#I’m getting way off topic here

[libra-cant-just-dance]

Guess who finished writing the last chapter of Tainted City >:]

[fumifooms]

Falin who cares too much and too little - analysis

Been stewing on Falin thoughts for a while, I know I have an interpetation on her that differs from many but I’m jumping into the fray. I think there’s a lot to be said about what we do see of Falin. This shorter Falin analysis I made is heavily encouraged prior reading. This analysis mainly explores her complex relationship with caring and so it’s sort of structured in two halves, with Faligon at the crux of it all.

Falin cares too little :

A lot of people assign Falin a people pleasing mindset and I… Don’t agree. We never see her care at all about people in her town or at the academy not liking her.

We do see her worrying about what people think of her… ONCE. And Laios comforted her, told her they didn’t matter and she should be proud of herself. She latched onto that hard. That’s why this scene was so important to be included during the dragon fight, relationship-defining; it’s always been them against the world. She grew to not care what others thought, to only focus on her close loved ones. No one else matters.

Laios’ words were her world. Her older brother who taught her how to feel comfortable with herself, who told her, you’re great, others are the ones in the wrong to not see that, I’ll always be with you, always be there for you. Older brother who always made great plans, who always knew more, who was better at wrestling to name the dogs, who she has always idolized. Laios who always spoke of traveling the world, to which she always said she wanted to follow. And she would, she’d follow him even if it meant leaving the academy and all she knew behind, she’d follow him to the ends of the world, and that’s what she did.

She didn’t care about showing to her classes or keeping up such appearances, she doesn’t even think of toning down her jumping into bushes when Marcille recoils, etc. She acts like an obedient pawn often, to her parent’s directives and then following Laios around no matter what he decides to do, but I don’t think the motivation is people pleasing, rather it’s being with & caring for her loved ones, and her go-with-the-flow attitude enhances the impression. Not that it’s as simple as that, mind you, but let’s talk about this for now.

Falin is perceived as selfless because we, the audience, have our perspectives revolving around the main people in her life (Laios, Marcille). They’re the ones she’s devoted to and people who care about her back a lot too, but to people like her classmates or the towspeople she probably must have seemed like someone who didn’t care about the people around her or her surroundings a lot, who just went on alone and did her own thing.

What matters to Falin? From what place does her kindness come from? Is a part of her keeping up appearances? And I think that’s the point, the horror of Faligon as well, that we can’t tell just how in control Falin the person is as the chimera (because we are shown that she’s in there, we just don’t know at what degree), that we don’t know her enough to be able to tell when she’s at her most genuine, her most raw. That even if you do settle on none of her being present as Faligon, we have to at least consider it, consider that she may be able to do something like this and have a part in it, brutal and uncaring. That even the lenses we see her through, the people who love her, may be unreliable.

And this is what’s very interesting about her too, she truly is so idealized by people around her as a saint. She’s so good and kind and caring to everyone etc etc etc. Laios, Toshiro and Marcille all see her as the paragon of goodness in the world. More cynical characters like Namari and Chilchuck have more layered opinions on her, the latter finding her somewhat unnerving because he can’t read her well. But then with that one flashback scene we see that… Her priorities are intensely focused on Laios and Marcille, she doesn’t care all that deeply about anyone other than them (+ maybe her parents). The rest of the party is in the same danger here but only Laios and Marcille who she’s speaking to get the special ,ention, and if they don’t cross her mind then of course she’d be ready to sacrifice strangers through a risky teleportation. That doesn’t make her not kind or caring!! Just that greater good isn’t exactly her priority. Any means is alright if the end result is her loved ones safe, it usually takes the form of healing and caring, but we see she’s ready to fight and make dangerous calls too. To me there’s this aspect to her that she isn’t as pure and magnanimous as everyone thinks she is, both in-world and interestingly enough meta wise as well, and there’s something interesting to that.

People pleasing implies a need to be liked, needs for the motivation to be that. A yes-man, etc. But if we analyze Falin, her general kind, smiling demeanor is more a matter of passivity I yhonk. Conflict avoidance is easier, so she’s friendly and hopefully things’ll be smooth sailing. It’s easy to be kind to classmates even if they act wary and rude if you don’t care about what they think either way. Of course she prefers good things happening to people over bad things, she is genuinely kind, but I think people tend to assign her a very grand altruistic way of life when to her the motivation is pretty self-centered. She doesn’t do what she does because she loves them, but because she loves them.

One situation that’s interesting to dig into for her way of thinking, and what I’m trying to get at, is Shuro’s proposal to her. I’ve seen people saying she hesitated because she didn’t feel comfortable saying no even though she wanted to, "I can’t say no, I don’t want to hurt him", something that sounds sensible and familiar, but it’s actually canon in the Adventurer’s Bible that the reverse was the case, that she didn’t feel comfortable saying yes. Because the offer was tempting, but it’d have been a loveless agreement on her end. And it makes sense she’d want to say yes too, like we see with the Toudens, marriage is very much a political strategical economical thing in their village, there’s even a bit on it on Laios’ Adventurer’s Bible profile about dowries, and both siblings were engaged very early. They lived poorly for a long time, it’s an enticing idea to marry rich, to have not only yours but your brother’s needs met forevermore easily, which at one point in their careers was their main worry and goal. Why shouldn’t she accept a life of leisure and wealth handed to her by a lovely friend?

So her hesitance was "yeah that’s convenient for me, but where it’s everything to him and heartfelt I’m able to be detached because I don’t care about it that much… Can I do that? I’m not reciprocating, not saying yes in the way that matters. Can I do that to him?" Very caring even though it’s not what you’d expect, isn’t it?

And central to my analysis, where I’m going with this is, I feel like that’s the thing with her character, that she doesn’t feel as strongly as she "should" sometimes, or feels a different way than she "should", or at least that she feels that way and others say she does. She didn’t mind suddenly leaving the academy, leaving Marcille behind and not seeing her for 4 years. She acted like it was no big deal that she sacrificed herself after getting resurrected after the red dragon fight. And in both those cases it upset the people around her greatly that she didn’t seem to get why it was such a big deal, didn’t seem to care about how they’d experienced her choices.

So it’s a tendency… And it’s not that she doesn’t care, it’s just that the way she measures what’s good for the ones she loves isn’t the same as what they themselves think it is (like Laios and Marcille not wanting to be apart from her). It’s an overt but quiet kind of care, it’s doing things like following them around and making sure they bathe and have a meal, even if that means she has to be dragged into misery too.

So yes she probably would know "not caring enough/the right way" is one of her perceived flaws, and that informs how she tries to handle her response to Shuro’s proposal. Her not wanting to accept like her first gut instinct, is because she’s thinking about reciprocity, about if it’d be right to go into this knowing that they have different priorities and she might not be able to keep up with the type and amount of emotions he wants/expects from her. And that’s a big part of her character isn’t it, having expectations pushed onto her. Her trying her best, but in her own way that may seem odd or even unfeeling. Not unlike when she exorcised the ghost as a kid too, unblinking and matter-of-factly, and not seeming to understand why people stared the way they did.

Even though she answered his proposal only post-canon, she’d been pondering it for a while even pre-canon and the Adventurer’s Bible explanation was released midstory, so I’m hesitant to assign her much growth about her hesitation and what I went on above, since she still didn’t react "right" with Laios after the red dragon fight (even if she apparently doesn’t remember sacrificing herself) and put herself in that situation in the first place. She hasn’t finished her arc on that flaw of hers is what I’m saying, she for sure still has it, but I certainly think her thoughts on Shuro’s proposal shows awareness, both of herself and social.

And awareness is a big analysis key word with Falin, especially here it can be hard not to conflate not caring with not knowing. How socially aware is she? It’s rather layered, because canonically she wasn’t aware of her ostracization in her hometown at all, and we’re not sure if she knew Shuro was interested in her before he proposed, but she generally seems more socially aware than Laios. She tags along on his caravan job to make sure he isn’t being mistreated (though doesn’t ask he get a salary), she catches social faux-pas more easily like in the genderbend magic mirror omake with Shuro, and interestingly enough she’s very good at empathizing with her parents and understanding their perspective. We see when she’s worried about Marcille coming that she does know about propriety and how appearances shape impressions. Being a chief’s daughter must at least have taught her a thing or two on that front.

She never stands up for herself, but when it comes to defending others she worries, strategizes and explains.

And this sort of understanding is part of why I think she’d notice the expectations pushed onto her like I was saying earlier, notice how she makes people feel when she’s careless. But if she changes anything about herself in response to noticing is for her to choose, and generally I think it’s a sort of inbetween of yes and no: that she becomes more complacent but also more reserved, complying but by hiding more of herself passively. She’s not sure wether to accept or reject Shuro’s proposal, doesn’t want to lead him on? She’ll just be taking a while to silently consider it, try to keep things as they are for the time being. The third, less conflicting option. She doesn’t feel heard by Marcille who keeps infantilizing her? Just bear with it. Retract yourself emotionally. Settle for it.

We see that when she was young she had a tendency to not read a room, and I think that’s here too. She doesn’t get why her nonchalance upset others but that doesn’t change that she doesn’t want them upset or hurt, so she tries, albeit in maybe a roundabout way. She always had a hard time deeply connecting with people, often keeping herself some amount of emotionally distant: erasing herself from the equation, from the two-way trade that relationships are and making it a onesided thing instead, where all their needs and emotions are directed towards her but she only lets out a bit of her own show. She takes everything upon her and deals with it and tries not to give others this same burden, though not on a conscious level, it’s just that she’s learned growing up that she doesn’t have much agency.

Like I went into with my analysis linked at the beginning, I think Falin is used to just taking what she can get and not asking for more, when it comes to social bonds. She’ll take spending time with her mother no matter what it is they do, she’ll follow Laios to the graveyards and stick by him even when he’s pushing her away (because he doesn’t want her borrowing his book or "No copying!" or such). Her father was always distant, cold and uncommunicative, her mother was considered sick from anxiety and the exorcism attempts were the main way they spent time together, at dinner tables there were only her and Laios. The dogs picked on her too even if she loved them— And so did the townspeople, maybe that being normal to her at home is why she didn’t notice the ostracization she suffered.

She’s always been the last to be asked about decisions or what she wants, never asked to play with at recess, neither her father or Laios asked before sending her to the academy or leaving the village. At home, in the hierarchy she was considered to be below the dogs by the dogs themselves, as someone they can disrespect. Dogs learn from example and behavior, so this means Falin must have been pushed around a lot, and that the family didn’t try hard to rectify the dogs’ misconception, likely worsened by Laios regularly wrestling with her as a competition.

So for example when Falin showed Marcille food, it was her way to implicitly ask to have lunch with her without voicing that question, without daring to take up space. Someone’s presence isn’t something you ask for, it’s something that’s bestowed upon you, you can follow them around but you can’t ask them to stay or to come with.

She’s used to her needs and wants not being listened to, so she’s learned to have less wants. Caring less about herself, caring less about other people beyond her safe zone, was a defense mechanism in part. She has a sense of learned helplessness too, like how when Marcille came to take her away from Laios, even though she didn’t want to leave with Marcille it felt so determined and unshakable to her that whatever Marcille decided Falin would have to comply with.

And still, it’s the "marrying you would be awfully convenient if it wasn’t that I’d feel guilty for not loving you back, the way you wanted me to when you proposed to me" and the "I don’t regret leaving the academy and leaving you behind without goodbyes but I’m sorry that you’re so much more upset about it than me". It’s the guilt of not loving people back the way they want to be, with the same intensity or fervor.

