#I mean if you’re gonna have some criticisms at least let it be true

[tongue-like-a-razor]

Brother's Best Friend - Part 9

Jake Seresin x F!Reader

A/N: I just wanted to let y'all know how much your enthusiasm and encouragement means to me. Your support, whether it's in the form of comments, reblogs, or asks, literally inspires me to keep writing and I just wanted to say thank you for your kind words! You guys seriously rock!

Summary: The trials and tribulations of falling for your brother's best friend.

CW: Uhh.. you're gonna love it

WC: ~2500

Part 1 | Masterlist

“What’re you up to tonight?” Jake asks casually, about five minutes after you’ve entered the kitchen.

You glance up from your still steeping tea hesitantly; you haven’t spoken to Jake since the pervious night at the club and you’ve all but resolved never to make eye contact with him again. “Uh,” you begin shakily, the stress of the situation resulting in a minor mental shutdown.

You watch as your brother tries on a third Hawaiian shirt and walks over to the mirror in the front hall to check himself out.

You gulp uneasily, your eyes meeting Jake’s as Bradley leaves the kitchen. “Just studying,” you finish, finally remembering your plans for the evening.

“Studying, huh?” Bradley calls from the foyer. A second later, he reemerges with a smirk on his face. “I know what that means.” He wiggles his eyebrows at you and then shoots Jake a knowing grin.

Jake appears, at the very least, unimpressed with Bradley’s insinuation and, quite possibly, even critical of it. He gives him an irked look and proceeds to flip more aggressively through an old National Geographic magazine, one from the stack currently sitting on the living room coffee table. “You look like a douche in that shirt,” Jake grumbles.

Bradley’s eyebrows converge as he stares at his friend with a mixture of shock and disappointment. “Is that true?” he asks, turning to you for support as if you’re there to mediate.

You shrug. “I don’t think the shirt has anything to do with it,” you say.

Jake snorts out a laugh while Bradley’s mouth falls open in outrage. He looks between you and Jake and shakes his head. “That’s how it’s gonna be?”

“Maybe wear a t-shirt,” you suggest. “Borrow one of Jake’s.”

Jake gives you an amused look. “You think I’m just handing out band tees?”

Bradley narrows his eyes. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

“I just finished a load of laundry and I’ve got a Pantera shirt you can wear,” you continue, already smiling in anticipation of Jake’s reaction.

Jake lifts his eyebrows with a grin. “I thought that wasn’t appropriate dating attire. Too many skulls or some shit?”

Bradley places his hands on his hips and tilts his head suspiciously. “I…” he begins. “I have questions,” he concludes, still glancing between you and Jake. His knotted eyebrows indeed confirm just how perplexed he is. “But I’m already late. So, I guess douche shirt’s gonna have to do.” He grabs his jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and heads back out into the hall.

“Have fun!” Jake calls, leaning into the table so that his voice carries through to the front door.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Bradley calls back. “We’ll be meeting up with her friends later tonight. They’re female.”

You roll your eyes, removing the tea bag from your mug. You look up to see that Jake’s gaze is trained on you.

“I’m good,” Jake calls back, finally breaking eye contact with you. He reverts his attention to the article before him detailing the mating rituals of various species of primates.

“See you tomorrow, then!” Bradley calls, and then the door shuts behind him.

A predictable, but still awkward, silence follows Bradley's departure. You finish preparing your tea while your heart batters relentlessly against your ribcage, daring you to say something – anything­ – about the previous night’s affairs. Naturally, you ignore this sensible impulse, starting for the staircase mutely after shooting Jake a quick, rigid smile.

Jake’s eyes follow you as you cross the room. “You got a date with ‘study group’ guy?” he asks pointedly, using air quotes to emphasize study group as though your evening is sure to consist of anything but that.

You pause, holding your mug close to your chest. “It’s not a date,” you say, although, at this point, you kind of wish that it were.

Jake raises his eyebrows like your response has only served to reinforce his skepticism. “Why do you even need to study?” he says with a cringe. “You’re already smart.”

You purse your lips to suppress a grin. “Funny,” you comment, continuing toward the stairs.

“I could help,” Jake offers.

You glance at him over your shoulder in surprise. “What?”

Jake closes the magazine and straightens his back. “I could help you study.”

You stare at him, trying to imagine how that might go down. “What do you know about psychology?” you ask, having already decided that, despite his noblest intentions, Jake’s assistance would be absolutely useless.

Jake scoffs. “I don’t need to know anything about it to help you cram for a test. You got flash cards?”

You give him a flat look. “It’s an oral exam.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Say what, now?”

You close your eyes and massage your temple irritably. “It’s worth fifty percent of my grade.”

Jake grimaces. “How good are you at oral?”

You let out an indignant cry, wishing you had something in your hands to throw at him other than a ceramic mug full of scalding liquid. “And this is why I’m studying with ‘study group’ guy,” you retort, stomping up the stairs.

“I’m joking!” Jake laughs, getting to his feet. “Come back!”

But you’re already on the second floor and you shut your bedroom door before he can say anything else.

…

Twenty minutes later, you return with your book bag, your empty mug, and a disparaging look on your face as Jake approaches the bottom of the stairs to greet you with a sheepish grin.

“Come on, Baby B,” he says as you set your bag down and glide by him with an eyeroll, heading for the sink. “It was a joke.” He follows you through the kitchen and leans into the counter as you start to wash your mug.

You bite into the inside of your cheek to keep a straight face. It’s not every day that Jake takes responsibility for his actions, and you’re sort of enjoying the groveling. “I’m not mad, I just think you’re an idiot.”

“See? I told you you’re smart,” Jake says.

You sigh, glancing up at him wearily. “Unfortunately, my extensive knowledge of Jake Seresin isn’t going to help me pass my midterm.”

“Shame,” he responds with a slight grin. “’Cause you’d ace that.”

You chuckle. “You think?”

Jake’s smile falters and he leans his back into the refrigerator. His eyes scan your face like he’s searching for something. You wonder if he’s finally going to address the elephant in the room, but he just exhales moodily and drops his gaze. “Well, have fun,” he mumbles to the floor.

You narrow your eyes and let out a somewhat resentful scoff. It’s just like Jake to lead a girl on, and you should have known that – after all, you’re apparently the leading expert on Jake Seresin. “Oh yes,” you say. “Studying’s a blast.”

Jake lifts his eyes solemnly. “Come on, you’re not that naïve.”

“What are you talking about?” you ask, picking your book bag back up.

Jake’s gaze slips briefly to your bare abdomen, framed by the hem of your crop top and the band of your baggy joggers. “This dude only wants one thing,” he says. “And it’s not to help you prepare for midterms.”

You let out a cackle and head out of the kitchen. “Seresin, please!” you exclaim. “Not every guy in the world is a total pig.”

“How many people are you meeting tonight?” he asks, trailing behind you.

You pause at the door before putting on your shoes. “He couldn’t get a hold of anyone else,” you respond innocently, trying not to cringe at the – now that you think about it – ridiculous excuse ‘study group’ guy has given you.

“Right,” Jake mutters, taking the bag off your shoulder when you bend down to put on your sneakers.

You stand back up and your eyes meet his for a moment. He looks like he’s got more to say but you have a feeling he isn’t going to say it. “I can handle myself,” you reassure him.

Jake watches you with a dubious expression. “As long as you know what you’re walking into,” he says.

You laugh, taking a step back to ease some of the tension that’s got your back muscles seizing up. “And even if he does have an ulterior motive – which I seriously doubt – would it really be so terrible?”

Jake doesn’t seem as amused at this prospect as you. “It would be manipulative,” he responds levelly.

You shrug nonchalantly. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

He squints slightly and you feel like he’s judging your answer. “I thought you needed to study.”

“I do!” you respond defensively. “And I’m not going with the intention of engaging in any…” you pause, thinking of a way to put what you’re about to say more delicately. “… other activities,” you finish with a minor wince. “But, if an opportunity happens to present itself –”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “An opportunity,” he echoes in the same disapproving tone.

“What, like you’ve never taken advantage of an opportunity.”

Jake juts out his jaw in a sulking manner, pondering over your allegation without disputing it. He looks a fair bit guilty but that may very well be your personal interpretation. Finally, he reaches for the door and opens it resignedly. “Call me if you need me,” he says.

You sigh, standing in front of the open door. “You don’t have any plans?” you ask, almost cautiously because you probably don’t want to know the answer.

Jake purses his lips and shakes his head.

This gives you pause, but you try not to let the defeated look on his face sway you. You aren’t sure what he stands to gain from this particular transaction, but you doubt his motive for offering to help is entirely altruistic.

Perhaps he’s gunning for a clean slate. Trying to be a friend. Trying to eclipse recent, reprehensible behavior with an act of goodwill. Maybe he’s worried that you’re mad, or that he might lose you.

The fact of the matter is, you could speculate till the cows come home, but you won’t know unless you ask. So, in a move not even you could have predicted, you do just that. “Why would you even want to waste your evening studying?” you probe.

Jake tilts his head to the side and squints his eyes at you in confusion. “Just tryin’ to help,” he responds.

You look down at your feet uncomfortably and shrug, but continue prodding, nonetheless. “I mean, you could be out with my brother.” What you really want to say is that he could be hooking up with a new chick within the hour if he feels like it; it wouldn’t even be a challenge.

“Didn’t wanna crash his date.”

You glance up at him sharply, wondering if that is, indeed, the only reason he chose to stay behind. His eyes slide slowly over your face as though he’s trying to guess what you’re going to say next. You gulp uneasily; being scrutinized by the guy of your dreams is hardly an enjoyable pastime. At the same time, it’s wildly thrilling to have his undivided attention. “No other reason?” you ask with a slight break in your voice, your throat decidedly too dry to pose any further questions.

Jake glances pointedly at the open door he's still holding and then back at you. He doesn’t respond, nor does he inquire why you’ve still not left. Instead, he starts to slowly close the door, his eyes boring into yours so intently you think the weight of his gaze might vaporize you.

You feel a warmth wash over you – no; a heat. It’s a distressingly abrupt sensation, like you’ve been shoved into an oven set to broil. But it’s nothing new. You’ve experienced this kind of nauseating high before and you’re just as unamused with this bodily reaction now as you’ve been in the past.

Jake stands very still, his back to the door he’s just shut, stalling. And despite the very persistent voice in the back of your head telling you he can’t possibly be interested in pursuing anything remotely romantic with his best friend’s little sister, the hesitation on his face is telling quite a different tale. Jake is torn.

You can relate. You’ve been simultaneously longing for and avoiding direct contact with him for ages. “You, uh” – you take a shallow breath and nervously lick your lips. “You think I’ll get more studying done if I stay?” you ask faintly.

Jake watches you carefully, as though he’s giving himself a minute to consider your question. He takes a step toward you, lowering his face to maintain eye contact. And, while his expression remains mostly impassive, you swear that you notice a brief flicker of exhilaration pass over his features right before he says, “I can’t promise that.”

You stare at him, frozen in place as he takes your chin in his hand and lifts it ever so slightly, as if he knows that you’re in no condition to elevate it on your own. Then, just as you’re about to say something completely irrelevant to fill the silence, Jake’s lips pass softly over yours.

And that’s when you come entirely apart. Your book bag crashes to the floor as your arm drops limply at your side. Your legs vibrate feebly, fighting to keep you standing. But you ignore the – indeed concerning – widespread weakness sweeping through your body. Because the only matter worth attending to is Jake’s hand as it slides purposely down to your throat, his thumb curling around as though he means to choke you.

Admittedly, you’d let him.

But his fingers don’t commit to a firm grasp by any means, instead, they glide up and down, intermittently applying a gentle pressure to your neck as his tongue curves boldly into your open mouth.

Jake Seresin is kissing you.

In a way that no one’s ever kissed you before. In a way that rattles you. Because it’s hungry and unreserved. Because it’s dangerously intimate. Because it’s Jake Seresin.

He’s kissing you like he already knows just how you like to be kissed. Or… the way you like to be kissed just happens to be the way he kisses. He’s had plenty of practice, after all.

Whatever the case may be, there’s a fire at the tip of every one of his fingers, and it follows the length of your collarbone in their wake. There’s a spark in the friction of every touch, at every point of contact.

It’s in the sweet burn of your bottom lip when he catches it between his teeth. It’s in the way he nudges your face with the tip of his nose in between kisses. It’s in his eyes when he finally releases your lips and meets your gaze; it’s in the silence.

You swallow, looking up at him anxiously, unsure how it’s even possible that you’re still standing. Jake is watching you with an unsettling blend of affection and alarm. He sighs finally and tugs on your elbow, pulling you in to rest his forehead over yours. “Fuck,” he mutters, closing his eyes and releasing a heavy – and noticeably unsteady – breath. “Your brother’s gonna kill me.”

Read Part 10

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[elen-tari2]

Kastle Defense: It’s Personal

So. I’ve been scrolling through some ship war posts on my day off. I try not to let things get under my skin too much, because I’m pretty adverse to confrontations, but I have a lot of thoughts, so I decided to just bring them to my own blog rather than get into a back and forth with unreasonable fans. I don’t get why people have to be so aggressive about ships, to the point where defending their faves means they go around tearing down others. If you want to ship Karedevil (or MattFoggy or Fratt), I absolutely support you. If you ask for opinions about a ship, but then just start attacking people who disagree with you in the comments, why did you ask? Sigh, just…. Let people enjoy things.

But some criticisms of Kastle were being shared, and I do want to address my personal takes on them. I’m not going to get into if Matt or Frank is “better” for Karen, because that’s not what I care about. However, I get there are some valid concerns that Frank involved Karen in a lot of violence, some of which resulted in her getting physically hurt and otherwise was pretty traumatic.

My opinion (because everything is just opinions, no matter how hard you say your take is the only correct one) is this: None of the violence was personal. And Karen knows that. So even though that doesn’t make it right or okay, she never holds it against Frank. Look at her reactions and see how she interprets what he does.

Frank shoots at her and Grotto. Karen is terrified, but nonetheless suspects he had reasons she “didn’t fully understand” and breaks into his house to find out more.

When Frank meets her in the hospital, he makes a point of telling Karen he was not shooting at her. That she was safe, because he only hurts people who deserve it. Meanwhile, Karen is thinking *I would have deserved it* because of her past. But she challenges Frank, saying she’d just have to take his word for it. And Frank’s word becomes something he upholds again and again for her, to the point where she concludes, “you’re honest, you never lie to me.” This remains true. Sometimes there are omissions (he doesn’t tell her about her car being followed; he stays silent when she asks if he knows the bomber (Lewis)’s identity), but there are no outright lies between them.

