#I so much love the perspective from above

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 14: Don't Be A Bundt Cake

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy, Miscommunication Trope

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Talks of Death, DENIAL, Idiots in Love, Pining by the Reader (and SB, but he won't admit it) Depressing Thoughts, Mentions of sexual assault/rape (not detailed at all, really just in passing) Talks about weed, Sexist comments, Ben makes derogatory comments, Threatening Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A/N: I am so sorry this one took me a bit longer. The writers block was fighting me the whole way, but we are very closely nearing the end of this series and the moment the reader and Ben stop being so stinkin' stubborn.

Reader POV

You lean your forehead against the cool window, watching the world flash by in a flurry of color. The wooded forests had vanished hours ago and all that was left were the yellowed sprawling fields of corn and grain and family farms that were laid sporadically along the interstate. Each one a little world that caught the flecks of golden sunlight as the sun began to peak above the horizon.

The bus rolled smooth and steady over the weathered pavement towards it's destination and was filled with an odd assortment of people young and old. There was man with a brightly colored parrot that had been singing "It's A Small World After All" since you left NYC, a woman with a little boy playing with an iPad and who refused to turn down the volume no matter how many times his mother asked him to, a group of teenagers a few seats up that continued to pass around a flask, and due to how far back you were sitting on the bus an uncomfortable smell emanated from the bathroom each time the door was opened.

But you didn't notice any of it.

The only thing on your mind were the events that happened almost twenty hours ago. They continued to circle your mind, playing over and over again like a perverted cassette tape making you sink further into the worn cloth covered seat at the back of the bus. The images were haunting, some new and some old, but all the more still horrible to re-live.

The song "Nights In White Satin" floating into the backseat of your family's car, the flash of unnatural light you knew was never lightning, the caskets at your parent's funeral covered in flowers that were much to pretty to lay on something so morbid, Elijah's body succumbing to the poppies that ripped him apart, the proud sneer on your brother's face when he admitted to killing your parents, Darren's broken and bloodied body strewn in pieces over the street with the creature standing over him with a dripping red maw, the ruined building that housed "Please Don't Die" reduced to nothing more than rubble, and the look on Ben's face when you turned your back on him and fled the scene.

For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why?

Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?

The creature curled in your lap snorts something in it's sleep, turning it’s head further into the cradle of your elbow to shut out the brilliant early morning sunlight. It was now the size of a toaster and had warranted several odd looks whenever you got off to change buses, but you didn't care.

You weren't sure about anything anymore. Everything your brother confessed to you made you feel like you were living a lie and the revelation of exactly what your powers could do- take life from plants to heal yourself, create whatever the hell it was on your lap, and speak to plants… it scared you.

You thought for so long that you knew everything about your powers, that you were in control, but now you weren't sure.

You felt different, as if something had unlocked deep down that you couldn't shut up again.

You'd felt different after you killed Elijah, but this was more alive, weaving and twisting in the pit of your stomach. You felt more connected to the earth, to the world outside the bus even though you were divided by glass and metal. You could feel the energy that thrummed through the body of the creature on your lap, bending to your will, the life force of the plants it was formed from molding with you, becoming a part of you.

You felt so different than the person you had been before Darren entered the shop, so uncertain, and there was only one place you wanted to be when you felt like this… home. You couldn't wait to run up the worn front steps of your grandmother's house and into her arms. She always knew what to say in times like this.

And you desperately needed the comfort of her embrace.

The phone in your pocket buzzes again and you flip the screen to see the ridiculous selfie Annie and you had taken on Halloween last year. The one that you'd both spent dressed up as the two brothers from your favorite paranormal tv show. It wasn't the first time she'd called. Annie had called and texted you more times than you could count over the past twenty hours but you didn't answer her. You didn’t want to.

It was the first time that you didn't want to talk to her, but talking to her meant that you'd have to re-live all of it again and you were clawing at the last shred of sanity you had left to keep it together.

The overwhelming waves of emotion kept pummeling you, dragging you deeper beneath the white surf. Each one brought the memories of what happened surging over you and were followed by everything that Darren said to you. Years of taking care of Darren and doing whatever he wished were tearing at your soul, years of giving up little things in your life to make him happy, and years of taking care of a man who you thought cared about you, but hated you enough to kill your parents and try to kill you too.

It made your skin crawl. Each time your brother told you that he loved you was an even bigger lie and now that you knew the truth and saw him for what he was, it felt like you were drowning. The darkness that ebbed just on the edge was begging you to leap into the abyss, but you were resisting the best you could.

The tears had stopped falling miles ago, but you couldn't stop the memories or the emotion that formed a cold ball in the pit of your stomach.

A sigh works it's way up and you pull your legs on the seat underneath you, jostling the creature on your lap that raises it's head for a moment to blink it's black eyes at you sleepily.

It was surprisingly docile right now, especially considering that twenty hours ago it had ripped your brother to shreds. In fact it seemed to understand how upset you were and had spent the better part of the last twenty hours rubbing it's head against your arm as if trying to bring you some comfort. It was settled on your lap, the weight of it a comfort, almost like a weighted plushy that gave you something to focus on.

"It's alright buddy." You whisper, scratching him under his chin. "We're almost home."

The phone in your jacket pocket buzzes again, but when you pull it out to turn it off, you catch a glimpse of the screen, and you hesitate. Because this time it's not Annie who's calling, it’s Ben.

The picture that flashes on the screen under the contact name "Gramps" is the picture of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. It always made you smile whenever he called you and you saw the picture because Ben did often remind you of him. He was certainly just as grumpy as Mr. Fredrickson and just as out of touch, but you thought it was cute.

Your thumb hovers over the answer button and you think about talking to him.

But what would I say?

You weren't sure what to say to him, or why you wanted to speak to him so badly, why you wanted him to be sitting here on the bus with you as you went home, and why you wanted him to hold you against his chest while you allowed yourself to break, but you did. You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be.

He's really not the best at that.

You smile to yourself at the memory of how he tried to comfort you back at the hospital, but the longer you sit there and look down at the picture on the screen the worse you feel.

Maybe that scared you more than your newfound powers, how much you were realizing that you needed him, how much you depended on him when things got too much for you to bear. The memory of him appearing as soon as you needed him back at the shop, another of him grabbing Darren and throwing him into the street as soon as Darren insulted you comes in a flash, and finally followed by the memory of Ben carrying you out of Elijah's office while you curled into his chest. You couldn't remember too much from that moment, in fact you'd thought that Ben had kissed you on top of your head, but you ascribed that to the haze of pain you'd been in from your broken arm.

What you did remember was how wonderfully warm he was after you'd been trapped in that damn freezer and how nice it felt to be in his arms. Another memory of Ben sleeping on the couch at the hospital bubbles up and you feel something in your chest begin to crack open. And you try your best to tell yourself the same thing that you always do when you feel like Ben might care more about you that he was letting on.

Ben doesn't want that. He's made it perfectly clear. He doesn't want a relationship. He's only wants one night, that's why he goes out with all those women-

You hesitate, thumb still hovering over the answer button as you do, the memory of the week you'd spent at the apartment with him flickering in the back of your mind. The week where he refused to leave you alone in the apartment, where he refused to do any jobs for Butcher, where he took care of you the best way he could, when he sat with you on the couch and made you laugh with his ridiculous movies, and the week where he hadn't had one date.

Your finger itched to answer the phone, but you couldn't, because you didn't want to feel this way about Ben, not when he'd told you countless times that you kept romanticizing him, not when he told you that he didn't want a relationship, and not when you could feel yourself beginning to fall for someone you thought was the wrong man.

For just a moment you tried to pretend that it was different, that he was different, but you didn't want to. It only made it hurt more.

The phone stops ringing, but the pit in your stomach still gapes open at you and for the first time in twenty hours you feel tears begin to fall. You didn't know why you were crying about this, why the thought of not picking up Ben's phone call seemed to hurt more than everything that had happened, but something made it hurt.

The bus driver announces over the overhead that you're reaching your final destination as he takes the exit for your hometown. The familiar buildings that line the streets are sheathed in a honeyed glow from the sun, the long shadow of the bus darkening them momentarily as it rumbles down the small streets to the bus station.

When it rumbles to a stop at the bus station you wait for everyone else to get off, trying to summon the strength to stand, and swipe the back of your hand across your face to rid yourself of the remaining tears.

The bus station was about a thirty minute walk from your grandmother's house, and you still hadn't called her. You didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that Darren was dead and that he was the reason why your parents were dead.

The creature crawls up your body to drape it's warm body over the back of your neck as you stand. It wasn't bothering to hide, besides the people in your hometown already thought that you were odd because you were a supe and you'd always welcomed it. You give him a scratch on top of his head and his warm tongue flicks on the bottom of your earlobe as if thanking you before it curls further into the side of your neck, seeking warmth.

The first few steps on solid ground are shaky, but you find the strength while taking in a deep cleansing breath of the outside world, letting the gentle warmth of the sun and the tickle of the autumn breeze pull at your coat. You hadn't stopped at your apartment before coming here, instead you had stumbled your way to the bus station covered in dust, flecked in blood, and demanded the first ticket back to Illinois. It was lucky that the next bus was leaving immediately, because you didn’t want to spend another second in NYC, not when all you wanted was to be home.

Plus you were worried that someone had recorded what exactly happened outside the plant shop and you didn't want to get arrested.

It was self defense anyway. Maybe Jake would represent me in court.

The thought of Jake makes you twinge. You hadn't checked to see if he was alright before you ran from the scene. Not to mention you'd destroyed the shop he'd put all his life savings into after he stopped being a lawyer.

Oh fuck, what if he sues me? He can't exactly sue Darren…

You hear someone call your name and you open your eyes.

Your grandmother is standing in front of the same baby blue pickup truck that she'd had longer than you've been alive, wearing a long multicolored skirt and a pressed white blouse tucked elegantly into it. Her silver hair is loose and long, curling over her shoulders in gentle waves. She looks the same way she looked one week ago when she left, and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

You're running before you can stop yourself, crumbling into her warm embrace, with more tears streaking down your face, but she doesn't mind.

"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."

Her home is the same as it's always been. A two story Victorian house painted in a happy yellow shade, with a white wrap around porch and two white rocking chairs sitting empty on the front porch. You'd spent more nights than you could count rocking silently beside her with a crochet project in your lap listening to the rain fall and soak the world outside, while the plants sang praises with every gentle bend beneath the heavy droplets.

You could barely remember the home you spent in your early years with your parents, not when you'd spent most of your childhood spending the night here and after your parents died living here permanently. There was still a large oak tree were a wooden swing swung in the slight breeze on the left side of the yard, a gardenia bush that stretched as high as the second story on the right side of the house and brushed it's soft leaves against the sunshine colored outer walls, a garden filled with both flowering plants and herbs that perked up on both sides of the front yard as you walked up the path, and a cobblestone path that Annie and you had spent hours of your shared childhood covering in chalk art.

Neither of you were good, but when the rain would fall and smudge the clean lines, you'd jump in the puddles that pooled along the walkway singing the lyrics to ABBA's "Cassandra" not quite understanding what it meant.

Standing here outside your house made you miss Annie and feel worse about not calling or texting her back, but you didn't feel like talking about what happened and you were sure that Butcher filled her in. The only thing that you wanted was to collapse in your bedroom upstairs and curl under the comforters.

Despite everything the house was a welcome sight, but at the same time it was different. You could feel the plants calling out to you, asking for you, bending towards you just to touch your shoes as you walked by. You'd never felt so connected with them before, not even when you were in your apartment or working at the shop.  It was overwhelming.

And although a part of you was frightened by it, another part of you rejoiced in it. You didn't feel alone, didn't feel weak, and you knew that you never would ever again.

The creature nuzzled into the side of your neck with a sigh, soaking up the sun's healing rays as you walked up the front steps with your grandmother following behind you silently. She hadn't spoken since she picked you up at the bus station and you hadn't supplied anything in the ten minute car ride back to her house.

You didn't know where to start and you were still trying to process everything yourself.

The inside of her house was just as cozy and warm as it was the day you moved out. There were photos of your parents and you covering the walls (Darren's had been placed in the closet long ago), half-finished knitting projects sorted in different baskets on both the dining room table and the living room coffee table, spools of yarn were strewn over the couch sorted by color, and the fresh smell of gardenia wafted through the open windows on the breeze.

It was home. This was what you'd been missing the moment everything began to crash over you, but as you stood there in the familiar living room it felt like something was missing. Something tugged at the back of your mind, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.

"Let's have some tea." Your grandmother says from behind you and you feel her soft hands come down on your shoulders to steer you through the familiar creative chaos and into the large kitchen at the back of the house.

The kitchen isn't spared from the madness, it rarely was. There are boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter, dirty bowls and a measuring cup stacked in the sink, and a large opened bag of chocolate chips spilling over the flour covered kitchen island.

It wasn't unusual to find the kitchen or the house in a state of chaos, your grandmother always said that a house should look lived in and that the mess was part of the fun of any major project as long as you were responsible enough to clean it up.

"Bake sale?" You ask as you sit down in the breakfast nook, uttering the first words that you'd said to another human being in twenty hours.

