#BUT ANYWAY YEAH NO the one thing i like about psychology is that it helps me understand people more

[todayisafridaynight]

Since you mentioned it, what did you think of Speak No Evil? I was thinking of watching it myself :0

i really liked it ............ my friend scoffed at me when i told her i was watchin it so take my opinion with a grain of salt tho </3

[snekdood]

the fact ppl expect you to be able to just sit there and take everything they say when they shit on men when you're a man is wild. are you expecting me to momentarily stop seeing myself as a man so you can rant? how tf are you expecting me not to be psychologically effected by hearing that "all men are trash"? what are you expecting me to do here exactly

[eroscomet]

Young and Dumb?

OneShot

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Paring: Jenna Ortega x Fem!Reader (leans a bit into mass not too much)

Context: Two strangers meet by chance in a small bookstore and quickly hit it off. What starts as some witty banter about books turns into a deeper connection. Before they know it, they’re caught up in a whirlwind of emotions and make a few bold, spur-of-the-moment choices. It’s a story about love, fate, and taking risks when nothing makes sense, but everything feels right.

Warnings: Honestly, none that are concerning. This is mostly fluff.

Word count: 3.7k

Song inspiration: Marry You by Bruno Mars

A/N: Helloooo lovelies! A little bit of a late update from me but I decided to actually write something. Not even going to lie, I continuously had to take breaks inbetween writing but I was determined to get it done today. I wanted to give you guys a little something extra for all the support that I've been recieving. Thank you all so much for reading! This was meant to be a drabble but turned into a oneshot. Hope you guys enjoy!

Not proof read

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Time, you've always felt like it went by extremely fast. Spending your evenings after work at a bookstore helping customers as if you work there. The manager had even offered evening shifts but you had politely declined at the time but still, he'd insisted that the offer stood. Oftentimes, the bookstore was empty anyway, leaving you alone to browse and read different bits of books if not the whole thing. You had a knack for reading some heavier topics if not philosophical or psychological ones.

This day had been no different than the others. Like clockwork, you left your job and headed for the bookstore near your home. You weren't the richest but you certainly weren't the poorest, being able to accomodate yourself to a middle-class life. Enough money to have a fairly sized home and have a couple of nice things outside of necessities.You walk into the store, greeting the workers, who over time became your friends, with a smile before heading to a section that you haven't yet looked over.

Your eyes scanned the various books, enjoying the silence of the library along with the vague sound of classical music playing. Your hand brushed over the different spines of the books, reading the titles. You weren't looking for anything specific, just something that would catch your attention. When reaching for a book on one of the upper shelves, the book had pushed the book on the other side of the bookshelf, off the shelf. That's when you hear a small noise, andsuddenly become alert to the fact that you might've hurt someone you hadn't known as there.

"Ouch!" Was the small heard you heard before carefully holding the book in your hand and heading to the other aisle quickly.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know anyone was here. Are you alright?" You asked as you approached the girl, leaning down and grabbing the book that had fallen off of the floor with the same hand that held the book you had earlier been interested in.

"Yeah, I'm fine... It just hurts a bit." The girl replied sheepishly as rubbed the top of her head with her palm, careful not to mess up her hair. "Thank you. And you, you work here?"

"Me? No, no. However, I can tell you about practically everything here. I spend a lot of time in here, I know the sections if you need help." You replied, returning her a bashful smile as you looked at the shorter girl.

The black-haired girl had scanned your face for a moment, taking note of the bit of shyness and embarrassment your smile held. She couldn't stop a small smile from appearing on her lips as well.

"Is that so? I could use some recommendations, I'm looking for something to get me out of a reading slump. Anything that's not romance."

"Hm.. Try, The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus." You replied as you raised the book that you had grabbed earlier in your hand. "Now that is my kind of book."

Your eyes took note of her expression changing from a small smile to not a slight frown after hearing your recommendation.

"Philosophy, really?" She had asked, a bit skeptical at the recommendation. It wasn't something she would've expected of the girl in front of her.

"What is the matter with Philosophy?" You asked, quirking an eyebrow at the shorter girl. "Alright, how about...The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky?"

"Dostoevsky, Oh my, It's getting heavier and heavier. Don't you have a lighter recommendation?" 

"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind."

Her expression once changed to a now more slightly amused one. She was a bit surprised at the recommendation as now the suggestions had fallen into the horror genre. 

"And what's that? A psycho love story or a slasher?"

"Both? It falls more into the theme of obsession."

"I don't know whether to be impressed or scared of your taste in books now." She replied with a small laugh.

"I read just about anything and everything." You stated with a hum and a small smile at the girl's laughter.

"Everything?" She asked in a curious tone, tilting her head to the side. She couldn't imagine someone reading every genre there was. "I'm sure that's not possible, there's so many genres. I mean, I doubt you ever read romance."

"So, you've caught me," You said as you put your hands up for a moment, pretending to be in surrender. "I try but I can't get myself to do it. What's the point of reading a story about a perfectly happy couple and how they met? It's boring to me, add a slasher or some kind of deep-rooted hurting between the two and I'll think about it."

"You prefer a little bit of drama in your love stories, huh?"

"I suppose some."

She eyed you for a moment before speaking again, "You seem to like a bit of everything in your reading preferences. What about movies? Are you into horror in the movie world too?"

"And if I were to say that I don't keep up with movies? That I'd rather read the books that the movies are based on? Everyone knows the book is better than the movie."

"A woman of culture, I see. And I agree with you that most of the time the book is better. But I find it hard to believe that you don't watch any movies at all."

"Some here and there." You replied with a hum and a shrug. "Why? Are you cultured in movies, then?"

"Me? Of course, I am. Movies, old and new, I watch them all. So tell me, what's the last movie you watched recently?"

You took a pause for a moment, thinking back to the last movie you watched, "Black Swan."

"Black Swan, I remember that one. Disturbing, but excellent. Did you know that it is based on Swan Lake, the ballet?"

"I knew of the ballet far before I knew of the movie."

"Oh, of course, that makes sense. You're passionate about classic literature; naturally, you would know about Swan Lake as a ballet." She paused for a moment before speaking again, "Are you a ballet aficionado or just a fan of Black Swan?"

"I'm just aware of the theatre arts rather than film arts.

"So, you prefer the theatre, hm? It's no wonder you'd like Black Swan, then. But what about Literature? You know something besides Fydor Dostoevsky and Albert Camus?"

"Immanuel Kant?" You replied, a bit of uncertainty in your voice while awaiting her reaction.

"Ah, Immanuel Kant, a lover of ethics. I can definitely place you in the philosophy section now. So you like Kant? That explains why you recommended Albert Camus' work as if it were a lighthearted romance. You've got very specifictastes."

"I like to contemplate life, existential crisis' are my favorite. What better way to feel real than to feel fake?" You joked with a small laugh.

"I was expecting something else when you started talking about that kind of crisis, especially coming from a girl like you." She tilted her head, her brown eyes fixed on you, "But I have to admit, you've piqued my interest even more. You're not just a pretty face, you've got substance."

"So you think I have a pretty face." You replied with a smile as you tilted your head to the side, "Good to know, stranger girl."

"Stranger girl, huh? What if I said I wanted to change that? I want to know more about the mysterious girl with great taste in art but weird taste in romance."

"Now, would that really be a good idea? I'm a new face, I could take after the books I read, you know? You give up too easy." After a beat, you spoke again. "I could be your come-to-life Joe Goldberg and you wouldn't know a thing. Was he not book smart as well?"

"You bring up Joe Goldberg when I've just called you mysterious, huh? That's quite a way to flirt. Don't tell me you think I'm as easy as Beck."

"Then, what? You're....my Love Quinn?" You ask with a smile.

"Love Quinn? You wish." She paused for a moment, obviously in thought, "More like...Marianne. Don't you think?"

"Marine, the one that got away? I'd hope not."

"Oh, please. I'm not saying for you to be like Joe Goldberg. I was just comparing myself to Marianne. But if you want to be my book girlfriend, be a bit more... Joe-like. Think you can do that, mystery girl?"

"Who's to say that I haven't been this entire time? A naive girl at a bookstore, a book falls onto her head, catching the attention of me and what do you know, she's pretty too. Begin engaging in talks about books, seeming more and more interested in me the more that I talk. You like that I read. You like that I can keep up. You like the understanding." You said trying to mimic your best Joe Goldberg inner monologue impression. "Is that Joe enough for you?"

"Now we're getting somewhere." The shorter girl replied as she leaned against the bookshelf next to her. "Say, you look tall enough to reach that book without a stool."

Your eyes darted over to the book she pointed at where a copy of Crime and Punishment resided.

"Dostoevsky." You said with a smile, putting the book that was in your hand that had fallen onto the shorter girl's head,back onto the bookshelf. Then, you grabbed Crime and Punishment handing it to her, their hands brushing for a moment, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by the girl.

"Impressive. And very "Joe-esque" of you."

"Hello, you." You said, mocking the line in the show, earning a laugh from the shorter girl.

"Now you're just mocking me." She said while tilted her head to the side. "You really do like to mess up the cliché romance scenarios, don't you?"

"Maybe then I wouldn't have to lock you in my basement."

The shorter girl almost laughed aloud at your statement, her smile widening. She found herself really enjoying the banter and the back and forth with you, it had been a while since she'd had such an intriguing conversation with anyone.

"I was wondering when you would bring up the basement. But I must say, I'm quite pleased. You're not disappointing me so far, mystery girl."

"I don't disappoint. How would you be my Love, tell me?" You asked before speaking after a beat, "Would you be like Love in season three?"

"Now, Love's a character that's a bit complicated..." She said with a smile before pausing, "But if you're asking if I would be obsessed with you...maybe a little bit more than Love was."

"Sign me up. I'm Y/N, Y/N L/N." You said returning the smile as you offered her your hand to shake.

"Jenna. Jenna Ortega." Jenna replied as she held onto your hand after shaking it, "So, Angel, what's your next move? Are you gonna charm me with your witty banter or are you going to ask for my number already?

"We can skip bot and put you in my basement already." You joked with a small laugh.

"Oh really? Just gonna skip right to locking me up in your basement. How romantic of you."

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Before they knew it, the two of you were back at your house. Not being able to make it through the front door without already throwing themselves onto each other. Jenna's hands roamed all over your body, exploring every inch of skin that she could reach. It was a heated and passionate moment that took over Jenna completely, leaving no room for rational thoughts or hesitations. She was lost in the moment, only aware of the feel of your hands on her, the taste of her lips, the sound of their heavy breaths.

You pulled away from the kiss with a smile as you shut the door behind the two of you. Your back leaning against the front door.

"God, you're a good kisser." Jenna let out a breathless laugh.

"Yeah?" You murmured breathlessly with a hum as she leaned into Jenna's touch. "Now, like Joe Goldberg, I don't want you just to get laid or any of that. Not after just meeting you. So, coffee or tea?"

"Coffee, please. And don't worry, I'm not the type to just.... get laid and forget about it either." Her hand cupped your cheek and gently caressed it.

"I like the whole domestic feel, sometimes. You can't have that with a one-night-stand."

"You're not wrong about that." Her thumb not tracing your jawline gently. You hummed softly in reply as you pressed a peck to Jenna's lips.

"You're so sweet." She murmured against your lips. Not pulling too far away, just enough to press your forehead against Jenna's.

"Gosh, you're really good at this..." Her hand moves to cup the back of your neck. 

"At what?"

"This..." She mumbled softly, "You just...make me feel so... I don't really know how to explain it."

"I could marry you off this very feeling."

"You'd marry me just like this?"

"Just like this."

"And what if I say...yes?"

"We...elope?"

"Now that would be a sight." Her fingers caressed the back of Angel's neck. The idea was insane, it sounded like a plot from cheesy rom-coms that she loved so much, "Where would we go? Do you think you could convince me to run off to Vegas?"

"Is it bad that I was also thinking Vegas?"

"Oh my gosh. We're both crazy." She replied with a smile on her lips only widened as she looked at you. The idea of eloping to Vegas was growing more and more appealing by the second to her. Just the two of them, no fuss or big wedding, just them, in Vegas, making a spontaneous decision that was probably completely reckless and irresponsible, "Do you think we should do it? Just...jump into it?"

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"What are we doing? I mean, seriously!" Jenna said, in the passenger seat of your car, trying to speak over the blaring music and the wind entering the car from the windows down.

"Making you my wife." You replied back enthusiastically with a smile as you glanced over at Jenna in the passenger seat before returning your gaze to the road, "I don't know, I like it! Wife. My wife!"

"Your wife." She repeated with a smile as she shook her head.

"My wife, my wife, my wife. Me and my wife." You said as if tasting the sound of the words off of your tongue and liking it.

"My wife, my wife." She repeated after you, basking in the new words as well.

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What better way to have your wedding than to have an Elvis impersonator officiate it in a small chapel in the middle of the night?

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the matrimony of Y/N and Jenna, alright now." The Elvis impersonator began which began to feel like a blur to you and before you knew it...

"I, Jenna, take you, Y/N, to be my lawfully wedded wife. I promise to love, honor, cherish, and respect you, in sickness and in health, in good moments and in bad, till death do us part." 

The words hung in the air, the promise of forever in their commitment.

"I, Y/N, take you, Jenna, to be lawfully wedded wife. I promise to love, honor, cherish, and support you, in health and sickness, in joy and in hardship, till death do us part.

The words from both of them were met with a moment of silence. The vows felt as if they echoed through the small chapel, filling the air with a mix of anticipation and gravity. The Elvis impersonator smiled and said a couple of more things before allowing you to slip the ring onto Jenna's finger. Your touch was firm and gentle, each movement a silent declaration of commitment. Then Jenna slipped a ring onto your finger, the cool metal felt heavy on your finger, a tangible symbol of the promises they had just made.

"By the power not invested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you wife and wife. You may kiss." 

The words hung in the air, each syllable seeming to carry a profound weight, and then...you closed the distance between the two of you, your arms wrapping around Jenna's waist, pulling her closer. And then, your lips met in a kiss, soft and gentle, yet filled with a promise of forever.

The kiss was simple yet profound, a gentle press of lips that sealed the promises they had just made. The chapel's silence was filled with the echo of their commitment... with the knowledge that they were now truly bound together, for better or for worse, for as long as they both lived.

For a moment, the world seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of them and the soft sound of their breaths mixing together. The kiss was slow and tender, a silent confirmation of the promises they had just spoken, a wordless promise of love and devotion. As their lips parted, Jenna opened her eyes, meeting your gaze, her heart thudding loudly in her chest.

They were, in fact, married. Married on a spontaneous, impulsive, and wonderfully crazy night in Vegas.

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For the rest of the night until early in the morning, the two practically ran around Vegas together happily. After getting a hotel room, the two simply found themselves jumping on the freshly made hotel bed. 

Jenna squealed as she landed on the bed, the soft mattress bouncing beneath her. She couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up from her chest, the sound tinged with both amusement and disbelief at the absurdity of the whole situation.

"We just got married, in Vegas, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, and we're celebrating by jumping on the bed like teenage kids?" She let out another laugh, shaking her head as she jumped, her hair messily tousled from the jumping.

"Live a little! We're all kids at heart!" You replied with a laugh as well, jumping on the bed next to Jenna.

"True, true!" Jenna replied, a grin spreading across her face. The feeling of you jumping alongside her on the bed, laughter mixing in the air, was liberating. 

They were adults, newlyweds even, and yet, in that moment, they were carefree and childish. The bed continued to bounce with their movements, Jenna's giggles growing louder as she playfully flopped back on the mattress. You flopped down next to Jenna, pulling off your tie.

"You look good in a suit, wife," Jenna said as she watched you remove your tie, her eyes drawn to the movement of the thin fabric as it unraveled. The image of her new wife, still in her suit, lying beside her on the bed was oddly appealing. She hadn't taken the moment to realize how good you had looked.

The word 'wife' had an unfamiliar ring to it, but Jenna found she liked the way it rolled off her tongue. She shifted a little closer to you.

"I'm sure you look in everything," You replied with a soft smile, tucking back Jenna's hair behind her ear gently, "And tonight, you look perfect, my wife."

"What a cheesy line, wife." She teased affectionately.

