of comforting niceties into your temple, brushing your hair back and cooing at you: at how proud he is, how pretty you are, how perfect and sweet you are to him. Your muscles ache, and your nervous system has been totally and completely scrambled into something new.

While you had the most intense orgasm ever recorded in history, you didn't realise James was filling you up with every hot spurt of his cum. You only realise it when he inevitably withdraws his hips from between your locked-in-place, shaking-like-a-bunch-of leaves-legs.

Spent, James just lays on top of you. His weight is oddly comforting, even if he makes breathing ten times more difficult. In more ways than one, too. He noses into your clavicle. "I'm real glad you've decided to stay. Gotten too used to you, now." You feel him smile against your clammy skin.

You hum softly, patting his shoulder. "You just love adopting strays, don't you?"

#metallica #metallica fanfiction #metallica smut #metallica oneshot #metallica x reader #80s metal #james hetfield smut #james hetfield x reader #james hetfield #james hetfield x you #au fanfiction #cowboy james hetfield

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whateverisbeautiful · 6 months ago

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♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#32: The Safety (1.04)

gif cred: @riickgrimes

It was very clear up to this point in TOWL that Rick hadn't felt alive in years. But in this next scene, we learn that Michonne hadn't truly been feeling safe in years. And why? Because the only time she feels safe is with Rick Grimes. 😭

Danai wrote and delivered a line that moved me, broke me, and healed me all at the same and I have so many thoughts on it because I appreciate it so much 🥲...

So inside the gym, Rick lets Michonne know that the CRM took out the helicopter because they always destroy any evidence that they exist. Then he acknowledges that the whole building is buckling but Michonne is preoccupied with something that’s caught her attention.

When she doesn’t respond to him, Rick says, "Michonne?" and she takes hold of a note left behind by a deceased innovator, Lakshmi Patel. Michonne starts to read it aloud and it explains that this place consisted of like-minded innovators trying to live off the grid and create a new, sustained, and hopeful future.

Patel clearly lost hope in that vision saying that their motto of ‘progress and redemption through innovation’ is now like a sick joke. It’s interesting the letter then says, “I can’t face how much I have failed everyone” because that connects to something Rick feels, especially since when he chose to die he believed he died a failure.

Patel says she can’t continue to watch their mission die and apologizes. Meanwhile, Rick reads a much-needed message on the wall that says “Trust in your ability to adapt and overcome. Your past doesn’t define you.” And he def needs to hear that.

gif cred: @clonecaptains

Michonne concludes reading the letter as Patel expresses her hope to be remembered as someone who refused to leave the world the same way she found it. And then Michonne gives a sad look at the body beside the letter seeing the somber fate of Patel.

Michonne knows there are some connections to be drawn between this letter and Rick so she notes how it tends to not work out and fall apart when people try to save the world their own way. And just to make it extra clear she’s talking about Rick she says, “Sound familiar?”

(Side note: I like how she stays having one side of her shirt hanging off her shoulder. There’s something casual and comfortable about it plus it’s sorta like she’s trying to get Rick to realize the shirts already hanging off and he can take the rest off if he gets it together lol)

Michonne says, “It’s just like this place. They thought they knew it all.” And then because these two can’t resist throwing some jabs in their arguments this ep she adds, “Oh except the killing of innocent people. Except that part.”

Also, I like the framing with a literal barrier between Rick and Michonne that paints the picture of the figurative barriers between them as well. Then Rick sounds the most CRM-ish he’s ever sounded when he responds saying, “The city stands.” Had me like...

And Michonne felt the same because the way she sighs - she’s so over this Commando front Rick is putting on. What happened to 'this isn’t my city'? I miss that energy.

And then Rick says, “And I’ll stop the killing. I’ll find a way.” He's so prepared to just burden himself with this mission. And Michonne challenges that, mentioning just like Patel thought she’d find a way...and we see how that worked out for her.

Rick says, “You still don’t understand.” And the reason Michonne 'doesn’t understand' this is because it’s not the actual root of why Rick won’t go home. She can’t be fooled. And what Michonne does understand is that what Rick is proposing to do is basically, “Signing up for lifelong duty to the enemy.” But Rick rebuts that, “This is about ending the enemy.”

I love that Michonne is quick to respond saying, “This is not you, Rick.” She keeps trying to emphasize this because she knows him deeply and she knows this is not him being anywhere near his true self.