The next breath that you inhale was supposed to be cleansing, but you can still feel a weight pressing down on your chest, the same one that settled in the moment everything happened with Darren.

You contemplate again how you're going to tell her that Darren is dead and was the reason why your parents died.

Damn it Darren.

"Mhmm." She hums, filling the well used red kettle. "Annie's mother practically cornered me in the supermarket yesterday and begged me to make cookies. I love Annie, but her mother needs someone to pull that stick out of her ass. It's been up there for so long that I'm sure it's rotten."

The creature crawls down from your shoulders and down your arm to sniff at one of the chocolate chip cookies nearest you. It hadn't eaten since…

Darren.

You wince slightly at the thought and hope that you hadn't created something that needed and craved human flesh. The last thing you wanted to unleash on the world was Audry two especially in the wake of Homelander.

Truthfully you were waiting for the guilt at killing your brother to come, but it never had and you wondered if it ever would.

Probably not. He deserved that, he killed our parents, he tried to kill me, he tried to kill Ben.

The thought of Ben again makes a lump form in the back of your throat. You didn't know what was happening to you only that you felt guilty for leaving him like that, for yelling at him to let you go, and just vanishing on him when he probably thought that you were going back to the apartment.

He doesn't know where I am. Maybe that's why he tried to call, because he got back to the apartment and couldn't find me there and he was worried. You press your lips together. Yeah. Worried. Right.

"Honey?" Your grandmother says in a soothing voice

You look up from the box of chocolate chip cookies that you didn't remember picking up. Even the creature is looking at you with an expression that you can only explain as worry.

"Yeah?" Your voice shakes slightly.

She's leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, her beautiful grayed hair pulled up in an elegant bun, but in her eyes you can see genuine concern. "Fuck." She sighs after a minute.

You blink in surprise. It was the first time that you'd ever heard her say that word in your entire life.

"I shouldn't have left." She breathes. "I told Ben to look out for you. I told him, that little bastard was bound to show up again and what did he do? He left you at that plant shop alone with no protection!"

You'd only seen her really angry a handful of times in your lifetime. Like you, your grandmother often had a gentle disposition and didn't get angry unless the situation called for it.

I mean, Darren admitted to killing our parents and then got fucking ripped apart. But how does she know about any of that? I haven't told her…

"How did you know that he left me there? Did Ben call you?" You ask putting down the box of cookies.

An odd expression crosses her face, as if she's contemplating something. "No." She hesitates again. "I saw it."

"No." Your grandmother hesitates. "I saw it."

"You saw it?" You repeat, confused.

What's going on?

"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."

"What?"

Is she saying what I think she's saying?

Instead of explaining further your grandmother walks out of the kitchen, leaving the kettle behind on the stove and you in a state of utter confusion.

Is she saying that she can see the future? Because that would mean that she's a supe and there's only one supe in history that I know of that can do that. A supe that no one has seen in over forty years.

You can hear her open the door to the closet under the stairs and the sound of her sifting through all the junk that the two of you had shoved in there over the years instead of finding the right place to put it.

When she comes back into the kitchen, she's holding a giant cardboard file box that you'd never paid attention to each time you opened the closet to find something. Your eyes shift from the box to her still not comprehending exactly what she was saying.

"I probably should have told you this a while ago, but…" She trails off and nods her head at the box before turning back to the kettle on the stove that has begun to scream. "I kept putting it off."

The box is old, worn at the edges, and theres a musty black fabric beneath a collection of yellowed photographs. You pull out the one on top to examine it.

Ben is standing there in his full Soldier Boy regalia outside of Vought tower and the woman standing next to him is Soothsayer. The outfit she wore was familiar, a black-skin tight suit with a blind fold tied over her eyes.

Soothsayer was a supe who could see the future and who was apart of Payback, a supe that had vanished a year before the mission in Nicaragua and no one knew where she went. There were rumors that she'd died and that she'd been a Russian spy, but you'd never believed them. You'd heard Butcher talk about how he tried to find her when he was trying to figure out what happened to Soldier Boy, but he never had. Said that the trail went cold.

But now you knew where she went, because she was standing directly in front of you.

She's Soothsayer? Holy fuck that's why Ben kept accusing her of cheating in the poker game because he knew that she could see the future.

"You were Soothsayer?" You gasp. "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"

She continues to measure the tea leaves. "I didn't tell anyone."

"Grandpa didn't know? But he was alive when you were a supe?"

Your grandfather had never spoken about a history with supes that you remember.

"No." She turns to look at you, a hurt expression crossing over her face for a minute. "Well, I know that I said I was going to have tea, but if we're going to talk about this I'm going to need something a little bit stronger."

Your grandmother opens a cabinet under the stove an pulls out an enormous bottle of scotch. Truth be told you'd never seen her drink more than just a glass of wine, to see her like this was about as shocking as seeing a polar bear sunning itself on a Florida beach.

"Do you still want the blueberry tea or do you need something a little stronger?" She looks back over her shoulder at you as she pulls down a glass for herself.

"I think I need something stronger." You answer honestly.

Learning about everything Darren had done was one thing, but finding out that your grandmother used to be a famous supe and that she never told you about it was another thing. It was like looking at another person. You'd always loved your grandmother's gentle way, her care for her community and her family soft, but now you weren't sure you really knew who she was.

She sits down across from you and hands you a glass of the amber colored liquid. There's a heavy silence that hangs between the two of you as she tries to find a way to start. The photo of her and Ben is laying on top of what you realize is her uniform inside the box and she smiles down at the photo, just a little twitch at the corner of her lips.

"I met Ben when I was twenty three years old." She begins taking a sip from the glass. "Legend 'discovered' me. I had the injection of Compound V maybe two years before that, not when I was born, but I hadn't gotten popular. Other powers were much more flashy and by then there were so many heroes coming out of the woodwork that someone with the ability to see the future didn't seem as marketable."

There's something reflected in her blue eyes, the same eyes your father had, that you can't place. "I had just moved to New York, I had no money, and the way I was getting it was by pretending to be a fortune teller and betting on some sports events on the side. It wasn't hard to prove that I could see the future, the past was more difficult, but Legend somehow stumbled into my shop and figured out that I was a supe. And he didn't think I was too bad looking so he helped me get big."

"You pretended to be a fortune teller?"

She snorts into her glass. "Mhmm. People really will believe anything if they're desperate enough and back then there was so much turmoil going on with Russia that people were scared and wanted to feel comforted. My job provided some of that."

"But why did you walk away from it if you were such a big hero." You ask. "Everyone knew your name, you were-"

Your grandmother raises an eyebrow at you and you fall silent so she can continue. "When I got onto Payback that's when everything exploded for me, the films, the commercials, the ridiculous ads." She sighs. "That's also when I met Ben."

You take a sip from the glass in front of you, sputtering slightly. It was stronger than you were expecting. "And you two were-"

Please don't say dating, please don't say dating, please don't say…

"Friends. Just friends." Diana sits back against the back of the breakfast nook, sinking into the navy blue pillows. "But he is almost as charming now as he was then."

You cringe at the thought of Ben coming on to a younger version of your grandmother.

She taps her glass with her index finger deep in thought. "But I think that I was the only person that Ben actually talked to, the only person that he was comfortable being around."

"What do you mean?" You ask confused. "Didn't he talk to Countess and to Legend?"

Her expression hardens at the mention of Countess's name. "He didn't talk to her the way he talked to me. Ben is difficult, he always has been and I think that most of the people he meet him write him off as this asshole with a chauvinistic look on the world, but he's not. At least, not all the time. There are so many people that he's met that are never willing to take a chance on him. To trust that there is really something beneath all of that bravado."

It was what you had been thinking for the past week, that there was more to Ben than he was willing to let people see, but you were slowly realizing that Ben was letting you see those parts. In the quiet moments at your shared apartment when he sat with you while you read or made you laugh or walked you to and from work you saw another side of Ben that you never saw when he was around anyone else. The guilt rises again when you think of how you ran from him, how you turned your back and left him standing there to clean up your mess.

I shouldn’t have done that, but it was all just so overwhelming and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

"I think that Ben is the most loyal friend I ever had. No one ever seems to believe me when I say that. That we were just friends, but nothing happened between us."

"You didn't date? Or sleep together?" You ask cautiously. It was difficult to imagine Ben being friends with a woman and not having a sexual relationship with her.

Well. We're friends, but that's different.

The last thing you wanted to think about was Ben and your grandmother having sex.

I would need so much therapy after that. You sigh. Yeah, because after all the shit I've been through and found out about my life in the last twenty hours, the knowledge that Ben fucked my grandmother is what's going to push me over the edge.

"No." She shakes her head with a small smile. "About a week after I met Ben, I was running late to a movie shoot and I stepped off the crosswalk without looking. There was a car coming and I didn't see it. Ironic isn't it?" She laughs at herself. "I can see the future and I didn't see a car coming, but your grandfather did and he grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me onto the sidewalk, saved my life. And the second my eyes locked with his I saw our future. I saw our wedding, our first house, I saw our son take his first steps and I saw how much I would love him and how much he would love me." She clears her throat for a minute, her fingers tighten on the glass, and her gaze drops to the wedding ring on her left hand. “The future is never set in stone, it’s fluid. It morphs and shapes with your decisions, but in the future I saw, I was so happy. And I didn’t want to lose that.”

Your grandfather had passed a few years ago, but you knew it weighed on her everyday. She had spent the week after he died in her room not saying anything to anyone. And sometimes she'd look out the window into the backyard with an odd expression, but you knew that meant she was thinking of him.

Growing up you'd seen how in love the two of them were, more so than your parents. Seen the flowers your grandfather always brought home just because he was thinking of her, watched him do little things around the house without being asked, saw how they never walked away angry from one another, and seen the soppy expression he'd get when he watched your grandmother move around the kitchen baking with a grace that you'd never possessed.

You reach across the table to touch her hand and she takes it gratefully.

"I didn't want to tell him that I was a supe, and at the beginning I thought I could balance it all, but then Ben started dating Countess." She takes another sip from her glass. "She hated me."

"What? Why?" You ask. The creature crawls across the table to sniff at the glass in front of you, before it snorts and falls into your lap, curling into a ball.

"Countess was a bitch." Your grandmother says mirthlessly, her expression hardening. "She wanted to possess Ben completely. Only loved how famous he was, how popular it made her, and he threw himself at her feet, in his own way, not understanding that love didn’t look that way. He’s never had a good example of it in his life. And she never understood that Ben and I were just friends. By then I had been dating your grandfather for a few months and things were getting serious. It was about a year before everything that happened in Nicaragua."

She presses her lips together as if remembering what happened to Ben there. "She was jealous, possessive, and she came to me one night. Ben was out of town for a film so she knew we wouldn’t be interrupted. She threatened to tell your grandfather who I really was and threatened to kill him.” Her jaw sets. “My powers were never really as offensive as hers were. And she said that Ben wouldn’t ever protect me over her because he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. So I left and I never looked back.”

And here I thought I couldn't hate Countess any more than I did for what she did to Ben.

“You didn’t talk to him ever again?” You wonder out loud.

She left without telling him goodbye?

“There was the occasional phone call. Sometimes Ben would ask me to see who was going to win a ball game or something so he could make a few bucks. He stopped by to say hi a few times because he was in the neighborhood. One time he brought your father a baseball glove that was way too big for a one year old.” She snorts, the memory flashing in her eyes. “I always thought Ben would be a good dad some day. But I think seeing your father was when Ben realized how much he wanted to have kids. And I think seeing the way your grandfather treated me made him start to feel conflicted about Countess. But he respected that I walked away, he saw that I was happy.”

“But what about Nicaragua?"

A dark look crosses her face followed by something that looks suspiciously like guilt. “I saw what they were going to do to him.”

“What? But why didn't you tell him what they were planning? Why didn't you-"

"I tried." She snaps, shoulders tense, but then they drop. "I called Ben, but Stan answered. By then your father was turning two, your grandfather had opened up his practice, and Stan threatened me, he knew where we were and knew everything about us. So I kept my mouth shut and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

You could feel your heart breaking for her.

Ben was her best friend and she had to sit by and watch them do that to him. She saw what they were going to do and they were going to kill her for it, kill my family for it.

The anger that surges in your chest makes the creature in your lap stir and grow a few inches, but you tamp it down before it gets bigger than a small dog.

“Does Ben know?” You ask her to distract yourself.

You didn't want Ben to hate your grandmother for this, didn't want him to hate her for something that wasn't her fault.

She nods. “Yes. I told him everything.”

“When?”

“The moment I saw him in your hospital room. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I wasn't expecting him to be there, but it all poured out of me. I was so surprised to see him there. I hadn't seen a future where he came back."

“Was he mad?”

I mean… he didn't seem mad when I woke up, not to mention he was upset when she left to come back to Illinois.

“Not at me.” She shakes her head. “He knew how much I wanted a normal life and how much I loved your grandfather. He doesn’t blame me for any of it.”

“Good. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

The glass in front of you is still more than half-full but you don't want to risk another sip of what you're sure is gasoline packaged to look like Scotch. Your grandmother reaches to pour herself another glass.

“I didn’t want to until you were ready.”

