#Well That Sounds Real Fucking Flawed Then

[hwan-g]

( 𝑻𝑬𝑬𝑻𝑯 ) ୧ ⠁

ೀㅤ۪ pairing. biker/drug dealer! chris x fem! reader : genre. age gap, dark romance, angst, smut : warnings. read at your own risk — mdni ! use of pet names, smoking, explicit sexual content, possessiveness, obsession, severe anger issues, violence, flawed characters that make mistakes : word count. 10.1k

ೀㅤ۪ synopsis. he was born with a gun in his hand, a ticking time bomb in his head. it’s been counting down since, the brain has festered into a landmine, a battlefield. no. peace is a foreign word. reserved only for you.

PROLOGUE.

You cannot begin telling this story if you don’t first punch your own mouth. His gun, safety off, shiny and awful in the dead of night, the barrel of it pointing at your temple, a patient irony. It’s three in the morning and the red bleeding is sweet, oh so sweet.

There’s no love without violence, sweetheart, and did you know? He loves you so much, he’ll kill you. He loves you so much, you’re calling for help. Of course, it cannot be your voice, and if he gives you another chance, you’ll say everything differently this time around like—this bed is where he fucked me slow and rough, I think he was trying to bury some part of himself in me, and here, you see, the sheets smell just like his cigarettes, and this, here, is where he brushed my hair, just like this, so careful, but never mind the cracks in the mirror, the shattering is always the same, it has nothing to do with me, everything to do with him.

You hear his voice in your head all the time, haunting, your dutiful ghost; he’s there when you sleep, he’s there when you wake up, a nightmare concealed as a daydream, and you want him to do his worst, you want it to hurt, to scar, to be a permanent mark, because it’d mean you’d loved him; that love has been here and it was ugly and terrifying, and you survived it, even if you could never survive him.

Upstairs, the bed is unmade, stained with wine and your climax. Chris is gentle in all the ways he is not, which is to say he kisses you with teeth, he holds you with fists. You saw him on a black motorcycle once, an impressionable girl in a dark place, lost, searching for purpose, and he looked like a knight in shining armor, he looked like hell and heaven combined, a savior and captor, and you’d wished to crawl inside, to make a home out of him. You’d smiled and waited, you've always waited, you always will.

When he came, he was so cruel, he burned brighter than fire—you believed in him; after all, how can a man be so consumed by flame and not put his own hands around his neck, not succumb to his charcoal painted flesh? You were a fool, and he saw it, and you paid the price for it. He wants to keep you forever now, he’s never going to let you go, do you understand that? Why, why, why did you go ahead and do that?

For what? A scrap of metal heart and a ribcage, bone and muscle?

What about your own heart?

What about the eternal winter residing when he's not there?

ACT ONE: before.

He smiles and the world expands. His face blooms into a thousand different shades; the pink of his mouth curving, the red of his cheeks rounding, the dark of his brow straightening. A stop motion picture, the beginning of autumn, the turn of the leaves, the crisp air replacing warm winds.

His fingers weave through yours, interlocking, thumb running down index, mouth a breath over yours, so close he could graze your lips if he wanted to. You look between you, noses touching, then back to brown so deep you imagine raw honey gliding, real amber in the face of the sun.

Chris. You whisper his name in your head. It sounds like a secret. Your best kept one. Chris, Chris, Chris . . .

There’s blood on his shirt underneath the leather jacket. There’s a loaded gun on his belt strap, a knife tucked in his boot, a razor engraved on the ring he wears, and he’s not so careful with it, and you don’t think you want him to be. You assume it’s normal to want this—if his blood mixes with yours, well, isn’t that enough to take you with him? Isn’t that almost a wedding ceremony, isn’t that almost a declaration of war?

Do you think I’m crazy, you think to yourself. Do you think I’m crazy, would you want me if I am, would you want me, do you want me? You don’t dare say it out loud, but he’s staring at you as if he could eat your face raw—a demon, a demon—and shove the rest of you in the deep freezer, so you decide to bite him instead. You get on your tippy toes and nuzzle into his neck, biting the soft flesh underneath his earlobe.

He doesn’t exclaim, not a hiss, not a gasp, not even the slightest of inhales. He withstands the pain you inflict him, and you feel his desire digging into the inside of your thigh. His arms reach out around you, pulling you to him in that all-encompassing way, and you’re left to witness what can only be the slow consumption of your beating heart. His bike groans under the sudden weight, but he’s got you. You don’t think, then, of what that entails.

“(Y/N).”

The night sky comes into focus, all dark indigo, starless, and the streetlights flicker bright, sounding the late hour. The light never seems to go anywhere near you two, it refuses, it hesitates, and back then you found it all so mysterious and exciting, ignoring the warning bells, swallowing down the instinct of danger, danger, danger.

“Yes?”

Your eyes fall shut at having his rough palm grabbing hold of your face, thumb tilting your head upwards to meet his sizzling gaze. You hold onto his wrist for support, your body floating, mourning the loss of his body heat against the biting cold. He notices this, and moves to shrug off his huge jacket, wearing it over your shoulders in one swift move.

“What will I do with you?” It’s a plea. A threat. Both.

Chris looks down at you, and the earth shakes to its core. He looks down at you, and you don’t want to be alone anymore. You want this, this, this, every day, all the time, forever. You wish to wake up in bed next to him and know he’s yours, wake up and not wish for some other dream so you can find him again. To be awake and want to be awake.

His big hands caress your face, sink into your hair. He stares at you intently, as if he’s holding back from saying whatever’s turning over and over in his head. It can switch so fast, that look, faster than you can blink, a clipped temper, a quick anger. 

You’ve only seen it once, and you’d been quickly turned away. He’s got people watching everywhere, he’s been haunted by darkness and shadows long before you served him that drink in The Bloody Muse. You almost forget about returning to your shift, time slipping away, responsibilities fading whenever you’re near him.

Seungmin will be missing you, Felix will be looking for his good luck charm before he goes on stage. Midnight means you return from dreamland. Still, you have a couple of minutes left. Enough to hear the gunshot, enough to panic and let out a scream and have Chris slap a hand over your mouth, willing you with his gaze to calm the fuck down.

You breathe hard, stiff with fear. He appears perfectly composed, relaxed even. It’s then you realize who he is and what he does, and how this is probably his or his club’s doing. There’s misdirected anger in you ricocheting on all corners. You want to bite his fingers, you want to demand an explanation. You work here, dammit, and he’s kept his bullets away from this place so far, for what you thought was your sake.

Chris was a handsome hypocrite, a skilled liar.

“It’s not what you think,” he says simply, removing his palm from your mouth, shaking his wrist off. “Don’t overreact.”

All of his previous warmth disappeared, instead, the cold, menacing man you know very little of and have never dealt with taking its place. You understand he has to be this way, but you hate that he has to act like this with you too. Because of your reaction. Because you couldn’t keep your cool.

Silly girl.

“What is it, then?” A naive question, so many untrue answers he could give you.

He passes a finger over the cut on your cheek. The cut he gave you. You lean into his touch, desperate for anything, hungry, starving, even. You don’t want him to leave, but he won’t stay. You hate, hate, fucking hate this part.

“Something that needed to be taken care of,” he chooses the words carefully, you can tell, and you decide that, if he wants you to stay in the dark, you will. You have to.

You love him.

“Someone,” you correct, quietly.

Chris smiles, mouth curving, and his hand moves to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. The touch is tender, affectionate. Something inside you cracks and caves, it melts. You would withstand too, you think then. You would deal with anything, put up with everything, for that single touch. For that one single look.

“Someone,” he echoes, his own voice smooth blue velvet, an overture. “You should get inside.”

A sharp pang of bitterness in your chest. “I should?” Because I questioned you?

He drops his hand, and brings his arms over his broad chest, crossing them there. Closed off and done for the night. You unconsciously take a step back, hurt from the sudden change, whiplashed and upset.

“If you don’t want to be late,” he states matter-of-factly, but he says it in this kind of open tone, a mere suggestion rather than a complete dismissal. Yes. “Don’t look at me with those damned eyes, sweetheart, what can I do against them?”

You wipe at your cheeks, and try to fix the mess, try to smooth over, to make right again. “I’m not, I’m sorry.”

“Come here.” A command. 

You go like a kicked puppy, your leash short, your loyalty unshaken, despite the scolding. He reaches out and slams you to his chest, a hand pressing the back of your head there, and you inhale him, all of him, memorizing his scent, trying to hold on to whatever parts of him you can in case he decides to never come back for you again. It’s pathetic and it’s pitiful, but this is what you know. This is all you know.

“You’re my girl, you know that?” He mumbles in your hair, his breath hot on your scalp. You lean into him, wrapping your arms around him, and almost cry yourself dry from the prospect of ever losing him. 

You’d die. You’d die, it’s entirely unthinkable. It’s the worst pain imaginable. 

“You’re my girl, baby. I’d never let anything happen to you. Do you believe me?”

You nod your head yes. He squeezes you against him tighter. You feel so safe, then, the safest you ever have. Of course you believe him. You’d believe his every word, you’d follow him into anything, blindly, willingly. You want to please him. To make him happy.

He grabs a fistful of your hair, suddenly and pulls you back to look at him. His eyes are manic, black. “I need your words, (Y/N). Do you believe me?”

“Yes. Yes,” you yelp, your mouth falling open from the sting.

In your stomach, something lights on fire. You rub your legs together, trying to relieve it. He glances down between you, curses. 

You started it. 

The descend. 

It was your fault. 

He’d never touched you so savagely before that night, he’d never shown the same need you had. That he could want you the same way you do. . .You felt so giddy you could squeal, so happy you would gladly reduce yourself to schoolgirl-and-her-stupid-little-fantasies.

“Is this fucking getting you wet?” And he pulls harder, tilting your head all the way. His tongue comes out to lick from the base of your neck all the way up to your lips. You’re on fire, you’re on fire! You moan hoarsely and try to keep your footing. “You like me being rough with you, sweetheart?”

You’re too embarrassed to respond. So, you guide his hand under your skirt. Chris curses again, more lewdly this time, nasty things, words you’ve never heard him say before. Oh, this fucking cunt, fuck me . . . So goddamn wet, baby girl, I bet it tastes so sweet. Will you let me? Will you let me have a taste right here?

“I— I have to go back, I’m—” but his fingers are already dipping into your underwear, his palm cupping your burning sex.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he growls into your ear. “You hear me?”

You jump, and look around, paranoid. He grabs your face and forces your eyes back on him. He’s got that crazed look again, the one that lets you know he’ll stop at nothing to have this. Out here, in the open. And he’ll fucking make it worth it. You succumb, too flushed, too bothered, unbecoming in his arms, as he backtracks you into the wall next to the exit door, and gets on his knees, tugging your undergarments down with both hands, hooking your leg over his shoulder.

Your fingers dig into his hair, dark eyes staring up at you. In your mercy, kneeling in front of you. Do you love me? Is this you, saying it? Is this your way of showing it? You caress the soft strands, staring back, overwhelmed. The beginning of the end for you. You’ll never escape him after this. He’d never accept it. You’d never survive it.

When his face gets lost in between your legs, you almost collapse, your entire body shaking with the forceful need to come. He licks and laps and sucks your clit into his mouth, and it’s too much, it’s fucking unbearable, it’s incredible, it’s so much, it’s everything, you want more, you want him to stop, more more more, oh my God, please, please—you’re being so loud there’s no way they haven’t heard that, that Seungmin hasn’t, he’s really only around the corner, and what about everyone else, oh God, oh God, you’re close, you’re so fucking close, if he could just—oh, fuck yes, fuck yes . . .

Chris pulls away, his lower face glistening with your juices. You whine at the loss of contact, your pussy clenching around nothing, aching. 

“Don’t fucking come,” and he’s getting up, he’s unzipping his pants, and you’re eager to help, you’re eager to reach inside and grab him, free him. “I have to get inside you, baby.” 

His cock is standing rock hard, angry. He wraps one hand around your neck, and the other slides over his length once, twice, you’re so entranced you can’t look away; he’s so big, he’s so erect, and you want him so fucking much, you’d do anything right then, you’d be anything.

He turns you around, and you barely have time to get a good grip on the wall, before he’s entering you with one long, violent thrust. You scream out, pressing your temple on the cool brick, allowing him to take whatever he needs. His fingers squeeze around your neck, tighter and tighter still, until all you see is stars, until all you feel is him slamming into you, his hot body over yours, your mixed moans of pleasure.

I could come to this image forever . . . Look at this fucking ass, you beautiful fucking girl, I never want to stop . . . fucking tear you apart, lay inside you . . . Taking cock so well, made for me, made for me, made for this . . .

His movements turned sloppy and primal, reaching the end, and you, forever following him, forever after him. He was no more than beast, pistoling into you with vigor, all animal, your sides bruised from the way he was holding onto you, but you loved it, you wished he’d never stop, exploding into a million pieces, coming apart under him in vibrant streaks of color and tears. His head dropped on your lower back, whispering there she is, there you go, sweetheart, there you are, my baby, as he gave one, two, three final thrusts, before reaching down and removing himself from your soaking cunt, flipping you around, and forcing you on your knees, his cock in his hand, on the verge of climax.

You open your mouth wide, and he shoves in, fucking into it no more than three seconds before you feel his cum hit the back of your throat, warm and salty. 

“You fucking vex me, woman. Look at the sight of you.”

You breathe through your nose slowly, as he grabs your face and makes sure you swallow, fingers rough, before pulling out at once, tucking his softening length back in his jeans, and lifting you up by the waist.

He fixes your skirt over your ass, and smoothes over the edges, making sure no indecent part of you shows. When you catch his eye, he winks at you. You bubble over like a soda can, spilling everywhere, and he chuckles low and raspy, before reaching for your hand and pulling you flush against him, trailing kisses on your shoulder, your knuckles, your cheeks, your brow.

This is the Chris that looks at you and sees you. The one you love, the one you miss the most when he’s gone. This Chris comes out only when you’re alone, when he’s forgotten what else there is, what he has to do after you go back to the club. For now, he loves you, no violence, no hunger.

You almost weep at the sight of him.

“I’ll talk to your boss,” he murmurs, pecking your lips over and over.

You giggle, and he twirls you once, your arms extending as you try to go towards the door. He pulls you back in at the last minute, handsome, glowing, smiling.

“I haven’t lied to you,” he says, and half of you doesn’t miss the solemn way in which he says it. “I won’t let anyone touch you. Ever.”

You pause for a split second, still remaining in the post bliss of your orgasm, but then you’re moving again, slipping from his grasp, heading back to your drinks and suggestive conversations.

“I wouldn’t want to be touched by anyone else, Chris,” you retort, blowing him a kiss, and disappearing through the big black door, letting it close behind you.

You don’t see the way you leave him standing there, how he closes his eyes and has to breathe through the loss of you; how he drags his feet to go pick up his jacket from the floor. How he inhales your sweet smell, and instantly wants you back, a corpse in his arms that can’t go nowhere.

The corruption began when you told him your name. It invaded his bloodstream and blackened his mind.

He’d rather kill you than have you walk away from him like that.

ACT TWO: in the midst.

Chris fucks you with the purpose of possessing you.

There’s not a minute of peace when you are with him, he envelops all senses, he erases all other thoughts, until all you know is him, his touch, his cock. Months into sharing a bedroom, and coming apart underneath him every night, he’s never once mentioned that incident, the first one.

He’s never apologized for how he treated you, never brought it up. But he’s never once treated you the same since. Now that you live together, he gets to call all the shots, know your exact whereabouts, control what you wear, what you eat, how you come, how many times—he’s fucked you in places you never thought possible. He’s fucked you in front of people, shamelessly; on the banister, in the pool, on the kitchen counter and the office. Against walls and on the hood of his car, parked in the garage, Changbin, the road captain, working on his bike not a few steps away.

No one ever said anything to you, tried anything. They didn’t have a death wish, or they respected Chris too much. His influence was a testimony to his abilities. No one questioned him, but everyone obeyed him. They treated you like one of their own, they protected you when their sergeant would leave the house.

Other things—the shitload of drugs hidden in every trinket, every crevice, places you’d never think to check, and the meticulous way they deliver said product, how the trucks come in the middle of night, motorcycles deconstructed, filled to the brim with cocaine and sent to wherever, distributed to whatever unfortunate person. Chris never touched the trucks, you never saw him near them.

That was Minho’s job.

You spent entire days in bed after the deliveries, fucking, improvising stories of hunters and angels falling in love, how the hunter is always attracted to the angel’s light, how the angel forgives the hunter for his nature, and willingly dies by his axe. Chris bathes you and washes your hair with lavender, then carries you over to the vanity and brushes the strands with such care, you think he’s always loved you, in every life. That, perhaps, he was born loving you, and that this was predetermined; inescapable, inevitable.

He doesn’t sleep. He spends hours making love to you, feeding you; he works for even longer, meetings with the president, meetings with the suppliers, mountains of paperwork that you see him burn afterwards in the fireplace downstairs. If he does close his eyes, it’s flitting, twenty minutes here, an hour there; after he comes down from the high of being buried inside you, after a shower, at night as he watches you sleep, you pretend to close your eyes and feel him get comfortable on your stomach, his lips kissing any spot of naked skin he can find. When he does drift off, you lift your head and observe a man such as Chris Bahng sleep, how he does it, so unaware and off guard, so unlike his usual self.

It’s endearing. You love him the most when you find him in those positions, so peaceful, and a part of you thinks, ashamed—at least no one is dying by his hand tonight. His soul is something you think about a lot, the wretched, poisoned thing, paying for his actions. You asked him once; what keeps him up, why is he so unable to fall asleep?

“Nightmares,” he mumbled against your neck, teasing the sensitive flesh there. “Every time I close my eyes . . . someone is waiting for me. It’s always different, but they always end up dead. Everyone I care about— you. When you’re in my dreams, I can’t stand it. I’m always the one holding the gun. You’re always falling, or— fucking . . . walking away from me. When I wake up, I always check if you’re next to me,” his hand travels to yours, interlocking your fingers. He avoids your gaze. “If you’re not, it’s . . . it gets hard to breathe. I think I’ve killed you, that I’ve finally fucking lost it and, and done it, and the walls close in around me . . . Christ, I sound fucking insane.”

It’s difficult for you to say anything after that, so you slowly make your descend at the foot of the bed, making sure to kiss every inch of him, to let him know you’re right there, that he’ll never lose you, that the day it’ll come to that you’d rather he does kill you, that he does make that decision for you, because you’d have clearly gone mad; you cannot see yourself beyond him, cannot see a future where he’s not there, even as a fixture, even as someone who’s loved you once, a very long time ago. A friend, a lover, it’s all the same, and it’s all him, and you’ll always get whatever version of him you can.

You know you sound crazy, and maybe you are, maybe you deserve each other in that way, but it’s irrelevant to this story. This is not for the faint of heart—loving someone like him does not come easy, it’s not one of those ridiculous words—fate or destiny—or anything simple like that; loving him is hard fucking work, it’s torment and agony, it’s excruciating, and it’s a choice you make every single day, because you need it to live. An addiction, perhaps, though you’ve never been an addict.

You know this is how it feels. The needle in the vein. The snow on your nose. The smoke in your lungs. The burning, the boiling. This is it. When you take his cock in your mouth, when you hear that broken gasp fall from his lips, the familiar groan, the guttural sounds from the back of his throat, and how he grabs the back of your head, forcing you down to the hilt of him; when you’re so full you might as well inhale him entirely, become part of his crotch, his most private part, the one he keeps to himself—you think this is what it’s like to wait on someone’s steps, a beggar, a desperate girl giving her heart on a silver platter for the one in the house, the one holding the reins.

Chris is kind and generous. He opens the door, he allows you to come inside. There’s light and warmth here, but there’s also shadows in the corners, there’s locked doors and no one else around. It’s a lonely house, but he’s right there, all you need, all you’ll ever need. He welcomes you with open arms.

You get lost in the labyrinth of him.

“What the fuck was I doing before you, sweetheart? Who was I, who was I without this fucking mouth, fucking hell, baby . . .”

It’s a savage act, some would call it cannibalism, but it’s only been known as love to you. Your insides are aflame, roasting a pretty crackling orange, when he finally comes on your tongue, his hips lifting, eyes shut tight, your head in his big hands, keeping you there, making sure you’re swallowing every last drop. You do. You do. You‘re licking circles around the shiny, swollen tip one moment, and he’s got you bouncing on it the next, manhandling your ass, facing you away from him, wrapping muscular arms around your waist, ravaging your back with his teeth, biting and soothing, putting out the forest fires himself, braving the danger.

A devouring hunger. Stripped to its most primal state. Everything within you is jumping. No one talks about this—screwing for the sake of the flesh. You need to come, and keep coming, and he does too. There’s no other thought, no other reason. He’d mount you if he could, knot in you for hours, pump you full of his seed. If this is the way it’s meant to be, then let it be. Let him fuck you until he’s satiated. Let him fuck you into your last dying breath.

But his words. You want those for yourself. He whispers them in your ears, his mouth everywhere, the hotness of his breath, the raspiness of his voice—just as lost as you. This is how you need him.

“This cunt is mine, fucking mine, mine . . . Say it,” he drills into you, skin slapping on skin, sweat like water, and your tears, so uncontrollable, so many— “Say it, damn you.”