"You must be my weakness, then. Making me say cheesy things to get you to smile. I must be doing something right if you married me."

Jenna pretended to pout at your words, her eyes narrowing as though she was annoyed by the comment, but there was a hint of a grin on her lips, a tell-tale sign that she found your cheesy words endearing, if not endearing, very adorable. She moved a little closer until they were lying side by side on the bed, their bodies snuggled together. 

"I must be weak then. I just married some charming idiot, just because she made me laugh a few times." Her words were playful, her words a soft tease. She reached for your hand, interlocking their fingers and bringing it up to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back of your knuckles. The simple gesture was both endearing and affectionate, a subtle reminder that despite the impulsiveness of their marriage, there was a layer of genuine connection between the two of you.

"Well... I'll take care of you. Treat you good. Right, even. Better than. I promise." You replied in a soft and genuine tone, earning a soft laugh from Jenna. The idea that she needed to be 'taken care of' seemed laughable—she was a strong, independent woman, But the way you said it, with such sincerity and devotion, touched her. She returned the gaze, her eyes softening as she looked into your eyes. The intimacy between them was almost palpable, the air thick with a mix of adoration and vulnerability.

"I promise that I'll always be gentle, never harsh. Never put a hand in a fight. We will have disagreements, not fights. I'll always listen and understand your side before I ever counter against it. I know that I don't know you well enough to know if you like being taken care of but I don't mean it in the way you think. I mean it in the way where your soul and heart have needs that I want to provide, that I will provide." Your hand gently caresses Jenna's as well.

"You're too good to be real, you know that?" She mumbled softly as she thought out your words.

"I promise to keep you safe and make you always feel safe around me. I promise to hold and comfort you whenever you need it. AS well as reassure you about anything or anyone that you are beginning to feel insecure about." Your forehead pressed against her as you spoke in a soft and genuine tone.

The reassurances, the care, and the concern...it was all so new, so strange, yet it felt right. It felt safe, like something she wanted to hold onto.

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A/N: Hey lovelies! Thank you so much for reading! If you're new, feel free to look at my other works. I hope you enjoyed! Let me know if I should add any warnings to this. Love you all, bye!

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 3 - You've Torn Your Dress

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: This one's the first of many doozies. I recommend you clock out now if you think the following will distress you: mentions of rape, but no scenes or explicit description. If not, read on! Chapter Title is from Rebel Rebel by David Bowie.

Word Count: 7.7k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Your first mission is delivered, and it goes about as expected. Contains usual tags, emphasis on mention of rape/non-con.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, angst

Read on A03!

Chapter 2 - Chapter 4

Want to be tagged? Just ask!

When your team stepped into the safe house, you could see the moment the smell hit their noses.

“Merde,” Frenchie was the first to speak, a poor omen within itself. “What the fuck am I smelling?”

“Uh, probably the milk and meat. They’re the strongest.”

Annie said your name carefully, watching your reaction as she spoke. “What happened.”

“He wouldn’t put away the groceries.” You said with a shrug. You were over it. It was like, ten bad things ago.

“So you just. Left them out?” Hughie said, seemingly baffled.

“Yeah.”

“Mallory said she delivered them on the first night.” Annie glanced between you and Hughie.

“She did.”

Hughie’s eyes widened further. “That was almost two weeks ago.” When you just nodded in agreement, he pushed further. “They’ve been out the whole time?”

You frowned. “He doesn’t get to win.”

“What are you, five?” 

You just sighed, giving Hughie a pleading look. “Don’t tell MM.”

“What?” Butcher taunted from the back of the group. “That he was right, and you can’t handle Soldier Boy?”

“I thought you were on my side about this.”

“I’m on the side of the truth, Love.”

Both you, Annie, and Frenchie let out huffs of amusement at that claim, with Hughie looking sheepishly amused.

“You can’t possibly believe that.” Annie gave Butcher a pointed look. He only winked in response, leaving her to turn back to you with an eye roll.

“Has it been like this,” Hughie gestured vaguely around him. “The whole time?”

“Nah. Worse.”

Really, hell would be a better word for it. After the knife incident, there had been the toilet paper incident, which you had won, the coffee incident, also your victory, the laundry incident, point Soldier Boy, the TV incident, point you, and the Lord of the Rings incident, another point Soldier Boy. The Elton John, Jimmy Carter, and Rockefeller Center incidents had ended in stalemates akin to the Cold War, but should those fuses reignite, you were sure you could take them home. Overall, you’d burned him seven times, he’d thrown two chairs at you, you tossed shit in his face once and threatened castration on fifteen separate occasions, and he had offered to sleep with you thirty-one times.

“He hasn’t, he hasn’t hurt you. Right?” Hughie wasn’t fully looking at you when he asked, his voice soft and nervous.

“No. I mean, he’s tried. Not in… that way, but I’ve had a few things thrown at me. All the physical violence died out around the laundry incident, though. Now we’re using psychological warfare.”

“Laundry incident?” Hughie said at the same time that Frenchie said, “Psychological warfare?”

“Don’t ask.” Was your response to both. You’d avoid revisiting the laundry incident in your mind for the rest of your life if you could help it, and the actual practice of your warfare was more childish than you’d like to admit.

“Well, as lovely as a reunion this has been, we need to talk to you both. Where’s the cunt,  anyway?" Butcher craned his neck to look down the hall.

“Probably moping around in his room.” You shrugged. “Let’s talk in the living room, standing at the door is weird.”

While the living room hadn’t taken even close to as much damage as the kitchen, it had not escaped you and Soldier Boy’s sparring unscathed. Books provided by the CIA, which were mostly stereotypical classics, had been upended from their shelves and strewn across the floor. The TV was still intact, as was the sofa, but the former was stuck on PBS, and the latter was, at this point, compromised of 70% trash.

“Holy shit,” Hughie muttered as he stepped over a copy of Catcher in the Rye. “You can’t plan on living like this the whole time?”

“Well, if America’s number one man-baby would stop moaning and bitching about his glory days, then maybe, yeah.”

Annie gave you a concerned look. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll castrate him.” Though the threat had now been made sixteen times, it never satisfied you less to say it.

“I’ve told you, Sunshine, if you did that, you would only be hurting yourself.”

Everyone in the room fell silent, their eyes trained over you with tense gazes. You turned to find Soldier Boy almost directly behind you. “I’ve told you, by definition, I’d only be hurting you.”

He gave a mocking pout. “Wouldn’t that plague your perfect little conscious?”

“I’d live.”

“Bitch.”

“Cunt.”

“Prude.”

“Manwhore.”

“Whiny Brat.”

“Waste of space.”

“Waste of good pussy.”

“Waste of government money.”

“Waste of Compound V.”

“Pathetic, assfaced Dickwad.”

“Stuck up, pretentious Ice Queen.”

“Geriatric, entitled, blue-balled G.I. Joe Fuckdoll”

The room had practically vanished around you as you and Soldier Boy fell into your now well-tread path of insults. Your blood was burning with that feeling, aching to burst across the room as both of you glared hard enough to, fingers crossed, kill the other.

“Jesus Christ,” Hughie said, breaking you out of your own spell.

“What are they doing here?” Soilder Boy asked, somehow having only just clocked their presence. “Do I finally get to do my job and leave?”

“No,” Annie answered. “We have no way of knowing how long you’ll be here at this point.”

“That’s what I said,” you muttered under your breath, turning back to your team.

“Yeah,” Soldier Boy said at full volume. “And I don’t fucking trust you.”

“Will you get off my ass about it now?”

“I think you like me on your ass, Sunshine. My offer never leaves the table.”

“Cunt.”

“Bitch.”

“Helpless man-child.”

“Prissy tease.”

“Glorified propaganda poster-“

“No,” Annie cut it. “We’re not doing that again.”

“Party pooper,” Butcher grumbled. “I was hoping they’d kill each other this time. Then we could just go home.”

“Well, did you at least bring me drugs?” Soldier Boy seemed to search the room, as if a pile of weed and coke would miraculously appear on the floor amongst the mess of wrappers and fluid-filled paper towels.

“We’re not buying you drugs with government money.” Annie said, giving you a look of apology. “As I’m sure you’ve been told.”

“Many times,” you affirm under your breath. You’d had to hide the glue on day five, which had let to the toilet paper incident on day six. A day had not passed since where you didn’t catch him trying to turn a new household object into something to snort.

“I thought weed was fucking legal now.” Soldier Boy glared at you, as if you were personally responsible for the CIA not buying him blunts. “It’s a free fucking country. I should be able to smoke whenever I damn please.”

“Porn is legal,” you reply. “Doesn’t mean the federal government is going to bring you some.”

“If they brought me porn and weed, I’d be far more open to whatever shit you want from me.” He winked at you.

“We gave you that last time,” Hughie pointed out, shifting nervously. “It barely helped.”

“Will you be a good little supe if we come back with porn and weed? Because we can go and-“

“No, we need to do this now.” Annie spoke over Butcher, and you noticed a line of worry on her forehead, along with Hughie’s nervous fidgeting. Though Butcher didn’t seem plagued by an anxious tell, he relented to Annie faster than you’d ever seen, and alarm bells went off in your head.

“Annie,” you bit the bullet, asking softly. “What is the ‘this’ you need us for?”

She gave you an apologetic look. “Trial run.”

“Trial run?”

“We’re giving you a test, Love.” Butcher said with a smirk. “See if your little experiment is even viable. Maybe take out a player in the process. All depends on if you and him,” he jerked his head to Soldier Boy. “Do your jobs right.”

“I don’t need your little ‘test’ to know if I can do my job.” Soldier Boy snapped.

“Last time you failed,” Hughie muttered.

Frenchie nodded in agreement. “In a spectacular manner, yes.”

“Because that bitch and that pussy stopped me.” An angry scowl was thrown at Annie and Butcher, who returned it and grinned widely back respectively.

“You were going to kill a kid,” Annie said coldly.

“He shouldn’t have been in the line of fire.”

“The line of fire? Do you hear yourself? Do you really care about others so little that-“

“I’d do it again,” he snapped back, unbothered by Annie’s disgust. “You don’t get to ask me for help and get mad when I do.”

You gave Butcher a pointed look. “Aren’t you glad you listened to me?”

Though all you got in response was a grunt from Butcher, Soldier Boy’s eyes shot to you. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

You returned his glare, steeling your own eyes to match his interrogating gaze. “We’re removing the ‘kill a kid’ option from your choices. You want to know why we’re stuck here? Because you fucked it last time, and we won’t let you fuck up again.”

“You won’t let me?” He sneered, leering at you coldly. “You don’t let me do anything, Sunshine.”

If the “Sunshine” thing continued to stick, you might have to throw yourself off a roof. But you didn’t flinch, just tilting your head mockingly. “You wouldn’t need a shock collar if you hadn’t bit the hand.”

“I wouldn’t bite the hand if it hadn’t tried to kill me.”

“Nobody tried to kill you, Mate.” Butcher interjected. Soldier Boy’s anger switched back to him with fists curling at his side, but Butcher kept talking with a bored drawl. “You shouldn’t have bloody fucked up.”

“And, like I said,” you shrugged. “It won’t happen again.”

“If I see the shot, I’ll take it. Whether you like it or not.”

Looking into his eyes, you believed him. No doubt fogged your brain that, given the opportunity, Soldier Boy wouldn’t hesitate to take out Ryan Butcher with Homelander. Part of you, the angry and bitter part still trapped underground, understood that. But you’d see Ryan once, from afar, and he had looked so young. You didn’t have to imagine his fear or touch him to understand what it was like. For your life to change abruptly and without reason, to have to sprint to keep up with your new one. Soldier Boy had volunteered for this life. Ryan hadn’t. You hadn’t.

So, holding Soldier Boy’s gaze, you made your voice clear and steady. “You don’t get to take the shot until it’s clear. Ryan will be out of the picture before you even see Homelander.” You turned to Annie. “What’s the test?”

“Head-popper.” Butcher answered for Annie with an odd look at you. His voice carried the usual light and oddly joyful tone he used when discussing murdering supes, but his eyes on yours were quieter, with less manic vengeance than you’d seen before. If you didn’t know better, you’d call them thankful.

“Head-popper?”

Hughie jumped in at your confused frown. “Neuman.”

“Oh,” you paused, looking over Hughie’s worried face. “We’re going after Neuman?”

“Who the fuck is Neuman?” Soldier Boy asked with a reluctant grumble. You had picked up on his consistent annoyance with new things after you’d found him screaming at the microwave three days ago, and not knowing new people didn’t seem to be any different.

“She’s a supe who can pop people’s heads like balloons.” Frenchie gestured in imitation for effect. “It’s disgusting.”

“And she’s the VP elect, which would put an ally of Homelander in the White House, one step from the Oval Office.” Annie said pointedly, giving Frenchie a look. You offered him a small smile over her head. Though the demonstration hadn’t been helpful, watching his hands fly around mimicking Neuman’s powers was undeniably entertaining.

“She's dangerous,” Hughie added. “But she’s not a bad person. We don’t want to kill her, just remove her powers.”

“What do we need her for then?” You didn’t have to look to know Soldier Boy’s accusation was directed at you. You bit your tongue, trying to ignore the way the words seeped into your skin.

Because he’s right. A cruel whisper said into your ear, and the itch on your skin began to feel like a rash. You were saved from the plague of your thoughts—the urgent feeling to fall prompted by almost nothing—by Butcher.

“If you think you’re going anywhere without her, Governor, you’d better get used to being wrong. She’s there for the same reason she’s here. So you don’t go postal.”

Soldier Boy gave you an unreadable look as the rush of your heart in your chest slowed from Butcher’s words. You turned away from him, but you could almost feel his eyes through your skull as you looked at Butcher with a blank face.

“What’s the plan?” You asked, praying it would be simple, with as few people as possible around and, ideally, in the middle of a desert filled exclusively with fire extinguishers.

“MM and Kimiko are doing recon on one of Bob Singer’s rallies. Frenchie will create a distraction for the secret service, and Neuman’s personal detail is going to suddenly disappear-“

“Disappear?” You interrupted Butcher with raised eyebrows.

“Keep your panties on, they’ve been bribed. Once she’s isolated, Soldier Boy’ll blast her, and we can all go home confident in your little gambit.”

You hesitated, trying to imagine the last political rally you’d seen. Group of people in tight groups, electrical wiring for microphones, speakers, and lights. Gates and closed doors, hallways leading out onto streets. “How are we going to isolate her?”

“Me and Butcher will work on that,” Annie said, almost reaching for you with a reassuring pat, but thinking better and jerking her arm back. She opened her mouth, an apology certainly on her, but you raised your hand to cut her off.

“How long until we leave?” You asked. Maybe they’d say ‘three hours’ and you’d get to talk to someone who didn’t think swing music was sonically viable for a bit.

Hughie checked his watch. “Ten minutes ago.”

“Ago?” Your eyes widened.

He gave you a sheepish look. “We thought it would take less time to get you.” He turned to Soldier Boy. “Your suit’s in the van. I can bring it out-“

“I can change on the way.” Soldier Boy grumbled, ignoring Hughie’s start of sputtering protests. “Let’s get this over with.”

———-

Much to his annoyance, they had forgotten Ben’s shield, and nobody would let him change in the van. He tried several times, only to be met by a chorus of groans, shouting, and swearing. He had listened to their complaints only because she had started giving him a look he recognized as a flag for a storm of uncontrolled fire. No hot disgust or sparks of rage, only a cold and quiet, almost glassy-eyed stare. Her heart steady but her breathing too fucking controlled to be natural, measured so equally that it sounded mechanical. So, because he figured she would only become more bitchy to live with if she incinerated her alleged “friends”, Ben stopped trying to pull his shirt over his head.

Once he did, the van fell insufferably silent. The edged pleasantries and conversation he’d overheard during Butcher and his band of Assholes arrival had ceased save for tense questions and hushed conversations. Ben didn’t fail to notice all the spineless avoidance and careful words directed at them both. She, even after the foggy look faded, remained curled into a corner, trading small and toothless smiles with her team. More timid than he’d seen her before, almost like a scolded child as she looked around the van nervously. Her eyes watched the shadows as though Homelander himself might jump from them, the chew of her lip giving Ben a headache. The only words she spoke were a jab at Ben when he’d said something about political rallies post-election being fucking pathetic—giving him a lecture about American politics now heavily depending on something called “going viral”—only to fall silent once more after. Her team looked at her like a glass bomb, as if she was a delicate statue looming over their heads and not the vulgar, violent woman who slept down the hall from him. That woman infuriated him, testing his patience every time she opened her mouth, but this paranoid, skittish pussy of a girl was so much worse. So when the van halted and Butcher’s team began to filter out, he called her name. When she ignored him, he reached out and grabbed her arm.