“And when would that be?”

Your grandmother shrugs. “Maybe on my deathbed.”

You weren't angry for her not telling you, more surprised, but now that you knew everything about her it was hard to see her the same way you had.

 You snort. “And no one knew?”

“Your dad figured it out.”

“How? When?”

“The moment you made that strawberry plant grow from your high chair.” She shakes her head with a smile. “It skipped a generation. Don’t know why, but you got it all somehow.”

“I was never injected?”

“No. That was a lie your father created. He knew that your grandfather didn't know and he knew that I didn't want your grandfather to know."

“Darren thought I was.”

“I know.”

At the mention of your brother's name, you watch her expression harden and she takes another swig from the glass in front of her, not flinching as the liquid goes down her throat.

“Did you see everything that happened?” You ask in a small voice.

You still weren't 100% sure how it was her powers worked, but you figured that she was able to see some of what Darren did and what he said.

“Yes.”

“You heard everything Darren said?"

“Yes.”

You chew the inside of your cheek for a minute hoping that she didn't take it as hard as you did. “Did you know that he killed them?”

“No.” She breathes, rolling the glass between her hands for a moment. “The night they died, I got a vision a few minutes before the car ran off the road. I was the one who called the police and who told them where to look, but I never saw that it was Darren or that it was anyone causing the accident. All I saw was the three of you in the car. I should have known.” Her voice breaks.

“It’s not your fault.” You squeeze her hand.

“And it’s not yours either.” She squeezes your hand back.

The memories are beginning to float up from the recesses of your mind and your teeth clench together as you try to keep them at bay.

“I know.” You breathe. The memory of the ruined shop flashes through your head. “I didn’t know that I could do something like that.” You gently touch your healed right arm and glance at the creature that is nibbling on the edge of the cardboard box with its sharp splinter-like teeth. “I feel so different and I don’t know how to go back to the way I was.”

“I don’t think you ever will.”

"Really?"

The thought was unwelcome. You were hoping that all of this was going to blow over, but you knew it wouldn't. Your powers had changed. There was an energy that thrummed in your veins now, stretching out of the house to the plants that grew in the garden. You could feel them all if you concentrated.

She frowns. “When you told me that you were working for Butcher I was worried about you getting involved in the supe world. I didn’t want that life for you, didn’t want you to suffer the way I did-“

“Was it really that bad?"

“Not all the time, just at the end. But I think that’s why I loved your grandfather so much. Because he was different than all the supes. He was down to earth, not just normal but-“ She shrugs. “I think Compound V does something to our minds, makes them more susceptible and when you’re surrounded by people using their powers and thinking that they’re gods it’s easy to lose who you are. I was glad I left when I did."

“Great." You huff, thinking about how your powers had grown exponentially since you killed your brother. It was scaring you to think that you would reach a point where you acted like Homelander, where you saw yourself as a god and killed anyone who stood in your way.

As tired as the stereotype of you only being able to make the flowers grow, you liked doing that. You liked healing plants, tending to them, and helping them grow. For you it had never been about using your powers the way that you had to kill Elijah and your brother and had always been about spreading a little more joy and love like your grandmother did with her kindness in her community.

Your mind flashes back to the first night that Ben stayed with you in your apartment and he'd asked you why you worked for Butcher and told you that he thought you "didn't fit."

Before you hadn't. You knew that. You weren't intimidating to look at or fueled by revenge or had a bone to pick with supes. You'd joined because you thought it was the right thing to do and because you wanted to be closer with Annie. She had been so involved in the supe world and you'd felt like you were losing your best friend. When in reality being at "Please Don't Die" was the only thing that felt natural for you.

You could feel yourself changing and you weren't sure that you wanted to and you weren't sure if you were changing for the better. Deep down you still felt like you, despite everything Darren had revealed, but your powers were greater than you'd thought they could be.

“No.” She squeezes your hand pulling you out of your head. “I don’t see you losing yourself in this.”

“You’ve seen-“ Your eyes widen.

“The future yeah.” Her lips twitch up at the ends in a smile. “It is what I do.”

“That’s so weird.”

You hadn't meant to say it, but you really didn't want to know too much about your future.

Well, not all that much. Maybe just a little.

“You of all people have no right to judge what’s weird. Not with Godzilla sitting in your lap.”

"Godzilla" yawns, flashing a mouthful of his pointy teeth, before settling back down on your thighs.

You smile for the first time in twenty hours, but then it drops. “I don’t like losing control. I thought I knew who I was but now I don’t-“ The emotions were bubbling up again, chest tightening, and lungs beginning to gasp for air. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I am or what I can do and-“

“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control.”

“But what if I hurt someone? What if I kill-“ You body shakes as you think about all the important people in your life, Annie, Hughie, Butcher, Kimiko, MM, Frenchie- and then your mind stutters on Ben.

“Your powers are growing and there’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. If you’re afraid of them it won’t get easier for you. You have to embrace the fear to see the lights that line the path through it.”

"I killed Darren, I killed Elijah-"

"Not because you lost control. You did it because you were protecting yourself and protecting your friends."

"But-"

"Who is it that you're scared of hurting? Annie?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "Annie is a supe and understands what it's like to lose control. None of us are in control all the time and it's ridiculous to believe that you won't lose control at least once."

Your throat clenches tightly, because when she asked the question you didn't see Annie's face, you saw Ben's. You knew that it was probably ridiculous to worry about hurting a guy with a nuclear reactor stuffed in his chest or a guy who'd been through every torture known to man, but you were. And you weren't entirely sure if you meant hurting him with just your powers.

Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."

"He's a little more indestructible than us sweetie." She cracks a smile, but you can't smile back and you don't answer because you're unsure how to.

She sits back against the breakfast nook and sighs, examining your face and slowly realizes what you mean. "Ben is complicated. He always has been. I like to think that most of it, is his father's fault. Has he told you anything about him?"

You shake your head.

"He was a dick. Made Ben think that he was a disappointment his whole life. I don't think that Ben has had someone love him unconditionally since his mother died. And loving Countess only made it worse for him. Her love was jealous, possessive, and I don't think that he's really come to terms with what real love should look like." She lets out a breath, tapping her index finger against the glass. "I never saw him as more than a friend, but I do love him. It's not a crime to love him."

"I don't love him." You say it immediately.

"Why not?"

"What?" You sputter. "I don't know what you're-"

"Tell me why you don't love him." Your grandma says methodically, as if she's trying to talk you through it.

"Because I-" The pressure was back in the back of your throat and you couldn't quite meet her eye. "Because-" You scramble for the answer, trying your darndest to keep your heart from clenching in your chest. "I want what you and grandpa had, what Annie and Hughie have, and what my parents had. A strong relationship with someone who sees all my flaws, the little parts, and the darkness and still choses to fall in love with me anyway. I don't want just one night I want every night. I want something real and Ben has said countless times that he-"

"So you've talked about it with Ben?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Only because he kept trying to sleep with me and I told him that I didn't want to have sex with him." You reply exasperated.

"You don't?"

"Gran!"

"What? He's attractive."

"It doesn't matter. None of it does. Because Ben has said that he doesn't have relationships, that he doesn't care about feelings, or emotions." Saying the words that Ben had told you countless times made something inside begin to shrivel up and die. "And I do. And I don't want to manipulate him into being something he's not or force him into a relationship that's doomed from the beginning. Ben is Ben. He's not changing or-"

"He has." She interrupts.

"What?"

"The Ben I saw in your hospital room is not the one I knew." She says it so matter of fact that makes it hard to breathe. "And neither was the one that I saw in your apartment when I stayed with you. I mean he is in essence Ben, but-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He is changing. Not completely, but he's acting differently than when he was with Countess. I mean, I saw all the things he did for her. The way he was around her."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because he loved her."

The words make your heart seize in your chest. "Ben doesn't love me. He's my roommate and my friend-" It was the same thing that you kept telling yourself on repeat to beat back the other feelings that you hadn't quite identified yet. "And he's told me that he doesn't want a relationship and that I should try to meet other people."

That last part was a lie, but you honestly didn't know where she was going with this conversation or why it was getting so hard to breathe.

"Have you thought that maybe Ben doesn't want to love you because he's scared?"

"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything."

"He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."

What does she mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Ben isn't afraid of anything, he's practically shouted that from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews.

"I already told you what I'm afraid of."

"I'm not talking about you hurting someone honey. There's something else that you refuse to admit to yourself because you're scared." She smiles sadly at you. "You should though, because when you embrace it, what comes after is really beautiful." There's a far off look in her eyes and you realize that she'd seen something further ahead that she wasn't letting on.

"And it's all I want for you. To be happy." Your grandmother stands from the other side of the booth "I think you need some rest. You drove all night long and I doubt you got any sleep. And I have to package all of these before Annie's mother calls down the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on me."

"Wait-"

"Please sweetie." She lays her hand down on your arm. "I think you'll feel a little better about all of this when you've had some rest." Her fingers raise to push back some of the hair that's fallen forward into your eyes. "Hmm?"

You didn't want to rest, you wanted to talk about this, but you knew better than to argue with her. Not to mention she was right, you hadn't slept.

"And when you wake up I'll make your favorite for dinner, alright?" She smiles, but there's something behind it that you can't place.

"Okay."

And this time you don't argue with her. You go up the worn staircase that you have your entire life and collapse onto your bed, wondering exactly what it was she saw your future hold, and what it is that you won't admit to yourself.

Soldier Boy POV

There was no light in the apartment save from the burning red tip of Ben's blunt and the bluish glow emanating from the tv that caught the dips and sharp edges of his face. But it was nothing more than background noise.

His hand absentmindedly stroked along Bean's back, his eyes focused on the ceiling above the couch. He hadn't moved in hours. It had been over twenty four hours since everything that happened at the plant shop, since you'd summoned a creature from the depths of the store, since Darren had thrown Ben through the plate glass windows of the bakery, and since Ben had last seen you.

He didn't understand why you hadn't let him take you back to the apartment and why it was that you had to leave. Ben hadn't liked the feeling that stabbed him in the chest when you turned your back on him and ran away. He'd felt the urge to comfort you the way he'd watched Hughie do for Annie in the car a week ago, but you hadn't let him.

Instead all he'd done is stood there and watched you run, still covered in dust, rubble, and blood. Worse was you hadn't let him check you for injuries and Ben hated the thought that you were hurt somewhere and he didn't know where you were.

You were so much more fragile than he was. He was realizing that more every day, was acutely aware of it after everything that happened with Elijah. Honestly, sitting there in the hospital with you laying there asleep with nothing that he could do, but wait for you to wake up had been agony. Not to mention that looking at the bruises around your throat, over your eye, and the bright green cast only made him feel worse. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life and he hated it. Because Ben wasn't some helpless damsel in distress, he was a man and a man shouldn't wait on anyone or feel out of control, or at least, that's what he told himself.

Ben hears someone walk down the hallway outside the apartment and he perks up to listen, hoping that it's you finally coming home. Ben's mind stutters on the word "home." He'd lived many places in his life, apartments that felt more like way-stations, and the drafty cold mansion back in Philadelphia where he grew up, but neither felt like home. And although he hated how small your apartment was, it was the first place that Ben liked living in. He was starting to understand the word home.

But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back."

But he wasn't sure.

Ben also wasn't used to feeling this way. It was close to the way that he felt when he went to Boston and was sitting in that damn hotel room waiting for something to happen and he still didn't understand what it meant. He didn't understand why he couldn't stand it that you weren't back yet. It made him feel like a woman waiting for her husband to get home from work when he told her that he was "running late." He'd tried to distract himself by looking at some possible prospects on Tinder, but just like the week after you'd come home from the hospital and just like the date he had in Boston, no one held any appeal.

His mind was awake and roaming around, pacing back and forth. The blunt was supposed to help, but it hadn't.

His phone chirps and Ben picks it up to look at the screen, but it's not you, it's Jake.

Jake: I know that I'm not your favorite person, but thank you for what you did.

Ben huffs and turns his phone face down on the couch once more. "What a fucking pussy."

When you left Ben had realized that Jake was still inside the building and as much as he wanted race after you, he understood that you'd be even more upset if you'd killed Jake. So Ben had tromped back through the building and found him trapped beneath some rubble. Jake was okay, just unconscious, but Ben had carried him out and put him on the sidewalk before he high tailed it out of there. The last thing that he wanted was to be caught with a shredded body outside a ruined building.

I didn't do it for him. I did it for her. Ben thinks to himself, looking down at the text message.

As much as he hated the thought of saving your future boyfriend, he didn't want to see what it did to you if you found out that you killed Jake, so he'd done it to avoid watching you cry again.

Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.

Women cry. They're damn emotional all the time. He tries to reason with himself taking a puff from the blunt pinched between his thumb and forefinger. And she fucking cries way too much.

The image of you crying outside of the shop in the wake of everything that happened pricks something under his ribcage. Fuck.

Ben didn't feel remorse for what happened, well, the only thing he regretted was not getting there sooner and getting to fuck Darren up himself. When Diana had called him to tell him that Darren was coming, Ben had practically ripped the apartment door off in his haste to get back to you. He hadn’t wanted to leave you at the plant shop, but Butcher had told Ben, that he had a possible location for Darren, but it came up empty and Ben had been at Butcher's apartment chewing him out for sending him on a fucking wild goose chase.