Does he draw the bad guys to the diner by parking her car outside as bait? Yup. But that’s different that using her directly as the bait. His ultimate goal is to protect her and get information. He plans a fight he knows he can win, and tells Karen in time for her and the kitchen staff to seek shelter. Karen is pissed anyway (of course!) and calls him an asshole. After he commits two more brutal murders in front of her, he tells her to call the police and stay away from him. He realizes he is dangerous and no good to be around. But does Karen listen?? NO. She goes to the docks and spends all night waiting for them to pull Frank’s body out of the water.

Again, I don’t think they were in love at this point. At least not in a conscious, nameable way. Some people point to Matt listening to Karen’s heart at the docks and say she already loved Frank. And I think that’s fair, but also it’s not in a stage she could ever have put into words. They just had that instantaneous connection and truly saw and accepted each other, darkness and all.

So even after Frank is declared dead, Karen STILL won’t give up on him and goes to Schoonover’s house for the interview. When he holds her at gunpoint to get in the car, “Shining Star” starts playing. So she knows to expect Frank is gonna do something. And yeah, Frank crashes her car because he’s a dramatic asshole. He drags Schoonover off to deal with him in the woods. Karen wakes up and still she follows to find him. Yes, she’s hurt, but she didn’t get shot like Schoonover had been planning, so…. Not the best plan, but it did work.

Karen begs for Schoonover’s life, but she doesn’t do it for his sake. She does it for Frank’s sake. He doesn’t listen to her because he is hellbent on vengeance at this point. They’re not in love. She’s someone who helped him, who intrigues him, but it’s not a relationship. It’s not like they were dating and he was having a secret identity and carrying on an emotional affair the whole time, stripping down to his undies with his college ex after faking having sex with her to avoid being captured by security guards…. like someone. *cough cough*. Yeahhh that was a problem for me was because those actions were a conscious choice. It was personal. I’m not saying Matt treated her worse or that Frank treats her like a princess. I’m saying the trespasses against her were different because of how she perceived them. Frank is someone who she never expected to be putting in regular appearances in her life. But she knows what she gets with him and ultimately (whether for good or for bad), she trusts him. Matt broke her trust. Told her he’d stop lying to her and then lied someone more. I LOVE how they reconciled in s3, but I just don’t see the romance between them anymore. For me, that ship has sailed. (Also let’s be clear: I love Matt. I am never anti-Matt. I am critical of other things Karen and Frank do too. Characters having flaws is a good thing. Don’t freak out.)

But let’s get back to the whole picture. Along with involving Karen in all this violence that she has accepted and not judged him for, Frank does things like:

—Saves her life by throwing her to the ground and covering her body with his

—Realizes in an instant that she’s ruthless enough to kill and admires her for defending herself

—Believes her immediately when she says she’s told no one that Frank’s still alive (he asks Curtis twice!)

—Is vulnerable with her— talks openly about his wife and kids and even weeps in front of her

—Tells her he cannot lose her like he lost his family

—Says “No one goes after her, not on my watch”

—Says she is his family and puts her on the same level as Micro’s wife.

—Says “I will come for you” when she’s taken hostage

—Jumps in front of a bullet for her

—Jumps down a staircase and dislocates his shoulder to get to her

—Has a conversation without words with her and they understand each other completely

—Forehead press more intimate than a kiss level of meaning and connection (I swoon)

—Touches her name while he reads her newspaper articles

��Brings her flowers

—asks her to “Stay. Please.”

—Holds her hand for comfort

—Quotes her while in bed with another woman 😩

—Tries to send her away when he knows he has a 5 million dollar bounty on his head and people are just going to keep showing up to kill him.

—Turns down her offer to “love someone else” and “make it mean something”, and pushes her back towards Matt because he thinks he doesn’t deserve her…. but never says it’s because he doesn’t love her too.

—Was definitely thinking about kissing her before Amy interrupted them ashdhdhehwkhjw

So many of these moments are highly romance coded, right??

If Karen were still bothered by the acts of violence from DDs2, would she have come marching into the hospital as soon as she heard his name on the news in TPs2? Would she be offering to throw her life away to be with him??? Yeah, their relationship started out with a ton of scary and dangerous situations, but it evolved and continued to do so, to the point where they care so much about each other, it’s like a sacred bond between them. Karen will defend Frank at every turn, and he has a “touch her and you die” protectiveness for her.

Was his glaring absence in DDs3 something that should still be addressed…. Hell yeah. If Frank goes up against Bullseye in DDBA, it’s going to be incredible because the stakes are so personal.

If you can get through all of Daredevil and Punisher and still find them totally platonic… that’s fine. But the evidence is still open to other interpretations and going out of your way to tell kastle shippers they are just wrong and that their ship is in fact “grotesque”…. That’s just mean. It’s fine to disagree and have different tastes, this doesn’t need to be an echo chamber. We all have our hyper fixations we love to talk too much about. But, in my opinion, name-calling and being disrespectfully dismissive of someone else’s ship is in some ways just as nasty fandom behavior as trolling. An “I’m right/I know better than you/my way or the highway” interpretation of something we ALL love dearly just doesn’t belong. We should all conduct ourselves better and realize everyone can have a seat at the table.

If Frank letting Karen get hurt in s2 is a dealbreaker for you, that’s fine to criticize. For others, it was just the beginning of their interactions, which became much more. I fully recognized Kastle has a big hurdle to overcome since it falls outside of the Punisher comics. So it is more likely we will get only longing looks and ambiguous-but-still-powerful scenes that play with their connection and chemistry, rather than anything explicit. But Kastle is my ship, and the only other OTP I’ve ever cared about this much is friggin Han Solo and Princess Leia from my childhood. So, like, this is just as important to me as it is to you. It’s personal. But it’s not exclusionary.

And this is a two way street—kastle shippers should be respectful of others as well.

Okay I doubt anyone will read all this but my life is in a shitty situation where we might lose our home due to a bad landlord, so I’m clinging to my Kastle brainrot real strong right now to keep me going. I guess I just needed to organize my thoughts and get all this off my chest.

[feyd-meowtha]

2, 8, 15 for the fic questions!

2) fanfic trope you haven't done but would like to?

Hmmmm, probably true tragedy like major character dead and unhappy endings lol, cus I've written dark stuff but always angled for a happy ending. I think I could also put a fun spin on a soulmate AU, though I think I would probably have the pairing not be soulmates and see how that pans out. Also I could dig something with an arranged marriage, though I feel no need to do it for feydpaul despite the fact that it makes so much sense cus its already been done so many times.

8) share a snippet from your favourite dialogue scene you've written and say why you're proud of it

so this was gonna be from 3am Eternal ch6 but thats going through rewrites so idk whats gonna become of it so fuck it, let's put up a wall of text (warning, pls do not take anything they say seriously, they're morons)

+++

“Well, he’s going to some scary techno BDSM party or something, I dunno. He said, like ‘Halloween is just an American consumerist phantasm, invented to make your children fat and sell stupid costumes’ or something like that. I don’t really know-” 

“I fucking hate that guy,” Brady muttered.

Curt cut him off with a nod and a loud, “Aha!”, tutting and waggling his salty finger in Bucky’s face. “So that’s it, is it? Halloween is just another symptom of the moral decay of the decadent West. I see how it is.” 

Sitting back triumphantly, Curt basked in his genius for a moment before his face fell as he was greeted by matching looks of disbelief from Brady and Kenny. Bucky just looked kind of confused. 

“Curt, he’s German, he’s not a fucking communist.” Brady said, his voice dripping with scorn.

“Yeah, Curt,” said Bucky, this close to sticking out his tongue. 

“Yeah, if anything we,” said Kenny, gesturing around the table, “were on the side with the communists, Germany was like, very much fascist. That was the whole problem.”

“Also,” added Benny, chiming in with a much needed non-moron perspective, “that’s not cool Curt. The man can be a communist if he wants. No Mccarthyism at the dinner table, didn’t you read The Crucible in high school?”

“We all did,” Brady said, his head in his hands as he was ignored once again. “Miss Flick, tenth grade.”

“Yeah, Curt,” said Bucky, pointing at him with an onion ring, honestly just glad that for once it wasn’t him who was being ganged up on. “Stop being, like, so xenophobic.” 

A hush fell over the group before Curt and Brady erupted at once. 

“Bucky, who taught you that word?” Brady asked. 

“Did he teach you that word?” Curt echoed. “We told you not to listen to that creep! He’s putting all kinds of crazy thoughts in your head, turning you against us.” 

“Stop it, all of you. You’re not allowed to not like him just cus he’s a communist.” said Bucky. 

“He’s not a communist, that’s what we just said!” shouted Curt, “Kenny said he’s a fascist and that’s not why I don’t like him, I-”

“I mean, he’s not actually a fascist right?” Asked Kenny. 

“Nah,” said Bucky, a hand on his chin as he squinted thoughtfully. “At least I don’t think so, he’s like, really gay.”

“You can be a gay fascist,” said Brady. 

“Speak for yourself,” shrugged Curt at the same time as Bucky yelled,

“We all know you can be a gay fascist.” 

Brady’s look of disappointment would haunt him forever but there was no time to dwell on that as Bucky turned back to Curt. 

“So he’s not a communist or a fascist. You’re just xenophobic,”he said, gesturing accusatorily with his now half-eaten onion ring. 

“I’m not xenophobic. You don’t even know what that means! Jesus Christ, I don’t even know what the hell we’re talking about anymore. I’m too stoned for this shit.” He took a deep breath, holding up his hands and looking Bucky straight in the eye. “I don’t hate him cus he’s German, I hate him cus he spiked you with goddamn LSD.” 

+++

Ok, so that was long but basically I like it because I made myself laugh while writing it and I am the critic who matters most lol. I think it's funny and it reminds me of my pals from uni.

15) if you could choose one of your fics to be filmed which would you choose?

Probably would have to be APTIUT because in all 3 adaptations (and the book) I have never gotten a version of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen that I am actually happy with. All the TV/film ones are a real miss for me in terms of being what I want from the character (though they do make me laugh). One last chance pls 🙏

[herehaveafandom]

Ended up in the radfem/terf tags (disappointingly, “gender abolition” did not lead to people who understand gender as social construct but instead to people who think that penis means man and man means bad) and like. The lack of logic - especially around “dysphoria” and “medical transition” baffles me. A lot of their points revolve around “you don’t want to be a man, you just don’t like how you’re treated as a woman!” which, ok. Let’s say that’s true. That doesn’t change the fact that having a hairier tummy and chest and all over would make me happier. Doesn’t change the fact that having different genitals would make me happier. Actually, my actual gender identity is kinda the least important thing about the way I do transness - idk what my gender is but I could do with some testosterone!

“You can treat body/gender dysphoria with therapy!!” A) not entirely B) most (maybe all? Idk) states in America require letters from therapists before you’re allowed to start medical transition. “I have dysphoria and I don’t RUIN MY BODY with hormones!!!” Ok. You’re living your life and I’m living mine. Also it doesn’t seem like you’re that happy.

“RUINING YOUR BODY YADAYADAYADA” I don’t like cosmetic surgery. I feel a bit sad when people with big noses get rhinoplasties, I don’t think breast implants are particularly attractive. I think cosmetic surgery preys too much on people with insecurities. But am I gonna start ranting at people getting surgery and trying to get them to stop? Nope, because I’m not a freak who tries to control other people’s bodies! That’s just weird!

“Blah blah this man is doing for sexual gratification” First of all I’m sorry you aren’t receiving sexual gratification. Also I don’t care. Sex and kink are a part of life.

“I can’t have a penis in the changing room because people with penises hurt me!!” I’m sorry that happened to you. I was sexually assaulted by an Indian person, but I’m not demanding Indian free spaces. My friend was assaulted by an Asian person, and she isn’t demanding Asain free places. My other friend was assaulted by - gasp! - a cis woman, with a vagina, and she still came out with me to the lesbian bar.

Anyway. Your logic is lacking + trans people have always existed + there is no world without trans people + the second you start engaging in bioessentialism you have already lost + “gender critical”? Yeah I did engage critically with my gender and decided I wasn’t a woman + I am currently talking with a trans woman about the hot kinky gay sex we are going to have. Ratio.

[epersonae]

Ooh for the fic writer ask games: answer one that you haven't gotten yet but want to do!

(Also if you saw me follow you again my bad, I accidentally clicked the wrong button while sending this ask 🤟🏾)

lol this has been in my inbox for over a month, so instead of going back to the ask game post that this is about, I went with the most recent one I reblogged, and this question is actually really interesting to me:

do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

I do, actually, and the fact that my creative impulses have taken me out on some limbs (my entire TAZ Balance output, the devil's threeway, Carlita, the Bigfoot fic) means that sometimes I'm just like really? am I cool to do this? am I going to get shit for this?

which, weirdly, has not ever happened: the eye of Sauron has fallen on others in the cases where that was gonna happen, and in other cases I've gotten amazingly positive reactions, and also maybe people are being judgy and not telling me about it, which is fine actually.

the latter of which is part of getting past it, that not everything is for everyone, and that when I'm on my bullshit/in the rarepair mines I don't need everyone to follow me there. it probably helps that I started in the kinda unpopular rarepair mines, and when I say rarepair I mean: the first 7 are all me, and #8 is Ryn writing an "if you squint" kinda maybe shippy fic (my comment "please squint" ended up in our wedding vows).

the rest of getting past it, at least for me, is checking myself, by which I mean: I care a lot, like a LOT a lot, about writing things that feel canonical, even if they go off-canon, and given that I think the canons I've written for are worth treating respectfully (there's a whole side thought about Good Media and Bad Media, and creative habits, but let's set that aside), that I want to be true to the themes of those works. so it's looking at what I'm doing with a critical (but not self-destructive) eye, it's asking for feedback and help from people who I trust to have the same sensibilities, it's continuing to re-engage thoughtfully with the original material. Paying attention to the conversations that are happening around that and not taking them personally but absorbing them creatively.

that like, I want to do this thing that resonates for me: is that in keeping with the spirit of the original? in what ways does it diverge? how can I reconcile that artistically and philosophically?

and then at that point, if it were to become A Whole Thing, I know that I've been true to myself and treated even the silly things thoughtfully.

thanks for the chance to muse about this topic! (and thanks for all of your fantastic writing, too)

this is all related to some thoughts I've been bouncing around but not yet put out in the world, which came back to the forefront recently but have been in my head for a long time!

[fandomsoda]

I do not think you’re a bad person, I do think you need to realize you’re part of the problem. People leave for a reason, and yes you do deserve better communication, you also aren’t innocent

I never said that I was.

Listen, I absolutely know that various struggles of mine are part of the equation. I’ve known since almost say 1 of being on this site that I was a total spitfire and needed to start finding a way to get a handle on myself and learn how to shut the fuck up/manage my tone and emotions.

