#None of the people Being called that Here fit the Obvious meaning

[the-stove-is-divorced]

Glad we both enjoy hating omg.

AND YES! Istg the second that video dropped I watched it eagerly, I am such a Batman fan, ugh, if you're ever interested in him specifically, I'd heavily recommend Batman Animated Series, yearnful sigh. I miss when he's written well. And thank you! I appreciate this, I'm bound for a rewatch of this video, hehehe.

NO FR? Istg one of my BIGGEST pet peeves for lazy ass shipping is when OTHER characters have to comment on the relationship, as if it is in any way, shape, or form been properly conveyed as obvious to the audience. IT'S SO LAZY RAHHHHHH. Like you might as while have everyone calling them a couple and them blushing and saying NUH UH, and then never proceed to actually write them interested in each other, outside of predictable, boring commentary, WHICH IS OUT OF LEFT FIELD.

Rex and Eve are legit sm more interesting since they're supposed to be friends for years, then got together, and went through the same shit together. I'd legit rather than them than this. Why did Rex cheat? Why not explore any of these dynamics? Did Kate feel sidelined so she believed Eve and Rex were on a break? How shaky was their relationship?

Get this man in ethics, philosophy, therapy, and pysche classes istg. He truly needs college istg, bro needs education and awarenes. I do not believe he thought he actually thought of Eve, out of anything but guilt, if at ALL. This show feels like it's ACTIVELY trying to lie to me and it's not even doing it WELL? HELLO?

The villain opening was so dumb to me istg. Cecil's stuff I get why, but when it went back to why and justified why Cecil did what he did I wanted to roll my eyes. Like. I can assume why. I don't really need to see why. they're useful, and there's an unspoken GoG absence, yes? I get why Mark is opposed, sure, whatever. Can we use this time for anything else? If this show had more episodes and took things s l o w e r for once, it'd be more fitting to me. Otherwise? I don't care. Speaking of Oliver, they way he's better at fighting than Mark, like this is embarrassing. Mark lock in. Mark do better. Mark why is a child showing you up. WHY ARE EXPLICITLY SHOWN MARK IMPROVING AND THEN HE ACTS JUST AS SUCCESSFUL AS S1? HELLO?

I thought the fight against the underground monsters would be a great opportunity for him to be particularly lethal, like Omni-Man and actually show off some proper skills, and introduce Darkwing + Robots helping heros escape while he's distracted. Still can have Mark freak out, but people get reminded whose son he is. Casually shake off blood. Which we get later on (I wish it was cooler so bad, it's still my fav but with a hint of begrudging admittance), but I say why can't we have more feral Mark scenes? Why stop at one battle parallel with Nolan? Have him particularly lethal with monsters since he'll freak out over people, thinking of Angstrom! Let him mimic Nolan's efficiency and like casually dive through a monster's brain. Him freaking out when someone he cares about gets hurt is so dull to me, also? Did the venom work from the centipede????

GoG's breakup was truly so funny because none of these mfs have been meaningfully explored enough to make me shaken up that they're breaking up, or what that even means because their hero ecosystem isn't explored either! What's the stakes here? I don't get to see more dynamics I never got to see? I'm truly heart broken. Oh no. Also Immortal stay annoying me because bro truly invited himself, told everybody to stfu and get out to a team he decided he'd join back up again, and you're so correct he'd make a mf grovel to get back? Immortal don't be insufferable challenge.

Nolan being endeared to her because she's not afraid makes too much sense, omg. He's so baffled he's enraptured, and Debbie truly thinks he is not special for being capable of killing him, people could die randomly, asshole, get in line. I'd love to see how they got together if the show had time, and the potential dynamics from a "take no shit" Debbie and still learning about humanity, and flirting, Nolan.

REAL ASF THO. Like Invincible could be SO far if it was good. Shows where I'm already invested after it outright refuses to live up to it's potential are like catnip to me, I cannot shut up about it. I'm infuriated and enraptured and endeared. Begging everyone to watch this show, no I don't think it's incredible, watch it all anyway.

Please write the mentor Cecil fic of my dreams, if I can get some oneshots done I'd love to write it myself if I can think of some scenes. There's something so interesting about Cecil becoming an incidental (perhaps Mark opens up and Cecil Realizes: Oh, I can Use This) and then intentional mentor figure, (or again Mark insisting he needs to earn Immortal's approval to prove he's not his Dad fr). Like? Thefun extra wound of betrayal if Cecil still uses the whole scream thing! Maybe Robot/Rudy does a scan of him and finds it, and Mark has to conceptualize what it's for, or it's outright used to against him. I believe in Mark being put through the emotional ringer. Dad issues AND Dad-like mentor issues. Stack 'em.

GDA not have any contingencies or hidden plans is so baffling, like aren't you a paranoid department dealing with something as unstable and dangerous as supes? LIKE NO MEDICAL CHECK UP IS INSANE. Purposeful ignorance is so funny omg, they're actively make it difficult for them to pursue education lmao. But the way I would think they'd make Mark + Oliver binge every morality debate, philosophy, even skeezy therapy where the therapist is just snitching to what their mental states actually are. Enforcing Mark to understand how to fight mentally, and not following the same colonizer BS mindset. GIVE ME PARANOID GDA THINGS. Like if Mark went to college, does GDA have agent pretend to be a student to follow him?

While I'm not too familiar with the DCU- your batfam meta posts are intiguing- so in transfering some of the broader strokes from them- I think you tackling a 'Mark isn't Nolan's biological son' fic would be fascinating. Sort of a step to the side of the 'what if Mark never got his powers' fic that sometimes pop up in the fandom

OOOOOO chewing on this currently, hm, the much a distinct flavor of exactly what you’re talking about, but the potential for more family drama depending on WHO knows. Does Mark know?? Is he waiting every day only to be crushed? Does he confused non-Debbie features with Nolan’s? I suppose I’m not the most enthusiastic about non-power AUs, but I think there’s something very fun to explore about Mark having to settle with, if he knows all his life, he will never have powers? I think the trajectory of his dreams will obviously shift, I can see him still having that distinct fatherly idolization, but perhaps embraces being useful to the GDA? Cecil’s number one intern—only intern—curtesy of nepotism, ha! There is something tickling me about Mark taking the Robin Route/Role for the Teen Team in terms of having no powers, just insane skills, BUT there’s something way more delicious about intern Mark when s1e01 happens and Mark tries snooping around to find out the truth about what happened to his Dad.

I wonder if, with Mark having a whole another father, if they’re more or less distant relationship, depending on WHEN Nolan entered Mark’s life? Like if Debbie met Nolan later for this, or just for fun, they dated once, separated (Mark being born during then), then they happened to stumble into each others lives again and Mark’s already been born, anywhere from tween to teenager so there’s a gap in how close they are. I feel like one important aspect of the whole Family Drama is how close they’re supposed to be, a functional, loving family turned upside down? So I wonder what more distance does. I wonder how Nolan copes when his family is entirely human and he can’t project onto Mark.

I love thinking about these, omg.

[hyliasblade]

What in Tarnation does baby Girl mean

Aside from the Obvious of a baby That Is a girl

[cruel-as-sin]

take the weight off his shoulders | logan howlett

pt. 2

↳ summary: you're a stripper and old man!logan comes into the club where you work- so you decide to show him a good time.

word count: 3k

song: older | isabel larosa

pairings: old man!logan x fem!stripper!reader

content warnings: 18+ content (MDNI), smut, porn w/o plot, prostitution/strip clubs, age gap (readers age is unspecified but she is an adult), praise kink, gentle sex, striptease and lapdance hehe, size difference, protected p in v, grinding, handjob, lingerie mentioned, the glasses stay on, practice safe sex everyone (lmk if i missed anything!)

↳ a/n: ao3 saw this first and it took way too long for me to move it over to tumblr but. here it is lmao. as i said there old man logan does something CRAZY to me so it was only fitting i wrote about him, enjoy! also this is not proofread so apologies for any mistakes :’)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Logan's not sure why he goes into the club across the street.

Maybe he needs to feel young again. Maybe he's bored. Maybe the adamantium poisoning the rest of him has finally managed to get to his brain and turned his thoughts into some sort of horny, befuddled shit show.

Or maybe, just maybe, he really is just that fucking desperate.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

It's past midnight when he walks through the door. You've been busy all night, but things are finally starting to wind down, the customers that frequent the small establishment slowly trickling out until only a few remain. None of them are your regulars, and given how empty the doorway has been, you're honestly considering calling it a night and going home early. The past few days have been hellish, full of people who didn't do a damn thing to turn you on, and you'd love nothing more than to sink into a warm, cozy bed and drift off to sleep. Tonight, you've been roaming the floor for the past hour without getting anything- everybody is either interested in another one of the workers or entirely fixated on the dancers.

It's not that you don't like your job- you do. Sure, being a stripper isn't the most flattering form of work, but the bills are paid. That's all that really counts these days. Your pride has long since been discarded in favor of earning hefty tips from the sleazy guys who are dumb enough to believe that you'd actually be into them. You put on a good show, of course, but if it weren't for the money? Not a fucking chance.

You like it that way. Hardly any of your clients go beyond the intimacy of a private dance, mainly because you don't let them, reserving that for your favorites. But you haven't met someone who turns you on in a long while, and without the occasional thrill of a real good time from a customer, you're starting to get bored. The days are blurring together, nothing separating the good days from the bad ones, if there even is such a thing anymore.

You're on your way to ask your boss if you can get off early when you hear the bell ring. You groan internally, realizing that you're the only one on the floor who isn't occupied, meaning if this client is interested, they're yours.

Damn it.

So much for an early night.

You're midway through praying to whatever God is out there that this client tips well when you turn and actually lay eyes on them. The moment you do, your mind goes blank, your prayers long forgotten as your thoughts become consumed by him.

He's older- much older. Pushing sixty, at least. It's not inherently a bad thing, but typically the older they are, the more entitled they become.

You're not usually into older men, finding them self-centered, greedy, unable to keep up with your desires; but you're not even ashamed to admit that this stranger could ask you to do just about anything and you'd probably agree in a heartbeat.

The man is tall, big, his muscular form obvious even underneath the suit and tie he wears. His salt and pepper hair is short, accompanied by a scruffy beard you're certain would feel like heaven against your thighs. His tie is loose, his top button undone, and he's got on a pair of dollar-store glasses that he hasn't even pulled the tag off of. There's a weight to him, an exhaustion that seems to have infiltrated the deepest parts of his soul, as if he's seen things you couldn't even begin to fathom- and yet, he's here, seeking some semblance of relief.

Lucky for him, you know exactly how to give it to him.

He looks around like he's lost, the colorful lights and sultry music overwhelming, the center stage where your coworkers get dollar bills thrown at their feet foreign to him. By the time you've made your way over, your legs moving of their own accord, he's turning to leave. "Hey." You call out, and he stops, turning back around to face you.

He's even bigger up close, and his eyes roam over your form almost shamefully before finally meeting your own. "I was just leaving." His voice is rough, a little scratchy, and while you're sure it's supposed to be intimidating, all it does is further fuel the heat pooling between your legs.

"So soon?" You look up at him with a doe-eyed gaze you're well aware makes men weak in the knees.

"I shouldn't be here." He says, but he doesn't walk away from you.

You move a little closer so your breath is fanning across his neck, your voice dripping with suggestion. "I could show you a good time."

"Listen, sweetheart, I've got-"

Sweetheart.

"Let me take care of you." You lean up to whisper in his ear. Your breath is hot against his skin, your mouth tantalizingly close, and you can feel the way he twitches slightly- an exercise of self-control.

A moment passes, two, and he lets out a long breath. "Fuck, darlin'." He reaches out, hesitant to touch, as if he's not sure how this works, doesn’t want to cross some invisible line he hasn’t learned exists. You take his hand, guiding it to your waist, reaching up to put one hand on the back of his neck. "You sure know how to get a guy wrapped around your finger."

In response, you give a coy smile, taking his tie in one hand and giving it a soft tug. He allows you to guide him, pulling him along by the tie you're sure he has a million ideas of what to do with.

You lead him into a private room, pulling the curtain closed behind you, letting his tie slip out of your grasp. His eyes dart around for a moment, but then you're in front of him again, reaching up and sliding his blazer off of his shoulders. You hang it up on the wall, then return, now slowly guiding him backwards and giving him a gentle shove into the leather chair near the wall. He raises an eyebrow as you circle him, leaning in from behind to whisper in his ear. "Just relax." You murmur, letting your lips graze his neck before pulling away. He leans back, eyes following your every move, a stare that feels like it could set you on fire.

You put on a good show for him- dancing, teasing, tantalizingly close, but never touching. Not yet. You can see the hunger in his gaze, the restraint it takes for him not to pull you down into his lap and keep you there. You give him a strip tease, taking off your bra and letting your breasts go free. His eyes roam over you, a murmured word, "Beautiful," leaving his lips, and that makes your already soaked panties drenched.

Then you give him a lap dance- and unlike most of the men you meet, he doesn't touch, doesn't paw at you. Instead he waits, lets you set the pace, doesn't do anything without your permission. Your hands go to his tie, undoing it at a speed you know is killing him, tossing it aside.

Finally, you rest yourself entirely on his lap, and whisper in his ear. "You can touch now, if you want to."

His hands immediately settle on your hips, like they belong there. You grind down against him, feeling him tense beneath you at the friction against his clothed cock. You repeat the motion, relishing in the groan it elicits from him. His grip on your hips tightens slightly, and he begins to guide your motions, pressing you down against his thigh in a way that makes you moan. It's a small, soft sound, but it still makes him smile. “Atta girl, that’s it.” He huffs approvingly. You keep going, feeling yourself almost get lost in the rhythmic movement before you come back to your senses.

Your hands move to the collar of his shirt, slowly beginning to undo the buttons, revealing his toned chest. You only get about halfway down before his hands are gripping your wrists, and your protest dies on your lips when he leans up and kisses you.

He tastes like cigar smoke and whiskey, a blend that should be uncomfortable but is somehow pleasant. His tongue slips into your mouth, tangling with yours as he pulls you closer. By the time he finally pulls away for air, you're dizzy, flushed.

A kiss- almost as personal as a name.

You've never met a man who could make you feel like this- and certainly not without getting all your clothes off first.

His words snap you out of your breathless haze. "Let me touch you, baby." His voice is both a plea and a demand, and who are you to deny him such a request?

A simple nod is all it takes before his hands are on you, roving over your breasts with an appreciative groan. You can't help the way your hips rock against him, and one of his hands goes down to your ass, encouraging you to grind against him again. His other hand rolls your nipple between his thumb and index finger, while his mouth leaves sloppy kisses along your neck, down to your breasts.

You bury your face in his neck, breathing him in. His head comes up from your chest to whisper in your ear as he keeps your hips moving back and forth, his other hand alternating between your breasts. His skin muffles your moans, but you know he won't let you hide those pretty sounds from him forever. "You're so perfect." His words don't exactly do you any favors in the 'keeping your composure' department. "Sweet, pretty thing like you..." He nips at your earlobe, making you gasp softly. "You got no idea what you do to me."