It only made Ben more angry to allow Darren to speak to you, but he was trying to let you handle it even though he wanted to handle him. But it had brought him an unholy amount of joy to throw Darren in front of that minivan and to watch that creature tear him apart while the final whitish blue pulses of electricity jumped and crackled down the street making the streetlights shower sparks everywhere.

But Ben was more upset that Darren had been able to land a few hits on you before you killed him.

Ben remembered the giant lizard that crawled out of what was left of "Please Don't Die" and felt his lips quirk up into a smile. As much as he hated the entire situation, Ben couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride at what you'd done to your brother. He'd never seen you look so powerful standing there in the street, your eyes glowing a brilliant green, arms outstretched, and the ground trembling around you as the world begged to be unleashed.

Of course he'd been just as surprised as you were at the fact that you'd healed your broken arm. He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but there was something that felt suspiciously like hope tingling in his stomach, hope that you weren't as fragile anymore and hope that it meant you wouldn't die.

When Diana had told Ben that her husband had died, he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it, saw her relieving the memory, and for some reason as soon as she said that he was dead, the first thing Ben thought about was you. Ben hadn't considered his inability to age as much in the past, hadn't cared about outliving anyone before. Seeing Countess as an older woman had made him more aware of it. Looking at the woman who he once thought he loved, had showed him what that was like. Not that he had a problem with daring older women, Ben always thought that women really did get better with age, but it was what came next that Ben wasn't fond of.

And for some reason thinking that one day he'd wake up and see the marks of age on your face or one day he'd wake up and he wouldn't be able to annoy you or hear you yell at him made his chest tight.

Ben takes another hit of his blunt. The longer he sat there the more then unnatural feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach, thrumming through his veins, the feeling that he was trying to avoid. He thought that the joint would calm him down, but he found himself jumping at every creak and footstep in the apartment building, perking up each time and hoping that it was you coming home.

He didn't know where you were. You hadn't answered any of his texts or calls and Ben was ashamed at how many times that he had tried to call you.

Get a fucking grip. He'd thought to himself when he typed out another text message to send you, stopping himself from sending it.

But he'd been so desperate to hear from you that he'd actually gone to talk to Annie who seemed upset that she couldn't get ahold of you either. When Hughie and Annie had seen how upset Ben had been, Hughie had laid his hand on Ben's arm and told him not to worry. Ben had yelled at him that he "wasn't fucking worried and to mind his own business" and had shaken off Hughie's comforting hand before stomping out of the shared apartment.

No one else seemed to be as concerned about finding you. Butcher, MM, and Frenchie were all deeply involved in trying to figure out the cover-up for what happened outside the plant shop. By some miracle no one had caught a picture of your face, but there was little they could do about Darren's body that had been strewn across the street. Annie was having to deal with the repercussions at work, trying to handle what the news was calling a "super villain threat."

Personally, Ben thought that since they froze Homelander, the Seven looked weak and Ben believed that the superhero team that represented America shouldn't look weak. Of course before Ben had also thought that they looked like a bunch of pussies and again felt himself sink deeper into the couch when he thought about what his supposed son had become.

He shakes off the feelings he has about it and his thoughts turn back inevitably to you.

Ben wasn't used to thinking about someone as much as he thought of you, but each time he settled back into the apartment and you weren't there he was hyperaware of how quiet it was.

Maybe I should call Diana. She might know where she is.

As soon as Ben thinks that, his phone begins to ring, but Ben doesn't bother to look at who it is before he answers it. 

"Hello?" Ben huffs out a breath of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face, catching in the bluish light coming from the television.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The voice on the other side of the line yells at him.

"Di?"

"Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks.

"Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.

As much as you got under his skin, your grandmother had been the same way. He actually thought that it was amusing that even before he figured out that she was your grandmother that he had often compared you to her in his mind. You had the same mannerisms, the same defiant and stubborn attitude that drove Ben up the wall, and you were just as beautiful as she was.

Ben was okay with admitting that he was attracted to you. To him that felt normal, it was the other feelings that he was conflicted about, the ones that he'd never felt before stirring in his chest that made him feel "too emotional" and "woman-like."

Truthfully, Ben was sure that if your grandmother had given him a shot that maybe he would have felt that way about her too. She was the only person that Ben actually trusted in the 80's, the only person that was brave enough to call him out on all his shit. You did that now. But he liked her husband also, so Ben was content with letting her go. He liked how happy that Henry, your grandfather, had made her. He knew that she wasn't happy as a supe and seeing her so happy and in love made Ben feel something that was close to happiness.

And it was seeing the way the two of them were together made Ben wonder if what he had with Countess was the same thing. Because he did have feelings about her that were different, but each time he went to visit Diana and saw your father playing on her lap he felt that there was something missing in his life.

It was the same way that he thought something was missing when you weren't in the apartment, but Ben hadn't realized that yet.

"Because I don't understand what the hell you're doing!" Diana replies and Ben honestly doesn't know why she's angry with him.

"About what?"

"My granddaughter."

Ben sits up the blunt in his fingertips forgotten. "Is she there with you?"

"Yes." Her voice softens for a moment.

Ben relaxes and leans back onto the couch, sighing in relief. "Good.  That's good." Relief swelled in his chest when he thought about you staying with her, safe.

That's what she meant when she said that she wanted to go home. Home is with her grandmother. Ben stopped the next thought before he could go there.

The thought that home wasn't with him.

Ben was trying not to think about that or think about you hating him. He didn't think you did, well, didn't think you did anymore. At first it really was touch and go, but now he was almost eighty percent sure after you'd told him more than once that you weren't afraid of him and didn’t hate him that you sometimes wanted him around.

"No, not good."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?" Ben's grip on the phone tightens so hard that he's sure that he hears the screen cracking.

"No."

"What happened?" Ben's voice is a growl, the feelings of relief evaporating as soon as they had begun to bloom in his chest. He mentally calculated how long it would take him to get to you.

"Her entire life fucking fell apart and where are you? Not here!"

Oh. Ben relaxed a little bit.

"I don't need to be there." He says on an exhale of smoke.

"Yes you do!" Diana presses.

"No, I don't. She a big girl she doesn't need me there, she's-" Ben takes a puff from the joint.

“If you were any denser you’d be a Bundt cake Benjamin!” She says exasperated.

"What the fuck are you talking about doll? I am not-"

“Let me guess." She interrupts and Ben can imagine her tapping her foot. He hated when she did that. "You’re moping around smoking a blunt on the couch probably with a glass of something that you're hoping to numb whatever the hell it is you're feeling."

Ben's eyes shift to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table that he hadn't touched in a few minutes.

“I’m not fucking moping and stop spying on me!” He snaps back at Diana.

He hated how well she knew him. She was his best friend in the 80's through all the shit, she had seen him at his worst and at his best too many times to count.

“I don’t have to use my powers to know what you’re doing. I know you Ben.”

"Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart.” Ben grits his teeth, temper flaring hot. “But if you know me as well as you fucking say you do then you then you know that this is-“

“You avoiding your feelings by acting aloof and brooding like a fucked up version of Mr. Darcy.” She interrupts.

She certainly hasn't changed.

“I am not avoiding-“

“She needs you here Ben.” Diana stamps her foot, the same way you do when Ben pisses you off, and Ben can hear it.

“She doesn’t need me! She said that she wanted to go home, that she didn’t want to be here with me! I tried to-“ Ben shouts back standing up. It was the exact thing that he'd been thinking for the past twenty four hours, that you didn’t need him and that you didn't want to be any where near him.

That last thought made an uncomfortable sensation prickle in his gut when he thought it, because all it did was remind him of how you acted when the two of you first met, when you didn't want him to live with you and tried your darndest to make him go away.

He didn’t want to and he wasn't sure why that was.

“Try harder.” Diana interrupts him again and frankly it was pissing him off.

Ben clenches his jaw. “I think that you’ve confused me with someone else baby.”

“Don’t you 'baby' me Benjamin! We both know that you’re doing what you always do when things get hard for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“You pretend not to care and shut out everyone who tries to care for you. Not to mention you drown yourself in drugs, booze, and women.”

“She doesn’t care about me!” He spits.

“She does!” Diana snaps back. “And believe it or not she needs you here and she wants you here.”

"But-"

"Ben please." It was the first time that he'd heard Diana sound softer and almost pleading since the conversation started. "Don't do this to her. She's worth more than Countess and all those other women you've fallen into bed with."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" He roars. The answer surprises himself. "Do you think I don't know that she's different?"

Wait what?

"If you know that, then why aren't you here?"

He hesitates.

Everything you said to him the night of the party comes roaring back. You looking beautiful in a dress that made his throat tight, and you telling him that you just wanted to be friends and that you understood that he wasn't the type of guy to have relationships. He didn't understand why it stung a bit when you said that, but it had.

Ben thinks about the week that the two of you spent together after Diana went home, when he tried his best to take care of you, distract you from everything that happened with his movies, and would sit with you and try to make you laugh. He'd never wanted to take care of someone before.

Not to mention he kind of liked the way you laughed. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, but each time you did, it made him want to laugh too. That had never happened to him before. But he wanted to make you laugh to forget everything that happened with Elijah. His fist clenches when he thinks of exactly what Elijah tried to do to you and it makes him feel so mad that he feels close to spontaneously combusting. Ben might not be the best role model when it came to women, but he couldn’t imagine the type of man who would force himself on someone else.

It had made him angry when he thought that you were suggesting that he would try something when he first moved in, because he wasn't that type of man.

Ben was trying to be better for you. He wasn't admitting that, but he really was trying to be better. He didn't understand why. You'd told him countless times that you didn’t want to be with him, that you wanted to be with someone else like Jake.

Ben frowns when he thinks about the man he'd pulled from the rubble of the shop. And again thinks to himself that you should be with someone different, someone who was a supe and could understand you. Ben had seen how difficult it was for Diana when she was keeping her supe life a secret from your grandfather and he didn't want you to have to do that with someone.

"Because I'm not-" Ben begins to say, but he holds his tongue. It was too honest, too raw, too unlike him to admit this to anyone.

Because I'm not this guy. Because I'm not the one she wants. Because I'm not some knight on a white horse. Because she's everything right with the world and I'm just a fucking asshole who sleeps on her couch.

"Ben." Diana breathes and he can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "In all the years I've known you, you've never done what you did for her with anyone else. You carried her out of that warehouse, you stayed with her in the hospital even after she woke up, you took care of her when she came home, you protected her from Darren. You can't ignore all those things."

"I'm not ignoring them. She's my friend." The word sours in his mouth as he says it. "And she would have done the same thing for me." He knew it was true.

She's a good person and she wouldn't let me chase her away if any of that shit happened to me and I told her to leave me alone.

"Yes she would. Because she cares about you." Diana sighs.

"She doesn't."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Because she's told me what she wants!" Ben shouts so loudly he can feel the room shaking. "She wants to be friends-“

"Because she doesn't think that you want a relationship you nitwit!"

"I don't." Ben spits the words before he can stop them, but as he does something tightens at the base of his throat.

"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"

Ben chuckles. "I missed you too sweetheart."

She sighs into the phone again making it crackle in Ben's ear. "She needs you.” Diana repeats. “And I think you need her too.”

His temper was flaring again, the thoughts that his father pressed into him surging up before he can stop the words. “I don’t need anyone. I’m Sol-“

“If you say that you’re Soldier Boy, I’m going to reach through this phone and slap you silly.” She snaps. “And you do need her, but you’re still just too stubborn to admit it.”

“I-“

“Ben I know that everything that happened with Countess was fucked up, but my granddaughter she-“ Diana pauses before she changes the thought.  “You say that you know she’s different, but right now you’re treating her the same way you treat all those other women.”

“I’m not-“

“My granddaughter has decided you’re important to her and once that’s happened it’s hard to make her let go. You saw the way she was with Darren and that guy was a manipulative asshole. Imagine what she thinks of you.”

“I-“

“Stop making excuses!”

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” Ben shouts.

“And I don’t need to! Think what you want Ben but if you’d stop acting so stubborn and so ridiculously blind to what’s right in front of you. I promise that what comes next is worth the risk.”

“Don’t go all fucking mystical on me doll.”

“And don’t go all macho- no feelings asshole on me! So stop being so damn stubborn, get on a plane and get your ass here.” She retorts. “Don’t fuck this up Benjamin because if you do I’ll fuck you up.”

The line goes dead.

Ben sat there for a minute in the silence still holding the phone up to his ear, listening to what your grandmother said to him ring around in his head for a second.

No one ever spoke to him that way. In fact, Ben had never allowed anyone to speak to him the way that she did, well, not until you came along. You reminded him so much of her that it was astounding and he wasn't going to admit that maybe it's why he liked being around you so much.

Ben frowns at what Diana said, thinking about the unusual feelings that were swirling in the pit of his stomach. He felt wrong and the feelings were odd for him. He hadn't felt anything remotely like this ever in his life, not even for Countess.

And although Ben refused to be afraid of anything, the feelings he was having scared him. He didn’t understand and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see where this ended up. He felt like he was in too deep.