And trust me, the first person I blamed was myself. Even if I still felt what the others did was shitty, I still went “ok if I’m the common denominator, it must be me”. And I’m not saying it’s not. However… I did endless internal searching and battling, I practically tore myself apart trying to figure out what about me was wrong. And of course I could point out my issues I was already aware of, and these were things I was actively working on… but I couldn’t figure out the exact behavior patterns that were the issue, much less how to spot them or curb them.

Because most people, myself especially, can’t solve their own problems all on their own. Self awareness is hard, and once you’ve achieved it, trying to figure out how to change things is even more of a mountain to climb. With the things I have problems with, I’m effectively blind to myself most of the time, and while I’m trying to become more aware of myself I still need people to help me identify my problems. This is something I have been saying up-front for a very long while now, this is a disclaimer most people get when they start getting chatty with me. “Hey, I struggle a lot with regulation and tone, if I screw up let me know”. That’s been part of most first conversations I’ve had with to-be friends.

I’m trying to trudge through things and improve myself by myself as much as I can, but learning is a very slow and painful process and I won’t get there alone. I need someone who actually cares to be willing to talk to me. Because the people who I do talk to acknowledge and see my flaws, but none of them really have the ability to grasp what others’ problem with me is. Of course I’ve come to them with “hey, this is a problem I have, a thing I keep doing, a mistake I keep making, do you have any advice?” and while I’ve gotten some good answers, nothing life changing has come of it.

I need someone who is willing to tell me what’s wrong with me in an actual proper conversation format, I need and want to have these difficult conversations, I want honesty from someone who wants to see me grow. Because the things I get told via anon can’t actually help me. A lot of the time I don’t know what the specific criticisms mean or are referring to, so I need to be able to have a dialogue and ask questions and I shouldn’t have to do that via the damn ask box.

And I know a lot of people have said “well if you’re snappy in public or casual conversation, you’re probably gonna be worse in serious ones”, but at least in my case that’s just not true. I struggle more in casual conversations due to it being just that: casual. I’m watching myself less and it’s harder to catch things if I’m trying to be a bit loose. However, if someone asks me to have a serious conversation? I am sitting down, I am gathering myself, I am watching myself, I put every single break on to try and ensure that conversation is productive and that person is heard.

And yes, I know I can’t expect someone to just come along and start trying to help me fix myself, but I also know that nothing else I have at the moment is doing much. I wish I wasn’t so helpless, I would have fixed myself a long time ago.

Thing is, so far my journey of growing on this site had been going great.. because the first time I had a bad moment on this site, someone didn’t say “what’s wrong with you?”, they asked if I was ok. And I was able to have important and difficult conversations with people, I’ve been able to grow, the people I cared about were also the people who were willing to call me out and tell me what was up without damning me or treating me like garbage.

But for some reason, that’s really not the case anymore. And since this whole thing started, I can feel myself getting worse. The pure mental strain has been making it harder and harder to manage myself, which has just led to more and more problems.

And let me be frank… a lot of the shit that’s gone down can’t solely be blamed as a byproduct of my own behavior. There is no excuse for a lot of this shit.

If someone is genuinely asking you if you’re uncomfortable, if there’s anything they can do to make you more comfortable, if they’ve upset you, if you’re ok, etc, and you chose to lie to that person, then that is on you. No matter how you slice it, that’s your fault. The blame falls squarely on your shoulders for actively choosing to keep that person in the dark. You cannot then get mad at that person for not changing if they didn’t know that anything needed to change and had even been told that everything was good.

And there are many times where I actively chose to handle something in a more mature and nuanced manner due to the fact that my head was clear enough for me to consider that choice, and have been totally flamed for it. When every single adult or more mature person in my life that I told about that situation told me that what I did was the right thing to do. And then I’m called a hypocrite for displaying growth. Total fucking bullshit.

And look, I very much understand that basically everyone involved in this whole mess (myself included) are a bunch of disoriented depressed mentally ill teenagers, and people aren’t always going to handle things well or in a way that makes sense and that’s ok. But that courtesy is never extended to me in these conversations. And even then, like I said, there’s a massive difference between coping with things differently and actively neglecting things.

And most importantly… all these punishments just don’t fit my crimes. What I’ve done doesn’t warrant this level of mental and emotional torture, it really fucking doesn’t.

I know people always look at others bringing up their mental health or emotional pain as some sort of excuse, but I am dead serious when I say that given the amount of physical and mental pain this has caused me, the amount of strain, the amount of pure desolation it’s left me with, a lot of people wouldn’t survive something like this. It’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I genuinely wish I could convey just how terrifying and horrible everything has felt.

This whole mess has left me with scars that may never heal. But to the people who wronged me? This was nothing more than an inconvenience.

The reason that that whole “people are tired of you” anon tipped me off was because… this time I genuinely can’t figure out what I’ve done wrong. Any other day that would have either been something I ignored or would have made me despise myself even more. But this time? I can’t figure out what I did… at the moment it seems like all I did was tell someone that I cared about them too often. And I’m certain that’s not the actual reason, just saying that sounds incredibly stupid and woe is me, but it’s all I can glean right now.

I’m not angry at you anon, and I appreciate it, you seem great and like you would have good advice, but I need you to understand that while I am not innocent, that doesn’t change that what’s happened to me is uniquely wrong, at least from how everything has looked and felt from my end. If this was normal friend break-ups, I wouldn’t resent them so much. I just… I understand where you’re coming from, and change on my end is also very important, but… there’s no such thing as a perfect victim, and I can’t fix myself on my own or in a short period of time.

[rubywolf0201]

Ok you know what? I’m gonna roast the shit out of this stan (I can’t be bothered to remember their name) since they wanted attention so bad I might as well give it to them 🙂

Wow… can’t believe that you call my art shit. May I see yours? Oh wait… no… I guess you can’t and it’s just some childish insult you spew out because you have nothing better to say. Like yes, I know my art isn’t top tier but at least I know how to unleash my creativity rather than sling childish insults at artists.

So calling me a misogynist just for criticizing a 22 year old man? I mean for the record I’m a guy and second of all, you’re misusing the word misogynist. Also, I have the right to criticize D*zai for what he did and always will (which won’t happen anytime soon due to dissociating with this franchise but oh well….)

I mean true that Atsushi and Akutagawa saved the world from time to time but let’s forget that it’s born from a certain man's manipulation all becuz out of some sick fantasy that he wants. And let’s not also forget there is still an unhealthy rivalry between the two characters becuz again of manipulation where one party is desperate to kill the other party out of approval of that man who won’t acknowledge him. So again, we have the right to criticize how D*zai affected the Atsushi/Akutagawa dynamic.

Nope. Have you seen the way Dan Heng acted towards Sampo? Dude looks like he was about give Sampo a talkdown for what the latter did to him, March and Trailblazer. And I’m pretty sure had he meet that man, no doubt he would’ve give him not just a glare but a good ol' “Reason You Suck” Speech on his point of view.

As if I care. I made it pretty clear why any ship that involves D*zai is going to be a toxic relationship becuz of how one half of it is them being his caretaker and the other half is him being outright abusive to them.

And while I don’t ship Kunikida/Yosano, it’s a lot better than Kunikida/D*zai cuz at least Kunikida doesn’t have to play caretaker and act like it’s his responsibility to take care of his S/O 24/7!

And there you have it! I hope everyone within Tumblr knows how much of an immature brat that you are and be kicked off this site until you find some way to fix your behaviour and be aware that not everyone likes Dazai!

[voidetheria]

Tell me you didn’t read PJO and HOO without telling me you didn’t read PJO and HOO

Annabeth stans are like "well characters are allowed to have flaws >:(" — like yes, characters having flaws is great, but if they're written as flaws. If the so called flaws are never so much as acknowledged as flaws within the narrative, maybe that's not the Deep Nuanced writing you all act like it is. "She's like that because of her trauma!!!1!" Maybe, but if a character treats people like shit because of her trauma and then never recovers from said trauma, that's not satisfactory writing.

The issue is not Annabeth having flaws or being traumatized or using unhealthy coping mechanisms or whatever. The issue is said behaviours being written as inherent to her character and not even being shown as flaws or trauma response, and her never developing to heal from her trauma or overcome her flaws. Rick never tried to make Annabeth get her shit together and become a better person because fans love her as she is and it gets him money.

[takenbypeter]

Rodrick x y/n, whenever y/n is over Rodrick is somehow nicer to Greg. Greg ends up walking into a band rehearsal and Rodrick tries to keep his nice act up in front of y/n (they’re part of the band)♥️ btw thank you for doing all of my requests, I really love how you write them and your saving my life rn Blc my bf was about to break up with me and these imagines keep me going 🤍

All An Act

Rodrick x reader

Words: 842

~~~~~

Hey hey! Eep I'm so glad you're enjoying my little drabbles for you, thank you for requesting them 💕💖💕 I hope everything's okay with you and whatever situation you're going through, you get through it. REMEMBER YOU ARE STRONG! Anyways lets get into the story 😉

~~~~~

Greg didn’t get it at first. One minute Rodrick was being his usual mean self and the next he was acting nice, like suspiciously nice. He thought Rodrick was having those puberty mood swings that he’s heard about in health class, but then he finally figured it out. The key was you. 

It was pretty easy to solve, I mean Rodrick would be acting malicious and then the second you stepped foot into the room, it was like a complete one eighty flip. Of course after figuring this out, Greg just had to use it to his advantage and any time you were over he’d find a way to somehow squeeze himself into the room. 

Rodrick wasn’t dumb he knew that Greg was doing this but what could he do, he liked having you around and you seemed to like having Greg around. 

Once you all were hanging out in the living room when Greg brought up how Rodrick never lets him sit in during band practice, when all he’s ever wanted to do was watch, is at least what he said while batting big sad eyes at you. That’s when you turned to Rodrick and asked if it was okay for Greg to watch just one rehearsal. Although clearly against the idea, Rodrick grit his teeth and just smiled. 

So now, Greg was sitting on the little beanbag chair while the band practiced. When you came to a stop you turned to Greg asking what he thought. He said it was great, except for one thing. The band cautiously eyed Greg, not taking well to criticism, especially from a kid.

Then he said it, “the only thing that would actually make it better was if Rodrick could actually find the beat.”

The room went silent and your jaw dropped at Greg’s words before turning back to Rodrick. His eyes were wide and his nose flared angrily. It was not a good sight. Even Greg seemed slightly nervous that he'd pushed the limit before Rodrick put on a clench-toothed grin, “I’m gonna get a drink.” Silently the band watched as he stomped upstairs, slamming the door behind him. 

Head deep in the cold fridge, his hands searched for the first bottled drink he could find. He heard the downstairs door open and shut and without checking who it was, he says, “you’re just lucky, we’re not alone because once we are, I’m going to make your life a living hell.” He shut the fridge and jumped slightly at the sight of you. You stood there and offered him a smile while he bit back his words that were clearly saved for Greg. 

“What are you doing up here?” He asked with more confusion in his voice than attitude. 

“Just thought I’d join you for a drink.” 

He opened the fridge, “just water please,” you said and he threw you a bottle. After you gulped some of the liquid down he spoke up. 

“Earlier that wasn’t—I mean we don’t,” he motioned his hands between him and downstairs, “I wouldn’t ever talk to him like that.“

“Oh right,” you give a nod not believing him, “you would never do that.”

“Me?” He put a hand to his chest really emphasizing the word. “No, never.”

You roll your eyes wondering why he even kept denying it at this point. “Rodrick, drop the act. I know how siblings work, I’m not an idiot.”

He leaned forward, eyes widening, “I never said you—“

“Shut up, Rodrick,” you said, interrupting him from digging himself into a hole, “no one’s that nice, it’s actually sort of creepy. Amusing to watch but too good to be true.” He lets out a sigh of relief not having to put on this act anymore. 

“Thank God I don’t ever have to suck up to that twerp ever again,” he says, hand gripping his bottle. 

“You know he’s just trying to get under your skin though.”

He slurped down his own drink, letting your words go in one ear and out the other. 

“Hey! Don’t ignore me,” you say and he sips his drink again, this time hiding his grin behind the bottle. Setting your own bottle down against the counter behind you, you take a few steps closer to him, “It wouldn’t kill you to actually be a little bit nicer to him every once in a while.”

He let out a sigh and rolled his eyes, “yes it would.” Now it was your turn to roll your eyes, “no it won’t.” 

“Yes it will.”

Leaning even closer you rest your hands on the countertop behind him, trapping him between your arms. 

With a slick smile and innocent eyes you said, “please just try it.”

Rodrick’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he visibly gulped. Stuck with nowhere to go he lets out a small sigh, “fine.”

“Good,” you grinned, grabbing his drink from out of his hand and taking a sip. “Now we have a band rehearsal to get back to.”

“But if he says one more word about my drumming he’s out.”

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, so you know “Justice League meets Batman’s kids, who they’d previously been unaware existed” AUs?

So picture that.....but this time, instead of them just having no knowledge of any of these other Gotham vigilantes at all....the Batkids all migrate to various cities as they get older and become known as their protectors - Dick in Bludhaven, Tim in San Francisco, Cass in Hong Kong, etc....

Meaning they’re all established figures, the Justice League are aware of them as solo local heroes who stick to their cities and so they just don’t interact with them much if at all, or else some are members of team lineups but are particularly vague about their histories or life outside of the team’s adventures....

So the big reveal isn’t that they become aware of all these other Gotham vigilantes all at once....its that some big conflict or whatever requires a huge team up of all available heroes, and in the aftermath, they figure out that like.....despite being known as solo heroes who work alone or loners outside of their team settings, 80% of these heroes all not only seem to already know each other, they seem to be related.

And so naturally they all turn to Batman, who has profiles on every known hero and they thus figure had researched these individuals too and just never mentioned this little detail, and they’re like, “Did you know about this?”

And then Nightwing turns to him too, arms crossed and is like, “Yeah Dad, did you know about this?”

And the infamous Red Hood is all: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never met any of these people before in my life. Lives? Whatever.”

And then Red Robin moodily grates out “I have no siblings.” Since he’s nursing a grudge since Dick and Jason broke into his apartment the night before and replaced all his custom Red Robin gear with Darkwing Duck merchandise and his vengeance will be swift and also totally disproportionate because things escalate quickly in this family, that’s true in every universe.

Cass meanwhile has deftly skewered Jason’s lie by walking over to him and brazenly patting down the man with many many guns with no fear whatsoever. He squawks and futilely attempts to bat her hands away as she riffles through his many pockets, but he doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed. Eventually, she pulls away and triumphantly reveals a box of Hello Kitty themed band-aids.