It’s the autism it’s the aroace of it all, it’s the emotional stunting and confusion but the pit in your stomach telling you you did something wrong again. The no object permanence even for people you love even for 4 years, it’s the feeling like you’re somehow at fault for someone having fallen for you and not knowing what to do with any of it. I’m not joking btw it isn’t uncommon for autistic people to not see their close friends for a long while, not having missed them all that much and for that to be really hurtful for the other if they notice/ask about it. "Hiii bestie! Oh umm you’re uh more emotional about this than I expected, hopefully you won’t feel alienated by me not feeling as intensely about it…"

So… Yeah. I think she thinks of things and relationships in a different way than most people, and beyond "good things happening to people is good" I don’t think she actually cares about people all that much. I’d argue that Laios shows more desire to connect with others and make relationships. And just like with Laios and his own issues with humans, that doesn’t mean her kindness is a lie or ungenuine or worthless! It just means that like, well it’s pretty straightforward really, she’s not all that social and doesn’t see casual bonds as meaning all that much and whatnot. She does want to see people happy, but it’s not as much like… A conviction or goal. She’s too laser focused on a select few people. "It’s not that they’re bad people, they just aren’t interested in humans."

And sometimes it feels like people get defensive about Falin in a meta way too, like if you ever so much as imply Marcille isn’t her whole world or that she isn’t the kindest soul out there then you’re saying she doesn’t care at all or she’s evil. And that’s actualy exactly the sort of vibe I wanted to get through with my analysis above here actually haha, that she does care and she is kind but it’s not in a way that’s quantified or understood in a way that makes people feel comfortable. In a way, that makes people feel insecure because they don’t have the same logic as her, don’t show love the same. And I think this is another stellar depiction of autism, of parts of it that feels unpalatable to many, if I’m making sense. The fandom idealizes her as well, which isn’t uncommon or surprising for the character embodying the trope of the perfect beloved to rescue.

And disclaimer, as I said in the tags I feel like the details of Falin are pretty vibe based when it comes to analysis, there’s absolutely a valid angle where she does super care about everyone always, feel free to disagree with me on the overarching angle of my analysis. There’s enough supporting evidence to tip the balance either way I think, and the reason I’ve chosen this angle is I feel it’s more compelling for the themes in Dunmeshi of idealization and being different, of desires vs wants, and because I think it neatly ties up Falin’s character arc as I’ll go over throughout the next section…

So.

Not feeling as much as she should. And……. Is this not Faligon pushed to the max?

You can’t tie down a dragon. As the chimera, she gets to just not care about everyone else and be on her merry way.

Part of it I think is finding comfort and freedom in the mindlessness, in not having the burden of feelings and connections and a consciousness (despite still ending up seeking those in a stranger, Thistle). Like when she’s dead in the purgatory as well, she gets to just… Hang around and do whatever. Similarly to when she played in the forest instead of going to class in her academy days. That’s what freedom and peace of mind looks like to her. Why she decides to roam post-canon, if only now with the goal to find herself instead, with her mind in tow and somewhere to go back home to.

There’s excellent analytic framing out there about how of course, Dungeon Meshi has a big theme of grief and letting go, and… Falin was always a symbol narratively, idealized by characters and often underconsidered by them despite their love. It was Falin’s choice to sacrifice herself for Laios, she thought it was worth it, knowing that it would be her end. Her resurrection and the process of it intertwining her soul with a dragon’s wasn’t done with her consent, and the subsequent opening it gave her to become a chimera puppet. She’s stripped of her agency consistently, and so… It’s very noteworthy that the final choice, of wether to go back to life or to stay dead, in that purgatory scene, was up to her. And she chooses life, but I do think about her in those fields and how at home she seemed there. Peaceful, by herself in a vast calm expanse she could explore, free.

Personally, I think freedom is Falin’s own subconscious selfish desire. And though to us becoming the chimera is obviously a shackle, I think it felt like freedom to her somewhat, too.

And if you think I’m going wildly off the rails here I want to talk about Laios’ wish of becoming a monster. And to be clear before getting into it, being mentally a monster is absolutely a big part of the appeal for Laios, it’s something that’s consistently referred to, something especially pointed out in the werewolf monster tidbit with Lycion. Right panel is from that, but left panel is from the extra with Izutsumi where Lycion talks about suppressing souls in a beastkin body, the human or the beast soul.

Finding comfort and freedom in being mindless, less sentient, less aware? While being unaware in her hometown might have saved Falin a lot of heartache although perhaps stunted her emotional growth, it’s always been Laios’ curse.

Actively, through his choices, he seeks to grow closer to people, to form deeper bonds, to understand and be undertood, but… On a deep seated level, what he desires is to leave humanity and civilization behind. He has an irrational hatred for humans, born from the trauma of ostracization, being different, being beaten up and rejected consistently through his life. Running away from problems is easier. He wants to be free from being a social animal from a social species who has deemed him the black sheep, he thinks it’d be simpler to just leave it all behind, people and his own humanity. At its core, to Laios becoming a monster is a power fantasy, a coping daydream of "if only I could be strong enough to never be hurt again, the power to destroy anything I want, the power to go somewhere better, if only it was possible for me to never feel hurt again. If only I could be someone, something, that can never be hurt". "If there’s someone you don’t like, you can gobble ‘em up in one bite. If you could fly, you’d be able to leave this village right now." It’s a childhood fantasy, from a deep sense of being misplaced and a desire to be able to stand fearless, thinly covering up resentment that Laios represses.

But you’ll notice, when the Winged Lion is enticing him in the last page, even now with his lifelong wish of becoming a monster on a silver plate, he still cares about his friends. He still has that sense of responsibility to his friends, doesn’t want to leave knowing they’ll be in danger and alone. The offer that his friends may be left unharmed is already good, but Laios also visibly flinches when the Winged Lion offers to specifically care after Marcille and rid her of her biggest fear. Laios’ care runs that deep. Not unlike with the succubus, he resists temptation until he gets reassured that everyone will be okay. But see, what he desires isn’t to stand alongside Marcille until her last days, it isn’t to stay and see how well his friends will live, it’s to go. It’s to leave. It’s to fly away, a monster both in body and mind. He wants to be free from caring here, wants to not have to worry about his friends, wants to just go do his own thing, but for that he needs to feel safe in the belief that said friends will be safe even without him being there to see it, because despite everything else he cares, he does. It’s again that dichotomy about caring and wishing you didn’t, or not caring and wishing you did.

In the end, it’s Falin who achieves that wish. Both by becoming a chimera during canon, and by going traveling post-canon. In the latter, being both free of human relationships as something chaining you while still being uplifted by them, by the knowledge that there are people out there you love and that love you. It’s a theme that can also be connected with Marcille, because she gets anxious over people she loves getting out of her sight, worrying they’ll get themselves killed, that time is passing while they’re away from her. But before she can get to the point where she can both have her freedom and being uplifted by her social bonds, regaining both her individuality and her connections, she has to get a taste of just one at a time. Before they can find balance in her life, she has to see what it’s like to have what she’s never had on its own. Unapologetic freedom, and power.

No one can blame you for not caring enough or caring right if you’re a fricking dragon!!!! You make the rules when you’re a beast and you can just… Fly away. From anywhere, from anything. And if a dog bites you you can just crush it. Instead of being pushed around by the dogs because you’re at the bottom of the hierarchy, you’re now at the top, the one with the power to be heard and do what you want without consequences.

I think she’s on autopilot. I think she’s on autopilot a lot of the time, even before being a chimera, and it’s partly why her will is so weak compared to regular dragons. (Again, read my shorter analysis.) It’s familiar to slip back into the role of following someone around unquestioningly. And that’s what is weaponized when she’s a chimera, that instinct she’s been nursing all her life to unconditionally support, defend and follow someone. Only now, that someone doesn’t matter in itself, only the symbol of it. She doesn’t mind, either way is fine. Her will is weak after all, because she’s trained it to take as little place as it could.

Falin cares too much

She spends all her time caring for Laios and Marcille alternating that none of her care and emotional energy is left for others, including herself. So she had to get relieved of all of that for a bit, becoming the chimera so she could reset and recenter and remember that she, too, indeed, is there and an important part of her own life.

So you’re probably seeing the duality I’m talking about here, Falin is very self-sacrificial but for specific people in ways that they often don’t recognize or appreciate. She cares but selectively, both in people, putting all her eggs in the same baskets, and in the ways she cares after them. She doesn’t care a lot, but when she does she cares a lot. Falin doesn't have a lot of earthly attachments, but when she does, they're her world.

In canon her arc, especially post-canon, is to grow beyond Marcille and Laios. Her caring for her close loved ones held her back from looking after her own self-fulfillment needs. And this is what I mean when I say she cares too much; she could gain from caring more about the world besides Laios and Marcille, both lands wise and people wise. She cares too little, but her arc centers her flaw around caring too much instead. Her pitfalls that Kui highlight over the course of the story, while of course her selflessness is appreciated for how she saved Laios and everyone, on a personal level is shown to be self-effacing and damaging. She’s undermined by Marcille, without the courage to voice her thoughts and wants, she would dedicate her whole life to Laios. And I mean, it’s text, in the response to Shuro’s proposal extra no less. And she’s so laser focused on her most loved people that she’s fine with being callous and risking others’ lives, even.

Post-canon, she needs to leave to find herself, away from them.

Herself. What if she wants to just be with herself for a while.

And this is me reaching but I feel like, not unlike Izutsumi who learns to feel this sense of never being alone, always having someone on your side what with having two souls, the dragon in her would make her consider herself more. She finds it easier to care after other people after all, and in the purgatory fields sequence she takes care to bring the bit of dragon left with her… Not unlike with Izutsumi, having two souls forces you to think about your identity and figure yourself out. Besides being this sort of duo now, where if she wants to care after herself she can channel it to that other side of her too… In meta dragons are symbols of greed, and I think the bit of dragon would push her to want more and listen more to her desires, primal and self-serving as they might be. The dragon soul which warped her human body with feathers and draconic features, her image of perfection marred, her weirdness externalized in a way that’s not palatable. But she doesn’t care, about if her appearance is palatable for most people, she hasn’t for a while now, and that’s great.

Notes & nuance

I’m struggling with the structure of this post, making my points organized, concise and strong at once. It’s difficult to make any statement without going "things are generally like this, but there’s this time that this contradicting thing happened too" or "it’s ambiguous enough that you should just follow my interpretation for the time of this analysis" haha, so this is the pit where I put all the stuff that wouldn’t fit well in other places but are interesting for Falin’s character. This section is pretty separate from the main thesis of the post, it’s just more Falin observations. The post has reached the 30 pics limit so I can’t just pull it up whenever it’s relevant but I really encourage scrolling up to read the stuff I highlighted in her Adventurer’s Bible profile if you haven’t already.

I think with the shy-looking loner type autistic kid archetype, and knowing she didn’t seem to mind others ostracizing her, it’s easy to lose sight of how she was by no means an unemotional child. In all the bits we see of her as a kid she’s bursting with energy and emotions. Canon confirms Laios leaving the village did affect her and make her lonely and she cried a lot, too. She may not be social in the traditional sense, but she was clingy with her brother, and she also never was all that shy about who she was, wearing her heart on her sleeve.And okay. Okay okay okay. Speaking of appearances. About what I said of her not caring about what people think of her, even seeming defiant with the caravan leader… There’s one istanxe of her caring actually, and it’s about how her face blushes easily. I remembered it as being because Laios’ said it and as I rambled Laios’ words are her world, but actually it’s ambiguous. It’s only Marcille imagining up this scenario where Laios says Falin looks weird because of it, there’s no evidence Laios said or thought that at any point. And on the other hand…

Her Adventurer’s Bible says: "5, Lovely Skin. She isn't particularly careful with it, but Falin's skin is fair and beautiful. Possibly as a result, her cheeks seem to flush easily. Marcille's always saying she's cute, and she secretly has a sizable complex about it." The phrasing makes me think the complex she has over her blushing might have developed because of Marcille more than Laios. "Marcille's always saying she's cute, and she secretly has a sizable complex about it." It could be related to how Marcille gets swept away and infantilizes her, calling her cute wanting her to wear cute feminine outfits etc. Again this feels like it relates to Falin’s struggle to be seen for who she is and what she wants to be seen as, her struggle to be recognized, having ideals and perspectives pushed onto her. Here Falin is insecure over her blushing implicitly because she doesn’t like being called cute over it, but that’s not how she wants people to see her. She doesn’t want Marcille to always see her as her 10 years old adorable friend. Like if your friend said you had puppy energy, it can be flattering, but it can also make you insecure.