As much as he wanted to go to you like Diana ordered him to, he wasn't sure that he should. Something was holding him back, digging it's heels in and refusing to budge.

But why do I feel like-

His phone rings and he doesn't look at the caller ID when he picks up, expecting it to be Diana again, yelling at him.

"Di I-"

But it's not Diana.

"Hello Ben. It's nice to hear your voice again." The familiar voice says, sounding calm and collected.

"What the fuck do you want?" Ben snarls.

 "I thought it was time the two of us had a chat.”

A/N: At this point Diana is really just trying to give both Ben and the reader the kick in the pants they need. And yes I know another cliffhanger, but you know you love it. 🤭😉 We are quickly reaching the end of this series, but that means the confession scene is coming and I am so excited about it!!

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know. 😊

Taglist:

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@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

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@livya99 @cherrygirl444

[planetpedri]

Hi... PEDRI WITH NUMBER 7 FROM THE ANGST PROMPT PLS...

Waiting room — Pedri González.

Pairing: Pedri González x Fem!Reader

Summary: Late night talks with your best friend was definitely your favorite time spent with him, but tonight it had only shattered you.

Word count: 1.17k+

Disclaimer/s: Based on the prompt ‘Have you ever loved someone before?’ so, basically all angst.

A/N: THANK YOU ANON.

The stars twinkled above you and Pedri. They lit up the dark sky, giving you a beautiful thing to look at so you could keep your eyes off him. The feint noise of cars passing by was the only thing to break the silence.

When Pedri could make time, he liked to visit your house. You lived at the edge of Barcelona, away from the busy streets. He couldn’t see the stars from his house, the city lights were too bright.

Pedri loved the stars. He’d once told you how they had gave him a different perspective on life, but he never told you the story. You didn’t mind though, you didn’t need him to.

Your mouth parts, ready to speak, but you find words hard to come by. Pedri rolls his head to the side, resting it against the blanket that you’d set out to avoid the itchy grass. He watches you quietly, expectantly.

“Have you ever loved someone before?”

The question caught him by surprise. His eyes widening just a little, “how do you mean?”

“Like, romantically, I guess.” You shrug, rolling your head to the side as well, meeting his eyes. “You never date. You never talk about girls to me, so I’m just curious.”

Pedri nods in understanding, his gaze drifting back up to the sky as he contemplates. The silence was enough for you to know his answer, and you would be lying if you said it didn’t hurt.

Sure, you’d loved the man since the moment you met him. How could you not?

“No, I don’t think so. I came close once, but..” He trails off, looking back at you, right into your eyes. “It just wouldn’t work out.”

Your stomach ached. How could he look at you with his soft warm brown eyes, and give you such devastating news?

Humming, as if you could ever possibly understand, you divert your attention away from him. Your eyes trace the big dipper. “Why not? Did you ever give it a try?”

Pedri shakes his head, which you only caught from your peripheral vision. “No, I didn’t. I valued her too much.” Your heart felt like it was being squeezed and pulled.

“You deserve to be happy, i’m sure she valued you too.” And you meant it. If he was happy, even with another girl, you would’ve come to terms with it. You valued Pedri, more so than yourself.

You hadn’t noticed the way your voice had grown quiet toward the end, but Pedri did. He stared at your side profile, wishing he could read your mind—wishing you could read his.

“She does.” A beat of silence, “Have you? Y’know.. been in love?”

You chuckle, “yeah. Yeah, I have. Once.”

“With who?” He asks, Adam’s apple bobbing tightly in his throat.

Your head lulls to the side and you offer him a small smile. You. “It doesn’t matter who. It is beautiful though—loving someone.”

Pedri exhales through a small laugh. “Until it’s not reciprocated.”

“Well, I dunno. I think just knowing you are capable of feeling it, of feeling so much for someone, I think it can be beautiful in it’s own sense.” You hum before continuing, “like.. we as humans, are capable of feeling so strongly for someone even when it isn’t reciprocated. You don’t need to be loved, to love.”

The man felt his heart swell at your words. You had a way of finding words for things that he would’ve never understood if they weren’t coming from you.

“I hope you experience a requited love someday. You deserve it.” Pedri’s pinkie finger grazes over yours, sending a wave of warmth to your chest.

He didn’t know it, but when you looked back to the sky and saw a shooting star, you had wished he would love you one day. To experience requited love from him, was the only thing you’d ever wanted.

You didn’t know it, but while you looked back at the stars, he was looking at you, wishing so badly you would give him a sign.

A sign that maybe, you loved him back.

The thought got pushed to the back of his mind the second it inched forward, because Pedri knew for as long as you were friends, he could never allow it. He valued you too much as a friend to ever take that step. So, he looked back to the night sky, and sighed.

Nothing would ever come of the two of you. You waited for him for years, yet nothing moved forward. Eventually, he had gotten a girlfriend. She was lovely, kind, everything Pedri could ever need, but she wasn’t you. He looked for you in everything related to her. The way she dressed, the way she smelled, the things she liked.

The two of you drifted apart after that. You told yourself he was happy, that he had found love. That was all you needed to know, so you let him go.

He broke up with her a month later.

Years had passed, you’d gotten engaged. Thinking you finally moved on! You were dead wrong. The first time you saw Pedri after nearly three years, was in the middle of a shopping mall.

He seen you in a store across from where he stood, eyes widening. He called out your name, and when you turned, forcing a welcoming smile, he walked over.

“It’s been so—“ His words cut short, the glint of a diamond flashing in his peripheral. “Oh! Uh, you’re married?”

Your happy facade dropped into a deer in headlights look. “Uhm, engaged! Actually. Just engaged.” You ramble, not sure why you felt the need to explain yourself. He hadn’t reached out to you either?

“That’s..” He exhaled, “wow. That’s amazing. Congrats.”

His voice lacked any real enthusiasm and you only felt guiltier. “Yeah, yeah. It’s great.. his name is Jack. I was going to send you an invite! I just haven’t gotten them in the mail yet.” A complete and total lie. You had sent out invites last month, but Pedri didn’t need to know that.

He watched as your nose scrunched and his heart suddenly felt cold. That was your tell. Whenever you lied, your nose scrunched. He used to love it. He used to tap your nose every time you’d do it, telling you, ‘Cariño, you can’t lie to me, you’re too obvious.’

Swallowing hard, Pedri looks off to the side. “Well, I should go. I have a busy few months with football, so.. I probably can’t make it. Best of wishes though.” Before he could escape, he had to say one last thing.

“I’m happy you got the requited love we talked about. You deserve it.”

Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd of shoppers, leaving you with a dull, hollow feeling encapsulating your once nearly full heart.

You called the engagement off a month later.

You couldn’t love anyone if it wasn’t him, and that was very clear now. Even after all these years, nobody was ever Pedri—nobody could ever be him.

likes , comments , and reblog’s are all appreciated. lmk if you’d like to be tagged in future pedri posts.

DTS , @halfwayhearted @joaoflms @sakashq @ar4ujos @hrts4havertz @spidybaby @gadriezmannsgirl @unx100to !

[himluv]

Ok. Here's my first attempt at writing Lucanis and Spite. This isn't my favorite piece of DA fic I've written, but I had to get it out of system.

Also, I am writing Lucanis as demisexual. That is my accepted headcanon, and I am writing it from personal experience.

Enjoy, I guess? 😂

(below the cut because spoilers?)

Lucanis leaned into his palm where it pressed against the stone just above Rook’s head. He felt drawn to her, pulled across the floor until there was just a feather’s width between them. It was such an infrequent feeling – this wanting – that he almost hadn’t recognized it the first time. Now, the thrum of desire through his body was unmistakable.

But did she feel it too?

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said, offering her a convenient escape route.

She smiled. “Sometimes the bad ideas are best.”

He couldn’t help smiling at that. It seemed she always knew just what to say. Like that night at the cafe. He’d felt a slight thrill at the table, a rush at how easily the conversation volleyed between them. It wasn’t until much later that night, replaying her voice in his head, that he’d ached with realization. She’d been talking about much more than how she liked her coffee.

“You like walking a little too close to the edge.” Again, a warning. He would push, gently, until she saw reason. Because, surely, once she looked close enough, she would turn away.

“So do you.”

She reached for him, and for a moment Lucanis thought she might hook her finger through his lapel chain and tug him toward her. His stomach flipped, his smile widened, and he couldn’t avoid glancing at her lips. Mierda, he wanted to taste her.

But she did not touch him, her hand hovered there at his sternum and a desperate flash of want pulsed through him.

This was dangerous territory. She had no idea just how close to the edge they were. How easy it would be for her to push him off this cliff, and Lucanis would fall helplessly in love.

He looked right at her, his gaze heavy. “At least I know when I’m doing it.”

At the edge of a cliff…

What if he chose to jump?

He closed his eyes, tilted his head and leaned toward her, felt her do the same –

– Crisp air, sunlight on water, smells like trees and magic. Arlathan.

Lucanis’s eyes snapped open and he pulled back so quickly that Rook gave him a startled look.

“I… need to clear my head,” he said. As if he could do such a thing with Spite taking up so much space.

Space, he needed space. Between him and Spite, but also between him and Rook. He needed to breathe. Why did his chest feel so tight?

He stepped away from her, his palm now pressed to his waistcoat as he gave her the tiniest bow. “Excuse me.”

Then he turned and hurried out of the room, ignoring the weight of her gaze on his back. He brushed a hand through his hair, tugged at his waistcoat. Lucanis was not a tall man, but it took surprisingly few strides to cross the dining room and step out into the courtyard. He took a deep, shaky breath and quelled the urge to rub at the constant itch behind his eyes.

This wasn’t like him. He felt jittery, out of control. Perhaps all the coffee mixed with the sleep deprivation had finally gotten to him?

She makes you nervous, Spite sneered.

Lucanis said nothing. There was no point lying to Spite, it would only encourage the demon to keep talking. Instead he headed toward the library balconies – they were the closest thing the Lighthouse had to a rooftop. He needed height. Needed perspective.

Surprisingly, Spite was quiet until Lucanis stood staring out at the blank expanse of the Fade and his heart rate had settled some in his chest.

Finally, the demon asked, why?

Lucanis sighed. “Why what?”

Spite growled, irritated at having to explain himself. Rook. Makes. You. Nervous. WHY?

Lucanis winced as the word rebounded inside his skull. “You don’t have to shout.”

Spite made an unconvinced noise.

“And besides,” Lucanis said. “You know why.”

Make it make sense. We. Like. Rook.

Lucanis pinched the bridge of his nose. “A little too much.”

Ahhhhh. Spite sniffed, as if savoring something delicious in the air. Scared.

Another truth he’d have to let lie between himself and the demon.

Let her in and get cut deep. See inside then turn away. Won’t want you. Oooh, or worse, she does want and then she di–

“Enough!” The word echoed out into the Fade, silencing the demon. “Enough,” Lucanis whispered. He didn’t need Spite to help him overthink all the ways kissing Rook could go wrong.

Want more than that.

The most surprising truth of them all. Lucanis could count the number of people he’d felt genuine attraction for on one hand. The only one he’d ever tried to pursue had misread him so completely he’d just given up.

As much as he longed for romance, he just wasn’t good at it. Love was something meant for characters in novels, or people like Teia and Viago. Not him.

Not love. What?

Before the Ossuary, Lucanis would have had an answer to a question like that. The Crows. House Dellamorte. Mediating peace between Illario’s ambitions and Caterina’s wishes. He liked being a Crow. He was good at it, and had never wanted more, a fact that had vexed Illario and pleased their grandmother.

And it was all gone.

Caterina was dead. In his current state, Lucanis was not fit to take her place as she’d desired. Illario would become First Talon, like he’d always wanted. If Lucanis somehow survived this contract, perhaps House Dellamorte would allow him back. Perhaps the future he and Illario had fantasized as boys might actually come to pass. Perhaps he and Rook…

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! Bah!

Lucanis sighed and shook his head. Then he and the demon walked back to the dining hall in silence. And in that silence was another, terrifying truth.

For the first time in his life, Lucanis Dellamorte didn't know what his future held.

[doublel27]

But as said above, there do seem to be a lot of people who just are not willing to meet media on its own terms, and the "critique" is so focused on what they think it should be over what it actually is.

This is one of my largest problems with current tumblr critique and has been for awhile (at least 2019) in multiple fandoms. There’s a level of what people feel the story should be instead of letting the story tell you what it is.

I love speculating and making predictions, but I do not do so believing a piece of media has failed if my predictions do not come true. I love the week to week discourse but sometimes people get so keyed into their own hopes and dreams for something (or their own search for something problematic) they’re not actually taking in the story being presented.

I was just listening to this week’s OTH podcast, Drama Queens and they were discussing how sometimes an actor doesn’t have to do much because the audience will project more than half of their own feelings into the media anyway. And I see the levels of projection more and more but less of an awareness of those projections. There’s almost a level of purity culture and hive-minded experience that exists as people talk in echo chambers. There’s also a lot of confirmation bias. If I go in believing a thing is bad, 9 times out of 10, I can make it bad.