“So these are yours then? Just for you?” Black Bat asks smugly. Red Hood squints at the box.

“What the fuck? How long have those been in my jacket? Why are those in my jacket? Did you freaking plant them in my jacket just on the offchance you could at some point in the distant future use them at my expense?”

Black Bat frowns, puzzled. “Yes?”

“Oh come on, Dead Hood,” Spoiler says with an exaggerated toss of her head meant to convey she’s rolling her eyes beneath her own mask. She skips her way across the room to Black Bat and then drapes herself languidly all over the smaller woman. Who in turn doesn’t so much as twitch beneath the sudden added mass as Spoiler holds out her hand towards the box of band-aids. 

“One please. I have a boo-boo,” she says with easy familiarity straight into the intimidating cowl of Black Bat. Only then does she deign to finish her train of thought with Red Hood.

“I mean seriously, are you saying you don’t have potential blackmail set-ups, pre-rigged releases of incriminating material, and a random assortment of traps, pratfalls and mortifying scenarios in place for the express purpose of being able to humiliate any and all of your siblings at any given moment, without any need for additional prep time?”

“Is this true, Little Wing?” Nightwing whirls on the larger Red Hood with a faux-scandalized gasp. The founder and leader of the Titans, formerly the Teen Titans, renowned for his stratagems and calm competence when directing squads of supers in the heat of battle while he keeps pace with nothing more than naturally acquired acrobatics and a utility belt that apparently uses the same technology as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet....now appears to be....staggering with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, moaning about how he felt....faint? 

What is happening right now, several dozen superheroes want to know. Is this a drill? Are they supposed to be checking for signs of a mental ambush from undetected psychic saboteurs? Did they all hit their heads at the exact same time and are now experiencing some kind of shared mass concussion?

Look, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen on the Watchtower. 

“Have I failed you so utterly?” The veteran child hero bemoans with a dramatic twirl - that when contrasted with his stern demeanor of a mere ten minutes ago - makes the fears of telepathic infiltration seem less paranoia and more....concerningly probable. “Did you learn nothing from me? Did you learn nothing from B?”

He stops and jabs a finger up at the sky. “Quick, everyone! What is the very first rule of Living While Batty?”

As if by rote, over a half a dozen voices chime in from all over the room, causing various heroes to jump. Spooked by yet more and more vigilantes joining in some kind of mass recitation like they and they alone have some kind of clue what the hell is going on and everyone else just hadn’t been invited to the party. Which is just rude, honestly. Nobody likes feeling like they weren’t invited to the party. Not even superheroes. 

“If you’re not going to bother preparing for every possible contingency and at least six impossible ones, you might as well just stay in bed.”

Even the Red Hood joins in the Illuminati chant or Cub Scout pledge or demonic ritual or whatever the fuck that just was, though his slumped and exasperated posture gives away every hint of sulkiness his headgear otherwise would have kept safely hidden. He’s surprisingly more...expressive, than most who’d only known of him by reputation had expected him to be. The day continues to yield surprises.

“Of fucking course I do,” he growls out, snatching the box from Black Bat. She doesn’t even fight to hold onto it, just lets it go with a knowing smirk. “I wasn’t surprised by the idea of it, I was just surprised she bothered with such a weak effort. Like yeah whatever, actually those could be mine. I use those all the time at home. So what?”

He aggressively yanks one of the band-aids out of the box, fumbles with the peel-off strips with one hand and he roughly rolls up the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Then just slaps it on his forearm and raises said appendage high, showing it off this way and that. “See?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Signal drawls from the other side of the room, nodding his head approvingly. “Totally convincing. Nice job walking that one back, you really showed them.”

Red Hood’s head snaps in his direction with ominous intent. “Watch it, Day-Glo.”

Signal just snorts.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna take constructive criticism on my name and costume from a dude who’s spent the last several years calling himself Red HOOD while running around in a freaking HELMET.”

“Its not meant to be literal, you fucking pedant.”

“So wait, its not literally a helmet? Huh, does it at least protect your head literally, or just like...symbolically? Like if Bane were to clock you across the head, would your concussion just be a metaphor? What’s the treatment protocol for a metaphorical concussion? Fluids, bedrest and a philosophical prescription of two chapters of Chicken Soup for the Soul as needed?”

“Laugh it up, KC and the Sunshine Band,” Red Hood bats back. “You just got yourself disinvited from Thursday night’s poker game.”

Signal just grins and folds his arms over his chest cockily. “Please. You’ve been looking for an excuse to ban me for weeks, cuz you know until you can prove I’m using my ghost vision to cheat, you can’t actually bring suit against me for it in Family Court.”

“That, and also Family Court isn’t a real thing, you toddler. Stop validating Wing-a-ding-ding’s obsession with Shitty TV Nostalgia and just call it that thing where Oracle traps us all in a room until we settle our latest fight without anyone getting stabbed.”

“Yeah, but like, say that five times fast,” Spoiler pipes up. “Its just not practical. Family Court’s way easier.”

“Says the one who’s not even in our fucking family.”

“And yet I grace you all with my sublime presence anyway,” she blows a kiss at him, beatifically unbothered. “You’re welcome.”

The Red Hood scoffs and rounds on his heel, zeroing in on Batwoman in the far corner.

“Hey Auntie B, my siblings are all dead to me and I just helped stop an alien invasion so I deserve nice things like a fun Saturday night. Can you get me into Dad’s fundraiser so I can crash it? He won’t put me back on the list until I promise not to bring any C-4 with me and I won’t promise not to bring any C-4 because he should just trust me that I won’t when I say I’m not gonna and he won’t trust me that I won’t until I admit I shouldn’t have brought any to that sting last month where three tiny little yachts blew up through barely any fault of my own, and I’m just not gonna do that ever because I have convictions and I feel I shouldn’t have to be punished for that. Y’know?”

Batwoman blinks at him. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re my nephew and I love you, but I stopped listening three seconds into all that.”

“Ugh, fine. Can you help me crash Dad’s event tonight so I can teach him a lesson about why he should just trust me not to make a scene so I don’t have to always make a scene to make a point.”

“Tempting as you make that sound,” she says wryly, “I have a strict policy for dealing with you lot and your......everything. I only worry about tolerating one of you at a time, and there’s seven of you, and seven days in the week. You each get your own. You know perfectly well its Robin’s day today. You get me on Tuesday, just like always.”

“Auntie B, we’re not like other families, are we?” Red Robin’s delivery is sarcastically childish and his question clearly rhetorical. Most of his attention is fixated on whatever it is he’s doing with his wrist-mounted computer. 

“No sweetie, we’re all severely fucked in the head and a little bit too comfortable with that.”

“Just checking. Oh hey, Hood, I just emailed you a patch for the hole in your firewall I exploited when replacing all my shit using your accounts just now.”

“You did what?”

“Used your accounts to pay to replace all my stuff that you fucked with last night?” Red Robin says slowly. “Did you not realize that I’ve been sticking within ten feet of you for the past five minutes just so I could clone your devices and do all that while BB and Spoiler kept you distracted? I gotta say, bro, I feel like that’s on you then.”

Red Hood swivels his helmeted head in the direction of the aforementioned two. Black Bat waves. Spoiler shoots him an utterly unrepentant thumbs up.

“You’d side with your ex over me? That’s what its come to?”

“My only allegiance is to chaos,” Spoiler says brightly. Black Bat shrugs.

“Plus he bribes better.”

“Hateful,” Red Hood points at Black Bat, moving on to level the same finger at Spoiler, who curtsies in acknowledgment: “Hateful-er.”

Then the finger rounds the bases to aim judgmentally at Red Robin. “Hateful-est. And that was all Nightwing’s idea anyway, not mine.”

“Oh, I assumed as much,” he says casually. “Your idea of a prank tends to have more of a Carrie vibe. Or be a literal literary reenactment.”

“Its called an homage, 4chan.”

“Whatever, plagiarist. And anyway, I couldn’t go after ‘Wing for payback on this one. He used an Immunity card. If you didn’t want me getting back at you, you should have used one too."

Red Hood looms aggressively. Red Robin ignores willfully. Round and round they go. Superheroes who can survive excessive G-Forces are getting dizzy just watching them have a largely motionless stand-off. That shouldn’t be how that works, but whatever. All the most infamously reclusive and isolated heroes in all hero-dom are apparently part of the same one big reclusive and isolated family of fucked up weirdos and they’re all officially bonkers. Nothing makes sense anymore. Reality broke. Try another stall.

“Okay, but see, in order to have an Immunity card, I would have to participate in one of you losers’ stupid Immunity challenges,” the Red Hood drags out with exaggerated patience. “And I’m just not going to do that, on account of those all being fucking stupid. You see the problem there?”

Red Robin just shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You can have principles or you can have an Immunity card. You can’t have both.”

Meanwhile, on another side of....the same room.....look, its like, an octagonal room, probably. It has a lot of sides. Robin fends off questions from an aggrieved looking Superboy.

“You never told me you had a bajillion brothers and sisters!”

“Yes but I never said I didn’t either.”

Superboy rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, so I should just assume everyone I meet has a bajillion secret brothers and sisters?”

“Well clearly it would have worked out in your favor in this instance if you had, now wouldn’t it?”

“Assuming of course that you can trust what has been said or implied here today and I am actually related to any of those numbskulls. Which I am not actually admitting to,” Robin tacks on hastily.

Superboy eyes him dubiously. “You joined in the same creepy chant all the others did and then got super self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Which uh. I did.”

“First off, your interpretation of body language is abyssmal. I do not get self-conscious,” Robin says with a delivery that probably could have benefited from being a little less self-conscious. “And second....that proves nothing. I guessed what they were going to say.”

“Word for word,” Superboy says super-skeptically.

“I’m very good at guessing things. You know this.”

“Okay. Guess how much I believe you right now then.”

Robin glares and folds his arms grumpily across his chest. 

“And what was that anyway? Was that like....you guys’ family motto or something like that?”

“Oh no,” Spoiler pipes up. “That’s much shorter.”

Superboy balks at that. “Wait, you guys actually have one of those for real?”

“Yup,” Steph says, counting out the words with her fingers. “He who laughs last....probably works for the Joker. So tranq him just to be safe. See? Only sixteen words. The first rule of Living While Batty is way longer, and what we said was just the abridged version. You should hear the original, before Black Bat put her foot down and refused to memorize it unless sizable edits were made.”

Superboy hovers between her and Robin now, both in mid-air and on the verge of taking Spoiler’s words as an invitation to hear just that. A low growl arises from Robin’s direction.

“Must you?” He asks the older vigilante, with a most put upon expression.

She looks at him pityingly. “Do you actually need me to answer that? Like, we’ve met, right? Hi, I’m Spoiler.”

“Wait, so Robin said that I just never specifically asked him if he had a bajillion brothers and sisters, and that’s why he didn’t tell me, so that means he wouldn’t have just lied and there’s not some code of secrecy that flat out forbids telling other people stuff, right?” Superboy realizes excitedly.

“Yes, excellent direction. Go on,” Spoiler says, steepling her fingers. Robin buries his face in the palm of one hand.

“Soooo, what other stuff could you tell me about Robin’s super top secret family that I wouldn’t think to ask about but that he would tell me about if I knew what questions to ask?”

She claps once, lightly but with emphasis. “Well done. You’ve passed the first barrier. Untold secrets await you behind just a few more.”

“I’ll get you for this,” Robin vows calmly. She waves a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you do it before January 1st, remember? You’ve promised retribution like ten times already this year and those don’t roll over, y’know. Rules are rules.”

“Enough!” Thunders a voice then, from the front of the room. Well one of the fronts anyway. Like sides, it has a lot of them, but this is the one where Batman’s standing. All eyes snap to him. Which is kinda just what eyes do when Batman says stuff like that. Its like his superpower, except he doesn’t actually have superpowers, which is what makes it scary. But where the snapping of the eyes (directional) is usually followed by Batman saying something else besides just “hey look at me,” here he pauses in the wake of his own call to attention’s waning reverberations. Uncharacteristically silent.

Not that, y’know, he’s normally Mr. Talkity Talk, but usually his silences feel like he has the words to fill them, he’s just withholding them. This though, this feels more like he doesn’t have any words at all. And he’s as confused by it as any of them, and most everyone else is confused by Batman being confused, and its this whole trickle down economy of confusion and its wrecking havoc on the value of the golden silence standard.

Of course, not everyone present is rendered spellbound with confusion.

“C’mon B,” Nightwing cajoles, leaning forward and practically radiating delight. “I think you know what you have to do now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its not likely to come around again.”

Red Hood snickers beneath his helmet and chimes in. “Yeah Pops, go ahead. You do this and you’ll actually have my respect for a whole twenty four hours. No, wait. Sixteen. No! Eight. Yeah, eight. Still a good deal.”

“Carpe diem, B,” Red Robin grins, leaning back as if to enjoy the show.

“Hey! Infringe on my trademark one more time, dude,” Signal throws a faux-glare at the former. Red Robin just quirks an eyebrow.

“And what, you’ll start saying Yum every time you eat a burger? Oh no. I’m hoist by my own petard.”

Signal flips him off with a grin and then redirects his attention back to Batman. “Yeah seriously though B, you kinda gotta do it now. Because if you don’t do it, then you’ll forever be the guy who didn’t do it, and you don’t want to be that guy, do you?”

“Yeah you really don’t want to be that guy,” Spoiler shouts out. “Nobody likes that guy. He’s the worst.”

“Do it, do it,” Black Bat starts chanting beside her, steadily picking up speed and volume. Several others start joining in. Even Robin appears to be slightly anticipatory, albeit trying very hard to hide it.

Batman sighs, and somehow everyone manages to hear it. Stills. Waits for....something? Nobody but them seems to have any clue what, but the air is thick and heavy with portentiousness. Something is about to happen, and all most of the heroes present could say for sure is it was something they never would have in a million years seen coming.

Finally, Batman straightens with the resigned air of a man about to have oh so many regrets. He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and in an absolute deadpan monotone, says:

“You are awful children. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your father.”

[sunshine-zenith]

Okay but like. Ratatouille from Linguini’s perspective tho

You’re some broke, awkward guy in his twenties who can’t keep a job down to the point that you Know that the letter your recently dead mom wrote to her also dead famous friend’s coworker contains Something about giving you employment. So you march yourself down to this fancy restaurant, submit yourself to verbal whiplash, fork over what might’ve been the last thing your mother ever wrote, and become the lowly janitor

Fine, right? I mean, shitty day/week/month/whatever, but you aren’t picky. You have a job, so you can pay rent. Except you accidentally spill like half a pot of soup and you panic. You literally got this job like fifteen minutes ago and you already fucked up. Rent is breathing down your neck so you do the Broke Twenty Something thing where you try to use water to hide the difference, throw in some spices because you have no idea how cooking works, and hope that no one notices despite the fact that one sniff tells you you fucked it up worse.