It's really fascinating to see this scenario play out where Rick has lost himself and is now back with the one person who knows him better than he knows himself, who can continually and accurately remind him that this version of him is not really him.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

But Rick thinks there are some aspects of this version of him that are authentic as he says, “This isn’t me how? That I would give everything - my hand - my life for you. That’s not me?”

gif cred: @riickgrimes

And I do love hearing Rick basically say I would give absolutely everything for you and how that's him to his core. And it is him, but also a healthy Rick would be fighting to be with her too, not just die for her.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

As Rick makes his way over to her side of the barrier he yells, “This is what I need to do to keep you safe!” Safety has understandably been such a huge priority for Rick to provide since the very beginning of TWD. And when he yells this I can hear this fear in his voice that he genuinely doesn’t think there’s another way to keep her safe than the one he’s taking.

I appreciate how passionate Rick feels about keeping her safe but also…the tone of it just needed to come down a few notches because no one should be yelling at Michonne. 👌🏽

Also, this made me think about how in the season 4 finale, Rick tells Daryl “I want to keep him safe. That’s all that matters” regarding protecting Carl after the horrible night with the Claimers. Keeping his family safe is such a driving force of Rick's character and he feels the same intense devotion to protecting Michonne as he yells that he has to stay with the CRM to keep her safe.

Her safety is all that matters to him rn and he’ll do anything to preserve it. But that’s why it’s such a perfect and impactful gut punch for Michonne to then reveal where her true source of safety comes from in this scene.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

Despite Rick's more ramped-up energy, Michonne, like she so often had done in the main show, (with that bullet moment from Clear being top of mind) approaches Rick's antsy energy with this arresting calm and beautiful vulnerability as she just melts my heart by softly telling Rick....

“The only time I feel safe is when I’m with you.”

gif cred: @figmentof

Y’all…😭😭😭 Perfection. I love it so much and it’s truly my favorite thing she’s ever told him. 😍

Before I started writing these TOWL posts I knew two lines were basically going to need a whole post dedicated to the line alone and it’s this one here from Michonne and another line from Rick in episode 5 that we’ll talk about later. There’s just so much to unpack with Michonne telling Rick that the only time she feels safe is with him. It makes total sense.

I had made a post right after episode 4 that incorporated TWD gifs of all the moments where it was evident Michonne got her safety from Rick. And I just think it’s the sweetest thing on the planet to know that in this dangerous world, the one thing that most made Michonne feel like it’s gonna be okay is Rick. 🥹 I once saw someone say Michonne makes Rick strong and Rick makes Michonne safe and I love that. Gospel truth. 💯

It’s such a big deal too because Michonne is an incredibly strong, competent, independent woman who many look at and quickly assume she can just fearlessly protect herself. And while she can protect herself, Michonne has always had so many layers to her so she’s also vulnerable and needs to feel safe and reassured from something outside of herself too. And I love that she knows she found that in Rick. 🥹

gif cred: @coolpartytimefan

Then the utter pain comes in when you realize this means for almost eight years Michonne hasn’t truly felt safe. She’s had to gracefully balance the responsibilities, fears, and expectations of motherhood and leadership as well as establish security for others and some semblance of security for herself, all without the personal safe space of her husband to turn to. It breaks me. 😥

And this is another reason I’m glad TOWL gave Rick and Michonne this space to be not just fighters, community leaders, or parents, but a husband and wife trying to find each other and themselves again.

Also, I love that she says 'the only time.' Like genuinely she’s either safe with him or not really feeling safe at all. And I feel like that’s also clear in her TWD scenes post-Rick with all the ways Michonne would cling to Rick's memory through various items. It's like she was trying to garner some sense of comfort again from the only person she ever completely let her guard down and trusted she’ll be safe with.

I remember I received a message a few months ago that touched on if I'd explore when Michonne seemed to realize that she only felt safe with Rick in TWD, how it impacted her actions, and what that evolving journey of safety with him looked like. It took me a minute to get to, but I said I would definitely talk about it, and so I want to break that all down now, right here. ⬇😊

When it comes to Michonne and her safety becoming tied to Rick. I think it happened before she knew it happened. 👌🏽

Now of course in season 3, Rick and Michonne are strangers so it doesn't happen this season. But it does seem like Michonne's inherent safety with Rick started at least budding even this early.

I especially think this because of that beloved scene in Clear where she tells Rick about talking to her dead boyfriend. That’s a very personal and vulnerable thing to share, especially from someone who didn’t even tell Andrea much about herself when traveling with her for months. (Which was a smart move considering the way Andrea stayed gossiping 🙂)

To me, it shows that somehow Michonne felt safe enough with Rick to open up about herself - I think because she recognized that she and him have qualities inside of them that are uniquely similar.

And then at the end of season 3 when Rick comes real close to delivering her to the Governor she still comes back and shows grace, trusting that she could return and be safe with them. But again I don’t think it’s season 3 where her safety is tied to Rick yet.