Those words snap you back a little, remind you of your promise to take care of him. You raise your head up, leaning back a little to meet his eyes. "Then show me." Your hands reach down towards his belt, and this time, he doesn't stop you. Instead, his gaze roams over you as you unbuckle it, slowly pull it out of the loops of his pants, toss it aside, letting it join the other discarded articles littering the floor. You undo the buttons, then pull his pants down.

Even through his boxers, you can clearly see the outline of his aching hardness. You gently take him in your palm, running your hand along him through the fabric, watching the way his eyes flutter. Then you adjust yourself so you're grinding on him again, thin layers of clothing the only thing separating the two of you.

You go on like that for a little while, keeping track of every little sound he makes, every hitch of his breath and shudder that goes through his body. Then you lean back, pulling his boxers down, freeing his cock from the confines of his clothing.

Immediately, your mouth waters. He's huge, the biggest you've ever seen, and you find yourself wondering if you even can take him.

You push that thought aside for now, swiping your thumb across his tip, smiling to yourself at the groan that leaves him. You repeat the motion, letting precum gather on your fingers as you begin to move your hand up and down, up and down. You start slow, stroking him gently, then gradually increase your pace. Midway through, you grab a condom with your other hand, keeping eye contact as you open the wrapper with your teeth. You roll it onto him in one smooth motion, earning a startled grunt. His head falls back, his breaths coming unevenly, and it takes him a while before he can manage a coherent sentence.

"Fuck, you treat every guy like this?" Even with all the energy he can muster, the words are still a little short.

Your smile widens, and you lean in to press a kiss against the vein of his throat. "Only the good ones."

His mouth opens, as if to argue with the notion that he's anything good, but your ever-faster movements silence any protests that could have come from him.

You can tell he's getting close, and you slow down, letting him breathe a little slower as you whisper a soft question. "Where do you want me? You want my mouth, you want-"

Your words are cut off by his hand cupping your clothed mound, a gasp escaping you. "I want this." His voice is rough, and this time, it's not a plea. He leans in, his breath hot against your ear as you unconsciously begin to move against his hand, chasing any friction he can give you. "I think it's a little unfair, seeing how I'm all out in the open and you've still got these," His thumb hooks in the waistband of your panties. "Separating me from you, hmm?

You don't even answer, just raise your hips up slightly so he can tug your lingerie down your legs until it falls and hits the floor. Immediately, his gaze lands on your exposed cunt. "Jesus, you're soaked." He murmurs, running his fingers through your slick. You whine as he brushes against your clit, and he chuckles. "Need me that bad, huh?"

"Need you." You whine. You can tell he wants to take it slow, to tease you, and by god do you want to let him- but you're impatient, your own teasing having riled you up too much to do anything but fuck him. Luckily, he picks up on your silent request, raising your hips to hover above his cock. His gaze searches yours, waiting for permission, and you nod. "Fuck me." You say softly, and it takes everything in him not to come completely fucking undone at that sweet tone of voice.

Slowly, painfully slowly, he lowers you down onto him. It burns, in a delicious way you've come to love in your years here. Even with the sheer amount of wetness coming from you, it's still a struggle to make him fit- but he does. When you've finally sank all the way down onto his cock, he lets you breathe for a moment. "You can take it, baby." He murmurs reassuringly- a support and a chance for you to back out. You close your eyes, breathing in and out, resting your face in the crook of his neck again.

Then you start to move.

It takes him by surprise, and you like the grunt that comes from him. For someone of his age, you're sure not much can catch him off guard anymore, so that makes it all the better when you lean back to see the look on his face. He catches your small smirk and returns it with one of his own, letting you move yourself up and down, over and over. Your pace slowly increases as the two of you adjust, and the room is soon filled with soft noises and the sound of flesh against flesh.

It's slow, almost sensual, but despite the circumstances that should have you turning this in another direction, you like it. You feel that familiar coil building in your stomach, your soft whimpers turning to moans now.

"You gonna come for me, baby?"

All you can do is nod, and he rocks his hips up into yours. The way he fills you up is mind-numbing, until you can't think of anything else but him and how fucking good he's making you feel, how badly you need to come undone on his cock.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck-" Your voice takes on a sharp pitch as he thrusts up into you, and your vision goes white for a moment as your orgasm hits you, unending bliss shaking your whole body. He rides out your orgasm for as long as he can, but the tight feeling of your cunt clenching around him soon sends him over the edge too. You can feel him twitching inside you, only prolonging the aftershocks of your own pleasure.

Eventually, you both come down. You're breathing heavily, trying to scramble together any semblance of thought. He stands suddenly, picking you up like you weigh nothing and setting you down on the chair. His cock slips out of you at some point during the process, leaving you feeling empty. You sit there for a moment before opening your eyes, finding him pulling his pants up and buckling his belt. He meets your gaze with a hint of a fond smile, bending over to grab his tie.

You stand up to retrieve your own clothes, pulling them back on while he shoves his arms through the sleeves of his blazer and rifles through his pockets, eventually pulling out his wallet. "Um, how much do I owe you?"

He looks almost embarrassed, and you find it kind of adorable. You flash him a smile, saying words you never thought you'd dare to let pass your lips. "Nothing. It's on me."

Immediately, his eyebrow shoots up. "No, I can't... I can't let you do that, pretty girl."

You shake your head. "I insist. Nobody's ever fucked me like that, and certainly not any of my clients." You see the way your words boost his ego- good. He deserves it. "Besides, if you hadn't showed up, I'd have gone home anyway." You say nonchalantly, taking a few steps over to him. You reach up and put a finger to his lips before he can continue to argue. "It's on the house."

Although he still looks conflicted, he reluctantly nods. "Okay. Next time, then."

Next time.

You feel a thrill run through your body as he brings up the prospect of a next time, and your smile widens. "Next time." You affirm. You step back, letting him be on his way.

He moves towards the curtain, pausing before he goes. "See you around, sweetheart."

And just like that, he's gone.

But you don't miss him- because you know he'll be back.

So when you finally make it home and climb into bed after that warm shower, there's still a fond smile on your face as you drift off to sleep, dreaming of the weary stranger and his wonderful words.

[eddiemunsonw]

Gossip in town

Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: You and Steve love a good gossip. There's some joy in talking about other people's misery to distract from yourself from your own miserable dating life, right? Besides, that's what friends do. Right? 'Cause that's what you are. Friends.

CW/Disclaimer: Uhhhh some s m u t. Other than that just romance, banter, cute shit. Maybe the cute shit deserves a warning too.

Author's note: We love to say that Steve enjoys to gossip, so I figured I'd drabble something out. Turned a little longer than planned!

Words: 4983

“You need to make him stop coming in here, he’s ruining our brand!”

As you heard Romaine, your colleague, complain, a smile plays on your lips. That could only mean one person.

Steve.

Romaine glared at him from behind the table she was folding clothes at and he raised his brow with little interest. His sailor outfit was a stark contrast to the high-end fashion you sold in the store you worked at and you thought it was the funniest thing ever. The first week, Steve had been too embarrassed to even leave the ice cream parlor. By now, he couldn’t give two fucks. And knowing Romaine hated it only made him come by twice as often.

“Y/N, Y/N!”

His impatient calls made you giggle and you revealed yourself from around the corner to put yourself into his field of vision. He gave a nod of recognition and then started to approach you with big steps.

“I’m taking my break,” Romaine announced, in an attempt to keep you from going anywhere. One person always needed to be in the store, and it was just you two that day. Steve knew about this rule by now, so he rolled his eyes, grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards the fitting rooms.

“Still technically in the store,” he mumbled, flashing you a grin as he took note that none of the fitting rooms were being used. With one smooth move, he pulled back a curtain, nudged you inside, followed and closed the curtain again behind him. He was a little out of breath, either from excitement or because he fucking jogged to your side of the mall. Must have been a sight for sore eyes.

“You were fucking right,” he hissed, not wasting a second as he spilled the tea. You covered your mouth to prevent a gasp and he pulled your hand away as he nodded. He needed not to tell you what, or who it was about. It had been the main topic of your latest gossip, so it was obvious he was talking about Ben Swimmer, one of his old classmates. Steve rested his palm flat on the wall behind you, kind of locking you into the corner of the fitting room.

“Yes, yes keep that mouth open, cause there’s more.”

His excitement was mixed with disgust, given by his expression. His fingers tapped a rhythm on the wall. You swallowed. Not sure if that had to do with the story at all, as you looked up at him.

“No… What is it?!” you asked impatiently. Steve smirked, loving to keep you on edge, and leaned a little closer because that’s what you do when you gossip.

“He wasn’t just cheating on Tessa with Vivian, but also with Brenda…”

“No…” you whispered, giving him a look of disbelief, mouth in fact still agape. Steve cocked his hip to the other side and nodded several times in a quick motion.

“Oh yes. He came into Scoops with her just now, in broad fucking daylight. And guess who also popped up at the mall?”

“Tessa. Of fucking course.”

Steve nodded.

“Tessa. So they’re sitting there eating their ice cream with two spoons, all gooey and sickeningly adorable if he hadn’t been a dick… when Ben sees Tessa, but she hasn’t seen him yet. So I’m watching, right, and suddenly Ben looks at me and tells me to let him go out the back with Brenda.”

“Oh now he wants to talk to you. Dick.”

Steve clapped his thigh with his free hand and made a gesture.

“Right?! So I said that was against company policy and that I unfortunately couldn’t help him. And then I walked forward and accidentally knocked a chair over,” he grinned as he replayed it in his head, “gathered a bit of attention, so weird,” his eyes widened as he spoke, “Tessa’s attention too. You should’ve seen it. I wish you could’ve seen it.”

His sigh filled the small space as he leaned his head back against the thin wall of the fitting room. He knitted his brows together and dropped his hand from the wall to your shoulder, closing his eyes momentarily as he let his brain catch up with his mouth. He seemed a little lost in thought, with his hand gently massaging your shoulder and his chin tipped up towards the ceiling. He didn’t move his head as he looked down at you and you wondered if he had any idea what he looked like right now. Somehow all the adorable-ness his outfit gave him was taken away and replaced for something else by just that one glance along the bridge of his nose.

“Was she mad?” you asked.

“Oh, she was seething. Shouted all sorts of shit at him. I had a lot of cleaning to do after she threw her milkshake in his face, but it was worth it. According to Ben I’m dead by the way. So now you know who to name as a prime suspect, should I ever disappear.”

“He better not.”

Steve shrugged.

“Would be worth it.”

—

The bell above the door of Family Video clanged as you rushed in. Robin lifted her head but was clearly still counting some tapes in her head as she gave you a vague greeting and immediately focused back on her task at hand. Steve on the other hand, immediately poked his head above an aisle and approached you even before you could reach the counter.

“Jake’s gonna ask Trisha to marry him after graduation.”

You gasped and immediately punched his chest, causing him to “oomph” and giving you a look of disbelief. Before he could ask why you punched him, you gave him the answer.

“I came all the way here to tell you that! How’d you even find out?!”

Steve grinned and grabbed the hand you punched him with as he noticed you were subconsciously rubbing your fingers over your knuckles.

“Overheard Brenda and Kate talk about it here earlier,” he said with a nod towards the romcom aisle.

“Ugh,” you groaned, “for once I thought I would have something good to tell you…”

Your pout deepened as you crossed your arms, shaking off his touch. Steve simply replaced it by putting his hand on top of your folded arms, his fingers walking a path from your elbow towards your wrist.

“You did! I just knew it already,” Steve said with a chuckle. He watched you pout for a little longer as his fingers played with the hair tie on your wrist absentmindedly. You were too focused to keep up the play that you didn’t notice his hesitation.

“Hey, wanna watch a movie tonight?”

Just then, as if on cue, Robin poked her head above the horror aisle.

“Yes!”

Steve glanced backwards and smiled softly at Robin, though as he nodded his expression looked a little off. He was chewing on the inside of his cheek until he saw you nod and released some of the tension he was subconsciously holding.

“Yeah let’s. Which movie?”

Steve shrugged. He hadn’t really thought of that. By now he had watched too many to count and there were only so many times you could watch the same movie in a week. He picked up the hair tie between his fingers and let it snap back on your wrist as he bit back a smile. You glared at him playfully, looking for something you could do in return. For a moment, he watched you in stunned silence as you brought your hand up to his neck, trailing your fingers through until you reached the back and yanked at it. Steve gasped and grabbed your hand, twisting you around until he had both your hands behind your back, his chin tucked into your shoulder.

“Caught you.”

As you relaxed in his arms, his breath tickled your neck. Somehow, neither of you had noticed Robin rounding the aisle and as she stopped in front of you, an impatient huff left her lips.

“Well? What movie, guys?” Steve froze around you for a moment and you slowly felt his grip loosening until he stepped aside to check out some of the movies they had.

“Uh…”

You held onto your own arms, realizing your cheeks were heating up and you took a quick few steps towards the door.

“I’ll let it be a surprise, see you tonight! Your place, I assume?” you asked Steve without looking at him.

“Yeah, sure.”

You left and Steve busied himself browsing through the movies with his fingers without remembering any of them.

“You seemed disappointed when I joined movie night.”

Steve gave her a harmless glare.

“Huh? No I wasn’t.”

Robin gave him an empathic smile.

“If you say so.”

Steve shook his head with a laugh.

“We’re just friends, Rob. It’s not like that.”

—

3 years later

It was a Saturday night and you sat on the couch in Steve’s apartment, where you spent so much time you should honestly start paying rent. Not to mention all the products that you had in his bathroom, and the spare set of clothes in his closet. It was a little much, but your home was cramped, and it had been hard to find a place of your own that you could actually afford.

Steve had found a part time job as a basketball coach and filled the rest of his time either with you, Robin, the kids or his failed dates.

But mostly you.

“Do we really have to watch this romantic piece of bullshit?” Steve groaned, flipping over the tape in his hand. It looked small when he held it, somehow.

“Hey now,” you shushed him, “just because Jillian didn’t let you get into her pants doesn’t mean romance is a no go now. Besides, it’s my day to pick.”

You got up to put the tape in and when you sat back, his arm was already waiting for you. His blunt fingernails teased your shoulder as you settled against him.

“She would’ve let me, I was so sure of it. But after she came back from the bathroom she suddenly acted so fucking weird…” Steve mumbled as he thought back on it.

“Maybe she suddenly got her period?” you opted. That surely was something that could make you want to flee out of nowhere. Steve rolled his eyes.

“So? There are pads and tampons,” Steve sighed. They were yours, or so Steve had said when you had asked why there were pads and tampons in a little basket in his bathroom. So you didn’t have to bring your own all the time, had been his reasoning. It was sweet.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know.” “Or maybe she thought you had a girlfriend you were cheating on,” you offered gently. Steve groaned and leaned his head all the way back on the headrest.

“Robin said the same. But if I had had a female roommate no one would bat an eye, so what’s the big deal you’ve got some of your stuff in here?”