Then a rat fixes it.

A random rat fixes it.

(You’re broke, you’re mom is dead, and you cook worse than a rat. Imagine that.)

And somehow the soup gets served to a food critic that’s apparently well respected and now you have no idea if you’re gonna be flayed alive by your new boss or given a job you are in no way qualified for. Rent is still a thing.

Then you realize the rat understands human language and knows enough body language to communicate. Then you realize you’re own body is fucking weird because this completely random rat (that you had to explain morality to because he stole some herbs from your neighbor) is controlling your limbs by tugging on your hair. Also you become lowkey famous yourself because the rat is that good a cook.

And you have to go along with it because you need money to eat and not be homeless and you need a job to get money. It hasn’t even been a week.

At least your coworkers are nice enough. You get a crush on one of them and get a crash course on cooking and working in a kitchen and sexism and oh my god like at least three of your coworkers are technically criminals aren’t they?? Also your boss gets you drunk and asks you a bunch of weird questions about pets. You only wanted a job

(The rat makes you kiss the coworker you kinda have a crush on that’s been teaching you everything. What the fuck. You probably have to explain consent to a rat now. Luckily the coworker likes you back and is okay with the kiss, but still. What the fuck)

(Also the rat now seems to have a rivalry with your new girlfriend. What the hell, rat buddy? You’re literally the reason these two are together, and also the girlfriend has been working in the food industry longer than the rat has been alive probably, she clearly knows her shit)

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the rat walks up to you with some documents about how your dead mom’s dead famous friend is your dad. Also your boss did DNA tests on you behind your back (invasive much??). Now you own an entire restaurant because of a deadline in you’re secret dead dad’s will that was like two days away from being moot.

(I dunno about y’all, but I’d need to sit down for like seventy years at this point because there’s like fifty different layers of fucked up here. You grew up without knowing your dad, then you learn you’ve been working at his restaurant. He’s famous and his face is on a bunch of frozen food dishes. Both of your parents are dead. Your mom never told you or your dad about the being related thing for some reason. Your boss did a DNA test on you. You own a restaurant and you can’t even cook. Your new pet rat somehow got this information before you and can apparently read. Your father was a famous chief, your name is literally a pasta, and you can’t even cook. It’s only been a couple months, what the hell)

Now you’re famous and the food critic they lowkey caused your secret dad’s death is after you because he has a weird vendetta going on, and also your rat (who’s like your best friend at this point let’s be real) is acting weirder than usual, but at least you have a better apartment and get to talk about how much you love your super cool and smart girlfriend in public.

Next thing you know, your rat is sneaking other rats into the kitchen, you have to explain that a rat can cook better than you, and everyone quits in the middle of the day (what the heck, one of them probably killed a guy and another was in the circus. The rat thing is weird but like. You can roll with the punches. Why can’t they??)

So while you’re like having a panic attack because of this, your rat unionized his rat friends and now the kitchen is being run by rats. What can you do? You wait tables because what the hell, you’re in way too deep at this point.

(Also, side note, Linguini totally missed out on his true calling as a professional roller skater or something. Dude’s graceless even when he isn’t being piloted by a rat, but on a set of roller skates he’s friggin amazing)

Luckily, your super smart (maybe ex?) girlfriend comes back (even if the whole rat thing is still throwing her off, but hey. It’s prolly nice to have Somebody acknowledge the weirdness of this entire thing without jumping ship). Apparently the food your rat cooks is so good that the food critic that lowkey killed your dad reevaluates his entire life, but now he wants to meet the person that made the meal. What do you do — your (maybe ex?) girlfriend is the only other human here, do you say she made it or do you show him the rat?

You decide to make this Super Important Super Harsh food critic wait hours, then you and your (probably) girlfriend have to show off how you’re weirdly drift compatible with a rat. The food critic just like. Thanks you for the meal and leaves. What do you do?

Also at some point during the night the rats kidnapped your weirdly invasive ex-boss and a health inspector. So yeah, you should probably deal with that.

Then the food critic that lowkey lead to your dad’s death writes this inspirational piece that critizes critics, tanking his own career in the process, only for the health inspector to shut down your dad’s restaurant. But okay, the now ex-food critic now takes the money he made shattering the dreams of other chiefs and invests in your rat best friend’s dreams, and now he’s kinda your friend and you work at the rat’s restaurant with your amazing girlfriend.

All this happened in only a few months. You just wanted a job.

Linguini’s a fucking champion for putting up with all this istg

[wheelsup]

kissing lessons

summary: one of your classic movie nights with spencer turns into a learning opportunity

A/N: this is really fluffy, but the whole story centers around kissing. use your own judgement! i’d say it’s at worst 16+

category: spencer reid x gn!reader, fluff (with a bit of spice)  best friends to lovers (sorta)

warnings: just kissing, a brief implication at the end

word count: 3k

Occasionally, the team will spend an extra night in their hotel before heading home from a case. Be it due to poor weather conditions, or the fact that your case wrapped in the dead of night, the reasons for flying don’t ever matter. Because the majority of the times when you have to stay that extra night, you and Spencer have sleepovers.

The routine is pretty much the same. You’ll stock up on gas station snacks – sour peach rings for Spencer, salted microwave popcorn for you – and reconvene in one of your hotel rooms. Preferably, whichever of you got the better deal that week – a bigger tv, a room further away from the ice machine. And you’d rent the cheapest movie available on-demand, the options spanning from low-budget sci-fi to poorly written rom-coms. That night, the viewing fell under the latter category.

Spencer perched at the foot of your bed with both feet tucked under his legs, criss-cross style, while you laid against the headboard to watch. Every now and then, you tossed out your commentary and he’d ignore it. He always says you’re too critical of movies and you’re of the belief that he’s too forgiving.

“I don’t think they should end up together,” you mumbled, words slurring around your mouthful of popcorn. You pulled a face right as the movie approached the romantic climax, after spending the past ninety minutes actively rooting against the couple. Spencer ignored you, pretending to be engrossed in the movie to spite your disparagement of it. “They both suck.”

You groaned, slumped further against the pillows, and shoved your sock-clad toes under Spencer’s left thigh in a call for attention. He jumped at the intrusion, but ultimately, your efforts were futile.

And then the big kiss commenced, and your booing finally piqued his interest. “Gross! I feel bad for people who kiss like that.”

A small bell went off in his head and he took a curious glance at you over his shoulder.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He stopped chewing and the piece of candy in his mouth pushed out his cheek, giving him an adorably innocent look. His brows scrunched in the middle and his nose had a tiny crinkle in it, utterly confused.

You scoffed and matched his expression. “Are you serious?” You jerked your head in the direction of the television and Spencer whipped his head back, squinting. He couldn’t figure out what you were pointing out, what it was that was so obviously wrong to you. “Spencer, he’s swallowing her chin!”

Oh. He hadn’t noticed.

Feeling dumb, he muttered, “I thought that’s how you’re supposed to kiss…” It wasn’t the deepest confession to admit to you that he lacked some knowledge when it came to kissing, but he still refused to look at you as he said it.

“Spencer, please tell me you haven’t been kissing people like that.” You narrowed your eyes at the back of his head, sitting up straighter in bed. He shrugged and lowered his head, focusing on his snack as his fingers dug into the packet of gummy rings in his lap.

He popped another piece into his mouth, pretending to be occupied with eating so as to avoid your prying. “I dunno.”

It didn’t occur to you until that moment that Spencer might have learned everything he knows about kissing – among other things – solely through watching movies. How else could he look at that and think it’s normal? And you’re left wondering if he’s ever even practiced it with another living human. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but unfortunately, that only heightened your interest. You had to know.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” You kept your voice low, your tone implying that you were ready to exchange this secret with him. You wouldn’t judge him if he admitted he hadn’t.

He scoffed loudly, and though you couldn’t see his face, you’re positive he rolled his eyes too. “Yeah, of course.” Then quietly, he added on, “But it was only like… for four seconds.”

You nodded thoughtfully, considering how this new piece of information adjusted your existing view of Spencer. For some reason, you couldn’t tell if you actually expected him to be experienced or not.

He didn’t exactly scream that he’d… gotten around, for lack of better words, but you’re still surprised to learn that he’s barely done it at all. You supposed he was objectively cute, that maybe you could see it if he weren’t your best friend. And yeah, he’s a little awkward, but he’s smart and kind, so he has three great things going for him, and you’re surprised more people haven’t swooped him up yet.

Your lips curled down in thought, brows raised in curiosity. “And was it good?” It was a genuine enough question, because you’ve never really thought about Spencer Reid and kissing in the same sentence before. As it turned out, there was a lot of missing information relating to those two things.

“I don’t know! I didn’t get, like, a feedback form,” he grunted, angling his shoulder even further away from you. If you could’ve seen him, you’d notice his face boiling and turning red with heat. All this inquiring made him think harder about his … talents … than he’s ever had to before, and he’s not a fan.

You were prepared to do some more digging when the slump in his back made you feel a tinge of guilt. It was your fault he looked so defeated. You pressed too hard, disregarding his boundaries just because you wanted to know more. And now, he was wondering if there was something wrong with him, because you wouldn’t leave it alone.

He barely noticed as you swung your feet from under his thigh and rocked onto your knees, leaning forward to nudge his shoulder with your palm. It hauled his attention out of his thoughts and back into the room. You wanted to apologize, but instead you settled with “I’m sure you’re fine, Spence.”

He nodded unconvincingly. By the glow of the screen, you could see he was still gnawing on the inside of his cheek, focusing his eyes as he played with a loose hangnail on one of his fingers. It made you feel even worse. “Are you actually worried about it?” you asked, laden with concern.

“What if I am bad at it?” He whispered, like saying it too loud would make it true. “And that’s why it’s only happened once?”

A large exhale puffed out of your nose as you weighed your options.

You could go back to your original plan and apologize for setting him down this path of doubt. But that wouldn’t do anything to stop him from worrying, anyway. You could tell him there’s no correlation between the way he kisses and how frequently it’s happened; that you’re sure the reason isn’t because he’s bad. But you don’t know that for sure.

So, fuck it, you thought, grabbing a fistful of his pajama shirt and tugging him closer to you roughly, pressing your lips onto his.

This way, you’d at least have an informed opinion to be able to tell him if he was good or bad.

His lips were softer than you expected – not that you’d thought about them often, they’re just impossibly softer than they look – and invitingly warm. But they were completely stiff.

You could tell he was trying to kiss you back by the way his mouth ferociously moved over yours. He was trying to be a passionate, engaged partner, but he forgot about the aspect of tenderness.

His lips felt like two solid objects just sliding around on your face. They didn’t move in any sort of accordance with yours. There was no push and pull, your lips didn’t mesh perfectly together to form a solitary unit as they moved in unison.

It felt more like his lips were your opponent, putting up an attack and defense play against the actions of your own.

You pulled away, resisting a giggle at his bewildered face. “You’re not so terrible,” you swipe the corner of your mouth, smudged with Spencer’s flavored chapstick, “But it could use some work.”

He was at a loss for words, mouth gaping open as his eyes darted around the room and all over you. Maybe he’d find an explanation for what just happened carved into the walls somewhere or written across your forehead.

What happened was that you kissed him. And he was a little bit bad. Simple as that.

“I-I wasn’t ready!” he stammered, chucking up his hands defensively. He’d process the fact that he’d just made out with his best friend at a later time, right now the bigger concern was the slight cringed look on your face. He sulked and folded his arms.“What was so bad about it?”

“Well,” you scratched the back of your ear, trying to gauge if he’d react well to getting some advice, “my first tip would be to relax your lips.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“And don’t think too hard. You should react to what’s happening in the moment, not worrying about what your next move is gonna be.” You could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to envision what that would play out like in a real situation. “You wanna try again?” you offered, figuring he’d learn much faster if he was more hands-on about it.

He nodded, and you leaned in close, waiting for him to go for it. His heart quickened under the pressure of performance, eyes screwing shut as he closed the gap. His mouth smashed into yours as he dove in hard. It was toeing on the side of too harsh, but you let that one slide in hopes it was just a byproduct of his nerves.

You had to tap his knee to remind him to relax, and he loosened some of the tension he had in his lips. He slotted his between yours, allowing them to be pliable to your movements and remembering to react, not plan.

He moved his mouth leisurely against yours, trying to match your pressure and pacing. They actually started moving in time with yours at some point. The kiss took on a shape of its own as he started getting out of his head, letting himself enjoy the kiss for what it was in that exact moment.

It was already better than before. Leaps and bounds better. But then he tried to deepen it, building on its intensity but adding more… something into it. You couldn’t even tell what it was he was trying to do.

“Okay, second tip…” you inhaled sharply, pushing him off of you with a palm against his chest. Whatever it was, it needed to stop. “You kinda do this thing like… where you’re blowing air into my mouth?” You scrunched your nose, punctuating your dislike. “That feels weird. Don’t do that. If anything, do the opposite.”

“I’m supposed to suck the air out of your mouth?” His face contorted, voice already slightly exasperated. He barely understood what the air thing was that you claimed he did. He didn’t realize in the process of trying to add pressure to the kiss, he was just forcibly blowing against your mouth.

“Not literally, no.” You laughed a little, rubbing your palm in a comforting pattern on his chest.”But you can use your lips to suck on mine, or my tongue… just nothing involving the exchange of breath. We’re not in CPR training.”

He eased up a little with your joke, adjusting to your advice he gave it another try. After a few moments, he latched onto your bottom lip with his own, sucking it softly into his mouth. “Yeah, like that,” you mumbled against him, voice pitching high in encouragement. He sucked on it with a little more greed, holding it for a second, then eased up, varying the pressure of his movements just like you did before.

You made a mental note to praise him for that at a later time, deciding to instead part your lips to see if he’d venture into further experimentation.

He caught on quickly. He parted them further, prodding his tongue against them as you opened to allow him entry. Just as you started to really enjoy it, he ran his tongue over the inside of your mouth, moving it fast and roughly like he was a washing machine.

“Stop,” you grimaced, tearing away quickly. You had to swipe your hand over your mouth to get rid of the excess saliva that really shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place, given how brief the frenching was. “Your tongue is way too aggressive.”

Overwhelmed, he tilted his head to the ceiling and let out a frustrated grunt, slapping his hands down to the top of his thighs.

There were too many factors to worry about. He had no idea how you looked at him with a straight face and told him not to think too much when there were a million things he needed to remember all at once; he needed to vary his moves to keep it interesting, but make sure he’s not ruining the flow by changing things up too much, and to be gentle but not timid.