“What the fuck!” She pulled herself out of his grip in a second, staring at him with anger. She glanced down at her arms, a look he didn’t understand crossing her face, before returning her attention to him. “Do not touch me.”

“I barely touched you,” he glowered, annoyance quickly flooding him. He had only brushed skin, with a light grip she had thrown off, there was no need to be so dramatic. “When I touch you for real, you’ll fucking know, Sunshine. And you’ll fucking beg for it. I needed to make you listen, you were fucking ignoring me.”

Her brows knit, and he heard the chew of her teeth on her tongue. “I’m not going to beg for anything, and I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“I said your name, and you kept fucking walking.”

“I didn’t hear you.” She snapped, but didn’t relent. “Speak up next time.”

She knew just as well as Ben did that they were both far from quiet, pussy-voiced fuckers. And while he definitely hadn’t yelled for her attention, it shouldn’t have fucking mattered. He’d seen her pick up his grumbled insults and mocking comments just fine over the past two weeks. “Bitch.”

“What do you want?” She asked with a sigh, ignoring his jab and looking at him as if he exhausted her just by breathing. “We have to go, and you still need to change.”

“You shouldn’t let them treat you like that.” He said, not hiding the contempt from his voice. He wasn’t going to skirt around his thoughts, lining them gently to help her fucking feelings.

Her body tensed, her limbs looking as if they’d locked into place. “Like what?” Ben heard her swallow as she answered, her voice not lost enough to make her sound clueless to his words.

“Like you’re a child they have to coddle. A problem they have to deal with.”

She stared at him, her glassy-eyes returning. “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, cunt-face.”

Ben snorted. “They don’t treat you like the bitch you are. They always use that sweet, pussy voice, like they’re talking to a fucking puppy, when they say something to you. They’re always all fucking pouty when they look at you, pussyfooting around so they don’t make you sad.” He gave her a mocking grin, hoping the next words landed like a bullet. “They treat you like me.”

It had clearly worked, as the van had grown hot, and her eyes were clearing as her heart began to pick up. Ben felt an odd feeling cover him as he heard it, almost familiar and sparking pride in his chest. She wasn’t a jittery shell anymore, she was going to try and kill him. It made his grin grow genuine, and the van grew only more heated, the air waving around them.

Her mouth opened, and Ben hoped whatever came out of it would be vile and crude.

“Hey!” She turned her head and clenched her jaw as someone called her name from outside, the van rattling as a fist banged against it. “We need to go!”

The door opened to reveal the Cocksucker, whose face grew quickly red, a bead of sweat falling from his hairline, as he was blasted with a quickly dying wave of heat.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, turning from Ben as the heat dropped further. “Coming.”

Cocksucker gave her a worried look, his gaze flying quickly to Ben, but just nodded and stood aside for her to move past.

As the door closed and Ben began to change, he listened for their soft, tense words.

“Are you okay? Did he do anything to you?” Cocksucker’s voice was nervous and gentle, like being suffocated by one of those fucking fluffy blankets Ben had seen in the empty bedroom of the safe house.

“No, he just grabbed me to talk. And you don’t have to keep asking me that. I’m fine, and it’s not as helpful as you think it is.” Ben frowned at her voice, the malice from it drained entirely in only a few seconds, replaced with only a tired hollowness.

“Grabbed you?! Like, he touched you?”

Having anticipated Cocksucker being more interested in the “talk” part of her sentence, or the shit that sounded like it was about feelings, Ben's brain rattled over Cocksucker’s word, his tone of panic looping in Ben’s head. He spoke of Ben’s touch as though it were a plague, and not something many people would kill to feel. Ben almost burst out of the van to say just that, but froze when he heard her answer.

“It was fast, I didn’t feel much. Even if I did, it doesn’t matter. I can’t go the rest of my life without touching people.” Her voice had a finality to it, and Ben could almost picture her downturned lips and wrinkled brow.

“You touch us when you heal us.” Even Cocksucker’s voice didn’t sound sure of his response.

“It’s not the same, and you know that.”

There was a momentary stall in their words, and Ben took the opportunity to emerge, securing his belt as he walked to the door. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see, but Cocksucker looking pathetically around, anywhere but the woman as she curved into herself, wasn’t it. She held a white-knuckle grip on the sleeves of her jacket, her thumb running up and down in small movements. They both turned to him as the door banged open, and Ben caught the empty look behind her eyes before her indifference slipped back into place.

“Did you hurry me just to sit around like pussies, or are we going to start fucking moving?” He asked, the air feeling too uncomfortable to sit in.

Cocksucker blinked, glancing at his watch. “We have a few minutes until they arrive, but I guess it can’t hurt to be vigilant-“

“Arrive?” The woman’s eyes widened, and Ben saw smoke curl from her hold on her jacket. “They’re coming here?”

Cocksucker nodded. “It’s a high-security escape exit-“

“It’s a fucking street, Hughie.”

“That’s used as a high-security escape exit.” After a moment of searching the area, Cocksucker pointed a few yards down, at a large door set against brick. “Neuman will come right out of there, and her guards will close her out here, where Soldier Boy will blast her.” He paused, glancing at Ben, before looking back at the door and taking small, cowardly steps away from his spot between them.

“It’s a public area, anyone could walk past! What the fuck were you thinking?!” Her voice was hushed and agitated, and Ben had never seen her face lose color at that speed before, had never heard her heart stutter and jump as if trying to escape her body.

“It’ll be fine,” Cocksucker’s voice wavered, giving them both a nervous look. “It should be fine. MM said it would be fine.”

“You heard him, Sunshine,” Ben gave her a wink, adding a half-cocked smile when she didn’t even return him with a dirty look. “MM said it would be fine. And have some fucking faith in me, I’m not a fucking monster. I won’t blast any running pussies except for this head-popper broad.”

“You don’t even know what she looks like.” Her tone wasn’t quite the vicious mockery he was used to, but it was better than the apathetic, empty voice she’d been using. She was rolling on the balls of her feet, speaking without looking at him, her eyes moving restlessly from the door to the end of the street. “And I don’t believe you.”

Ben just shrugged, allowing the silence to hang. The wind was picking up, whistling through the chill of winter air, making the heat around them, emitting from both Ben and the woman, all the more obvious. Despite the biting cold, Cocksucker had taken off his stupid puffy jacket, even stepping back further from where they stood, with Ben in the center of the street and the woman off to the left. Despite her slowly stepping further and further back, her back now almost against the wall, Ben could feel her watching him, hear her heart continue its new and erratic beat.

“How long now, Hughie?” Her voice was raised to carry over the wind, though it hadn’t lost that stupid fucking weakness. Cocksucker, thank fuck, didn’t get a chance to respond with pathetically comforting words, as only one skipping heartbeat after she spoke a shrill fire alarm sounded.

“I’m assuming that’s your stupid French fuck's plan?” Ben asked dryly. “Start a fucking fire? I thought you pussies were all about minimal damage.”

“He probably just pulled the alarm.” The Cocksucker’s answer lacked any confident assurance. “And I think we’re just against needless murder.”

Ben almost started to rant about their so-called needless murder being a mighty high horse for a group of people who had manipulated him just as much as Vought, who’d been willing to help him kill all those backstabbing pussies from Payback so he’d help them. About how their stupid fucking moral purity complex seemed to adjust perfectly to aid them, and maybe he wasn’t a fucking angel, but he was strong and powerful—something they fucking needed—man, and he wasn’t a pussyfaced liar about what he was, what he did. The words died on his tongue, though, as hundreds of frenzied footsteps reached his ears.

“Fuck!” he growled, turning around and pointing at Cocksucker. “You fucking pussy.”

Cocksucker gave him an idiotically confused stare. “Dude, uncalled for.”

“She,” Ben pointed to the woman, whose heart was beating impossibly fast and looking on with a bloodless face. “Was fucking right. This is a stupid plan, because unless your head-popper walks like a human centipede, it’s not going to be just her that I fucking hit when that door opens.”

Cocksucker only gaped at him like a fish as the footsteps grew louder, annoyingly unsure stutters  escaping him, and just as Ben decided it might be good to slap the idiot out of his daze, the woman stepped forward.

“We need to move, Hughie. Now.” Her voice wasn’t steady, her whole body was tensed and hyper, but it held a determination Ben almost admired. “We can’t be here.”

“He- he could be fucking lying, or wrong-“

“That’s not a risk we can afford to take.” She cut off Cocksucker’s doubts, and Ben found himself surprised at her defense of him, even if it could barely be called that. Her hands were smoking once more, but she had firmly planted herself in the middle of the road, eyes turning sharply to Ben. “If people see you, any element of surprise over Homelander would be lost. We need to fucking move, you need to get in the fucking van now-“

The door banged open, and the streets flooded as hoards of people in star and stripe-themed outfits flooded the road. Everything became so loud, and that rapt, snapping sound in Ben’s head started to spread through him, spurring the drum in his chest. They were finding rhythm so fast, everything fading as Ben tried to slow it. But there were screams and shouts, and everything was getting further and further away from him while carving into him all the same, so though Ben could hear the sounds of metal clanging and shouts of his supe name, he couldn’t think anything past the beat beat beat, until he lost it all at once.

As his vision grew clear with his head, Ben expected to see shattered bodies and bloody walls. Instead, all he saw was the woman and fire. Her face was flushed red, her eyes crazed, and her clothes had become charred with holes as the fire surged from her into a barrier, cutting them off from the crowd. Cocksucker was yelling her name, urging them both to return to the van and leave, but as Ben moved, he glanced back to see the woman frozen and heard her heart as if it were his own. The wall was growing wider and shooting high, Cocksucker wouldn’t shut the fuck up about moving, but her eyes had squeezed shut, unresponsive to anything but the growing flames.

“We need to fucking go, now!” Ben turned to see a large man he vaguely recognized barreling down their side of the street, his face twisted in anger. Butcher, Starlight, a small woman he remembered fighting, and that French prick followed him, all loading into the van as the large man stopped beside Cocksucker.

“I told you he’d fucking blow it,” the man said, giving Ben a disgusted look, so flawlessly revolted Ben wouldn’t be surprised if he’d fucking practiced in the mirror.

“Hey, I didn’t fucking blow it, you pussy-“

“You said that Neuman would come out of here, that it would just be her!” Cocksucker, much to Ben’s shock, cut him with a high voice and a wave at the wall of fire. “That’s way more than just her! Is she even there?!”

“No,” the man said gruffly. “Neuman saw Butcher and figured out something was up. She’s long gone.”

“Fuck!” Cocksucker yelled, running a hand through his hair.

“Oi, we can go over how MM fucked up later,” Butcher leaned out from the van. “We need to go before she sends Homelander.”

“How I fucked up? You’re the one who disobeyed me and blew our cover-“

“What’s wrong with Madame Anomaly?” The French Prick appeared at Butcher's side.

Cocksucker glanced at the woman, calling her name before turning to the large man Butcher had called MM. “She absorbed Soldier Boy’s blast. I think it got her stuck.”

“We don’t have time for this. Get Soldier Boy in the van, I’ll take care of the Anomaly.” MM repeated the French Prick’s words, and Ben realized they were, for the first time, using the woman’s supe name.

“You heard him, Gov. Get in the bloody van.” Butcher’s words were clearly directed at Ben, but as he climbed into the van Ben saw Butcher’s attention locked on the woman.

MM had moved closer to the woman, a move Ben deemed more fucking stupid than brave. If she had “absorbed his blast,” as Cocksucker said, he wouldn’t recommend any non-supe be anywhere near her. MM seemed to realize this himself at the last possible second, taking a pathetic, stumbling step back with a pause. He and Cocksucker exchanged a look, something passing between them that Ben didn’t understand, before Cocksucker leaned down to grab a pebble from the road. Ben watched as he shakily shook out his arms, wound up, and tossed the pebble at the woman.

It was a terrible fucking idea, Ben didn’t have to be Einstein to know that, but the chain reaction that played out still managed to go worse than he might have guessed.

The woman whirled around, her eyes blazing, with a roar sounding from her chest. Fire shot from the wall directly at Cocksucker. In almost slow motion, Ben watched her face become painted with horror as she recognized her target, a different, fearful sound leaving her. She reached an arm out, her heart seeming to falter, and barely redirected the flames before they hit Cocksucker in the chest. The blaze just grazed Cocksucker’s arm, passed the van clear of anyone else, and hit the building with a boom.

The moment the bricks caught fire and the ground began to shake as the building crumbled, the woman's wall of fire fell. The woman herself remained upright, but only barely as MM shouted her name and she started to stumble to the van. Cocksucker was hauled in by Starlight and the French Prick, the former fussing over his burnt arm—Ben had seen worse at Herogasm and nobody whined about it—and Cocksucker waved her off. The woman pulled herself in, ignoring Butcher’s outstretched hand, and the door closed behind her. MM appeared in the driver’s seat, and as the engine started everyone fell into a heavy-breathed silence.

Through the ride, Ben watched the woman open and close her mouth a million times, returned to her fetal position in the corner but watching Cocksucker with a strained face. Her hands tapped against her still-smoking jacket, reaching out hesitantly before she pulled them back into herself. No words were spoken, not even the anxious whispers of the ride there. Ben felt relief as the van stopped, MM climbing out and opening the doors to reveal the exterior of the safe house, grateful for any excuse to leave these stupid, sniffing pussies to wallow in their failure.

MM led Ben and the woman to the doors, opened them by leaning oddly at the doorbell, and gestured for them to walk through. The man followed them in, shutting the doors behind him with a rough push.

“If we failed the test, I am not doing that fucking shit again.” Ben grumbled as MM turned around from the now-shut entrance.

“Butcher told me about the fucking mess you and him made in here.” MM ignored Ben entirely, speaking to the woman as if he wasn’t even there. “A team cleaned it up while you were gone, and Mallory will send more groceries tomorrow night. I saw a picture, it was fucking gross. I’m only doing it once, because I don’t want a new disease to develop in here. You’re an adult, you should take care of this place by your goddamn self.”

The woman looked at her feet, humming a small acknowledgment. She didn’t look up as she spoke. “Is Hughie going to be okay?”

MM sighed. “The kid will live. I’ll look at him when we get back.”

“I could help-“

MM cut her off with her name. “He’ll be fine. We’ll make sure of it.”

She gave another nervous hum, and Ben jumped in.

“Can you answer my fucking question-“

“We’ll let you know what our next steps are after we talk to Mallory and Singer. This wasn’t good, but it’s not the end of the damn world.” Once again, MM ignored Ben. It was starting to feel personal. Before Ben could push further, MM reached a hand out to rest on the woman’s shoulder, right over a hole in her sleeve. Her head shot up with her heart, but the panic in her seemed to evaporate just as soon as it appeared. Her name was gentle as MM spoke it, eyes locked with hers. “You didn’t fuck up. You did your job.” She nodded slowly. “It’ll be fine.” With those last words, he exited the building, leaving Ben and the woman in the hall.

“What’s his fucking problem?” Ben grunted, half directed at the woman, half to just say it.

She gave him a flat look. “You killed his family.” Before he could come up with a clever response, honest or dodging the annoying feeling of guilt forming in his throat, the woman turned from him and walked away.

———-

You were so tired. Your bones ached, oddly cold in a way you hadn’t felt in a while, your skin crawled with feverish chills, and when you closed your eyes, you could see the flames graze Hughie and the building turn to dust. As MM’s lingering calm he’d offered you faded, all you felt was tired. Worthless. A liability. You had fucked up, just as much as Soldier Boy. Maybe more so, because he had PTSD, even if he would deny being a “hung-up pussy”. He had lost control because he’d been tortured by Russians, you’d almost killed your friend and definitely destroyed a rec center because you’d been startled. You just wanted to sleep, to deal with the inevitable fight about groceries in the morning, running on more than quickly expiring adrenaline and caffeine pills stuck in your throat.