I think that comes in season 4.

However, not 4A just yet because I think in the first half of season 4 Michonne is absolutely starting to feel more safe and comfortable with Rick but that in itself feels unsafe to her at the time. Which is why she keeps herself at a warm distance from him.

I never lose sight of Michonne’s backstory when thinking about what’s made the character who she is because it’s so important. I know the show sorta put her losing a son and boyfriend in the background but for me it always informs so much about her, in the early seasons especially. And that’s such a traumatizing thing she had to go through and so you just know that it’s probably a lot to now be growing closer and closer to this man and his son at the prison knowing how things turned out for the man and child she lost at that refugee camp.

Michonne clearly really likes Rick and Carl in 4A but letting them in close after knowing profound loss is a bit of a fear for her so instead she’d always find ways to keep Rick at a friendly distance and stay out and about, of course for other motives like tracking down the Governor but also to run from the potential “danger” of being hurt again if she lets Rick become a safe space for her like he’s so naturally becoming.

...But then the prison falls and so too do some of the walls around Michonne’s heart.

She tries to go back to her isolated ways after the prison but she can’t. She’s found family in those Grimes boys and she knows it and so even if she doesn’t know where those footsteps lead in After she knows she has to follow the call of her heart to be apart of something again.

In a heartbreaking scene in After (4.09), Michonne talks to Mike one more time, vulnerably saying she misses him and even saying she missed him while he was still here. It made me think how Michonne had probably also been keeping her distance from Rick out of a sense of loyalty to Mike. Just like Rick wrestled with feeling like he needed to be solely grieving Lori all the while falling hard for the katana-wielding woman that’s entered his life, I think Michonne also was subconsciously wrestling with feeling this intrinsic connection to Rick so soon after losing her family.

I really feel like Rick and Michonne’s immense sense of loyalty played a part in their slow burn being slow despite catching feelings for each other so quickly. Because while both of their former partners weren’t their person, they still weren’t just going to give up on them or abandon the memory of them, it’s not who Rick and Michonne are - they’re both loyal to the core, even to partners who weren’t loyal to them.

In some ways it seems like Mike might have stopped being able to understand Michonne, figuratively disappearing on her and giving up while she kept fighting, similar to how Lori just couldn’t understand Rick. But then Michonne and Rick met each other and felt exceptionally seen, known, heard, loved, and safe in ways that probably even surprised them towards the beginning of their bond. They finally found someone who could love them as loyally as they love, which is part of why of course their love can never be stopped or denied, not even by each other.

I think about how in season 3 Lori tells Rick he’s not a killer. But the thing is that killer is a part of him. It's not all of him but it is in him as we saw him really confronted with that side of himself at the end of season 4.

What’s beautiful about Rick's relationship with Michonne is she knows he’s a killer, even verbalizing that outright to Merle early in season 3, and she doesn’t have to deny it or change it to love him. Michonne gets that it’s in Rick and respects that as one of the many parts of him she respects and understands, not just from the outside looking in but personally. Basically, Rick and Michonne are each other's match in all the ways.

So in a beautiful act of resilience, Michonne fights the fear of being close to people again when she finds Rick and Carl in that house. And she truly embraces them as hers from here on out.

And I think here in this wonderful 4.09 moment when she finds Rick and Carl in that house is when Michonne more readily embraces that she feels most safe with Rick.

In Claimed (4.11), I think we start seeing more visibly how Michonne's safety is tied to Rick and how she subconsciously senses it. In that home, both Rick and Michonne express that they need each other and are willing to possibly make a home with the two of them and Carl. An unspoken agreement that they're forever family now.

One of the many interesting things about that scene between Rick and Michonne in Claimed is that Michonne says she’s done taking breaks. But she wasn’t necessarily leaving the prison to take breaks, she was going on runs and hunting down the Governor. However, phrasing it as 'breaks' could imply that part of her constant trips away from the prison was her leaving to run from how close she was becoming to Rick and Carl - to “take a break” from becoming reintegrated into a family after the tragic aftermath of her last family turned her into a lone wolf.

But I love that when she said she’s done taking breaks she meant that and lived up to it. And then in each 4B scene, we see more and more how Michonne starts to draw closer to the Grimes boys and feel safe enough to be herself with Rick.

Rick gets to see Michonne's playful side with Carl, he wants to include her in family hunting excursions, they like talking to each other and smiling over dinner, and they both often check in on each other to make sure they’re taken care of.