Here’s a link to what I mentioned about her being uncomfortable wearing feminine outfits. It does seem to be more about comfort than the aesthetic perse, to me. Interestingly the shirt & shorts don’t seem like they show much more skin than her beach outfit, so maybe it’s more about the shirt and shorts being tight-fitting. Like the skirts and heels they feel stifling. Again a bit with themes of freedom and not wanting an aesthetic pushed onto her. So yes just to reiterate, I think this is more about self-affirmation and how her identity and self-image gets shown to others, rather than wishing to hide parts of her body like her blushing etc for people pleasing reasons. Makeup was a way for her to appear how she wants to and feel more confident. It was a way to take control over her own image. She didn’t keep doing it, the narrator stating the process to be ‘troublesome’. Ultimately she still prioritizes her comfort, and it was a lot of recurring efforts to go through.

And on the topic of appearances… A friend once asked me: "Does she really hide herself or not? I keep thinking about "falin is herself first and foremost" (in her Adventurer’s Bible profile) it’s just so. Hmmmmmmmm... I just keep seeing people say she hides her real self from people when I feel like the issue is more about her charitable traits straying too far into becoming flaws but people around her dont realize that..."

Imo the thing is, I don’t think she hides her identity, but I do think she suppresses her individuality for others’ sakes if that makes sense. In the way that only post-canon does she allows herself to go see what the world is like, but that’s not personality wise it’s needs and wants wise. And I do feel like that’s the closest interpretation of canon, she says it herself she doesn’t know what she wants because everything she’s done was always about Laios or Marcille, but she doesn’t change her demeanor or personality for others. But she *will*, like, not ask for things she wants directly, like sharing lunches with Marcille at the academy, she suppresses her wants, doesn’t ask things from people and doesn’t hope for more, hope for better. I don’t think we ever see her actively repress her personality, except like what, being more laidback than enthusiastic but I do feel like unlike Laios with her it’s less ‘appearing stoic to fit in more’ and more ‘yeah i’ll just chill until I’m needed or something activates my enthusiasm’. To which said friend quoted: "to feel like you belong you need to be useful. when you can’t be useful the next best thing is being convenient."

And speaking of passivity… I want to speculate about Shuro’s proposal some more. Shuro and her got along well though we don’t know how much, or how often they hung out, she even saved him from a nightmare. Why did she take so long answering Shuro’s proposal? Was it an effort to preserve or was she really just that conflicted? Procrastination probably yes, but what is the core motivation of itl Considering she ended up saying no to travel the world instead, I don’t think it was as simple as ‘she wanted to say yes for convenience’. Logically it’s what would have been best, but it’s not what she wanted for herself, but it was and still is hard for her to even know what she wants. Probably, since like she states it was a great offer and she doesn’t think she’ll get proposed to again, it’s that self-effacing tendency that yes it’d be convenient and logical, and that makes her want to say yes even if her spirit isn’t in it, because if it’s convenient then that’s more important than her feelings on the matter. Man also… Obviously Marcille is very vocal about how she shouldn’t get with Shuro, but imagine how Falin’s whole perspective on marriage must have felt when her only friend ever is a Romantic with a capital R who gushes about idealized romances and grand gestures and True Love and doing things with fully pure feelings all the time.

AND speaking of passivity!!! How much Falin is "there" as the chimera, just how much she’s master of her actions, is left ambiguous and intentionally so imo, but she’s for sure there & influencing the dragon’s action to some degree. Having a dragon’s foot on her in purgatory that keeps her from moving for sure visualizes how it must have been like, but there’s Falin calling out to her brother Laios, there’s the kind attentions towards Thistle that are so Falin-like, and most explicitly there’s the Adventurer’s Bible stating "Even after becoming a chimera, she has a soul that's as kind as ever", which I honestly dislike, a fantranslation puts it as "Even as the chimera, her caring nature remains" and either way to me it feels like confirmation that it’s her giving those berries to Thistle. Now, wether or not she has the mental capacity of a chicken or something closer to human Falin, no clue, there has to at least be some kind of mind bond between monsters and the dungeon lord, compelling or forcing them to go along with orders, or calling her to him in distress like with the fight on the first floor. But yes, it’s interesting to wonder what it is that a Falin, with her kind soul but without her human mind, would willingly do. On her profile, she’s described as Thistle’s guardian and servant. The power dynamic between the two are very interesting, I already went into how it might have felt like freedom to her while being fake so I’ll reign myself in and just mention it again. She’s still at the heel of someone, only now it’s someone who doesn’t care about her back. Going from being cared for so strongly that it’s suffocating and they would defy death and the world for you, to being devoted to someone who has not one feeling about you besides your utility as a paw . She has all this care to give and to focus onto others and he has none to send back to her and I think that’s part of it. In a way, being left with only her own feelings and a void, without expectations or feelings or ideals pushed onto her, it might have been soothing in itself, and eye opening. But yes the way I think of it, her care for Thistle isn’t unlike the care she gives the ghosts.

Interestingly, the care she extends for the ghosts is sending their soul to a peaceful death, freeing them, of life and any earthly attachment. Take that as you will with the themes of freedom and burden of life and mind, immortality and becoming a warped version of who you were, and such and such.

But going back on the topic of connections and bonds for a bit, I think academy days Falin & Marcille is super interesting bc we’ve never really see Falin form a connection besides with Marcille and even that is kept pretty ambiguous. When was the point that Falin started seeing Marcille as a friend and seeking her out? When was the "I’ll lay down my life for you" point? I’m so fascinated by how she wanted to share lunches with Marcille but never truly asked, only made little "hey want this? I found it isn’t it cool?" gestures of showing things to her… It’s the only way she knows to ask, or maybe it’s the only way she feels comfortable to. In all the scenes of young Falin and Marcille Falin seems comfortable in her friendship with Marcille, but at the same time… I think we see Falin at her most insecure around Marcille, because she really does care about Marcille and what she thinks of her so much, and while Marcille is a bit of an unstoppable force tornado style (affectionate) Falin is something of a doormat. I’d usually say showing her berries was her earnest way to connect and be like "Hey bestie look at this! :]" , but there’s a real possibility that she was self-conscious and holding herself back.

Friendship and Marcille! Involving Laios into this too but, again with the autism thing of not showing you care in ways that others understand, Marcille being very overtly affectionate and clingy was so so soo important… Marcille keeping on hanging out with Falin and caring after her, and being undeterred/unbothered by Falin not always seeming like she cares all that much back in the conventional way, as in Falin acts nonchalant and a bit like she didn’t mind wether she was there with her or not during her outings to the cave dungeon. Caring and being clingy and so affectionate despite that in such a classic Marcille way is soo needed, because so often people will get discouraged by say, their friend not keeping in contact regularly/well, seeming disaffected or as happy-go-lucky as ever even if you haven’t seen each other in a while or when they’re alone, and yes there’s potential for a strong friendship there but someone like Falin won’t be committed enough to reciprocating attention the same way… I hope I’m making sense but yes this angle in particular strongly correlates to autism. And the way Marcille always initiates physical affection, both Toudens being awkward about initiating touch because they don’t know if that’s allowed, if they’re going about the social interaction the right way, if they’re allowed to ask that out of someone…

Another fun observation to make is about the 4 years Falin and Marcille spent apart. Marcille despite being of a long-lived race treated these 4 years of separation with more gravity than Falin did. Falin brushed it off very dismissively to say the least. But then you remember that the amount of time Falin and Laios didn’t see each other after he left the village was 8 years. Double the years, double the time. And that reminder makes Falin’s actions so starkingly understandable. Of course she wouldn’t see 4 years of separation as a long time if 8 years of separation with her beloved brother is her point of comparison. Of course she’d see it as worth it to leave Marcille for 4 years if it meant ending those 8 years instead, especially if she was worried about him (the reason why she followed him into his caravan job).

A friend always says that while Falin is the center of Marcille’s world, Laios’ is at the center of Falin’s, and I tend to agree.

It’s fun to think of how her career dreams had always been shaped by Laios, even when they were kids. Of course there’s how traveling the world began as a dream they talked about and shared, but there’s how he reassures her by listing cool jobs she could do like traveling exorcist, etc. And then of course, she gave up on her magic academy and career path to follow him and do odd jobs, etc etc.

I should go into the violence of Faligon more tbh, because I think there’s an interesting parallel to how she has no problem wacking things with a mace, wether a ghost when she was a kid or a walking mushroom as an adult. Something that often surprises fans when they remember, I don’t really want to get into the whole " Falin hates violence and hates seeing people in pain to an intense degree. ‘If you die do it somewhere where I can’t see’ style’ interpretation, it has some weight but on the whole I don’t vibe with the theory she has a particular aversion to violence, she seems to be fine resorting to it as much as any other adventurer as long as it isn’t needlessly against ghosts. And Falin’s sudden mace hits are fun to me too because it’s not her becoming a berserker when the need arises as much as her becoming active because something she cares about is threatened, and that brings her out of her passivity from 99% of the rest of the time. Thistle included. Falin always could be violent, she just dislikes senseless carnage. The Shuro party vs chimera fight is a bit ambiguous on it, because you can argue she only attached after being provoked, presumably offscreen as well while the ninjas went off to fight the harpies. Falin becomes the most active when she needs to protect someone, she has no qualms doing whatever’s needed for that, wether it be leaving the academy & Marcille without notice no matter the consequences or what her parents think, or teleporting the party, etc.

I’m working on a post specifically pointing out all the differences between Falin and Laios, but yes I think both of them selfishly desire freedom in different yet similar ways. Falin’s dark secret is "Ethics and risks are optional if it means I can protect those I love" like the teleportation, and Laios’ is "Ethics and risks are optional if I can be free of all this bullshit" aka humanity aka his wish with the winged lion.

Conclusion

Flighted birds have hollow bones. With freedom and wings there comes risks and sacrifices.

Tldr: Falin doesn’t care all that much, she’s very go with the flow. For example if someone hates her she doesn’t really care because that’d require her caring about what they think of her in the first place, and she only cares about her loved ones. She smiles, but it’s more a state of being rather than out of active goodness: she’s canonically very genuinely kind, but it’s more out of a general want for pleasantness than active care itself. She’s passive, and softspoken because that’s just how she seems, but she has no problem hopping into bushes or getting heated if something calls to her enthusiasm or calls for action and a hit of the ol’ mace. Her loved ones needing tending or protective is what makes her go from passive to active. That familiar autopilot mode of making someone the center of her world and following their every move is what made her so easy to be controlled as the chimera, even ferociously defending him with her life. Faligon is most interesting to me with the theme of freedom. She’s shackled to Thistle and out of her mind, but there’s also a sense of empowerment and freedom from expectations and society. She spends all her time caring for Laios and Marcille alternating that none of her care and emotional energy is left for others, including herself. So she had to get relieved of all of that for a bit, becoming the chimera so she could reset and recenter and remember that she, too, indeed, is there and an important part of her own life. There’s a way of caring after others that can be selfish, not unlike Marcille being overly coddling and not listening to Falin. In Falin’s case, I think it was so selfless that it ended up looping back around to erasing her sense of self. In losing sight of herself, that devotion becoming neither quite selfish or selfless but a fact of life and a state of nature, muddled by its lack of direction.

She’s sooo used to never being able to ask things out of others, you get the crumbs of affection and approval that others offer to you unprompted and that’s it don’t hope for more don’t ask for more. (Also reflected in how she follows her loved ones around without complain or personal opinions and how she’s not willing to rock the boat and affirm herself in her relationships like with Marcille during canon)

Falin cares so much, so much and so laser focused on her few loved ones that it blinds her and she loses sight of everything else, she ends up neglecting herself and the rest of the world. As Kui puts it, Falin is herself first and foremost. She just had to remember the importance of that.