You made it to your room, changing into one of the pajama sets folded in your drawers, hoping someone mentioned that the allegedly fire-proof wardrobe you’d been given apparently wasn’t strong enough for the full force of your fire combined with Soldier Boy’s nuclear explosions. A shame, you’d liked the pants you’d chosen for the mission. You’d live without the jacket, though. You’d hardly pulled the shirt over your head when the door ripped open, a still suit-clad Soldier Boy standing at your door.

“What fucking happened to you?” His question was blunt and confusing as he entered your room, remaining near the door but over the threshold.

Your body was too heavy to fight with him right now. There was no tense prickling on the bridge of your nose, only the throbbing stab of a headache. “Go away, Soldier Boy.”

“All of you have a fucking thing. A weird, sad reason to whine around and pretend you’re better than me.” He didn’t budge, but rather leaned forward. “What’s yours.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You said I killed MM’s family. Butcher’s always pussying around about Homelander stealing his girl. Cocksucker mentioned something about that fast asshole doing something as well. I’m not sure what the French Prick bitches about, but I’m sure it’s something.”

“First of all, you did kill MM’s family.” You really don’t want to do this right now, but maybe he’ll give up and fuck off. A fruitless wish, a small part of you knows, but you have nothing left to push back with. “And Homelander didn’t ‘steal Butcher’s wife’, he raped her.”

“Right.” Soldier Boy watched you, his expression unreadable in the shadowy room. “Those are all fucking things. So tell me what yours is.”

“I don’t have one,” even as you speak the insistence, it sounded fake and hollow.

He takes another step forward. “Yes, you do. I saw how you froze, nobody without a thing locks up like that. I heard Cocksucker ask you if I ‘hurt you’. Just for the record, Sunshine, I may not be a Boy Scout, but I’m no fucking rapist.”

“You’ve tried to sleep with me thirty-three times.”

“And I’ll blow your mind when you realize how much you’d love it, no sooner. What’s your fucking thing.”

You stare at him, the intensity in his voice throwing you off. He’s insistent, comfortable in your room but standing at his full height, attention fixed entirely on you. That impression of dissection has returned—the feeling as if he’s trying to pick you apart for him to play with. “Why do you even care?”

“Because maybe if you tell me, I can kill what supe fucked up your pretty little head and you’ll be less of a bitch.”

You can’t stop the snort that escapes you. “What a selfish fucking cunt reason.”

He shrugged in something that could’ve been an agreement. “Maybe.” He falls silent, but doesn't leave.

You collapse to sit on the edge of your bed, staring ahead as you rub your temple. “Please just go.”

“No.”

You look at him, not caring if he sees the desperation in your eyes. “Can this not wait six hours for the morning?”

“No.”

“Do you know any words but no?” You mutter under your breath.

You didn’t miss his annoyed humph. “Oh, just fucking tell me.”

“No.” It was your turn to snap. Your exhaustion was becoming lined with bitter childishness, and you didn’t care enough to try and suppress your urge to sneer at him.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re an idiotic, self-absorbed, sadist asshat who wouldn’t know empathy if it started sucking his dick.” You mocked.

He grinned. “Ok, now name my bad qualities.”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I’ll start guessing,” he took another step forward, now almost directly before you. “Did that red-headed lesbian steal your puppy?

You frowned up at him. “Maeve was bisexual.”

“Did Noir take credit for a college project?” He ignored your comment, leaning down with a mocking smirk.

“Trust me, I got all my dues in college.”

“Did that gay-for-Jesus blond steal your boyfriend? Did the fast asshole that stole Cocksucker’s girl break up with you? Did water-boy eat your goldfish?”

“I’ve never met Ezekiel, A-Train actually murdered Hughie’s girlfriend, and The Deep famously doesn’t eat seafood, he fucks it. But by all means, keep going.”

Soldier Boy blinked. “He fucks it?”

“Yep. It’s gross.” You shrug. “Are you done?”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

You give a toothless smile. “Not until you get all your guesses out.”

“Oh?” There was unquestionable surprise in his voice at your relent, only making your fake cheer grow and your immature anger fully overtake you.

“I want you to feel like a real fucking asshole when I tell you.”

His face split open with a grin. “Well then, did the Twins kick you out of Herogasm? Did that bitch, Crimson Countess, overshadow your big debut? Did a Z-lister get more attention than you from the Vought pussies?”

You just raised your eyebrows, crossing your arms as Soldier Boy continued until the list of supes ran dry. As the last jeer left his mouth, he mirrored your face of cold amusement.

“Well?”

You leaned back, watching him closely as you spoke. “Homelander kidnapped me, kept me in a dungeon, raped me in an attempt to make more mini-Homelanders, and, after you returned, started experimenting on me to try and recreate the V used on you.”

A small shock rushed through you after you spoke. You hadn’t said any of that out loud, not fully, since you’d escaped. You danced around it with Butcher and his team, with Mallory and the CIA leaders, always picking and choosing parts to omit so nobody would look at you with pity and fear. It hadn’t worked, they did anyway, but there had still been control over it. Up until this moment, nobody had known why Homelander had done all those things to you. Everyone had seemed happy to chalk it up to him being a fucking psychopath, not anything deeper. Certainly not attempting to create a small army of additional Ryan Butchers. Small things were still yours, flashes of hunger and warped sounds remaining in your head, but everything else you had just told him.

Why did you do that? A voice hissed as the high from your petulance faded. Why did you let him win? Why did you give him a weapon to use that could hurt you?

But looking at him, he didn’t appear to be a portait of self-satisfaction and heartless triumph. He was staring at you, scanning you as though the scars Homelander left would be visible on your bare legs and arms. When he spoke, his voice wasn’t weak or coddling, but angry.

“He kept you locked up?”

You nod, part of you getting ready to fight him over something.

“He hurt you? To try and recreate me?” Your repeated nodding only seemed to inflate whatever was happening. “Did it hurt?”

Your arms and face started at that, an uncertain feeling spreading through you. There had been no reverent tone as Soldier Boy had asked the last question, no sadistic for affirmation. But you didn’t know what he wanted to hear. Why he even wanted to know. But an involuntarily honest answer escaped you. “Yes.”

He stared at you for another second before he opened his mouth, only to close it without making any sound. Abruptly, he whipped around and began to leave, giving you only one more indecipherable look as he closed the door behind him, leaving you on the edge of your bed, alone in your room.

You lay down slowly, half expecting him to storm back in at any moment, but minutes passed, quickly turning into a half hour, and your body sat at the edge of collapse once more. Soon it was unbearable, and you lay down, your racing mind being forced to a halt as sleep pulled you under.

Your sleep, as had been the case for a while now, was haunted by nightmares of blue eyes and yellow, fluorescent lights. You woke up in a cold sweat, and took a long, needlessly warm shower before forcing yourself to leave your room around 9:30. Despite your lingering fatigue, no part of you wasn’t restless as you walked down the stairs. Your body tense and ready to run, your head spinning with hypotheticals and lining up words you may need—that feeling under your skin creeping up your spine and fluttering in your gut. But Soldier Boy wasn’t in the living room or the hall. You poked your head in the dining room, hoping to avoid the minefield of the kitchen, but it was empty, the plastic chandelier lights off, the table occupied only by a vase of wilted flowers. You moved to the kitchen, ringing growing in your ears, but he wasn’t there. You turned to walk away, continue your search, but double-back as it hit you.

Nothing was in the kitchen. It was empty. Of Soldier Boy, and of the groceries MM said would be delivered.

You wandered in slowly, watching the counters as if they might start to glitch and flicker, revealing hidden produce and dirty dishes. But, leaning over the sink, there was a single plate, soaking in water that was dotted with crumbs. Slowly, you moved to the refrigerator, slowly opening it as you glanced around the room. Your eyes widened at the sight inside. Milk, drinks, and produce had been placed inside, disorganized and haphazardly. There was a jar of mayonnaise in the fresh drawer, along with a box of pasta on a side shelf, but the fridge was full. You moved quickly to the pantry, which had been sorted in a similar fashion, but filled. And when you opened the last cabinet, you saw a piece of paper stuck under a jar of peanut butter.

I know I did a shit job. Clean up if it bothers you, but don't bitch to me about it. And tell Mallory to get smooth peanut butter next time, or I’m not doing anything for her but killing Homelander - Ben

[johnbrand]

Breeder Boy

Adam hoisted the suspenders up slowly, his mind numb as he went through the motions of tightening each strap around his shoulder blades.

“Yeah, that's a good boy,” his best friend Isaac affirmed from behind. “That's my good, obedient breeder boy.”

Adam blinked. He could not remember why Isaac had taken to him after college. The two were practically opposites back then. Isaac was a popular lacrosse player with girls constantly at his side. Adam had been a data analytics nerd who had only managed to kiss one boy in his entire life. And it had been an accident. Their social circles would have never intercepted if it had not been for the Intro to Psychology course they had both taken as an elective.

They had been paired as partners in a simple project exploring different subsects of therapy. Adam and Isaac had been assigned with hypnotherapy, although going in it had been obvious which one of them was actually going to do the work. That was until Adam explained to Isaac what their subject was. The nerd had been shocked to see the jock’s sudden enthusiasm for the subject. Inspired by Isaac's curiosity, Adam had tried his best to answer every question Isaac posed to him.

"You are about to have one of the best days of your life.” Adam stood still as Isaac’s arms dropped around his head, a black bowtie ready to encircle his throat. “You will smile, laugh, maybe even cry at the sheer beauty of your woman. The ceremony and reception will be branded into your memory forever.”

Adam gulped, his face still emotionless as he tried to process everything. It was like his life had changed after meeting Isaac. After that project, they would be together almost all the time. Whenever Isaac was not at practice, partying, or getting laid, then he would be with Adam. At first, Adam did not understand the sudden friendship that emerged between them, but Isaac had told him to disregard it. In fact, there were a lot of things Isaac had told Adam to forget about.

While it had been too late to completely change his major, Isaac had reasoned with Adam that an accounting degree would be much more beneficial than his current computer sciences. That way, by focusing on business, he would have more time to do what he and Isaac loved, sports. Adam had protested at first, but after Isaac’s well-crafted arguments, his opposition was cleanly dismissed. 

After graduation, Isaac was able to spend even more time with Adam. The two often discussed so many different topics that Adam could not quite remember everything they had covered. It was strange how Isaac, someone he had known for only a tiny portion of his life, had known more about Adam than even Adam did. Isaac had clarified early on that he had understood Adam’s wants, goals, and needs. Isaac had joked that Adam should just forget about his former aspirations, as he knew them better anyway.

“Yup, don't resist it…atta boy,” Isaac praised as he secured the bowtie. Adam fidgeted with his ring, the cold metal foreign to his formerly naked finger. 

“That feels good, doesn’t it?” Isaac took notice. “You like knowing you're about to be married to a woman. You like that I helped you become an alpha male. You like to submit to the patriarchy and uphold the traditional masculine supremacy.”

Adam said nothing. It had been just over five years since they had first met. Five years since Isaac had begun reshaping his life, and where was he now? At 27, Adam was a successful businessman at a firm downtown, often working with clients beside Isaac. Adam now enjoyed lacrosse, tennis, and frequent pickleball. Adam spent mornings at the gym and evenings at the bar. And right now, he was about to marry his girlfriend of almost two years, the woman he had fallen in love with and was preparing to dedicate his life to.

“Just think, back in college you were nothing more than a faggy partner for what I thought would be a blow-over of a psych class.” Isaac, his best man, brimmed with excitement. “Now you’re worthy of being a man, a real man, who’s gonna slide that straightened cock into a fertile, tight pussy tonight."

“And at the heart of it all," Isaac sneered. "you were the one who began this whole thing. My good breeder boy.”

Adam blinked. Butterflies bounced around in his stomach as he tossed the suit jacket over himself. He was excited and nervous as he approached the doors, one of the the best days of his life beginning he entered into the church hall.

"Looking good, man!" Isaac cheered before whispering. “And don’t forget, that baby you're making tonight should be named Isaac.”

Adam chuckled. Isaac had been his best bro, had known more about Adam than he himself had after all. That honor only felt right.

[carionto]

C'mon, Really? Look, Just, Let Me Help You!

Humans: We need to have a talk about your secret war plans against us.

Aliens: W-what? No, that's not it, how-

H: Our intelligence operative are very good. Don't pretend these [throws folder on the table that scatters hundreds of pages of classified documents all over] aren't yours.

A: F-Fine! Yes! We made plans about how we should fight you if we ever got into a war. We admit it! What do you want?

H: Huh? No, what I'm trying to say is, why do your plans suck?

A: Err... what?

H: Yeah, compared to our plans and war games, you don't seem to utilize all the advantages you have against us. There's not as much coordination and specialization of forces as we expect in our simulations. What gives?

A: You've lost me.

H: Look, every civilization should run military simulations against EVERY existing party, not just the ones you're natural competitors, or ones you see as antagonistic. Hell, while we were "vanished" our military literally had nothing else to do and spent a solid 200 years making up every kind of scenario against every single potential power we might end up encountering once we "reappeared".

Honestly, there are so many things we are shocked about once we got our hands on your plans, I legitimately don't know where is the best place to begin.

Okay, for starters, why don't any of your plans include making use of our superior technology? It would work, we tested it as well. We built a scale model of one of your capital ships, plopped one of our fusion reactors in and BAM, shields and weapons instantly became on par with our Destroyers, and could even do some serious damage to our Dreadnoughts (for a few seconds before our counterattack vaporizes it, but that's besides the point), so we know your technology is fully capable of handling us.

A: For the millionth time, we are not using unstable power sources that could totally blow us up at any point!

H: It is safe! Those things only have a 0.002 percent chance to fail, and a one in six hundred thousand chance of THAT resulting in an explosion. We've only had twelve incidents the entire time we've been using them.

A: No.

H: Well you ain't winning a war against us with that attitude.

But anyway, one other thing your plans never do is blow up Earth and irradiate the shipyard orbits, what gives?

A: That's an abominable crime against, well, EVERYTHING!

H: Weak. But okay. One other thing though, and this one is just baffling, your deployments and gathering locations are always in the most obvious and convenient places. Those are, no joke, where we would place recon units and prepare ambushes the moment we even got a hint of a whiff of hostility from you. How come you never seem to account for us expecting you to do the obvious and pre-emptively counter that. And inversely, you never expect us to not be in the logical places where we should be.

A: I think my head is spinning from that. What?

H: Reverse psychology? Predictive behavior, or whatever it's called, not a psychologist. If you want to win against your enemy, you have to think like your enemy first.

You look dizzy. I know it's a lot to take in, but we'll guide you through this. Think of it as homework. After we have a more thorough meeting on this subject, we'll wait and let you figure things out back in your secret HQ's. But, if the plans we acquire later still won't account for the things we discussed, we'll be very disappointed.

[blasphemecel]

Michael Kaiser, Alexis Ness — Dog Walking

PAIRING: Michael Kaiser/Reader/Alexis Ness WORD COUNT: 3.2k TYPE: Humor, Bad flirting (it's so bad I don't know if i can call it flirting in good faith), Bad matchmaking (there was an attempt), Rivalry WARNING(S): Canon-typical football derangement, canon-typical behavior EDIT: This got a continuation, yay. And an add-on

Kaiser got it in his head that he has taken a liking to you. This is great and all, not like Ness is gritting his teeth and clenching his fists and getting angry or anything, but- okay, he is.

An obvious reason for his displeasure would be jealousy, but that’s not quite it. Ness thinks it would be entitled and insolent of him to feel any type of way about Kaiser’s personal affairs, so he hasn’t even entertained the notion. The problem is entirely different.

Just like everyone else in Blue Lock, you’re… Kaiser-opposed? Is that the right way to word it? Anyway, the point is, your shitty personality is making his job really hard. Which leads the three of you to this current situation.

“Ow! Ness, what the hell is your problem?!” you shriek, after having tripped and fell. The only reason your face isn’t attached to the floor fight now is because you softened the blow with your elbow.

“I didn’t mean it- I’m so sorry!”