By the end of season 4 when Michonne knows she’s okay because Rick's okay, I think she's now cognizant that she feels safe with Rick in a way that’s different than anything & anyone else. And truly how beautiful is it that in a world where safety is a true rarity, Michonne found that so fully in Rick. 🥹

Also, as I've detailed in many a post, this is also the point where I believe she's subconsciously fallen in love with him. 🥰

And where Rick’s previous wife and his former best friend/sheriff's deputy doubted his ability to keep people safe, Michonne trusts Rick wholeheartedly as a good man capable of protecting his family against anything.

That's one of the great things about rewatching TWD Seasons 1 & 2. Those early seasons make it so clear that Michonne is a love Rick has never experienced before. We don’t just feel like their love is different we get to see it in how much more Michonne loves, respects, understands, believes in, and just all and all likes Rick as opposed to his former wife and best friend.

Last year I wrote a whole reflecting on richonne post about how Michonne and Rick rarely ever split up in TWD and were always paired up for most things. It was proof of their magnetism, trust, fondness for one another, and love.

But I like how now Rick and Michonne never splitting up in TWD is also such a clear sign of the safety they brought each other. And in season 5, that’s especially clear because they really are side by side through so much that season.

I think about when Michonne put her hand on Ricks before they entered Alexandria and how that was her way of offering comfort to him while also being comforted by his presence too. Just like Rick, a large reason she felt safe enough to walk out of that car and approach those ASZ gates after everything they’d been through is because she had Rick by her side.🥲

The one time they’re not operating side by side with Rick hiding the gun plot from her, they both feel so weighed down by having anything come between them, and they're eager to repair the distance by the end of the season.

Michonne had felt both asleep and restless when they arrived at ASZ and part of it is because her source of safety was sorta losing his mind. When Rick begins his return to sanity - and Michonne really is a core source of sanity for him - we see a sense of safety return to Michonne as well as she declares she’ll always be with him.

I always adored that s5 'I’m still with you moment' and I love it even more now knowing that part of why she so confidently knows she’ll be with him no matter what is because Rick is who she feels safest with. 😭

In 6A all of Richonne's scenes continue to solidify that Michonne feels most safe with Rick. And when Rick goes out into the horde in NWO Michonne full-on panics because he’s doing something unsafe and her own safety just evaporates as she expresses a rare moment of disarray.

And then in 6B we get to see a more personal and intimate way that Michonne feels safe with Rick. Even just walking around more stripped down in a robe and towel shows he’s made her feel super comfortable.

The heightened safety she feels with Rick is especially evident in their canon era - from the way they decompress on that couch before their first kiss, the way he calmingly reaches for her in the RV and it seems to immediately bring her peace, to just the safety to let herself be adored and loved on so fully by Rick’s good kind heart in all their comfy and sensual moments at home. 🥰

When she confides in Rick and tells him at the end of 7A that she only wants to go forward if it's with him - "you and me" - she means it.

And all through season 7 it’s clear she knows full well that the only time she truly feels safe is with him. It’s why she nearly throws in the towel - or throws in the sword - when she thinks walkers got to Rick in Say Yes and so vulnerably runs into his arms when seeing he is alive.

Michonne knew she couldn’t lose him on that honeymoon run. Not just 'I don't want to lose you,' she knew 'I can't lose you,' - something Rick too would grasp fully once taken from her for years. With soulmates like this, they lose each other, then in many ways they lose themselves.

When Michonne told Rick she couldn't lose him in Say Yes, I knew she felt it was because she loves him deeply but after TOWL it’s clear how she also knew she’d never truly feel safe again if she were to lose him. 😭 They are each other's security in this crazy world.

Then, after getting in that brutal brawl in the s7 finale, Rick makes getting to Michonne a priority and when he finds her against that wall, she just hears his voice and feels his touch and it looks like a sense of safety has been restored to her. And to Rick too.

In season 8, sirens go off in Michonne's head being away from Rick during the war and it’s clear she won’t be able to rest truly until he’s back.

And in that season's msf I’ve always felt it’s so clear that when she tells Judith she’ll bring her daddy back, Michonne is excited for both her baby girl and herself that they’ll have Rick back finally - the man who makes their family feel complete and safe. 👌🏽

After tragically losing Carl (which is forever heartbreaking 💔💔💔), both Michonne and Rick try to be a safe space for each other even despite their own immense individual pain.

And they do find their way back to each other, saying i love you and holding hands off to war because no matter the circumstances if they can hold each other they can feel a sense of safety.

And in s9, before Rick leaves, Richonne really feel so at home and safer than ever with each other. It’s a beautiful time for them and all their nice season 9 scenes show how Michonne is wrapped in the love and safety of her husband. Even literally just waking up with his arm wrapped around her.