-

I see her as an enneagram 9, which can be surprisingly accurate and fun to research through the lense of Falin. Excerpt below from this book, but like my god, good way to put it

That’s it, ty for reading. Even if it’s a bit of a mess, hopefully you’ll have gained a thing or two from it. Falin is a character hard to pin down, but it is very gratifying when you find the way that the puzzle pieces fit together right for your own understanding of the story. Fantranslation of the shuro proposal comic by @/thatsmimi here.

Here’s my spotify playlist for her if you’d like

Sometimes love is about letting go, a lesson a lot of the cast needed to learn. Self-love’s important too, and just like with diets we need a healthy balance.

[myfairkatiecat]

not my friends being 400x less supportive about me being Christian than I am about them being atheist

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Gabriel but underneath that armour he's bird demon howl from howls moving castle

Had to look it up cause I don’t watch anime

Approved, but without the human face

[cometrose]

feeling sad…can’t find zhongli neuvillette hate sex erotica anywhere…feel like dying

[hella1975]

lately ive been crying like a tall child. etc. if you even care

[litrallytyrus]

look i literally don’t go here but i peeked into the hsmtmts tag and you’re telling me ricky showed up to visit ej at his college? isn’t that a direct parallel to troy coming to see gabriella at stanford?

i’ve never even seen any of the high school musical movies but man that just speaks even more to the caswen tragedy ….. they have a fucking romcom set up every time they’re interacting with parallels to a canon couple and then disney still wants to slip in the ‘brother’ word ……… it’s like they’re making fun of us at this point

[puthyflapps]

Not them dying to bring Sarah back and absolutely hating their characters current plotlines 🫣🫢🤭

Carmen De La Pica Morales stans rise!

[eebi-after-hours]

do NOT let Blanche get into the X-ray glasses jar!!!!!!!! /j/ref

[o-wild-west-wind]

A Biracial Reading of OFMD, ft. Iggy’s Revenge Izcourse

a.k.a. I typed out a sentence that turned into an accidental essay of meta, whoops!

Y’all…I love this fandom to pieces, but I don’t think some of you realize why not all of us love Izzy/may be critiquing him. And major disclaimer—I am in NO WAY telling anyone to stop enjoying him as a character. This is NOT an anti-Izzy post (I will go into more detail on why I in fact encourage you to keep doing so later, and to the people who are sending unsolicited hate mail to Izzy fans & haters alike: please don’t!)—I’m just tired of seeing vitriolic hate against the people writing about him as an antagonist, or critiquing his actions based on canon, or post after post of “why don’t people love Izzy like I do!!” and then aggression when people explain their honest opinions. Look: we all have our skrungly little bad guys. I get it!! I’ve got my own collection!! I too have become a consumer and enjoyer of the Izzy fanon!!! PLEASE don’t take this as an attack—I just want to provide some personal, potentially fresh context from at least one (obviously non-exhaustive) perspective for those who want to know why Izzy isn’t universally adored, and also to make a plea for a safer fandom space where we can talk about our perspectives on these fictional characters without escalating to unnecessary vitriol, especially as s2 be upon ye (bc holy shit fandom is supposed to be fun, we’re having fun and that’s an order 😤)

(Oh, and I know I’m potentially stirring the pot with this post, but this should go without saying: don’t send each other death threats. What the fuck. Nobody do this?!)

So now that the legalize is out of the way: I want to share that the reason I initially imprinted on this show—and on Ed specifically—was because I’d never seen an explicitly biracial character treated with such complexity, nuance, and grace. While our ethnic makeups are vastly different, I too am half-white & half-brown—which means we’re absolutely nothing culturally alike, but our worlds view and treat us as pretty much the same regardless. And like Ed, my dad resents my mom and my racial makeup, and is prone to what I like to call “white violence.” Not going to overshare on the internet, but let’s just say that all this compounded makes Ed feel highly relatable to me (although for legal purposes I promise I have not krakened my dad 🙃).

When I first watched the show (and honestly also until my 3rd or 4th rewatch), Izzy IMMEDIATELY made me think of my dad. He also immediately made me think of Ed’s dad. Their mannerisms, word choices, and tones of voice; the obsessive need for control; the default of violence; the gradual dehumanization until an ultimate kraken-ifying breaking point—it all read to me like an intentional parallel. A shadow of white violence following Ed around that he hasn’t been able to shake, and mirroring to him the things he fears the most, including the things he fears within himself and feels forced to become (he is half-white after all, and this is a whole other post, but tl;dr there can be a lot of baggage that comes with being half-white/half-poc in regards to grappling with your toxic relationship to that white side of yourself, and especially if your white parent was racist and/or violent). And you can claim a different reading of all of this if you want (I genuinely mean that, like I’m in favor of meta & I think it’s great to analyze these things) BUT. that does not change the fact that I felt what I felt as a result of what was portrayed on screen and combined with my lived experience. Because fictional characters are just that—fictional—and are vessels by which you can process the world; we will always bring our personal lived experiences to anything we consume, and that’s okay—that can be the point, even. Art imitates life imitates art. Interpretation is the name of the game!

(more under the cut)

So when I watch this show, it’s a helpful tool for me to process my own feelings of being victimized by the white violence that’s followed me around my whole life, as well as the ways in which I’ve rebelled against it/tried to make peace with a non-toxic version of whiteness (in parallel to the more overt theme of masculinity, which is—ding ding—inexplicably tied to whiteness and western colonialism) via chaos, love, hurt, and sometimes giving up and giving in—and in this process, Izzy is a safe target. And you know why that is? Because he’s FICTIONAL. I can feel rage towards him because he’s NOT REAL. I can better understand and process the pain I’ve felt and rarely seen societally acknowledged by watching it paralleled on screen via actors and writers who have likely also grappled with similar feelings (I mean, I genuinely have made more progress with my personal biracial trauma via this show vs. years of therapy), and if I want to assume the worst of Izzy based on my interpretation of canon to help me through this? That’s fine! Because I can’t hurt his feelings and he can’t hurt mine!! Because he’s not real!!!

And here’s why I still support the Izzy-enjoyment: I am sure that many of the people who love Izzy and defend him to the ends of the earth probably feel a similar way that I do about Ed. It’s why we get all riled up and protective of these characters, why we might take attacks on them as attacks on ourselves; recognition of the self in the form of the other, and all that. Izzy is a vessel by which to safely work through the dark feelings and the pain you’ve bottled up—and he’s a safe way to do that because he’s FICTIONAL. And that’s a beautiful thing imo!! That’s truly the beauty of art—it is what we make of it, and what we make of it helps make ourselves better. It’s good to be open to interpretation.

HOWEVER: that does not give you permission to discount my relationship to this show (as I will not discount yours), and more importantly: that does NOT give you permission to reject the notion that canonically in s1, Izzy is literally and thematically (emphasis on thematically) an antagonist who is purposefully written to cause harm that can be interpreted as a hate crime, especially to those with lived experience of homophobia/racism/ableism/bullying/etc.—and you cannot harass people about this when conversing about theories of canon. If someone sees Izzy’s dialogue as cutting, degrading, and even triggering, that’s extremely fair of them to do so—clearly Ed was written to feel it that way! Con himself has paralleled Izzy with Judas! And can interpret it all differently? Sure! But you CANNOT assume that everyone else will, and then get upset when people don’t. I can’t believe I need to spell this out about an angry white guy in a show about toxic masculinity, but if someone does not like Izzy, it is likely due to a personal history of harassment (or worse) that he is reminiscent of; by making a point to defend him to someone—even if you are well-intentioned—you are very much putting salt in a wound.

I want to take this opportunity to further emphasize some tenets of fandom in general:

you can like characters who do horrible things without needing to jump hoops to argue their morals as pure 👏

conversely, you can critique their actions and still like them (encouraged, even) 👏

you can like characters who do horrible things simply because they’re cool and hot and interesting—don’t worry, we know it’s not the same as liking people like them irl 👏

your liking a villain archetype says nothing about your own moral virtue 👏

you can like horrible characters and see reasons for why they are the way they are/view them as tragic/note sympathetic dimensions of their personality/root for them to have redemption arcs while acknowledging that said redemption arc may not have happened in canon yet and that these are implicit, not explicit, readings of canon 👏

and you can also reimagine canon and change their contexts in fan works so that they ARE morally virtuous 👏 but PLEASE just be mindful and accountable when you do this in a context where not everyone will see a character the same way as you, and where multiple of people of marginalized identities have spoken out about the harm not doing so can cause. Just be honest, sincere, and kind, listen and learn, and don’t harass people for understandably needing space from a character that symbolizes something different to them than it does to you.

Also: blocking tags or people just because they have character opinions different than yours is totally okay and does not mean anything other than “I am curating my online space to have a better time,” it’s NOT personal

And most importantly: FANDOM IS FOR FUN! This isn’t our day job! We come to fandom to decompress. Don’t ruin people’s safe spaces!!!

Like I said, I’ve grown to enjoy Izzy over time thanks to fandom and fanon, and I think it’s fantastic that fandom can have such diversity in the way it interprets canon. I can’t wait for his probable redemption arc (it will likely be a healing thing to witness for many of us) and I’m truly glad that we can all have different relationships to the same characters. But please—when some of us need Izzy to be a punching bag, just let him be a punching bag. No, it’s not homophobic and DEFINTELY not misogynistic to view him as an obstacle in Ed and Stede’s relationship (baffled by the amount of times I’ve seen this take—it’s a funny joke but if you actually think Izzy is treated the way female characters related to other mlm ships have been treated, the point is very much going whoosh). You don’t have to engage; it’s not personal. It’s not about YOUR relationship with him—it’s about MINE. Please let me feel and even discuss rage towards him when I think about episode 10. Please let me throw as many sandwiches at his head as I need to. Because I PROMISE, it won’t hurt him—because he, and none of these characters, are real; and yet we, the fans, very much are.

[cassandralexxx]

Bro just remembered why are so much of my friends opps.

today at lunch UNPROMPTED my friend was like “why don’t you have an accent like your mom” and it’s like it was so out of nowhere for no reason. And I was like wdym so she was like your mom has a Spanish accent and when I was like I don’t really notice it I don’t think it’s that strong she was like “that’s because you live with her”. that honestly had me pressed bc like first of all my moms English is amazing she is like completely fluent and has not had any problems in the OVER 20 years she has lived in this country. But also like English is my first language wdym why don’t I have an accent of someone who’s esl.

[bucketsofmonsters]

Hello, loving reading vows and wondering, would we get fluff/lemon scenes with the reader and oliver/vivian or just rook? Or would my question be spoilers?

Lol maybe it’s spoilers but I will answer anyways bc I love to talk ab my stories. There is gonna be stuff with Oliver and Viv for sure!! Viv isn’t going to have any smutty scene with reader in the main story but that’s for character reasons I’m not gonna get into right now lol

Also, I make no promises about when these are going to come out, but if you want to see more of Viv and Oliver I am planning two oneshots about how each of them came to stay with Rook and then one final part from Rooks perspective about what things are like after everything calms down with everyone there, like a little epilogue

[luxsea]

me @ me if you make your blogs desc a karlach death scene quote i’ll never forgive you

[eupheme]

— you’ve got me wanting you

[part iii of sugar, sugar] | [part ii] [masterlist]

wolverine/logan howlett x neighbor!f!reader

rated e - 7.4k

tags: jealous/posessive!logan, baker!neighbor!reader, wingman!wade, flirting, feelings, (another short) miscommunication, immature humor, light angst, use of alcohol, threat of violence, use of alcohol and smoking, semi-public sex, bathroom sex, PiV, creampie

As the days pass, you think your time spent with Logan is pretty much perfect. Well... almost.

(Or - a dash of insecurity, some badgood advice from Wade, a near-fight at a bar, and the confession of overdue feelings.)

Those two nights spent with Logan turn into more.

The days are bleeding together, blurring. You fit well with him, you think. Together in Wade's apartment - spanning that space between their chatter and silence. Softening edges, though you think he's softened, too.

A stray cat coming around. 

Bristling, with narrowed, untrusting eyes. Slowly learning that he can lean into your touch. 