“You didn’t mean it? You literally did it on purpose.”

This isn’t how it should’ve played out, though.

You were supposed to fall right into Kaiser’s arms, but you landed about a step away from him. They even practiced this routine with the others! Granted, no one agreed to it and was rather subjected to it whenever in Ness and Kaiser’s general vicinity, and, no, it didn’t work all the time, but they were just getting the hang of it. (Thankfully, no one sustained any serious injuries, apart from bearing some mental scars after hearing Kaiser say ‘Don’t go falling for me now’ in a wannabe suave tone.)

“Yeah, Ness, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Kaiser adds, before moving to crouch down and help you with a smidge of concern in his expression.

Ness’s eyes widen at the betrayal. Kaiser is such a fake bitch sometimes. Not like he’s going to do anything about it, or even that he minds, but seriously? No shame or decorum is on display here.

You don’t buy it, slapping his hands away. “I bet you put him up to it,” you say, before standing up all by yourself. Then you twist your leg around back and forth for a bit, as if to check how well it’s working, before you eventually lift it high up in the air. “Listen, you tie-dyed toerags.”

Ness flinches because what kind of way to address someone is this? Kaiser crosses his arms, shiteating grin receding into a little frown.

“I’m at my most divine when scoring a goal. You see this?” Your foot is now hovering near their faces while you stretch. This… What is it? A flex? A display? Whatever it is that you’re doing right now, Ness finds it unnerving. “It’s what I use to score. If you did something to take that ability away from me, you’d get pretty bad karma, you know? Angels would cry. Believe me.”

Ness tugs on Kaiser’s sleeve — to remind him he’s supposed to respond instead of just stare at you with a blank, creepy look on his face — and, as filler, says, “You’re very, um, flexible.”

“Yeah,” you say, moving into an even more convoluted position. “I have many attractive qualities. Deserving of being a superstar ace, you know? Dump Kaiser. Pass to me. You’re way too good to play second fiddle, Ness. With me, you won’t be stuck in a Tweedlecum and Tweedlepee dynamic.”

“What?! You- you- you, you, you, yooooou-?! What are you talking about?! I’d never betray him! I’m not joining your circus, clown! Unbelievable! Learn your place already. You never learn,” Ness says in a jumble. For some reason, he’s more offended than Kaiser is.

Here’s the thing about you — you’re insane. A has-an-interesting-psychological-file type of crazy. A hollow-inner-world type of crazy.

A Ness-loves-it type of crazy, as objectionable as he is acting to your offer.

“Calm down. No need to get your panties in a twist over some shitty trash talk,” says Kaiser, placing his hand on Ness’s head, forcing him to lower himself in a slight bow in front of you. Finally, you quit your bizarre movements and assume a more proper stance, while Kaiser leans in closer to you, shifting his gaze in your direction. This leaves Ness to watch you two engage in a round of charged glaring… again. Which is always compromising, but then Kaiser has to run his fingers through his hair, too. “You’re just like a chihuahua that hasn’t warmed up to its owner yet. Your barking doesn’t faze me.”

Your eye twitches at the analogy, face scrunching in an ugly way. “The hell did you just say to me? If I catch you somewhere Ego can’t see me, I’ll give you the beating of a lifetime.”

Instead of responding in a normal way, Kaiser points his finger in your face, almost poking you, twirls it around in a circle, which makes you furrow your brows even harder if possible as you scrutinize him like he’s a lower life form.

“See? Doesn’t bite. Totally harmless,” Kaiser says with a lilt of amusement. Then he swings an arm around Ness’s shoulders and turns him around before pulling him along so they can get away from you.

His tone is convincing enough to give off the impression of winning this verbal spat. However, Ness can’t help but notice that they’re speed walking.

___

When Ness turns around, you’re leaning on the bench with your foot, elbow resting on your knee. He lets out an undignified scream, taking a step back, startled, and even drops his water bottle. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! How come you didn’t make a noise? What are you?”

Kaiser regards the commotion with not even a sliver of curiosity and instead grins after nodding at you in greeting. “Look who came crawling back searching for my company, Ness.”

“I was thinking about that stuff you told me yesterday,” you say.

“Really? And what thrilling conclusion did you come to?” he asks, with sarcastic emphasis on the word ‘thrilling.’

“I’m going to spend my points from goals on taking a day off. Come along with me and we’re gonna fight, preferably in front of a big audience that can watch me humiliate you. By the way, it's a duel, so you can’t decline.”

“Wow, you’re asking me out on a date? Since when are you so adorable? I guess I just can’t reject you when you’re being vulnerable.”

“No one likes delusional men, Kaiser. I’d rather embalm myself and then desecrate my own corpse.”

Kaiser appears to find this amusing or in some way adjacent to flirting because his smile becomes a touch more irritating, but also a bit incredulous. “Crazy fucking bastard. You’ve got unique ways of pretending you’re not into me, though. It’s entertaining.”

“Your mouth is like a dirty urinal. You swear like a preteen who just found out what sixty-nine means, worry about that.”

Kaiser stares at you in shock, jaw hanging slightly open. In your head, you consider this a huge win, since it’s the first time you’ve visibly put him off.

“Keep gaping at me, I might just take a piss.”

“H-How dare you?!” Ness lunges at you, and the only thing to stop him from strangling you on live television — sensational, you like it — is the fact that Kaiser is holding him back by the collar. You find the sight of him swiping his fists in the air vaguely adorable. “How can you say these things? Just in general, let alone to Kaiser?”

You observe him in mild surprise for a second and the sincerity in your expression makes it all the more infuriating when you ask, “Oh, you’re still here?”

___

For once in his life, Ness is being very assertive. At least that’s what you think while he drags you over to their side of the cafeteria, fingers curling tight enough around your wrist to probably disturb your blood circulation.

Kaiser pulls out a chair for you when you come into view, then Ness shoves you so you’re sitting, and Kaiser pushes it back in, causing you to almost double over the table. Ness slides over some kind of fancy meal you can’t even identify in front of you. Kaiser leans down, his hair brushing against you, and then he reaches around your shoulder to aggressively stab one of the slices with a fork. With a perhaps demented smile, he declares, “We’re going to talk about strategy today,” before taking the seat next to yours.

“We’re not going to talk about strategy because I’m not one of your groupies,” you say, picking up on the conversation with ease.

Ness plops down on your other side, apparently having decided he has enough authority to lecture you. “No, no, no! This isn’t working. Isagi does whatever he wants, Kunigami does whatever he wants, you do whatever you want. It’s pure chaos on the field! No synergy! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Join us. If you’re not following,” Kaiser adds, his arm finally receding away from you, “this is a compliment. You’re the one best suited for me, which is a big honor.”

“I have a way better idea. How about I continue doing whatever I want, and by the end of this Neo Egotist League ordeal, you two and everyone else you mentioned sing my name in a choir?”

“Ungrateful,” Ness mutters, petulant.

Kaiser grins, mocking, but also intrigued. “Are you still hanging onto the high of that goal against Barcha? Your ego is unhinged and, honestly, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Your type is always the most fun to break.”

Like he’s any different?

The score you landed, though — the one Kaiser is referencing — was what sparked his interest. You jumped in and stole the pass Isagi meant for Kunigami, securing the point right under their noses. Then, you faced Kaiser and took him by the chin like he’d done to Isagi on arrival, and even imitated his introduction, “On your knees, Bastard München,” with inconceivable amounts of smugness.

It was… interesting. Outlandish. A first. Ness berated you and Isagi together, but you kind of walked away in the middle of it without a care.

Here’s the other detail which is keeping Ness’s sanity intact (not like he’s renowned for his mental stability, but): Kaiser taking a liking to you isn’t necessarily a good thing, even if he’s treating you differently than the other competitors. It doesn’t say anything positive about your character, isn’t in any way sentimental — it’s more as if someone held up a mirror in front of him and he began obsessing over his reflection.

“I’m big and you’re small. That’s why you can’t tame me,” you say.

“He’s taller than you!” Ness defends.

“Did the voices in your head tell you that?” Kaiser asks you, and he does not acknowledge Ness’s meager attempt to upkeep his honor.

“I mean it. You think you can brute force everything and bend it to your version of reality. That’s fragile. I don’t mind falling from a high place. It kind of appeals to me, actually, you know, crawling back up, but more beautiful.”

The corners of his lips turn up in a manner you interpret as more baleful than usual. “I don’t know if you’re big or if I’m small or whatever you wanna call it, but what I know for sure is that you’re a melodramatic jerk off.”

“Anyway,” you stand up, taking the plate as you do so, “you don’t think often, so I won’t blame you for calling my internal monologue a hallucination. You can’t help it. Bye.”

___

The locker room is an environment you find ripe for picking fights in. Especially when everyone is tired after a practice match. At least the place is free of anyone besides your usual targets.

“Ness,” you say upon approaching them — they’re always together, it almost seems codependent — and then take a hold of his hand, all beguiling. Kaiser scoffs, apparently not interested in getting into it with you this once, while Ness stares at you doe-eyed. “I think it’s about time you get some dignity.”

“What kind of opening line is that?!” he asks, expression shifting from bashful to irritated.

“He’s just been even more awful to you lately and you’re still attached to his asshole like you’re a part of the human centipede.”

“You made fun of me for swearing, but look at the shit you’re saying right now.”

“I do it sparingly and with style. Please stop trying to compete where you don’t compare.” After a dismissive glance towards Kaiser, you turn your attention back to Ness, letting go of his hand to wrap an arm around his waist. “Anyway, the point is, he’s not acting very appreciative of your talent. I could treat you so much better if you passed to me. We don’t even need to entirely exclude him or anything, I’m a tolerant person.”

“I can see and appreciate Ness’s talent just fine. He’ll stay by my side no matter what.” Ness blushes because that’s kind of an intense statement to make out of nowhere? Kaiser’s fingers curl around his jawline before he pushes Ness’s head into his shoulder. “And I’m going to add you to the roster while I’m at it.”

What the fuck is even going on? Maybe the delusions of grandeur you and Kaiser seem to suffer from are becoming contagious, but it sounds like you two are fighting… over HIM? A more well-adjusted person would probably find this objectifying or otherwise demeaning, but Ness, mostly because of who he is — terminally unwanted — wonders if he’s in heaven right now.

Then again, Ness isn’t an idiot. His ignorance is willful. There’s a cap to the nonsense even he is willing to tolerate. So he lets this feeling of I’ve-never-been-happier linger for a little, your bickering fading into background noise, before he squirms away from both of you.

“I’m tired of how you guys are acting,” he calls over his shoulder.

Kaiser is gawking again. You let out an amused whistle, as if you find this development pleasing, before forcing Kaiser’s jaw closed.

“Don’t talk to me… for the rest of the day,” Ness continues, before leaving. His resolve ends on a weak note, but oh well.

“What the hell? Did Ness just reject me?” Kaiser asks, slapping off your pesky hand. “First you don’t want me, now even Ness doesn’t want me. I’m sick of this wretched place. Everything is all out of whack here.”

You burst out laughing. “Are your sensitive little feelings unable to handle a few hours without him?”

“Shut up,” says Kaiser. There isn’t enough bite in it.

“I can tell whatever tantrum you’re about to have is gonna give me secondhand embarrassment, so I’m gonna go as well.”

You’re not prepared for Kaiser to slam you into the locker and cage you in with his arms. Some vein you don’t know the name of looks very pronounced on his forehead, and you don’t think it’s supposed to be doing that?

You roll your eyes. “Take the hint, your machismo shtick isn’t doing it for me.”

“I’m not trying to make a move on you, shithead. I’m sick of your outrageous attitude as well. What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re always leaving in the middle of conversations, even ones you initiated. Do you know how rude that is? No one ever taught you some fucking manners? What’s your home life like?”

Ignoring whatever he’s even talking about — it’s going in one ear and out of the other as usual — you trail your hands over his shoulders.

“Stop trying to distract me. I’m listing out all of your personality defects.” He’s not really putting up a fight, though, doesn’t even shrug you off when you move onto caressing his neck. “We’re arguing,” Kaiser says, before leaning in to complete the kiss you were trying to pull him into, and finally his hands drop to rest on your waist.

The contact doesn’t last long, since you take the chance to side step him and swap your positions, before you push him into the locker like he’d done to you.

“Little bitch,” you say with a sneer, and then you dash towards the exit, offering a flippant wave. “I leave whenever I want to.”

What the hell!

___

“You’re unforgivable!” says Ness. What did you even do to deserve this attitude right before breakfast? “Stop messing with Kaiser’s head!”

Oh yeah, you did do that. You almost forgot.

“Good morning to you, too. Sleep well?”

Ness crosses his arms and taps his foot. He’s not very good at being intimidating, at least in a visual sense, you think. He has a total babyface. “You’re going to apologize. You’re gonna grovel for Kaiser’s forgiveness.”

“Sure, I take hurt feelings very seriously. Answer these questions for me, so I can apologize better later. Which ear were the words of hurtfulness spoken into? Is the damage he suffered permanent? Did he require a tissue for his tears?”

“I- I- I- I?!?! You piss me off so much. I don’t have the patience for this.” Ness pinches the bridge of his nose as if he needs to soothe himself after exchanging a couple of sentences with you.

“If he doesn’t have a mommy to hug him,” you continue without much of an inflection, “we can look for a surrogate.”

With uncharacteristic vice, he squeezes your shoulders, and he’s gritting his teeth, and you think he really might kill you. Maybe not right now, but at some point, this man is going to take your life. “What’s your problem? You’re a nobody, so why are you so high maintenance? Kaiser is rich, handsome, successful, and a football genius. What more could you possibly want in a boyfriend?”

“Wow,” you say, astonishment at something indeterminate apparent on your face.

Ness waits for you to elaborate, but you don’t, instead opting to scrutinize him in silence. “What? Don’t just say wow and then leave it at that. How can someone be so difficult?”

Your expression shifts into something meaner, then, a mocking raise of your eyebrows, a lop-sided but meaningless smile. “It’s just kind of amazing. You can’t help but ride Kaiser’s dick even while trying to guide it inside of me.”

“Wh-huh… What?!” Ness screeches, scandalized. “How… How crude? You're a vulgar moron! Totally indecent! That’s what you are!”

“I mean, can you blame me for being jealous of that kind of attention? You can do crazy tricks on it.”

“Why are you saying those kinds of things to me?! S-Something’s not right with you.”

You reach out and squish Ness’s cheeks together, leaving his lips to pucker, and you can feel his skin burning. “You’re an amusing guy, Ness. I haven’t decided if I find you pathetic or endearing yet, but I like it.” Then you let go of him as casually as you grabbed him, intending to continue on your merry way.

There are footsteps hurrying after you. “Admit your love to Kaiser already.”

Love? A frightening laugh rattles you. Your body jerks upright and you feel like an evil spirit was just exorcised out of you with how unexpected your reaction was, even to you.

“I know you can’t resist his charms. No one can.”

Kaiser’s… charms? You knew it, he’s trying to kill you.

“And- and- and!!! You’re going to play on our side against Ubers, and you’re going to like it.”

You’re borderline in hysterics now, stomach hurting.

“Stop walking away from me! Are you even listening? You should really listen when people talk to you!”

___

Im still loopy so presented without comment. Feel free to tell me wat you thikn the worst line from this abomination is

[divorcedfiddleford]

You made a post saying “it has been zero days since our last alex hirsch hates ford so much bullshit” and i know it was mostly hyperbole, but you have some really good takes that I would love to be elaborated on in terms of how ford is written

it really wasn't hyperbolic. over the years he's just really shown a lot of hatred towards this one character.

content warning: discussion of abuse

i want to start with this clip from the commentary which i think of as a microcosm for how the writers and especially alex think about ford.

transcript:

rob renzetti: i mean he [mcgucket] should've basically knocked ford out, and... and destroyed the... you know, tied him up, and, destroyed... and... alex hirsch, speaking over him: yeah he should've beat ford with a wrench and taken this thing apart piece by piece! he's the one who understood how to built [sic] it, but...