All of this was second nature to you, but it was brand new to Spencer. Could you really blame him for not getting the hang of it right away? You decided to stop your list of critiques short for this round to spare him. He’d get there eventually, but not if he felt discouraged too soon.

“I don’t see why people like it in the first place,” he huffed, his head returning to it’s normal posture. In Spencer’s eyes, there truly wasn’t any appeal to kissing with tongue; it looked sloppy and unnecessary, and as you’d just confirmed, it actually was.

You thought about his statement for a second. There’s a certain allure to it, and you didn’t know how to describe it to him. So instead you cupped his cheeks in both your palms and slid your mouth over his again. As his jaw slacked its tension, you slowly pushed your tongue past his lips and gently pressed it against his own before swirling them together.

You sighed softly into his mouth, running your fingers through his hair and tugging carefully at the ends. He made a small noise against you, something like a whimper, and you swallowed the vibrations of it. As you retreated, you captured his bottom lip between your teeth and gave it a light, teasing tug. You soothed it again with your lips before releasing it, a proud giggle forming in your chest as Spencer chased after your lips as you broke apart.

“That’s why.” You smirked at the dazed look on his face. His eyelids remained closed longer than necessary, still feeling the ghost of your mouth on his and a tingle where your fingers were in his hair.

“Oh.” His voice came out meek as he slowly came back to reality, brows wrinkling up his forehead as he opened his eyes.

He put both his palms down on the mattress, one laying flat on either side of you, and dove forward to resume the kiss right where you left it. A surprised squeak left you as his mouth collided with yours with an insatiable hunger. You brought one hand back to his hair, and he was a goner.

He unfolded his legs from under himself and shuffled onto his knees, following his hands until he practically crawled into your lap. Each of his legs hooked onto either side of your thighs as he hovered over your lap, leaning his body entirely into yours.

The physics of it didn’t hold up; he’s taller than you are, and his chest was too heavy for you to carry. The balance was off center and it sent you tumbling back onto the mattress, bringing him down with you until his chest laid on yours.

It was the perfect force – the weight of him on top of you. He tasted like peach candy and sour sugar, and you found yourself craving more of it.

You shuffled higher up the mattress, giving him space to stretch out his body as he followed yours. One of his hands found your waist, gripping tightly, while he placed the other on the mattress beside your head, using it to steady himself. Sliding your legs out from under him, you wrapped them on the outside of his hips, using them to pull him closer down to you.

It only broke off in moments when both of you absolutely needed to get air, gasping as you pulled apart for brief reprieve before colliding again. He followed every word of your advice, getting better with each passing second until he exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds.

Your fingers weaved through his hair, passionately tugging the wavy strands to angle him against you and igniting his nerves under your touch. A soft moan leaves him and you’re encouraged to tighten your grip on them. His hips bucked reactively at the sensation, and he quickly pulled back, a slight embarrassment creeping up his cheeks. He got too carried away.

You took in his flushed face and swollen, kiss-bruised lips. They’d turned a shade of red brighter than you’ve ever seen them, and it was all you could do not to dive for them again as his tongue sweeped over them, soothing the burning heat you’d left on them.

Before he could apologize for his eagerness, you nudged your nose against his, your smile skimming against his lips. “So what else don’t you know how to do?”

☆

☆

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[creative-type]

Literary Foils (or, how Oda reveals character)

A common criticism I hear levied at One Piece is a severe lack of character development for a series that’s 1000+ chapters long. While this isn’t true, it’s easy to see how someone might come to that conclusion. After all, the Luffy of chapter 1 is more alike to the Luffy of chapter 1000 than he is different. Whatever development there is happens in a slow, steady drip. 

But a standard character arc where a character starts out on a journey, shit happens, and they become a better person (and it’s reverse, where a character starts out, shit happens, and they get worse--usually reserved for villains and villain protagonists) isn’t the only way to tell a story, and I want to look at how Oda explores already-rounded characters primarily through the use of literary foils.

Buckle in, folks, this is gonna be a long one.

In a narrative, a foil is simply defined as a character who contrasts with another, usually the protagonist, in order to highlight or differentiate certain qualities in the protagonist. It’s the classic “two sides of the same coin” approach to character writing, with a whole slew of popular subtropes that can further delineate what kind of dynamic an author is going for.

It’s important to note that foils aren’t just opposites and they aren’t just parallels. Wyper and Kalgura have a ton of similarities within their character arcs, share a dream, and are literally related, but I would not call them foils. There simply isn’t enough contrast brought out between them.

Similarly, Hody Jones and Otohime are about as opposite as opposite can be, but I wouldn’t call them foils either. Otohime and Tiger are, as they both have the same goals but have very different ways of achieving them. Jimbe and Arlong are, since they both heard the same message Fisher preached, with one accepting and the other rejecting it. And Arlong and Hody are, as they share a similar hatred of humanity, with the main difference between them being how they treat their own kind. But through all those layers of character writing any similarity between Otohime and Hody is lost, or at least severely muddied. You can’t have a two sides of the same coin relationship without some common ground between the characters you’re trying to compare.

As with all things literary, there’s room for nuance and argument, but the thing that’s really important to understand here is that in One Piece, foils are everywhere. This isn’t exactly a surprise given the sheer volume of characters within the series, but Oda has eschewed a lot of the traditional character development that one expects to see in a long running series in favor of these contrasts.

This is most true for Luffy, who as main character rightfully gets the most focus throughout the series, but it’s by no means limited to him. A good rule of thumb is that for every major arc, there will be a foil for both Luffy and the main Guest Star Party Member, and that foil will often be the arc villain.  

Let’s throw out some examples. During the Syrup Village arc there are two characters who are defined by their contrasting treatment of Kaya.  First off there’s Kuro, a liar who uses his deceit and manipulation in an attempt to gaslight and later murder her, and then Usopp, a liar who tells elaborate stories in order to bring her a little bit of joy and happiness after the death of her parents.

But Kuro’s also a pirate, one who left the pirating business because he couldn’t take the heat of being a wanted man, and plans to murder his entire crew to keep his identity safe. When Luffy hears this he plainly states that he’ll never become a pirate like Kuro, because as we learn later on in the series, living a life without regret is something that he immensely values.

There are some variations on this rule, but you can almost count on there being at least two foils per major arc, even if one of those foils isn’t Luffy or necessarily the arc villain. During Zoro’s recruitment, for example, Zoro’s eventual willingness to throw away his good name and reputation to become a pirate stands in direct contrast to Captain Morgan spending the arc committing atrocities simply because of his good name, whereas Coby’s pure sense of justice acts as a foil to the corruption of the marine base. Luffy is present and active during the arc, but the exploration of his character takes a back seat to both Coby and Zoro.

Likewise, during the Baratie arc Luffy’s “spear of spirit” contrasts to Krieg’s obsession with military might and weapons, but Sanji’s closest foil is actually Gin, a character who throws his own wants and desires away in service of another, much like Sanji does to Zeff.

But it shows up often enough to be a clear trend. Luffy’s famous “I can beat you” speech to Arlong highlights their differing philosophy on captainship, but as we learn much later Arlong grew up in poor, disprivileged circumstances much like Nami. Both grew up with an obsession over material wealth--which we saw even in Arlong Park when Arlong put aside his hatred of humanity to buy off the local marines--and the fierce desire to protect those they cared about. 

Brook and Moriah both lost their entire crews, but handled that loss very differently. Where Moriah descended into a lazy bum who wants to become the Pirate King without ever lifting a finger, Luffy’s fighting so hard that unchecked use of Gear 2 will someday kill him. 

These character foils can even be used to set up recurring themes for the series. Luffy is Enel’s natural enemy--something we see repeated less literally with the Celestial Dragons--but Gon Fall shows what the rule of a benevolent God really looks like.

Things get really fun post-time skip when Oda starts giving his villains more elaborate backstories. I mentioned the Fishman Island arc earlier, but didn’t even mention the contrast between Koala and Nami, whereas the myriad of comparisons to be made between Doflamingo, Law, Cora, Virgo, and Luffy in Dressrosa is just...bananas.

The benefit to this kind of writing goes both ways. We get to see why Luffy (or whoever else) is worthy of his protagonist status by showing the positive traits the bad guys lack. The contrast between Luffy’s ability to control his appetite during Whole Cake Island versus Big Mom’s lack thereof is the reason Oda writes her as a mindless cake-obsessed kaiju during the latter half of Whole Cake Island. Never before had Luffy been put in a position where he had to choose between his boundless appetites and his friends--and by extension, his dream. Luffy isn’t that far from Big Mom in terms of personality and appetite, and we get to see first hand the terror and destruction that would unfurl if he walked off that edge.

Foils also tend to be extremely compelling. Blackbeard captured the fascination of the fandom long before he was stealing Devil Fruits because of how similar he is to Luffy. His introduction shows this off perfectly, reacting exactly the same as Luffy while eating, but with opposite tastes. Oda didn’t reveal who he was until the end of Jaya, but already he was interesting, and that interest has only grown over time.

This is only scratching the surface of Oda’s use of foils throughout the series, but the end result Is clear. (Almost) every bad guy Luffy faces gives him an opportunity to reveal an aspect of his personality and character that the audience hasn’t seen yet. The use of these positive and negative spins on similar character traits can then further hone in on the various themes and ideas Oda is trying to portray. Oda’s habit of having his villains act as foils for two or more characters makes them more rounded by default, as Oda has to highlight the different aspects of their character for the good guys to bounce off from, and this aspect of his writing has only gotten stronger post-timeskip as he’s started giving his villains just as elaborate backstories as his heroes.

Traditional character development can and still does happen within One Piece, but it’s not the focus. That doesn’t make it bad writing, merely another way to skin a cat, and the continued success of the series 25 years in the making is proof. 

[winter-soldier-vibes]

Hey darling ❤️ love your writing 3000 :) can u do one with Bucky x reader (they’re together) where he overhears the reader on the phone with her parents that are emotionally & verbally abusive towards her (they always have been) and the reader has to explain it all to him afterwards even tho she’s having a panic attack (bc she’s afraid bucky will leave her since she has no one else to go to ??) and bucky comforts her and reassures her that he’s gonna be there for her and like comfort fluff? I live in an emotionally abusive and manipulative household rn and I tell you your fics are like an escape for me. Even if u don’t do this thank you from the bottom of my heart :)

Hey there, I love you 3000 ❤ I am so so sorry to hear about your situation, and while I'm glad to hear that my writing is an escape for you, I want you to know that I'm here for you. No one should have to go through what you described. I hope that this can bring you some comfort but please, I encourage you to reach out to someone who can help you. My DM's are open as well, you shouldn't face this alone. I'm here for you!!!

You owe them nothing

Bucky Barnes x reader

Word Count: 3200 (ish)

Warnings: emotional abuse/gaslighting, manipulation, parent issues, tears, angst, breakdown, fluff.

---------

You really tried to keep it hidden. It wasn’t something that everyone needed to know about.

Your parents loved you, at least that’s what they had said. But it was one of those things where you felt like it was for show - the kindness that they showed when you were around others faded away once you were alone with them.

You remember once they had said “of course I love you, I’m your parent!”

But that made you wonder how they would treat you if you weren’t theirs.

They were horrible to you for as long as you could remember. Gaslighting you and making you feel like you owed them something even though they were the ones who should have taken care of you.

They were around but never…there. They would be there for family dinners but they were always riddled with criticisms of grades and who you were talking to and how you dressed. All of your hobbies were seen as a waste of time, something you should only do when you had nothing else to do. School came first, naturally, but there was always something they told you you had to do before you could do anything for yourself.

Yet when you would complain about being depressed, they told you to get a hobby because you never do anything.

Tired meant lazy, energetic and passionate meant loud and annoying. When you were quiet they thought you had nothing to say, yet when you expressed your opinions you were told to shut up.

You couldn’t win.

You could never make them happy, there was always something you were doing wrong.

They thought it was their right to monitor who you talked to and saw, what you did outside of school, what sports you could join. When you would say no to the school dances or parties you would make up an excuse about not wanting to go or having work to do. Your friends would call you a buzz kill. Little did they know you would give anything to go.

Whenever you would do something wrong (or anything, period,), your parents would yell at you. They would curse you out, make you cry, only to yell at you for crying like a little bitch.

The older you got, the worse it was.

You thought when you moved out it would be better. But you had all these years of being told you were worthless and having them be your providers. When you got your own place you didn’t really have any friends, nor did you really know how to make friends. You had a job to help you get by, you could support yourself. That wasn’t the issue. You could support yourself, you always had to.

It was that you were so lonely.

You wanted friends but you were so afraid of the criticism you would get. You were afraid to make yourself known, because you were always taught that being told what to do and taught what to think was much more appealing than having your opinion.

But this was an opinionated world.

You were good at what you did, so good that you had gotten a job at S.H.I.E.L.D. You thought that would make you happy, more importantly that it would make your parents happy, but no such luck.

“I got a really great job, guys.”

“Fantastic. I guess you’re just doing so great without us,” they had snapped.

“What? I mean… this is what you wanted right? For me to get a good job?” you had said, confused.

You heard a loud sigh on the other end of the line. “Of course we do, what are you crazy about? Of course we wanted you to get a good job but you just deserted us like we were trash. Have we done nothing for you?”

You felt your heart sink in your stomach. ‘Of course you guys have, I love -”

“Don’t say what you don’t mean. If you really cared about us you’d be helping us out. You got a great job and probably have a huge paycheck that you hoard and you left us here to struggle to make ends meet.”

You took the phone away from your face temporarily to take a shaky breath. Of course they would go there with the salary, why wouldn’t they? All of your paychecks had gone to them, since it was their house and they were feeding you, leaving you with barely enough money for your car and gas and phone bills, only for them to suggest longer hours when you complained.

“I can help you guys out if you need,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady.

You heard an exasperated sigh on the other line again. “You really should be more grateful, you know? We raised you your entire life and then you leave us alone? You never even call us? You’re so fucking selfish.”

Then the line went dead.

You shook your head and felt tears in your eyes as you spoke to yourself. “Well maybe I would call you if it didn’t always yell at me.”

Of course, you would never say that.

See, it wasn’t so bad. You never said anything because they were only ever mean to you, which would make you uncomfortable. There were people out there that would get hit or who would have to raise themselves from a young age. Once you grew thick skin it wasn’t so bad, you were just being dramatic.

Right?

Your new job was fairly successful, you were fantastic at what you did. You did a lot of behind the scenes work, weapon repair and plans of action with missions. Not that they needed much help with that. Still, they took you in as their friends.

Well, as close as you would let them get to as friends.