I feel like this goes double for stories from a culture that is not your own. Whenever I watch stories not told from my cultural perspective I always wonder what I am missing for context. This goes double for translated materials, especially between Asian and Romance languages because of the very important structural linguistic differences. (Triple between English and Thai because both are not only very structurally different but both are so reliant on context and slang to make sense of that it gets weird to translate).

Be skeptical, be open, make predictions but don’t be beholden to them. Enjoy the mess. Most media exists within the middle of the bell curve. Most of it is perfectly good, but it comes down to a matter of taste.

Like what you like, don’t like what you don’t like, but people liking something you don’t isn’t a moral failing or a lack of critical thought on their part.

The thing is, I do have negative thoughts and criticisms of the things that I watch or read, but I don’t often feel compelled to share them, and I don’t think this makes me intellectually inferior or vapid.

I think it’s quite easy, in fact, to recognize the flaws in a piece of media. And I don’t owe it to the public or to strangers to make sure that they know that I know that something that happened in a show was poorly executed or that an actor had weak delivery.

If I really feel like talking about something I disliked, then I will, but “it’s important to be critical of the media we consume” doesn’t mean I have to do so in a public forum, and I don’t get why some people act like doing so makes them smarter than the rest of fandom. Frankly, I think what bothers me more than the negativity is the pretentiousness around it.

[astralazuli]

So there's that D&D class quiz going around, & I took it & was so deeply offended I got Paladin.

& so I have had conversations with both Bestie & Birdfriend about this grave insult & they both were like, "Well... They have a point?" & informed me that my desire to absorb hits meant for others & deep drive to help whenever I actually can & strong convictions make me a bit Paladin-coded.

& I am just so... Idk. It's just interesting to get glimpses of yourself from other people's POVs. To be told that my defining characteristics are protecting & healing others & being incredibly fighty about the things I care about... Especially as someone whose brain specifically fixates on whether I care enough, do enough, give enough... Yeah. It's just kinda wild.

Anyway, I'm now adjusting my self-perception to include the fact that if I were a D&D character, I would be an Oath of the Ancients Paladin & not a wizard & that actually that's okay.

[chefhuman]

Every time I walk

Every time I run

Every time I move

Every time I look

Every time I love

Every time I hope

As always, for us

[katerinaaqu]

No problem at all and yeah to be fair you might not be entirely wrong either seeing how drastic the changes often were after the Doric tribes descended so you might as well be right too and people use it as an umbrella term. Dunno. Otherwise I absolutely see where you are going with this

It is alright given that differentiation in culture is hard to pinpoint sometimes. Quite frankly many times given how Greeks always had common custom and language (minus the dialects) sometimes we recognize them by stylistic choices for example in clothing or weaponry rather than some extremely different cultural detail.

Oh absolutely frequency is also very important you are absolutely right.

Oh that is bad because I would love to see the opinion of the person that came up with it and why. Although my guess is that they based this not only to the fact that we have pretty much theorized that mycenean culture is a culture based on royalty and consequently modern researchers estimate the scepter might have been of outpost importance or from some ritualistic images on rings and frescoes (not at all sometimes researchers fill in their theories even if it is not always sustained with enough evidence. For instance according to Evans the Minoans were peaceful people without war who had colonized the Aegean because he based it on British empire where he came from. Right now we know it was far from it but Evans based his hypothesis more on the fact that the frescoes he discovered did not have violent or war scenes so his assumption it wasn't totally wrong in that perspective but still not fully sustained by evidence either so it often happens that data is interpreted but oftentimes they need more evidence to crystallize)

It seems so because Homer was extremely accurate to some stuff (like I said he describes Odysseus helmet that was placed on his head by Meriones and the description fits perfectly to the actual historical helmet) and he does mention bronze a lot but it seems indeed that he tries to fill in the gaps. Although I cannot say it is completely bizarre to assume the existence of Iron to the Achaean camp given how despite the fact that Iron was not widely used it was not entirely unknown to the end of Bronze Age. Arguably Hitite people already used it for tools at that time. What's more we discovered Iron dagger to the tomb of Tutankhamun and the Iron was also coming from a meteorite. So metallurgy of Iron was not entirely unknown. Just not widely used or exported. Could perhaps for example the Greeks come in contact with hitite weapons in Troy? Doesn't seem entirely unlikely as a hypothesis. Could perhaps renounced or rich heroes have some piece of equipment of Iron? For example Achilles indeed have a dagger of Iron in his possession. Most likely improbable but not entirely unlikely either if you ask me. But yes most likely most pieces of Iron equipment in homeric poems are most likely anachronisms that Homer uses either to fill in the gaps or draw in his contemporary audience.

I see. It is possible indeee. No. It is not wrong at all and arguably I wouldn't say Homer is "influenced" by Iron age culture. He belongs in it. He is more familiar with his own time period than with the distant past. Most likely he wanted to fill in the gaps in his knowledge (even adding his own experiences being theorized that since we have so intense battle scenes that Homer did fight a war himself) or as I said above as well to entice his contemporary audience (kinda what modern retellings do today but not as blatant hahaha)

I don't think we can have a definitive answer on mycenaean kingdoms given the lack of written contemporary sources. They are undoubtedly valuable but they are more logistic books of the palatial system and do not provide us cultural information apart from that. Iron age especially 8th century is oftentimes even more obscure (thus esrning the title "dark ages" due to the lack of information) so yeah I believe the discussion is always open.

Not at all. I get shocked with new knowledge every day!

This is literally what accumulation of knowledge is my friend. Do you think the process of researching sources is vastly different? Hahaha ❤️

I need some fanfic of Odysseus trying to impress Penelope by being brutal and she's like: oh. in Sparta my brothers did kind of like that when they were 15 lol 😭 please sometimes I remember she's Spartan

[fiapple]

this is the only time i will ever speak about st on this blog, but the show should've centered around Kali & she should've been canonically sapphic.

(if you're in any way interested in what i actually mean, i suggest reading the tags. i tend to elaborate there more often than in actual posts- i'm trying to break the habit, but it's where we are rn.)

[i-like-media]

I was wondering when they were going to play with the fact the Doctor is black now. 13 being faced with how people think of women was one of my favourite things in her era, so I was curious how they were going to treat his skin colour this season, if at all.

And honestly, Dot And Bubble exceeded all my expectations on the matter!

What a lot of episodes about racism and bigotry do is coddle the viewer. They make clear early on "this is an episode about RACISM and why it's WRONG!" As if you've never heard of the concept before and don't know it's bad. The episode will often portray racism in an extreme sense and show the viewer the main characters are above that.

What Dot And Bubble did, for the entire episode, was letting the viewer figure it out on their own. There was no coddling, only racism as it silently existed. A perfectly pastel and white community with not a single person of colour and the only visible outlier being a goth white kid. And in this world, the first thing the character we follow did, was to block a black guy with a face of disgust.

The title screen rolls and you're left to rationalise it. Surely it was because he was not in her contact list/saying all kinds of mind blowing stuff... Right? Except when Ruby enters her feed and talks about it, she actually replies back... With an eye roll, but she replies... and keeps talking... and listening.

The episode continues, still not a single POC besides the Doctor. They reveal this is an exclusive place for rich people, and eventually the character in question even admits she thought the Doctor was a different person because "I thought you looked the same".

What this episode also does well, is portraying a character we wish to see change and find a better life behind that change. We see Lindy struggle to navigate the world without her bubble, calling herself stupid, and we genuinely hope she DOES learn to be better, even as you slowly pick up on what's been going on sofar. You are left to hope she'll thank him and realise the error of her ways, and maybe find a new drive to think for herself.

And then she doesn't.

She stays in her bubble, doubling down on how she feels about the Doctor, how they're excited to be like their settler ancestors, and finally CLEARLY revealing to the viewers what's been off this whole time... and the scene asks: did YOU notice the signs? Did you see what went wrong along the way, or did you only notice just now when it's explicitly shown to you? And why do you think that is?

It challenges the perspective of the viewer and tells you to reflect on why you didn't see it coming, and that is so so powerful.

The Doctor's reaction to this scene..... 👌👌👌👌

His mouth is ajar, stunned beyond belief that after all he's done and all he can offer, the offer to literally save their lives, he is reduced to someone who's nothing more than the hue of his skin. He yells at them, telling them he doesn't care what they think of him because he's still the same doctor he's always been, and to still get rejected with a dirty look... Which hits extra hard when you remember how much the Doctor loves being himself. He LOVES being the Doctor again! And he walks with such a pep in his step, celebrating his existence and sharing it with all he meets... and then he tries to save some rich white kids from certain death.

His performance in that moment was literally phenomenal. It's a narrative that's so powerful and so creative in its execution, my jaw was still on the floor throughout the credits.

This episode is definitely up there as one of my favourites sofar

[alostcuttlefish]

I think what I love about the Murderbot Diaries

(aside from, you know Murderbot who I love and cherish)

It that it’s a very grim-dark distopian corporate hellscape setting, told through the perspective of someone who has seen some of the worst that world has to offer, who’s existence is part of the worst that world has to offer, and yet-

And yet it’s so full of hope.

Everywhere you look, there’s underground shipping routes to get refugees out from contract labour, there’s universities forging documents to get abandoned colonies out from corporate ownership, there’s people buying a secunit so the company don’t realise it’s hacked itself and has free will. A Tlacy employee smuggles out copies of the files to give them back to their owners, a human officer on HaveRatton station opens the security barrier to let Ayda Mensah escape. There’s a planet that took the promise of somewhere safe to live, of food and medical care, and kept that promise for generations.

And for all it can’t even see the hope yet, can’t even really believe it might be there yet (because trauma will fuck you up), Secunit keeps being that hope for other people.

Not just the lives it saves, not just all the times it shows up out of nowhere like a social anxious guardian angel with energy weapons in it’s arms and several lifetimes worth of soap operas in it’s storage.

When it talks to Dr Volescu all the way up the side of the crater, to keep him moving. When it sticks with the scientists on RaviHyral. When Tapan sneaks onto it’s sleeping mat, because she’s scared, and it ups it’s body temperature to keep her warm. When it keeps Amena safe from a predatory partner, when it tells her to go rest. When it hacks the Comfort Unit’s governor module. When it-version-2.0 gives Three the codes to hack itself.

Imagine being on RaviHyral. Imagine meeting a security consultant who you shouldn’t be able to afford, who goes above and beyond and doesn’t even check the payment card at the end, who tells you that sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about, that all you can do is learn to live with them, who’s clearly been through some shit but came out of it with so much compassion. Imagine the hope in that.

[tapakah0]

WHY PC DOESN'T WARN ME WHEN I REACH THE LIMIT OF TAGS *THROWS OUT THE TABLE AGAIN*

WHY HE NEEDED THE SMARTER ONE?? FOR BRAIN TASTE??

OSCAR WOULD GLADLY OFFER HIS BODY PARTS HA-HA... ha... OH F*** HE WOULD. How lucky he is to be stupider.

Part 1!

..of an episode that reveals that if something looks like a space horror and sounds like a space horror, maybe it is a space horror.

Who would've guessed?~

Previous

Masterpost

[zoe-oneesama]

For the SL au does Marinette being jelous is the only flaw of SL Marinette, and also the clumsy aspect was just for the epilog cos i never see her act clumsy in the whole comic at least not to me she wasn't

Oh obviously she has flaws, both in Sl and in Canon: we've seen her in quick to anger, not above being mean to people she dislikes, she's been clumsy (not as much as in the show mostly because a comic isn't animated and I have to focus on the more important things thanks to the format), she's jealous over her relationships, she catastrophizes, she has time management problems, etc etc. Flaws differ from person to person and it's all about perspective.

The POINT was that ON PAPER Marinette is a very typical waifu girlfriend character from a bare bones, unimaginative, surface level weeb perspective. She cooks, sews, is kind and thoughtful, and for that bit of Anime Cliche Toppings, she's clumsy. For Emilie, who sees the world in tropes (and tragically of all, ANIME tropes), she would see Marinette as Practically Flawless.

And this has been stated since the beginning, but the premise of the AU (Marinette NOT being Ladybug and NOT being in love with Adrien from the beginning) took care of her two most obvious flaws: The Jealousy, and the Stress. She's not flakey because she's not juggling a double life, and by the time she IS, she's fully on board. She's not in love, so she's not jealous of Chloe or Lila or Kagami (and believe me, she WOULD've been if anyone had been into Chat Noir). As is, some of her worst habits were eliminated just by taking her Miraculous and Love Interest away.

[prael]

REPLACED

Newjeans Minji x male reader smut

Quickfire challenge 1. Thank you @midnightdancingsol

The prompt: "You know why this happened, @capslocked – yes, you."

Masterlist word count: 3,911 Kofi(donations/commissions)

It's all a matter of perspective. From one side of the room, the world is calm.

And the other? Well, that's Minji.

“Want to know the one thing worse than outright rejection?”

Minji has barely walked in the door and she is already shouting off in riddles. She's standing in the doorway, her hair wet from the rain and a little bit tangled just above her shoulders. The water on her overshirt is so deeply sodden into the fabric that it weighs on her. It sticks to her skin that's so clearly visible underneath the LED spotlight above her and her face is twisted in this way of pure irritation that you've rarely seen. It's almost comical.