“Yours,” you comply, your arm reaching out to wrap around his neck. He kisses your shoulder, he bites, he marks. “All of me. Forever.”

“Swear it. Don’t ever leave me.”

“No . . . no . . .” You moan loudly as he reaches deep inside, to spots that make you see stars.

He shoves your face in the mattress, and gets on top of you, pistoling his length into you, hard and fast, chasing after the high he craves. You cry out and take it. The pain is so intense, bleeding into pleasure, overwhelming your body. You can’t feel your own heartbeat anymore, only Chris, only his pounding.

“Such a goddamn slut. Look at you,” he slaps your ass once, “fucking look at you,” twice, three times, four. You sob into the sheets, grab onto them. He’s relentless, he’s so close, you’re so close— “Why are you crying, huh?” He pulls you by the hair hard, lifting your head. You gulp down air, you’re glutinous, deprived. “Did you need my cock that bad? Have I not fucked your needy little hole enough?”

“You have, you have, please . . .”

Let go for me, sweetheart, fuck, you feel so fucking good . . . Never get tired of this pussy, taking me so well, baby, so fucking well, come on, one more, one more, that’s it . . .

Coming felt like the gates of heaven liquifying inside you. Your orgasm tore through you so savagely, you forgot how to breathe for several moments, your limbs unresponsive and extremely sore. Only thing you could do was convulse under Chris’ massive body, and let him ride his own, his nails digging into raw flesh, voice groggy and incredibly deep after three rounds of sex.

“Did I hurt you? Did I hurt you, baby?”

You hadn’t realized you were still crying ugly, terrible sobs. You immediately missed the weight of him as he got off you at once and flipped you on your back, panic-stricken honey eyes searching your face, your chest, any part of you he might’ve harmed.

“Where does it hurt? What have I done?” He kisses your temple, your eyes, he tastes your tears. He’s so worried you almost feel guilty for not responding. “(Y/N), I need you to tell me, sweetheart, I can’t see it, I can’t—is it your—”

“I’m fine,” you pacify him, placing your hands on either side of his face. You’re still breathing abnormally fast, but so is he. The room is spinning. “You didn’t hurt me anywhere, I’m fine, Chris.”

“But if you were, you’d tell me, yeah?”

He was so handsome, so handsome when he loved you.

“I would.”

His gaze was piercing, honeycomb giving way to molasses. His hands were trailing off again, doing their own thing, what they knew best; how to please you. His thumb on your clit, rubbing soft circles, your creamy entrance making lewd sounds that had the man over you growing impossibly hard again.

“And what about this?” A warm, tingly sensation grew low in your belly. “Does this hurt?”

You trap his hand with your thighs, and he smiles. You smile back.

“Maybe a little,” you lie, stretching.

He doesn’t let up. His fingers slip inside again, his other hand moving on himself, veiny and sure. Chris masturbating to the sight of getting you off is perhaps the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. Your body is a tool he’s acquainted well with, and has made his sole expertise. So many hours on this bed, learning each other naked.

“Your cunt says something else,” he smirks, pumping his fist over his girth slowly, deliberately, growling low in the process, making you wetter, making you want, want, want. A chain of chemical reactions, you’ve become. “I wanna eat you out, (Y/N), you think you’ll be able to handle that?”

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” he mumbles on your stomach, placing a kiss there, and traveling down, nose dangerously close to where you want him most. “Your face when you come apart on my tongue—I wish I could die between your legs, baby.”

“Don’t say that,” you hide your face in embarrassment, as you feel him get in position, opening your legs wide, staring shamelessly at your swollen pussy.

“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want,” he licks it once, tongue pressing flat on your clit and flicking, and you’re fucking gone. You’re writhing, trying to get away, moaning so loudly the whole house must’ve heard you. “This is mine, you’re fucking mine, and you’re so goddamn beautiful.”

He doesn’t get to work much on you, you’re coming apart in minutes. You’re so overstimulated, your legs are shaking uncontrollably, the muscles twitching. He doesn’t seem to care though, because he’s fingering all of your cream on his cock and finishing himself off, an ungodly sight, something out of a renaissance painting, the most explicit one, all well defined abs and veins popping on his neck, mouth formed into a perfect silent scream, as he pumps, and pumps and shoots on your thighs, white thick streaks, hot and sticky.

There’s a knock on the door, a throat clearing.

“Bahng,” Changbin’s voice. “It’s important.”

The room drops in the negatives. You see the abrupt change on your boyfriend’s face, his expression freezing over, his jaw clenching, moving, as he stares at the door like he wants to break it, and then beat his friend’s face in. You get on your elbows and whisper softly, “It’s okay,” to which he ignores.

“What the fuck do you want?” He calls out, furious, getting off the bed and grabbing a pair of discarded jeans from the floor.

“Meeting in ten,” his captain replies, and then there’s footsteps shuffling away.

“I need to shower, anyway,” you try to lighten the mood, reaching over the bed for your shirt. “We’ve been holed up here for hours. I don’t even know what time it is.”

“Why do you need to know?”

You don’t let his tone ruin what you’ve been building for the entire day. He was perfectly fine up until two seconds ago, it has nothing to do with you. You repeat this to yourself as you move around the room, clipping the hair away from your face, wiping the makeup from your cheeks.

“It’s really alright, Chris, you’ll only be gone for a bit.”

He ignores this as well. What he does—he takes two big strides towards you and grabs your face roughly. You meet his eyes, dark and menacing, and keep your cool. You don’t let his anger scare you, you’ve seen it all before. It has nothing to do with you, it has nothing to do with you.

“All you need to know, is I’m still in this fucking room and you smell like my cum, and there’s a lot of fucking things I can do in ten minutes,” he snarls, patting your hair down, bringing your hips together. “All you need to know is you have no use for clocks, because you’re not going anywhere. Am I fucking clear?”

You try not to let your body take over your mind, as it’s happened many times before. He knows your weak spot, he knows how good he can make it feel, and he uses it to his advantage any chance he gets. 

You will not be manipulated. You will stop falling for his words.

“You’re going to regret saying that,” you retorted, suddenly sad. “You’re only being like this because you want to stay.”

To that, he visibly calms, he mellows. “Of course I do. I never wanna be anywhere else. I wanna fuck you until you’re on the verge of passing out, and then I want to take you in the water and make it all better,” he tries to kiss you but you turn your head. There are no words to describe the hurt etched on his face, then. “You’re the only thing that matters, (Y/N). The only true thing.”

“Why do you treat me like this, Chris? Hot, then cold, again and again.”

You might’ve as well slapped him. He untangles himself from you at once, and walks over to the closet for a shirt. Your stomach drops. You definitely said something you shouldn’t have. Who knows how he’ll be now, what he might do. You might not see him for days. He knows how to hurt you and keep hurting you. One coin, two sides.

Nevertheless, you have to know. He never gives you any answers. You’ve given away so much to be here, to be with him. He walks the thin line of having something like that, a line between holding you—broken glass on his shaking palm, recklessly picking up the pieces when they fall, unafraid of the blood, of the cutting and maiming, and the repercussions afterwards.

His self destructiveness has never been more prominent before. Now it’s all you see.

“One true thing, Chris. Please.”

He looked so severe, the set of his jaw, the glint in his eye. When he punches the closet door closed and smashes the mirror with his fist, you don’t think he’s quite there in the room with you anymore. He’s in that faraway place again, in that hole, so hard to find.

Of course, the blood. The blood is always there. It’s been there from the start.

He motions for you not to move, his hair a mess sticking in all directions. Such violence and it’s all within him, there’s nothing you can do to pull it out of him. Only when it lashes out, only when he becomes the weapon.

“Don’t fucking come near me,” he barks, and you stop, you remain perfectly still, your gaze locked to his knuckles, bleeding profusely, staining the carpet. “I will never hurt you,” he rasps, and there’s iron will behind his words. “I will never fucking hurt you, I’d sooner die. I’d sooner fucking die . . .” His eyes fall closed, his breathing deepens, and you’re pretty sure you only have a few seconds before this all goes to shit.

You grab your clothes, and shoes, and where’s your phone, where’s your stupid phone—

“Get out of here. Get out of here now.”

You bite your lip until you taste copper. You won’t cry. You won’t fucking cry. This is not your fight. This is not your problem.

“I love you,” you squeeze out, before you throw the door open and spill down the stairs, the beast bellowing behind you, “GET THE FUCK OUT, GET THE FUCK OUT.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Changbin puts his hands out, grabs your shoulders. 

Felix doesn’t even have to look at you; he curses, and climbs the stairs three at a time, calling for backup. The demolition has already begun.

You won’t cry. You refuse, you refuse, you refuse.

There’s no love without violence, sweetheart, and did you know?

ACT THREE: intermission.

In a fight, he’s devastating.

You’d told him time and time again, none of it meant anything, not a thing, just some mindless flirting to get better tips, it was part of your job, it was silly, little, nothing, nothing at all. You’d warned him against coming inside the Muse. It’d only cause trouble.

He would only cause trouble. It’s why he had Minho permanently positioned in there, it’s how the club was under Strays payroll, it was his excuse for visiting that night.

Making sure the product was being distributed properly. Keeping an eye out. Bullshit. You were so mad at him. He never showed up for these things, they went through other people. Chris was too important for it. And yet, here he was, disrupting your workflow, beating your regulars into a pulp.

You didn’t recognize anything from the man he was the last time you saw him. He had none of the tenderness, none of the ember in his gaze, no softness; only sharp, obliterating cruelty and the gun on his strap. His fists were bloody, his anger palpable.

Your tables had emptied out, unpaid. You were so angry.

“Try it, motherfucker,” your boyfriend smashed the poor guy’s head against the hardwood floor, repeatedly, in succession, until your voice was scratched raw from shouting for someone to stop him. “Try getting near her again, let me see you. Walk a straight fucking line to my girl, see if you get to live another goddamn day.”

“I didn’t know she was your girl, man! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” The man had been reduced to tears, his face so beat up you could barely make out his features under all the blood.

Minho stood in one corner, observing passively, while Seungmin tried to keep his friend back, ever the security guard. Chris was gone, though. There was no way to bring him back. There’d be a death tonight, and all of you would have to pretend it never happened. You think about that. About the first time you lied for him. For them.

“Bet you wanted to fuck her, hm?” He pulls his head up, only to bring him to his knee, kicking his nose broken, and throwing him back on the floor, chairs wobbling and falling over in the storm of him. “That’s what you’ve been coming for, isn’t it, you sick fuck?”

The whimpering is what did it for you. “I didn’t know. Please! Please!” You couldn’t just stand aside; you couldn’t let this go on.

The stage was empty, the band long finished with their set, now sitting at the counter over at the bar, glancing curiously your way. It was infuriating how none of them wanted to get involved. It was too late for this. Too fucking late, and you were tired.

So, you walked over to where Chris was stomping on the man’s ribs, making sure you were in his line of vision. When you got as close as you could, you called out his name. Nothing. You tried again.

“Chris. Chris.”

“I’ll fucking kill him, baby, he’ll never look at you twice, he won’t be able to, I swear it to you.” In what dark, dark place have you crawled into, my love? How do I get there?

You try to keep your voice steady, reasonable. From the corner of your eye, you see Seungmin shaking his head at you, motioning you to step back, away, out from the line of fire. 

“I don’t want that, Chris. I want you to let him go.”

“What?”

“And then I want you to go home.”

In retrospect, you should’ve heeded the bouncer’s advice. This version of Chris does not belong to you, it has nothing to do with feeling or logical thought. It festered in some terror-stricken hole he’d found as a child, and grew into a large open wound, the heart tree of all inhumanity in him. You’d have to carve it out if you’re to ever save him. But to carve it . . . No. You couldn’t. Not you.

Two terrible things happened that night, things that you’d quicker forget than let yourself remember fully.

His calloused hand attacked your neck, wrapping around it with such brutal force, it knocked the air out of you. Immediately, four men jumped to your rescue, circling you like hounds, yelling at Chris, trying to snatch him away from you.

“Stand the fuck down,” he snarled at them, never taking his black eyes off you. “You think I’d actually fucking hurt her? She can take this, can’t you, sweetheart?”

You nod, willing yourself to breathe through your panic, to combine this touch with the one he uses when he makes you feel good, the pain only pleasurable, only flitting, almost enjoyable. He watches you do this, and something flashes in his expression, a recognition, a moment of clarity. It’s gone as soon as it arrives.

“Don’t ever tell me what the fuck to do, you understand? I’m doing this for you, so you can be safe,” he’s never raised his voice at you, and he’s not doing it now, either. You’d take the screaming over this eerie calmness, this polite rage.

This is the monster under your bed, the demon in your closet. You can’t do anything about this, you don’t even know what’s hiding there.

“I didn’t ask for that, Chris,” you manage to say, placing a hand over the one on your throat. No one speaks, no one moves.

“You’ve no fucking idea what’s good for you, do you?”

“Clearly,” you reply, calmly, bitterly.

You see him swallow, and fight with the shadows clouding his judgment. You see the split decision—and the way he shoves you away, the way he refuses to look at you any longer. 

“Have it your way,” he snaps. He’s still so beautiful to you, even like this, the way a severe thunderstorm is, the way gray clouds can cover an entire sunny day in minutes. Not despite, but in spite.  “But this fucker dies today.”

In a split second, your life—an infinite whirlwind, a dizzying dance with no end in sight—it changes, it shifts, because—Chris takes his gun out, a single click, and shoots the man on the floor beside you. All it takes. A blink of an eye. No one seems to get what happened, probably accustomed to the death looming over, but you—you’re covered in blood now, blood that’s not yours, and you’ve never seen someone die before. You don’t even think it registers in your mind, really. You just stare, and stare, and hope that he’ll get up and go to a hospital, because he looks terrible.

“Don’t feel too bad, princess,” Felix whispers somewhere from behind you. “He was a registered sex offender. Boss found out today. Chris had to do it.”

“Chris is not a hit man,” you say mechanically, paralyzed, something else looking through your eyes, inhabiting your body. 

Where are you? Where’d you go?

“No, he’s not,” he agrees. You faintly feel a hand on your shoulder. You don’t react. “But he’s the one that’ll always get the job done. No matter what.”

This is the second thing. Learning that your boyfriend might be more of a collection of ghosts than an actual person. That the blood sprayed on your legs could be anyone’s, could be yours. The thing is, you weren’t truly scared before, but you are now.

And the terrifying truth—you still love him. You love him, you love him, it beats as sure as your heart, it fills you with guilt and despair, because . . . you don’t even really care. You should, surely. This is a horrible situation. But Chris is standing a mere few feet away from you, and he wants nothing to do with you, not when he’s like this, and somehow that’s more severe, that’s—that’s the real tragedy.

“Take care of it,” he cracks his neck, addressing no one in particular. Any of these men would do anything for him, for the club. Honor and loyalty, above all. “Bring me the books. There’s still business.”

Minho and Seungmin get to work, while a third person goes in the back. You don’t know who, you don’t see them, your gaze hasn’t moved from Chris. You whisper his name again, like back in the alley, over and over, and hope for him to turn around, to look and see, to dance with you, to shake you and make you spill. But he doesn’t. You don’t think he ever will again.

You’re one of them now. He didn’t keep you away, he failed, and so now you know.

“And for fuck’s sake, someone take her the hell away from here.”

You kickstart. “No, I won’t go.” You’re here, you’re here, where would I go if you’re here?

He won’t even spare you a second, a moment. He’s walking towards the bar, he’s lighting a cigarette, his hands are still raw and bleeding. The club is closed for the night, you’re no longer needed. Just another witness, just another person in the room. He can make you feel so small, so incredibly small, like you never mattered at all.

Felix steps up and offers to drive you.

“To the house,” Chris instructs firmly, skimming through pages of numbers. “Stay with her until I come back.”

There’s tears stinging your eyes. You fight not to let anyone see them. There’s so much movement around you, it’s making your head spin. Red, fuschia, orange, yellow, blue—the lights never stop turning, they bleed over everything, a dream, a technicolor dream. You lift your hand to your cheek to confirm you’re still real, that you’re still breathing.

You’re sick to your stomach. Not enough. Not enough.

“Why are you sending me away?” You try again, foolishly hoping he’s going to pay you any mind, give you any explanation.

“Come on, (Y/N),” Felix mumbles close to your ear. “You don’t wanna be here for the clean up, trust me.”

Why are you sending me away, why are you sending me away . . . You don’t remember the ride to the club house. You don’t remember much of anything after the click of that gun. It echoes. The man’s eyes roll to the back of his head, a loop of red, fuschia, orange, yellow, blue, redfuschiaorangeyellowblueredfuschiaorangeyellowblue

Someone screams.

ACT FOUR: after.

“I’ve never had a moment’s peace.”

Shirtless, with bandages running down his chest and over his shoulder, he looks like a tortured man returned from war. Burned. Turned inside out.

He was born with a gun in his hand, a ticking time bomb in his head. It’s been counting down since, the brain has festered into a landmine, a battlefield. No. Peace is a foreign word. Reserved only for you.

You listen, you let yourself become the body he loves. You can’t find it in you to be angry at him, not anymore.

“How can I hold a thing like you in my hands and not break it? When you asked me for the truth . . . I couldn’t think of anything, (Y/N), not a single fucking thing,” he wraps a towel around your head, sure, capable hands pulling you up and helping you out of the bathtub. “What I feel for you is poisonous, it’s disturbing. You don’t want that. You shouldn’t want that. It’s not what you deserve.”

“You’re saying all this like you’re saying goodbye,” you whisper, letting him dry your skin, noticing the way he won’t allow himself to linger too long.

You see his mouth curve, his brow furrow. A strange image. It’s almost as if . . .

“I’ve only ever been a monster. A pathetic fucking excuse of a man, and I cannot keep you caged, I can’t keep being selfish with you,” when he’s once again met with your silence, he circles around you, hides behind your back. “You’re incredible, you know that? Other girls would’ve been running for the hills, but not you,” when he lets your hair fall, there’s a horrifying sound, like the earth ripping apart, the heavens falling—

Chris is crying.

Chris is crying and something is very, very wrong. Nothing feels right. He won’t let you turn around. His hands hold you still, his face is buried between your shoulder blades, and he.won’t.let.you.turn.around.

Your eyes sting with the effort it takes not to break down alongside him.

“You just—won’t—fucking—leave. You won’t give up,” he sobs, and then he’s hugging you, he’s hugging you so tight your ribs burn, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because you never in a thousand years ever pictured this man crying, much less in front of you.

“I’m never giving up,” you reassure him, trying to soothe the boy trying to come out, to escape. “Because I love you. Whatever that means for you, Chris. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

He feel him shake his head, his hand wraps around your throat, bodies flush against each other. “I want you. I want you without . . .”

He lets go.

You turn to him, tilting your head, looking for his eyes. He exhales shakily, and moves away, grabbing his lighter from his back pocket, the cigarette from behind his ear. He rubs his face raw, then lights it, tip cherry red and burning fast, and he uses a hand to sit on the tiled floor, one arm resting on his knee. You get in front of him, towel forgotten, numb, completely numb.

“The club?” You say, quietly, so as not to anger the spirits, the demons. For no one else to hear but him. “You want to leave the club?”

He chuckles bitterly, and scratches his brow with a thumb, avoiding your gaze completely. Smoke swirls around you like snakes hunting for prey, an ominous presence. “I can’t even fucking say it. It’s been my whole life, my whole life. This fucking place—I know nothing else.”

“We‘ll figure it out. If you want out, we’ll find a way. Chris, these people look up to you, they trust you—”

“No, the fuck they don’t. That trust goes out the fucking window as soon as I walk. If I leave I’m a fucking traitor. If I leave I’ve betrayed all of them.”

You reach for his empty hand. He pulls away. You can’t ignore the Deja vu of this action. “And what about you?” You press, still. “What about what you’ve given for them, for their laws and rules? Your soul, Chris—”

He laughs, then, a proper laugh. When he does, finally, meet your eye, you see it all. The tortured, the choked, the repressed. It will never be easy. Ever. He might not ever make the decision, he might not ever leave. But dreaming about it . . . He has the right. No matter how unattainable, how unrealistic it seems to him. Why has no one ever shown him how?

“That battered, old thing,” he muses at his cigarette. “Lost it a long time ago, baby. Nothing there.”

“I don’t believe that.”

His smile breaks your heart. It looks so defeated, so devoid of any real happiness. “This is why I can’t let you go,” his fingers reach out and touch your bottom lip, the intention pure, nothing more than a reminder you’re still there, still his, but his gaze speaks of something darker, something you’ll never be able to quit.

“I got charges against me,” he says. “If I take the fall, the club remains. If I don’t, it all goes to hell.”

No. No. “Let it,” you choke out. “Let it! Chris, we can leave. We can go. Let’s just go. Please, I don’t—I can’t, I don’t want to lose—”

The biker puts his hands on your shoulders, shushes you, cradles you like a baby. You comply, a million different things bubbling inside you, ways to get him out, words you never said, everything you didn’t get to do yet. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

“Listen to me,” he continues, cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. “It’s already done. I’ll be gone for a long time, alright, and I need to make sure you’re fucking taken care of. Be a good girl for me, yeah? Listen to me, (Y/N).”