“Well, because you don’t have a roommate, I guess?” you suggested with a shrug. His fingers lay flat on your shoulder now, giving it a light squeeze on occasion as he was thinking.

“Whatever. I don’t want a girl that can’t communicate anyway. Like, remember that whole ordeal with Nigel and Yessica? All that drama when it could’ve been solved if they had just asked each other rather than leaving it up to the town’s gossip?”

“Yeah, well… at least it gives us something to discuss.”

Steve nodded, but it seemed that he already was too lost in his own thoughts.

“I want someone who’s straight forward. Honest but kind. Funny. Warm. Also witty, sarcastic… just someone I can spend all day with without being bored. Where I can fully be myself without worrying about anything,” Steve mumbled.

“They’re out there, Steve, I’m sure of it.”

He glanced at you, face a little too close for comfort.

“What about you, then? When was the last time you dated?”

“Uh… Rick.”

Steve scowled.

“Rick.”

“He was fine.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Oh please. If you told me he had bodies buried in his garden I’d believe you.”

This time you rolled your eyes, sitting up a little so he had to remove his arm.

“Yeah, of course you would, because you hated him for no fucking reason.”

Steve’s lips thinned a little but he gave you your space. Leaned back a little, though he kept his thigh against yours.

“I had many valid reasons. For one: He sucks.”

You laughed dryly and shook your head.

“That’s an opinion, not a reason. You basically chased him away.”

“For the better! You know I’m right.”

“If it were up to you, none of the guys are a good fit for me.”

Steve watched as you got up from the couch to grab a beer and wordlessly asked for one too. You sat down on the far end of the couch, away from Steve. He took a sip without removing his gaze from you and lifted one leg on the couch so he could turn to face you.

“Because they’re not.”

“So it’s me.”

Steve frowned and shook his head. Somehow he had shifted closer on the couch without you noticing. His knee touched your thigh.

“What? No. It’s all of them.”

“My standards are just too high, I guess.”

Steve shook his head, his hand finding your knee.

“Shut up, they’re not. You deserve someone who actually appreciates you. All of you.”

A silent implication there, considering he knew all about your dating life. After Rick, you hadn’t even bothered. You dated them only to numb the pain of listening to Steve’s date stories. And since for some reason Robin refused to listen to them, you were the designated person to tell.

Thanks, Robin.

“Yeah, well, so do you.”

He gazed into your eyes, his face so much closer than you had anticipated when his finger lifted your chin gently.

“I appreciate all of you,” he said softly. You watched him silently as you connected the dots of his earlier spoken words to his current ones. His thumb caressed your cheek as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“You’re… we’re friends,” you said softly, too scared to trust what his words implied.

“Can’t we be more?” Steve asked, his voice soft as silk.

“Can we?” you whispered.

Steve nodded, his gaze dropping to your lips as he leaned in closer.

“Yeah.”

He cupped your jaw a little stronger as he kissed you, as if he was scared you’d slip from his fingers the moment his lips brushed yours. You leaned forward, his hand resting on his chest. He let out a sweet sound when your fingers happened to brush his nipple and you used that leverage to swing your leg over his lap. His hands found your waist easily as he teared away his lips from yours to explore your neck.

“Ah, Steve,” you whispered, encouraging him to continue. You let your hands roam over his chest until that wasn’t enough and you let them dip under the hem of his shirt. He broke his attack on your neck to look at you hungrily as he lifted his arms above his head to take off his shirt, followed by a hesitant brush of his fingers along yours. With a nod, you gave him the permission to take it off and the look of appreciation at the sight made you feel warm inside. His hands found your waist again as he buried his face in your chest, licking the crevice of your boobs all the way up to your neck.

You felt how hard he was when you shifted your lips and a groan left him.

“Steve… when you said, more, what did you mean?” you asked softly.

Steve leaned back to look at you, eyes searching your face with urgency.

“I— Like, everything? Sorry— Did I… is it too much? Am I too much?” he rambled, a sudden nervosity taking over his system as his hands dropped from your body.

“No! No, Steve, you’re never too much, silly,” you told him quickly, smoothing out the frown in his forehead with your thumb. “I just wanted to make sure this isn’t like a… friends with benefits thing, for you,” you grunted out, cheeks heating up.

Steve let out a relieved sigh and his hands found your waist again, gently digging into your pliant skin.

“I’ve been your friend with benefits for all I can remember. Your kindness, sarcasm, wit, humor, honesty… all of that and more I have benefitted from for the longest time. I just… I’d want, like, to be your boyfriend with benefits. To have it all but to have all of you as well. Want you to be mine, Y/N. Mine only,” he told you sincerely. His eyes slowly turned a little mischievous as your smile relaxed and he moved his hands up to squeeze your boobs as he bit down on his bottom lip with a smile.

“And if that means I also get to, kiss you and stuff, all the better,” he said with a cheeky grin.

“And stuff, huh?” you mumbled affectionately, your thumbs finding his nipples to rub slow circles. Steve’s eyes rolled back and he nodded as he bit back a groan.

“Uh-huh,” he sighed, “god, keep doing that.” A beat. “Please.”

You smirked and rolled your hips slowly against his.

“So polite,” you murmured as your lips found his neck.

“I - ah - would like to say I was raised that way but I guess I’ve just always had it in me,” he said with a chuckle while his hands toyed with the sweatpants resting on your hips still. You laughed softly and hummed in agreement.

“It’s a little too hot for these sweats, don’t you agree?” he asked then, a finger teasing along the waistband.

“Yours too.”

“Can I keep my socks on?”

You leaned back and gave him a glare as he burst out laughing.

“See?! Rick was not fine at all.”

“Shut up. What about Layla with her “call them mommy milkers” spiel?”

Steve bit his lip with a smile.

“That never happened, actually. Tried to make you jealous and failed.”

“You thought that would make me jealous? It just made me reconsider my crush on you.”

“Ouch?”

“Just not big on the whole mommy thing.”

“Yeah, well, me neither.”

Steve kissed your collar bone and let his hands slide down your back to grab two handfuls of your ass. You let out a sweet noise, edging him on.

“Back to point one…”

“Back to Rick with his Star Wars socks during sex…”

He pushed you against him, rolling his hips just in time. Not even Rick with his socks on could ruin this feeling for you. Steve moaned softly into your neck as he found just the right angle for the best amount of friction.

“He came within a minute.”

“Assumed as much. Could tell you were lying your tits off when you said it was somewhere between two and five minutes. As if anyone times that.”

“You said you could last fifteen.”

“Cause I can!”

“So you timed it,” you told him dryly.

Steve rolled his eyes and pushed down your sweats, making you get up to take them off so he could do the same.

“I can last as long as you need,” he promised you, “and look, my socks are off.”

“Still wearing too much clothes,” you mumbled as you snapped the waistband of his boxers. Steve laughed and turned you around so your back was facing the couch. His lips traveled down your chest as he unclasped your bra with one hand, not wasting a second to circle his tongue around one of your nipples as his fingers squeezed the other not too gently, eliciting a yelp from you. You yanked at his hair and he laughed breathily around your nipple.

“Like it when you do that,” he admitted. “Nearly had me chub up when you did it that one time.”

He didn’t need to tell you which time. It had been the one and only time you both had let it come a little too close for comfort. At least, too close to keep up the pretense that you weren’t into each other.

“Could tell. Your cheeks turned pink.”

Steve’s lips explored your stomach while his hands squeezed and fondled your curves. He hooked his fingers around your underwear and easily pulled them down while his lips followed the fabric until there was nothing covering your pussy. He barely let you step out of them before he pushed you down on the couch and lifted your legs over his shoulders. He took his sweet time kissing up your thighs, though you could feel through the tremble of his fingers that he was as impatient and nervous as you were. You had been watching him worship your thighs with his eyes closed, but the moment his lips wrapped around your clit he gazed up at you through his lashes.

“Steve…”

He grinned against your skin and slowly licked a stripe along your swollen lips, gathering juices to slicken up your clit with. Your hand was back in his hair before you knew it, his head bobbing as he started to eat you out hungrily. Noisily. Hands digging into the plush of your thighs as he opened them wider for better access. That fucker knew he was good at this.

Your hips bucked up to grind against him in tune with your moans and he strengthened his grip to keep in control of the pace, which he then brutally slowed down. You were about to complain when suddenly he went to town on you at full speed, his nose hitting your clit just right. The grip on his hair was none too gentle and you felt his warm moans vibrating against you. His tongue lapped at you impatiently, eyes focused on your flushed expression. He relished in the feeling of your thighs tightening around his face when you came all over his tongue.

He bullied your clit a little longer, smirking against your thigh before kissing it as you pinched his cheek to stop him. When he got back on his feet, you noticed his boxers had disappeared without you noticing. His cock was hard, the head slick from precome.

Wordlessly, you shifted on the couch and grasped his thighs to pull him close. He cupped your cheek, unable to hold back a moan as you wrapped your lips around the head and sucked none too gently. Soon enough, his hand was holding your hair in a makeshift ponytail despite letting you decide on the pace. You loved taking control. When you looked up as you bobbed your head noisily, he threw his head back with a groan. He needed to look away if he wanted this to last longer than a goddamn minute. You smirked around his cock and picked up the pace, relentlessly taking more and more of his length until your nose brushed the coarse hair above his base.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N…”

He couldn’t help himself, his grip tightened on your hair and you felt him quickly thrust his hips. You let him and absently realized this was the first time you enjoyed the salty taste of his come in the back of your throat. He broke it off halfway, giving your cheek a sweet caress before turning around to grab a condom that he apparently stored in the drawer of the coffee table. You impatiently slapped his ass, making him yelp and accidentally tearing the first condom.

“Menace, that was a perfectly fine condom,” he complained with his back to you, and you could tell he was smiling. You shrugged and leaned forward giving the spot you slapped a kiss instead. And then a nibble.

“Your ass looks biteable, y’know that?” you mumbled, kneading his ass with a longing sigh as you remembered all the times his ass had looked so good in his jeans.

Steve laughed.

“Yeah, well, so does yours.”

He turned around, condom wrapped and ready, though Steve seemed to hesitate.

“Second thoughts?” you asked, unable to filter your worries.

Steve scoffed and shook his head.

“Of course not, silly. I just— Come on.”

He grabbed your hand to pull you up and started guiding you to the bedroom.

“Want you to be comfortable,” he explained, and if that didn’t make you melt…

He propped up some pillows just perfectly and made sure you were comfortable before he positioned himself above you.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said softly, leaning down to kiss the part of your body that covered the heart that carried so much love for him. His hand slipped between you two, playing with you some more so he was certain you’d feel good once he’d go inside. He kissed you deeply, slowly, really taking his time compared to your first kiss. You both loved kissing. It was one of the many things you had shared complaints about when your dates weren’t into it as much. You had lost count how many times you had mentioned you could kiss for hours, secretly thinking of the other person.

Steve gazed into your eyes as he pushed inside slowly, his breath hitching as the sensations overtook his body. He moved without a rush, relishing being able to watch your expression as he fucked into you. His moans escaped from his lips whenever your lips weren’t against his to silence them. His tongue darted out to lick your ear and a gasp left you as he moved down and bit your neck. Your nails scratched his back as his thrusts became harder, your moans no longer contained by the press of your lips. You wrapped your legs around his hips, allowing him to fuck deeper. Sweat dripped from his forehead, mixing with yours as droplets found a way into your hairline.

“Y/N… baby, fuck…”

Slow, hard thrusts helped him ride out his orgasm while his hand flicking over your clit got you clenching around his cock until you knocked over the edge. The muscles in his arms were shaking as he kept himself from collapsing on top of you, so you poked his side to make him collapse anyway.

“Oof,” you groaned, followed by a laugh.

“I was trying not to crush you,” Steve mumbled into your neck, humming pleasantly as he inhaled your shampoo.

“Maybe I wanted you to crush me. Needed some pain to know if this was all real.”

“Sure hope it’s real. Never came this hard.”

You snorted.

“It didn’t take fifteen minutes, though,” you told him, even though you had no idea.

“I told you I’d last as long as you needed me and uh, by the way you tried to clench my dick off I think I did just fine,” he responded cockily through a giggle.

“Touché,” you mumbled.

“Mmmm.”

Steve gave you a kiss, slowly, sweetly. He rested his head next to yours, slowly moving his body off of you in favor to pull your leg over his waist as he cuddled you close.

“Would it be too soon to tell you that I love you?” Steve asked, looking at you with what you could only describe as love in his eyes.

“Normally that’s a definite red flag, even you said so,” you said teasingly as you combed your fingers through his damp chest hair. “But if I said I love you too, then that would make two red flags, and two negatives is a positive, right?”

Steve shrugged, a smile spreading on his face.

“I’m sure there’s an argument against that, but I was never good at math anyway.”

“Me neither.”

Steve smiled and put his hand on top of yours.

“I love you.”

You leaned in for a soft kiss.

“I love you too.”

He watched you quietly, content and happy. At least, until a frown formed on his forehead and he cursed softly.

“What is it?”

“I lost the bet.”

You pushed lightly against his chest.

“This better not be one of those movie plots where you pretend to fall in love with someone for a bet and then supposedly actually fall for them and shit,” you tell him with narrowed eyes, although you knew Steve would never do that.

Steve laughed and shook his head.

“Nah, Robin bet me that I’d sleep with you the moment we’d confess our feelings to each other, and yes I say each other because she was convinced you liked me too and I did not believe her. So I said bet, because I thought this,” he said as he gestured between you both, “was never gonna happen. So… yeah. Well. No regrets, though, obviously,” he mumbled, stealing another kiss.

“What did you bet for?”

“Taking her shift every Saturday, even if that means a double shift for me,” Steve groaned, “and you know what she said? She said: ‘It will be for the better, because I know you two. I don’t wanna be around when you fuck like rabbits in the adult section.’ as if we’d ever—”

You gave him a look.

“Okay, she was probably right but still! Ruthless, that one.”

“She’s gonna be soooo smug…” you mumbled.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be hell.”

“I’ll just ravish you on a random Tuesday to torment her,” you shrugged and Steve laughed.

“I like the sound of that.”

“Thought you would.”

His hand wandered over your thigh and he smirked slowly.

“Wanna take a shower? There’s a girl who left basically all her toiletries here so I’m sure there’s something you can use.”

“How convenient.”

“Very.”

Steve’s gaze was absolutely smitten, and you were pretty sure your expression matched his perfectly.

FIN

If you enjoyed reading this, please know that comments and reblogs are highly appreciated :) Likes are lovely but sadly do nothing to spread the fics around! Help your favorite writers (not saying me - in general) out like that so you can continue to enjoy consuming the free work they put out, it's a win-win.

[charliemwrites]

Soooo a while ago I introduced a “rabid reader.” A reader character with a (non-sexual) body count and a nasty temper.

Anyway, I started thinking about her - and the discord does what it does - and realized that Pathetic Stalker Konig would be a great pairing for her.

So, CW for light stalking, violence, and slightly mean reader

You have a stalker.

He’s… not a very good one.