When Michonne had some real apprehension regarding if the people could really band together after Negan, she always knew she could voice those concerns with Rick and he’d reassure her so encouragingly. Also for a woman to agree to get pregnant in an apocalypse - that requires feeling a lot of safety and Rick made Michonne feel safe enough to do that. 🥲

But then Rick is taken and it’s devastating. 💔 And with his absence, Michonne’s safety also goes away.

She had to bring the beautiful life they created into the world without him. And you can just imagine there were so many nights alone in bed during her pregnancy when she’d longed for him to be there. And so when she looks at Rick with the CRM in ep 3 and yells you were alive ‘with them’ in this episode, I always sense this added hurt because those CRM people, who don’t even appreciate Rick, got to be around him all the time while she was miles away longing for him to be with her and feeling unsafe without him.

And this profession that she only feels safe with him makes all those moments post-Rick where she’d still find ways to connect with him all the more meaningful because even after he’s gone, she still only feels at least a semblance of safety with him.

Be it through the ring she wears and even fiddles with on her finger when needing to think, a Sherriff action figure, the bullet shell from his gun that she always wears in her hair to keep him close, talking to him in their bedroom, and most notably wrapping herself in his clothes just to try to remember how safe she once felt in his arms.

It moves me so much how she still only felt safe with Rick even after he was taken from her. She tells Judith how she felt so lost after Rick was gone. And because she’s strong she figured out how to keep going of course, but the world became an ultra-dangerous place again so it makes sense why she’d become as cautious as she became. Nothing could make her truly feel safe until she was back with her true love.

And when Michonne is back with Rick in TOWL, you see that sense of safety start to come back. She has no clue where he’s taking her or how they’ll get out of this CRM place but she trusts him. She knows he’ll do anything to keep her safe.

But the surprising aspect is Rick will do anything to keep her safe…including trying to destroy being her safe space so that she’ll be willing to leave him and make it home. 🥀☹️

And that is exactly what we see happen as this heart-gripping gym scene continues. So my extra self has to do a part two to talk about the latter half of this gym scene.

I'll conclude this post by saying, “The only time I feel safe if when I’m with you” is such a deeply beautiful, meaningful, and memorable line. 😭 Black women, both in fiction and in reality, don't always get to express that innate want to feel safe with someone/something outside of ourselves and so seeing Michonne get to say that her safety doesn't just come from her but from her husband was powerful and lovely. 👏🏽

I forever love Danai for knowing Michonne would feel this way in her relationship with Rick and allowing her to voice it so perfectly and authentically here. This episode really was written by someone who knows Rick and Michonne inside and out and I adore the way Richonne is each other's truest safe space. 🥹👌🏽

#richonne #towl #reveling in richonne #1.04 #RIR (32)#the ones who live #twd towl #michonne grimes #rick grimes #rick x michonne #twol #michonne #rick and michonne #twd: the ones who live #twd #richonnefandom

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siflshonen · 9 months ago

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The Greatest Robot on Earth: Astro Boy and Pluto Part I

So you’ve just watched Pluto on Netflix, but you didn’t know that it is the best Astro Boy fanfiction ever made. Great! Or maybe, hypothetically, you’ve read classic Astro Boy but don’t know about Pluto, or, as it was called for the Viz release, Pluto: UrasawaXTezuka. Well, awesome, because I’m about to give you all the details behind their creators and creation and give you a side-by-side of the classic Astro Boy and this new(ish)-fangled Pluto.

C'mon. Look under the read more line. You know you want to.

If you want to skip to the manga side-by-sides, check out part II and part III. Or, you can read the whole thing in one go on Ao3.

Context and Background

Tezuka, Urasawa, and the Showa Era

So, let me start with the basics: What is Astro Boy? What ain’t Astro Boy?

Tetsuwan Atom, known in the west as Astro Boy, is the most well-known manga created by the “Godfather of Manga/God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s, but it metastasized into multiple anime series, games, merch, spin offs of various types, and that one CGI movie in 2009. The series follows the adventures of robot hero Atom (called Astro in the west) as he fights for the benefit of humans and robots to create a harmonious future for both.

Here’s a timeline of Astro Boy- and Pluto-related events to help you visualize what came out when and why there were multiple runs of the Astro Boy manga. For our purposes, the most important thing to understand is that, even though Astro Boy was a kids’ series, its attitude and themes, as written by Tezuka, reflected the incredible shifts in Japan after World War II and the ever-present shadow of it still left in the minds of its citizens.

But before we get into all that, let’s talk about Osamu Tezuka himself.