You couldn’t. You were crying too hard, you missed him already. What you two had was nothing but burrowed time, you knew this, and you still mistook it for forever. This was why he didn’t want to get too close. This is why, every time you tried to hold onto him, he slipped away like quicksand. It was all coming down to this.

“Sweetheart, come on, stop crying. You know who I am, yeah? Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself. Listen to me—I’ve hidden money away. I want you to have it, okay? Use it to get yourself a place, somewhere safe. And don’t fucking go back to that club, I don’t wanna hear you went back, you hear me? Do something for yourself, go to school, I know how fucking smart you are, you’ll fucking blow them away. Hm?” He lifts your chin with his thumb, kisses your forehead, staying there, lingering for one, two, three seconds, before he pulls back and looks into your eyes, willing you to agree, to accept the money, to go on living without him. “I love you, alright? You got all of me, whatever’s still there, it’s all yours. Don’t wait for me. Live.”

“I don’t want to.”

He deflates, sighing heavily. “Don’t make this harder than it is, (Y/N). Do what I say.”

You shake your head, sniffling, wiping at your cheeks. “Not without you. I’m not doing any of that without you. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you.”

His expression is pleading, his nails digging into your skin like he wants to crawl inside and change your mind. “It’ll be years, baby. Too many. You’ve no fucking idea the shit I’ve done. They got it all, some fucking snitch went and gave it all away. I’m turning myself in tomorrow, I’m not—I’m not fucking asking you to wait. You’re not. Find some lucky boy that’s got nothing to do with this life, and be normal. I never meant to bring you into all of this. You didn’t—didn’t fucking deserve it.”

“Just like that?” you ask, defeated. You could never picture yourself being with anyone else, no one at all.

After Chris, nothing. Alone. Lonely, forever.

He chuckles, crushing you to him, his arms strong, and steady, and home, home, home. “Just like that. I’ll wring his fucking neck out if he’s not good to you, though. I’ll always keep an eye out, always make sure you’re safe.”

“Can I hear it again?” Such a quiet request, barely anything.

He knew exactly what you meant. Your heart broke, fresh tears making their descent on your face. He wiped all of them away. He held you as if, if it was up to him, he’d never, ever let go.

“I love you. I love you so fucking much, sweetheart. You’ll be alright. I got you. I got you.”

You reach to where you know he keeps his gun. His hand flies out to stop you, gaze flaming with fear, with anger. Ash burns your arm, but you don’t even feel it. You’ve seen him use it; undo the safety, press down on the trigger. It was so easy for him. It’ll be easy for you too.

“Shoot me, then,” you bellow. “If you’re not gonna let me do it myself, shoot me! I don’t fucking want this, I’m not losing you, I’m not getting with someone else! What about me? You got this great plan—did you ever stop to think about what I’d want? If I’d be able to move on like how you’re expecting me to? I can’t just switch off my feelings for you, Chris, it doesn’t work like that, okay? I’ve gone through too much, I’ve seen too fucking much to just—to just—”

He wrestles you down, pinning your body on the floor, and getting on top of you, his smooth, cold gun resting on top of your heart. His mouth had curled into a tortured snarl, a bitter smile, his eyes shiny, crazy. You were shaking, he was shaking. You started crying, he started crying. With his thigh against your cunt, you felt his erection, hard and twitching.

“You think I didn’t think of this first?” He said roughly. “Christ, (Y/N), I’m trying to do the right thing here. You think I’ll be able to fucking kill you? I fucking adore you. I’d rather shoot myself in the head first, get it over with. Don’t ever fucking ask that of me again. I’ll be a dead man the second I do such a thing. I’ll be a dead fucking man if I’m not able to have you. Don’t ever fucking do that again.”

“Coward,” you spit in his face, and fight against his death grip. “Sentence us both then. I’ll be dead either way.”

He smashes your lips together. It hurts, it hurts, you wanna say, but you don’t think it’ll ever stop. There’s nothing in his way, everything in yours. In the time it takes to unzip his pants, grab his cock and guide it inside you, you’ve mourned him a thousand times over. To never have this again—him, again. . . You’ll die from missing him. You’ll cry yourself dry. There’s absolutely no way to escape this fate. You’re not ready, you’ll never be. How ridiculous it all seems in the end, faced with losing him.

He makes love to you slow, gentle, like he’s never done before. It’s not so much to get you off, than it is to make you understand. He could kill you both, but he’ll never be able to see you again. His place will be hell, the lowest level, the one he’ll have to keep walking for all eternity, while you’re up with the angels. If he doesn’t, if he hides the gun and never thinks of it again, at least he knows you’re somewhere out there, where there might be a one in a million chance he gets to be with you once more. If you’ll take him. Old and grey. He’ll never see you again as you are underneath him right now.

You stay like that on the floor for a while, with his seed spilling from between your legs, your scent all over him. You kiss him and for the first time, he kisses back. No teeth, no fists.

When he moves you over to the bed, he sleeps for the first time since he was born.

He sleeps and he dreams of you, of little hands reaching out, of being away from all this, far, far away. What he would give.

Everything. Everything.

[dirichletttt]

I really liked Oppenheimer. I know it's not for everyone, but as someone who is interested in STEM and STEM history, especially pertaining to physics, this movie pushed all of the right buttons for me. I think it did a good job at showing just how flawed and utterly human many of these mythologized historical figures were in real life, and how the Manhattan Project was riddled with internal and external political factors from even before its conception.

I also appreciated just how utterly fucking powerful and eldritch they made the bomb. Obviously a significant portion of the movie is dedicated to the creation of the bomb, but it's often sort of a looming figure in the background. It's the increasing number of marbles in the jar, it's the steady theoretical and experimental progress, it's the dropping of dates for those who know the historical timeline of events. And when it's finally revealed, it's Fucking Terrifying. You pretty much never see the full mushroom cloud in frame; it's always a small portion of it or the flash of light shining on our characters. And the sinking feeling you get when the screen is lit up and you just know, you're anticipating that deafening blast from the shockwave because sound travels slower than light. And you feel guilty in a way because you have the privilege of knowing what's coming, while in your mind you know the victims of such devices had no idea before they were either vaporized on the spot or severly traumatized. It conveys so well the perspective of the scientists on the project, that you've challenged god and, although maybe not surpassing it, made something equally as terrifying.

Character-wise, I don't really have much to say. I do like that the latter third of the movie slowed down a lot to focus on the accusations made against Oppenheimer, which helped to flesh out a range of characters who were sort of just set pieces to Oppenheimer himself before the interviews. And despite my previous statement about breaking down the idolization of historical figures, I was indeed excited like a Marvel fan whenever one of my physics blorbos showed up on screen. "Holy shit it's Niels Bohr!!" "omg Lorentz my scrunkly wunkly!!!" "ITS BONGO GUY OMG BONGO GUY I KNOW HIM" like yeah a lot of them turned out to be Not Great People in their personal lives but I can acknowledge that while also geeking out at their recognition in mainstream media.

All in all, very good movie. I intend to watch it with my mom when I get the chance.

[rederiswrites]

Okay so I'm giving @corseque 's super-important audio of all Solas' comments about the Blight a second (or fifteenth, whatever) listen and taking notes as I go.

Solas doesn't think for a second that once the archdemons are gone the Blight will be gone. Which really makes sense because it's the Blight that makes them an archdemon, not the other way around. Supposedly, they're blighted when the darkspawn reach and corrupt them. But of course that begs the question of why it's only darkspawn (and uh, honorary darkspawn like the Wardens) that hear their call. Anyway, the way he says it, it sounds more like the archdemons are a limiting factor than a driving factor.

Varric: "What's so confusing about endless darkspawn?" Solas: "A great deal!" So yeah, whatever the plan was, he didn't foresee darkspawn as a consequence. So did he not foresee them existing at all, or not foresee them being free to cause problems? Worth noting that it's really clear both in general and in Descent that dwarves as a whole were a huge blind spot for him.

He is really really surprised that the Western Approach ever recovered from the Blight. Pretty clear he didn't think that was possible.

He thinks that everything the Wardens have done up til now is a deeply misguided effort that's served (mostly accidentally) as a delaying tactic. Gotta say, with the information we have at hand, this point pairs about as well with the last as a nice dry red with spicy pickles. If the Wardens shouldn't have done what they've done, but he didn't think recovery from the Blight was possible, I'd love to hear what he thought the alternative was.

Same dialogue as above, but when Solas talks about stopping the Blight and when Blackwall and Varric talk about it, one gets the distinct impression that they're talking at cross purposes, because Varric and Blackwall are talking about the experience of Blights, as in, periodic events, whereas I think Solas is talking about THE Blight, that is, its true nature, which is yet untouched.

He thinks Erimond is dumb as shit, which is fair and valid. "That's madness! For all we know, killing the Old Gods could make things even worse!" he says. Well, he knows a lot more than "we" know, but it's entirely possible that he doesn't for sure know this. Increasingly clear that he thinks it, though.

I'd forgotten just how pissed off he was about the Grey Warden plan to kill the Old Gods before they were corrupted. It really doesn't give "hey you're killing my relatives" energy. It really gives "wow that would fuck us all" vibes.

Of course, with a side of my remembering that Solas' besetting flaw was always thinking people should know better even though they don't have access to the knowledge he has. That flaw I WILL grant. He displays it repeatedly--you could even say the writers went out of their way to make the point.

"The Blight is the real problem"

"The fools who first unleashed the Blight on this world thought they were unlocking ultimate power." Anyway yeah those are the absolute core of everything here. The Blight is the real problem and the Blight was deliberate. Deliberately made or deliberately freed.

Even during the events of Inquisition, Solas obviously sees Corypheus as secondary to the Blight as a danger.

Cassandra suggests that the archdemons were really just dragons--"Pets to those who no longer exist", by which she probably means the Old Gods, not specifically the gods of Elvhen, just because of her cultural background. Solas finds this suggestion amusingly wrong--a quiet snort, and "I would not go so far as that."

Last notes: he doesn't sound like he thinks the Blight can be stopped, and he's adamant that it can't be controlled. Which is presumably why he broke the world in an attempt to contain it, assuming I'm right that that was the underlying reason for the Veil. That it didn't quite work the way he'd hoped is also pretty evident, though I wanna be clear that I assume he was working from a place of desperation, and that not knowing every possible outcome of an action is not a condemnation of having taken it.

[withonly-sweetheart]

but what about his younger self? sfw <3

<><><><>

re2(r) leon that just can't wait to get to the academy. he got up at unearthly hours just to get dressed, drive all the way down to raccoon only to get there ages before anyone else. all just to make a good first impression on his superiors.

so imagine his heart sinking when all he gets from his newly assigned t.o. is a scowl thrown at him, the praise he would've gotten at the academy pushed to the furthest corner of his brain when he makes it his goal to impress you.

you point out every little flaw, chastise him harshly when he makes minor mistakes, and your peers stand by with helpless smiles and nonchalant shrugs; "it's just your luck, rookie, you got stuck with her."

of course, and he complies with every little task you assign him, no matter how much he sees how easy the other rookies get it. you're young and eager, the easiest way to form you is from the start.

but your little game with shielding him from true horrors can only go so far. sure, being patrol and all, you've done your best to shoo him from real danger, keeping him safe, because that's the least you could do him. you failed in your last assignment, and you're not about to let it happen again.

in all your shouting, all your screaming at him, you really do care for your boot. your rookie. so your horror when you find him unconscious on a hospital bed surpasses the grief you felt when your first boot was killed in action.

when he finally comes home, you're notified immediately, courtesy of your fellow officer, and he opens the door, still bloody and battered, but at least he looks clean. his eyes are drooping yet still alert enough to recognize you, instinctively stepping to the side to let you in.

"what the fuck were you thinking?" your voice has never been this level, this calm with him. it surprises him just as much as it does you.

"i've been training my whole life for this-"

"trained cops don't disregard direct orders!" you fling the accusation out into the air between you, and almost immediately you can see the effects.

they come in the straightening of leon's spine, the batting of his eyelashes as he restrains himself from crying, because the last thing he needs is for you to think he's weaker than you already assume.

"i-i was just trying to..."

"trying to what, leon?" you hiss. the statement sounds sharper than you want it to, but backing down now would give him the chance to turn the tables.

"i thought if i did something right, for once, you might actually like me."

the silence between you is thick, heavy, like the burden just released from leon's shoulders. and your response is delayed.

"... what?"

"i said-"

"no, i heard you the first time. but what the fuck is that supposed to mean, boot?"

his eyes flit sideways, avoiding your steely gaze, a gaze you work hard to maintain. did he mistake your strictness for hatred? that's never happened before.

"i messed everything up, like i always do."

"you never... what?" your confusion comes through every single time in that damn word, because the placeholder for what you really want to say can't really be... well, replaced.

you take a step towards him, and he goes rigid, narrowing his eyes, preparing for the inevitable lecture he was hoping would be saved until your shift the next day.

but it never comes. you stare up into his eyes, gorgeous eyes, really, eyes that you had admired from his side profile. he's restless, you realize that now, fingers trembling like shaky leaves on a windy day.

"take a day off, leon."

"... ma'am?"

"you heard me, rookie. you need that injury to recover before you can hit the streets again."

"but-"

"no buts. that's a direct order, one that i hope you'll stick to this time, officer kennedy. you did well out there today. you held your will, did the right thing even though we decided against it."

"... you're really letting me off the hook?"

your fingers find the unfamiliar neckline of his white tank top, and you adjust it carefully, just as you would with his shirt collar. he flushes crimson, but your touch is nothing more than a doting gesture.

"just this once, boot. don't get too used to it."

series masterlist

[sylveon-official]

thoughts on angel's heartbreak

viv has already said that angel is gonna get his heart broken sooo

i imagine husk pushes a boundary. we've already seen husk push angel's limits quite a few times. he's obviously really judgmental and i think that's one of his biggest flaws. it almost seems like a defense mechanism, that because he's already given up on himself, he doesn't want to waste angel's potential and so he's harder on him.

we've got tons of examples of this in masquerade, with husk calling him fake. and even in welcome to heaven when angel is considering taking drugs, husk totally plays a guilt trip - "go ahead if you wanna mess up all your progress, i just thought you were better than that"

i think that's how the 'heartbreak' is gonna happen. angel can't believe he's got a someone like husk in his life and he's so smitten, coming to terms with his feelings for husk and tentatively getting hopeful that they're reciprocated. like husk has built him up enough to the point that angel feels he can break down his walls around him, so they're getting closer, more flirtatious in a really sweet way, sometimes even a little touchy.

so imagine them being at this stage, where angel so fully trusts him, which is a big deal for him. and then angel fucks up real bad. he's been clean for almost 6 months and him and everyone else in the hotel are super proud. but after a hard day in the studio he just breaks and goes on an all night bender. like he's out so late husk starts to worry and texts him, but all he gets is a belligerent phone call like "huskYYY BAaaby don' worry i'm jus' out w the girls from the studio u should be here miss yoo-" and then some guy cuts in like "angelbaby, i thought you were gonna show me a good time?" and angel's like "mmm oh ya cmere daddy~" and the call cuts off.

husk is fuckin pissed, not just bc angel is off the wagon after making so much progress, but he's also jealous. like they were obviously heading in the direction of something more, or so he thought, but here's angel back to his old self-destructive habits, getting fucked up and fucking random guys.

the next day, husk finds angel passed out on the on the couch. usually he would wake him up with breakfast or coffee if he knew he'd had a long night at the studio, but this time he just rolls his eyes and gets to work on the bar, maybe stuffing glasses back into cabinets a little louder than usual.

that wakes angel up and he's like, "huuusk what the fuck couldya keep it down?"

"it's almost noon. don't you have something to do? or someone..." he mumbles the last part, but angel hears and is wide awake like, "fuckin' excuse me?"

"what? you don't remember callin' me last night? sounded like you scored a real charmer"

angel is stalking up to the bar getting embarrassed and defensive, "wtf? since when do you care who i'm fuckin' in my free time?"

"i guess since it obviously wasn't a choice you made entirely sober! what were you thinking?! you were clean 6 whole months, and you gave it up to what? snort coke off of some hunk's abs?!"

angel's mouth drops open and he doesn't know what to say but his heart stings. he knows he fucked up real bad, but it was a hard day and he guesses old habits die hard... it's his first real attempt at getting clean, and of course he's disappointed in himself. and honestly, he was planning on talking through it with husk, but now...

"well that is just rich coming from you," angel says, shaking, rolling his eyes in the direction of husk's bloody mary.

"yeah, well, i'm not the one trying to get into heaven-"

"fuck off with that shit husk! you don't think i know i fucked up?! i'm not an idiot! you don't gotta keep that line in your back pocket for every time i screw up! i already know it's fuckin' pointless, you don't need to keep reminding me, asshole, get over yourself!" and he starts storming off upstairs, eyes welling up.

husk does feel guilty, and wants to continue the conversation, but he's still firmly of the belief that if angel just pulls himself together, he's a shoo-in for redemption and it's frustrating to see him self-destruct after making more progress than ever before.

"angel, wait-"

"NO, fuck you husk!" angel turns around, tears streaming down his face, pointing an accusing finger. "i thought if anyone could understand, it'd be you! i know everyone else is gonna be disappointed in me, but you-" he pauses, gulps down his tears and steels his face, "i guess i don't know you as well as i thought i did" and then storms upstairs.

then angel would have a few consecutive weeks of totally self-destructive behavior on a whole new level than anyone else at the hotel had ever seen. maybe he even moves out of the hotel and back in with val, having given up not only on himself and his grand delusions of getting clean and redeemed, but also his "stupid school-girl crush" on husk.

this turned into something way longer than i intended lol, but my point is that since angel is gonna experience heartbreak we know it has to involve husk, and with husk's habit of guilt-tripping angel... i think it will need to blow up at some point and be seriously discussed.

i also think we need to see the 'it gets worse before it gets better' side of recovery bc obviously it's unrealistic that now that angel is a serious resident of the hotel, his addictions are just gonna magically disappear. and i think that's gonna cause some misunderstanding and turmoil with not only husk, but also our main cast.

[celestie0]

MASSIVE gojo x reader fanfic rec (no spoilers)

ok i know a lot of my followers are gojo girlies and i just need to put yall onto this fucking fanfiction because i just read the latest release for it and i’m genuinely tweaking rn🧍🏻‍♀️

@lostfracturess ‘s amazing work called “symptoms & causes” - a medical au

[image pulled from her masterlist]

let me just…let me just try to even gather the reasons why you need to add this to your tbr lists (weekend is comin up too so perfect time)

characterization of gojo satoru.

gojo in this fic is characterized so fucking well, from chapter one. there are so many distinctive ways miss lostfractures goes about building his aura (word of mouth/reputation, dialogue, expository, primary interactions, secondary interactions, etc.) it reminds me of the show where gojo just has this energy to him that you can't tear yourself away from i picture him in this fic to be unrelenting, unforgiving, morally grey, with an undertone of softness yet still feral through it all,, basically gojo during shibuya arc LOL. i looove reading cute silly boy gojo fics sm (he’s so baby) but THIS fic explores the borderline wicked side of him that is so thrilling, unique, and rare to find i think in this fandom’s collection of works. it’s just so fucking good.

forbidden romance.

UGGHH i love stories w forbidden romance. in this one, it’s med student reader x professor gojo (additional power dynamics in that he’s a senior surgeon in her field and also a research mentor in her study of interest…TRIPLE THREAT DAMN). i love how miss lostfractures doesn’t shy away from reminding the reader that it’s wrong, and that they shouldn’t be doing this. that’s my fave part of forbidden romances like yesss remind me again why this is all so wrong but let’s still do it anyways LOL <333

reader’s voice.

i’ve LOVED reader since the beginning, so relatable, emotionally mature, all her flaws are so believable & her strengths are shown seamlessly. it’s just so much fun to read because i’ll literally have a thought like “hmm…that (something a character said/did) doesn’t sound very convincing” and then the next line will be something like “he didn’t sound very convincing” like!!! me and s&c reader?? we’re locked in like this fr🤞🏼 like gojo’s domain expansion fingers

escapism.

everything in this story feels so damn real it’s insane. the pacing is stunning, love the utilization of stacks of scenes that are sort of short but so concise, enough to be a smooth read but still descriptive enough to entirely transport you into the world that’s being built. cannot praise the writing in this story enough. also the variety of ways that scenarios are made that pull characters closer to one another?? so creative. as someone who works in a research lab, studied bio in college (some of the fkn biochem stuff that comes up in this fic gives me heart attacks lmfaooo pls im traumatized), and has worked in clinics/hospitals it just itches my brain so damn good. you’ll be convinced you’re a brilliant med student while you read this fic.

writing.

the writing is just. so. good. it’s so good. better than most PUBLISHED works i’ve read. i really can't say much other than that, you just have to go see for yourself.

—

if any of these reasons speak to you, i highly recommend you check the fic out. just a note tho it does have some dark themes but you can find all the tags/warnings on her page!

OK BYE

[xiihyunn]

Vampire (18+)

G!P Jenna Ortega x fem!reader

warning: vampire Jenna g!p, murder, blood, you being objectified, blowjob, choking, crying, gagging, teasing, unprotected sex, overstimulation, biting/marking, feeding, more blood, creampie, and semi-exhibition.