For one, you know he’s there. Have known since pretty much the beginning. He’s a big fucking Austrian that covers himself head to toe. Not even in subtle colors, but in primarily black. Maybe at night he’d stand a chance, but he follows you in broad daylight too. So, there’s that.

Then there’s the fact that you’re not really bothered by him. What’s there to be bothered by? He keeps his distance, doesn’t interfere with your life. Even when he finally does work up the courage to enter your home, he puts things back where he found them. So, again, not a big deal.

You keep waiting for the escalation. For gifts or letters or some obvious sign of his presence that even the most oblivious person couldn’t ignore. But none comes. Partially, you figure, because you’ve shown no interest in anyone. You have friends, yes, but those are so obviously platonic that even your stalker doesn’t seem jealous. And the few times someone else has made a pass at you, a quick and merciless shutdown follows. Your lack of romantic intentions for anyone seems to be coming him semi-level.

You wonder if this is how religious people feel, that vague sense of being watched. Though you don’t think your stalker is judging you. Be a hell of a thing if he did.

Then one day, things change.

You have this new coworker, Brandon.

Your other coworkers already seem to like him. They say he’s funny and charming and handsome, that he’s such a great fit for the team. You have no particular opinion because most people just aren’t interesting to you, and Brandon is Most People incarnate.

But Brandon seems to have an interest in you. Which, really, is such a poor choice.

He keeps ending up in the break room at the same time as you. Or passing by your desk for a quick question, only to try to lengthen the conversation with the casual chat. Makes a point of saying hello to you in the mornings and walking down with you in the afternoon.

You’re not annoyed yet, not really. It’s a change in your routine, but you’ve been told those are good, so fine. He’s about as bearable as anyone else (besides the rare few you call friend) so you don’t think anything of it. Even when your coworker giggles that he was asking after your romantic life, you tolerate him.

A few months later is the annual office party, a celebration of… something. It seems different every time. Record profits, company anniversary, CEO’s birthday… it doesn’t matter, really. Free food, socialization. It’s something to do.

You go, of course. As ambivalent as you are towards the majority of your coworkers, they do seem to quite like you, and insist that you come.

So you go. You plaster on that mild, practiced smile while they chat and joke, contributing readily when prompted. At the end of the meal, you’re wheedled into going out for more casual celebration. Again, you agree.

Brandon comes along.

And somewhere, throughout the night, Brandon thinks it’s okay to start touching you. An accidental brush here and there is fine, unavoidable really. You’re not opposed to touch as a rule.

But then the occasional bumps and grazes become more frequent, consistent. Purposeful. A hand on your arm, then your shoulder, then your back. When you step away, he somehow ends up right back by your side. So you resort to telling him not to touch you so casually. He scoffs, already past a healthy buzz, and dismisses you as being “uptight” because you’re still treating it as a “work thing.” That you just need some more drinks in you and everything will be fine.

You can feel it bubbling up in you, that inky rage. Maybe something flickers across your face because your coworkers are quick to divert his attention. Smart.

But twenty minutes later you’ve had your fill of socializing. The bar is too loud, people are getting too drunk, and you don’t like the looks you’re getting from more than just Brandon.

You say your goodbyes while he’s in the restroom and leave.

You’ve only just made it to your car when you hear quick footsteps, turn just in time for Brandon to catch up. It’s all just noise to you now, his tense laughter that you left at the worst time, that you’re mean for not waiting. That he wants to walk you to your car like always.

He tries to curl an arm around your waist. It takes restraint you don’t usually employ not to break it. To just step away and repeat (fuck you hate repeating yourself) that you don’t want to be touched.

And then he makes the fatal mistake of just not fucking listening. Of insisting. Of doing what he wants anyway.

So you break his hand. And while he’s still screaming in pain, you notice the shadowy flicker of your stalker ducking out of view.

It’ll stay your secret, you figure, and go home. Expect that to be the end of it.

Until you hear glass break when you’re just about to go to bed. You step out of your room, shoes on and knife in hand, to a fuck-off sized Austrian strangling Brandon. Oh, and stabbing him with a large piece of the lamp someone seems to have broken.

There’s water all over the floor because it started raining an hour ago. It’s mixing with the blood, diluting it pink on your floor. You retrieve a towel from the kitchen to mop it up before it reaches the rug.

All at once, things go quiet. Your stalker is kneeling over a still, dead-eyed Brandon, breathing hard. But his eyes keep flicking to you and then away, shoulders slumped and head ducked.

“You’ve made a mess. Clean up.”

Your stalker jumps into action. Seems to already know where all the housekeeping supplies are. In the meantime, you go digging through your closet for clothes. Can’t find any, so you settle for getting the washer and dryer ready. Order yourself a new lamp online.

By the time you’re done, the body is gone, the floors are clean and dry, and your stalker is fidgeting in the living room.

“Strip.”

He startles. Stares. You arch your eyebrows. Wait him out. But then he does as he’s told. Peeling off cold, wet layers with mechanical precision, until he’s got a damp pile at his bare feet. You give his mask an unimpressed look. That comes off too with an audible gulp.

You don’t really get attractiveness, as a physical quality. You understand proportions and features, and recognize that this man has some pleasing, if atypical, ones. Even with the scar.

“Good.” He shivers. “Now shower.”

He nods, ducks past you to the bathroom - again without having to be told where to find it. You gather up the clothes and toss them in the machine with a little extra detergent.

Walk into the bathroom and ignore the way he tries to cover himself, flushing tomato red from head to toe.

“Your name.”

“Konig.”

You narrow your eyes, but don’t press.

“Are you military?”

He’s built like it. Thick with useful strength, not aesthetic muscle. And he’s scarred all over. Some new, some old, all earned through violence and suffering.

“Military contractor,” he says. Then, quieter, “please don’t stare.”

Your eyes snap up to his. He can’t even hold it for longer than a second before dropping his gaze. You cross your arms.

“You’ve been watching me for 7 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days. Put your fucking hands down.”

He twitches, but drops his hands to his sides. His cock - and it is, you acknowledge, very impressive - is filling out slowly but steadily. You consider it for a moment while he fidgets beneath the steaming spray.

“If you fuck me, will you be satisfied?” you ask.

Like touching, you’re not against fucking by default. It’s just one of those things you don’t think about often because you’re not especially interesting in most cases.

This - Konig - is not most cases.

But konig’s eyes dart up guiltily before he shakes his head. Surprised, you tilt your head.

“Do you want to fuck me?”

He nods so hard the back of his skull bumps into the shower head.

You hum. Stand there and watch him while he awkwardly shuffles until the washer buzzes.

“Finish showering, get your clothes from the dryer, then sleep on the couch,” you say. He swallows again and nods. “You can get blankets if you’re cold. Be here in the morning.”

With that, you turn to switch his clothes over. Then head off to bed, wondering if you’ll see him come sunrise.

Next

Masterlist

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Why did they change Fellow’s and Gidel’s name for EN but not Rollo’s? So weird you’d think they’d at least be consistent and change all the names or none at all.

[Referencing this post!]

hchfxbjsbajCgwhq Deep breaths, everyone 😅 Deeeeeeep breaths…

I know a lot of us might be displeased with the name changes (moreso with Fellow’s than with Gidel’s) but let’s remember that, at the end of the day, they’re just names. They’re not erasing the original names, they’re not changing the context of the event story, and no one will force you to use the new names if you don’t want to. Your feelings are valid, but please be mindful about how you express them (because unfortunately I fear it can very easily veer into insulting or talking down to the localization/the localization team or fans who don’t mind/actually like the name changes 💦 It is partly for this reason that I did not include the other asks I received on this topic, as they could be needlessly inflammatory).

That being said, here are my thoughts on the matter: initially, I didn’t like the names. My automatic thought was that they sound like a corny 4Kids dub where they changed the Obviously Japanese Name (ex: Ichigo) to something Very Western (ex: Zoey). However, I’ll also be the first to admit that I also initially found the Japanese names odd because who names their kid FELLOW?? It’s like naming someone Person. I’m used to it now, but it definitely took me weeks and weeks to consider “Fellow Honest” a full name.

I’ve seen some people say that Fellow and Gidel’s names are meant to be silly sounding (and so the localized names are actually fitting), but I don’t agree with that sentiment. To my knowledge, no one in-universe ever laughs at their names or says they’re out of place. If the names were intended to be perceived as silly, there would be remarks indicating this. For example, “Tsunotaro”/“Hornton” IS silly because characters make explicit mention of how strange the nickname is. This is not true of Fellow and Gidel, so I don’t believe their names are supposed to be unserious.

I’ve also seen a lot of people poking fun at “Ernesto Foulworth” because “it sounds like such an obvious name for a scammer”. And yeah, maybe that’s true depending on who’s looking at it. I get where people are coming from. Buuut to play devil’s advocate, “Fellow Honest” invokes similar vibes. Both names have that element of honesty/earnest, but “Fellow” is more of a “John Doe” or generic name whereas “FOULworth” sounds bad since we associate the word foul with negativity. Essentially, both names are shady in their own ways but “Ernesto Foulworth” gets more flack because foul triggers an automatic negative association whereas fellow is more neutral.

So then I sat with the localized names for a little longer and the changes started to make a little more sense. To me, both sound very Italian, which fits given that Pinocchio has Italian origins. Additionally, “Ernesto” looks and sounds like “earnest”, which refers to being truthful. His surname, “Foulworth”, may be a reference to Honest John’s full name? Worthington Foulfellow. (I have no insights for Gino, unfortunately… other than making him “match” Fellow’s name better since they’re a pair?)

In all honesty (heh) though, I still don’t really like the new names even considering that context. I’ll probably keep calling them by their Japanese ones. I’ll never be a fan of any name changes because it means I have to go back and edit the tags on ALL my related posts, lol

Side note: shoutout to all the folks saying the names sound Ace Attorney-esque, how you think of Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco, and/or joking about how the EN names are Fellow and Gidel’s fake identities/aliases while they’re on the run from the cops 😭 I laughed too hard reading those comments cbwhebjzbwiwhwlek

Now, I’m not sure why the names were changed considering that names prior have largely been unchanged (Cheka, Marja, Najma, Rollo, etc.), save for maybe some spelling changes (Meleanor -> Maleanor, Baul -> Baur, Farena -> Falena, Leven -> Raverne, etc.). The only huge exception to this is Kifaji, who became Neji in EN. Here’s some theories and speculation going around in the fandom about Fellow and Gidel’s changes:

Copyright issues???? For example, you can’t really trademark “Fellow” and “Honest”, but you could maybe trademark “Ernesto Foulworth”. (This doesn’t explain Gino’s name or why they couldn’t trademark “Fellow Honest”.)

Another interpretation of copyright issues theory is that there’s weird legal stuff happening between Aniplex and Disney (international), which forced the name changes. (I think this one assumes a lot of tight regulations and hinges on how litigious big corpos and especially Disney are when it comes to “protecting” their brand and properties.)

Some have suggested that “Fellow Honest” is noun-adjective word order, which is uncommon in English. In “Ernesto Foulworth”, the first name looks and sounds like the adjective “earnest”, meaning the adjective(s) come first, which is more common in English. (This theory is a little incomplete though; there is no noun in the localized name to complete the thought. Additionally, Japanese also usually goes with the adjective-noun rule, so “Fellow Honest” would be an unusual name for JP too. And again, no explanation for Gino.)

… ITALIAn REP BABY 🇮🇹

[acti-veg]

sorry for dumping this in your inbox; you’re the only person who would be even remotely sympathetic to what i have to say and i’d lose all my fandom mutuals if i posted this publicly. what i want to say is that it drives me up the wall how you cannot criticize ANYTHING about humans on here without someone calling you an ecofascist. god forbid you don’t agree that humans are “just beautiful apes who like to make art and hold hands! uwu” or “the Supreme Master Species that will singlehandedly save every other species on Earth from extinction (with no mention of the fact that we’re the reason why they are going extinct in the first place)”. even vegetarian/vegan rhetoric expressed in the most progressive, leftist terms gets branded fascism. truly anyone on tumblr who has ever reblogged any of those bullshit posts about how leather/wool/beef etc. is actually Great and Eco-friendly is just another useful idiot of carnism. all faults of the way humans relate to animals get blamed on capitalism, ignoring the fact that humans were being cruel to nonhuman animals LONG before capitalism became dominant across our society. “humans are just a species like any other so it’s okay to [act of animal cruelty that is universally accepted] because we’re part of the ecosystem!!” In what world is factory farming (or any animal ag) part of any ecosystem??? it actively destroys ecosystems. We’re not a species like any other—while I’m no fan of human extinction or governmental population reduction plans, it’s obvious that we’re a uniquely destructive species and acknowledging that doesn’t make you a fascist. In fact, fascist leaders throughout history would scoff at the idea of any other animal deserving equal consideration as humans (hitler being vegetarian does not count; he didn’t really care about the vegetarian cause, he was just a hypochondriac)

I think people have a pretty poor understanding of what ecofascism actually is, particularly on tumblr it must be said. We have this unfortunate tendency here to sort of half understand a social/political term, then we turn it into a catchphrase divorced from the original context and without any real nuance.

It is perfectly fine and in fact necessary to acknowledge the unique destructive potential and history of our species. We have more power than other species ever has, and we have wielded that power to radically reshape the earth to suit our needs. Homo sapiens wiping out most of the world’s megafauna (and possibly other sapiens as well) long preceded capitalism, and pretty much every time humans arrived on any continent or island, ecological diversity massively declines.

I actually think that the acknowledgement of these facts can be a guard against eco-fascism. When people talk about culling, a return to pre-industrial society, massively reduced population etc. we can point the fact that a vastly smaller, largely hunter gatherer human community very likely wiped out many species way before industrialisation, or even organised agriculture. We throw around a lot of ‘noble savage’ stereotypes about our ancestors and modern indigenous hunting communities, but this is really a rewriting of human pre-history to fit modern ideals about the noble Stone Age hunter living in harmony with nature. This is pure fantasy.

None of this means that humans are inherently bad or destructive as individuals. Our story not a story of a vindictive species destroying for the sake of destruction, it is a story of a species whose technological power quickly overtook our wisdom, and that is still the case now. Plenty of humans use that power for good, and plenty of us have lived ecologically successful lives without harming our wider communities. Our history should be used to inform our future, so that we can avoid making the same mistakes.

Where things start to veer into ecofascism is when we begin to brand humans as some sort of disease. When we talk about humans as an ‘invasive species that needs to be culled,’ when we blame this destruction on overpopulation or industrialisation. This all too often translates into harmful and often racist policies like forced birth control, sterilisation, and other anti-natal policies.

I think the left accuse each other of ecofascism a lot as a silencing technique, but in my experience it tends to be what happens when right wingers weave environmentalism into their ultranationalist views. Ecofascism is a harmful ideology that should be taken seriously, and that just isn’t what we’re doing when we throw the term at anyone who is trying to seriously reckon with the destructive history and potential of human animals, and our obvious exclusion from natural ecosystems.

[hxhhasmysoul]

I found it strange how certain fans don’t apparently see the romantic undertone and chemistry between Gon and Killua, but yet still see can Killua as being gay.