Or it would be if she wasn't throwing her bag on the floor with an almighty thud and a little yelp from the floorboards below.

“Minji?” is all you say in some hushed tone as you sit on the armchair by the window, hot drink in one hand and your phone in the other as the world passes by in the distance, drowned in downpour.

You look up to watch Minji as she shouts, "How about getting a part, only for it to be taken away? Being promised the world and then having it rug-pulled so you fall flat on your fucking face?!"

Now, Minji never swears in anger. And never means never (again, in anger, specifically). So, it's pretty much a sign of the end of the world when she does. She's kicking off her shoes now, throwing them in the direction of the door and they clatter on the floor like the battering of a drum.

"I—uh."

"You—uh," she mocks, taking a step forward.

"Woah. Minji. What happened?" You ask, setting down the phone on the sill of the window. Minji's stomping her way toward you. Her eyes are wide and filled with something you haven't quite seen before.

"This complete—"there are some sounds from her mouth but they don’t quite resemble words"—shit for a fuck brain!" See, Minji never swears like this, so she's so bad at it that it's laughable.

"That bad, huh?"

"Oh, it's a great idea; an amazing concept. I'll write you a fantastic character and it will be romantic and hot and everyone will love it," Minji rants in some sarcastic tone while peeling her shirt off her skin and piling it onto the hardwood floor. She stands in only her sports bra with her arms raised and her voice in high pitch, mocking. "Except, you're not good enough. Oh, no. I have to give the part to this other girl. She's prettier and nicer and just better than you!"

"Ouch." You say, watching as she flops onto the couch opposite. The coffee table in between you is a lousy line of defence. Her socks have little splatters of rainwater on them and not too far above that, her skirt sits just above the knee.

"Oh, shut up," she replies.

"Minji." You throw her a look that says 'Stop taking it out on me', which she understands, but it only gets her to fold her arms dramatically with a little huff and a puff from her mouth, followed by a pout. Then you ask her, "What part even was this? TV?"

"Not exactly."

"An ad? Video game? Movie?"

"Fanfiction."

Fanfiction.

"What?" You blink, to which Minji sighs and rolls her eyes, head tilted to the ground.

"Fanfiction."

"A fanfiction?" you question again. It’s not like you misheard, it’s just an utterly strange thing for her to be so pent up on.

"Don't say it like that." She snaps, leaning back into the chair and crossing her legs so one of her little rain-splattered socks is suspended in the air, and she twists and turns her foot impatiently.

"Just trying to figure out why you're so annoyed about fanfiction."

"Because the guy's a complete moron."

"Probably," you say, drawing your mug of coffee close to your lips. You blow on the surface and Minji is silent. You wait, the steam is coming off the top and through it, you watch her as she thinks as her eyebrows furrow together. Minji shifts in her seat again, the annoyance making her chronically uncomfortable. 

"He replaced me!" She shouts, slamming her hands into the arms of the chair and then Minji stands. She takes a few steps and then stops and turns to face you, her eyebrows furrowed and her arms folded, her legs are slightly apart and she's tapping her foot.

"Does he think I'm not pretty enough? Not funny enough? Not sexy enough? Does he think that I wouldn't be good enough at what he wants me to do, hm? So he doesn't want to write me sucking a dick? Well, screw him. Fucking Capslocked."

You're not sure what's going on here, so you're just sitting back and watching her, coffee nestled in your hand and feet propped on the table. She's standing still, waiting for you to say something, anything, and when you don't, she begins to pace.

"Why would he change his mind and just decide that someone else is better than me? What, does he not like my body? Do you not like my body?"

"Your body is fantastic." You say, taking another sip of the coffee.

"Yeah, and don't you forget it." She snaps, stopping again and placing her hands on her hips, either side of that exposed waistline.

"The fuck kind of name is 'Capslocked' anyway?" You mutter, mostly to yourself. Minji doesn't reply, but you see her take a step closer to you.

"And," Minji begins and then pauses, you look up at her and she's just staring. Her cheeks are flushed and her breathing is a little laboured, her chest rising and falling with each breath. There's a pause. Her tongue runs over her lips and you can see her thinking—gears grinding inside her head.

"And?" you ask.

"Shut up," she hisses, kicking your leg so your feet fall from the coffee table and you almost spill the drink down yourself. She places her hands on your knees, bending over to you.

"Minji, my drink—"

"Shh." her hair falls across her face, a black silk drape half-covering the expression beneath. There's an anger under there, something she's trying to push back down, but it's not quite working. Her nails dig into your thighs as she pushes them apart, and the steam rises again above the surface of the liquid in your cup. Minji is too busy running her hand along your crotch.

"What're you—"

"Replaced me," she repeats to herself, a little huff leaving her as she slips down onto her knees. "Fucking replaced me."

"Minji, I'm sure he—"

"I don't care. Shut up. I'm not talking to you." Her hands are shaking, whether from frustration or some other confused feeling that burns under her skin. Probably a mix of many feelings. They're fumbling at the button of your jeans and she's tugging down the zip, her teeth bared. You're watching, and it's as if she is possessed.

Your heartbeat is thunderous in your ears, the heat is rising and Minji is pushing her hair out of her face.

"I'm gonna do this so well."

"You always do."

"I said stop talking. So. Stop. Talking," she sounds out each word with authority, her eyes wide and angry. Minji is pushing down the fabric and reaching into the opening in your underwear. She wraps her fingers around you, the cool touch of her skin making you jerk.

"Minji, my drink." Your hand trembles slightly as you try not to spill it. Minji doesn't listen. She pulls you free. A low hum leaves her throat as she licks her lips and leans forward. Her warm breath is ghosting over you, her eyes are closed and there's a little smirk on her lips. Your cock is only halfway to hard and her hand is wantingly trying to coax you into arousal.

It doesn't take much. It never does with Minji.

"Fuck," you groan, the sound of your voice making her look up.

"Don't," she replies, a warning in her eyes. Minji's hand is moving up and down and it's not with that same gentle caress she usually has.

"God, Minji."

"Quiet." She stops, her lips are pouted and her eyes are locked onto you. Her hand is around you, the pressure is gentle, but it's enough to hold you. You're frozen there a moment, her eyes are staring right through you and you're not entirely sure what's going to happen. "Don't say a word, and don’t spill your drink,” she tells you, her free hand rubbing your thigh.

"Minji—"

"Don't." She whispers, her tongue licking over the surface of her lip. Her mouth opens, and she's leaning in. The warmth of her breath is making the muscles of your abdomen twitch and your head spin. Her tongue is the first thing that touches you. She's holding you still, and the head of your cock is resting on her bottom lip, and the feeling of the smooth surface makes you want to thrust forward, but Minji's hand holds you firm.

You bite your lip as Minji's tongue swirls around the tip. It's light and soft and sends electricity through your nerves. You groan ever so slightly and she looks up at you, her eyes narrowed. Your knuckles whiten as you grip the mug, her hair tickling the inside of your thigh as she lowers her head.

Her tongue runs along the underside and pastes your cock with a wetness. The hand around you moves down, and she takes you in. Her mouth is heaven, and her lips the closing gates. You let out a deep sigh, your chest heaving, and Minji's free hand slides up the inside of your shirt, her nails grazing your skin.

Her mouth moves, her lips tightening, and the movement is slow. It's torturous and the sensation of her tongue swirling around the underside of your cock sends you spiralling. Minji knows this, and she's looking up at you. You want to touch her; you want to tangle your fingers into her hair; you want to grab her and pull her against you.

But her eyes speak many words left unspoken. They command your stillness, your silence, and your complete submission.

Minji is working her mouth over you, and her hand is stroking you, up and down and up and down. She's bobbing her head and humming slightly. The melody is almost hypnotic but sounds as if being played by force rather than elegance.

Her scratches are harder than ever and it feels like fire across your chest. Your toes are curling and your head is thrown back. The heat from the mug permeates into your skin as you grip it tighter.

"Ah, Minji." You moan. Minji stops, looking up at you. There's a drop of spit on her lip, and her face is flushed. You're not sure what to do. She's glaring, and she's holding you. Your heart is beating like the hammer of a drum and just above it, her nails grip, threatening to pierce through flesh.

"I said quiet." Words laced with venom. She digs somehow deeper into your chest as she pushes herself to her feet. "Now, I'm going to fuck you. I'm going to fuck you until I scream and you're going to stay quiet."

You're not quite sure what's happening. This is a Minji you have seldom seen before, but it's all happening so fast. She's pulling up her skirt, sliding down her panties, and she's kicking them off so the fabric lands somewhere to the side. She's stepping forward and her knees are touching the armrests. Closer and closer she comes with her eyes fixed on you. 

Your mouth is dry, and her fingers are on your jaw. Her eyes bore holes in your own and she's lowering herself. In a moment of weakness, you throw a glance at your hand, still holding the half-full cup. There's an angry sound from Minji and she snarls, "Focus on me."

Minji swipes her arm at the cup, sending it flying. You watch the arc of the cup and the contents spill across the floor. She's not waiting, she's not looking. There’s not an ounce of concern within her for something so trivial.

You feel the soft wetness of her sex on your tip, she's rubbing herself on the head, the moisture spreading along the underside and Minji's face is screwed up in pleasure and her legs are shaking. She's panting and moaning and she's trying to slide down.

"Minji, are you—"

She thrusts her hand over your mouth with a growl and wild eyes. Her nails are biting into your cheek. "Not. Another. Word."

Minji's other hand is on your shoulder; using it for balance as she tries to move herself. She's lowering herself down and the head of your cock slips into her.

She's so warm. So unbelievably wet. Minji gasps and her back arches and her breasts heave beneath her slightly see-through sports top as she breathes. Her nails dig deeper into your flesh, her lips are parted and her head is thrown back, leaving her throat exposed—a pale expanse of milky perfection.

"Oh, God," she moans, the sound reverberating around the room as she slowly sinks and the walls of her cunt are tight on you. So tight. She trembles as she speaks. "You can't replace this."

Her skirt is around her waist, the material covering the sight of where your bodies meet. But you can feel it; you can feel every little movement she makes.

"I'm so wet."

So fucking wet.

"You're so hard."

Hard. So hard.

"How could anyone replace this?"

How? How could you possibly replace this?

Her cries are shrill, and the heat of her is all around you. It's the only thing you can focus on—her. You try to answer, but your words never make it past the hand on your mouth. She's panting, and her hair is wild, her eyes wide and her mouth open. And she's just riding until she can't no more. Until her muscles grow weak and until her cum leaks between her legs.

"This is what they want, isn't it? They want to fuck me. Riding them. On my knees. They want me bent over the table, or against the wall, or—or—fuck!" Her words are sharp and punctuated with gasps and moans. "Want me to cum—" she trails off into something close to a scream, her body convulsing. Her back is arched and her hips are pressed down onto yours.

She's grinding into you, and you can feel her clench around your cock. Your head is swimming, and your hips are jerking. You can't breathe. Her fingers are loosening their hold on your mouth, but you dare not speak. You're not even sure if you can.

Minji's hand is moving, sliding down your cheek, around your jaw and then gripping on your neck. She admires the red claw marks on your cheek.

"That's right," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "They want to fuck me, don't they? They all read and write those filthy little stories and keep dreaming of the impossible. But that fucker won’t write it for them."

You can only sit and take in the way that she is glowing with the sweat, the light catching her skin and highlighting the contours of her face and her collarbone. Her small top clings to her sticky chest and leaves so very little to the imagination. Through it you see the smooth curve of her breasts, the stiffness of her nipples and below it the ridges of her toned abdomen that flexes with her slowing grind.

She's climbing off you now and pulling you up from your seat. Her arms are around your neck and her eyes are on yours. You're staring into the depth of her eyes, the black pupils large and the irises a warm, golden honey.

"You're not going to replace me, are you?"

"Never."

"Good."

She leans back a little and pulls your shirt up until it's around your neck. She pulls it to your mouth, feeding the fabric into it before tying some sort of makeshift knot behind your head. "Now. Not another word." Minji pulls off her own top, peeling it away from her sweat-soaked skin.

You watch as she takes a few steps back; her cotton-hugged feet on the ground, her skirt falling back over those long legs and her hands on the hem of the fabric. She's smiling at you, a wide and wicked grin. You watch her and she's watching you. She's pulling it up now and her hands are underneath it. She turns to the window. "Now you're going to pin me against this window and do me, aren't you? Nod if you are."

You nod.

Minji giggles, throwing a look over her shoulder. "I'm the best, aren't I?" 

Minji doesn't wait for you to nod again. She turns away and looks out the window—the city is alive. The rain is falling; the lights are flickering and cars are passing by far below. Minji is leaning her forehead against the glass, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly agape. Her hair is wild and messy and the light is illuminating her.

You're stepping towards her, one hand on her back, the other sliding over the curve of her ass. You can see her reflection, the smile on her lips. Her hands are on the glass, palms flat, and you're sliding a hand between her legs and over her wet, sensitive skin.

She's shivering and letting out little gasps as your fingers dance along the flesh and your fingertips tease her folds. She's whimpering, and the sound makes your cock twitch.