... so that seems like a pretty violent course of action. shall we unpack that?

ford is a character who's pretty explicitly written as a victim of abuse, and who now has c-ptsd as a direct result of the abuse he experienced. alex hirsch believes that ford deserved everything bad that happened to him, that it's ford's own fault, and that he also deserved worse things to happen to him. this is why, given every narrative chance, alex hirsch has piled more suffering onto ford's plate. the biggest example of this i can think of is in the journal, when he wrote that fiddleford was actively erasing ford's memory (despite this being a massive timeline contradiction which i still refuse to accept). because god forbid ford even have one remotely healthy relationship with somebody. that would be too good for him. ford was manipulated and lied to by bill, but alex repeatedly compares him to icarus, a teenager whose demise was the result of his own ignorance. this comparison is still so fucking offensive to me. the sun did not lie to icarus, did not guarantee icarus all of the happiness and success and sense of belonging which he had been denied all his life, did not actively shut out the voices of those around him who would try to help him.

alex in general has a very strange relationship with abuse. he seems to get really upset when people read his characters as victims of abuse. the strongest instance of this is actually not with ford, it's with pacifica - especially in the nwmm episode commentary. the episode says "pacifica's parents have conditioned her to respond to a bell" and alex says people got "the wrong idea" about it. like. dude. what the fuck. you wrote abuse. even if you didn't mean to, that's what you wrote. you can't say people got "the wrong idea" just because you didn't think about the subtext of what you were writing. anyway, back to ford: i believe this extends to him as well. alex wanted to write a character who's a foil to stan and who was a selfish unlikable victim of his own arrogance. however that's not what he wrote. he somehow seemingly accidentally wrote a really compelling and relatable awesome autistic guy who had to fight for every good thing he he ever had in his life only for it to be taken from him every single time. but alex can't let go of seeing ford as just "the opposite of stan". when he talks about "how someone as smart as ford could fall for bill's tricks", he refuses to realize he wrote a situation in which a man was being psychologically manipulated and tortured.

it goes back further, too. people repeatedly theorized that filbrick was... not a very good father, to say the least. on top of the very explicit and canon fact that he threw one of his children out on the street (seriously, there is no defense for this), people pointed out that stan would flinch at filbrick, that ford seemed upset by things filbrick said but dared not talk back, that filbrick was mad at stan not for hurting his brother, but for "costing the family potential millions". but alex can't have people seeing ford as sympathetic. ford can't have it bad like stan did. ford had to have everything and he lost it all because he sucks so much. so he wrote the graphic novel story where ford is filbrick's favorite child and filbrick also is not even a bad parent you guys he's just stoic. ignore the whole thing in dreamscaperers where stan perpetuates the abuse that filbrick did to him. ignore the fact that ford was shouting at stan and then completely shut up as soon as filbrick entered the room and did not say another word for the rest of the night. ignore all that because i just made up this story where he cries at a present from stan. filbrick loved his boys for sure you guys!!!

i'm not even touching on how alex repeatedly villainizes traits commonly associated with mental illness and neurodivergence. ford's hypervigilance becomes arrogance. his passion for knowledge means he's a know-it-all. his difficulty socializing and making friends means he's a misanthrope. his lingering resentment for the way he was raised means he hates his brother and is the worst human being to ever have lived. i could go on, go even further into how the finale reaffirms this, but i feel weird talking about this too much.

[atlasscrumpit]

Professor Lecter x Reader

Ever since he had started teaching as a psychology professor, he had spotted you immediately as if there were a large spotlight on you.

Every class he had he would glance at you, noticing how quiet you often were.

One day you waited for everyone to leave before you began to leave, a habit he had noticed.

"It's Y/N. Right?" He asked as you turned around and smiled.

"Yes, yeah that's me." You said, he noticed a small blush on your face.

"I must say you turn in some very impressive work. The way you view things is very unique." He said as you smiled again at the compliment.

"Oh, thank you. I actually get that quite a bit. I hope it's a good thing." You replied, he liked to watch the way you avoided eye contact.

"It's a wonderful thing, people often don't think outside the square like you do. Your view on the world makes it seem like there's hope in everything, even darkness." He admitted, slowly stepping closer.

"This world isn't easy, being a human isn't easy. We have to find ways to deal with the ever crushing certainty of death. Maybe I'm too much of a dreamer but...what's the alternative? Just wallow in self pity and fear?" You replied with a small chuckle as he watched you speak with admiration in his eyes.

"You are far beyond your years, Y/N." He said, tilting his head slightly as he studied you.

"A curse really..." You muttered, solemnly.

"Perhaps, but do you really wish to be oblivious lile the rest of your class. Just drinking and experimenting as they like to say." He said making you chuckle a little.

"I suppose not. Knowledge can be a blessing and a curse." You said, finally meeting his gaze.

You both held the look for a few minutes before you inevitably looked away again.

"Anyway, I should probably get going. It was nice talking to you, I'm really really looking forward to more of your classes." You complimented making him smile.

"And I look forward to teaching you, Y/N."

--

You started to notice how much Dr. Lecter would look at you while he teaches, you didn't know if he was interest by you or interested in you.

But, you start talking after nearly every class.

This university used to be safe and happy but...it began to change.

You started to feel unsafe in your own dorm.

One night you were on your way home from the one party you've ever attended, and of course it all went to shit.

You sat on the edge of the stairs up to your dorm and sighed.

"Everything alright?" You heard a voice say, startling you back to reality.

"Oh god... Sorry you scared me." You muttered, seeing Dr. Lecter above you.

He wasn't used to seeing you so dishevelled and messy.

"What happened?" He asked, tilting his head and studying your body language.

"Well, I tried to go to a party for the first time... Just to try it. Some guy tried to have sex with me even though I said no. I ended up beating him up and getting kicked out." You grumbled as his brows furrowed a little.

"I'm glad you were able to defend yourself. Who was the boy?" He asked making you sigh.

"I think his name is Ben, Ben Sail or something." You said as he nodded, he knew exactly who you were talking about.

"You should head back to your dorm and get some rest." He said, helping you stand up.

You nodded and rubbed your eyes.

"Yeah... You're right. Night, Dr. Lecter." You said with a yawn before heading inside, Hannibal watched you leave and made sure you were safe before going on his way.

--

A week later you rushed into Hannibal's class room early in the morning.

"It was you, wasn't it!" You screamed as he looked at you and sighed.

He knew how smart you were and also knew you would figure it out.

"I was due for another meal, he happened to be the perfect target." He said as you stared at him in fear.

"You ate him!?" You screamed before he lunged forward and clamped his hand over your mouth.

His other hand went to your hip, gripping it to pull you closer to him.

"Shh, keep your voice down. I know you are not shocked, so don't act like you are. You have known since the moment you spoke to me. Your mother was a killer, you can spot them from a mile away. So, don't try to act like the sweet girl everyone thinks you are." He growled before taking his hand off your mouth.

"You think I'm pissed that prick is dead? I'm pissed you stole my fucking kill." You said as he smirked.

"So, there she is. The real Y/N." He said with a smirk as you leant against his desk.

"Should've known you would figure me out... I hope you won't be blowing my cover." You said as he moved closer, he had known for a quite a while you were a killer, all the same as him.

"Your secret is safe with me, I swear. I am also sorry for stealing your prey. Perhaps I could make it up to you at dinner." He said as you smirked and looked at him.

"As long as it's not human, I'm a killer but I don't eat my prey like you." You said making him chuckle softly.

"I promise no human meat." He said with a charming smile.

"It's a date."

[todayisafridaynight]

Tsuma is an INSANE one to start on but also a fantastic one... I think my first was SP so it's so funny we've "traded" those specific shows lmao BUT YEAH. YEAH. I BELIEVE YOU. I'M GONNA BE NORMAL ABOUT KEISUKE BUT NOT ANYTIME SOON. Tsutsumi's Princess Peach lips every time Maida squishes his face 😭😭😭😭😭

The moment outside the school basically condenses everything about the show for me it's so perfect and cute but I'm INTERNALLY SCREAMING AT ALL OF THIS BEING SAID OUT LOUD... PLEASE... YOU'RE GOING TO END UP ANOTHER IMPRISONED TSUTSUMI... He really is SUCH a malewife though that's what destroyed me frame one... especially because he's really similar to how Tsutsumi talks about himself so like perfect casting I hope he had fun with the role... Definitely continuing when I can are you kiddinggggg

Well Hopefully You Still Think AtR's Cute And/Or Sweet Wherever You're At Now So The Rest Of This Isn't Embarrassing LGSKFJLGJ BUT YEAH... YEAH... I'm aro myself so all that's Complicated right, and definitely something I tried to consider when Sorta-Not-Really-Recommending, but it's good to hear it can be entertaining even without being able to relate :']

THAT COULD'VE GONE /WAY/ SOUTH AT THE PANEL but I'm glad everyone made it out unharmed😭😭😭BUT YEAH... at the end of the Ohashi arc when Ogata threw all his stuff off the desk and the gang just wordlessly put it back for him 'cause that's all they can do... ough. Momence. That's why it was so sick watching everything fall into place [temporarily]. Also appreciate the Jo-ism in doing all the dirty work for a politician in the family and wanting to be stopped without saying it upfront and uhhhhh being fine with dying and/or going to prison LMAO

OH BUT NO PROB it is always tradition for me to send the translated letter once I've indoctrinated someone new :] funny thing is every single version I've sent is different because I've been editing it to this day

AGAIN i chose tsuma cause the title was Utterly Insane and i just had to see for myself what the fuck was going on and im so glad i did... funny that we did trade first-watches (and fun that i get 'my own version' of ogata's letter lmao) :)

BUT YEAHYEAH keisuke's adorable.. like genuinely i think he's tsutsumi's cutest role ive seen so far its hard for me to imagine one topping it in regards to how endearing he is (❁´◡`❁) keisuke being so enamored by his wife but being So Blind To How Things Look is genuinely super funny. like poor guy really is just super happy to have his wife back in a way but not yk (╯▽╰;;; )

Horribly i think of okita from that Taboo movie when it comes to consuming media: even if i dont personally have that experience or understand 100%, i can still appreciate a good story and characters (im paraphrasing SO hard and with less homophobia </3), so if you got anythin good throw it my way anytime ♪(´▽｀) !! i'm about to start episode eight in a bit but NO WORRIES i still very much am a fan of the show !! and im sad/excited to see im almost done with it ( sad its almost over, but also SUPER interested to see how everything comes together in the end (☆▽☆) )

[sugoi-and-spice]

Chapter Thirty-One - One Flew Over

Summary: Tomura Shigaraki was her dad’s boss’s son. He was the creep that stole girls’ underwear and tried to grope her in his room. But it’s not like he could get her Dad fired just because she wouldn’t sleep with him, right? …right?

CW: Quirkless!AU, Explicit Smut, Dub-Con, Coercion, Blackmail, Cheating, Sexual Guilt, Humiliation, Unhealthy Relationships, Power Play, Hate to Love, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Burn, Racism (New, This Chapter) Suicidal Ideation, Psychiatric Wards, Forcible Sedation, Depiction of a Suicide Attempt

A/N: Welp, splitting this chapter ended up doing a whole lot of good - this second part of it ended up being over 25k words 😅 Anyway, hope it was worth the wait!

Read Full on AO3

[excerpt]

Shuichi Iguchi had had more than a few roommates during his time at Jaku Hospital’s Psychiatric Ward. Some better than others. Some way worse. He tried not to judge them by first impressions, nobody was at their best when they came in here after all.

That being said, his first impression of his newest roommate was particularly hard to ignore.

“Let me the fuck out of here!! You can’t fucking keep me here!!” he screamed as he pounded hard on the door, aiming repeatedly for the impact-resistant glass window, “I’m fucking serious! Call Sensei! He didn’t mean it! Fucking call him !!!”

The door finally opened, just a crack, enough for one of the orderlies to peak in and scold him.

“Shigaraki-san, if you keep this up we’re going to have to relocate you to the quiet room. You’re agitating the other residents.”

“Just try it bitch! I’ll relocate your fucking jaw!” he screamed right back in her face.

The orderly promptly shut the door on him, Iguchi guessed to go and grab some backup to help restrain the man he now knew as Shigaraki.

Iguchi frowned as he watched him pound and howl his already hoarse voice away at the door. As violently angry and coarse as he was, Iguchi couldn’t exactly blame the guy. It was well after dinner at the time they threw Shigaraki in here, quiet and bed hours, the only time they were locked in these rooms. Most other times they had decently free range of the ward. But of course, if this was all the  newbie had seen so far, there was no way for him to know that.

Maybe if Iguchi explained a little about the schedule here, he might calm down a bit…

“Th-They um…” he started hesitantly, “They lock the doors at night—”

Iguchi didn’t even get a full sentence out before Shigaraki whipped around and spat, “You think I can’t see that?! Mind your own business you fucking hafu !”

…

Okay, yeah no. He had absolutely nothing to say to that.

Iguchi was bad at confrontation even on a good day. And he had a feeling that if he poked his roommate too hard, he would make this a very not good day.

Er, night.

So he just watched the guy pound his fists tender against the door for a few more seconds, before laying down in his bed on his side. Accepting his miserable fate of listening to that shrill, scratchy voice of his for the rest of the night, since the orderlies seemed to ultimately decide to just let Shigaraki wear himself out rather than actually try and manhandle him into a timeout.

Iguchi wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as a “good” first impression in a psych ward. But Shigaraki had for sure proven that there were bad ones.

Continue on AO3

[vaspider]

I have a really big question that you may not have the capacity to answer, and that's totally ok, but I thought I would try asking anyway.

How did you successfully start a business and get it to the point that you could survive/live comfortably and pay other people on it? How did you survive the psychologically damaging years of hell work while you were building it up?

Well.

To start with, I don't want to give you the impression that we're totally financially stable and have a bunch of full-time employees. We aren't, and we don't. We're still in the building and growth phase, and we're lucky to have people who can work part-time for us (in part because we pay them what we pay them per hour - there's no way they'd be able to hack it if we were paying them $10/hr or even $15/hr).

Quite honestly, I don't think we would have survived the pandemic as a business if it weren't for the fact that my wife has a stable IT job. Emet and I work on the business full-time, and Evie works full-time at her fancy IT job and works with us on events and does IT and infosec stuff for us, and then we have 2 part-time employees, Jake and Erykah.

So I'm glad that we give the impression of having it all buttoned up, but we don't, and I think that's one thing you need to know. We are ducks, friend: serene on the top of the water, paddling like hell underneath where y'all can't see it. The building phase lasts ... well, a long, long time.

I remember what it's like working for Wells Fargo, and I never want to do that again. I remember what it was like working for a mortgage processing job where we knew the company was fucking around with people's escrow accounts and we couldn't do anything meaningful about it. People anonymously reported things to the Attorneys General of various states, but nothing ever came of it. My spouse got demoted for "anonymously" reporting the fake account fuckery at Wells Fargo and I basically got run out of the company for the same thing -- they just made it so miserable for me to work there that I quit. That's part of how I survive it, honestly: I remember the alternative.

But it comes down to the fact that you really do have to desperately love what you're doing. You have to love it so much that you cannot imagine not doing it. And on the days when you might struggle to love it that much, you just have to hate the alternative a little more than you hate the hard parts of running a business.

Now that I've made art for a living -- something that my parents told me I'd never be able to do, as I'm sure most artists were told -- I can't imagine doing anything else. I keep my wacky sleep schedule, and it's fine. Right now, I'm sitting alone in the living room putting together the cotton sleep shirts/housecoats that we're launching this fall, and I'm like... really excited to be able to share these with everybody. I'm anxious about the show we have tomorrow, yeah, and I'm anxious about money and a bunch of other stuff but I'm also really excited about seeing somebody put on a brand new skirt they just bought from us and twirl. I'm excited about seeing somebody laugh when they turn a page in the patch book and see a particular patch. I'm excited about the way that people's eyes light up when Jake pulls out the Aromantic or Agender or Genderfluid patch book and they realize just how many choices we have in their kinda-rare flag.

And I'm really excited about sharing these zip-front housecoat jimmyjams with y'all.

That's how I keep doing it. I can't imagine not doing it.

Hope that helps, because that's all I've got. :)

[lanaslovelyletters]

Anakin is roommates with reader and has an addiction to smoking. Reader tries to help him with it and Anakin decided it’s not enough and wants something stronger. He thinks sex will help.