Do you think it’s possible that those fans infantilize Gon by not viewing Gon being capable to understand romantic feelings?

Despite the fact that Gon is technically more experienced with those type of relationships compared to Killua…

I think you’re right, some fans do infantilize Gon a lot (or demonise him). But there is more to why he’s not perceived as gay or why his feelings are not so well noticed.

The most obvious as to why they don’t want to see Gon’s quite obvious feelings towards Killua is the expectation of Gon being straight just by virtue of being a shounen manga protagonist. Those guys do not engage in romance usually, and if they do it’s very much in the background or played for laughs. There will just be “and they were all straight” time skip ending. 

Based on my observations of the two fandoms I’m a part of, there are a lot of fans who come into stories with preconceived notions of what the story will be. If it’s a shounen the mc will have certain traits, his storyline will have certain beats and they will just ignore anything that deviates from these expectations. (Or get very upset that the story is not meeting those expectations)

Killua can be gay, because he’s not the main character and those are allowed more range by the fandom at large. Like there will be people who expect Killua to be Gon’s rival and get confused that he isn’t, but generally the fandom is more tolerant of Killua not fitting that character trope.

And Killua fits into several western gay stereotypes ( I don’t know enough about Japanese gay stereotypes to say he fits those too). 

His body language sometimes slightly veers into what is deemed stereotypically feminine. 

He has more distinct outfits than Gon in the anime. In the manga Gon has more outfits, including a dress-up game that Togashi drew as extras, which includes a dress for Gon, which I at least treat as a canon outfit that Gon has. Which makes Gon not really gender conforming 100% of the time, which in our current societal norms makes him seem queer. But most fans never read the manga, or just skimmed through it.

Killua likes sweets which according to gender stereotypes is a girly preference. In Japan this kind of stereotype can be seen that sweets are for kids and girls, but also in the western so called manosphere you can find people claiming that a real man should never order a dessert. I wouldn’t claim that we never see Gon eating sweets in canon, because I’ve never cared enough to keep track of it, but Killua’s obsession with Chocorobos is so prominent it’s a meme.

And the reader is treated to Killua explicitly waxing poetic about Gon in his head. It’s kinda hard to miss.

_____________

In addition to Gon not performing queer stereotypes as much as Killua does, there just is prejudice against the kind of person Gon is. And here comes the full on infantilization. 

I kind of hate writing this kind of stuff, attaching diagnosis to characters that officially have none. There are aspects to Gon that can lean into interpreting him as neurodivergent. He has moments of hyperfocus when he becomes blind to the world outside, he sometimes has problems regulating his emotions, he can get single minded, he’s prone to risk taking, has issues with self worth and depression.

Like many neurodivergent people he’s not good when it comes to school learning, school is just not compatible with the neurodiverse. 

But people (including some not self aware neurodiverse people) will judge you on your intelligence and maturity if you don’t excel in that environment. With Gon it’s extra annoying, because he proves over and over again how smart he is. 

Also Gon has hobbies and shows excitement about them. To a large subset of society that just means you’re a child, like for some reason the mark of maturity is being tepid and not invested in anything but making money and having a nuclear family. Gon still is literally a child, so his excitement is excusable, but it also makes him see much less mature than Killua who’s already trying to perform moderation in showing excitement about things, he doesn’t always manage, but he’s more reserved, above it all. He’s already self-policing his levels of excitement. 

And because a lot of people in the fandom are young, these biases are just something that have been ingrained into them by the culture, their family and school and they never paused to actually realise that they actually have these opinions and how fucked up they are, because these opinions just feel like duh, like this is obviously how it should be.

And since we don’t get that much of Gon’s inner voice, it’s easy to get tricked into thinking that unlike Killua, Gon doesn’t have a rich inner life, that he doesn’t have all these thoughts constantly running through his head. He’s just this silly kid who sees a bug and suddenly the excitement of that is just 100% percent of his inner life. 

As a silly child Gon’s incapable of romantic feelings, especially gay feelings. Because as we know gay feelings are for older people. Which strongly feeds into the bias that neurodivergent people are generally immature and like should their supposed love lives (or gender identity) even be treated seriously let alone acknowledged?

I personally don’t think that Gon is that much more experienced than Killua when it comes to romance. Like Gon thinks he knows how to throw a date but it’s clear he’s much more interested in the whole planning and preparing a date then being romantic with a person. It feels that his attitude towards “dating” is a little naive and confused, which makes sense because he is a kid. That doesn’t mean he’s incapable of deep love, it’s just that he needs to gain more life experience, actually try to be in a romantic relationship, not just have deep feelings for his friend that they never talk about XD So like I think his experience in romance and dating should only be measured once he tries to take on a date someone he actually would like to date. And not organise play pretend dates for his aunt or as entertainment for some tourist ladies for whom it’s an a funny attraction to indulge a little sheltered boy who things that taking them, complete strangers he’ll never see again his life, on a guided tour of the island and giving them flowers constitutes a proper date. Especially in the context of Gon’s date with Palm.*

_____________

Gon’s love is stated in dialogue and not in his inner monologue, it’s in the way he acts towards Killua, how he repeatedly says that he wants to be with Killua, how much Killua’s safety matters to him. Because of that it’s more missable, it just flows with the scene. It’s not as explicit as Killua’s stream of consciousness. We don’t know what Gon’s stream of consciousness looks like, we don’t know how much of his conscious thought is occupied by him just explicitly thinking about Killua. Because of that the people, who want to see Gon as just a shounen protag, will assume that there are no such thoughts in Gon’s head. Or even more likely, never bother to consider what might be going on in Gon’s head because it’s not something they generally do. And because of the stupid date with Palm gag, they will feel more assured in their assumption that Gon's straight. Because of how Togashi frames it, Gon's clear discomfort with Palm's bahaviour and his complete interest in her as a potential crush are obscured. 

-

-

-

-

_____________

* Dates with older ladies and Palm tangent, le sigh. 

Generally Togashi really doesn’t stick the landing when it comes pedophilia. 

First of all, it’s pretty clear Togashi did no research on it, just defaulted to stereotypes about it. 

There’s Hisoka who kinda embodies the harmful stereotype that links samesex attraction and gender non conforming presentation with pedophilia. And leans into the stranger danger stereotype. In reality creepy strangers like Hisoka are statistically less likely to anything more than passive creepers who stare at kids and have pedophilic scenarios in their heads, because most active paedophiles are people who are in some way close to the child. Unless there is child trafficking going on, or child prostitution. Of course someone so powerful like Hisoka could just use violence or money to get access to children but this is going into speculation about what Hisoka could potentially do outside of what the text gives us. It’s not unreasonable speculation but I don’t think Togashi thought that deeply about it. I just think he went by the stereotype and used the hints of paedophilia as an extra quick association to add to Hisoka’s general super creepy vibe. And I’m saying hints, because Togashi really strives to have plausible deniability here. He always tries to mix in Hisoka’s obsession with strong opponents into the scenes that without that would clearly read as pedophilic. But with that obsession in the mix, it lets some people contest the pedophilic reading, claim that Hisoka’s boner is about Gon’s power growing. I think Togashi muddies the waters on purpose to keep the whole thing less serious.  

Some people in the fandom interpret Illumi as a paedophile. Him being one is more in line with what rl statistics would suggest. He has an extremely creepy obsession with Killua, has means to control Killua and is very chill with Hisoka having paedophilic interests. And while I think it’s a reading that makes perfect sense, it is an interpretation. Even if Togashi wanted Illumi to read that way, he still put in enough plausible deniability that many people will just think that interpreting Illumi as a paedophile is reaching.  

So now we come to Palm and Gon “dating” older women.

What I think Togashi went for with the older women on Whale Island is to give the reader the image that Gon’s dates were akin to kids throwing tea parties for their toys and/or family members. Especially the mention of him going on dates with Mito makes it more plausible that it was what Togashi intended. Just a kid play pretending to do adult things. Cute, naive, innocuous. And also knowing it’s just role playing. Because most kids know that they are playing, that serving tiny toy teacups to their family members is just pretending to serve tea. They are usually old enough to separate their imagination from reality. 

We know that Gon is aware that the date he organises for Palm is pretend. He does not like Palm that way, he does not want to be in a relationship with her and he is trying to let her down easy by taking her on a pretend date. He probably thought it was a good idea because he likely got good feedback from the older women he used to “take on dates”. Likely those women had fun like adults have fun during the fake tea parties. Everyone knows it’s just role playing a scenario for fun. 

I don’t think that we’re supposed to think that those women were creepers who believed those dates were real. Because the whole shitty joke is that both Palm and Killua think that it’s real when Gon is perfectly aware that it isn’t. 

Gon has enough self-awareness that he knows he doesn’t have feelings for Palm and that he’d like her not to have feelings for him. But he’s also scared of her because she’s an extremely  strong nen user and she’s shown to be unstable in a violent way. So he chooses to play into her delusion to get himself out of the situation and not hurt her feelings. Because of his lack of like experience it backfires, because he likely had never met a person like her. He doesn’t know that there is no way not to hurt her feelings at that point, that she’s not a rational actor. 

In this Gon both shows that he has emotional maturity in line with his age and certain gaps in understanding the world also in line with his age. 

And we also see that Killua treats Gon as intelligent and as mature as himself and with respect for Gon’s life experience because he takes Gon’s words about dating experience waay too seriously. Which is also in line with his age, kids that age can we waay too serious for their own good just because they are trying to perform more and more the societally accepted trappings of maturity. 

Why is the joke shitty? Because it’s misogynistic, sexist towards boys and again shows how Togashi didn’t do any fucking research on paedophilia. 

In real life we will have people claim that there is nothing wrong with adult women dating or even having sex with teen boys. That these boys should feel proud that they bagged a hottie, that if they complain if they feel bad or exploited they are not real men. That it’s not really pedophilia if an adult woman does that to a boy. It’s also sexist towards boys because it comes with the assumption that a real boy is horny all the time and of course straight. 

And the joke is only that Palm is crazy and she threatens Gon with violence into it. At least that the only issue male shounen fans both teenage and adult have with this. Palm is hot enough to be an obvious target of desire for Gon, a hottie to bag, but you know hahaha the best pussy is crazy, just saying hahaha. 

And of course we have the sexism of women only being concerned with relationships, and being crazy about that. And easily controllable by men they are attracted to. That it’s okay for Knov to exploit Palms mental state and her feelings for him. 

Togashi really shat the bed with this one. And the problem is that a lot of fans hate Palm for this, even more than Hisoka, because Togashi plays it for laughs, unlike with Hisoka. That the only issue presented with the scenario is that Palm is unhinged, otherwise the whole thing would’ve been cool. 

The misogyny in fandom is unreal. Because the thing is that if Palm’s story was framed properly the date would’ve been a far more nuanced thing. Yes, her forcing Gon to do it would’ve been creepy and horrible. But also it’d be clear that Palm wants to date Gon because he seems safe and controllable to her. Because she’s being abused and exploited by an adult man who uses her feelings to manipulate her. And she’s looking for a situation where she’d be more in control. She is both a victim and an abuser. And this is a very psychologically realistic situation. There isn’t a direct causation between being a victim of abuse and then becoming an abuser. Not all abusers used to be victims, not all victims become abusers. But there is a significant percentage of abusers that used to be victims. It’s something Togashi could’ve explored with Palm because it’s all there, in the text, but he chose not to. Instead he played her creepy behaviour with Gon for laughs, made her prostitute herself to make Knov happy, and fixed her mental issues through having her bodily autonomy violated… And I’m not sure he could’ve done it worse if he tried. Because the sad truth that this shitty Palm situation came from him not trying, him just defaulting to harmful cliches while writing her and calling it a day, likely not giving her story much thought at all.

[sxeraphfic]

Donnie Darko x goth!reader 🙏🙏🙏

GOTH!READER X DONNIE DARKO    

WARNINGS; basically none! Slight swearing and bullying but that's it. 

WORDCOUNT: 1.5k

A/N: Gender neutral prns used in this for readers! I'm assuming by goth you mean trad goth (which fits the time era honestly) or maybe romantic goth (my style hehe lol) so I'll keep that as a reference.  Theres also a pov switch half way through. Hope it isn't too jarring!

˚ ‧ ₊ ♱ ༺ 𓆩 ❦︎ 𓆪 ༻ ♱ ₊ ‧ ˚

Donnie had never had a particular taste in people, really, he’d be surprised and feel lucky enough to have someone even glance over at him in a slightly romantic regard. Sure he had his ex-girlfriend Gretchen show interest in him but that didn't really assure him of how attractive he was, he could barely comprehend how others perceive him other than the obvious being that he's a little out of it. He liked all sorts of different styles of people, who was he to judge? It's not like he was particularly fashionable outside of the average late 80s young mens fashion.  

This statement wouldn't last long though, as he placed his backpack on the back of his chair and sat down he saw an unfamiliar person sitting at the front of his class alone from the others. The teacher smacked the chalkboard with her ruler to gain the class's attention, “Attention class! Good morning everyone”  she announced. “Today we have a student transferring from the other class to join ours” students began to whisper to each other, “Dear, why don't you come up here and introduce yourself?” she clearly had good intentions with asking this. But this is like.. The number one way to make a kid embarrassed, Donnie pondered to himself. 

The transfer stood up in front of the board “um.. hey.. my name y/n l/n,  i've moved from the class next door” -- “no wonder you had to move '' one of the kids called out jokingly, y/n sighed in an annoyed tone. Donnie stared at you, you were well.. Clearly alternative, goth? You were dressed in the normal school uniform but your hair, makeup, piercings made it obvious you weren't like the basic kid. He felt his insides twist a little, you were beautiful. You looked so mysterious and otherworldly compared to the other students and he was enamoured by your appearance. 

Apparently some of the less emotionally intelligent people in our class didn't see that though, not even ten minutes after finishing your introduction and sitting back down you had some kids throw paper balls at you from across the classroom. And as the average lame ass teacher does she ignored your clear bullying situation. Donnie wanted to say something, but bit his tongue. Glancing at you pitfully only to be met with a glare in return, ‘oh god, did i make them feel even worse?’ He worried to himself. ‘Of course I did. God, I'm bad at being chill.‘

A few hours after school, as the dark began to dawn upon the sky donnie found himself lying on his bed daydreaming of you, what type of music could you be into? Surely Dark wave or post punk right? Did you dress even more extreme outside of school? Were you secretly kind and sweet underneath your intimidating appearance? Were your lips as soft as they seemed? Donnie snapped out of it, what was he thinking… he felt kind of creepy daydreaming about someone he's never even spoken to before. Ever since he had gotten home he'd been more zombie-like than usual, his parents even asked him at the dinner table if he had been taking his meds and he scoffed, for once that wasn't the issue. The issue was he had fallen in love at first sight. 

Morning came around, Donnie walked with his doofhead friends aside his sister and her little group. “Donnieee” Samantha groaned “we’re all gonna be late for the bus we took too long!” Donnie and his friends shrugged and Samantha retorted “well my friends and i aren't gonna miss the bus. Have fun slow pokes” she said as she signalled her friends to start running up to the bus stop.  