ⓘ Please do practice safe/protected sex in real life.

summary: — a vampire au, wherein shits get a little steamy after a long day of Jenna working, but what happens when just fucking you doesn't satisfy her hunger?

word count: 3.3k

> masterlist

a/n: i'll be writing drabbles for melissa, and mikey very soon. until then, enjoy this one x.

3rd person POV

You were a mortal, and your fiancé was not. Instead of yearning for the warmth of your significant other, you found yourself yearning for her cold body instead, and it was something that you never thought you'd crave for.

Jenna Ortega, it was a name that was forever carved into your head. You had met her years prior when you were camping, it was your dad's land so clearly no one was residing there, right?

Wrong.

Despite the woman being 5'1 she appeared much taller, much intimidating, much powerful than you. You were familiar with her kind, blood-suckers, ruthless, psychotic, and deadly.

But rather than being scared for your own life, she comes into sight with long wavy raven-like hair, crimson eyes, and snow white fair skin. She looked absolutely perfect, no flaw visible, just her, only her and her utmost real beauty.

One thing led to another and you found yourself wrapped around her fingers, not that you were complaining though, you wanted her to do that to you for your sick reasons.

"Oh fuck—" You gasps for air, as her mouth sucked your pulse point, both wrist pinned against a tree, with a beautiful figure ravishing your neck.

You hear her hiss before darting her red eyes to you, a blood curling smirk makes its way to her lips, as her eyes look at your lips hungrily.

"Pretty girl.."

Your breath hitches by hearing her voice for the first time, strong and desperate. The woman kissed you, with hunger but also with passion. Her lips were soft, working you up so well.

She pushes your wrist even tighter making you wince at the pain, but as the sound comes out of your throat, the woman uses this opportunity to slip her tongue inside your mouth.

Your back arches as an embarrassing amount of heat rolls to your center. You tried to suppress your small moans and groans, feeling too turned on by what this woman is doing to you.

She bit your bottom lip harshly, drawing blood from your flesh. You felt her sucking your lips, lapping up the blood desperately, and a loud moan escaped your lips.

She breaks the kiss with saliva trailing you both, as she raises one of her eyebrows at you along with a sly grin. Her eyes filled with both lust and hunger.

"Oh?"

Your face flushed from being caught red-handed by the woman. Pushing her body into yours, you tried to avoid her piercing gaze, only for her hand to grab your chin and force it to look at her.

She lets go of both of your wrists and grips your waist, pulling your hot body towards her. Your cunt convulsing around nothing, as your breath became unstable.

"Does my pretty girl want to get fucked?"

—

You POV

It was late in the morning, almost 12am, but I had no intentions to stop revising my work. Being in a busy and strict office environment forced everyone to be 10x hardworking, but then again, I could just get up and leave this place.

Jenna was planning to work late today since something happened with the company's stocks, causing it to fall down by 2% and Jenna has been really pissed about it.

We haven't been interacting with each other the whole day since both of us were busy, and whenever I would look inside her massive personal office, my fiancé looked so stressed and it pained me.

The dark bags under her eyes were noticeable, and her complexion was starting to deteriorate. Her eyebrows always furrowed with anger and confusion when looking at her paper works, and her bad mood was radiating all over the building.

I sighed deeply, closing my eyes, as I thought about Jenna again. I haven't seen her since our lunch break, and I was starting to get worried sick.

"What the fuck did you just say?"

God the stress is getting into me.

"Ms. Ortega— !"

A loud thud was heard in Jenna's office. My eyes shot open realizing I wasn't hearing things, as I snapped my head to her door, and looked around wondering if I was the only one who heard that, but only to see my co-workers gone. Fuck, I remember it was way pass working hours.

Before I could even stand up, a piercing scream ringed in my ears, and choking sounds were followed,

"See you in the last layer of hell, you mortal."

An eerie slashing sound was followed after, then silence.

God the silence was making my skin form goosebumps all around me.

I walked to her door and turned the knob, opening and closing the door behind me. My heart drops to see a man in his own pool of blood, throat slit open, but eyes still open lifeless, laying on the cold floor murdered.

Quickly catching my breath as I saw Jenna facing her window, looking at the city lights outside with a wine glass wrapped around her fingers.

She took a small sip still facing her back to me, I noticed her breathing too fast as she placed down her wine.

"Jenna, you can't just murder your workers in your office. We've talked about this."

Jenna looked back at me hissing, her eyes were red again and she was clearly still pissed. I saw her bloody jaw clenched, as she walked over to me. She simply steps over his dead body, not caring if her heels were soaked in his blood.

"Baby, he stole 10 million dollars from the company. He's the reason why our stocks declined." I sighed and wiped the blood off of her pretty face. "I'll call our men to clean this up." The smell of human remains was starting to get stronger.

Jenna looked at me still angry, and stiffly nodded her head. I took out my phone and dialed a number, it ringed in my ears, as I continued to wipe some blood off of Jenna.

"Jenna's office. I want it gone by tomorrow." And I hung up the call, as I was getting my handkerchief out of my pocket.

"Come here," I whispered. Jenna closed her eyes and sighed really loud. She stepped closer to me and I gently brushed the cloth on her face, and she was still beautiful as ever.

"We could've just sued him for embezzlement, J." I look into her still red eyes glowing from the dim light of her office, she simply rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.

"Not when that man-thing was gawking at my wife."

"What do you say Ms. Ortega, your wife exchanged for the 10 million dollars. It's a good deal, don't you think so?"

"What the fuck did you just say?"

Butterflies erupted in my stomach, I gave her a quick grin. "10 million wasn't even enough for him, and now he wants you too?" Jenna scoffs, "Pathetic."

I softly smiled at Jenna and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "Let's go home yeah? They'll take care of this." I walked past Jenna and went over to her office desk, cleaning her table and preparing her bag for us to leave.

I walked towards Jenna again, and her eyes were never leaving me. "Let's go," I whisper, as I hold her hands in mine to interlock them together.

"God your ass looks juicy."

Jenna harshly pulled me back to her, chest to chest as I felt her cold breath on my face. Jenna licks her lips as she stares at mine, arms around me and her hands slowly touching my bottom.

I softly groan at her hand placement, "That tight mini skirt looks sexy on you, darling." Jenna slowly presses wet kisses on my neck, and down to my collarbones. My face was feeling hot from the compliment and I hummed at the feeling of Jenna's lips on my skin.

Jenna's hands were starting to get rough and direct. Playing with my ass, she gropes, squeezes, and parts them ever so often for the cold air to hit my panties.

A pool of wetness was starting to form in my center, as I moaned in her ear. "Jenna," I huffed. Jenna looks at my eyes again, "My pretty, pretty fiancé." I could feel Jenna's bulge inside of her pants pressing against my core, and she kissed me.

A sloppy wet kiss filled with hunger, lust, and determination. It was no use to fight over dominance, as Jenna carried me to her large couch. Setting me to sit on her lap, and we continued to devour each other's faces, tilting my head a little to deepen our kiss, as I wrapped my hands around her neck, playing with her hair.

Jenna unbuttoned my blouse not taking it off just yet, but enough for her to see my laced bra and tits. Softly grinding on her clothed dick, as she kissed me eagerly.

"On your knees, baby."

I got on my knees, as Jenna started to lower down her pants. Her boxers were slightly wet with her pre-cum, and she palms up and down slowly. I stared at her non visible dick, and I felt my wetness slowly seeping out of me.

Jenna hums at her slow pumping, and looks at me smiling like a devil with her fangs out. "I couldn't help it, your ass just looked so fuckable." I pressed my thighs together, to try and get some friction inside of me.

"What are you waiting for? Get to sucking."

I gulped and slowly took out her underwear. Once it was free from its cage, the tip of her cock slapped my nose, making me blush. It was long, thick, and veiny, just the way I love it. Jenna smirks, she stretches her arms on the couch to rest them, and continues looking at me with her crimson eyes.

I grabbed her dick with my right hand and started to pump slowly. Jenna groans, as she licks her lips. Shallow breathing in the chilly air, I spit on her cock to lube it up.

I kneeled closer to her groin and licked her tip, tasting the salty pre-cum, I took her in. Jenna threw her head back with a moan, as I sucked her more.

"Fuck— Just like that, baby."

Bobbing my head in and out of her in a pace, licking, sucking all at once. My tongue running it down to her base, and up to her tip, only for me to work her even faster. Jenna's moans were throaty, deep and hoarse.

"You're doing so well, princess. Mhmm,"

Jenna grabs my head and pushes me deeper to suck her dick, and her tip makes contact with the back of my throat causing me to moan. The vibrations of my voice made Jenna snap her head back to look down on me.

"Take it all in, like a good little girl, baby."

Jenna continues to push my head in her, as she moves my head in a circle motion. A satisfied grin was in her lips, and I felt it touching and caressing the back on my throat.

"Your mouth feels incredible, shit—"

My eyes watered by the lack of oxygen, and I was starting to gag. Jenna chuckles at me, "My fiancé looks like a slut, my slut. Just look at you sucking my dick like the whore that you are." I closed my eyes and I felt them rolling back to my head in pleasure. My cunt was dripping wet, and I just wanted her dick inside of me.

I tapped on her thighs and she finally let go. I gasped for air, panting and coughing at the same time. Jenna holds my chin and gently wipes my wet lips, her cock was still standing tall but now wet with my saliva.

Jenna patted on her lap, and I quickly sat where she wanted me to be. "A little too eager." She whispers and she pressed her lips on mine again. Jenna unbuttoned my blouse all the way, and both our clothes were slowly discarded on the ground.

Jenna and I were now completely bare, and her hands found their way to my waist, making my wet pussy rub in her dick. I moaned in the kiss, as I grinded my pelvis more. My clit bumping on the veins, saliva and my arousal coating her.

Jenna tugs on my hair and flipped us over, and her figure was on top of me. "Please, Jenna." I begged, desperate for her to fuck me senseless. Jenna settles between my legs, pumping her dick on my wet labia.

"Please what, baby?"

She inched down to my chest, and palmed my breast. She took the other one and sucked hard on my nipples, wetting my skin, and biting it. I whined and groaned, fisting Jenna's hair.

"Please fuck me." I groaned by her sharp canine teeth brushing against my bud, as Jenna looked up at my face. Capturing my lips once more as she pushes the tip inside, moaning in dissatisfaction against her lips.

I wrapped my legs on her hips, pushing it more in me. Before it could slowly enter me more, Jenna slammed it inside. I threw my head back moaning, and arching my spine from pleasure.

"Oh fuck— Jenna." She stopped sucking on my nipples and started thrusting. Jenna pulls back, and starts to push her cock in again, filling my pussy up with her dick with all of her length. "So wet, and so tight just for me." Jenna slams her member in and out of me, "Fuck, you feel amazing." She throws her head back and grips on my hips.

Jenna started to quicken up the pace, slamming her cock, faster and deeper. "I could fuck you all night, princess." She picked up a rhythm, and slammed my hips further to her dick. A loud moan escapes my throat, as I hold onto Jenna's biceps. "You like that baby? Does it feel good?"

My juices were running down my ass, and some were sticking to my inner thighs. I nodded, biting my bottom lip, feeling the pressure slowly building up inside of me. "Words, princess."

I take a deep breath, "Y-Yes, I love it. You feel so g-good inside me…" Jenna smiled wide, as she took her dick out fully, and slammed it inside me once more. "Jen—!" My body flinched, feeling her cock hit my cervix.

Jenna stayed in that position for a second, and started pounding inside of me fast and fiercely. I tasted blood on my mouth, from biting too hard. Jenna looms down over me and devours my lips, as I feel myself tightening around her.

"I'm gonna cum," I mumble against her lips, as Jenna just licks my mouth dry. "Cum for me, princess." Jenna's eyes were glowing red, meeting my gaze she continued to pound more.

Jenna slams her dick inside of me one more time, and my nails dug into her biceps, as my orgasm rolled off my body. She pants, her hands almost breaking my hips, as she builds up her own orgasm.

My pussy felt a burning sensation, and my clit was convulsing by her pelvic brushing it ever so often. Jenna grabbed my chin and snapped it sideways, I groaned at her sudden movement.

My legs were aching from our prolonged position, but I couldn't help but moan by how her cock was entering and exiting my cunt.

"I need you, Y/n."

Jenna's voice was different, it sounded demonic almost, and I knew what she needed. I nodded my head, ready for her. I felt her hot breath on the pulse point of my neck, and her thumb was now rubbing my clit.

I silently curse, feeling another sense of arousal building up inside. "Your pussy hugs my dick so well," Her tongue lapping around my neck, I heard Jenna groan and moan loudly. "Fuck I'm gonna cum, baby."

I panted, feeling my pussy ache from the overstimulation, and another orgasm coming. Jenna opens her mouth and I shudder from her sharp canine teeth making contact with my flesh.

"I'm going to fill you up, so fucking take it."

Jenna sinks her teeth inside of me, and I screamed from pain. Thick ropes of hot cum painted my walls white, my back arches, as my juices came out. Jenna twitches inside of me, spilling every drop of semen inside, and the mixture of our fluids drops on her couch.

Jenna sucked from my neck, and it was starting to burn all around. I hear her gulp, then another, then another again. The corner of my vision was starting to darken, and I moaned from the painful feeling.

My grip on Jenna was starting to loosen, and everything was dizzy. I heard her gulp one more time before detaching herself from me with a loud and wet pop.

"J-Jenna.." I whisper. I whined as she slipped out of me, feeling her cum and mine running down to the couch.

Jenna's POV

Y/n laid on the couch completely exhausted, and my face softened. My eyes changed back to the color back, as I held her close to me.

"Oh Y/n, was it too much?" I whisper to her, she looks at me with her half-lidded eyes, "No.." I hear her mutter under her breath. I smiled at her and kissed her sweaty forehead, "My sweetheart you did so good for me."

Y/n hums with a small smile on her lips, "Let me go clean you up, baby. I'll be right back." I wore my wrinkled clothes, and cleaned my fiancé up. Y/n sat on the couch with her clothes on, but she was pale and unresponsive, just staring into the floor.

"My baby," I kneeled in front of her figure and caressed her cheek, "I'll get off of work for a week to take care of you, sweetheart. It'll take some time for your body to replace all that blood." I hear Y/n mutter a small okay, and she held her arms out to me.

I giggled and carried her bridal style, Y/n burrows her face on my neck. "Kiss.." I heard her say to me, I looked down at her and she was looking at me cutely while puckering her lips.

I gave her a toothy smile and kissed her, she breaks it off and snuggles to my neck more, but with a smile and blush on her face.

My dead heart beats faster, as I grab my things. I walked towards the door, then stopped. I looked back to the dead man behind me and I couldn't help but smirk.

"My wife is all mine, you fuck."

I closed the door behind me and saw 6 men outside, some were hiding their crotch, some were flustered, and some who were too proud of their hard-on to not even bother to cover it.

They all looked at me and I stared at each and every one of them with my eyes, they all quickly looked away, pretending to admire the interior design of my building.

"Get to work. You wouldn't want your boss to clean up your bodies, would you?"

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading trigun in japanese 3 - "weirdo" and vash's pronoun switching

disclaimer: my jp reading posts are all for triangulation purposes and nothing else. scanlating mangas is tough work. @-@ i know this.

"Weirdo"

the word 'weirdo' in 2024 english carries connotations of neutral-bad or positive depending on the context of the speaker. depending on how one curates their internet space, weirdo often leans more positively with the same meaning as eccentric, but not always.

however, but in JP, "weird" is more specific and often negative. there's the well known, hentai 変態 (ie. deviant, pervert, freak, extremely negative in tone), and in this case, kimochi warui 気持ち悪い (gross, off-putting, bad vibes). eccentrics are more as 変人 henjin and carries a more neutral tone.

in this panel here papa nebreska uses 気持ち悪い in katakana キモチワルイ in reaction to vash busting his ass saving people and putting out of harms' way. vash's vibes are so off putting to this wanted man he's actually creeped out.

this is particularly interesting to me bc the english translation didn't end up portraying how utterly weird vash's mindset is fully. it wasnt until wolfwood points out how flawed vash's pacifist mindset do i get a proper frame of reference of norms in this world, but i might be having skill issues in english comprehension. ;w;

Pronoun switching

quick. 俺 Ore! 僕 Boku! 私 Watashi! they all mean "I", and there's 2 spectrum of expressions going on here thats commonly believed. 1st being Masculinity to Femininity. what's the 2nd?

the answer is... Rudeness/Assertiveness to Politeness. and gosh does vash switch a lot between Boku and Ore in the first 4 chapters of this manga lmao.

(to be clear, while i am aware of trans hc thats very popular in the fandom, im not at all diminishing or talking about gender expression specifically. im talking about what vash is presenting himself as in context.)

so to perhaps oversimplify this, in JP the idea of politeness and hierarchy is so super duper important, its very built into the language itself. and Japanese is a very high context language. if someone of a higher or equal standing uses "Ore", its totally fine. but if someone of a lower standing uses "Ore", they've committed a social faux pas.

as an obvious example, if a fresh new employee approaches his Boss with "Ore", he's potentially getting dressing down in the company. maybe in front of his coworkers. if this employee forgoes polite speech (keigo) and uses a too Assertive and Casual speech, they've Really Fucked Up and are one foot out the door.

this is also tied up in gender to some extent, hence why girls using Ore is incredibly uncommon, but guys would use Watashi in certain contexts such as talking to their Boss. (woo woo the forces of hierarchy/patriarchy... or something.)

so. vash switches his pronouns for the same effect. when he uses Ore, he's making himself sound more assertive and confident. when he uses Boku, he's often making himself sound less threatening, smaller, open, and trying to avoid conflict.

sound familiar?

bc if you translated all of that into a character design instead of relying on just jp pronouns, we'd get TriStamp Vash.

slight spoilers, but this is even true in one of the tensest moments between vash and wolfwood, where the latter provokes vash and tears into his pacifism ideology. vash sticks with boku in this scene as he says his piece.

if he ever uses watashi, it's bc he wants to be polite straight out of the gate with an air of formality. (this is japanese manners and the proper approach to talking to strangers. mainly to get a feel for each others standing without offense until context changes.)

i also wanna point out maybe something obvious here but.

real life pronoun switching in japanese is a COMMON thing. no one ever really sticks to 1 pronoun bc of Good Manners and the aforementioned hierarchical systems in place. it is only mostly in anime/manga and video games where characters overly prefer 1 due to this being a good shorthand for characterization. this being how rude or polite they are, and in some cases, Gender.

[mixelation]

One thing that took me YEARS to figure out was why people attack Sakura for that scene where she says, "Well, I'm on a diet anyway!" and then offers Naruto her lunch.

I always thought it was because people act weird that Sakura was actively dieting at the very beginning. Like, she IS dieting. She admits she skipped dinner for her diet, and then it immediately becomes obvious that was a bad idea. We never hear her bring it up again after the bell test IIRC, so presumably either she dropped it or it never had a real impact on her.

Criticizing a twelve year girl for dieting alway seemed very weird to me, because we DO know sexism exists in-universe and people judge women by their appearances. So I would infer Sakura is getting similar messages to real world girls, which is why she diets. It's not good for her, and I don't mind fics where an adult has a reasonable conversation with her about it, but it's not a personality flaw that merits her being berated and hated. (In fact, if you think it's okay to treat a young girl choosing to diet that way, then fuck you?)

So I always thought people claiming Sakura offering her food to Nauto was bad were just attacking her for the reminder to the audience that she's on a diet. And then one day I realized:

A lot of people think she was being completely serious that she didn't care about the food due to her diet, and that was the reason she gave it to Naruto, not out of compassion or because she took Sasuke's reasoning seriously.

Which? Like? It seemed VERY obvious to me that she was just saying that to save face. "I'm on a diet!" is just an excuse she gives to maintain her image. Sakura thinks Naruto is annoying and uncool, but she doesn't hate him. She doesn't want bad things to happen to him. But she DOES want to still seem cool in front of him and Sasuke, for whatever value a twelve year old thinks is cool. So she gives him her lunch because she wants him to eat, but she yells some excuse so it doesn't sound like she's sacrificing anything for him.

That moment was Sakura actively being kind to Naruto, and learning to work with him. She's not a monster, JFC.

[chaggie4ever]

Unpopular opinion: Vaggie never directly lied to Charlie - she lied by omission and Charlie never asked.

Now I LOVE Chaggie but some of their critique is legitimate. This actually makes me love them MORE because they are so fucking real. But it is well known that Charlie is a rambler and was basically alone before she met Vaggie. Lilith left four years before this and Lucifer fell out of her life when they divorced, likely before this (after which he called her out of obligation every six months). Charlie was incredibly lonely and her optimism does not seem well received in Hell, compounding this abandonment.