Your days since have been spent humming as you work. It had been an anchor once, this routine of yours. Getting up early used to give you something to get up for. Enjoying the whirlwind of prepping, measuring, making, decorating. 

Now - you're grateful for how quickly the day passes because it means you can't overanalyze. Because it means by the time you catch your breath at the end of the day, you're already heading home to him. 

Takeout was brought over to their apartment. A crappy movie with a hand curled around you, sending your heartbeat racing. The night ending at yours, hours between dusk and dawn spent learning every inch of each other. 

You think it's pretty much perfect.

Well... almost.

“Do you think Logan likes me?”

It slips out of you. Something that’s been worrying at you, a splinter trapped just beneath your skin. You regret asking almost immediately - the sun glinting off the silver needle as you push it through the lycra suit. 

“You mean the guy that’s been fucking your brains out for the past couple weeks?”

“Wade.”

“Oh, sorry.” He lines his knife up, poking a hole in the top of his styrofoam container - coaxing the waitress from lunch to give him a ‘take-home-margarita’. A cheerful “baby knife!” as he sheathes it again,” I mean the guy that’s been having totally-chaste-and-appropriate adult sleepovers with you?”

You understand what he’s getting at. Stalling, holding up his suit - another gash sewn shut with black thread, “You sure this is okay?” 

“Mhmm,” He hums, “Gives me that bride-of-frankenstein vibe I’ve always wanted. Besides, anything is better than before.”

“You insisted, you helpless little man-baby.” Al adds, from her lounge seat, “Learn to dodge.”

Wade splutters - your lips twitching, as you work.

“See what I live with?” He gripes, “Maybe the two of you outta trade. It’d be cramped, but I bet the three of us could sardine it.”

“You wouldn’t last a week without Althea,” You snort. A beat, before you gather the courage to circle back to the topic at hand, “And besides, that’s just it. I’m not sure he wants to sleep with me." 

The summer breeze feels better up here, on the roof. The whip of the wind cooling you, as you work your way across the once-again battered suit - propped up against the brick parapet. 

“Okay, time out. Missing link here.” Wade gives you a sideways look, before his head pivots, "You cannot hit me with this fake virginal act when I literally heard you two fuck an hour after you met."

A beat, "And like, pretty much every day since then. I think I even heard a howl last night-"

Your eyes roll, "Wade. He’s not a werewolf, he did not howl-"

"Well, not anymore.” Wade smirks, “And funny that you assume I meant the Moan Wolf, but I could have meant you-"

You groan, head cradled in your hands, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, we'll keep it down. It's just-"

It’s just you’ve been here before - this liminal space between an excellent physical connection, and more. You've done the hookup thing - casual, friends-with-benefits, lonely strangers. Thought you had learned how to keep your emotions in check, especially with those past experiences.

But you’ve never met someone like Logan before. 

He makes you feel bare. Soft-hearted and stripped down - wearing your feelings on your sleeve. Opening yourself up - only for your fingers to brush up against a brick wall, in return. 

Wade must catch your tone because he sets down the styrofoam container - the pink umbrella tucked against his ear. 

"Alright Sugarbuns, tell Papa Bear what's bothering you." 

You grimace at the names, another flicker of regret lingering in the corners of your mind. But you find yourself talking. Letting those worries flow from you in a rush.  

But Wade would know, wouldn't he? It's his friend, after all. 

"He leaves after."

His eyebrows raise, and you continue, "I mean, he'll stay for a bit but he always winds up on the couch by morning.  I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and he’s out there. I mean, I thought he'd want a bed, after where he's been staying, no offense-"

Thought he’d want to stay with you. 

You nudged at it once. Getting nothing more than a grumbled excuse about not sleeping well, something about nightmares. Something you accepted, only to find him tucked in your bed a few days later - curled in your sheets when you had rushed back to the apartment after leaving your phone. 

Hadn’t wanted to push, even if it confused you. Wouldn’t he want comfort, after a bad dream? You always did. 

"Offense taken, Blind Al and I are excellent bedmates," Wade interrupts, "But please, continue."

His joke eases you a little. Risking a sideways glance, finding him already looking at you.

“I like him, Wade. I just really want this to work out.”

He hums, sympathetically. Knowing all too well the complexities of like and love. How you feel deeper than you’re letting on - he always was perceptive, after all. 

A beat, before your head turns. 

"Do you think it's me?" 

He does laugh then, his shoulder leaning to bump yours, "Sugar, you have a two-hundred-year-old boyfriend who's gone through a massive amount of trauma and has an alcohol problem, and you want to know if it's you?"

"Fuck." The heels of your palms press into your eyes, "Okay, okay-"

"I literally traveled through the void with him, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles-style. The John Candy to my Steve Martin, and even after saving the world he still wanted to kill me."

"Wait," Your head lifts, "Why would you be Steve Martin in that scenario?"

“He’s the main character, as am I.” He barrels past your question, "The point is, if he didn't like you, you'd know. You just need to be-"

"Patient." You finish, "Yeah, I know." 

And you do know. Even since that first meeting, you've known that he's been eaten up inside. Cracks of the man beneath leaking through his gruff exterior, as you had sat together on that couch. 

But Wade called him your boyfriend, but he's not. Not really - no conversation to indicate that's how he saw himself. 

It just left you confused. Vulnerable. Enough that you did dumb shit like this - going to Wade for romantic advice. The man who proposed with a ring pop and thought that a prostate orgasm was a sign of being soulmates. 

"Maybe you’re giving him too much. Withhold a little," Al interrupts, making you jump, "That's what landed me my second husband. Begged for it like a dog, and was married the next month. God rest his soul."

Wade mouths an exaggerated “what the FUCK" at you, before shooting a dark look in her direction - only just then seeing her smirk.

"Oh, you’re joking? She came to us for help and you’re joking-” A sniff, as Wade turns back, "So anyways, don’t do that. Do something normal. Like internalize it, until it makes you snap."

His face screws up, as he adds, “Or, maybe try it? That bricked me up a bit-”

"Or,” Al adds, “Maybe you should just talk to him, Sugar."

Althea always knew how to cut to the chase and give the hard advice you needed to hear. You just wish you weren’t afraid of the answer.

‘You’re both right,” Your head dips against Wade's shoulder, “I owe you. Again.”

Silence lingering, though it’s not uncomfortable. Leaving you to think about what he said.

The suit passed over to him, when you tie the final knot, “Done.”

“Thanks,” A beat passes, as he gives you a sideways look, “Any chance you want to cash in on that favor tonight?”

You know better than to agree without more info - an eyebrow raising as you wait.

“Vanessa is coming over tonight.” Wade gives you a meaningful look, “It would be great to have the apartment to ourselves for a bit.”

The serious tone does not last, as he smirks, “I fully intend to break my months of celibacy the second the opportunity arises.”

“Months?” You hadn’t realized it had been that long. Thought he would have moved on, in some ways. 

“Years, actually,” He adds, casually, “Turns out my obvious romantic hangups plus this-”

A gesture at his face,” Are a total boner-killer. As well as having an elderly roommate, apparently. Especially one who won’t leave.”

You shoot him a sharp look at the self-deprecation, Al’s voice cutting through.

“I told you, I’m hitting the casino for singles night.”

“Okay. I can drop Al off and pick her up,” Your mind is already racing ahead, “And Logan and I can go out to dinner or something.”

The prospect is exciting. Despite the time spent together, you haven’t really gone on too many dates yet. After your long hours and his rotating work schedule, your meetings have mostly been late-night. Quick meals whipped up in your kitchen. A rotating pile of delivery menus. 

“That would be great.” He smiles, “Thanks, Sugar.”

“Of course.” You smile, before adding, “What are you going to make?” 

A frown, when he hesitates.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to wing it.”

“I wasn’t winging it,” He protests, “I was going to hit up ol’ reliable.”

“For a second-first date? You can’t do takeout from Buns and Roses.”

A sigh, as you turn to face him, tugging out your phone, “You should make something nice. I have this recipe bookmarked for engagement roast chicken. I’ll help you-”

He tugs your phone out of your hand, scrolling through the eight-paragraph opener before the start of the recipe. 

“Make this for her, show her you’re serious-,” You start.

Wade finishes, with a smile. 

“-and there’ll be a cock ring on it before midnight.”

You keep catching yourself looking at him.

It’s almost embarrassing how bad you have it. Still not used to seeing Logan like this - away from your small apartment. 

Seeing him at work was different - a very cognizant realization that you were on the clock. The counter between you like a barrier, even when you slip a coffee and pastry across it. A lightning-quick kiss pressed into his cheek. The relentless teasing from your coworkers, after. 

But here - crammed in a booth, his hand slipping just under the hem of your dress, a palm curved against your thigh - it’s something else, entirely. Even in this dark corner, you have to resist letting your hands wander. Eyes flicking to the deep cut of his button-down flannel - dark hair peeking out from the curve of his white tank. The blue and grey pattern pretty against his skin. 

A curl of smoke pours from his lips, a cigar fit between two fingers. 

Logan had been curious to find you in the apartment when he got home. The aroma of the roast chicken wafting through the space, as you talked Wade through the last steps. The slow sweep of his eyes over the pretty sundress you wore, tugged from the back of your closet. 

It hadn’t taken much convincing, when you asked him to get dinner out with you. Even with Althea in tow, safely dropped off for her night out. 

“This is nice.” You smile, and his eyebrow lifts.

A glance around the room.

Dinner spent at a local pizza joint - stories shared, wound between updates about his new job at the local lumber company. About Laura, who you met two weeks ago. So much like Logan that it still catches you off-guard. Shared expressions, shared tempers. 

You think that it must have been hard for both of them, this reunion. That comparison between the Logan in this world, those memories that stay with her. She views him the same - even you can see that. He’s told you it came as a shock, but it’s easy to see how he’s warmed, with time. Finding joy, within the shared grief.

The conversations spill over into a bar you know well. Unsure what to do with yourselves with the order of “staying away”, the sun still setting when you had stepped inside.

“Not sure nice is the word I’d use, sweetheart.”

“Anywhere is nice if I’m with you. I am sorry, though. I know it’s not-” Your hand waves, shyness creeping in as you lean into his shoulder, “Wasn’t sure where else to kill some time. Dopinder and Buck run a tight ship, it’s really not so bad.”

“Mm. Guess this is nice, then.” He corrects, a hint of a dimple as he smiles, “But you let me take you somewhere safer next time, yeah?”

“I’m safe with you.” 

You miss the way he looks at you, as you take a sip of your drink. The brush of his fingers against your skin. His voice going low, goosebumps rising as he murmurs in your ear. 

“How much longer do we have to stay out?”

A question that’s been on your mind as well. 

“Well, Al’s thing is over at ten,” Your teeth worry at your lip, “But, I guess we could sneak back early. It’s just, Wade-”

“What about Wade?” 

It’s unfair, how he crowds you in the booth. Torso twisting to face you. The warmth of his hand - how you’re aware of each and every movement he makes. It takes you a moment to answer.

“Wade is… Wade,” You manage, “But he doesn’t really ask for much. I owe him, you know?”

“You owe him?” He chuckles, “He’s lucky you stuck around after he tried to give you cocaine-”

“Hey,” You smile, “That was Al.”

That had been your second run-in with your neighbors. Only desperation had sent you over to the apartment, needing a cup of powdered sugar for a personal favor. Under-estimating how much you needed, in your rush to finish some cookies for a friend’s baby shower. 

Meeting Al instead. The powdered substance swapped when her roommate had rearranged the apartment as a prank. Only Wade bursting from the bathroom, a towel slung low from his hips, had saved you from disaster. The nickname had formed when you hadn’t written them both off. 

“And besides, Wade was the one who introduced me to you.”

Logan’s expression softens, “That is something, isn’t it?”

He holds your gaze for a long moment. Eyes drifting lazily down to your lips, with a low hum, then further. It sends a heat blooming in your cheeks, an unconscious press of your thighs together.

“I’m, um, gonna let Dopinder know we’re heading out.” You breathe, “He’ll worry if we irish goodbye.”