Samantha for once in her miniature life span was right, Donnie and his friends did in fact take too long. Now they had to walk all the way to school and be late. This wasn't all bad though, as the one and only y/n pushed between them to get through clearly having also missed the bus as well. He could hear your music practically blasting through your walkman, funny. Wasn't that a metalhead thing to do? Donnies friends began to snicker to themselves “what a loser” they whispered in reference to you. Donnie gave them an annoyed glare, before speeding up to walk next to you and speak. 

 “Uh.. hey uh-” he began, you looked at him in confusion, taking your headphones off. 

“What?” you said bluntly, internally you were nervous, you'd already gotten the shit bullied out of you yesterday. You don't need another total dweeb ruining your day before you even manage to get in the school gates.  “I'm uh.. Donnie Darko, I figured I'd say hi since we’re in the same class now right?” he smiled awkwardly and attempted to shake your hand. You gave him a wonky smile back, “oh uh.. hey nice to meet you Donnie.” The handshake failed miserably, you tried to shake his hand but took too long to process the action.  

 What the fuck am i doing? Donnie thought to himself, he was incredibly nervous. The two of you had been walking in essentially complete silence for 5 minutes now, Donnie felt like an idiot for assuming someone as cool as you would be interested in talking to him, he gave you a slight glance and you returned it back

Sighing, you figured that indulging in a little conversation wouldn't kill you. Besides, if he came up to you in the first place and has stuck around walking with you for this long without saying anything outlandish surely he wasn't all bad.

“Sooo.. Darko huh? Kind of a cool last name isn't it?” you initiated. “You think it's cool? I swear people just make fun of me or think it's weird” he looked at you with giddiness in his eyes and smiled, ‘oh. He's cute.’ you thought to yourself.  “So is there a particular reason you've decided to be nice to me Donnie?” he shrugged nervously “Oh well- i mean i don't know, i'm not exactly popular myself so i guess i understand how it feels to be judged” you thinly smiled in response before you began to hear high pitched exaggerating moaning noises from behind you, Donnie’s friends were acting up. “Ugh fuck im sorry about them.” Donnie groaned, “it's chill, i've dealt with worse” you shrugged, before continuing “ever jigged school before Donnie?” he raised his brow at you “sure have y/n.” you giggled “let's ditch these losers i know a spot.” 

You lead him down an old path through the forest before sitting at what looked like some sort of strange concrete circle on the ground. “Jesus y/n how’d you even manage to find this place?” he voiced in shock “Someone who looks like me has their ways,” you smirked. “Y'know y/n i may end up regretting this, i actually have some major sleepwalking issues. I'd hate to wake up down here at 6am” he chuckled softly before sitting on the ground with you. “Sleepwalking? At this age too? Why's that?” Donnie smiled looking down to the ground “oh well uh.. We all got our own problems right?” “amen to that donnie.” you started to soften up, he seemed genuine. 

“Hey, sorry about glaring at you the other day. And being kind of rude when you tried to speak to me earlier” his eyes stared into yours “it's fine y/n, and understandable.. You have all sorts of people targeting you at the moment id be no different at first sight” he continued “i mean, with the way you look and all. You don't seem to care to live up to others expectations of what you should be, you're more free than m-majority of the people in our school will e-ever be. I'm uh envious really.” he started off saying this quite assertively, but his words tangled in soft stutters at the end as the intensity of your gaze made him recoil into himself. “Wow Donnie, I didn't expect that many words to come out of your mouth.. Let alone be so true..” “It feels good to have someone who gets it for once.” you warmly smiled. 

“Do you listen to music, Donnie?” you inquired “you mean do i listen to your type of music?” he snickered, you rolled your eyes in response “duh.” He thought about it for a second “well yeah i guess technically, nothing super niche but i like new wave.” you nodded your head “we should uh.. Y'know hangout sometime and listen together, i could introduce you to some stuff " Donnie perked up "in a going together type of way?” you gave him a confused look. “Ah sorry i meant to say going out ugh” he looked flustered and you giggled, before standing up and proceeding to pull him with you. You embraced him, gazing into his eyes beginning to lean in closer to his face. 

Hehe cliff hanger. Maybe you guys kissed, maybe you pushed him away and called him a weirdo! Who knows, hope you enjoyed my lovelies 

partially proof read. will check for mistakes.

[stromuprisahat]

Second Army disorganization

Siege and Storm- Chapter 14

One of the most frustrating and famously nonsensical passages of Grisha trilogy, easily explained through doylist approach- the author's inability to write strategy or politics and demands of the genre, requiring a weak, unfit heroine to defeat immensely powerful opponent way out of her league:

Alina: Oh no, they dare to oppose me again! :(

Isn't that why would you want to establish a council in the first place? So you get constructive criticism and suggestions to do things better?!

My objections to the notion Alina came up with representation of Grisha can't be more obvious:

Army is a structured organization. There are ranks and councils by default. No amount of ignorant teens will persuade me calling it "Second" makes it otherwise.

Any big organization has a structure. Even if Second Army were only about education, there would be councils and posts on different levels. Hell, school system works that way.

Alina: I'm gonna have the useless ones represented, because we're not doing things like the Darkling, but that doesn't mean I'll respect them myself or abandon my prejudices. Fucking nerds. Weidos...

Another YA nonsense- you cannot put people into categories based on their physical predispositions, and expect the mental ones to fit accordingly. You can have a huge, muscled guy, skilled in delicate handiwork. You can have a tiny wisp of a girl beating the living shit out of you (popular trope by itself).

Now why should sensitivity to metals get you a spot in labs, if you're a strategic genius? Or incredibly skilled, witty rhetorician? Isn't it more likely you'd be required to complete basic training to stay healthy and prevent accidentally endangering others, while being assigned to whatever you're most useful at?

And what about those weak or less intelligent ones? Are they bringing coffee and arranging entertainment?!

It also fits this fan interpretation, that Materialki are often neuro-divegent, so they are tend to be kept away from battle for their own sake.

Alina wasn't involved in practical running of Second Army before. Just because she doesn't know about something, it's not a totally fresh idea.

I'd be afraid of a girl, who almost murdered a bunch of people for asking questions, too.

At this point, I'm gonna run with the idea that all the older Grisha are torn between face-palming and silently laughing their assess off (so Alina doesn't overhear and her clique doesn't resort to violence).

“But what do they do in there?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer. “Only the Corporalki know. But there are rumors that they’ve been working with the Fabrikators on new … experiments.”

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 8

... and that says nothing about the field, or the little groups in noble houses. People tend to stick together with their own, when in strange enviroment. I'm sure such bonds dissolve immediately after their return "home".

I've also delved a little into the sitting order here.

A few lines earlier, Alina noted Materialki didn't show up to complain. Who is so horrified then?! Not them, for sure.

Ironically, this fits into Fabricator-brain theory linked above AND the most logical explanation- Materialki have basic self-defense training, but only those, who are able to, continue. Alina isn't particularly friendly with any of them, so how would she know no one had EVER bothered to teach them? Alright, there are none in her class, but as far as we know, it consists of a Squaller, an Inferni and a Heartrender. Not the most saying sample.

Having a third of all Grisha helpless doesn't fit into the picture of Aleksander's leadership:

“That’s what Botkin always says. ‘Not showy, just to make pain,’” I said, imitating the mercenary’s heavy accent. “Smart guy.” “The Darkling doesn’t think Grisha should rely on their powers for defense.”

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 17

You don't have to become another Bruce Lee, you only need a chance, when they drag you out of bed in the middle of the night.

What tradition?

This is rather well-written group of angry, disorganized people. It might start with a reasonable goal, but soon everyone talks about something else than others, and the message gets lost in the noise.

Tradition doesn't equal "the way things are done". Neither of them is the same as "the need for structure and people knowing their places". The third one is a legitimate concern, although one could argue it's exactly what Alina's attempting.

This whole scene very much reads like:

The author is desperate to prove the Heroine isn't quite useless- she has good ideas! Look! *whacks a hundreds of years old stategist and survivor par excellence with stupid stick*

[irradiatedsnakes]

btw in the tmagp launch celebratory stream alice's voice actor said her favorite scene that'd been recorded by that point was "alice and sam go to a place". so i suppose we'll be getting that next week :]

other notes. this statement (hey! actually a statement this time! what the fuck) was SOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

the cursed dice angle is so good, the way the statement giver took on that role (roll), played the part, UGH it's so fun. the theme of choice that was brought up is also so good- just. ONE more roll for old time's sake :) especially given that this is a TMI statement and how HUGE IMPORTANT of a theme choice and free will were in tma, felt very fitting. fantastic, loved that.

continuing on my stuff about the entities in tmagp- once again some things here feel very on the nose, particularly the statement giver literally calling himself a mysterious stranger. this feels like a fun little red herring to me, for people a bit hung up on the entities stuff. that's how i interpreted it, anyways. i wanna know more about this world so fucking bad, dude.

also, the institute's in manchester in tmagp, not chelsea/london. which means no milbank prison, no panopticon. interesting. (though soemthing that was known from the arg already- i really need to deep dive on that. tomorrow, maybe.) statement taking and artifact storage are still a thing, evidently, but noting that there's no mention of an archivist or anything like that. and the subject/agent/catalyst stuff, that's Very interesting.

once again, chester bringing up a magnus-related statement, here in obvious reply to what sam was talking about- just when he was considering to celia about dropping his investigations- clearly (imo) to goad him into not leaving it behind. excellent. and fun given the first TMI-related incident with redcanary had the obvious conclusion of THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE IS WEIRD AND DANGEROUS while also having enough mystery to draw sam in further. sam's seen the canary die in the coalmine and has made the decision to keep digging and that's fantastic.

now! characters! sam's paperwork :) VERY intriguing that he's getting all this stuff and celia's got none of it- he said it was due to that box about the response department, but i've got my doubts about that being the reason he's being saddled with all this weird stuff. also the questions on the thing made me laugh, very good. sam and celia have such good interactions, i love how they bounce off each other. also, with regards to the paperwork- i think there's a connection to be made about the statement giver's continued rolling of the dice (it always felt like my choice.) and sam filling out all this creepy, utterly pointless paperwork to "refuse to give it the satisfaction of giving up".

GWEN AND LENA. nigel dickerson, you know, from tv? possibly. i don't watch television. i do hope we'll be seeing exactly what gwen is being told to do next episode.. delivering something, keeping calm, recording the detailed reactions to what's being delivered. maybe we'll get a bit more of a clue as to what the oair is actually for. i do like that gwen's not become one bit less indignant, skeptical, and disrespectful towards lena now that she's got this job. i'm very excited to see her on her fist job she's gonna suck at it i think

i'll admit i was a little surprised to see teddy again. i was worried for a sec he might be going in the direction of getting dragged back to the oair, but nah. not yet, at least :) and ALICE. ALIIIIICE auaaaaagh!!! i don't know if i have much to say baout this part that isn't just (shaking a plushie in my mouth like a dog). very neat that she has agreed to help sam investigate this and actually go to the institute when she's been so staunchly don't get caught up in the creepy stuff! leave the magnus institute stuff ALONE you don't want to get into this spooky shit! like.. she does not want to get involved with spooky shit and she doesn't want sam to get involved with spooky shit but she cares about him and their friendship a lot and this is obviously important to him. so. (plus, the thing about alice's brother having been at the institute alongside sam and gerry..) i like them both so much. i am so excited for next weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek

[fastcardotmp3]

Jonathan & El cw: implied past child abuse

The first time he hears her call herself bad it strikes him so hard in his sternum that he can't buck up and do something about it.

Jonathan looks at this girl, his sister, who has saved the world time and again, who had saved his brother from a slow death in a terrible place, and she lays claim to a badness that makes him feel kind of sick, actually.

It's the same feeling he got when Will started calling himself a freak, the same feeling he got when Jonathan himself first started learning to play music loud enough he couldn't hear his parents fighting in the other room, even years before he taught that trick to Will.

It's a feeling, ultimately, that swallows stability whole and leaves you to stumble across uneven ground until you find your footing again.

Jonathan just has to-- find his footing again. And that means someone needs to talk to El.

"Because I am," she says when he asks why she calls herself that, sitting at the kitchen table with two mugs of her latest culinary obsession between them-- hot chocolate.

"But what makes you think you're bad?" Jonathan asks, genuinely curious, genuinely getting thrown to the ground by the shake in the earth. "I don't think you're bad."

El presses her lips together, eyebrows low over her downturned gaze as she looks intensely at the little marshmallows sitting on top of her drink like she's trying to solve the puzzle of the world.

Jonathan supposes she kind of is, in a way, contemplating human nature after spending so many years being told what to be, how to fit within a certain set of parameters, how to behave the way Papa wanted her to.

That's another thing that gives him big feelings. Those feelings could probably be solved by caving Brenner's face in, though.

"I have hurt people," is what she lands on, still not looking up but the scowl line between her brows deepening.

And there's no denying it, she has hurt people; she's killed people, as a matter of fact, and she's watched them die, so there's no point in dodging the reality of that here, in trying to say you didn't mean to when he knows she did.

Jonathan opens his mouth and then shuts it again, though, catches himself in the act of trying to tell her that the good she's done outweighs the bad because, for one, he doesn't know if that's true, and for two, maybe it doesn't matter.

"You know," he clears his throat, elbows digging into the table and shoulders hunching up around his ears, "stories-- like Will's books and Hop's TV?-- have really obvious villains most of the time. Bad guys, right?"

El looks up at him, thinks about it, nods.

"Right."

"Okay," Jonathan keeps going, "well, that's because people have always been trying to find-- easy answers for hard things. Things like good and bad. So they created monsters who only ever hurt and heroes who only ever help.

"But, just because it helps us understand why people do bad things, it doesn't mean that-- none of it is really that-- black and white?"

"Black and white?" El questions, but she's not pushing back against him so Jonathan has hope that this is working in some way or another.

"Like, clear and obvious. Like everything has just one answer, but that's not really the case, is it?"

"No," she says with zero hesitation. "Some things are-- confusing."

"Yeah, they are. People are," he pulls his mug closer to himself and taps his fingers along the ceramic.

"So there aren't... bad people?" she looks confused, like she doesn't believe it, like she's actively losing faith in his judgement, so Jonathan shakes his head quickly.

"It's-- It's more like there are just people," he flounders. "And I really-- I don't think I've ever met a person that's only ever been good or only ever been bad."

El looks down at her hot chocolate. Grabs the can of whipped cream and sprays more on top of her cooling drink.

Doesn't take a sip.

"You've only ever been good," she says it slowly, obvious confusion still touching her tone in ways that don't even overpower the rush of emotion Jonathan gets and knowing she really feels that way about him of all people.

He breathes sharply through his nose, opens his mouth and shuts it twice before he manages to say, "I've hurt people too, El."