Osamu Tezuka's Legacy and His Monster

If you, sweet reader, are a self-appointed weeb and you don’t know the name Osamu Tezuka, I’m personally scandalized. Still, here’s the short version: he was a workaholic mangaka that many hail as the creator of modern shonen manga (historians get heated about when, how, and if Japanese comics made the jump to modern manga, so do your own research, but Astro Boy is definitely the most famous worldwide contender for this title instead of, say, Tezuka’s first work Shin Takarajima/New Treasure Island), and he’s the guy who created the world’s first serialized made-for-TV anime with a sequential plot and sold it as a loss leader to get it on the air.

Arguably, the precedent he set in order to get the anime-ified Astro Boy to screens everywhere is a major reason that the anime industry is so unsustainable, but we’re not here to talk about that.

Tezuka-sensei was a prolific, passionate, and deeply beloved artist from Osaka who tackled damn near every manga genre and arguably created some of them before he died of stomach cancer (and overwork, if we’re being honest here.) I’ve only shown a few of the 400-plus titles he created to give a brief overview of the scope of his work. Since I’m talking to you as a fan, not a historian, I specifically chose titles I own or have read most closely.

Message to Adolf, which was also published as Adolf, is about Nazis. Okay, that’s only part of what it’s about, but we’ll revisit this one in more detail later.

Black Jack is probably Tezuka’s second most famous work, and yeah, it’s broadly categorized as a shonen. It follows the adventures of underground doctor and genius surgeon Kuroo Hazama who dresses like a vampire, acts like a black-hearted and preachy douchebag, and endears himself to everyone who interacts with him.

Dororo is a historical fantasy thriller about a guy regaining parts of his sacrificed-upon-his-birth body by slaying demons and uncovering the mysterious past of his companion, the child thief Dororo.

On the flipside, Princess Knight is a shojo for younger kids about a princess with the heart of a boy and the heart of a girl who uses her two hearts to genderbend as needed to maintain her claim over her kingdom and keep it out of the hands of the wicked.

Meanwhile, Ode to Kirihito is an extremely mature medical fantasy drama that questions when and how a person still maintains their humanity and when they become a beast in their own eyes and the eyes of others. As I’m sure you can tell, such themes exploring what humanity means are almost as common to Tezuka’s works as a medical professional featuring as a main character. He needed to use his degree for something, I suppose.

In fact, the common conflict between Tezuka’s bright, young, optimistic, passionate, independently-minded, and opinionated doctor main characters and the corrupt, constricting, slow-moving, old-fashioned medical institution probably offers the most insight as to why Tezuka chose to pursue manga over medicine. I don’t think this was the only reason, but from reading his manga, I feel founded in asserting that the stifling status quo of established medicine was a contributing factor.

Tezuka never made any bones about putting himself and his feelings directly in his work. He spoke what was on his mind throughout his manga, and his introductions to various Astro Boy stories are no exception. He was also transparent about his struggle to make sure his works maintained popularity even when he resented any changes others suggested he make in pursuit of this goal. In general, Tezuka-sensei didn’t take kindly to the idea of others influencing the direction of his creative visions basically ever, if the story of the Jungle Emperor: Onward, Leo! anime is any indication. (He’s just like me for real.)

If Tezuka-sensei wanted to write about war, he did. If he wanted to write about rape or trauma or abortion or racism, he did. He jumped on the chance to write about sex ed and, well, several of those other topics in Apollo’s Song.

If that scares you, don’t worry. Most of the time, Astro Boy was usually about the nature of war, human rights, the nature of humanity, and robots. It was also written for grade school kids.

Tezuka’s penchant for frank honesty wasn’t limited to commentary made within his manga, but also about his manga, and his statements on Astro Boy are some of his more standout claims on that front. That he called Atom a “monster” and said he created him “for the exposure and the money” doesn’t paint a flattering picture of his attitude towards his most famous work.

But, in truth, his distaste for compromising the truth of his characters at others’ suggestions probably betrays his real feelings about Atom. As much as he may be Tezuka’s monster, he is also his pure-hearted hero of justice and beloved creation. And, by his own admission, his feelings towards his work during the creation of “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, the Astro Boy story on which Pluto is based, were distinctly positive (even if at one point the background characters remark that Atom is a monster!)

The readership’s opinions on “The Greatest Robot on Earth” were likewise pretty positive. Among those readers was Naoki Urasawa, who credits the story with inspiring his deep love of manga. (His recounting of the impression the story left on him in this interview with Netflix Anime is incredibly sweet.)

Naoki Urasawa and His Monster

Who is Naoki Urasawa, besides the guy who co-wrote and illustrated the 2003 Pluto manga? Well, Urasawa-sensei is my favorite mangaka, so jot that down, and he’s known for his suspense thrillers, layered narratives, melodramatic showstopper moments, and also stories about cute girls doing sports. He is also a musician and guest professor alongside his editor and Pluto co-writer, Takashi Nagasaki.