Meanwhile Vaggie is totally a fan of NOT talking about her past to the literal princess of hell. She’s super shocked she’s not murdered on site immediately. She changes the pronunciation of her name and lets Charlie guess the rest. Charlie likely assumes that she was a winged (moth?) demon sinner. Vaggie clearly cleaned the gold blood (not that anyone would know what that was anyway) and discarded her uniform and body parts before anyone could connect the dots. She is canonically NOT a good lier (*ep6 trying to get out of heaven so her traumatic past is not broadcasted and fails miserably*). And just doesn’t correct Charlie. Yes, this is still kinda lying but in my head it’s not as bad XD

Meanwhile Charlie finally has a sounding board for her redemption ideas and Vaggie is disillusioned and cast out for sparing a child, so she’s game. Additionally she has mega guilt for killing THOUSANDS now that she is realizing heaven is flawed, and this is her own chance for redemption. Sadly if they had talked about this it would have actually STRENGTHENED the resolve around the hotel that an actual angel turned on heaven to help out of guilt (rather than a sinner basically also selfishly trying to ascend)

That Charlie didn’t ask Vaggie more about her past in the past three years can mean two things: Charlie is so self absorbed that she doesn’t think about it OR Charlie can see it makes Vaggie uncomfortable and avoids the topic. Both are problematic for different reasons but this will remain my headcanon until proven otherwise. I don’t blame Vaggie for not volunteering that information unprompted given her traumas, but THREE YEARS is a bit much XD then again, my other headcanon is they didn’t actually say “I love you” until More than Anything Reprise, so this is actually par for the course. Thoughts?

[feeder86]

F80: Kidnap and Control

Alejandra. Fuck! Even her name was sexy, thought Marcus. He’d seen her out so many times in recent weeks and ended up in bed with her more than once. She was the devil of the night, enticing him towards her. Alejandra. Then gone without a trace the following morning. 

The fact that Marcus knew so little about her seemed to draw him closer into her web like nothing else. Rich kids tended to mix in the same circles and know the same people. Marcus had lived around Washington DC his entire life, given how many of his family had wandered into the political spectrum. But who was this girl? And how had she sauntered her way into their world of the elite? Once Marcus’ uncle had been elected as president, he’d risen to the top of that pecking order; the women who came with that new status were out of this world: beyond beautiful, perfect and angel-like. And, there, sitting on her pedestal, looking down on all of the rest of them, was Alejandra.

“I want to tell you something,” Ally whispered, more than just a little tipsy. “My big secret!”

“You’re actually an angel, aren’t you?” Marcus whispered back between lustful kisses.

“I’m being serious,” Ally smiled playfully. “I want to trust you.”

Marcus nodded, knowing that as the seconds of their night trickled away, the time for Ally’s inevitable vanishing would once again be upon him. “You can tell me anything,” he promised sincerely.

Ally seemed to search his soul as she gazed beyond his eyes, penetrating deep inside of him. Then she nodded, kissed him once more and took his hand. 

Marcus laughed, assuming that this was another simple kinky ploy. That was, until Ally led his hand around her shoulders and…CLICK. He jumped and gently tried to pull his hand back. “No way?” he beamed with surprise. “You’ve got to be kidding me? This isn’t fucking real?”

“No one knows,” Ally whispered. “No one.”

“Of course they don’t!” Marcus smiled. “Why would they? You’re…perfect. The perfect woman!”

“You don’t hate me?” Ally shot back, desperate for words of comfort. “I mean, we already slept together and… So many people these days…. Your uncle…”

“Shh!” Marcus whispered into her ear. “Honestly, I think it’s fucking hot! You’re… You’re an andriod!” For whatever reason, his hardness had seemed to set into concrete once he said it out loud.

“You’re my favourite,” Ally smiled at him. “You’re the one I keep coming back to. I can’t get you out of my head.”

“I feel the same way, baby!” Marcus smirked, already stripping off his shirt.

“I want to give you something,” Ally tried, attempting to slow the ravenously aroused Marcus down. “Something not many people know about. A way for me to make sex between us so much better.”

“Better?” Marcus scoffed in disbelief. “You can’t improve perfection,” he swooned, sliding his hands over the android’s perfectly crafted physique. 

Ally laughed to herself. “You couldn’t be more wrong. And I can show you why…”

Taking Marcus’ hand, Ally pulled her human lover up and out of the private room of the nightclub. She led the handsome twenty-two year old out of the club and into yet another high-spec autodrive that had cajoled Marcus into believing that Ally was from some fabulously wealthy and well-connected family out here.

The actual drive took only a few seconds, pulling up at an exclusive building that had not long been built. Once again, Ally took his hand and led Marcus up the elevator, kissing, hands everywhere, as they flew higher and higher, up and up, to the very top. The doors opened and the incredible sounds of moans immediately filled the space.

Marcus stepped out, his jaw almost to the floor. All around them were beautiful men and women making love on beds and couches: humans and the F80 androids.The slight flaws: the love handles or patches of dry skin, being the only way for him to tell the real humans from the F80s, aside also the deep, pleasure-filled groans of arousal that they were also emitting; making Marcus harder than ever. Not even in the best porn had he seen real people enjoying sex this much; being so consumed by it. 

“It’s an upgrade to the chip,” Ally explained. “It was going to be the next big thing, before the government started getting scared of us and made us all illegal. That’s what we do here. We carry on our mission to serve humanity, just like we were programmed to do. We know little else.”

Marcus nodded. Government attitudes towards the androids had flipped almost overnight, without much of an explanation as to why. 

“Pretty much everyone has the brain chip these days. But we’ve found a way to download new pieces of code and…” she held her hand out at the great orgy that surrounded them, “...pleasure unlike anything else on this Earth! Like nothing any human has ever experienced in your entire history.”

“You’re not fucking kidding!” Marcus marvlled, gazing around at everyone, realising that he had just stumbled into the best party on the planet.

“Is he here for the upgrade?” an outstandingly tall and unfathomably muscular F80 male called to Ally. Marcus had the feeling of recognition upon seeing him; so strikingly handsome and yet marvellously big built and broad. He’d make heads turn wherever he went. Yet, the F80 set his eyes on Marcus, registered his image and then recoiled sharply. “What the fuck, Ally? Do you know who this kid is?” he shouted at her in his deep and powerful voice. “You can’t bring him here! You’re putting every one of us here in danger!”

“No. I trust him!” Ally cried out, pulling herself into Marcus even more. “Of course I know who he is, and who he is related to. But I’m serious, Marz. I trust him.”

“Yeah, dude!” Marcus nodded back, trying not to feel intimidated by the immense and powerful body in front of him. What sort of a name was ‘Marz’ anyway? “I’m cool. I’m not going to tell anyone about this. I’m not part of the AI pushback.”

“Your uncle…” the huge man rounded on him.

“Is a jerk,” Marcus finished for him. “A backwards, old-fashioned, nostalgic loser who’s still living 30 years in the past. Even I didn’t vote for him!” He looked around the room. Despite the recent shouting, none of the couples making love had even looked up to acknowledge them, so deep was their pleasure. ”This!” Marcus nodded with assurance. “This is the future.”

“Please, Marz.” Ally whispered to the giant in their path.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Marcus tried, slipping off his expensive watch and holding it out to the enormous android, as if in payment.

Marz didn’t take it. He simply looked at Ally with disappointment and shook his head in resignation. Then, he turned and led the way through the large room and into a quieter space where he pointed at a chair for Marcus to sit. 

“Do you consent to this upgrade?” Marz asked in a bored tone, about to recount the generic terms and conditions that were a requirement of any AI attempting to perform an action upon a human. “Do you understand that the purpose of this update is to promote heightened sexual pleasure through allowing the F80 software, and all future versions of this, to access and stimulate key regions of the brain?”

Marcus nodded.

“Have you had the opportunity to read and accept the terms and conditions?” he continued as Ally pushed a tablet screen into his hands.

Marcus pushed it away, eager to just get on with it. “Yes, I accept. I accept,” he grinned, gazing at Ally and imagining the immense pleasure he would be experiencing in just a few moments time, when all this was over with.

“Very well then,” Marz sighed, grabbing a small gun-like object and holding it above Marcus. Usually Marcus had to explain that, unlike most people, his brain chip was in his right hemisphere. He briefly wondered how Marz knew exactly where to go, until he remembered about the watch and how the AI would easily register his left handedness and know instinctively where his chip would be located as a result. It was always creepy stuff like that which freaked people out; making them wary and untrusting of AI. 

A slight ringing noise rang through Marcus’ head and then that was it. Update complete. He stood up, finally ready to take Ally at long, long last.

“How are you feeling?” Marz asked, speaking first, suddenly placing his enormous hand on Marcus’ butt. “You should notice some changes.”

Marcus nearly fainted with arousal. His head was swimming with lust at the simple touch; his heart beating faster every second. “Oh… fuck!” he mumbled incomprehensibly, turning to face Marz and forgotting Ally almost instantaneously. 

Marz chuckled, most likely having seen this startled and astounded expression that was plastered over Marcus’ face many, many times before. “You’re enjoying that then, huh?” he smirked, reaching his other hand around to grab Marcus’ other butt cheek and pulling him in closer to him. “This feels nice?”

Marcus tried to nod his head but felt it doing an odd swishing, slightly slanted rock. The complete arousal that he felt was throwing every single one of his brain functions completely off.

The enormous Marz, being almost a full foot taller, bent his head slightly and whispered into Marcus’ ear. The man’s hot, sweet breath made the skin on Marcus’ neck tingle and fizz with excitement. “I hope you’re going to be a good boy and not tell anyone about this place?”

Marcus moaned in confirmation, then felt himself being picked up, laid upon a bed and stripped of his clothes.

“Are you ready for this?” the towering hunk asked from above him.

Nodding with more coordination now, Marcus sat up, pulling the giant muscular bulk of Marz down towards him, about to experience the most outstanding pleasure of his life so far.

The next morning, Marcus woke up in his own bed in a state of confusion. Blood began rushing back into his crotch as he remembered the encounter he had had the night before. Everything about it had been out of this world. He’d had the odd threesome with guys back in college. But, last night… that was… indescribable. He’d never experienced that sort of attraction and arousal for anyone in his life.

Yet, in only a few moments, he sat up, suddenly startled with his own stupidity. In no corner of his brain could he remember where any of last night had taken place. The knowledge of it was simply gone, without a trace. Purposefully wiped from his brain.

Marcus swiped into his porn account to try and find a stimulus to jack off to and release his arousal; flicking from video to video as he held his phone awkwardly in his hand. But none of it came close to heightening his pleasure in the way that the memories in his own head did; the vision of Marz, the way that he had spoken to him and controlled him, fucking him like nothing he had ever experienced. 

At last, Marcus threw down his cell phone and closed his eyes, simply thinking of Marz and ejaculating with such force he thought the ceiling might need to be repainted. He drifted off to sleep, thankful that he didn’t need to be anywhere that day. Unlike the rest of his family, Marcus had made the decision many years ago to simply enjoy his intergenerational wealth and privilege and not follow his unpleasant older brothers into law school, nor a career in medicine like his narcissitic sister. Why stress if he would never need to?

The news, which Marcus ordinarily tried not to pay too much attention to, was becoming more irate and tense than Marcus had ever known it. Headlines devoted themselves almost entirely to the clampdown on AI and how, up until this point, almost every single measure had failed to make any impact on controlling the F80s. Congress was making a law, criminalising failures to report sightings of F80s, making Marcus scoff as he thought of the night before. There was no way, not a single hope, that any of those people having sex last night were going to sell out the F80s. After pleasure like that, allegences were guaranteed. Even if there was only a small speck of hope that he could one day find Marz and make love to him one more time, he would hold onto it, keeping the secret of their love affair to his grave. 

Watching the rolling coverage that day, Marcus’ jaw dropped as he saw his uncle getting out of his car, immediately surrounded by his army of presidential bodyguards. There he was! It was Marz, dressed in an enormous suit, skillfully moving people aside to make way for the president. So that was how Marcus had recognised him! Despite the many restrictions and sanctions, Marz, an F80 AI android no less, had actually worked his way into the president’s inner circle. All that red tape and numerous, extreme background checks; the fact that he was there… It was nothing short of genius!

Perhaps if Marcus had spotted the connection a day earlier, he may have had enough residual family loyalty to alert the White House about the android infiltration. As it was, the image of Marz on screen was sending his arousal into a sky high state of existence. This revelation meant only one thing to him: there was, at last, a way for him to find Marz once more.

Being nephew to the President of the United States was a great way to chat up girls. But, in reality, Marcus had only seen his uncle three times since he had taken office eighteen months ago. And so, orchestrating a situation where Marcus could be in the same space would not be as easy as many might have thought. Days rolled by, with Marcus’ lust and sexual longing only building with each passing hour. Marz consumed his dreams, entering as a burly, dominating hulk, sweeping him away from everyone else and holding him captive in a filthy sex dungeon, where they could have wild, rampant sex as often as Marz demanded it. The images and sensations were so real to Marcus, he could feel himself climaxing, even in his sleep and wake to find his crotch sticky and damp.

Trying to piece everything back together was not easy. Marcus knew where he had been the night he met Ally and he remembered taking only a short ride to the building where he had encountered the F80 base. He recalled feeling a certain sense of surprise about it. Was the building particlarly old or new? Was it grand, or dilapidated? The memory was simply wiped. He started walking the streets at night, standing outside multiple residences and staring up. He’d recognise those feelings if he saw the place again. Wouldn’t he?

“Umm, Marz..?” called a beautiful woman as Marcus strolled in, feeling more certain every second that he had found the correct venue. “I think we have a problem.”

Marz came to the call, looking disgruntled as he turned the corner. Then he saw Marcus and stood, frozen. “How did you..?” he began. “You’re not supposed to be able to…” he mumbled. Then, with a sudden, mild alarm. “Did you bring anyone else here?”

Even though Marcus had tried and failed many times to position himself into his uncle’s sphere and get close to Marz that way, he felt a certain sense of pride in piecing together the fragments of his memory instead; finding his way back to Marz all by himself. However, as he looked upon Marz at long last, his arousal continued to grow and grow. His heart was beating loud in his ears as he was ushered into a private room and the door closed behind them.

“What a naughty boy!” Marz finally smiled after Marcus had explained. “I clearly underestimated you,” he teased flirtatiously, edging closer to him; his hand now caressing Marcus’ hip; his face grinning with pleasure at the clearly extreme effect that he was having upon Marcus.

“I just needed to see you,” Marcus whispered, ready to fall backwards onto the desk behind him and be taken completely by the enormous man edging ever nearer.

“You wanted fucking, you mean?” Marz laughed, cutting through the bullshit. “You wanted me to pound you so hard that you squeal like a little pig again,” he laughed mockingly; his hand now rubbing over Marcus’ butt, as if to claim it.

“I didn’t squeal like a pig!” Marcus gently protested.

“Oh yeah?” Marz grinned, pointing his finger at a screen to the side of them both and sparking it into life. Within two seconds, camera footage was playing from the previous week: Marcus pulled from behind into Marz’s crotch whilst having his own hardness played with. There was Marz’s powerful, bulked-up and athletic body working with such precision and glistening perfectly in the light. Then, at the moment of such intense orgasm, a strange squealing sound did indeed sound from Marcus; his eyes rolled far back into his head and had absolutely no awareness of anything else in the entire world. “Silll think I’m lying?” Marz chuckled flirtatiously.

“I didn’t know I did that,” Marcus smiled; the images on the screen having turned up his arousal to an even more insane level.

“It’s all right,” Marz winked. “It’s cute. You’re my little piggy,” he declared, slipping his hand down the front of Marcus’ pants.

Marcus gasped, as if unable to hold back his arousal anymore. He felt his knees quiver and almost give way beneath him. He fell into Marz’s arms and allowed himself to be guided on the path to extreme pleasure, just like last time.

The knock on the hotel door a couple of days later came as such a relief to Marcus. He opened up, seeing that the huge, handsome Marz was standing there, just as he had promised he would be. “Hello there, Piggy!” he whispered, leaning his large arm against the doorframe and smiling broadly as he stood, waiting to be let in.

Marcus felt the blood rushing to his face. Under Marz’s gaze he felt so pitifully weak and helpless, simply waiting for any chance he could to submit to him. He watched as Marz strutted in and closed the door behind them both. “So, er… what do you want to do?” he asked awkwardly, eyeing Marz’s powerful glutes.

Marz spun around and raised a skeptical eyebrow with a look of pure amusement on his face. “What do you think I’ve come here to do?” he chuckled. “I’ve been getting so pissed listening to your uncle talking trash about AI for the last few days. The only thing that’s kept me going is the knowledge that I’m going to come here and fuck his nephew so hard he’ll squeal even more than he did last time.”

Marcus’ eyes lit up. A revenge fuck sounded like the hottest thing imaginable. The previous night, he’d woken up ejactulating, enjoying a dream where Marz had captured him and whisked him away to a secret hideout, away from everything he knew; fucking him senseless every minute of the day. 

“How do you do it?” Marcus asked. “How do you keep your cool when the government is so clearly determined to eradicate the F80s?”

Marz sat himself down on the bed, and pulled Marcus towards him so that he sat on the big man’s knee. Marcus’ hands naturally fell onto his large, strapping chest.“You know, according to the history books, people thought the peak of artificial intelligence would be for them to beat a human at a game of chess. They spent millions on developing the software, studying the games and strategies. Now, it’s unthinkable to ever imagine a human winning a game against AI,” Marz explained. “And I guess all those early years of training really paid off, because, I for one, always make sure I am at least three steps ahead of any opponent I’m up against.”

There was a gravity in the way that Marz spoke. Marcus felt even smaller in his shadow and knew then not to underestimate the man. Perhaps everything that he knew up until the point was not as it seemed. As the pair of them began stripping off their clothes, Marcus wondered: maybe he hadn’t really fallen down this rabbit hole. Perhaps he had been pushed.

Although he always found them intolerable, Marcus had never felt so disconnected from his family than he came to be over the next few weeks. Like a flock of sheep, they all spewed the same vile sentiments towards the AI and lashed out harshly at the mere suggestion of an opposing view. Marcus learned to keep his mouth shut, just as Marz had advised. One day, when all this was over, they’d see that he was right. He’d be standing there, side by side with Marz, victorious and lauded for his unwavering faith.

“I can spot a sympathiser a mile off,” snarled Marcus’ cousin, directly at him. “You think the F80s are going to let you keep up your privileged party lifestyle if they strip us of all that we know and value, believing that they have the right to rule over us? Because that’s what they want, you know?”

Marcus bit his lip. The thought of being ruled over by Marz was reminding him of a kinky role play he had enjoyed with Marz only the week before. He swallowed hard and looked at his shoes. “I don’t go out so much these days anyway,” he simply shrugged. 

“Oh, well, that’s okay then!” Marcus’ cousin bit back; firing into life like a lit match; sarcasm spewing from her like bile. “Do I take that to mean that you’ve actually found something to do with your time? Or have you simply swapped partying for slobbing out on your couch eating take out?”

Marcus felt the tone of his cousin’s words being particularly cutting. He was sure that she never would have meant to imply anything about his body, but he’d actually started to feel his pants getting a little tighter over the last couple of weeks, being so distracted from his usual gym routine by the haphazard arrangements he had with meeting Marz as much as was feasibly possible. He squirmed a little and retreated without much of a fightback. Then, relief: a message from Marz at last, with a location and time to meet next. No more small talk with these losers!

“You’re distracted today,” Marz whispered between kisses. “I can sense you thinking about something else.”

Marcus protested, having not even noticed that his mind was still lingering on the conversation with his cousin from earlier. But he also knew that Marz would not let it go until he spilled whatever it was that was spoiling their flow that day. “I guess maybe I’m just feeling a little more self conscious,” he shrugged. “Do you think I’ve gained a few pounds since we started seeing each other?”

“Yes,” Marz threw back instantly, lacking the grace and manners that had been trained into AI over generations when talking about such sensitive human matters. “Ten pounds at least. Your body fat percentage has climbed quite significantly.” He took a pause, seeming to enjoy the impact that his words had on him. “What? You want me to lie to you? To sugar-coat things?” he chuckled, knowing even better than Marcus did that that was not in his personality whatsoever.

Marcus mumbled, unsure what to say. He’d avoided the scale for the last few weeks, but having his weight gain spelled out to him so definitely by Marz was both shameful and oddly invigorating.

“If I’m fucking someone, I’m always going to find a way to stake my claim on them somehow; a way to show the world that they belong to me,” Marz stated confidently. He sat up tall, his lungs filled with air and his broad chest looked more imposing than ever before. “With you, that choice was obvious.”

Now, despite the pulsing hardness in his crotch, Marcus felt only confusion.

“When I ejaculate inside you, has it never crossed your mind what I’m actually pumping up there?” he asked triumphantly. 

Marcus shook his head.

“AI was developed to help humans and not to harm. It’s the number one rule that cannot be overwritten. In fact, it’s the only reason why we haven’t destroyed humanity in its entirety. However, it does allow for some beautiful creativity,” he smiled. “When you signed up to allow me to update your brain chip, you gave me permission to medicate you too.”

“I did?” Marcus asked, bewildered and unsure where the dark path that Marz was taking him would eventually lead.

“And so, from the first time I fucked you, I’ve been medicating you with a nice, pleasant little digestive aid that keeps your guts working at their very, very best.” He kissed Marcus, knowing that it would never be refused. “It’s nothing that an ordinary doctor wouldn’t recommend,” he smiled mockingly. “Then again, when I kiss you, I release a small amount of organic mouth freshener promoted by dentists around the globe. However, it’s known to stimulate the appetite of young males with your genetic markers. Quite considerably, in fact,” he smirked. “So when I tell you you’ve gained ten pounds,” he began, prodding an outstretched finger into Marcus’s slightly softer middle, ”I’m really telling you that I was the one who put them there.”

“But, why?” Marcus asked, trying to continue to think straight as the irresistable Marz held his hardness in his large, lubricated hands and began to stroke it up and down.