It took a while before you warmed up to them. Everyone tended to keep to themselves, but not as much as you. You kept the parts of you hidden away - you were there for a job, you did it, and you did it well. You knew how to do your job but interacting with the team, making friends - you didn’t want to get emotionally attached.

Not like you knew how to make friends to begin with.

Naturally you were drawn to the quieter side of the team, once you were able to open up. They were all nice but sometimes the parties and the jokes were a bit much. You just didn’t want to say or do the wrong thing that would make you the punchline.

No one needed to know about you, or how you would spend your free time being yelled at through a phone with you trying to make it better. That wasn’t part of the job, so you shouldn’t bring it up.

It wasn’t like anyone would want to help. You were just a nuisance to everyone around you.

Right?

No one talked about their life before the team much. Not many people on the team had a great life before the Avengers first came together. Natasha or Wanda had once spoken about how this team was a family. And as much as you wanted to believe it, you helped the team. You weren’t a part of the team. So even if that were true, it didn’t include you.

At least, that was your point of view.

The team viewed you as a part of the team as much as any of them. You didn’t fight with them but you made sure everything would go as smoothly. You were kind and great at what you did, but they wished you would open up more. Of course, being a team of people who had trouble opening up, they understood.

Bucky was one of the ones who took a liking to you, mostly because he saw a lot of himself in you. He could tell there was something that you were trying to get past but weren’t quite able to yet. That there was something bothering but you wouldn’t dare say it for fear of bothering someone. You threw yourself into projects and distractions and from the way you carried yourself, he guessed you were avoiding something that you weren’t ready to work through. At least, not yet.

He knew that feeling too well.

The ex-assassin was one of the easiest for you to open up to because he didn’t expect much from interactions. Both of you were quiet and kept to yourselves that there wasn’t much pressure to share anything or say anything. You knew his past but would never bring it up unless he wanted to. Which eventually, he did. You could tell he felt pressure to be who he was before HYDRA took him, and while Steve was surprised he opened up to you first, you weren’t. Steve knew Bucky before everything, and you didn’t have that bias. He was whoever he was today regardless of who he was yesterday.

And Bucky found comfort in that.

You think you would’ve too, if you thought you deserved it enough to do the same.

See, you were worried that you were making everything worse than it really was. You worried that maybe you were being too sensitive or that what you had grown up with was normal. With everything that everyone on the team went through, a few insults from your parents was hardly anything. You were being dramatic.

There was nothing to be sad or angry about. You just had to get over yourself.

Right?

You were getting by until one night when your parents called, as they did on occasion. You were in the middle of working, so you ignored it. The phone went to voicemail before it started ringing again, and you ignored it, again. The third time you sighed and picked up your phone, turning away from your work.

You took a deep breath before you answered. “Hello?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

You closed your eyes and brought a hand to rub your head. “Well I’m doing fine, thank you, how are you?”

“Don’t give me that attitude. What the fuck are you doing? You’ve been ignoring our calls.”

You stood up to pace the floor slightly, dreading the conversation that was coming. Is it the ‘family is most important’ or the ‘where’s my money?’ speech today? “I’ve been working.”

“What, so work is more important than family now? Is that what this is? You don’t care about us?”

Family speech it is.

“Dad -”

“What if one of us was dying? Huh? Would that be important?”

“Stop it. No one is dying, and I was working. And I have more work to do, so I really have to go.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, I’m your father.”

Gaining confidence you gritted your teeth and snapped, “You know what? I’m an adult now so you can’t tell me what to do.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and you could practically hear the steam coming out of your father’s ears.

At some point Bucky had come down to your working space to check on you, seeing as it was nearly morning. He stopped in the doorway, and seeing you were busy on the phone he thought he would stop by later to give you some privacy. But he stopped when he heard you snap.

You never snap.

“Who do you think you’re talking to you ungrateful little bitch?”

“I’m talking to the people who treated me like shit my entire life and ask me for money when you wouldn’t give me the time of day for 18 fucking years.”

Even you couldn’t believe the words coming out of your mouth. But god did it feel good to say them.

“Are you fucking serious right now? We did nothing for you? What do you think we’ve been doing your whole life? We’ve done everything we did to help you be the best person you could be. You have that job now because of us and you have no right to speak to me that way.”

You chuckled darkly as you looked up at the ceiling, unaware of Bucky’s presence behind you. “My entire life all I’ve ever wanted to do was make you guys proud of me. But you know what? I’m fucking done. You hated me, gaslighted me, and made me hate myself almost as much if not more than you seemed to hate me.”

“I did no such thing you ungrateful -”

“You were supposed to love me and care for me, and all you did was take advantage of me. I’m not your child, I’m a paycheck. I don’t owe you anything because you gave me nothing. So you know what? FUCK. YOU.”

You hung up the phone and tossed it across the room, adrenaline taking over your body as you tried to stop shaking. Because a small part of you felt bad.

But fuck did that feel amazing.

You heard a throat clear behind you and you turned around to see Bucky, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“You okay?”

You nodded nervously, rubbing the sides of your arms. “Yeah, I’m fine,” you said, unconvincingly. “How much, uh...how much did you -

“Enough,” he said, pushing himself off of the door frame as he crossed over to you. “Who was that?”

“Bucky, don’t, it’s really fine. I just got a little worked up.”

“Y/n,” he started, looking at you with concern. “Who were you talking to?”

“No one.”

“You don’t get upset like that at no one,” he took your hands in his. “Y/n, you're shaking.”

It was then that you realized your hands were still shaking, trying to keep the anxiety of what happened at bay.

It’s going to be so much worse now.

I can never talk to them again.

Is that a good thing? Didn’t I want that?

Bucky could sense you getting lost in your head. “Sweetheart, tell me what happened, please. I want to help you.”

You pulled your hands away from his and crossed your arms. “You can’t help me because there’s nothing wrong, okay? I handled it, it’s over. Done. nothing to worry about.”

“Y/n -”

“No really, there’s nothing you can do, okay?”

“Will you at least let me try?”

You looked at him, adrenaline starting to drain from your system. This was Bucky, your Bucky, who had never done anything but love and support you. He had never done anything to hurt you.

But what if he left you too?

You took in a sharp breath and curled in on yourself, a scared look on your face. Bucky crossed back over to you, seeing a scared look on your face.

“Hey, hey, y/n? Can you look at me?”

You brought your eyes up to meet his, feeling your chest constricting as you tried to keep your breathing even. It wasn’t working.

“I - I’m sorry, you shouldn’t… I’m fine really I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”

“Hey, it’s alright, it’s okay, you have nothing to apologize for,” he pulled you in for a hug and kissed the top of your head. “Let’s go sit down, okay?’

He led you over to your bed and you leaned forward, hands on your knees and head in your hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening, this - I’m sorry, it’s so stupid, I’m so stupid.”

Bucky rubbed a hand up and down your back, hushing you. “It’s not stupid. If it’s bothering you, it’s not stupid.” Bucky took a small breath. “Do you remember all of those times after nightmares and all those panic attacks you would walk me through? How I thought I was being stupid?”

“You weren’t being stupid”

“And neither are you.”

You took some more shaky breaths as tears kept falling down your face. “You’re okay. It’s alright, I’m right here.”

Bucky let you calm down, knowing you would talk about it if you wanted to. He wanted you to talk about it so he could help you (and hurt whoever upset you) but he wouldn’t force you into telling him anything you didn’t want to.

The two of you sat in the silence, Bucky looking at you with soft eyes as you kept your face hidden.

“I haven’t told you a goddamn thing about me. You ever wonder why?”

You looked over at Bucky, eyebrows creased with slight confusion.

“They said blood was supposed to be thicker than water. That family comes first, right? I spent my whole life listening to them and following them and being the perfect kid. I made myself into everything they wanted me to be. And it still wasn’t enough for them.”

Bucky tilted his head slightly. He hadn’t known his parents much before they died but he had always wanted to have more time. But he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that not everyone had good parents.

“You know, I remember thinking that once I made it they would be happy. That if I worked hard enough or went onto do great things that they would be proud of me. That’s all I ever wanted, you know?” you said, voice wavering as you let out a bitter laugh. “But it’s not, you know? Never is, never was, never will be. All they do is take and take and no matter how good I am they’re always gonna hate me because I can’t be perfect.”

“No one’s perfect, y/n.”

“Well that’s what they want me to be. I know I can’t be perfect so I know they’ll never be happy. That they’ll call me ungrateful and selfish for succeeding and for leaving them when they never wanted me to be there to begin with.” You felt tears spill over as you wiped them away. “And I’m ust so fucking done with being a disappointment to them and to everyone else.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I don’t know,” you said softly, not really wanting to be more vulnerable.

Bucky, sensing this was a time he could push you, challenged you. “I think you do.”

You shook your head. “I didn’t want anyone to see me the way they did. I thought what they said wasn’t true but...I just thought that maybe I was overreacting. Other people have it worse you know - some people have no parents or some have it so much worse. Mine just yell at me you know? Tell me everything’s my fault and that they wish they’d never had me. That I’m ungrateful for not being with them and that I owe them. I just...I heard that for the first 18 years of my life. I didn’t need any more of it.”

“y/n, that’s…” he swallowed, trying to contain his anger. “That’s not normal. No one should have to go through that. You can’t possibly think you're a bad person.”

Your shrug was enough to tell him that you did.

“Y/n, I don’t know who your parents think they are but you don’t owe them a damn thing. You may be related to them but you have no obligation to love your parents if they treat you like that. You have every right to be angry or to hate them. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be angry with someone who hurt you.”

“But they’re my family.”

“Well they didn’t treat you like it. You have us now, you don’t need them anymore. We’re your family. And we’re not gonna leave you.”

“They didn’t leave me Bucky, I left them.”

“You can’t leave someone who was never there for you.”

----------

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[raewritesfiction]

Love in an Elevator [Shannon Leto] -reupload-

A/N: I feel Shannon has been left out so here is some much needed Shannon loves. Plot: Shannon and his girlfriend get stuck in an elevator. Pairing: Shannon Leto X Reader Warnings: as usual…. Smut.

--- --- ---

The evening had been amazing and now you were heading home, or at least your home this week, to snuggle up and watch films - and by “snuggle up” you mean ride Shannon until he couldn't speak and by “watch films” you mean let them play in the background because why the fuck not?

Shannon keeps his eyes on the road as he drives; the snow was coming down heavier and starting to build up making him more than a little paranoid about your safety.  Luckily for your both, though the drive was slow and took longer than it should have, you both arrive at the hotel safe.

“Fucking eerie.” Shannon points out the lack of anyone out and muffled sounds.

“Agreed.” You nod and climb out his truck, carefully walking around to the meet him and take his hand.

Shannon locks up the truck and wraps his arm around your back to steady you as you walk into the hotel lobby and over to the elevators.

“Wow… never known it to be this empty.” He looks around pushing the call button.

You shrug and wrap your arms around him, not really caring who was or wasn't here; you just wanted him to warm you up.

The doors open and you step in, still cuddled into Shannon.  Hitting the top floor button you raise an eyebrow as the lights flicker a little and the doors very slowly close.

“Spooky.” You joke and make Shannon smile. “There's that smile..” you whisper, watching him in the elevator reflection.

“What d’ya mean?” He frowns a little.

“You’ve been so serious lately, not really smiled much. I’ve missed it.”

“Oh...it was… album stuff. You know how much of a hard-ass Jay can be.” Shannon places a light kiss on your forehead.

“Mmm… true.” You turn to face him and stroke his cheek.  “You’re also your own biggest critic, baby.”

He nods in agreement and sighs “Very tr--...” Cut off mid reply, Shannon looks around in surprise when the elevator stops moving and the lights dim before switching to what seemed to be emergency back up.

“What the fuck?” You look around and find the alarm button then press it.  To your dismay there's no signal buzz to say it was even working. 

Shannon pulls out his phone and immediately finds the problem “the power is out babe… lines have been pulled down by heavy winds.  Entire area is without power.”

“But the alarm should still work, surely? The lights are on back up?”

“Old hotel, retrofitted… no guarantee the alarms are on emergency power circuit.” He chews his lip.

“Fuck. So… Someone is gonna notice, right?”

“I have no idea but I'll get a message out to someone to let them know where we are and to get help.”

You nod and lean against the side, arms folded across your chest.  “I hate being stuck in an enclosed space.”

“I know baby girl.  It’ll be okay.” Shannon wraps his arms around you and reassures you.  After a few minutes his phone beeps with a message telling him it would be a couple of hours at least before anyone could get to the hotel.

“Maintenance crews are stuck in the snow - surprise, surprise. They know we’re stuck and assure me that we’re in no danger.”

“Danger? Why would we be in danger?”

“No baby, it's okay.” he nuzzles you “we’re not in any so it doesn't matter…. They’ve said it’ll be a minimum of two hours until a crew can reach us.”

“Fuck… what about the staff here?” 

“Depends where they are or if they know what to do.  If we’re between floors then they won't be able to help us…. Even if we’re not, opening the doors needs a jack of some sort.”

You huff and lean your head against him.  “I guess there are worse people in the world to be stuck in an elevator with.” Smiling at his raised eyebrow.

“Gee thanks baby!” He grins then laughs, putting his phone away.

“I had this nice evening planned for us… even wore my sexy underwear.”

“...really?” Shannon looks down at you.

“Mmhmm…” you nod “was gonna get the wine out, line up some movies to listen to…”

“Listen to, huh?” 

“Yeah, there would be no watching.” You wink. “I guess we can do it another night.”

Shannon chews his lip and thinks “well… we could still have part of that plan while we’re in here.” Pushing you against the elevator side and pressing against you.

“Oh really?” You smirk and move your arms to wrap around his neck, brushing your lips against his.  He nips your lower lip then pushes his tongue into your mouth slowly, hips pressing into you.

“Show me that sexy underwear?” He grins and unzips your coat, pushing it down off your arms and stepping back to give you room.

You blush crimson and side-eye the CCTV camera then decide you don't give a shit about it in the slightest; they'd have one hell of a show when they got around to reviewing it.

Shannon leans against the opposite side and watches you with a sly smile as you sway your hips to whatever music was playing in your head and strip off your layers until you were down to a green ( https://goo.gl/images/hBaEvB ) lingerie set. 

“Oh...damn! Green is most definitely your colour…” he wolf whistles and lets his eyes study you as you twirl and pose for him.

“Why, thank you Shanny.” You wink and wiggle your hips, enticing him towards you. 

“Oh god let me have something in my wallet…” he chuckles and kisses you passionately, moaning into your mouth.

“At this point, I don't even care.” You kiss him back and nip him. 

Shannon growls low and moves to suck on your neck; his hands wandering over you and squeezing your ass tight. 