It's not going to be an easy thing, Jonathan thinks, making sure she understands that people are largely just the choices they make and that people are allowed to choose to change, to get better, and that the people who hurt her, the people she hurt in return, won't be missed by anyone who loves El but might be missed by someone and that no matter how complicated it is and no matter how messy and no matter how surface level wrong it may be she is still not bad.

It's not going to be an easy thing, made clear by the way she looks at him now and visibly tries to make sense of the fact that someone she had deemed as good could possibly have ever done wrong, because those people in that fucking lab drilled absolutism into her head from birth, but fuck. Fuck.

"You're just a person, is all I'm saying," he implores, because it's going to take longer than one conversation over hot chocolate to make any of it make a modicum of sense, even to him. "You're a person and we love you."

Something shakes loose in her gaze at that, a tension releasing from her shoulders, because if there's one thing Hopper and Joyce and those damn kids have done right it's making this make sense to her.

"I love you too," she tells him, and Jonathan has the self control of a saint to not start crying.

When she adds more whipped cream to her drink, he just follows her lead.

[synthapostate]

@lastdaysofwar , Day 13: Aftermath/Groundhog Day/Flowers (Hermann Gottlieb/Newton Geiszler)

A year after the war’s end, everything is different. The world is rebuilding. The city is thriving. The scientists are together.

“I’m just saying, I don’t know why you’d make reservations at a place where you have to wear a tie to get in,” Newton complains.

“People go to this sort of place,” Hermann says evenly. “On their anniversaries.”

Newton’s face colors up, all in an instant, and a smile breaks free. After a year, any reminder of the change in their relationship still does this to him. Sometimes Hermann will mention it, offhand, just to light him up.

“You, you, um…” Newton gestures vaguely, trying to marshal his argument. “You, stop being cute.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You don’t have to!” He sounds so affronted, Hermann has to hide a smile of his own. “I’m just saying, you never wear a tie if you can help it. ‘Feels like I’m being bloody well strangled to death,’” he says in a cartoonishly bad English accent.

“Maybe it’s worth it to see you all dolled up for a change,” Hermann suggests.

Newton’s blush is luminous, brighter than the neon signs around them. But, as always, he does his best to appear unaffected.

“Baby, I could put on this monkey suit for you any time,” Newton says, tugging at his properly buttoned collar. He’s no more comfortable dressing formally than Hermann is, and far more obvious in his discomfort. But he tries.

“‘Baby,’” Hermann says under his breath. No one has ever called him such a thing, and he is resolute in his determination not to be charmed by it.

“Y’know what? It would look even better on your bedroom floor,” Newton wheedles.

“Our bedroom floor,” Hermann corrects. “It isn’t as if we’ve never—” He cuts himself off, entirely too flustered by the smoldering look his partner is giving him. “Newton, honestly. We never get to go anywhere nice.”

“Nice places make me feel like I’m at one of those damn fundraisers. You remember those? Dressing up like you’re going to a funeral so you can beg for scraps from a bunch of guys who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.” He links his arm through Hermann’s, in that way that Hermann never fails to find awfully sweet, even though it generally precedes something vulgar. Sure enough: “I would so much rather go somewhere I can be comfortable with you. And by that I mean I wanna take you home and strip you naked and…you know.” He waggles his eyebrows hopefully.

Hermann eyes the restaurant, weighing the merits of further argument. They’ve made it all the way here. If Newton only wanted to seduce him, he could have gone about it an hour ago instead of going to all this trouble.

On the other hand, the novelty of seeing Newton Geiszler in the nude has not yet worn off, even still.

“You promised me dinner,” Hermann says halfheartedly. “I’m hungry.”

“Great! We’ll get it to go.”

“This is not the sort of place that—”

“And then you can have me for dessert.” He leans in and whispers more in Hermann’s ear, in words fit to make a sailor blush.

Not blushing, Hermann snaps, “I’ll be having a real dessert if you expect to do anything else tonight.”

“I love you. Call a cab.” Newton drops his arm and runs into the restaurant, leaving Hermann sputtering on the sidewalk by himself.

*

They return home with a very expensive meal in takeaway boxes balanced on their laps. Newton nuzzles at Hermann’s neck all the way, and Hermann, embarrassed by the presence of a stranger in the front seat, puts up with none of it. Well—hardly any. Maybe a bit.

The man he was a year ago would hardly recognize the man he is now.

As they dash from the cab to their own front door, Newton whispers the most awfully romantic things. He’s quite different than he was a year ago, as well, showing all his feelings like a man who’s never suffered a broken heart.

They’re barely inside the door when Newton is pressing him up against it, their dinner smashed between them, boxes tipping sideways inside the bag.

“Newton, let me put everything down, for heaven’s sake, so I can give you my full attention.”

“Can’t. Overcome by passion.” Newton pauses to flash the briefest of grins before he’s tearing Hermann’s shirt off.

And really, Hermann can’t argue with that.

*

“Anniversary sex is fucking awesome,” Newton says, once he’s able to say anything other than Hermann’s name and yes-yes-yes.

“We’ll have to try it again next year,” Hermann says dryly, calmly, as if he hasn’t just been screaming in a very undignified manner that the neighbors could probably hear.

“I love you,” Newton sighs. He’s splayed out across Hermann’s chest, boneless and sticky, a weight so heavy it almost hurts, but Hermann will never push him away. Never again.

“My dear Newton.” He runs his fingers through his partner’s hair. It’s matted with sweat, and his stroking picks out strands of grey that Newton hasn’t noticed yet. He’ll want them gone when he finds out, but Hermann loves these little signs that his Newt is real and human.

“If you keep petting me, I’ll never get up,” Newton says sleepily. Hermann does not stop petting him. “Mmmmm. This is nice.”

“I could stay here forever,” Hermann agrees. He says I could and not I want to, because, even now, there’s a part of himself he can’t help holding back. But Newton has seen into the heart of him. They have no secrets, only unspoken truths.

“Mmm, forever. Hey, Herms, you know why I waited until February 2nd to ask you out?”

“We both put off confessing our feelings, because we’re very stupid men,” Hermann reminds him. They knew, straight out of the drift, that each had rather painfully intense feelings for the other, but it took weeks for either of them to do anything about it, because old habits die hard.

“Okay, true, but.” Newton rests his stubbly cheek on Hermann’s chest. “It’s Groundhog Day.”

“Truly, the most romantic of holidays.”

“It is. If there’s one day I’d want to live over and over again, it’d be the day I’m guaranteed to be spending with you.”

“Newton…what on earth are you talking about?” He can tell the man is sincere, and the sentiment seems quite romantic, but he can’t tell what it means.

Newton pushes himself upright, looking shocked.

“Hermann, dude, have you never seen Groundhog Day?”

“You mean the Dan Aykroyd movie?”

“It’s B—Hermann, you’re killing me—it’s Bill Murray—okay, get up, we’re watching a movie.”

“But, bed…” He’s so comfortable, and now Newton isn’t going to let him enjoy it.

“It’s a romcom, super romantic, great thing to watch on your anniversary, come on get up!” He bounces out of bed and sprints off to the bathroom to clean himself up.

Reluctantly, Hermann follows.

*

Hermann takes a bit longer to freshen up than Newton does, so by the time he emerges into the living room, Newton has already set up the (cold) remains of their dinner on the coffee table—what hasn’t spilled in the plastic bag or out onto the carpet. He’s even plated it, for the illusion that they’re behaving like civilized people, even though Newton would be more than happy to eat with plastic silverware from a styrofoam box. The table also bears the bouquet of stargazer lilies Newt gave Hermann earlier in the day, arranged in a drinking glass because they don’t own a vase.

“Looking good, hot stuff,” Newton says when he comes in, and rakes his eyes over Hermann’s body as if he were wearing something far more provocative than a borrowed AC/DC t-shirt.

“Don’t be silly,” Hermann says, ruthlessly suppressing the smile that wants to bubble its way out of him every time Newton pays him the slightest teasing compliment.

“I can’t help it, man, I love when you pretend to like good music.” As if he’d wear this shirt for any other reason than because it’s Newt’s. AC/DC is of no interest to him. “Hey, put the movie in while I pour some wine, okay? I’m gonna make this anniversary romantic as fuck, even if we didn’t get our night out.”

“You’ve been ‘romantic’ already,” Hermann says, but he moves to the DVD shelf to do as Newton asks.

It isn’t difficult to find the movie Newton wants to watch. Their collections have merged since moving in together; instead of making any distinction between who owns what, they’ve simply organized them alphabetically by title. Seems a bit silly to do it any other way.

When Hermann takes Newt’s DVD off the shelf, there’s an odd rattle inside. Hermann gives it a shake, frowning.

“Is the disc broken?” he asks. He wouldn’t be surprised. Newton can be awfully rough on his own possessions sometimes. But if he has his heart set on watching this film together, Hermann hates to disappoint him.

“Oh, shit, I did step on it earlier. Maybe it’s just the plastic that broke? Open it up and see.”

“This is why you don’t leave your things lying all over the floor, dear.” Hermann opens the plastic case and—

Blinks once in surprise.

There’s a ring in here. An unadorned, silver-colored band, like—like a wedding ring.

Hermann’s cane, tucked against his side to free up the use of his hands, nearly slips out of his grip. Hastily, he drops it to the floor and settles his weight on it, feeling very much as if he might otherwise collapse. The DVD case tilts downward. The ring falls, hits the floor, and rolls away behind him.

Hermann turns to follow it, and finds Newton down on one knee. He catches the ring before it can escape and holds it up to Hermann, cupped in his palm.

“How’s this for romance, huh?”

“What,” Hermann says. “What—is this?”

“A proposal.”

“You want me to m-marry you?”

“Yeah. You okay that?”

“Yes,” Hermann says faintly. He’s more than okay with it, but marriage is not something he’s ever planned for. He’s never imagined that Newton—that anyone—would ask this of him.

“I want to spend every day with you for the rest of my life. I want to wake up beside you and go to sleep beside you and never even have to wonder if it’ll be the same thing the next day. And I don’t know how to get us stuck in a timeloop, so…” He shrugs. “Marry me, Hermann?”

“Yes,” Hermann says again. The DVD case falls, forgotten, from his fingers. “Get up, Newton. I’m going to make love to my fiancé.”

To be continued…

[dearweirdme]

Hi anon!

I'm not gonna post your ask for obvious reasons, but here goes what you asked me. An explanation of why I feel Jk has not been dismissive of Tae.

To me this is a fandom thing and not something that exists in reality. It's basically the opposite of shipping, but it's not by definition more real. But I think at the bottom of it lies an urge to find something that 'excites' people. Shiping can do that, but finding animosity between members can also do that. Both things keep people engaged and 'searching' for some sort of proof. It's not a thing that's specific to Tkk or BTS, it happens in more fandoms... just like shipping does. The referall to being more rational is an odd one, because we are all dealing with the same amount of information here. To me seeing a continuous dislike from Jk towards Tae is the least rational one, since there's so much that actually goes against that. Why would Jk choose to spend as much time with Tae as he did if he didn't really want to? We haven't seen him spend that much time with any other member, does that mean that he likes them even less? Or do we take the 'it's all fanservice' route? But wouldn't that mean we have to consider that to be true for any members interaction? People don't call Yoongi/Jimin fanservice this way, or Jimin/Hobi, or Namjoon/Jk. So what makes Tae and Jk interacting different? It's only the Tkk of it all that's different... and that mostly boils down to people feeling all sorts of awkward/uncomfortable for whatever reason they have (and those can be several, not just the homophobia..).

People riding the "Jk doesn't like Tae" train have picked some moments they feel were odd and keep their focus on those moments while mostly passing by the many moments where Tae and Jk are obviously fine. This too is very much the same as some shippers like to focus on only a few moments that fit in the way they see their ship. It's how some Jkkrs send me clips like that of a few days ago that doesn't actually show Jm being hurt by Tkk Tkking.. it's not there and yet they absolutely believe that it is. Admitting that you are wrong is a hard thing to do for some... so instead of that people will often just choose to double down.

I don't really care whether people believe in Tae and Jk as a couple or not. None of us actually know anything and in the end it all comes up to how you interpret what you see. But what I do feel a bit touchy about is when I see people talk about them disliking each other, or that vulnarable Tae is the victim of bad guy Jk. A friendship is spotted much more easy than a hidden relationship, so I can understand not seeing the relationship part... but I don't understand not seeing the friendship part. People don't even seem to differentiate between Jk not liking the shipping and Jk not liking Tae, while to him those things would absolutely be different in any case.

People are super selective. Those who say Jk doesn't like Tae only focus on those few moments they feel are odd. They flip past Tae and Jk at the Dream premiere, using Jk's live afterwards as an example of him being down after having spent time with Tae... when the real reason for him having been down is probably way more likely to do with something aside from Tae. People hatch onto Jk doing a live on Jm's face and not for Tae as him not caring for Tae, when Jk's own scedule was completely different at both times. People say Jk went to do a live after Inkigayo to set certain narratives about Tae being there straight, when it is quite obvious that he went live to fill time while his laundry was going (as if that is not a very Jk thing to do) and he only talked about Tae there when asked about him. It's always stuff like this... people take a tiny bit of something that happened and go wild about it.

When you look at the entirety of Jk and Tae's interactions all throughout last year and als before that.. you see two people who enjoy spending time together. They look at each other with kindness (and more if you ask me), they interact casually without boundaries they touch each other easily, they stay in each others space for a prolonged time with ease, they talk about each other with kindness, they choose to spend time together outside of business. Like.. their friendship isn't hidden.. it's a very obvious one even.

[jeffgerstmann]

So apparently AEW pays well and that's bad?

I know a couple of current WWE folks who definitely got better contracts simply because AEW existed and, thus, created a world where people might jump ship and go somewhere else.

But yeah, I don't know, people are fuckin' crazy. That said, with all of the recent free agent talk going around and that article that is all "WWE needs to look in the mirror about why they keep losing free agents to AEW," I think that's a little off the mark.

Like, yes, in a theoretical, big-picture kind of way the WWE should probably ask themselves why people would want to work anywhere else. And they can chalk it up to "well, we've had some negative press lately" or "this person just didn't want to work as many dates" or whatever. Each case will be different. But I think in the three recent cases cited, there are very real life reasons why none of those three would go with WWE. It's great that the offer from AEW was better and, honestly, I think those signees will easily find more success in AEW than they would in WWE.

Like let's not kid ourselves here: WWE could have offered Okada a fuckton of money, but would he actually make a meaningful mark in the WWE? He'd come in, the announcers would have to spend a ton of time educating the audience on why he matters because most of their audience doesn't watch anything else, and he'd probably just end up being the next foreign heel. The types of great matches he had in NJPW aren't really the kinds of things that WWE is looking for or especially needs more of. They'd probably rush him into a main event program for three months or so and then do something embarrassing with him. He'd be tagging with Nakamura in a team with a vaguely racist-sounding name or something shitty like that. He'd be another amazing performer in search of a meaningful storyline and the WWE's midcard is fucking stuffed full of guys like that right now. He'd be losing to Karrion Kross by Survivor Series.