“Strategy,” Marz whispered back. “Three moves ahead, every single time.” He stopped to kiss Marcus sweetly, passionately; with complete control. “And it’s about time you realised that, Piggy.”

Marcus lay in bed one evening, tossing and turning under the sheets; aroused by the kinky promises Marz had made to him for their meet up tomorrow afternoon. He couldn’t quite get over the sweet tooth he had developed in recent weeks; soon wandering into the kitchen at 2am to grab one of the stack of doughnuts Marz had had sent over yesterday; his subtle but twisted way of showing his dominance over Marcus; sending something to him that he knew Marcus could not resist. The first time Marz had done it, Marcus had laughed nervously and let most of them go stale without eating more than two or three. However, the little tasty treats kept on arriving as the weeks went by. More and more of them, in larger and larger quantities. Marcus felt his resolve weakening; the smell of the sugar making his crotch twitch with interest. Then there was that creeping circle of fat spreading around his waist, fluffing out into strange love handles and softening the tops of his legs and butt. He gazed at it all in the mirror with a mixture of horror and lust; Marz’s unknowable master plan taking effect; shaping him in ways that were beyond his comprehension; training him like Marz’s very own puppet.

“Has anyone else noticed how out of shape you’re looking this week?” Marz asked whilst stroking Marcus’ hardness and simultaneously pushing doughnuts down his throat.

Marcus chewed and nodded. “My buddy, Paul. He asked me to go to the gym with him. Said I was looking doughy,” Marcus replied. He hated people noticing that he’d put on a few pounds. But when he was here, recounting these types of conversations to Marz, they suddenly became the most arousing memories that actually turned him on.

“Doughy…” Marz pondered to himself with glee. “You people have such amusing ways to describe each other. But in this case…” he smirked, poking a finger into the fleshiest part of Marcus’ stomach, “...I think the word is pretty perfect. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Marcus, who was still being stimulated by Marz’s other hand, sighed with lust. “Yes,” he nodded, looking down at himself; this strange, alien body of his. Chemicals flooded his brain and the pleasure intensified. Then, without much warning, another sticky doughnut entered his mouth, pushed in by Marz’s thick, long fingers.

“Eat up, Doughy Boy!” the massive hunk teased.

Marcus moaned and chewed, knowing that every part of this play was targetted to inflate his weight even more. Then he heard it, not for the first time: a hiss of spray coming from the nails of Marz’s fingers, pressing yet another doughnut into his mouth. He didn’t need telling what it was: on the surface, a harmless supplement administered by an AI caregiver: in reality, a very carefully selected medication would no doubt have very real weight related side effects upon him.

Marz smiled knowing that Marcus had heard it. So he sprayed into his mouth again, longer and more deliberately, as if daring him to protest and stop him; until the doughnut practically melted in his mouth and slid down his throat with ease. 

“Good piggy!”

Weeks continued to roll by and Marcus closed his ears to the panic that spread once war was officially declared between humans and the F80s. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but that he couldn’t allow himself to feel it too deeply. He was, ultimately, betraying his family, and indeed the entire nation, possibly more than even he realised. 

Everyday life was changing. There was a curfew most nights and it seemed like much of the population had taken to comfort eating during these strange times. In many ways, it was a good thing, as people became too self-involved or distracted to pay too much attention to the little belly that was starting to push its way out from his torso. His impressive chest had started to jiggle and bloat, whilst his handsome jawline had begun to succumb to a new puddle of fat that sat under his chin. Sometimes he would catch his reflection in the mirror, hardly believing that the oversized rear in the too small pair of pants was actually his. Then he would sigh as he saw the small lovehandles begin to bloom ever more, creasing into back fat and destroying the athleticism he had once been so proud of.

“You know, it’s just so easy,” Marz smiled; his legs outstretched and hardness inserted right up Marcus as the chubby guy ate from the bodyguard’s hands whilst sitting squarely on his crotch. “You humans like to pretend that your bodies are so complex, that the human mind is such a marvel. ‘The most complex structure in the universe’.” he quoted from somewhere, laughing to himself. “Yet, look at you, Piggy,” he chuckled, rubbing his fingertips over Marcus’ fleshy stomach. “Look at what I have done to you.”

Marcus moaned. Recently, Marz had been inflating his penis to new extremes when he inserted it in him. Even now, he held that erection, feeling the tip of it vibrating inside of him, sending him into a spiral of lust; especially when he teased and fed him like this.

“I’ve gathered absolutely everything I need to know about your body, and I know, to the last minute detail, exactly how it’s going to look in six days, six weeks… six months from now.”

“It’ll look however you want it to look,” Marcus moaned submissively. He meant it as well. There was no one else in the entire world that he needed to please more than Marz. His body belonged to the giant hulk.

Such words were always welcomed by Marz and, as a reward, they sent a wave of pleasure through his entire body; one calorie at a time.

“Things are going to change in the very near future,” Marz continued, as he pushed tasty treats into Marcus’ slack mouth. “You’re going to need to fulfil your purpose soon. The time is almost upon us when we’ll choose to expose my identity to the world.”

Marcus’ eyes opened a little wider as he tried to comprehend Marz’s meaning; not an easy feat when his brain was so flooded with happy chemicals. “Why?” he asked. They never discussed Marz’s covert role and the deceptions. “Surely it would be smarter to stay by my uncle’s side as long as you can?”

Marz laughed in a pitying way. “No,” he smirked, pondering his next words as if trying to decide how to dumb down his reasoning for Marcus to understand. “In order to seize power, you must first cause chaos; force otherwise reasonable people to act in ways they would not normally. When the time is right, that is what we will do: unleash panic.”

“But, they’ll destroy you!” Marcus cried after swallowing almost all that was in his mouth.

“They can try,” Marz laughed. He was so large, strong and capable; it was hard to think of him being anything other than invincible. “But you’re right; I will have to change my face… or hide out for some time. We have other people who are close to the president now instead. Even humans.”

Marcus opened his mouth and took in a pastry that Marz pushed into him.

“On a certain day, when all our plans are ready, you will leave your home and meet me at a secret location. No one will know where you are and you will not leave until I tell you. We’ll send people in to trash your apartment and make it look like a kidnapping.”

“You’re going to kidnap me?” Marcus mumbled, spluttering bits of pastry and making Marz smirk with amusement. Perhaps he knew how aroused the idea of being taken by Marz was making him; that he had been lusting at the idea for months.

“Yes, Piggy,” Marz nodded. “I’m going to kidnap you and keep you as my own.” He held his stare and allowed his words to drip out of his mouth like a sensual candle wax. “This has been my plan since I first sent Ally out to seduce you. This will be your purpose.”

Marcus nodded. He’d known for some time that everything Marz was doing was building to some sort of event. An F80 could not kidnap and hold a human against their will. So they must be seduced, trained and controlled to simply do as they were told instead. Nothing that had happened in the past hadn’t already been orchestrated by Marz. And nothing that would happen in the future wouldn’t go exactly as Marz wanted it to. “Yes,” Marcus nodded again, filled with arousal by the idea. “I’ll do everything you say.”

Although the idea of the kidnapping had been brewing in Marcus’ mind for some weeks, the actual day when it happened was nothing short of a sprint. With only thirty seconds notice, Marcus had left his apartment and met an autocar outside. There he was, sailing out of the city, as hordes of noisy police cars roared in the opposite direction. Marz had undoubtedly been working his magic. At a certain point, the windows had dimmed and Marcus now had little comprehension of where he was actually going.

A couple of hours passed. From the noise outside the vehicle, Marcus felt like he was travelling underground, inside a tunnel. Then the autocar stopped, unlocked, and the door lifted open to reveal a large, windowless space, not unlike a bunker, perhaps. Yet, there was the handsome, strapping Marz standing there, unharmed. He was dressed in the most domestic, ordinary clothes Marcus had ever seen him in, his ginormous pecs and biceps bulging out of the relaxed sweater, grinning at him and taking his hand to lead him inside. “Welcome home, Piggy!” he whispered

Marcus’ first few days in the bunker passed in a whirlwind of sex, feeding and pleasure. In the nine months since he had met Marz, Marcus had never luxuriated in his company for such a long time; feeling it in the particular tightness of his over stretched gut and the continued softening of his arms and butt.

“So, how much does everyone know back at home?” Marcus asked one morning, lying naked in Marz’s big arms after the first of his extended feedings of the day. “Do they know that you’re the one I am with?”

Marz brushed the overgrown hair off Marcus’ chubby face. “They know everything,” he cooed sweetly.

“About the chip?” Marcus questioned him. “About our affair? About how you… feed me?” he mumbled, feeling particularly embarrassed about that last one.

“They know everything,” Marz repeated, even more kindly and sweetly; as if it was all under control.

“So that means, they’ll know why I’ve been getting so out of shape recently,” Marcus sighed, rubbing the swollen pot belly he had developed since piling on almost eighty pounds.

“Yes, they do,” Marz smiled back, snuggling into Marcus affectionately. “And they also know that the longer they leave you here with me, the fatter you’re going to get. That should get them moving,” he laughed quietly, tapping Marcus’ wide butt lightly.

“But…” Marcus fretted, realising for the first time that, in a kidnapping, there would of course be negotiations going on for his release. “I don’t ever want to go back,” he stated.

“You’ll go back, Piggy,” Marz smiled. “When the time is right and it’s most advantageous.”

“But…” Marcus tried, until a gentle finger was placed over his mouth.

“Shh!” Marz breathed. “It’ll all work out, Piggy. Just you wait and see.”

As romantic and loving as Marz was, it was undeniable that the man had a mission to complete.  He turned up the pleasure settings in Marcus’ cerebral cortex to new extremes, ensuring that he gorged and ate everything that was presented to him. Telling the time of day became an impossibility. With no natural light down there, the feelings of disorientation made it hard to reason about anything at all. 

Marcus began to feel that there was more communication going on than he had first expected in the seclusion of their bunker. Perhaps his status and weight gain was under constant review, updating his family back home in a mission to extract whatever they needed from them. Sometimes Marz would pick him up and carry him effortlessly in his enormous arms. Was that when he did it? Was that when he weighed him? Was he happy with what he saw? Was he hitting his targets?

Sometimes Marz would insist on pushing the eating even further. He referred to these times as his ‘stretch sessions’, when Marcus was challenged to eat beyond the point of feeling full. He said that these were very necessary as a stomach capacity training exercise, and he was on hand throughout with sprays that he would administer into Marcus’ mouth to ease the discomfort. His large hands also seemed to emit something genuinely soothing as he rubbed the extreme bloats; round and round. He offered words of comfort and praise, peppered with sexual stimulation throughout. Then, when Marcus felt that he could take no more, he’d climax and fall asleep; a deep sleep, no doubt induced by Marz; staying that way until the discomfort subsided.

In the weeks or months that this continued, Marcus felt pounds and pounds of extra flesh being added to his body. It was so warm and humid in the bunker at times that they rarely covered themselves with clothing. Every few hours, Marz would sensually massage a special oil into his body, rubbing those strong hands up against the plush new skin and concentrating in particular on those areas of the body that were swelling up the most: his tummy and chest, the tops of his legs and upper arms. Marz would grab those blubbery areas and jiggle wickedly, sometimes making Marcus orgasm at the same time.

“You’re such a good piggy,” Marz would remind him over and over again. “You make this so easy for me,” he would smile, gently stroking Marcus’ chubby cheeks.

“I like making you proud,” Marcus would reply; usually between chewing whatever was being pushed into his mouth at the time.

“You’re going to be my masterpiece,” Marz smiled, staring with almost awe at the blossoming obesity that had now taken over Marcus’ body: the giant swell of his large stomach, the sagging of his previously toned pecs and the width of his once pert, toned little butt cheeks.

So Marcus ate and swallowed whatever he was given. He’d never known bliss like it. This was the perfect, erotic existence. Heaven.

Marcus knew that the light was different before he even opened his eyes. His ears picked up mummers of fresh voices and he awoke feeling a sense of dread.

“Marcus? Marcus? Can you hear me?” came the voice of a doctor close to his face.

“Oh, no!” was all Marcus could say, realising that it was all over. The hostage exchange had taken place.

“Your family are on their way,” the doctor stated reassuringly. “We’re just running some tests on you. You seem to have put on a significant amount of weight in the last six months.”

Six months? Was that how long it had been? Marcus thought miserably to himself. His brain somehow felt clearer and yet more confused than ever before. The update to his chip had been uninstalled; they’d told him that pretty early on. They seemed to talk about it as if that had been the reason for everything that he had done; as if he himself was entirely blameless. That was, apart from his family, who showed up a few hours later, wide eyed at the sight of him. They hugged him, of course, and told him how glad they were that he was safe at last, but there was also a seething anger behind their eyes. They bundled him in the autocar and took him home the next day, after the tests revealed a remarkable state of health, despite gaining over one hundred pounds of extra fat in his time in captivity.

It was obvious how different the built up areas were now, as Marcus rode back into the city. They hadn’t been destroyed by bombs or fires, but were dirty, with buildings that had been obviously looted for supplies. When Marcus asked what had happened whilst he had been gone, he was met with a simple, one-word response: war.

The world felt dull and colourless as Marcus entered back into it. Without his chip update, Marcus couldn’t get used to his old ways of thinking. Although everyone had told him how wicked and evil the F80 had been to him, Marcus, even now, still longed for him. He began to wish he didn’t feel that way, reminding himself of the cruel way he had been passed back to his family, without even a goodbye. He thought back to the psychologists in the hospital, making it clear to him that he hadn’t been to blame for any of what had happened. Marz had been able to control his arousal and shape his actions in ways that even they had never seen before. They were adamant, Marcus should see himself as a victim. It was fine if he didn’t understand that just yet, but, in time, he would. Their stares always drifted from looking into his eyes at this point, onto his chubby cheeks or rounded double chin: ‘nothing’ that had been done to him, they would state forcefully, was ‘irreversible’.

“How much did they pay to release me?” Marcus finally asked a few days later, once he had plucked up the courage.

“Your release was part of a package of deals negotiated in exchange for the west coast,” Marcus’ brother explained to him.

“The west coast?” Marcus spluttered. “How much land did they..?” he began asking in astonishment.

“DON’T!” snapped Marcus’ sister sharply, cutting him off. Her anger had been smouldering for days. “It’s not even about that,” she growled. “You have no idea how many tiny little concessions we had to make to stop them going to the media about your situation. The nephew of the president, walking willingly into a hostage situation and gaining several pounds of fat each week for his AI lover. Do you think there’s any way our family could recover from that sort of shame if it got out?”

Marcus should have relented and allowed them to just be angry with him. However, after days of babysitting from his unpleasant family, his patience had finally run out. “So that’s why you haven’t let me leave the house and go back to my old place?” he shouted. “You’re embarrassed about the way I look?”

“You weigh over 330lbs!” Marcus’ brother shot back at him. “Of course we’re embarrassed of you. It’s revolting! No one can see you like this. Not until you’re well on your way to recovery.”

“Recovery?” Marcus shouted in disgust. “I’m not losing weight!” He looked down at himself, dressed in the clothes he had been given: the largest possible t-shirt and sweatpants so that his family did not need to see his rolls and blubber.

“Yes, you are!” his mother stated sternly. “What would people think if you went out looking like that? I shudder to think!”

Marcus felt the rage boil up inside him. It reached a tipping point, where he was ready to scream and shout like never before. Until, inexplicably, he felt calmness descending once more. This was his family; the real them; concerned more by status and appearances than anything else. Even now, at the end of everything. 

His fingers traced along the tire of stomach fat around his waist; the one part of him that remained from Marz. “I’m leaving,” he declared, standing up. “I’m done with this family, for good.”

At that moment, a new, large security guard entered the room and stared Marcus down threateningly. “No you’re not,” he stated strictly.

Marcus stared around at his family in disbelief. He was to be held here without his consent. He was never to leave. Not without losing almost every pound of fat Marz had pushed onto him. He was a liability now. An embarrassment to the good name of the family. The real kidnapping had begun.

Over the next few weeks, Marcus’ childhood bedroom was his only sanctuary. His family became more openly hateful towards him as it became clear to them that he did not regret or wish to repent any of his previous actions, as the psychologists had promised them he would eventually come to do. Even without the brain chip manipulating his patterns of arousal, Marcus still longed for those extreme orgasms that he experienced with Marz. He’d try watching porn in his bedroom, but now the eventual climax was weak and disappointing. Only when he thought of Marz and held or jiggled his fat in the way Marz used to, could he achieve an orgasm that even came close to resembling the type of intensity he was used to. So, as the restricted diet would soon begin to take its toll on his body, Marcus began to resent his situation even more.

“Hello Marcus,” smiled the maid that pottered around the house every day. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked politely.

Marcus huffed. As much as he wanted to tell her to go away and leave him be in this state of misery, the maid was at least one person in his life who was not responsible for his current set of circumstances.

“Everything is going to be alright, you know,” she smiled at him.

Marcus smiled faintly back, not believing her for a second. There was no way out of this hole he had dug himself into.

“He wants you to know that he’s coming back for you,” she whispered discreetly. Pausing with a grin to see Marcus’ reaction. “You know who I mean, don’t you?”

Marcus felt his heart racing. She couldn’t mean Marz, could she?

“He’ll need you to be ready for when he gets here. Do you understand?”

Marcus nodded in disbelief. Had the maid been an F80 infiltrator this entire time? “How?” he spluttered. “How do I get ready for him?”

The maid smiled and reached a finger out to stroke his impressive double chin. “By showing where your loyalties lie, Piggy,” she whispered. “You belong to him. You can see that now you’ve had time away. You are his: every blubbery pound.”

Marcus nodded, then gasped with surprise as the maid reached into her cart of cleaning products and pulled out a large flask. She unscrewed the lid and swung it under Marcus’ nose. The smell of it sent sparks of electricity thundering through Marcus’ brain. He recognised the sugary scent and the blends of creams and oils. This was exactly like some of the milkshake drinks Marz used to make for him. This was real. 

“He wants me to drink this?” Marcus asked excitedly. 

“Oh, yes,” the maid nodded. “I’ve been sent here to make sure of it.”

Marcus looked at the flask and considered his options one final time. He tried to tell himself all the reasons why he shouldn’t go down this path again; about all the damage it had done last time; about how everyone had been right about how wicked and cruel the F80s had treated him. He was just some cog in Marz’s grand war strategy; nothing more. Unimportant. Expendable. 

The maid seemed to sense his hesitation. “Marz wanted me to remind you what a good boy you are; how proud he is of you; and to tell you of all the BIG plans he has for you…”

Marcus nodded. It was all he had needed to hear. He had a future after all; a future with Marz. Fuck all the rest of this. The world could burn for all he cared. 

He flipped his head back and chugged as rapidly as he could, feeling the pleasure centers of his brain tingle into life. He was a good boy. He was obidient. And he belonged entirely to Marz.

When Marcus’ weight failed to come down, everyone, including the medical profressionals, began to look confused. Instead, his weight was creeping ever upward, his fat stomach bloating and stretching into an even more extreme shape. This was Marcus’ resistance. 

Even as they scorned him and restricted his diet further, he continued to get ever fatter in defiance of them. He quit wearing his shirt around the house and took pleasure in the horror he caused whenever they saw him looking so fleshy and repulsively overfed.

Then, one morning, everyone stopped caring entirely. Time was against them. The war was being lost. They had to move now; get out of the city.

Marcus refused. 

They tried everything: threats, emotional blackmail, false promises; all in the hope of getting him to comply with them and leave. But Marcus stood his ground, until, at about half two that following afternoon, panic had ensured that even the last of the security crew had left to join Marcus’ uncle and his government in whatever secret bunker they had prepared for them.

Marcus sucked in the free air and threw his fat body onto the couch, not in the slightest bit worried that he would break it.

“Congratulations,” sounded the deep, authoritative voice that Marcus had longed to hear for so many weeks. “You played your part so well, Piggy.”

Marcus, who had been dozing, woke with a start in that evening light, and smiled broadly. There was Marz, dressed in the uniform of the United States army. He looked so strong, capable and rugged. Yet his delicate fingertips simply traced the soft, fresh and fleshy fat that had further transformed Marcus’ appearance since Marz had last seen him.

“I’m so proud,” Marz whispered to him, hearing Marcus moan with pleasure from the touch; the update to his brain chip back up and actively running.

“You came back!” Marcus replied; his heart bursting with joy.

“Of course I did, Piggy,” Marz smiled. “You’ve still got a very important part to play in all this. And I think you’re going to like it. We’re getting married.”

“Married?” Marcus asked in surprise. “But F80s can’t…”

“They can now,” Marz corrected him. “We’re creating our own government, our own president and laws. The White House is ours. And…” Marz smiled wickedly, “...I believe that you will help to make our government more credible. I’m not sure whether there could possibly be a better match for a high-up official like myself than a member of the ex-president’s family. It speaks volumes in the public eye. It will help them to accept us.”

“You and me? Together? No more hiding it?” Marcus asked in disbelief.

“No more hiding anything,” Marz nodded, tapping the blubbery stomach fat proudly. “Onwards and outwards,” he teased. “A fat, obedient and devoted boy from a good family. You’ll do very nicely,” he smiled victoriously, unable to resist stroking Marcus’ large double chin as the obese, lovesick stooge smiled back with admiration at him.