“You sure?” He husks, with another exhale of smoke - and you can feel the heat rising from your cheeks to your ears. 

“Yes,” It comes out breathy.

“Um, yeah. You finish that, and I’ll be right back.”

Your elbows pressing into the sticky bartop as you wait - watching Dopinder work his way through pouring pints of beer for a crowd of bikers, all in dark leather.

A glance over your shoulder, finding the booth tucked in the corner. The dark head of hair, the expanse of his shoulders - a thick arm slung across the back - as Logan waits for you. 

It makes you smile, and you almost miss the bump of a shoulder against yours.

“Oh!” You squeak, shifting to the side to make room, “I’m so sorry, I-”

The apology dies on your tongue, as you glance up at the man leaning against the wooden post at the end of the bar. Eyes drifting over the black field jacket, up to dark eyes. 

“Been a while, darlin’.” 

You inhale a breath, in surprise. Close to two years ago, if you remember right. Numerous meetings spread out over months, before he slipped out of your fire escape and into the early morning.

No note, no text. Walking out just as suddenly as he had appeared.

It had never been anything serious - he had made that clear - but you can’t pretend that it hadn’t hurt. 

“It has,” You agree, a low twist in your belly, “How have you been? Didn’t think I’d see you outside Hell’s Kitchen.”

Unable to help that flicker of worry, even after everything. It’s always been ingrained in you - thinking of others more than yourself. 

“Should ask you the same,” His eyebrow arches, “This isn’t your kind of place. Taking up mercenary work, beautiful?”

“I’m here with someone.” It comes out clipped, a glance over your shoulder - the nerves eased when you spot his form.   

“Mountain man?” 

A scoff - lip curling over sharp teeth, “Taking you to a place like this… You can do better than that. You can do-”

“You?” It’s your turn for your brow to raise, “We both know how that goes, Frankie. This-”

A pointed finger, gesturing around the room, “Was my idea. Things are different. I’m different.”

There’s the hint of a smirk - dark eyes that drag slowly down. Flicking back up to yours, as his voice pitches low, “I’m sure some things are the same.”

Your head shakes, “Not like that.”

There are lingering shades of purple that fade to yellow across his cheekbone. Never was good with this. All that time spent glancing out your window, waiting for him to show up, battered and bloody like he used to. All he did was keep you out, keep you at arm’s length.

Maybe that’s why you’re afraid of it happening again. A little shake of your head - a reminder that you need to be patient like Wade said. Logan isn’t him.

“I know what I want, and it’s-” The words die, as you look for him, again. Finding only an empty booth - your stomach tying up into knots. 

A palm touches at your hip, a chest pressing snugly against your back. Startling you, as you breathe, “Logan.”

“This asshole bothering you, sweetheart?” It’s growled out, Logan’s eyes fixed on the other man. 

“Nice guard dog.” There’s an amused appraisal - narrowed eyes, tongue trapped against teeth. “He do tricks as well?

The fingers at your hip curl, the smallest tug backward to bring you closer. The words ground out between bared teeth.

“You watch it.”

Christ. This was bad, you need to find your tongue - and quickly. 

You twist, a hand resting on his chest. Only now does Logan’s eyes drop to yours, the tight pull to his features only just ebbing.

“This is Logan,” You smile, your palm pressing over his heart, “He’s, uh, my-”

And for a brief second, your words fail you. The tension is thick enough to cut, acrid in the air. Would labeling this right now send him running? 

The man cuts through before you can finish.

“Frank Castle.” His eyes flick back to yours, as he adds, “Sure you can guess how we know each other.”

The muscles beneath your palm twitch. A light pressure against your hip, urging you away from the bar - the words low in your ear, “Alright. Let’s go.”

A nod, and you’re giving Frank a tight smile - letting Logan guide you towards the back. No more than a step taken before his voice cuts through.

“You still got my number?”

You shoot him an exasperated look, “Frank-”

“Gonna be back in town for a while, baby girl.” His arms cross, as he leans, “Call me when things don’t work out.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before a fist closes around the collar of his jacket. Logan stepping into his space, a forearm shoving Frank hard as he pins him against the post.

“I’ve had enough of your bullshit, bub.”

Fights are common in Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children, but you can’t say you’ve ever experienced one. Fear licks inside you, meeting Dopinder’s equally worried gaze as he starts to rush over.

Frank’s smile is dark, “You don’t want to start this.”

It’s met with a growl. Silver points peeking between the dips of Logan’s knuckles, the fabric straining in his tight grip.

“Fucking try me, you piece of shit.”

There’s a metallic click - the press of something cold against Logan’s groin. 

“Should shoot your dick off for that.” 

“Okay!” You shove between them, then. A hand on Logan’s arm, tugging - the other at his neck, trying to guide him back to you. 

“Hey. It’s okay,” It’s softer now, soothing, “Baby, let’s go.”

His hazel eyes are wild when they find yours. Face twisted in a snarl, deepened with the shadows cast in the dim room. Blinking, as he comes back to himself. A dark look as his arm eases - stepping away.

This time, it’s you that leads him towards the back exit. Something gritted out as you leave that you miss, but sends Logan bristling. An apologetic look thrown at Dopinder, before you’re stepping together through the swinging door, into the wood-paneled hallway. 

Ducking down one of the hallways, next to matching doors leading to bathrooms, and a storage closet. An exit sign, gleaming red at the end. 

The music and voices are muffled. His face silhouetted in the light of a vintage beer sign, his features outlined in gold as his back presses against the wall. A gritted, inhaled breath.

You haven’t seen him like this before. Seen him mad several times. Grouchy and annoyed with Wade. The sharp temper that hid his hurt when he thought you didn’t want him.

None of those moments match him now. You’re not sure what to make of it - the way your skin prickles. Something in your belly flutters, a warmth that drips from behind your ribs, settling low. You never wanted anyone to get hurt. But that look in his eyes, how quick we was to find you - it makes you inhale a breath.

“We-,” You start - your fingers still curled around his bicep, “We should talk about this. You okay, Logan?”

His eyes flick to yours, jaw working. The fury has bled from them, the sharp etches in his face easing, even as his expression stays guarded. 

“Yeah. ‘m fine.” Logan rasps, “Didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

A beat, before it slips from him, “Was he one of the ones Wade scared away?”

“What?” It takes you a long moment to remember. Your brow pinching, as you shake your head,” Frank? No. It was-”

The pull of his brow is back, his frown deepening with your explanation. 

“It was just casual.” You finish, lamely, “It wasn’t anything. Never was.”

“Didn’t sound that way.” It’s gritted out. 

His head turns, eye contact dropping. A hand, raking through his hair - pushing the dark strands back, “Listen. If you want to go with him, it’s fine.”

You’re left stunned for a moment. His jaw working, hands jamming into his pockets. It’s defensive - it’s familiar. 

“I don’t want to go with him-” You start, but it only makes him sigh. 

“Then what were you gonna say, Sugar?” The look he finally gives you is searching, “I’m your, what-, your neighbor?”

“No!” You cry, “I was going to say you’re my boyfriend, but you’ve never-”

Logan’s pitches low, “I’ve never what?”

Your shoulders droop. Curling around yourself, as you lean into the wall next to him. He leans, matching your height - trying to catch your eyes. 

“I don’t know, Logan.” It’s almost too quiet to hear. He might have, if he had been anyone else. “I told you I liked you the day after meeting you. But you…”

A little shake of your head, “You keep everything so close to your chest. You leave in the night. It’s okay, I just… sometimes I don’t know what to think.”

When his arms cross this time, there’s something in his eyes. A dark glimmer, the tug of his lips.

“You think that I don’t like you, sweetheart?”

A tilt of his head, a sharp edge slipping into his tone, “You think I wasn’t ready to tear that asshole limb from limb for talking to my girl that way?”

Something low in your belly twists, desire thrumming in an echo that radiates through you. A sharp inhale of breath at his words.

“I didn’t know you felt that way.” You manage, transfixed.

It’s easier, this time, for him to step into you. Hands ghosting along your neck. Tipping your face to his, so you can’t look away. Can’t miss what he tells you.

“If-, if I open up.” It comes out hushed, his words soft and low, “You won’t like what you see, Sugar.” 

You reach for him - fingers curling around his wrists, “I like what I see just fine.”

He huffs. The barest hint of a smile, before his expression goes solemn. 

“This,” The word is punctuated by the way his thumb sweeps against your cheek, “Never goes well for me. Sleeping on the couch puts me between you and anything coming through that door.”

Your pulse races with the remorse in his words. He’s touched on the barest of details of his past. Those small moments shared in the night you met, riddled confessions in the late nights that have followed. 

“And the things I dream about-,” His eyes go hazy - lost in a memory, “They pull me back. I don’t want to hurt you because I can’t tell them from reality.”

The words slip from you automatically, without thought. Guilt floods through you, an ache from wondering - doubting. 

“You won’t hurt me.” 

“I will.” He breathes, “Sweetheart, I will. It’s not an if, it’s a when.”

Your head shakes - a stubborn set of your jaw, “You won’t. Please don’t shut me out, Logan. Please try…”

He huffs - eyes dropping to your mouth, as he leans. Hands slipping to cup your head, angle you to meet the press of his lips. A soft sigh that you swallow, something tender in the way he draws you to him. A hand curling around your back, splaying between your shoulder blades.

“Give me some time, okay?” Logan murmurs, when the kiss breaks, “Let me draw out the first good thing I’ve had in a long time. Just for a little longer.”

“Don’t have to draw it out.” Your body still curves to his, anchoring yourself to him. A hand touching his jaw so this time, his eyes have to stay on you.

“You deserve good things, Logan.” Your mouth brushes his, “Let me give them to you.”

The sound he makes is almost wounded, as if he wants to protest. 

As if he wants to believe you.

Breath ragged, as his hands trace down to grip at your hips. Leaning into you, your touch. What you offer him. A thigh fitting between yours, nudging against your core - and you think surely he must see how your eyes darken.

The rapid flutter of your heart, how it races for him and only him.

“Yeah?” He husks, as if reading your mind, “You ready to get out of here, Sugar?”

“Bathroom.” You breathe.

“Can’t wait that long.”

He’s on you the second the door swings shut. Fingers twisting at the lock, as his head dips - mouth finding yours again.

There’s a desperation to his kiss this time. One that you match with the way your palms trace up his chest. Fingertips at his neck, tugging him to meet you.

A thrill shoots up your spine. You’ve never done anything quite like this before. The space behind your ribs is soft and tender from his confession - already breathless before he deepens the kiss.

Backing you up against the old, chipped vanity that lines the wall. The stalls hanging open - empty as his hands trail down your spine. Fitting beneath the curve of your ass, tugging you up to fit on the counter. 

Finding your jaw again - guiding your lips to his, meeting the sweep of your tongue as he fits between your thighs. 

“Been wanting to get my hands on you all night.” He breathes, against your lips, “So fucking pretty, you know that?”

It sends a pulse through you, down to where you’re already responding to his touch. Your knees close around his hips, urging him closer. 

“Logan, please,” You hum, fingers tugging at his belt buckle. A palm pressing against the front of his jeans, where his cock strains against the denim. 

His moan is ragged, bucking into your touch. Fingers tracing up your waist. Letting your tits fill his palm, as you work him free.

“This okay?” Logan rasps, eyes half-lidded, “Pretty fuckin’ filthy, sweetheart.”

It’s hard to hold back a moan of assent, when his lips presses against your neck. Open-mouthed kisses up the column of your throat, the scrape of teeth pressing into your jugular.

“Good,” He growls against your skin, “Would’ve bent you over that fucking bar if you’d let me.”

It’s possessive. It makes you shiver - a sweep of his tongue, the suck of lips as he marks you. The sharp sting of his bite fading into sweet bliss. 

“Need you.” Your fingers wrap around his cock, stroking. The lightest of tugs to bring him closer, your thighs inching further apart.

He groans, “You have me.”

The pretty dress you wear is pushed up to your waist. His palm cupping you, feeling your warmth before he’s tugging the fabric of your panties to the side. 