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐀 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠

Roommate!Anakin x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ content (general smut), swearing, mentions of substance abuse (nicotine)

Summary: You’ve never had a great relationship with your roommate… one night you get home late and see him smoking. You remind him that smoking kills and although you hate him, you want to help him… it goes to rather drastic measures.

Word count: 3.2K+

Author’s note: Where did you get this idea??? I love it. Also, there are psychological terms being used here— I’m a Polisci and not a psych student and will be using terms I learned when I took AP Psychology sorry lol. Also, read the prompt as if it should be on the shorter side? So I made it as short as I could, hope it's good enough<3 (Btw this is def not beta read. We die like Padme on the table)

You never really got along with your roommate. He blasted loud music and often came home at odd hours of the night. God, you hated the careless way he lived his life. Hell, you didn’t even know what he did for work. He always paid his part of the rent on time, so you kept him around. Besides, there weren’t many other offers and he was willing to pay half.

On a particular night, you came back from an evening shift at the local mental health clinic. The bag that was lazily slung over your shoulder was dropped to the ground as you walked into the living room. There he was. His lips held a cigarette between them, as he strummed his bass. It was loud and obnoxious.

“Okay, Slipknot, could you turn that down a little?” You let out a heavy sigh and crossed your arms over your chest. He rolled his eyes at you, and took a drag of his cigarette, blowing rings in your face. It caused you to cough and waft it away immediately before you took it out of his mouth and put it out in his ashtray.

“What the hell! That was my last one!” He threw his arms up in the air as the smoke subtly settled in the glass.

“This stuff is a slow death, y’know?” You said with a tone that screamed ‘as a matter of fact’. He was clearly pissed at your actions.

“—and? Does it look like I care?”

“Look, I get that we don’t see eye-to-eye on things, and we’d both rather not be living together… but the only reason I’m willing to live alone without you is if you move out. Not if you die on this fucking carpet.” You clicked your tongue and pointed at the scruffy rug beneath your feet.

“Why do you even care?” He raised an eyebrow and scoffed at you. Yeah… why did you care anyway? The question stumped you for a brief moment before you finally thought of the perfect response.

“Who else is going to pay half the rent? Besides… I don’t want to clean up a cancerous body in my house.” You were still standing there in front of him with arms covering your chest.

“Whatever… I’ll try.” Wait. It was that easy?

“Wait, are you serious?” You were a bit surprised to see him nodding along and agreeing.

“Yeah, I guess. My mother would hate to bury her own son… or whatever…” He trailed off as he stared at the worn cigarette bud in the ashtray.

“I knew you had some sense in there.” You joked as you poked his forehead before leaving for the kitchen to make yourself a late dinner. Anakin followed you like a lost puppy, as you pulled out some fruits and readied a blender. He watched as you cut up the fruits neatly before you added them to the blender.

“Hey so—” he didn’t get to finish, because the blender started going.

“Oh sorry about that. What were you saying?” You stopped the blender for a second.

“What could—” The noise dialed back up again,

“Oh, sorry,” you chuckled and poured the mixture into a bowl with some yoghurt.

“Very funny,” he said with a roll of his eyes as he leaned forward in the barstool he sat in,

“No, but really— how am I supposed to beat the cig cravings?”

“Via Pavlovian psychology, of course.” You gave him a curt smile.

“I’m not a dog.”

“Didn’t say you were. Look, the hypothalamus controls cravings… sex and food mainly. This means— you can try replacing it with chocolate. Maybe carrots?” You mentioned and took a bite of your yoghurt mix.

“Yawn. Don’t like the sound of that.” He rested his face against his palm.

“There’s a thing we do down at the clinic… for alcoholics mainly. We slip something disgusting or nauseating into their drink and they’ll associate drinking with this icky feeling… works like… most of the time… sorta…”  You shrugged and took another bite.

“Right… well there’s just the problem of— I’m not an alcoholic and you also said that only works some of the time,” he said. His elbow dug into the table as it supported his heavy head.

“Why do you smoke anyway?”

“Stress. Smoking calms me down after a long day.” His sigh was heavy and rough.

“Well then, something to destress whilst also eliminating your addiction… I really think something like chocolate would work.” By now, you’d finished your bowl and you put it aside to wash later.

“Yeah… whatever. I guess it’s better than nothing.” He got up from his stool and went straight into his room. Something told you he wouldn’t survive the first week without a cigarette…

A week had gone by fairly quickly and he hadn’t smoked since the night you lectured him. However, he ate chocolate in unreal masses. Even then, as he was sitting on the couch this afternoon, he had bought a pack of cigarettes. Referred to them as ‘emergency cigs’. Just in case. He stared at the packaging, letting his thumb trace over the ‘M’ in ‘Marlboro’. Oh, he was so tempted. Just one drag and he’d feel the relaxation settling in his shoulders and the sounds of birds chirping and children laughing in the streets. Just one won’t hurt. He peeled the plastic film off and opened the lid. He could already feel it against his lips. Just one—

“What the fuck, Anakin.” You came up from behind him and took the pack out of his hands. He groaned as you did so, desperately grasping for it.

“You were doing so great with the chocolate, why the hell did you buy these?!” You spat and hid them in your back pocket.

“The chocolates didn’t work well enough. I need more. I need something better.” He complained and sighed, leaning back on the couch.

“Fine. I’ll go out and buy you some nicotine patches. Just promise me you’ll kick this habit, okay?” You rolled your eyes and went outside to the garbage bins. You threw the brand new pack of cigarettes in there and wheeled it out front.

When you got back inside, Anakin had already left for his room. The two of you had an established set of rules, one of which was to not enter each other's rooms unwarranted. If any of the patients at the clinic taught you anything, it was that addiction was hard to beat. No matter what kind it was. As much as you despised having to live with him, he didn’t deserve to die an early death because of something he couldn’t control.

“Anakin?” You knocked on the door gently, but there was no response.

“Come on, man.” The knocking became a little more frantic, but there was still no answer. 

“Whatever.” You walked away and found your purse before heading back outside to uphold what you said you’d do earlier.

After you got back, you heard him watching something on the TV. It was a car commercial for a new Ford model.

“Catch.” You got in front of the screen and threw him the packs of nicotine patches you’d bought. He peered up at you with lazy eyes and slowly unpacked one. You hadn’t really taken note of it before, but he was fucking hot. His hair was messy and his body was chiselled. He was shirtless and only in a pair of very unforgiving sweatpants.

“Thanks…” he mumbled and stuck a patch on his chest.

“Feel better?”

“Don’t know yet.” You took a seat beside him and cast Netflix to the screen,

“Anything you wanna watch?”

“Nah… I’m good.” He seemed as if he was giving up. He was all sluggish from not having had a cigarette.

“Okay…” you turned off the TV to sit and soak in the uncomfortable silence. Nobody said a word for at least a few minutes before Anakin finally spoke up,

“It feels okay… just… doesn’t beat the real thing.” Your head turned to look at him as he said that. 

“I’ve tried everything, okay? I have tried to help you. For some reason, you always need more. What more could you possibly want?” You sighed and brought your knees to your chest.

“You said… the hyper something? was responsible for sex and food cravings, right?”

“The hypothalamus, yeah. That’s why we tried chocolate.” 

“That’s food… what about… sex?” He took a gander at you with those intoxicating tired and beat eyes.

“Like… jerking off? I mean, maybe?” You shrugged.

“No, sex,” he said, staring right at you.

“Oh… well… knock yourself out, I guess? You have a girlfriend?”

“What about you?” He moved closer, still staring deeply into your eyes. His velvety blue ones captured your very soul with just their existence.

“I’m… um… I don’t have a boyfriend…” you swallowed harshly as he leaned into your neck. His breath hit your ear,

“I’d say that’s pretty convenient, no?” He grinned, letting you feel the electricity surging through your spine. You shuddered before swallowing hard,

“What are you insinuating, Anakin?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I need something better than chocolate. Something better than nicotine patches. I can’t just sleep with random girls every day and hope I won’t get an STD. You are single, and I’m guessing you don’t have any weird illness.” His smirk was evident, even if he was practically buried in your neck.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Anakin.” You sighed but didn’t resist his antics.

“Mmm ‘don’t think so. I have a pretty great plan mapped out in my head.” He began to nibble away at your skin, several sighs escaped your lips as he did so,

“Anakin…”

“Yeah, that’s right. Say my name just like that.” He ravaged your neck now, littering it with bruises and marks. He pulled away briefly and got up from the couch, taking your hand in his as he helped you up. Almost immediately, his lips crashed onto yours. He pushed you up against the cold wall, clawing at your waist,

“Jump.” You did and he grabbed your legs, wrapping them around his waist. He then carried you to his room, where he roughly threw you on the bed. Your breaths were heavy and he swallowed up every single one with his mouth. His tongue massaged yours as his hands massaged your clothed tits.

“Anakin—“

“Ani. Just Ani.” He captured your lips again. He loved those pretty little whimpers and gasps you’d make. It drove him wild. The way your hands were pulling at his hair as your lips desperately reached out for his… It was like a drug.

He pulled off his shirt and helped you get yours off too. You unclasped your bra, and he revelled in the sight. They were fucking perfect in his eyes. The embarrassment on your face as he stared only made him more hungry. He unbuckled his pants, pulled them down and discarded them somewhere in a corner. Shortly after, he got yours off too. Your panties were damp and when his two fingers went to investigate, he just had to point it out to you— essentially mocking you.

“Look who’s getting so worked up when I’ve barely even done anything?” He scoffed. The mocking only worked to turn you on even more, and the face you made gave it away almost immediately. Dumb mistake or was it served on a silver platter?

“Don’t tell me you get off on that,” he snickered and massaged your hips, one hand worked its way further down and ripped your panties off. 

“Hey, those were expensive…” you mumbled, but he didn’t care. The whole house could catch on fire and he wouldn’t give a fuck, because he was here with you. 

“I’ll buy you new ones.” He placed his thumb on your clit, slowly rubbing circles. You clenched the sheets with whatever little power you had left. Even with gestures as small as stroking your sopping cunt, you were at his disposal. Through and through.

As it got more intense, he added a finger, then two then went ahead and added a third— finger fucking you until you went cross-eyed, flicking as hard as he could. Your cries and moans were like music to him. Better than whatever garbage he played anyway.

“All for me? You spoil me, darling.” Fuck, that sent you toppling over the edge, clamping down eagerly on his fingers. With a final moan of his name, he felt your essence coat his fingers. After pulling them out, he licked and sucked them clean,

“You taste fucking heavenly. Better than the chocolate, that’s for sure.” He pulled you by the hips and kneaded them nicely, listening to how you panted like the needy little thing you were. One hand slowly travelled up to take a squeeze at your nipple before travelling back down. His hand grabbed the base of his cock as it rubbed against your sensitive folds. Fuck, he was good, but you were growing impatient. Surely bucking your hips would work?

“Fuck, you’re desperate, aren’t you?” He mocked you and snickered. It was embarrassing. Downright humiliating. Yet you relished in it. Oh, you needed him so bad your ovaries were going to explode.

“Come on… Anakin,” you mewled and arched your back.

“It’s Ani, darling.” He leaned down to kiss your forehead gently, still teasing your needy folds,

“Now, let me hear you again.”

“You’re embarrassing me…” you diverted your gaze and turned her head to the side. It was clear as day to see that your face was completely flushed.

“That’s the point,” he scoffed and grabbed your chin roughly,

“Come on, you can do it, can’t you? Be a good girl, tell me what you want.” Good girl. You folded almost immediately.

“Please… just do it.”

“Come on now, you can do better than that,” he snickered. His relentless teasing just egged you on even more.

“Please, Ani. Please fuck… fuck me,” you sighed with exceptional need, as you arched your back.

“Don’t think I heard that… a little louder?”

“Fuck me, Ani! Fucking take me!” Your desperation was clear in your tone and the way your brows were furrowed. You were pathetic to look at, and oh how he loved it.

“That’s my girl.” He leaned down to capture your lips in a sloppy kiss, as you felt him finally intrude your walls. He swallowed every moan you made and even drowned them with his tongue. His size was unthinkably big. There was one protruding vein in particular. The way your walls clamped around it, allowed you to feel it from its start to its end. He wasn’t completely uncivilized though. He allowed you to adjust to his size before moving even a millimetre. In the meantime, he sucked at your skin, twisted your nipples, and moulded your breasts. By now, there wasn’t one spot on your neck that wasn’t bruised. As these appeared one after the other, the pain from his cock invading your insides slowly mingled with pleasure.

“You can move…” He did exactly that. As if it were a command typed into a computer. He almost pulled all the way out, before slamming himself against your hips roughly and sighing out your name.

“You’re so fucking tight, princess,” he groaned as he wasted no time bringing your knees up against your chest, as he began to pound into you. His pace wasn’t too fast, but rough enough to earn those ethereal moans of yours.

“Fuck, scream for me. Scream my name. Let the whole block hear you,” he sighed, speeding up his pace, rutting against you like a heathen. It was fucking filthy. He watched as every inch of himself disappeared inside you, massacring your insides with no mercy. Every pant and every moan contributed to his head falling back in pleasure, as he drove his hips vigorously against yours.

“Ani!” His name left your lips repeatedly like a broken record. He was fucking you completely stupid. What day was it? What time was it? What was your own name? Your cock-drunk self had only one thing in mind: Anakin Skywalker.

“Fuck, I’m close!” You panted as he thrust with even greater speed and strength. He was relentless and unforgiving.

“That’s right. Cum for me. Cum on this cock, baby,” he groaned as you started clenching down on him. He was struggling to move with the tightness but didn’t give up that easily. His tip hit your cervix repeatedly and you felt like your guts were being rearranged.

Finally, you couldn’t handle it anymore and you tipped over the edge,

“Ani!” You fell limp, but Anakin was far from done. He pulled out, only to get next to you and pull you into his lap. His face was flushed. His eyes were hooded and his lips parted. His hands were kneading your hips,

“Ride me.” What? You had no means. You were limp and tired from the pounding you just got. Now he’s trying to go for another round? But oh, how you wanted it. You wanted so badly to feel him again. To feel a new angle of him. Quite literally speaking.

With whatever strength you could muster, you slowly sank down on him, taking him by each delicious inch. It was far too much for you though, your arms immediately gave out and you fell on top of him. That was no issue though; he helped you. He grabbed your hips tightly and thrust upwards. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head with pleasure. You’d never been fucked that food before. Anakin let his face get buried in the soft mounds in front of him, as he arched your back for you. He was determined to make you finish for the third time in the evening, before finishing himself.

“Doing so good for me, baby, you’re doing such a good job.” He continued to drag your hips down upon his, but with one hand, he slowly let go and pressed it against your abdomen,

“You feel that? That’s my cock ruining you.” This man… your words were illegible by now. He removed his hand from your stomach and stretched the corner of your mouth with two of his fingers,

“You’re so pathetic like this. Where’s the smartass now?” He was right. He was fucking you into oblivion. You couldn’t even fully comprehend what he was saying anymore. You just whined and moaned at him. Just like the good girl, you were being for him. The overstimulation didn’t help. In fact, you were already getting close again. Your pussy was suffocating him and his drags were getting sloppier and sloppier— until he finally got you to release on top of him. He pulled you for a few more thrusts before pulling you off, having you fall backwards on the bed so that he could paint your stomach white.

The two of you both panted heavily as he fell back. It felt like you were going to pass out from the exhaustion.

“Beats the nicotine and cigarettes,” he sighed with a snicker. His eyes were fixated on the white ceiling above,

“So does tomorrow work too?”

©lanaslovelyletters - All rights reserved.

Find the Anakin masterlist here

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Find the rules for requesting here and the fandoms I write for here

[brights-place]

do you mind doing a Branch x rock troll reader?