20th Century Boys, named in part for a T.Rex song, is arguably his most famous work and it is heavy on the 1960s-1970s nostalgia, but in a good way! The inherent optimism, kindness, hope, and passion (and sometimes outright cheese) of every Urasawa character and title never feels insincere. The series is a seinen with the heart and whimsy of a shonen (and personally, I feel like such a description holds true for even Uraswa’s darker works.)

If you don’t want to read 20th Century Boys or its sequel, 21st Century Boys, you can watch the live-action movie adaptations.

Meanwhile, Monster is my favorite manga and anime. Herr Doktor Tenma (yeah, like Astro Boy’s Tenma), a Japanese brain surgeon practicing in 1980s Germany, saves the life of a little boy only to learn years later that the kid is a mass murderer, his murdering ways continue into his adulthood, and he will likely never be caught. Only Tenma knows the truth, so he embarks on a quest to stop the “monster” he revived.

I have less familiarity with Yawara! and Happy!, but the first is a sports comedy about a girl struggling to balance an athletic career and a normal life, and the second is a sports drama about a girl pursuing tennis to avoid becoming a prostitute.

Pineapple Army is about an ex-merc’s adventures working as a self-defense instructor. Urasawa illustrated this one, but did not write it. I suppose I could have included Billy Bat as a representative work instead, but I honestly didn’t want to start unpacking that—though I will say that Billy Bat is probably the closest answer Urasawa has to Tezuka’s Message to Adolf since they both spin around the concept of a rumor or idea causing the world to lose its collective mind.

So what motivated Urasawa to add Pluto to his body of work? Mostly his editor/producer and co-writer, Takashi Nagasaki, probably. Er, that’s not very flattering. Let me try again.

Japanese media loves to emphasize passing its passions and convictions to the new generations (source: have you ever read or watched a mainstream action shonen in your life? If you’ve been paying attention to anything I’ve written about My Hero Academia or read the manga itself, I’m sure you think as much as I do that pointing out such a thing feels like beating a dead horse), and Urasawa’s (and later, the M2 team’s) motivation in creating Pluto is no exception. As Urasawa put it in his Netflix interview, “It’s like we received the baton from Tezuka-sensei, and would pass it on to the new generation."

And Osamu Tezuka-sensei’s son, Macoto Tezka (who probably spells his name that way so people don’t get him mixed up with his dad) let Urasawa and Nagasaki do it so long as they made sure the new retelling was something new, exciting, and unique when compared to the original! And while the pressure to succeed in this endeavor probably damn well near killed Urasawa-sensei, I think Tezka made the right call!

But if the goal was to pass on this Astro Boy story, which was written by a REALLY old dude, beloved by kinda-old dudes to the new generation, and practically unheard-of by today’s anklebiters, what kind of direction was the damn thing meant to take?! And why was the answer “fantasy Gulf War Astro Boy fanfiction”?!

Astro Boy in the Eyes of the New Breed

Astro Boy may be a series meant for younger kids, but it didn’t exist in a vacuum separate from the climate of the world from which it came. Tezuka would probably roll over in his grave if it did. The work, its messages, and its sensibilities were grade-A, postwar Showa stuff—particularly its reflections on pacifism, war, and power.

Nagasaki’s summation from the postscript of Pluto: UrasawaXTezuka volume 8 sums up Tezuka and his generation’s outlook pretty handily, but I think it’s helpful to show exemplify this outlook and contrast it with the outlook of Nagasaki and Urasawa’s generation through manga!

Please observe this key moral-of-the-story panel from “The Greatest Robot on Earth” published in 1964 alongside this panel from late-1980s Dragonball featuring Muten Roshi stating the core idea of his series. I’ve chosen Dragonball as a point of comparison not just because of its notoriety as a big shonen title created for a similar audience as the original Astro Boy, but because creator Akira Toriyama was born in 1955 and, much like his contemporary Urasawa, who was born in 1960, “The Greatest Robot on Earth” left a deep impression on him. (Despite what the caption implies, the photographed page in this tweet actually features Toriyama’s admiration of Tezuka, though I don’t doubt the article from which it is pulled also includes Tezuka’s feelings about Toriyama. I ran it through Google Translate a few times and then laughed when I realized Toriyama made a self-deprecating joke about his poor reading skills, since he points out that he was in third grade when he read “The Greatest Robot on Earth” in the magazine Second Grader.)