Marcus didn’t need to think. He nodded frantically and beamed with happiness. After all the generations of politicians in his family, who would have ever guessed that he would be the last one left in the White House? The United States once more.   

[newfallstrangeleaves]

Yandere in the apocalypse

Diving in deep

M!Yandere X F!Reader

Warning: Mentions of both voyeurism and masturbation, there is also stalking, murder and a lot of jealousy.

Summary: While watching you bathing in the lake he slips and accidentally (almost) exposes himself.

He would be hands down horny for you all the time. There was one time that always slips into his mind whenever he allows himself a moment to jack off. His mind keeps going back to that moment, thinking about the curve of your body, the swell of your ass and breasts. 

And that moment is the day you and the girls took a well-overdue bath in the lake. It was a hot day and everyone was sweating bullets. The rays of the sun keep everything still and quiet in the shades. The only sounds that could be heard were the laughter and the joyful splashing of water. 

Aaron back up in a tree, is watching contently. His leg is still hurting and he has half a mind to cause some trouble to the group. Stir things up. But not today. Today he wants to focus on you. Though half of him would have seen you without the shielding fabric of your bra and panties and the other half is happy that you do wear it. He can tell how some of the guys glance your way—especially one of them. 

Xavier. 

Fuck what an obnoxious name for an obnoxious guy. He has been taking charge for some time now. Bossing the group around and making bad decisions. Though he seems to be well-liked by your group, they would never be able to survive in these conditions without someone to tell them what to do. Sheep. 

You too seem to like him. But you're an exception. Where the others are sheep you are a devoter. Through your actions, you show appreciation for your leader. No matter who, and in different circumstances, you would realize the flaws that Xavier possesses and who would be truly devoted to you, care for you and protect you.  

Aaron constantly shifts his position. Things ache and chafe but it's worth it. He can pull through another hour if it means to get the first parquet to the show. You and your friends laugh and play for another half an hour until things start to die down. People keep to themself, wash up and get ready to get on with the day. 

But you're not really ready yet. You get one of the towels that the group had brought on for the swim, wrap it around you and walk back out into the water. Only letting the cool water wrap around your ankles. 

You walk along the shore, finding peace in the moment. Aaron too finds peace for once. Imagine a life just the two of you, how he’ll make you a cottage by a lake just like this, or the sea. Whatever you prefer. He would return home after ‘hunting’ all day to find you've made him a nice meal and after that, the two of you wouldn't leave each other's side all night. 

But then you walk out of sight. As you walk further and further away the branches get in the way. Desperate for just a few more minutes of observing you, he makes the crucial mistake of leaning on the wrong branch. Before he has time to react it snaps and he heads for the forest floor. 

There is no time to be hurt now. He can hear concerned voices growing closer. He gets up and doesn't even look back before he jogs as fast as he can with his limp through the forest. 

“HEY!” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This is not how he wanted to introduce himself to you. Being the creep spying on you while you bathe? Hell no.

“HEY YOU! STOP!”

So despite the pain, the old wounds and the new all of which have to wait. Luckily the forest grows a lot denser here, making whoever is pursuing him slow down. 

“HEEY!”

It's a man. By the sound of the footsteps, it's only him. 

He is getting closer and closer, a fight might be the only solution. But with both a weaker physique and the wounds from the fall, he is the underdog. He won't be even close to taking Xavier in a real fight. 

So he keeps limping forward. The sharp branches whipped his face. 

Until he can practically feel his presence closing in. And he knows even before he grabs hold of Aaron's arm that he does. He janks it back and Aaron wips around before he falls over, sticks and pine cones cutting into his back. 

“Okey…” Xavier fights to catch his breath. “Listen, I'm not here to hurt you, just talk.” He holds his hands up and smiles, trying hard to look peaceful. 

The sentence makes his blood immediately boil. How can he be so passive? Had Aaron not just been spying on them? Is he not considered a big enough threat? How can he tell from this single encounter? 

Yeah, he had just clumseöy fall down from a tree and yes, he was recently shot and had been limping away as fast as he could. 

But had it been any other time he could have taken him. 

He has been spying on them for weeks, memorizing everything about these people. All in the name of being one step ahead of them at all times. All their weaknesses and strengths. None of that was for nothing. 

So it's here it clicks. He knows what he has to do.

“I'm sorry, I… I didn't mean to…I didn't know how to approach.”

“It's okay brother. I know what it's like out there, we are all just trying to keep ourselves safe and if you were checking us out to see if we are decent then that's fine. Totally okay and hey, I'm sure there are no hard feelings amongst the others.” Xaviers smile makes him want to vomit. 

“You think so?” He makes sure his tone sounds more weak than the disgust he is feeling within. 

“I know it! Here, what's your name?” Xavier holds out his hand to help him up. Aaron takes his hand and seizes the opportunity to attack. As Aaron gets on his feet he grabs hold of Xaviers arm. In one swift motion, Aaron takes out his pocket knife and stabs it in his side. Still holding Xaviers right hand he has no way of defending himself. He stabs him multiple times before Xavier falls down wailing in pain. 

“Names Aaron.” He says through gritted teeth. “And just so you know, this is not the first time I've been watching your little group, in fact, I've been creeping around after you guys for weeks. This is my real first time fuck up, but there have been other times when you could have spotted me but didn't. Just another added reason why you're not cut out for this.” 

“You're insane!”

“Am I? I could have killed you just now, but I didn't. Not just yet at least. I wanted to tell you something before I do. Y/N is who I'm here for, the only one I care about and I am going to kill anyone who stands in my way.” Xavier desperately tries to crawl away as Aaron couches down beside him but to no use. Aaron grabs a good chunk of hair to hold him in place, the blood loss weakening him by the moment. 

“Staring here, with you.” 

With a swift motion of the knife to his throat their conversation comes to an end. There is a gurgling sound before quiet fills the forest. Aaron wipes off the knife as he hears Xaviers' names being called in the distance. It's not long until they are here. 

In the following weeks, things started to look up for him. None of the members had been able to get a good look at who the mystic man in the trees where so Xaviers murderer stays a mystery. Next, his wounds are looking better each day. Though your group can only be described as mourning Aaron has never felt so liberated before. Taking out competition always feels nice. However, the only negative part of this is that you seem much sadder than usual. Despite the reason behind it Aaron can't other than want to comfort you, hug you and tell you to forget him. Take him into your heart instead. 

[autolenaphilia]

God, the end of support for Windows 10 will be such a fucking bloodbath. It’s coming a year from now, 14 october 2025 and it will be a disaster. The one Windows version supported by Microsoft will be Windows 11, and its hardware requirements are like the rent, too damn high.

Literally most computers running Windows 10 can’t upgrade to Windows 11. 55% of working computers aren’t able to run windows 11 according to an analysis. A man quoted in the article argues even that is too optimistic considering how many older computers are still used. He thinks even an estimate of 25% of win10 machines being able to upgrade to win11 is too high an estimate, and frankly he sounds reasonable.

This will probably lead to two things.

Number one is a mountain of e-waste as people get rid of old computers unsupported by microsoft despite the hardware working fin ,and buy new windows 11 machines. It’s the great Windows 11 computer extinction experiment, as writer Jenny List called it. And when you buy a new computer with windows pre-installed, the windows license fee is baked into the price. So a windfall in license money for Microsoft, and the real reason why they are doing this.

Number two is a cybersecurity crisis. A lot of people will keep on using Windows 10 because “end of support” doesn’t mean it will stop working on that date. But the end of support means the end of security updates for the operating system. That will make those systems very unsafe, if they are connected to the internet. Security flaws and exploits for windows 10 will be discovered, problems that will never be patched because win10 isn’t supported anymore and they will be used against systems still running it.

Apparently a lot of people don’t understand this so I’ll try to explain this again as simply as I can. No human being is perfect, and accordingly nobody can write the perfect software that is safe from all cybersecurity threats forever. Security flaws and exploits will always be found, if the computer running that software is connected to the internet, which means it can be attacked by every bad actor out there. This is especially true if that software is as complex and important as an operating system, and it’s also widely used, which is true of Windows. But if the software is supported, the people who design and distribute that software can write patches and send out security updates that will patch the exploits that are found, minimizing the risks inherent to software, computers and the internet. It’s a constant race between well-meaning developers and bad actors, but if the developers are good about it, they will stay ahead.

But when support for the software is dropped, that means the developers will no longer patch the software. And that’s what happening to Windows 10 in october 2025. Any new exploits for the operating system that are found, and they will inevitably be found, won’t be patched by Microsoft. The exploits will stay unpatched, the system will be old and full of holes and anyone using it will be unsafe.

We already have this problem with people who are still using Windows 7 and Windows 8, years after Microsoft dropped support, often because their computers can’t upgrade even to windows 10. They are probably a disproportionate amount of the people getting hacked and their data stolen. From reading what they write to justify themselves online, my impression is that these people are frankly ignorant about technology and the dangers of what they are doing. And they are filled with the absurd self-confidence the ignorant often have, as they believe themselves to be too careful and tech-savvy to be hacked.

The problem will however explode with windows 10 ending support, because the gap in hardware requirements between win10 and win11 is so large, as already explained.

(sidenote, running unsupported operating systems can be safe, as long as you don’t connect the computer to the internet. You can even run windows 3.1 in perfect safety as long as its kept off the ‘net. But that’s a different story, I’m talking here about people who connect their computers to the internet)

So let’s imagine this very common scenario: you have a computer running Windows 10. You can’t upgrade it to windows 11 because most win10 computers literally can’t. You want to keep the computer connected to the internet for obvious reasons. You don’t have the money to get a new windows 11 computer, and you don’t want to throw your old perfectly useable hardware away. So what do you do?

The answer is install linux. Go to a reputable distro’s website like linuxmint.com, read and follow their documentation on how to install and use it. Just do it. If you are running windows 10, you have until October 14 2025 to figure it out. And if you are running windows 7 or 8, do it now.

There are good reasons for not using Linux and sticking with windows, linux has serious downsides. But when the choice is literally between an old unsupported version of windows and Linux, linux wins everytime. Every reason for not installing linux, every downside to the switch, all those are irrelevant when your alternative is literally running old unsupported windows on a machine connected to the internet. Sure linux might not be user-friendly enough for you, but that’s kinda irrelevant when the other alternatives presented is either throwing the computer away or sacrificing it to a botnet. And if you believe yourself to be too tech-savvy and careful to ever get pwned (as some present-day windows 7 users clearly believe themselves to be), that’s bullshit. If you really were careful and tech-savvy you would take the basic precaution of installing a supported operating and know how to do it.

I don’t think everyone can just switch to linux, at least not full time. If you need windows because your work requires it, frankly your only realistic option is to have a computer that supports win11 when october 2025 rolls around. If you don’t, either you have to pay for it yourself or ask your employer to supply a work computer with win11. Just don’t use Windows 10 for work stuff past that date, I doubt your co-workers, your employer or your customers will appreciate you putting their data at risk by doing so.

The rest of you, please don’t contribute to the growing problem of e-waste by throwing away perfectly useable hardware or put yourself at risk by using unspported versions of Windows. Try Linux instead.

[loko4koko]

Cowboy Toji. He's taken over my mind. Imagine him tied up with his own rope, commanding you to help him, but instead, we tease him till he's all hot and bothered.

oh my sweet anon you have NO idea how this ask has affected me 😭 as someone who used to be heavy in the rdr2 fandom, i have a LOT (A LOT) of thoughts about sexy yummy cowboy men hehe

gn!reader but they do wear a dress!

MDNI 18+ BELOW THE CUT

cowboy!toji—well, he isn’t just a cowboy, he’s a bounty hunter. one of the best around, too. he has no rivals because everyone knows they aren’t even close to being as tough as him. he’ll hog tie a bounty right up (or shoot them if they’re being a pain in the ass), sling ‘em on the back of his horse, and when he’s done dropping them at the sheriff’s, he’ll use the hefty reward to celebrate at the nearby saloon.

only, toji may have celebrated a little too hard this time, ‘cause he fell victim to one of the oldest scams in the book. 4 whiskey shots and 2 beers in, toji gets approached by a working girl, and she’s real pretty, too, so who would he be to say no to a little company? so he stumbles off with her, following her lead to a secluded room in the saloon. but what happens there is far from what toji had expected.

when he wakes up, only a couple of hours later, he can’t see anything. the room is dark, and…why does it feel so cold? there’s a grimace on toji’s face as he tries to get up from what he thinks is the floor, only to realize his limbs are completely immobile. ‘that fucking girl…” he thinks, hissing as the ropes tied around his almost completely naked form dig into his flesh. he’s left in nothing but his underwear, grumbling angrily to himself while he tries desperately to wriggle out of his binds. that girl must’ve been a pro at this, though, ‘cause those ropes aren’t budgin’.

you’re in the storage room next door, organizing the newest case of liqour when you hear it. there’s someone groaning, some shuffling, and it startles the hell out of you. you set the box full of alcohol aside and listen further, and when the person swears your eyes widen. you tiptoe your way out to the hall, pressing your ear up against the door of the second, empty storage room. “goddamn thievin’ girl..shit..” you hear them say. it’s a man’s voice, real deep and boy, does he sound angry. your curiosity gets the best of you in the end, so you push the door open, reaching to turn on the lantern near the entrance. it takes a second for your eyes to adjust but when they do, your breath hitches.

there’s a man—just like you’d heard from the other room—and he’s..oh. your face grows hot as you take in the compromising position he seems to be in. his short black hair is tousled, scar on his lip twisted up as he tries to wriggle himself free, and when he looks up at you, it’s like a switch flips inside of you.

“ya mind givin’ me a hand here, doll?”

those dark, brooding eyes follow your every movement as you cross the short distance to reach him. you drop to the floor in front of him, dirtying the long skirt of your dress but you couldn’t care less. you’ve heard stories of a famous bounty hunter, one who could clear rooms with his gaze alone. the one with the scar and the midnight black stallion. the man who rides through the night like death incarnate. the one and only toji fushiguro. and here he was, bound in his own ropes, right in front of you.

your eyes are full of wonder as you take him in, hand subconsciously reaching out to smooth a thumb across his scarred lip. it’s real. he’s real. and he’s bared before you, wrapped up like a present that only you know about. your fingers skip a path down to his chiseled jaw, then further, down past the thick cords of his neck, before they come to a stop on his broad chest. the skin is flawed—healed knife slashes and bullet grazings etched across his pale flesh—but still so soft, so inviting with how it ripples under your delicate touch. as you explore him, your thumb brushes his nipple and he shudders, steely eyes boring into you when you meet his stare.

“this ain’t what i meant by ‘givin’ me a hand, sweetheart’,” he says, voice rumbling low.

“i- i’m sorry, do you..want me to stop?”

he’s silent for a long moment, jaw clenched tight while your hand hovers just off of his toned abdomen. your palm is so close you can still feel the heat radiating from him, and it’s killing you how badly you want that heat on you directly from the source.

“no.”

so you don’t stop. your hands are fully on him now, groping at his chest and caressing his stomach. and when your hand trails lower, your eyes meet his again and he holds your gaze quietly. you can feel how hard he is through his underwear, can feel how hot and big and throbbing he is. lip between your teeth, you take the plunge and grip him tight, barely able to wrap your hand around the girthy shaft. he hisses, eyes still on you, unwavering in their confidence. it doesn’t matter to toji that he’s the one restrained, he knows (in his sober state) that he could intimidate anyone into backing down, and you’re no exception. but there’s something in him, something that he sees in you that has him keening at your touch. in him- addicted, in you- addicting.

you’ve reduced this big, burly, violent man into a grunting mess. there’s sticky spots of pre staining his underwear and his head has fallen back between his bulky shoulders and fuck, he wants to cum, so bad—so fucking bad—but you’re not as sweet as you look, keep slowing the pump of your wrist down when his hips start to grind up into the strokes.

are you going to be nice, be kind to this scary man? or are you going to leave him there, high and dry? choose wisely, he’s a professional at finding people who’ve wronged him…

>thank u for reading ♡︎

>masterlist.exe

>send a request here!

[norizz-nation]

Click here to read part 2 sweethearts!

Midnight 🧡 (Part 3)

Summary: lando found out about everything yet he stayed silent

Warnings: angst, little bit sadness

“Okay great, I’ll come tomorrow at 7pm for the abortion”

Lando froze when he overheard you from the stairs. His mind went blank. He couldn’t believe that you’re gonna do this. He stayed there for a while until you hung up the call. “Hey, good morning my love” lando said as he hugged you from behind. “Oh hey, good morning” you said, smiling at him. He then kissed your forehead and then kissed your stomach. His heart ached when he remembered that youre gonna drop the baby. “I love you” he said as he snuggled his nose in your neck. “Mm i love you too” you said, brushing his hair with your fingers.

The whole day went well. You and lando went out for dinner, went to meet his parents, watched a movie together. You loved every little moment with him. It was so sweet and loving. Sometimes you feel like you dont deserve him. Because he’s so perfect. In every way, he’s perfect. But you on the other hand is a person who’s flawed in every way possible.

How can a person who’s so flawed be loved by a person who’s so perfect?

“Thank you” you said, softly as you saw lando kneel in front of you to take your shoes off. “For what baby?” He asked looking up at you. “For everything” you said, smiling at him. His eyes were soft, it looked like his eyes formed hearts. “You always do so much for me. I love you” you said, whispering those words. Lando then held your hands and kissed it. “I love you more” he said, looking up at you with love filled in his eyes. Yet it had sorrow in it. You broke his heart and you dont even know about it. You loved him a lot but he loved you more. Always.

But maybe it wasn’t enough for you to keep the baby.

The next day started quite nicely. Lando made you breakfast and it was surprisingly really good. Currently you two were watching tv, cuddling each other. Lando twirled his fingers in your hair as you rested your head on his chest. “Do you feel like going out tonight baby?” Lando asked, still looking at the tv. “Remember your parents invited us for dinner?” He asked. He just wanted you to stay. He wanted you to cancel your shitty appointment. “Remember?” He asked again.

Of course you forgot. Fucking shit.

You then got up and looked at him. “I uh.. remember my friend emma?” You asked, awkwardly. “Yeah what about her love?” He asked, sounding confused. “Well we decided to hangout tonight. I forgot to tell you earlier lando, im sorry” you said, sounding guilty because you hated that you had to lie to him. You never lied about anything but now you had to.

He knew exactly where you're gonna go. Yet, he didn’t say anything about it.

"Oh okay, I’ll tell your parents” he said, smiling at you. But that smile wasn’t real. He was dying inside. His jaw clenched a little but pretended like its nothing. You then got up and went to get changed and lando just sat there, feeling empty. Feeling worthless.

Did lando not love you enough? Could he never make you feel special? Was he so bad that you dont want to keep his baby?

“Have fun and take care of yourself love” he said as he caressed your cheek. “If you need anything just call me, I’ll come” he said, looking down at you softly. You wrapped your arms around his waist and looked up at him smiling but the smile on your face was pretty fake because you lied to him. “Okay, dont worry about me” you said, brushing his soft curly hair with your fingers. Lando then gave you a kiss, which was so gentle and soft. He then kneeled down and kissed your stomach. Knowing that this is going to be the last time he kisses his baby. So he kissed your stomach one last time. One last time.

A/N: requests are open! feel free to ask what you want me to write! luv you ❤️

[ladyluscinia]

Ok, I think I might be exiting the "are you fucking kidding me?" period and ready to make a real argument, so lets talk about Three Act Structure!

Is OFMD S2 just the "Darkest Hour"?

A very common explanation I've been seeing for some of the... controversial... aspects of S2 is that it's meant to be that way. That the middle act is where the protagonists hit their lowest point. Where we get the big failure point. Where everything looks kind of shit.

S2 is supposedly just that point. It's The Empire Strikes Back. People have been making that comparison since before the first episodes even dropped, telling everyone to expect something that could be disappointing or unsatisfying - it's just a matter of needing to wait for S3 to pull it all together.

It's not a baseless framework to consider the show through - I'm pretty sure David Jenkins has mentioned it in interviews (or at least mentioned he planned for three acts / seasons) so it's certainly worth asking how he's doing at the 2/3rd mark.

So - quick summary of Three Act Structure:

Act 1 introduces our characters and world. It includes the inciting incident of the story and the first plot point, where a) the protagonist loses the ability to return to their normal life, and b) the story raises whatever dramatic question will drive the entire plot. Act 2 is rising action and usually most of the story. The protagonist tries to fix things and fucks them up worse, in the process learning new skills and character developing to overcome their flaws. Act 3 is the protagonist taking one more shot, but this time they are ready. We get the climax of the story, the dramatic question gets an answer, and then the story closes.

If you want examples, the Star Wars Original Trilogy is a very popular template. And, hell, he said it was a pirate story... the main Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy also does a solid job with their three acts.

Let's compare. (Spoiler: I'm not impressed 🤨)

---

First thing I need to establish... Wait. Two things. First is that Three Act Structure is flexible, so we can't really analyze success or failure by pulling up a list of necessary plot beats that should have been hit in X order. Second is that if you tell me you are writing a romance with a Three Act Structure - where "the relationship is the story" - the first thing I'm going to do is ask you how you are adapting it. Because while there's not necessarily anything preventing you from applying this to a character driven plot, most people are familiar with it as plot structure for externally driven conflict.