Need rushes through you. A heave of your chest against his as your mouth meets his, greedy. A tilt of your hips, a leg lifting to hitch around his waist. Your hand curling around the edge of the counter, the other guiding the tip of his cock against your slick folds.

“Hold on, honey.” Logan’s fingers slip against your pussy, nudging inside, “Gonna be sore.”

“I can take it,” You insist, pleading, “I can take you, wanna feel it.”

His eyes darken. A little inhale of breath, watching as your lips part as two fingers press deep. Your teeth already sink into your bottom lip, muffling a whine.

Slipping them free, after crooking inside you. Wrapping his hand around his cock, a rough stroke to smear your slick around him. Lining the tip up with your opening, as his hands fit against your waist. His hips pressed snugly against the chipped counter, as he begins to tug you to meet him. 

You can feel every inch, as he moves you. He splits you open, your shoulders arching against the dirty mirror as your nails bite into the laminate. A hand pressed against his chest, as you urge him to go slow. 

A held breath coming in a rush, as he slips deeper inside you with a grunt. Filling that ache you’ve been carrying - your eyes dropping down to watch the slick shine of his cock. Sinking into you with the slow saw of his hips, a clink of his belt with movement. 

“Just for me, yeah?” He rasps, a hand drifting down. Fingers splitting where he fills you, drawing slick tips up to circle your clit.

“Just you.” You nod, breathless. Rocking into his touch, taking more as you adjust to the weight of him inside you. 

His teeth flash white, in the dim room.

“That’s my girl.”

The moan you’ve been holding back slips from you, as you clench down hard around him.

He hums, “You like that?”

“Yes.” You whine. Reaching for him, as he tugs you closer. The slow plunge of his hips turning into a shallow grind.

Fingers circling and pressing, in rhythm with the heady drag of his cock against your walls. Your fingers grasping onto his arms, his shoulders - the kiss is messy when he meets the tilt of your head. 

Leaning into you as his tongue licks into the cup of your mouth, your tits pressed up against his chest. A broad hand slipping from your waist, curving against the swell of your ass and squeezing.

“That’s it,” He rumbles against your mouth - eyes half-lidded. A groan when you nip his lower lip - grinning at the way you gasp, when his hips surge forward, “Atta girl, taking me so well.”

Each swipe against your clit feels like a countdown - hips angling until he finds that spot inside you that makes your teeth click together. That slickens him up even further, until he’s pounding into your wet, tight heat. 

Your fingers pinch down. Breath going short, until you’re panting. Unable to do more than buck into his touch, as the pleasure threatens to overwhelm you.

“Couldn’t even wait to get home,” Logan growls, “Needed this cock so badly, didn’t you?”

“Needed you,” You whine, hips rocking to meet his. Eyes fluttering shut, as the winding pressure builds, “Fuck, needed you. Gonna make me-”

The words break on a bitten-back whimper. Your muscles go stiff, bracing yourself in his arms. 

“Want you to look at me, sweetheart.” He coos, with that steady roll of his hips. Nudging deep inside you each time, as his fingers circle against your clit, “Eyes on me when you come, alright?”

Your answer is a breathless nod, as you listen. 

You don’t think you could look away if you tried. Not with him right in front of you. So close you can see the pull of his brow in concentration, the pretty shade of his eyes. 

Fixed on you, as his lips part. The soft pant and grunt as desire throbs in your veins, your fingers curling into a fist in his flannel.

“Come for me, baby.” He urges, “Wanna feel you, let me fucking feel you come.”

It’s there, swirling inside you. Liquid heat between your thighs, yanking you to an invisible edge. Leaving you to dangle, breath held -

“Oh my god, Logan-“

You’re falling - clenching down hard around him. His name is a chanted prayer as he fucks you through it - a ragged, pleased sound rumbling in this throat as you pulse around his cock. The slap of his hips growing louder, more wet as your release coats his cock. His base and balls sticky, when they press flush to your cunt.

“That’s it,” He growls. Fingers leaving your clit, so he can grip your waist. Drive into you harder, chasing his own impending release.

“Come on, that’s my girl.”

It’s pulled from you, sweet and smooth.

“Yours.”

Logan’s moan is ragged, coming from low in his chest. His pace stutters - the steady thrust turning sloppy. A messy rut of his hips, grinding himself as deep as he can before he finds himself again. 

You forget the dingy bar. The flickering overhead lights. Filth and phone numbers scrawled on the walls. Everything narrows down to him.

How he holds you. Looks at you -  so much said in the way they soften. You don’t know how you ever could have doubted. 

Blinded with uncertainty. Fears from before, that will no longer have a hold on you. 

“Logan,” You sigh, your heel digging into the curve of his ass. Eyes still on his, as your plea slips from you, “Fuck. Don’t pull out.”

You want to feel him. The throb of his cock when he comes deep inside you. How he lingers, slick and dripping from you - now, and later, and tomorrow. 

A gritted-out groan, as the sharp tempo increases. Fingers pinching hard enough to bruise, and you’ll wear him there, too - fading marks against your hips. 

“Yeah?” Logan husks - that look back in his eyes. Pupils blown wide, as his lips part with a groan, “Gonna be my good girl, gonna fucking take it?”

“Mhm,” It pitches high, as you nod. 

“Fuck.”

It comes out choked, as he loses himself in you. One, two, three thrusts, and Logan is growling - hands slipping down to tug you flush against him, as he spills inside you with a muffled shout. 

Hips grinding himself deep into you, his words a rough rasp in your ear, “Take it. Just like that.”

He pulses inside you, filling you with each twitch of his cock. Marking you fully, as he tests his teeth against your shoulder. A moan, as your thighs hitch around his hips - nudging him deep, where you’re wet and warm and wrapped around him.

Leaving him to grind every last drop into you, slumping back when his grip finally loosens. Your limbs feel like liquid lead, head tipped back against the glass. A groan muffled against your neck, as your fingers slip beneath the tugged-open flannel.

Nails scratching along his back, the tight muscles beneath easing.

“Boyfriend, huh?” Logan hums when he finally leans back - and you already miss his hands on you, as they shift to brace against the counter.

It feels cruel that he teases you like this. When you swear you can still feel the throb of his cock inside you. When he’s still sheathed to the hilt.

You groan, “Don’t make fun of me, Logan.”

“‘m not sweetheart,” He huffs, eyes going soft.

“I’ll be anything you want me to be.”

There’s something off about your apartment - he can sense it the moment they make it to the landing. 

This is exactly what he had been trying to tell you. The when, not if, something will go wrong. His senses flickering into overdrive, nostrils flaring. 

Catching the light that creeps from under the door, when he knows you clicked it off. His hand automatically leaves yours, reaching out to tuck you safely behind him.

“Logan?” There’s confusion in your voice, a hand at his shoulder.

He shushes you, his words a low growl.

“Someone’s in your apartment. Stay here, sweetheart.”

There’s the soft snick of his claws, your fingers untwisting from his shirt. A breath, and then his hand is closing around the knob - a sharp jerk of his fist as his shoulder slams into the wood.

Teeth bared, as he bursts into your apartment with a snarl. 

All that fury bleeds to relief, and then disappointment.

“How’d you get in here?” Logan grits, his claws sheathing. 

Your voice joins his, from where you had peeked around the doorframe, “You okay, Wade?”

Hazy, morose eyes peer back at him - a hand lifting to wiggle “baby knife” at him. A newly-opened bottle of your cooking sherry in the other - a plate balanced on his chest, filled with a half-eaten chicken breast and vegetables. Legs stretched out on your sofa, Dogpool curled between his ankles. 

“She didn’t show,” Wade mutters, with a miserable smile, “Didn’t want to be alone.”

Logan can’t help the soft flicker in his chest when you go to him. Sinking to your knees by the couch - moving the plate to the coffee table, lifting Dogpool into your arms. She licks your chin as Wade lets loose a long, drawn-out sigh - flipping to face the back of the couch. 

"What was the point of the first two movies?" The words are muffled into the fabric, "Why would Disney do something like this? We were picking out baby names for fuck’s sake-"

“I’m so sorry,” You soothe - a hand on his back, “What can I do to help? Can I get you anything?”

Wade’s head turns to the side, with a long sigh.

“Thor’s phone number.”

“How about I take this,” You tug at the bottle, until it loosens, “And I text Peter? We can have a movie night, okay?”

He turns further, until he’s facing you again, “Even that one you hate?”

"Don’t hate it." You sigh, “It’s just so sad. I don’t know why it’s your favorite.”

“It’s not my fault they made that tree star look so goddamn delicious.”

You’re beckoning Logan over, a gesture to take his place. You hand on his arm, beseeching - but you don’t have to beg this time. The snarling dog inside him calmed - the fury from the bar and from the hallway ebbing at your touch. He can still feel your lips against his, when his eyes close.

The uncomfortable itch of opening up oneself still lingers, but it’s soothed by the way you smile at him in thanks. By the words that he still clings to.  

Logan has to fold himself into the space, knees folding. Mary Puppins tucked in the crook of his elbow - his other hand patting against a curved-in shoulder. 

Sincerity, as he offers, "Tough luck, bub.”

“It’s her loss.” You call, thumbs tapping away a message. 

“Her loss.” Logan echos, “You’re… you’re a good man, Wade. It’ll work out.”

It comes out clumsy. It always does - he never had a silver tongue like the Professor did. His edges as sharp as his claws, never one to waste words if his fist could do the job. 

Wade flips back over. The hint of a smile, “That’s the second nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Before his eyes are flicking over to where you pace, voice lowering.

“And I gotta ask, did you maul Sugar? What is with that mark on her neck?”

Logan huffs, lips twitching.  

“We’re all set,” You smile, “Your Emotional Support Peter is on his way. He’s bringing Al and some ice cream.”

A glance his way, the question written so plainly in your eyes - the lift of your brow. “That okay?”

It’s not the way he imagined this night going.

Had thought he’d take you to bed when he got back. Take things slower, this time.

Using his touch and the greedy press of his mouth to make sure you understand that he heard every word you told him. That he meant each one he said back - make sure you never made the mistake of thinking he didn’t care for you again.

But when he looks at you - how you’re ready to sweep into the kitchen to make some popcorn, he thinks-

That he might just prefer this. Even as messy as it is. 

He smiles back. 

The couch is crammed with far too many people. Five squeezing into a space meant for three at best. You’ve been half perched on his lap all night, his arm slung over your shoulder - tempted to pull you the rest of the way.

A couple months ago, his skin would have crawled to be this close to others. Would have peeled himself away with a scathing word and a sharper bite.  

But something softened him, during his time in this world. Days, to weeks, to months. 

Couldn’t go back, he knows that now. All the wishing and TVA TemPads couldn’t undo what was done - he’s known that for a while. It would take a long time, but he could try to come to terms with what happened. Try to do better, moving forward.

Starting with himself. A scrap of paper - snatched from a bottom of a flier with a brightly-printed 12-step program, shoved deep into his leather jacket pocket. Relearning how to be patient with others, and even more so with himself. Trying to listen what you and Wade told him.

He’s done walking away from things. You make him believe that whenever, if ever, he manages to open that tightly-sealed lid… you’ll stay.

The thought is one that he'll cling to.

“Alright. Enough bullshit.”  

It’s announced, as the credits roll - breaking him out of his thoughts. A creak of the couch as Wade shifts - crammed between you and Al, his head twisting on her shoulder to peer over his way. 

“‘m being serious now.” He insists, though the words slur together - the bottle stolen back during the movie and drained, “I’m so happy my two besties are falling in love, even if I am a jealous little bitch.”

A gasp, as he remembers - a reaching over to pat Peter’s shoulder, “Not that I’m forgetting about you, sugar bear. You too, Blind Al. I’d be just as happy if you two were dating. It'd be like a less fucked-up Harold and Maude."

A derisive snort from Al. 

Peter smiles, “Just happy to be here, pal.”

“Anyways, life sucks balls. Big, fat, sloppy, wet, balls, but goddamn if seeing you two happy doesn’t fill me with hope.”