Tack on the notion that WWE's business is doing really well and they're selling tickets everywhere they go and inventing new, more evil forms of revenue all the time and it's easy to see that WWE doesn't need Okada. They need to be making sure that they have a fresh crop of young talent ready to take over when the current headliners fall off or move on. At 36, Okada isn't quite that guy.

However, Okada is a great fit for AEW and its audience. Too good, actually. I mean I don't think he'll be a "needle mover" on the ratings because anyone in this country who knows who Okada even is already watches AEW. They're super-serving their audience. They're "building golden toilets" for their fanbase. As someone who really likes that shit, I'm stoked. But the weirdo ratings nuts online who live and die by television ratings are melting down over "is Okada a draw or not" or something. And I think it'd probably be obvious to anyone who really sat down and thought about it that Okada wasn't ever going to drag in a whole new American audience.

I'd say mostly the same thing about Ospreay. He'd become the leader of the Catch Wrestling Crew or whatever the fuck they're called now.

The other thing I'd say is that, over time, a better program will probably attract a larger audience. So AEW's programming is better by way of these new signings. They're great performers and I think they both have the ability to be super big in the US for years to come, provided they're working somewhere that plays to their strengths.

Bringing Sasha Banks over to AEW has a chance to bring in new audience since she had a level of fame here in the States already and, hey, maybe fans of hers weren't already watching AEW. It's possible! Punk did it, right? We'll see. That might immediately make her more valuable than Ospreay and Okada. That said, there are already a ton of women that I'd love to see more of on AEW TV, so inserting another star at the top of that division kinda rubs me the wrong way.

Either way, I think these three specific cases are, well, specific enough that trying to use this to claim that WWE is "losing out" on this free agency stuff is probably wrong. They know how much they're willing to spend on an individual talent, they've been at this long enough to have a pretty good idea how some of these people are likely to monetize once they get there, and they're simply not going to overspend on any talent anymore because they're really focused on trying to bring in new talent and raise them up through their system. For all we know, AEW overspent on all three.

But they aren't spending my money, so fuck it! It's awesome! I only get mad when the people I want to see are locked behind the ROH paywall. Like Athena! Put her on real TV, she's fantastic! What the fuck!

[thegodmother007]

My New Neighbor - Chapter 8: What the Fuck Just Happened?

My New Neighbor Chapter 8: What the Fuck Just Happened?

TRIGGER WARNING: This story will eventually contain violence, angst, threat of death, swearing, dark humor, adult themes like sex & drugs, racism, classism, sexism etc. Do not say you have not been warned

Chapter 8:

My shift at Dave & Crusters had been going smoothly tonight so far, one of the tamer nights I have had this week. I look up at the clock to see it’s 45-minutes away from closing, better get to the closing duties so I am out of here by 10:00pm. I grab a cloth from the bleach bucket & start wiping down the counters. As I mindlessly perform the routine of tasks I have done 100x’s before, I hear my phone ping in my pocket. Was not often I got notifications this late at night. I look around to see if my manager is nearby before pulling my phone from my pocket & giving it  a glance. ‘Your Order has been received & processed by GamingRUs. Shipping details to follow’ it read. I felt a pang of guilt in my chest as I was reminded of the conversation Vi & I had earlier today. 

Without warning, I am bumped into by the other bartender who was carrying a tray full of glasses. Thankfully, none were dropped. “Whoa, sorry Cain, I was looking at the glasses when I should have been watching where I was going!” Brittany says as she passes me by & towards the kitchen area, but not before noticing the look on my face. She stops “You alright?” she asked & I shrug, “It’s complicated.” I say trying to keep it short. But Brittany was the type to really get involved & shove her nose in where it isn’t wanted. “Oooo girl trouble?” She was not too far off with that guess. “Something like that…” I answer before trying to turn away. Quicker than she looks, Brittany rushes to block my path “Maybe I can help! I am really good at giving advice.” She offers & I just stare at her, contemplating my next move. What did I have to lose by at least getting her opinion on it? “Alright” I say, relenting. 

I tell Brittany everything, I even hand her my phone to look at the texts that went between Vi & I. “So? What do you think? Do you think I crossed a line or do you think she’s overreacting?” At this point, a busser named Huan had joined the conversation & had been listening intently to my story along with Brittany. Huan and Brittany look at each other after having passed the phone back & forth. “You’re definitely the asshole here, Cain.” Birttany says, handing my phone back to me. 

“Really? I thought I was giving her a compliment, you know? She surprised me with how smart she was during Trivia Night. So, I called her smart. How is that bad?” I was dumbfounded over Brittany’s answer. I looked to Huan for his opinion and he nods, “Let me take this one Brit.” Huan says with a hand on her shoulder, leaning in towards me “Look Cain, you had good intentions, that’s obvious because this is bothering you. What you need to understand though, is that your assumption of Vi’s intelligence comes from a place of outdated, racist beliefs.” I felt the piercing of that word shoot through my chest ���Racist?” I asked “I don’t hate Vi because she is a giant or anything, I don’t hate Vi at all!” Huan shakes his head “Racism is not just hatred, it can manifest in different ways. This time, you assumed that because she was giant, that she would be dumb or less intelligent. So the surprise was because she didn’t fit the stereotype you categorize her into, not because she was smart & won you guys the game.” I sat, trying to understand exactly what he was saying. “But I would have been surprised over anyone being able to answer the questions that she did, not just her.” Huan crosses his arms “You said it yourself that you didn’t know there were giants who liked school, right? Whether you’re ready to admit it or not Cain, that was a racist remark. Being a giant doesn’t mean you dislike school or any type of education. Giants are not inherently dumb, just how Asian people are not inherently good at math or devoted to their academics. Personally, I prefer reading & I love watching documentaries about obscure topics that are unrelated to direct academics. I didn’t pop out of the womb with a fucking calculator.” 

Brittany snickers at Huan’s joke and looks to me. “He’s right Cain. I know you didn’t mean to, but you messed up here.” I sigh and rub my temples, finally realizing why what I said was so wrong & why it got such a reaction out of Vi. “I wasn’t raised around giants…” I admit & Huan scoffs “No shit.” he says rolling his eyes with a smirk. “So how do I make it up to her? I need her on my team next time Don hosts Trivia Night. There was no way I would have ever gotten the question ‘wHaT dOEs DNA sTaND fOr? Without Vi’s help.” Brittany places her hand on Huan’s shoulder “I got this one. My boyfriend has pissed me off & made up for it more times than I can count.” Cain felt a redness creeping up across his cheeks at the mention of boyfriend/girlfriend relationships. “We’re not an item, Brit, we’re just Unit Partners…” I try correcting her and she waves me off. “A woman scorned in any language, any race or relationship is all going to look the same, regardless of the situation. What you need to do is make it up to her. Buy her dinner, bring her flowers, sing her a song.” Brittany suggests but I couldn’t help but feel put off by all those suggestions “Those all seem really…intimate..” I look at Huan who snorts with a laugh at Brittany’s suggestions. “Have you tried apologizing?” He asks with a ‘isn’t-it-obvious’ tone of voice & a raised eyebrow. “Yes, of course I have!” I respond defensively, getting frustrated as no one’s suggestions are helping. “When?” Brittany asks. “You read the texts, I said it there.” I hand her my phone back, which still has our conversation pulled up. Brittany looks over it again with Huan sharing the screen too. “No, you didn’t” Brittany says handing me my phone a second time. “I told her that I didn’t mean to underestimate her, I told her it wouldn’t happen again.” I confirm but Huan pipes up “That is not an apology my dude. That is acknowledging you messed up, but you didn’t atone for it.” Brittany nods, pointing to Huan “He’s right, that’s not an apology.” I re-read my texts to Vi and I can see what they’re saying. “So I’ll text her that I am sorry, then.” I say positioning my phone in my hand to start typing. Brittany puts her perfectly manicured hand over my screen “You need to do this in person for it to mean something. You insulted her in person, you need to apologize in person.” That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

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I heard the obnoxious buzzing of Cain’s apartment door, requesting entry into my apartment when I was stepping out of the shower. I checked my phone quickly, to see if he texted me before he was at my door, hoping to get an idea of why he was here. No messages were on my phone, raising the question of what Cain wanted. With as much politeness as I could muster in that poorly timed moment, I yelled out of my bathroom door “GIVE ME A MINUTE!” As I rush to wrap my wet hair in a towel and tighten the fresh towel around my body. I walk down my hallway towards my living room, leaving behind little puddles of water, where I push the buzzer to let him in. 

I stand across the living room, watching the little door open, with Cain using his back to push his way through, carrying something in his hands. For the first couple of steps in, Cain’s back is to me as he starts shouting “Vi! I realize I messed up!” Not noticing that I am right behind him only a few steps away. Cain turns around, eyes looking at the flat square cardboard that seemed to resemble a pizza box, before meeting my gaze “I came to apolog-...” His sentence halts the moment he lays eyes on me standing on the other side of the living room. I watched his face & eyes open wide with surprise as he saw me standing there. After doing a quick up & down, his face grows noticeably red & he covers his eyes while turning away, struggling to hold the pizza box with one hand “Vi, I didn’t know this was a bad time, sh-sh-should I come back later?” He asks, embarrassed. “I’m in a towel, Cain.” I point out, not entirely sure what his deal was. The towel was not overly small, it covered me like a dress would, so it’s not like he could see anything. “Yea, you’re in a towel! Should I give you time to change o-or something?” I could tell he was not comfortable. “Would you like for me to change?” I asked him, wondering how the hell he handles seeing people at a public pool or beach showing so much skin if me being in a towel made him this uncomfortable. “It’s your apartment, you can do whatever you want!” He says nervously. “Alright. So what do you want?” I asked, realizing how cold that may have come out a bit too late. Cain’s eyes slowly peeked from behind his hand, as he lowered it to the pizza box once again and erected his posture. Clearing his throat & choking on it a little he tries to regain his momentum from earlier. 

“It’s been brought to my attention that I may have been insensitive to you & my comment about giants’ intelligence levels crossed a line.” I folded my arms “Mm hmm. And?” I asked, feeling the chill of the air conditioning crawling up my wet skin. Cain, distracted by whatever he was thinking to say next, finally said “So I wanted to apologize!” Holding up the pizza box to be above his head, showing me proudly what he’s brought, much like a cat would bring a mouse to its owner. “Vi, I did not grow up around giants. I don’t know what isn’t okay to say, how to act or what customs to follow. I am going to mess up a lot, but I don’t want to mess up so badly that I ruin the chance to have a friendly Unit Partner.” My heart softened as his plea, struck by the honesty he was showing me. I offer a smile “Well, it’s not the worst thing I have had a human say to me. So I think it’s a forgivable sin.” I say giving him the closure he came for. I start eyeing the tiny box with curiosity “..You brought a pizza?” The pizza itself was no larger than your average cracker to me. Cain smiled back at me “Yes! But…I see that maybe it was not as grand of a gesture as I had hoped it would be…” He says holding it up for me to take. “Might be a bit small…not really filling for you…but they wouldn’t let me buy a giant pizza. So I had hoped this would be enough…” I walked up to him, watching his eyes follow where my footsteps were landing & his face grew from pale, to pink to full blown tomato red again. I crouch down, keeping my legs together, to avoid flashing Cain. His eyes steered away from my toweled body as he held out the pizza. I gingerly took it from him, using my nail to open the box to see a pepperoni pizza with 2 slices missing. “You ate some of it?” I asked as Cain laughed nervously, “Yea well I figured we would be able to share a giant pizza, but when I was denied that option, I did the next best thing & figured we would share a regular sized pizza, like normal roommates do. I also did not have any other plans for lunch…and I was hungry” I rolled my eyes with a smile “The peace offering is appreciated, thank you.” Cain looks up to me, happy his apology was accepted. He watched as I slid the whole pizza from the box, into my mouth in a single bite, which was about all the pizza was. But for what it was worth, the pie was deliciously cheesy & saucy. I barely had to chew it before swallowing, crumpling the cardboard box in my hand to toss away later. 

Cain watched my fist close on the flimsy cardboard box with a crooked smile. “I appreciate you stopping by & apologizing.” I say, watching Cain rub his neck & return his eyes to mine. “Thank you for at least hearing me out & not hating me over this. I’ll uh- get out of your hair..” He says making his exit as politely as I am sure he could manage at the time. As he exited his door, I call to him “Cain!” He flinches, then freezes, turning around wondering what it was I wanted “Next time, I will have you for lunch. We’ll figure out a place that caters to Giants and Humans, okay? My treat.” As if he was holding his last breath, he exhales dramatically while wiping his forehead of whatever sweat had built up on it. “Yes, That should be just fine! Ha, thanks!” He says, slipping into his door & out of sight. 

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As I closed the door behind me, my body lost all strength it had and I collapsed against the door, my heart racing like I just finished running a marathon. “What the fuck just happened?” Cain thought loudly, running fingers through his hair. He reassured himself that Vi’s comment of “Having him for lunch” was not a promise that Vi was going to eat him, rather she invited him to have lunch with her next time. The miniature heart attack brought on by her words began to subside as Cain recalls seeing Vi, all 85ft of her, damn near soaking wet in a thin towel, leaving very little to the imagination. He recalls his feeling of shock as his eyes trailed up, up, up her long legs to her face. Cain feels a warm feeling in his cheeks that slowly crept to his pants as he felt them tighten slightly. Those legs…strong, sensual and soft looking. He wondered to himself if her skin was as soft to the touch as it looked from his perspective. Nothing could have prepared him for the curvature of her body, though. Her hips were wide & the curves of her waist came in an almost perfect hourglass shape. Her arms & shoulders clearly reflected how she worked out & lifted weights, but her body kept the soft edges & supple shape he admired in other women. Her wet hair spilled out from the towel she had holding it up, still dripping. Cain recalls following the drips as they landed on her shoulder and gravity pulled them between her…”-STOP!” Cain yelled at himself, covering his mouth, fearing he was too loud just now. 

This was wrong, Cain can’t think about Vi this way. She was his Unit Partner, nothing else. Were they even friends? Cain didn’t think so. He reminded himself that he was literally just apologizing for being racist towards her, so there is a lot that needs to happen for them to even call each other friends. Cain needed to keep in mind that getting too close to giants was still dangerous, even ones as..nice..as Vi. The image of Vi slipping the entire XL pizza into her mouth, hardly chewing before swallowing, followed by minimal effort to crush the pizza box, gave a chill up Cain’s spine he was not sure he liked. A stark reminder of just how different they were. Cain slapped his own face, lecturing to himself “Pull yourself together man, this is not happening! She is a giant, you’re just…” Cain pauses and notices his reflection, crumpled on the floor, in the full body mirror he keeps by the front door, staring back at him. He noted how pathetic & sorry looking he was in that moment. 

“...just Human..” Cain says with a defeated sigh.  Pushing himself off of the floor & walking to his gaming area, he makes an effort to push the image of Vi’s nearly naked body out of his mind as he picks up his controller to play some Halo. Taking a deep breath and thinking about his grandma and spiders to kill all warmth he was feeling in that moment as he logs into his gaming account.

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