Branch dating an Rock troll! S/O

Pairings: Branch X Reader

Warnings: None

A/N: Sorry for the late post I've been kind of busy hon! anyways take the request! <33

- He met you when poppy introduced you to him since you were going to be helping him expand the structures of pop village - Branch would be confused at first when he realize he likes you - You slowly started to bond after awhile of hanging out and him learning about your genre as he told you about his back. - It's known pop Troll is extremely happy, strives happiness and seeks fun above all things which is so like them but its also true that they are prone to absolute panic when things go wrong, often overreacting in a comical way - But branch didn't have that atrribute well he had the panicking bit but the happy and fun part? that was... uhmmmm yeah no - Branch takes awhile to open up to you especially after well The Rock world tour - I mean come on! Barb was leading an world tour and all the crimes she has committed has changed his whole view of rock trolls though he is trying to welcome them slowly - This Dude Is Autism Coded you can’t change my mind! (I’m autistic) - Attempted world domination, Attempted cultural genocide, Hate crimes, Terrorism, Piracy, Malefic, War crimes, Crimes against trollkind, Mass invasion, Mass kidnapping, Serial grand larceny, Mass brainwashing, Unlawful imprisonment, Abuse of power, Conspiracy, Psychological abuse, Extortion, Minor arson, Assault and battery, Mass property destruction, Attempted mass slavery, Corruption, and Public endangerment! He has an whole list of crimes that were committed by barb

- Though after awhile of hanging around you he couldn’t help but feel relaxed and allowed you to touch stuff in his bunker

- He Let you meet Gary and you are the only one allowed to hold Gary and know everything about him. (Gary from trollstopia if you know)

- Branch enjoys how you listen to him when he rants about things

- You were so worried when he said he would drink his own sweat which you told him not too and is unhygienic

- After awhile he would notice subtle things about you and would learn more about you and your hobbies which poppy pointed out was kind of weird for branch since he never does that for other trolls a lot but him doing that for you? Poppy smirked - He fell for an ROCK TROLL! - This man was so confused and questioning himself as you were standing in front of him telling him about your new song that you wrote and were gonna preform with Petra, Romper and Rose - He was an pop troll... you were an rock troll you were different!

- Branch would listen to you about speaking about your genre and you listen about pop genre aswell - You two would do duet songs of rock songs and pop songs but if you could convince him to sing rock songs with you he would try... It turns out he’s good at it

- You teach him some Rock n Roll greetings and handshakes which he got used to

- He did the handshake infront of poppy doing the rock n roll greeting handshake with Riff and Barb who laughed and they told him where you were which made branch flustered

- Poppy stared at him with sparkling eyes squealing questioning if you two were dating which you weren’t… Yet!

- If Branch ever found something that would suite you for example some studded belts or leather braclets he would think of you and would buy it

- Whenever you meet up he would always have an gift that reminded him of you

- His love language is Acts of Service, Quality time and sometimes Gift giving

- Though he wouldn’t mind some affection from you since whenever you see him you hug him tightly

- Introvert X Extrovert type of bond!

- You are his opposite and that’s what he loves about you

- Your smile your laugh and yes you may be different genres but he loves you so much because of it.

- Your comfortable in your own shell and you help him to become comfortable with himself aswell!

- branch is thankful for you though you mainly come to his bunker then he comes to volcano rock city since he finds it hard to breathe due to well the lava and Asch along with the foggy presence

- Though he will visit if you can’t come if your sick or your doing an show

- He stared up at you when you were on stage signing while playing your guitar while maintaining eye contact with him

- After the show was done you rushed to him hugging him squealing excitedly glad he came to see your show

- He couldn’t help but stare at you with an spake in his eyes which you returned before leaning in kissing eachother with an smile on both your lips

- Barb coughed into your hand as you giggled while branch hid his face in your shoulder grumbling

- “Love you” Branch muttered as you smiled back “I love you too”

reblogs + comments are appreciated ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

©brights-place 2023 — do not repost on another platform, copy, translate or edit my works! if you fit my DNI list please don't interact!

[lunas-side-anime-blog]

Modern College Student/Gf Mikasa Ackerman Headcanons

Armin Version: Here Eren Version: Here

scary goth girl that everyone is too scared to talk to but secretly crushes on

psychology major bc I think she had a tough childhood and wants to better understand trauma / help others

somwhere in the middle between Armin and Erin when it comes to academics

like I don't think she is as intense about grades as Armin is, but I also don't think she's as laidback about school as Eren

moderately studies throughout the week, but it's just basic note taking and chapter reading, i don't think she's afraid to miss a few classes though if she feels like it

only really crams and does all-nighters right before an exam if she thinks she needs it

i think she wears men cologne and deodorant and it fits her soo well, idk how to describe it but she smells powerful but comforting at the same time?

maybe like woodsy with strong notes of vanilla and cashmere

loves a black cold brew: no creamer, foam or sugar like she's so intense that way

i think she's that one cool girl who always walks into class like a few minutes late with a hot resting bitch face, AirPods in and a cold brew in hand

tall girl and I think her height is prob her fave feature about herself, like I can see her wearing more heeled boots or platforms to exaggerate it

wears lots of black and hardly any makeup besides some light eyeliner most days

doesn't talk alot unless she fr knows you, i think most people would just hear her say "here" for attendenace and that's it

doesn't go to parties unless she has to

I think think she'll only go to watch eren and armin. she knows eren loves to go overboard and armin will most likely get distracted so she takes it upon herself to be the sober one watching everyone's drinks

def a girls girl like if she sees another female in an uncomfortable situation shes jumping in, no questions asked

i can see her working out with eren so in my mind shes ripped too and yeah...most guys don't fuck with her

has a cute lil skincare routine, only has like a three step process tho since I think she has naturally good skin

she secretly loves facemasks tho and doing her nails with armin as rewards for studying lol

I think out of the main three mikasa would have the most instagram followers, which is so funny bc she doesn't know why she's so popular?

I just think her aesthetic and vibe is very cool, if her account is set to public she would quickly get a lil following

lots of secret admires with this one, men and woman alike

I can see her being BI or Pan too so like that's very conveient

other than armin and eren, I think Mikasa would be besties with Yimir and Sasha

i can see them going to concerts together, shopping, late night drives, getting food (at sasha's demand lol) like i think they'd be a chill lil trio

views eren and armin as brother figures btw, gets grossed out when people ask if shes dating them

obviously a very protective friend

the type of freind whose like "what's their name" when you tell her you're seeing someone new and within an hour Mikasa will have an entire report on where they went to school, all their exes, hobbies, pets, address, ect.

I can see her getting a masters tbh, I def think armin would talk her into it so I think they would be grad school buddies while eren finishes his BA (he'll lag behind them a year or two since he changed his major so much anyway)

Loves cats and I think she'd have one or two if armin and eren are cool with it

I think she would have a few tatooes and piercings, but very subtle ones she can hide since I think as a psychologist she'd want to be taken seriously

music taste is kinda stuck in middle school tbh, still loves my chemical romance with a passion

I don't think she'd smoke weed or drink

^^ not that she has anything against it but i think she just hates the feeling of not being in complete control of herself so she stays away from things like that

never gets sick? it's actually medically fascinating

Overall she's that one quiet girl in class who looks scary but is a sweethear and everyon'es dying to be friends with

As your GF

omg I think she'd be the best significant other tbh

I think you would meet her in a meet-cute way since it's always the people who you least expect to be cheesy

I think maybe like you accidentally tripped and made her spill her coffee in class. you look up an see this tall, ripped, emo looking chick and you rush to apologise and give her your drink in hopes she doesn't flip

shes like "...ok." and takes it. but then the next class she randomly sits next to you and passes you a drink and is like ... "i hope i got your order right?"

the dork memorized your drink akjglalg

after that she kinda keeps sitting next to you and attempts small talk, so you realize she's actually v sweet and exchange socials

which is great bc I think mikasa is way better at flirting over text than in person and you'd quickly understand that she likes you

First date would probably be a show, i think she'd take you to a local band she likes and would get a quick bite after it

I think for second date she'd like you to choose what you guys do and then third she chooses, you guys switch bc she's all about that equal effort

once you agree to be her s/o she'd gonna be so annoying on social media like she's def gonna loose some followers as she only posts you now

type of partner to notice the smallest changes in you right away

you give her a peck and shes like "why aren't you wearing your usual lip balm? do you not like strawberries anymore?"

in bed she's a dom, is that even a queston?

I think she's actually a brat tamer, in my head rn she gets a lil smirk when you act up and i think she just mentally notes what to punish you for later

mikasa views sex toys as allies not enemies, and yeah i think she has an impressive collection so buckle tf up

okay so she's kinda yandere (tbh i think most ppl from the aot universe are but esp mikasa) I think shes very protective and a touch paranoid?

like i think her past is kinda messed up and I can see her mind running wild with ideas if not reassured

so you can just oversleep for a bit and you'll wake up to mikasa practically breaking into your apartment to make sure you're okay bc you suddenly went silent on her

some trust issues too, would def be really upset if you didn't give her the passcode to your phone

doesn't like your friends or anyone else you talk to tbh, she just doesn't think anyone else has your back like she does and will always remind you

i also know her manipulation skill is cray being a psych major, I don't think she's as good as Armin but ik she can weaponize some therapy speak and make you feel a lil stupid (only does it for your own good she says)

doesn't get jealous but does get even

I can see the little shit putting thumbtacks in pockets or laxitives in drinks if someone dares flirt with you, she can be so evil sometimes i just know it

she isn't even scared of the aftermath bc she knows eren and armin have her back so she wants the smoke tbh

the type of partner to death stare someone from behind your back but when you turn around she's suddenly all :)

would love matching tattoos with you if you're down

think she'll be the quickest to bring up marriage too, porbably only a few months of dating and she's like "so when we get married-" and you're like "!?"

big spoon gf, you can be bigger than her and she don't gaf she's still holding you not the other way around

Overall a really sweet girlfriend who just wants to protect you and keep you all to herself

Can be a lil crazy at times, but she means well I swear !!!

Nicknames for you: love, my other half, wifey/hubbie

Songs that fit the vibe: The Perfect Girl by Mareux, Breezeblocks by Alt-J, Me and Your Mama by Childish Gambino

"You're such a strange girl, the way you look like you do."

"She's morphine, queen of my vaccine, my love, my love, love..."

"Girl you really got a hold on me, so this isn't just puppy love"

(She's so hot omg I love her, i developed a lil crush writing this! Anyway srry the moodboard didn't include couple stuff, girlfriend aesthetics are way harder to find than bf aesthetics and the ones I did find looked nothing like her :( tell me if you guys like this series, totally open to doing more characters! not even just from aot, i also kinda wanna do demon slayer or hxh, also love jjk and chainsaw man but I didn't read those mangas yet so I may not be the best at it!!)

[azumasoroshi]

suzume no tojimari spoilers ! hi guys im Insane

literature analysis brain is going haywire so here’s a bunch of incoherent ramblings some themes motifs and symbolism i love in this movie because AAAAAAA

Love and Sacrifice.

Obviously, but like the different kinds of love and devotion and how they’re never perfect and sometimes self-destructive but they’re so powerful and just waughhh. It was so important to me how after exploding at her Tamaki (suzume’s aunt, ik im not the only one who forgets names) was like “you know I don’t feel that way all the time, right?” like not denying that yes, she has felt exhausted of taking care of Suzume and sometimes wished she didn’t have to take care of her, trying to be the parental figure she needs while also trying to not encroach on her sister’s memory. It means so much to me that she didn’t deny those feelings but instead told Suzume that it’s not how she always feels, because loving someone means sacrifice and ewughghgghfgfh im not putting this into words well but htrggfhgf.

and ALSO the reciprocation of kindness with daijin - as thanks for the taste of freedom at last, and wanting to be with someone whom you love but not really comprehending that what they want (that “suzume doesn’t love me” killed me) and how by the end daijin helped her pull souta out and sacrificed himself for suzume because he really loved her ggrgfggfhfnfnch

And just. everyday love. This is kind of a mix of themes and motifs but every time we flashed back to the memories of whatever abandoned place they were in - the simple “good morning”s and “be back soon” and “it’s so hot”s made me choke up. the mundane love of Chika and Suzume in their newly found friendship, Rumi’s kindness in picking Suzume up off the street and her love for her children, Serizawa’s platonic love for Souta letting him drive these two crazy women with crazy beef for 7 hours across Japan, there’s just so much expression of love and the hardships people go through because of it and rhgrjgrjhgdhgjhb

Mourning and Closure.

Makoto Shinkai himseld said that he wanted to write a story about “mourning deserted places” (at least according to Wikipedia) so this one is all but textual but like yeah. the motif of opening/closing/locking doors and locking the bike and things like that? AaAAaAaa

To close the gates, you need to imagine the emotions of people who once lived there - i can only imagine what Souta was thinking in the abandoned bathhouse area, but hrhggejghw the school and the amusement park and the shots we got of normal life in tokyo before the worm revealed itself in the climax, it just. really speaks to the beauty of everyday life. im a sucker for that kind of stuff as both a psychology major and just a weird person who thinks “man i wonder what happened to this person for the past 22 years of their life that led them to be here with me in this moment” whenever i pass someone in the grocery store. Hodaka could let japan be flooded in weathering with you because of his love for hina, but suzume’s whole arc was learning about the common people and living their lives and embracing all the kindness they had to offer to herself and others and it really hits that like. of course she can’t just let tokyo get destroyed to save Souta, every person in all of tokyo is just like Rumi and Chika and Serizawa and they’re all people who love and are loved. She finds herself in Souta’s place as one who stretches himself thin between being a gate closer and studying to be a teacher because he loves life as well, and-

oops i forgot i was talking about mourning and closure

anyway the doors keep getting reopened because the grief never fully goes away and the worm of “calamity” is letting yourself be consumed by the grief and destroying the people around you and not being able to move on, and it comes from the Ever-after becomes ever-after is a place where time doesn’t exist and you wish you could be there forever because it’s where you can relive the events of your past, it’s where you can live in denial that time moves forward and you have to move with it, it’s where Suzume goes after her mother dies because she wants people to stop giving her condolences and just give her her mom back. “Ever-after” in itself is a “happily ever after” - a place where mortals aren’t meant to go, no matter how beautiful it looks. Souta goes there too because he is the catalyst Suzume needs to go back and face Ever-after - and it’s no longer beautiful, but it’s torn apart by grief and everything is in flames. The idea of a keystone as well, locking the memories and hurt away, is one that Suzume removes to relive her memories and puts back in place when she’s ready to move on. htrhgfhgfghfghf. she won’t let souta be the keystone because she refuses to move on without him.

Also both Souta and his grandfather tell Suzume to just forget everything she’s seen, but it’s too late for that because connections aren’t so easily forgotten. Even when Tamaki couldn’t remember telling Suzume she’d be her new mother, that doesn’t change that she cared for her for the next 12 years anyway. Suzume visits Chika and Rumi by the end, and obviously she’s never forgotten her mother, both because her chair was still in her room by the start of the movie and because she looks like her by the end. Even though relationships change, they’re never forgotten in the movie, and I think that’s beautiful, really.

(also cool detail: 12 years ago is when the tsunami that killed suzume’s mother struck. the movie came out in 2023, and the touhoku earthquake/tsunami that inspired this film was in 2011. nice)

Reality vs Fantasy

The scenes where Suzume goes out into public again following stopping the worm from destroying Tokyo were especially poignant to me. This girl’s been going on a fantastical adventure with her talking chair and talking cat, meeting nice people and making friends, excited at the idea that she’s doing something important, but after Souta’s gone she shuts down. Her feet are bloodied, her clothes are destroyed, and people keep giving her strange looks and calling her homeless because she may have stopped the worm but even without being consumed by grief, it still isn’t pretty or picturesque. Standing out in Japanese society is discouraged, as most of us are well aware, but she’s been doing nothing but that with all the running around and talking to chairs and flying through the sky she’s been doing. Without a concrete goal in mind, without Souta as company, she’s alone in the world of adulthood and has no one to tell her what she should do, no Souta to guide her through Tokyo. And without that confidence or charm, people don’t come to her aid like they did before. It’s only once she finds her resolve to save Souta, quite literally walking in his shoes/footsteps, that the next helpful stranger (Serizawa) comes in.

She could imagine those abandoned places as alive, but the truth is that they were abandoned and will stay that way - none of them miraculously revived by the end, unless something happened in the credits that I couldn’t see through all my tears. Reality will not bring those places back, but what really matters is how we carry the memories of those places with us? I think. man maybe it’d be easier to write this post if i had actually seen the end credits

this post is really fucking long so im calling it here 😭 makoto shinkai has done it again. goddammit