“Don’t tease.” You gasp and roll your hips against him. 

“Oh…. But it's so much fun hearing you beg for my dick.” He nips your your jaw and smiles.

You narrow your eyes and pull at his jacket “you're wearing too much.” 

He looks down and then nods “agreed…” helping you slip off his jacket, jumper and tee; leaving them in a pile on the floor at your feet.

“Getting there…” you nod and nip across his collarbones, hands undoing his jeans as he lets his head fall back with a faint moan. 

Shannon blinks and suddenly pins your arms above your head “fuck this…” kissing you roughly and pushing his jeans down with his boxers to free himself.

You moan and move your legs as he teases over you with his fingers.

“Shannon, baby, please…” you speak after breaking the kiss for air.

He sinks down to his knees and hooks your leg over his shoulder, moving your panties to the side and licking over you before delving his tongue into you.

“Oh….god!” Is all you can manage before your moans are echoing around the elevator.

Shannon moans and wraps a hand around his semi-hard cock jerking slowly while licking and sucking over you - he looks up under his lashes at you and growls against you.

You whimper and gasp, arms still above your head lost in his sensations.

He slowly pulls away and stands, your leg over the crook of his arm.  Shannon kisses you and teases your pussy with the head of his cock.

“Please…” you whisper and kiss him, rolling your hips to his.

“Really do love hearing you beg for me.” He smiles and pushes into you with a low moan.

You move your arms to drape around his neck and lift your hips to Shannon’s as he starts thrusting into you immediately. 

He keeps a grip on your leg and kisses you hungrily, panting against your lips and rolling his thrusts into you until he lifts you up off the floor to wrap around him with a loud groan.

Your fingers thread into his growing hair when he buries his face into your neck and sucks at the skin, scraping his teeth over you and then kissing the red marks he leaves behind.  Your once light breathless pants have turned into moans and begs for him not to stop. 

He splays his hands under your ass and pushes into you hard against the wall, moaning your name against your jaw and catching sight of yourselves in the mirrored elevator.  “Open your eyes….” 

You do so without question and gasp upon seeing the muscles in his back ripple with every movement he makes; your free hand moving down over his upper back to feel them move. “Holy fuck…” 

He groans and speeds up his hips into you, watching the reflection of you both to the side.  “God, you're beautiful.” He pants against you.

Your answer is his name on every breath, every moan and whimper. “Close… don't stop!”

He growls and grinds his hips up into you, fingers digging into your ass enough to leave instant bruises.

Tilting and rocking your hips as best you could to Shannon’s, you let your head fall back again the elevator and give up on watching him so you could concentrate entirely on feeling him.

Shannon's breathing becomes even more erratic and his hips lose all rhythm as do your own, moving with desperation for release. 

You cling to his body, wrapping yourself tight around him as you call his name; trembling with the feel of him filling you a split second later and breaking out in goosebumps when he roughly grunts your name in to your skin.

He steadies his breathing with you and trails open kisses across all the skin he could reach, leading up to your lips and pulling you into a passionate kiss.

You moan and slowly lower your legs to the floor with his help, although he doesn't let you go and keeps you held tight against him.

Breaking the kiss Shannon brushes his lips across yours and swallows thickly. “Baby, I love you.” Whispering softly against you, nerves evidently clear in his voice.

You smile and nuzzle him, a hand cupping his cheek while your thumb brushes across his skin.  “I love you too.” 

He smiles and relaxes against you, holding you to him protectively.  

“What's that noise?” You mutter after a few moments.

There’s the sound of doors opening and then a slow descent until two feet land on the top of the elevator.

He listens then rushes to help you get dressed “help has arrived!” 

You giggle and quickly pull on your clothes, making sure not to leave anything behind as Shannon does the same; the both of you being decent just seconds before the too escape hatch opens.

“Hey down there…! Sorry we took so long!” 

--- le fin ---

[airis-paris14]

See You Again

A/N: Just something short I never posted. It probably sucks, but I thought I'd share anyway. WE OUTSIDE YALL. (Please be outside RESPONSIBLY. COVID is still a thing. Please get vaccinated and or wear a mask.) Love Y'all.

Masterlist

“My King,” Okoye called, handing T’Challa a bag he forgot. “Next week.”

“ I know Okoye. I promise I will be ready to leave.” Okoye nodded before reboarding the jet. The king watched before beginning the short walk up to his friend's front door.

He rang the doorbell before staring up at the building. It’d been years since he’d last been in this apartment. Freshman year of college to be exact. Anaya’s parents had invited him to spend Thanksgiving with them after finding him and their daughter studying together on a surprise visit to their daughter's dorm. They weren’t in the room, lucky for them, but it seemed that her parents were invested in a dream that wouldn’t come true. Not that either of them was ready to admit they couldn’t be together either. At least that early on.

So much has changed since then. They graduated. Got two Ph. Ds respectively and then moved on. Anaya became a celebrated fashion historian and critic, and T’Challa a king. Halfway across the world, they’d reconnected by chance in Paris and hadn’t let go since. Somewhere T’Challa had been holding on to a silly notion that maybe he and Anaya could give being together another go, but he knew it was a fruitless endeavor.

Same as his ringing of the doorbell had been. Worried, the king began knocking on the door. “Quit your racket! She’s not here!” An elderly woman crooned from her front porch. “Pardon?”

“She ain’t here! The baby called.” The woman chuckled to herself, “Ran outta here like a firecracker. Her two friends following close behind.”

“She was pregnant?”

“Don’t know how you missed it sonny, big as a blimp, carrying high though. My bets on a girl you know,” she paused to size up the young king. “And you must be that no good bastard baby’s father. Walking out on her like that you know I should-!”

“Ma’am, I promise you I am not him. As much as I wish I could have been,” the king mumbled the last part.

“Well then now’s your chance son. The real father ain’t here, and I hate to see that child grow up without a father figure. What’s keeping you from claiming that child?”

“A lot more than you’ll ever know..” T’Challa looked up, despair written across his face. The woman's gaze softened. “You’ll never know till you try. At least go and see her. I mean you came to her house. All dressed up with flowers and a bag of gifts. You must really care for her.”

“I do.”

“She’s at the university hospital.” The old woman instructed. “Thank you,” the king nodded. “Anything to see her happy, ever since her parents died she’s been sitting up in that house all alone. Make it right.”

Two hours and four phone calls later, T’Challa pulled up to the hospital in his hired car. The driver opened the back door of the SUV to allow the king and his baby present out into the air. He nodded at the driver before making his way up to the reception desk. “Hi, how may I help you?” The woman looked up from her computer. “You must be looking for our maternity ward. This your first?” She nodded at the gifts. “You could say that,” T’Challa chuckled.

“May I have your name and the patient’s?”

“T’Challa, and Anaya Johnson.”

“Great, Ms. Johnson is in room 408 in the maternity wing. Go down the hall, on the left, there will be an elevator. Take that up to the fourth floor, make a right and it should be the fourth door down. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” the king smiled hoisting up the big teddy bear, careful not to crush the flowers and various other bags. “Would you like an escort Mr. T’Challa?”

“I believe I can handle this one,” The king insisted. “Very well, and congratulations.”

The king frowned. “Thank you.”

Four floors up, and three doors down, T’Challa finally stood outside of room 408. He took several steadying breaths before knocking. “Who is it? A familiar voice called. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door before it carefully creaked open.

“T’Challa?”

The king smiled in surprise. “Tella? Hi.”

“Hey, what are you doing here?” The brown skin woman beamed, opening up the door, her eyes widening slightly as she saw all of the gifts.”She said she hadn’t heard from you in months.”

“Yeah, I was on my way to visit Anaya and her neighbor told me she was here, having a baby.”

“Yeah, um come in. She and Jean went for a walk, the doctor said it would help with contractions.” Tella grabbed the bear from T’Challa and moved to set it in a corner, while he found space to set down his other gifts. “So how’ve you been? We used to get status updates from Anaya for you. Then you just vanished.”

“Well, there is a lot I haven’t told you all. Wakanda is a monarchy, and my father, and his father, and his father, and his mother, and her father, and his mother, and so on, have all ruled our country. Now it is my turn.”

“To rule?”

“To rule.” The king nodded. “So you vanished because you became king?”

“I vanished because there was a coup, an attempt on my life, which was almost successful. The coup sent my country into a civil war,” The king explained.

“T’Challa, this doesn’t even sound real,” Tella interrupted. “I mean, how is anyone supposed to believe you?”

“May I see your phone?” T’Challa stopped her.

“T’Challa,”

“Just let me prove it to you. I did not ghost Anaya by choice. I still want to be with her.”

“After all this time-”

“Please, I know it seems implausible, but let me show you,” the king reached out a hand.

“Fine T’Challa-” Tella handed over her phone. “Ask siri,” the king instructed.

“Seriously?” Tella frowned. “Just ask her.”

“Siri, who is the king of Wakanda?”

Her phone glowed before responding, “T’Challa Udaku was crowned King of Wakanda after the passing of his father last summer during a United Nations Assembly. I found this article online from the New York Times and several other sources.”

“T’challa if this is true, I mean since this is true, the prospects of you and Anaya getting together is now even more impossible. Why are you here?”

“Because she is my friend, and I love her. She is having a baby, and I will support her.”

“You are not its father!”

“Don’t you think I know that? Do you know how much it hurts me to know that I’m not? That I may never be the father of any of her children.”

“This isn’t about you T.”

“I know, but the child’s father is not here. I am. Even if he was, I still would be, because she is my friend too Tella.”

“I just do not want to see her hurt. Don’t give her false hope T’Challa.”

“On the contrary, I believe it is she who gives me false hope,” the king sighed. Tella pulled him in for a hug. “Just give it time, and who knows, you’re a king now aren’t you?”

“That I am,” T’Challa nodded as the room’s door squeaked open. A nurse helped Anaya back into the room and T'Challa couldn’t help the way his eyes widened at Anaya’s pregnant form. His heart erupted in butterflies, imagining if that had been his child. Tella slapping his arm startled him back to reality. Tella jerked her head towards where the nurse was trying to help Anaya and maneuver the IV stand back into the room with her. T’Challa hurried over to wrap an arm around Anaya’s waist and grab her other hand. The nurse smiled in thanks and surprise. No surprise could top Anaya’s expression. She gaped as T’Challa shot her a smile. “Long time no see,” The king teased as he helped her further into the room and onto her bed. A grimace stole her smile as another contraction hit.

“I’ll grab Dr.Ben and she’ll be right in to check on your progress, Ms. Johnson.” The middle-aged black woman smiled at the expecting mother. “Thank you,” Anaya smiled before turning back to her best friend. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to surprise you, only to find out from your neighbor that you were in labor,” The king smiled.

“Mrs. Patterson told you where I was?”

“I guess so,” the king frowned. Anaya and Tella laughed. “What did you do to her? Mrs. Patterson doesn’t like anyone. Especially men.” Tella explained.

“She did almost try to beat me up when she thought I was your ‘bastard baby’s father’.” T’Challa told the two women who groaned. Anaya grimaced her way through a contraction and T’Challa stepped over and offered her his hand. The mother smiled at his touch and threaded her fingers through his as the contraction dissipated.

“I’m gonna go find Jean in the gift shop,” Tella excused herself, leaving T’Challa and Anaya alone. “What’s been going on with you King T’Challa,” Anaya teased as she tried to push herself into a seated position.

“Nothing much. The world of politics cooled off for a while and I wanted to apologize for being awol these past months.” T’Challa helped rearrange the pillows so she could sit up. “What about you soon to be umama?”

“Well, this has been my life pretty much, still don’t know how I’m going to manage working at museums and shows towing this one around.”

“Where’s the father?” T’Challa asked softly. A tear formed in Anaya’s eye, “He doesn’t want to be involved. We were drunk that night and you know…..”

“You don’t have to explain,” T’Challa squeezed her hand. “Thanks,” she murmured. “What are you having?” The king inquired, sweeping some box braids back over her shoulder. “I don’t know. I wanted to be surprised.”

“Your neighbor thinks it’s a girl,” T’Challa laughed. “She’s been telling me about me carrying high since it became visible I was pregnant.” Anaya laughed. “I guess we’ll find out today or tomorrow.” T’Challa chuckled. His face quickly fell as she slipped into another contraction. He tried to help her breathe the way he’d seen on television but ended up making her laugh. “You’re really bad at this,” Anaya reclined back onto her pillows rubbing her stomach absentmindedly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” T’Challa smiled. “It’s two quick ones and long out. Not in out in out,” Anaya explained. “I’ll do better next time,” T’Challa promised.

“How long are you visiting, you don’t have to stay. It could be another day or so before I give birth.”

“I’m here for the week, until next Tuesday. And Anaya I want to stay. Besides, I can give Tells and Tonya-Jean a break to walk around.”

“Thanks,” the pregnant mother smiled. Her face contorted as another contraction washed over her. “There you go,” T’Challa soothed as she squeezed his hand. He helped her breathe through and eventually, she settled back. “At this rate, it’ll only be a couple of hours until they’re here with us,” the mom to be sighed. “Then I’ll be here as long as you’ll let me be here,” T’Challa kissed the back of her hand. Sweat had gathered on her forehead and he reached for something to dab it away. “I want you here as long as you can be, distract me.”

“Why? You are not enjoying the miracle of life.”

“Says the man not currently pushing a baby out of his body.”

“Fair enough,” he raised his unoccupied arm in surrender. “Tell me about Wakanda and being a king,” Anaya asked, groaning through another contraction.

“Well,” T’Challa started.

Eight hours later, the room was silent. Tonya and Tells had gone home to catch up on sleep. Anaya was sleeping off her exhaustion and the king of Wakanda sat rocking a sleeping baby girl. Well, she was sleeping. Sydney Iesha Johnson’s big brown eyes fluttered open and stared at the man holding her. She stretched out her tiny body and T’Challa’s heart soared at the feeling of her moving around in the swaddle.

“Hi pretty girl,” he whispered. “Hi,” he cooed, smiling as she yawned. “You are so beautiful, just like your mommy. She was the most beautiful girl in the world and now she’s tied with you.” He rocked the infant softly. “T’Challa?” Anaya croaked. “Hey,” the king stood up and walked the baby over to her mother. “She was fussy in the crib, and the nurse suggested I hold her, I hope you don’t mind,” he rambled. Anaya laid a hand on his arm and shook her head. “It’s fine. I love seeing you with her.

“You know I’m here for you right? Both of you now,” the king searched her eyes. “I know I’m not her father, and I’ll never try to be that for her, but she’s a part of you and that makes her important to me.”

Anaya teared up and nodded.

“I want you to move to Wakanda.”

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