"Fuck me," Minji whispers, her nails scratching the window. You can't deny a woman so insatiable.

You adjust your jaw; it's so uncomfortably pinned open and you're unable to say a word. You can't tell her just how nice that ass is and how the view inside the window makes a mockery of the one outside. You can't tell her how her hair is so beautiful, or how her eyes are the prettiest you've ever seen. You can't tell her anything.

But you can tell her in another way—through touch. The thought sends a chill down your spine and your teeth sink into the material of the shirt. Minji's whining and you're slipping your fingers between her lips. She's hot, and the heat is dripping from her. It's on your fingers and it's soaking into your palm.

Minji is moving her hips, trying to find purchase on your fingers, the tip of one brushing her clit. She gasps and throws her head back. You're sliding a finger inside her, the movement easy and Minji is bucking her hips, her body trying to pull you further and deeper.

"Fuck me like I'm the only woman in the world. Like you'll die if you don't fuck me. Like there's no one else in the world who can make you feel like I do."

You're pushing her against the window, the foggy condensation from her breath and the heat of her body mar the surface. Minji is laughing—the hot and breathy kind of laugh—as you press her into the glass.

"That's it. Come on. Fuck me now,” she orders and just like that, you're doing it. She's moaning and her back arches. You're inside her and the tightness is enough to make you come undone. You're pressing her harder and harder against the window.

"That's it. Oh, yes. Harder. That's what they all want."

You're slamming into her, and she's taking it. You're not holding back. Minji is moaning and her fingers are curling, nails raking. Her voice is echoing in the room and the sound makes your skin prickle.

"They all want me like this. Bent over and begging. Oh, fuck yes."

"They can't have you." You growl through the shirt, your teeth tearing into the fabric.

"No." Minji screams, "They can't have me. They can't touch me. He can't touch me. Won't even write about me. If only he could see me now. I bet he would change his mind. Wouldn't you?"

You fuck her until the muscles in the back of your legs stiffen. You fuck her until she's screaming. You fuck her until the glass is a mess of fingerprints, sweat, and spit. Until the golden skin of her back glows with moisture.

You fuck her until your vision starts to fade and your heartbeat is so loud in your ears that it’s unbearable. You fuck her until you can't anymore.

And she's still going, her screams echoing and her body writhing against yours, and it's all too much. You need to release, and it needs to be inside Minji.

You're coming undone and your hips jerk and stutter and Minji's body is convulsing. Your cum is spilling into her, and she's cumming again and she's screaming, the sound so shrill that it hurts. You're groaning and she's shaking, the walls of her cunt clenching and drawing your orgasm out until you can't think and you can't breathe and everything is both too much and not enough.

Leaning forward so her back is flush with your chest, and she is truly pinned. Your breathing is hard, and hers is heavy and the two of you stay there for a while, frozen in ecstasy. The room absorbs the sound of your combined pants, the rain and the distant hum of the city.

Minji is the first to move, twisting herself free from the weight of your body against her. Your cock slides out. The feeling of the cool air and the absence of her body sends a shiver through you. You stumble, the shirt falling from your mouth and your vision is blurry.

Minji is laughing and you're looking at her as she is plucking away the strands of hair which stick to her face. And when she finishes, Minji steps forward and slaps you. "I told you not to make a mess."

"Minji, you made the mess."

"Shut up."

"But I—"

She grabs you by the neck and kisses you. Her lips are hot and the kiss is hungry and messy. Her tongue is in your mouth and her hands are all over you. The kiss is hard and deep and it's leaving you breathless.

She's pulling you to the ground, her legs wrapping around you and your hand is on her thigh. The heat of her core is against you and her nails are digging into your back. She's biting your lip, and she's pushing you over onto your back.

She's straddling you. Her hands are on your chest, her palms pressing down.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" you pant. Minji's looking at you with a disregard for your words.

Your cock is so tender under her rough motions, and there’s no stopping your whimper. Minji is smiling, and the sight is so sweet. "Are you complaining?"

"No," you manage to say, as a shiver runs down your spine as she lowers herself and brushes her lips against your ear.

Her tongue is running over your earlobe and she's nibbling at the sensitive flesh. Her hands are on your shoulders and her legs are squeezing your waist. "Good boy. We're not done. Not even close."

[choochooboss]

Submas Sketchdump Vol. 4 July 2022 Part 2!!

I knew that particular month beat my all time record for productivity multifold but I had forgotten SO MANY PIECES from the original collection!! I think I finally got them all?? More stuff under the cut!!

BREAKMAS!! WIP of the first piece I posted of them, here's the link to the final version! I tried coloring this first but the black & white had ultimately more impact so I went with that!

TRAINS!! I like this base color version too! Link to the final version!

The top sketch is a direct reference to Cluedo! A spinoff game, "Missingo", starring certain familiar characters trying to figure out what happened to Ingo/trying to prove their innocence in the case! Also WIP sketches for these two Breakmas comic pages!

As you may know I adore butlermas! For the classy and stylish look which appeals to me in general, and coincidentally I had played PLA & got hit by submas train only one week before butler Ingo's banner rolled out! The pure bliss of finally meeting both twins in a game I felt was incomparable!! This moment in the Curious Tea Party event was really entertaining to me! We got to see submas get serious and stand up against this selfish collector thief! Two towering train twinks with commanding voices looming over the unfortunate guy was enough to make him change his mind ahah! They truly are the protectors

1-hour submas challenge prompt "Descend"! This is the actual one hour result before I continued rendering this!

Mmmmm not my first attempt at drawing them hug and definitely not my best OR last. I want to make that moment something very special when I finally go all out on it!!

Comic cover vibing~

The scrapped last page for this silly comic! Sorry the dialogue is all over the place on the first piece, might be hard to read! I wasn't happy with how I presented Elesa, I wasn't familiar enough with her character back then so I thought of her carrying a toy taser to threat her friend even as a joke was too much and I couldn't come up with anything else for it. This held me back from posting the other three pages for another 5 months! In the last panel

I prefer to not mess up the twins too much but my brain is still very curious and conjures some peculiar stuff like this sometimes.. I think I may have broken his arms there looking at the anatomy, ooops! I hope you don't mind the photo quality or the two weird guys in the corner, they escaped containment!

Idea of warden Ingo, being projected to modern era by his Alakazam, walking through crowd on a train platform & Emmet standing inside a passing train. Their eyes meet for just a few seconds...

Pokemas Ingo practise!

Another WIP of a piece I posted! I started this piece like this but then later I decided to flip the whole thing.

YET another WIP of something I already posted! No idea why I went and mixed up his suits but I like this sketch! They rarely end up looking this clean haha

Sketch version of the self-defense practise piece! I love getting creative with action stuff! I barely ever think of how difficult they are to draw, I just get so excited and fixated on visualising the scenes in my mind I just keep at it, pull out refs and pose in front of mirrors until it looks good to me! I want to draw more action scenes but besides being challenging to draw my brain comes up with more silly and cute ideas than cool ones unfortunately ahah

One more WIP, here's the link to the final results!! I really like how genuine their expressions look here even if the faces are a little off. I recall spending a long time figuring out this perspective. I thought it would be fun to you to see how all these pieces started and... looking at the sketch above and the stuff before that, you can compare some range of my style!

RANDOM SUBMAS MISSILES GO

OHHH looks like some nasty passengers got the best of them!! If I recall correctly there was no fight because they managed to paralyse the two before they could act. Fully awake yet completely helpless... how convenient unfortunate. Thank you so much for checking these out!! Not every sketch is that exciting but I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on these!

Previous posts: Sketch dump Vol. 1: April-June 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 2: July 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 3: August 2022

[wordsinhaled]

thinking about payneland from the perspective of a pining charles having fallen first the night they met in the attic is wild because like

he meets this boy who is incredibly soft and kind to him, comforts him, protects him from being scared as he’s dying

and everything’s a bit hazy anyway and you know, why not, why not, why not. so charles is all, “i think i’d miss kissing. do you miss kissing? 👀”

genius really. except edwin is like, no

so charles is like ok, never mind, no worries, fine. just misjudged it a bit, didn’t i. not to worry. still, i really like spending time with you, let’s stay together forever, yeah?

he dedicates himself to being the best friend edwin could possibly ask for. edwin doesn’t seem interested in anyone in any way, really. maybe edwin’s just like, above all of those things. or doesn’t care for them. that happens! charles gets it! anyway edwin’s only the best person anyone could even imagine spending an afterlife with, so it doesn’t much matter

and for thirty years it really doesn’t matter, except in tiny moments when charles maybe lets a little too much adoration bleed into the looks he gives edwin, which is fine because edwin is giving him the same type of looks back and it doesn’t have to be anything, it’s just how they are. and if he sometimes has to shake himself to keep from staring at edwin’s bare forearms when they’re relaxing in the office, well. that’s not for edwin to worry about. it doesn’t matter what kind of love it is, charles feels them all for edwin and he knows edwin loves him too

but then they go to port fucking townsend

and suddenly it’s very clear edwin is capable of those types of feelings. of being flustered and lost in daydreams and shy around someone the way you are when you’re interested. edwin is doing all of those things - and it’s not directed at charles. it’s directed at monty. at the cat king

not that he should have presumed. after all edwin can and should go on and like anyone he wants. it’s his right and edwin certainly deserves his chance at happiness, after everything he’s been through. but there had been this tiny, tiny part of charles that had always thought “if edwin ever did have those types of feelings, they would be for me”

and all of a sudden it’s like. all of charles’ pining could actually come to fruition, except it won’t because edwin has somehow chosen monty and his astrology books. because some whiskery tosser has gotten his claws into edwin and much as charles postures he won’t dare actually pry them out because he doesn’t want to interfere in edwin’s fulfillment

charles is right here, has been right here for three decades - being content for the most part, except in fleeting moments when it got to him. and it would be fine if edwin simply chose someone else - natural even - but the part scrambling charles’ brain is that it feels like edwin hasn’t even considered him. never mind that charles has got an entire elaborate plan for how he’d court edwin if edwin ever gave a singular sign that he welcomed it. but instead edwin has chosen this time to wake up to his feelings and entirely overlook charles as a romantic prospect

charles is not going to be a miserable arse about it. he’s going to be supportive. he’s going to be nice to bloody monty because monty has apparently unearthed feelings in edwin. feelings edwin deserves to have. and if he’s honest, he has to give the lad some credit for managing to find a side of edwin charles has yearned quietly for for three decades in a matter of weeks - just by being forward with edwin in a way charles wouldn’t dream of trying

anyway imagine charles’ utter confusion and disbelief when edwin is all, “actually it is not monty i am in love with at all, but you, charles”

and charles is just like, “but i thought you and him were…? you said… i mean—you don’t even notice me that way!”

“i must assure you i do.”

and then he gets to have a kiss that he has waited for and hardly let himself want properly for thirty years

like……. PINING CHARLES, MY FRIENDS

[parabiont]

I’m a vulture culture geek, so I like Mew because it is reminiscent of an embryo (it’s also nostalgic— it was perhaps my favorite when I was a kid!).

While looking for fanart of retro Mew— the rendition I love most, these days— I found people pointing out more clever details I had never considered! In Pokémon Yellow, its Pokédex entry says, “When viewed through a microscope, this Pokémon's short, fine, delicate hair can be seen,” which may represent lanugo— “the first hair to be produced by the fetal hair follicles… It is normally shed before birth.” Mew’s iconic, protective bubble symbolizes the placenta, which protects the embryo. Looking at its Red/Green sprite, it is easy to see why some think its tail looks like an umbilical cord.

^ Me trying to get back in the womb. I’ve had enough of this place!

I like the thought put into this Pokémon. Its Crystal Pokédex entry says that scientists hypothesize that it is the universal common ancestor of all Pokémon, which is a topic of interest in the real world, too. While the real world universal ancestor is probably unicellular and microscopic, an embryo is similarly rudimentary and ambiguous enough to develop into all sorts of things!

Originally, Mew wasn’t going to appear in the game (COULD YOU IMAGINE?!?!?!). Shigeki Morimoto was instructed not to include Mew but did so secretly because, after all was said and done, there was still room for one more Pokémon in the code. It couldn’t be accessed through normal gameplay, though— only through bugs. "Unless we could think about any good opportunity to do so, the existence of Mew wouldn’t have been revealed to the public. It was left in there in case it was suitable for some post-launch activity,” Morimoto said. Red and Blue initially didn’t do as well as expected. But after players accidentally discovered Mew, Nintendo launched an event for twenty people to have Mew added to their game. Over 78,000 people participated, which helped Red and Green to become best-sellers. Pokémon may not be what it is today without Mew!

Mew is very cute, but it is so much more than its appearance! It has rich history and symbolism which makes it an excellent representative for this era of Pokémon! :^)

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonconspiracies/comments/502657/mew_is_a_genetically_modified_embryo/ <— Love this! Short read! It talks about Mewtwo perhaps being influenced by Giygas, which makes me like Mewtwo— another one of my favs— even more!

On the Origin of Species: Mew by Xan Hutcheon on Bulbanews

Mew’s Bulbapedia page

The fascinating story of how Mew saved Pokemon Red and Blue by Paul Cot on Dexerto