Logan can hear the hitch in your breath. The pressure of your fingers, entwined with his. Embarrassment flickering across your face, when you are unable to help glancing his way. 

Exasperation and something else mixing in when you meet his gaze. Something soft and tender and directed so solely at him, that for a moment - he forgets to breathe.

Falling in love, huh?

Yeah. He might just be. 

a/n: i adore frank castle, haha. i thought he would be a fun person to pull in for a jealous!logan scenario - and thank so from the bottom of my heart for all the love on sugar, sugar - I honestly had no idea so many of you would like it, and I can’t tell you how much it means to read your sweet asks and comments 💖 this is all I have planned for them right now, thank you for letting me share this series with you!!! (though I am definitely not done writing for logan!)

[exactlysizzlingdonut]

JOGO IS LITERALLY ME IN THAT PANEL I WISH GOJO WOULD STRADDLE ME LIKE HE DOD TO JOGOS ARM. IM SO JEALOUS AND OKAY. Let’s talk about it.

so firstly what I would like to address is that your forearm is innervated and assuming jogo has functioning nerves (duhh most likely.. idkk) BRO DEFINITELY FELT THEM BALLS OF STEEL. UGH.

secondly can we talk about the way gojo lowkeey got freaky wit it on jogo’s arm. and the face he makes like okay ik he only opens his mouth slightly but EXCUSE THE FUCK ME. HE LOOKS SO HOT DOING THAT EKEKWKAKAOALDD BRB GONNA WATCH THAT SAVED TIKTOK OF HIM

FUCKING HELL BRO WHAT KIND OF LUCK IS GHIS

UMMM! WHERE ARE MY SAVED EDITS. WHAT THE FUCK IM SEETHING

okay never mind guys I refreshed the app, it was just a stupid glitch thank god otherwise it was gonna b on sight

anyways back to business ya

gojo is so hot like I’m a proud suguru girlie okay (proof: #loyal #my number 1.0) but feral gojo hits so different. ik suguru would be down for a 3some anyways and satosugu real so suguru would agree with me so don’t even worry

ALSO THE 30 SCEONDS OF HIM PANTING LIKE HELLOOOOOO??!! 🤭🤭🤭🤭 so attractive step on me

I swear I appreciate his character too okay but rn hormones going crazy I need to post this worship analysis post whatever

EDIT: URGENT EDIT: I JUST REALSIED THAT THE NARRATOR FOR JJK S2 VOICED KUSHANA FROM NAUSICAA IM OVER THE FUCKIBG MOON I LOVE KUSHANA I ADORE HER OMGOMGOGMFOGMGOGMG YAYAYAYAYn!!!!;!;!(!(!;!,!,!!(!;!:!;

thank you the latest jjk episode for showing us Gojo’s explosive pussy power. What would we even do without it

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny always knew tax evasion ran in his veins. His parents hadn’t been the most… morally sound of people, and less so as ecto-scientists.

He just didn’t think their lessons would ever result in a criminal empire that spanned the entire city and then some. Danny hadn’t seen it coming. His parents definitely wouldn’t have.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne. Mr. Fox.”

Danny ‘the Phantom’ Fenton sat down across from a rather tense looking (to Danny’s enhanced senses, anyways) Brucie Wayne and his right hand, Lucius Fox. He smiled pleasantly, matching Brucie’s vacant smile with that touch of Midwest suburban mother smile.

With his acquisition of multiple Gotham companies, his rather newly established Fentom Co. became one of the largest holding companies in Gotham, the first being Wayne Enterprises and the second being Drake Industries. After months of constantly working his butt off while fending off assassins, reforming Gotham’s slums and cleaning up some of the streets, and taking care of his nest of street kids, Danny garnered enough power to even stand close to Wayne Enterprises in terms of financial powers.

The topic of this meeting was, of course, the proposed merger of Wayne Enterprises’ Medical R&D division with Fentom Co.’s pharmaceutical department. Usually, Wayne Enterprises wouldn’t even consider such an offer, as their Medical R&D division was the most well funded and least likely to be part of a Rogue’s scheme- and therefore most beloved- department of the same nature in Gotham. However, Danny had something the other offers didn’t.

Blackmail.

His overly polite smile widened as Bruce’s mask twitched. His eyes slid over to Lucius Fox.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’ve heard much about your genius in… research and development.”

By that, Danny meant that he knew Lucius Fox helped develop Batman’s tech.

He did a lot of stalking that week. It felt rather… invasive, even if he did get a bunch of juicy secrets.

You know what they say: dead men tell no tales… but halfas are generally blabbermouths.

“Is that so? It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Fenton.” The man quickly glanced between the youngsters, accurately predicting that this might have something to do with Bruce’s active nightlife.

“Yes, it is such a pleasure to meet you.”

Wow, Danny didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone sound both so perky and dead inside at the same time, except for Susan at Gotham High’s bake sale.

Bruce wishes he could be a Susan. He’s at best a Becky.

“Will you be staying, Mr. Fox? You’re the head of the R&D department, correct?”

“Ah, yes-”

“Oh, Lucius! I think you had an appointment with the finance department right now! I heard Sally talk about it, you know!”

Lucius Fox sent an unreadable look at Bruce before rallying.

“Oh, it must have slipped my mind. My apologies, Mr. Fenton, it seems as though I can not skip this appointment.”

“That’s alright. I suppose it gives you… plausible deniability… should things go wrong, haha!” Danny allowed his smile to widen a little further than natural. Bruce tensed but Lucius Fox simply politely smiled and left the room.

Ignorance is bliss and all that, Danny amusedly thought.

As the door shut with a click, Bruce dropped the vacant Brucie smile and sighed.

“What do you want,” he gritted out. Danny wasn’t about to let that slide, not after he spent the better part of this month wrangling Bruce’s problem children.

“Ah, it must be because I’m from the Midwest, Brucie, but where I come from, we value these things called manners.”

You uneducated jerk, he doesn’t say.

Danny leaned back in his chair, loosening his smile into something relaxed and sharp.

“…” Oh, boy, Danny could just hear the other man’s blood pressure rising. “What is the purpose of your visit, Mr. Fenton?”

“Relax, Brucie,” Danny sing-songed in a non-relaxing way. “I’m just here to discuss a possible merger that I’m sure you’ll agree to, and give you a couple of updates on your… wayward bird.”

He heard Bruce take a slow, controlled breath. “Very well. Where. Would. You. Like. To. Start.”

Danny ignored the gritted out sentence. He passed a contract to Bruce, who took it like he was handling a live bomb.

“Here’s the proposal, Mr. Wayne. Please, look it over.”

He watched as Bruce looked over the contract with an eagle eye before lowering it, scrutinizing Danny.

“This is… very fair.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. Of course it was fair. Danny wasn’t interested in exploiting the Waynes, despite them being very able to afford it.

He’d brought fifty manufacturing sites for pharmaceuticals, and offered up a building where both companies could send their workers. He provided top notch security- that definitely didn’t have any talons on staff, what were they talking about?- that came from his own security division. Granted, most of them were reformed and trained goons, but hey, creating jobs can only help Gotham’s economy and help break the cycle of poverty, right? Guaranteed by the Wayne name and, most importantly, uncompromised medicine that was accessible to everyone would be a damn good start. He’d also have Penguin’s empire to distribute it to those who couldn’t make it to a clinic or a store, and there were plans in there to work with and establish contracts with Gotham’s welfare department. Well… once Danny finished replacing them with people who wouldn’t try to take a cut of the funds and actually cared about the people. He was thinking… the multitudes of poor grad students and parents that need income. He’s in the process of building childcare centers and…

It’s a good thing he managed to save money from the taxes (thank you, Gotham’s morally ambiguous tax experts that were in desperate need for clients! He could do it himself but having a team of accountants at the ready was seriously so helpful.) because ancients knows the government weren’t about to step into Gotham and help the people here. He needs so much money to pull all of this shit off and a lot of it has to be clean.

Danny inwardly sighed and marked another thing onto his to do list.

Make money laundering fronts.



“Of course, Mr. Wayne. You didn’t think I’d come in here demanding money, did you?”

“I considered it.”

“I am, in fact, trying to help Gotham. You might not agree with my methods, but I’d rather not damage Wayne Enterprises when it’s doing so much to help the people.”

Ugh, he was doing too much work. Danny just wanted to- hah- chill at home and read bed time stories to his kids.

Bruce Wayne, the specific blend between Brucie and Batman, regarded him silently. Danny felt like he went up a few notches in the respect ladder.

Nice.

“You’re a criminal.”

“Says the man in the bat-suit breaking into places and assaulting people.”

Bruce’s hands spasmed around the contract. Danny smiled at him, taking a sip of the coffee they’d prepared. Oo, nice!

“Ah, I heard you’re adopting- pardon, fostering- Tim Drake. Getting empty nest syndrome, Brucie?” He slipped back into using Bruce’s first name. The proposal was formal. This… was very much not.

“What about it?”

“That’s very kind of you. Speaking of which, well, of your birds, I was wondering if you remembered what I asked you to do.” Danny continued, not giving Bruce a chance to reply. “Didn’t I ask for you to keep your birds in line, Brucie?”

The CEO straightened even further, form filling out to be Batman’s imposing figure. “I did.”

“No, you didn’t. Do you know where your charge is, right now? No, not the formerly dead one,” Danny tilted his head, smile shrinking.

“Don’t you dare do anything to Tim. I swear, if you even lay a hand on a strand of his hair, I’ll-”

“Sit your Armani clad ass down, Bruce.” Danny snapped. “Your son’s in your office. I don’t harm children, and your assumptions are deeply insulting. Threaten me again, Bruce, and I’ll make sure you know exactly how much I know about your birds, your cousin, and the commissioner’s daughter.”

Bruce snarled but leashed his anger just enough to sit back down. He itched to go check on Tim, but leaving a threat like Phantom unwatched felt inherently wrong.

“Your other son,” Danny continued. “Is doing quite well. He’s learning that he has hobbies again. He’s actually working under me, you know.”

“He’s what.”

Oh, yeah, that tracks. It figured that Jason wouldn’t tell Bruce about anything. He’s still conflicted about his death. Danny got it.

“Ah, that’s precious information. You’ll have to offer something of equal value if you want to know. There is, on the other hand, a piece of information I’ll give you for free.”

Danny paused for the dramatic effect. It was lost on Bruce, the ultimate drama queen of this world.

“The League of Assassins are hanging around Hotham lately. It’s getting tedious, getting rid of them. I suggest talking to your old flame, you know, with words and what little communication skill you’ve got rattling around in your noggin to get them to pull back. Her interest is… unnaturally focused on Jason.”

Danny read the dark agreement swimming about Bruce’s face and inclined his head. “Should negotiations fail, rest assured that Jason will be protected.”

“…Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. Go ahead and discuss the contract with Mr. Fox, I am sure you’ll find little problems with it. Ah,” Danny stood up, fixing his suit jacket. “And you should probably check up on Timothy. He’s probably having a great time in your office, Mr. Wayne.”

“I’ll see you out.”

“Of course.”

Having Batman escorting him out should probably be more intimidating.

Danny stood in the elevator, waiting for Bruce’s contemplative silence to put itself into words.

Sure enough, “What… what kind of hobbies does Jason have now?”

“I’d tell you to ask him, but you two aren’t on speaking terms, are you? He likes books, of course, but recently, he’s found an interest in glass blowing. He made quite a bit of progress on his attempts at sun catchers.”

“I see.”

Well, Danny’s not about to step on that landmine any more than he has to.

——

“Danny.”

“Oh, hey, Jason. Sit down, we were about to have dinner.”

Jason clambered into the window. Danny sighed. He had a door, but by the way Jason never used it, it was like the door didn’t exist.

“Mind telling me why the old bastard showed up on my rooftops with a bunch of glass and glassblowing tools?”

Danny smiled. “No idea.”

“Uh huh.”

Danny placed a hand on his chest and put on his best woe-is-me expression. The teen’s face twitched in annoyance. “Doubt? At me? Why, I never!”

A bread roll thwacked him in the face.