To Astro Boy’s Ochanomizu, strength ain’t all that great, and strength for strength’s sake is foolish and vain. In fact, Professor Ochanomizu, who is the moral compass for most Astro Boy adventures, doesn’t value the pursuit of strength the way modern shonen, and several other characters within his own series, do. Hell, he doesn’t give Uran any superpowers even though Atom, the robot boy with nuclear power fueling his 100,000 horsepower (later 1,000,000 horsepower) and seven special powers is her brother!

At the time of Ochanomizu’s creation, real-life Japan still freshly remembered World War II and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; no the fuck Ochanomizu (and Tezuka, through him) wasn’t about to endorse or create robots that doubled as weapons. That nonsense was for other, “more violent” robot manga, or the slew of other misguided and corrupt roboticists within the Astro Boy canon. Well, except there was that one time Ochanomizu helped create the artificial sun, but he didn’t ever intend for it to become a weapon.

Meanwhile, while Roshi also does not believe in strength for strength’s sake, he absolutely pursues it and encourages his pupils to do the same while fostering their awareness of the hardship, dangers, and fun of their path. Even with his warning, the Dragonball cast’s pursuit of strength is portrayed as alluring despite the double-edge, much like promoting national pride (and power) increases a nation’s convictions in its unity and identity but also draws the negative attention of other, possibly more powerful nations. Andy Yee succinctly frames this still-impending crossroads about how Japan might use its nationalism—its “pursuit of strength” in Dragonball lingo—in his 2013 article “The Twin Faces of Japanese Nationalism”. In it, he quotes this 2012 Project Syndicate article by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. pointing out that nationalism could be a force for positivity if tempered with reform and control, but could also cause the country to start conflict with its neighbors and shit the bed if left to run wild. (The conversation surrounding the topic of Japanese nationalism continues beyond 1980s manga or the 2013 socio-political scene, of course.)

Unlike Atom or Ochanomizu, Dragonball’s Goku finds such attention alluring: his heart’s desire is to fight strong opponents. It is his ikigai (“reason to live”) and at the end of the Cell Games, it becomes his, uh, shinigai (“reason to die”), if you will.

Did I lose you? I just asserted that the messages in these shonen about acquiring strength = messages about acquiring national pride and power. At its best, the Dragonball-esque attitude towards increasing national pride (and combat strength) is empowering, inspirational, and bolsters the good-hearted. At its worst, it could feed into a cycle of toxicity, unproductive self-importance and, ultimately, flat-out Japanese nationalism and war (and at its stupidest, it just becomes Let’s Fighting Love. Protect my balls.) Since classic Dragonball is a gag manga, I doubt Toriyama was ever thinking this hard about the messages of his work in regards to world history, but that’s sort of the point: Toriyama and his generation likely weren’t thinking this hard about it. Dragonball’s authorship lacks the crushing, firsthand memory of the consequences of unbalanced and misused power that the authorship of Astro Boy has.

In other words, Astro Boy’s cast pursued scientific advancement while lamenting the inevitable folly and destruction mankind brought forth with it so that Son Goku could fish naked, kick ass, get his ass kicked, meet god, kick ass, ghost god, ghost his family and friends, come back, kick more ass, repeat this cycle like twice, and get everyone to thank him for it. Dragonball’s more optimistic, power-fantasy-ish outlook broadly categorizes the outlook generation of New Breeds (shinjinrui) born around the 1960s like Toriyama, Urasawa, and Nagasaki before the reality introduced in their emerging adulthood hit them like a fucking truck.

The New Breed generation earned its name because their outlook and values, which were developed during a time of economic plenty and peace, seemed totally divorced from the values of the generations that lived during or immediately after World War II.

“They might as well be a different species,” snarked their elders, probably, though not necessarily out of bland hatred—Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Gundam series portrays his Newtypes, who are meant to be at least somewhat analogous to the real-life shinjinrui, in a generally more sympathetic light and occasionally a positive one (if they aren’t being used by someone else, that is.)

Tomino, who was born in 1941, also worked on Astro Boy at Mushi Pro.

Baggage between generations is not unique to any one country, obviously. But in this case, it seems Urasawa and Nagasaki decided to tap into it and incorporate the core beliefs, hopes, and grief of their generation and those of the generations before them into Pluto.

Taking this approach was also the perfect excuse for Urasawa to distill everything he knew and loved about Tezuka’s works into one transformative manga. And don’t just trust Tomohiko Murakami on that—trust me as a fan of both Tezuka and Urasawa. It’s very noticeable that Urasawa and Nagasaki pulled from all things Tezuka to create Pluto even as it incorporated new ideas, including criticism of the Gulf War.

…So it’s probably a good thing I took the time to explain all this stuff to you so that you can now start to see it too! You can thank me later. Let’s see how the classic “The Greatest Robot on Earth” compares to Pluto.

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