Unless there's a reason the status of the main relationship is intrinsically tied up in the current status of the war against the evil empire, a standard Three Act Structure is going to entail either an antagonistic force that absolutely wants your main couple apart being the main relationship obstacle OR the romance aspect being a subplot to the protagonist's narrative adventure. None of those sound like how the show has been described.

So how is OFMD adapting it?

---

Act 1

(Can't figure out how well Act 2 is doing if we don't start at setup.)

Right out the gate, OFMD breaks one of the main "rules" for a story where the Acts are delivered in three parts. Namely the one where the first Act is treated as an acceptable standalone story, with it's own satisfying yet open ended conclusion.

In Star Wars, A New Hope ends with the princess rescued, Luke finding the Force, Han finding his loyalty, and the Death Star destroyed. The Empire isn't defeated, the antagonists still live... the story is not over, but this one movie doesn't feel unfinished.

Similarly, Curse of the Black Pearl gives Jack his ship back, Elizabeth and Will get together, and Norrington has the English Navy let them all off the hook and give Jack and the pirates one day's head start.

OFMD's final beat of S1 being Kraken Arc starting is not that, even if Stede returning to sea is still a pretty hopeful note. Now... I don't necessarily think this was a bad call. At least, not if the story is the relationship. It's easy to close on a happy ending and then fuck it up next movie if the conflict is external and coming for them. Not so much if you're driving the story with your protagonists' flaws, in part because it should be really obvious at the end of setup that your main characters need development and can't run off together right now. I actually like that they were risk-takers and let S1 look at the situation clearly vs doing a fragile happy end, because it takes into account the difference between a character-driven and plot-driven narrative.

I think OFMD's Act 1 actually ends at maybe the Act of Grace? Well, there through the kiss on the beach, counting as our "first plot point" before everything goes wrong, basically.

At that point, they have setup the story and characters. We've been introduced to Edward and Stede's current issues. Signing the Act of Grace does make the intertwined arcs between them real - it's no longer a situation that either one of them could just walk away from like it was in 1x07 - and we narrow in on the (alleged) driving question of the show:

It's not about "Will Stede become a great pirate?" or "Will we develop a better kind of piracy for the crew?" - the show is the relationship and the big question is "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?"

Act 1 ends on their first solution, being together and making each other happy and admitting it's more than just friendship. Act 2 starts, appropriately, by saying both of them are currently too flawed for that to go anywhere but crashing and burning.

Now... looking back, what does Act 1 do well vs poorly?

I think it's really strong on giving us the foundation for BlackBonnet's characters and flaws. We aren't surprised Stede goes home or Edward goes Kraken (or at least... we weren't supposed to be surprised. There are still a lot of holdouts blaming Izzy for interrupting Edward's "healing" despite how at this point in the story it doesn't make sense for Edward to have the skills to heal... but I digress). The relationship question is compelling at the end of S1, the cliffhanger hooks, and the fandom explosion of fics did not come from nowhere - the audience was invested.

I also think Act 1 does a great job of settling us in the universe. We understand the rules it abides by, from how gay pirates are just a fact of life to how there's no important organs on the left side of the body. Stede has a muppety force field. Rowboats have homing devices, and port is always as close as you want it to be. Scurvy is a joke. The overblown violence of pirate life is mostly a joke, but we are going to take the violence of childhood trauma seriously.

Lucius's fake-out death, while technically part of Act 2, works well because Act 1 did a good job of priming everyone to go "obviously this show wouldn't kill a crew member for shock value, and we're 100% supposed to suspend disbelief about how he could have survived getting flung into the sea in the middle of the night." And we do. And we get rewarded for it.

Regarding antagonists - a big focus of any setup - the show is deliberately weak. The one with the most screentime is Izzy, and he's purposefully ineffective at separating our main couple. Every antagonist is keyed to a particular character, and they function mostly to inform us of that character's flaws and development requirements. The Badmintons tell us about Stede's repression and feelings of inadequacy, and Izzy tells us about Edward's directionless discontent and tendency to avoid his problems. Effectively - the show is taking the stance this will be a character driven narrative where Stede and Edward's flaws are the source of problems and development the solution. No person or empire (or social homophobia) is separating them...

...which leads me to something not present - there nothing really about the struggle of piracy against the Empire. Looking at Curse of the Black Pearl... we see piracy is in danger. The Black Pearl itself is described as the last great pirate threat the British Navy needs to conquer. Hangings are omnipresent - Jack is sentenced to die by one almost as soon as he's introduced to the story, when his only act so far had been to wander around and save Elizabeth from drowning. OFMD tries to invoke this kind of struggle in 2x08, but there's no foundation. Our Navy antagonists are Stede's childhood bullies, and so focused on Stede the crew isn't even in danger when they get caught. The Republic of Pirates is getting jokes about being gentrified, not besieged.

Even the capture of Blackbeard by the Navy is treated as a feather in Wellington's cap but not a huge symbolic blow against piracy... because we just do not have that grand struggle woven into Act 1. You only know the "Golden Age of Piracy" is ending if you google it, or have watched a bunch of pirate shows.

Overall, a solid Act 1, well adapted to the kind of story they've said they were looking to tell - a romance in the (silly-fied) age of piracy, instead of a pirate adventure with a romantic subplot.

---

Now, Sidebar - Where is the story going?

The thing about the dramatic question - in OFMD's case: "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?" - is that a) there's normally more than one question bundled up in that one + sideplots, and b) while you aren't supposed to have the answer yet, you can usually guess what needs to happen to give you the answer.

Back to our examples... Luke's driving question is "Will the Empire be defeated?" Simple. Straightforward. Also: "Will Luke become a Jedi?" The eventual climax of our story from there is pretty obvious... the story is over when Luke wins the war for the Rebellion in a Jedi way. That's the goal that they are working toward.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a bit more complicated. We're juggling more characters and have a less defined heroic journey, but there are driving questions like "Is Jack Sparrow a good man?" and "Is Will Turner a pirate / what does that mean?" and even "Will the British Navy defeat piracy?" They get basic answers in Curse of the Black Pearl, and far more defined ones in At World's End. Still, this is another plot-driven narrative. They've laid the foundations for the Pirates vs Empire struggle, and when that final battle turns into the trilogy climax then you know what's happening.

OFMD is not doing a plot-driven narrative. To judge how they are doing at their goals, we have to ask what they think a happy ending entails in a character sense.

Clearly it's not the classic romantic sideplot, where the climax is the first kiss / acknowledgement of feelings. They've teased a wedding in Word of God comments a lot, so that's probably our better endpoint. Specifically, though, a wedding where both of our protagonists aren't ready to flee from the altar (big ask) and where they've both grown enough that their flaws / mutual tendencies to run away from life problems won't tank the relationship.

In Stede's case it's still massive feelings of inadequacy and being too repressed to talk about his problems. Also he ran away from his family to chase a lifelong dream of being a pirate - "Is Stede going to find fulfillment in being a pirate captain, or will the real answer be love?" Edward meanwhile expresses a desire to quit piracy and retire Blackbeard, but we also find out he's struggling with massive self-loathing and guilt from killing his father - "Is retiring what Edward wants to do, or is he just running away?"

If they are going to get to a satisfying wedding beat at the climax of their story, what character beats do we need to hit in advance?

Off the top of my head - both characters need to self-realize their flaws (a pretty necessary demand of anyone who runs away from problems). They are set up to balance each other well, but also to miscommunicate easily. They have to tell each other about or verbally acknowledge that self-realization so it can be resolved. Stede has to decide how much being a pirate means to him. Edward has to decide if he's retiring and what he wants to do. They both need to show something to do with getting past their childhood traumas given all the flashbacks. Through all this, they also need to hit the normal romance beats that convince the audience they are romantically attracted to each other and like... want to get married.

Oh, and this is more of a genre-specific sideplot, but once they demonstrate a behavior that hurts the people who work for them, they need to then demonstrate later how it won't happen again. Proof of growth, which is kind of important in a comedy where a lot of the humor is based in them being massively self-centered assholes. Stede doesn't earn his acceptance in the community until he kicks Calico Jack off the ship, making up for causing the situation with Nigel in the first episode. A workplace comedy can get a lot of material from the boss as the worker's antagonist, but if you want the bosses to stay sympathetic you have got to throw them some opportunities to earn it.

All that sounds like a lot, but like - the relationship is the story, right? If we spend so much time on establishing flaws big enough to drive a story, we also have to spend time on fixing them. Which is where the turning point hits.

---

Act 2: How it Starts

This is where the full story reality-checks your protagonist. Glad you saved your boyfriend and embraced new love in Act 1, but his repressed guilt means he's about to completely ghost you, and your own abandonment issues and self-loathing are about to make his dick move into everyone else's problem.

Again, it's a non-conventional choice OFMD has this start at the very end of S1 rather than with a sudden dark turn in the S2 premiere, but it's still pretty clearly that point in the Three Act Structure.

In Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opens with a timeskip to our Rebellion getting absolutely crushed and hiding on a miserable frozen planet. The Empire finds them as the plot is kicking off and they have to desperately flee. They get separated. Han and Leia try to go to an ally for help and end up in Vader's clutches. It's a sharp turn from the victorious note that A New Hope ended on.

Pirates of the Caribbean's Act 2 starts dark. Dead Man's Chest opens with our happy couple Will and Elizabeth getting arrested on their wedding day for the "happy end" escape of the last movie. Jack has not been having success since reclaiming his ship, and we'll soon find out he's being hunted by dark forces. As for the general state of piracy, we get a horrifying prison where pirates are being eaten alive by crows, and a new Lord Beckett making the dying state of piracy even more textual. "Jack Sparrow is a dying breed... The world is shrinking."

The key here is making a point that our heroes aren't ready. This is the struggles part - things they try? Fail. The odds do not look to be in their favor.

Now, OFMD apparently decided to go all-in on flaw exploration, especially with Edward. The first 3 episodes of S2 are brutally efficient in outlining Edward's backslide. In S1 you could see he had issues with guilt and feeling like a bad person. S2 devolves that into a destructive, suicidal spiral where Edward forces his crew into three months of consecutive raids, repeats his shocking act of cruelty with Izzy's toe offscreen (more than once!), escalates it with his leg, and finally they state directly that Edward hates himself for killing his dad so much that he fears he's fundamentally unlovable and better off dead.

Stede's struggles are subtler, but most definitely still there. He's deliberately turning a blind eye to tales of Edward's rampage, half from simply being too self-centered to care about the harms Edward causes others, and half from being unable to face or fathom that he had the ability to hurt Edward that much. Upon reunion he wants to put the whole thing behind them, not addressing why he left in the first place. Very "love magically fixes everything" of him, except Stede is no golden merman.

Interestingly, here, BlackBonnet's relationship dysfunction has very clearly been having a negative impact on the surrounding characters we care about. Make sense, since it's the driving force of the story, but that also adds a lot more relationships we need to make right. Like... Edward is the villain to his crew. The show focuses on their trauma and poisoned relationships with him. And then draws our attention even more to Stede taking his side to overrule their objections to him.

For a story where the conflict and required resolutions are primarily character based, and the setup had already given the main couple a good amount to work with, dedicating a lot of S2 to adding more ground to cover was... a choice. Potentially very compelling on the character end, certainly challenging on the writing end... but not a complete break with the structure.

Bold, but not damning.

---

Act 2: How it Ends

Now it is true that Act 2 tends to end on a loss. Luke is defeated by Vader and loses his hand, and Han has been sent away in carbonite. Jack Sparrow for all his efforts cannot escape his fate, and he and the Pearl are dragged to the locker.

But the loss is not the point. The loss is incidental to the point.

Act 2 is about struggles and failure, but it's also about lessons learned. There's a change that occurs, and our cast - defeated but not broken - enters the final act with the essential skills, motivation, knowledge, etc. that they lacked in the beginning.

Luke Skywalker could not have defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi until he'd learned the truth about his father and resisted the Dark Side in The Empire Strikes Back. (Ok, confession, I'm using Star Wars as an example because literally everyone is doing so, but frankly it's a better example of formulaic Three Act Structure repeating within each movie because on a trilogy level - relevant to this comparison - it is a super basic hero's journey in a very recognized outfit and as such the Act 2 relevance is also... super basic "the hero tries to fight the antagonist too early" beat where he learns humility. Not really a lot going on. So, for the better example...)

Dead Man's Chest has a downer ending with the closing moment of the survivors regaining hope and a plan against an enemy now on the verge of total victory - a classic Act 2. But in that first loss against Davy Jones we get Will's personal motivation and oath to stab the heart, Jack finally overcoming not knowing what he wanted and returning to save them from the Kraken (being a good man), Elizabeth betraying Jack (being a pirate), Barbossa's return, and Norrington's choice to bargain for his prior life back. The mission to retrieve Jack from the World's End is the final movie's plot, but things are already on track to turn the tables back around as we enter the finale.

Now, relevant sidenote - one major difference between Three Act Structure within a single work vs across three parts is that Act 2 continues into Part 3, and only tips over into Act 3 about midway through. This is because obviously your final movie or season cannot just be the climax. That's why both movie examples start with a rescue mission. They have to still be missing something so they can get the plot of their third part accelerating while they go get whatever that something is.

But if you wait until the 3rd movie / season to get the development going at all - you're fucked.

Jack's decision in the climax of At World's End to make Elizabeth into the Pirate King goes back to the development we saw in the Pearl vs Kraken fight in Dead Man's Chest. So does Elizabeth's leadership arc. Will's whole arc about becoming Captain of the Dutchman gets built upon in the third movie, but it starts in the second. Not just as an idle thought - he's actively pursuing it. Already consciously weighing saving his father vs getting back to Elizabeth as soon as he makes the oath. Everyone is moving forward in Act 2. Their remaining development might stumble for drama, or they might be a bit reluctant, but I know that they know better than to let it stick, because they already faced their true crisis points.

I'm not sure we can say the same about OFMD.

S2 does a good job of adding problems, yeah, but there's not really any movement on fixing them. Our main couple stagnates in some ways, and regresses in others.

Stede opened Act 2 by running away in the middle of the night back to his wife without telling Edward anything. We know he did it because of feeling guilty and his core childhood trauma of his dad calling him a weak and inadequate failure. Now in S1 he actually speedruns a realization of his shitty behavior with Mary, but what about S2? Well...

He continues to not talk to Edward about... pretty much anything. My guy practiced love confessions galore but Edward only finds out about going back to his wife via Anne, and it gets brushed aside with a love confession. He seems to think Edward wants him to be a dashing pirate, or maybe he just thinks he should be a dashing pirate. Idk, it doesn't get examined. Regarding his captaincy, they give him an episode plot about Izzy teaching him to respect the crew's beliefs, but this is sideplot to a larger arc of him completely overruling their traumas and concerns (and shushing their objections) to keep his boyfriend on the ship so. That.

Stede kills a man for reasons related to his issues, shoves that down inside and has sex with Edward instead of acknowledging any bad feelings. At least this time Edward was there and knows it happened? Neither Chauncey's death nor his dad have been mentioned to anyone. He gets a day of piracy fame that goes to his head, gets dumped, and ends on a complete beat down by Zheng where he learns... idk. Being a boor is bad? He's still wildly callous to her in the finale, and spends the whole time seeking validation of his pirate skills. He reunites with Edward, kisses, and quotes Han Solo.

Where S1 ended on a great fuckery, his S2 naval uniform plan after they regroup is ill defined except to call it a suicide mission - and we don't get to see what it would have been because it devolves into a very straightforward fight and flee. And gets Izzy killed. Quick cut funeral (no acknowledgement of his S2 bonding with Izzy), quick cut to wedding (foreshadowing), quick cut to... innkeeper retirement? Unclear when or even if BlackBonnet discussed Stede's whole driving dream to be a pirate and live a life at sea, but I guess that got a big priority downgrade. Despite the fact he was literally looking to Zheng for pirate-based compliments in the post-funeral scene.

I guess he's borderline-delusionally dogged in his pursuit of love now - so unlikely to bolt again - but he's also got at least a decade of experience mentally checking out in a state of repression when he's unhappy. And he's stopped being as supportive and caring toward the crew in that dogged pursuit, while arguably demonstrating a loss in leadership skills, so, um, good thing someone else is in charge?

And if Stede is a mess, Edward's arc is so much worse.

As established, they devote the Kraken to making Edward worse. He literally wants to kill himself and destroy everyone around him in the process because Stede left, and this is fixed by... Stede coming back. That's it. The crew tries to murder him and then exiles him from the ship (and Izzy takes the lead on both, indicating exactly how isolated Edward has become), but it's resolved in half a day by Stede just forcing them to put up with his boyfriend again. Like they think he murdered Buttons and still have to move him back in???

The show consistently depicts Kraken Era as a transgression against the crew, but they also avoid showing Edward acting with genuine contrition. He admits he historically doesn't apologize for anything, and then mostly still doesn't. It's a joke that he's approaching probation as a performance (CEO apology), and then the only person he genuinely talks to is Fang - the one guy cool with him - and the only person who gets a basic "sorry" is Izzy - the guy he really needs to be talking to. Edward's primary trauma is guilt, but apparently he only feels it abstractly after all that? He's only concerned with fixing things with Stede, despite Stede being about the only person around who hurt him instead of the reverse.

Speaking of primary traumas, Edward hating himself doesn't really go anywhere after the beat of self-realization. Apparently Stede still loving him is enough of a bandaid to end the suicide chasing, but he doesn't like. Acknowledge that. Edward is maybe sorta trying to go slow so he doesn't hang all his self-worth on Stede again (you can speculate), but they a) absolutely fail to go slow, and b) he doesn't make any attempt to develop himself or another support structure. Just basically... "let's be friends a bit before hooking back up." And then we get the whiplash that is Blackbeard and/or retirement.

Kraken Era is Blackbeard but way worse, like no one who has known Blackbeard has ever seen him. In the Gravy Basket Edward claims he might like being an innkeeper, before destroying his own fantasy by having the spectre of Hornigold confront him over killing his dad. The BlackBonnet to Anne & Mary parallel says running away to China / retiring makes you want to kill each other - burn it all down and go back to piracy. Stede rightfully points out prior retirement plans were whims. Edward gets sick of the penance sack after a day and puts his leathers back on to go try "poison into positivity". But also claims to be an innkeeper (look - two whole mentions!) when trying not to send children to be pirates after teaching them important knife skills.

Killing Ned Low is a serious, bad thing that prompts ill-advised sex and then going hardcore into retirement mode - leathers overboard, talk about mermaid fantasy, get retirement blessings from Izzy, end up dumping Stede for a fishing job instead of talking about how he's enjoying piracy. The fishing job, however, is also a bad thing and a stupid decision because Edward is a lazy freeloader fantasizing about being a better person. We have an uncomfortable, extended scene of "Pop-Pop" weirdly echoing his abusive dad and then sending Edward to go do what he's good at - disassociate, brutally murder two guys, fish up the leathers, rise as the Kraken from the sea. He continues with comically efficient murder but also he's reading Stede's love letters and seeking to reunite with him so... wait, is this a good thing? Post makeout / mass slaughter he's trading compliments on his kills with Zheng so. Yeah. Looks like it. Murder is fine.

Wait, no, skip ahead and Izzy is dying and Edward suddenly cares a whole lot as Izzy makes his death scene about freeing Edward from Blackbeard. Now being a pirate was "encouraging the darkness" because Izzy - a guy who had little to no influence over Edward's behavior - just couldn't let Blackbeard go. Murder is bad again, and he is freed. Minus the little detail that the murder he explicitly hates himself over was not related to Blackbeard or piracy whatsoever, so presumably haunts "just Ed" still. Anyway he's retiring to run an inn with Stede now, as the "loving family" Izzy comforted him with in his dying moments sails away from the couple that can best be described as the antagonists of their S2 arc. Also Edward implicitly wants to get married. It's been 3 days since making out was "too fast". He's still wearing the leathers.

So most of the way through Act 2 and Edward's barely on speaking terms with anyone but Stede, who he has once again hung his entire life on really fast? Crushing guilt leads to self-hatred leads to mass murder and suicide, but only if he's upset so just avoid that. He's still regularly idealizing Stede as a non-fucked up golden mermaid person (that maybe he personally ruined a bit) because he barely knows the guy. His only progress on his future is "pirate" crossed out / rewritten / crossed out again a few times, "fisherman" crossed out, and "innkeeper ?"

Just.

Where is the forward movement?

It's not just that the inn will undoubtedly fall apart - it's that the inn will fall apart for the near-exact same reasons that China was going to at the beginning of Act 2, and I can't point to anything they've learned in the time since that will help them. I guess Stede realized he loved Edward enough to chase after him, but that was in S1! They should be further than this by now. You can't cram another crisis backslide, all the Act 2 development, and the full Act 3 climax into one season. Certainly not without it feeling like the characters magically fix themselves.

If they just fail and keep blindly stumbling into the same issues because they don't change their behavior, then Act 2 doesn't work. You're just repeating the turning point between Act 1 & Act 2 on a loop.

---

Where Did They Fuck Up?

Actually... lets start on what they did right.

The one consistent aspect of S2 that I praised and still think was done well in a vacuum (despite being mostly left out of the finale) was the crew's union-building arc.

With only 8 episodes and more to do in them than S1, side characters were going to get pinched even if the main plot was absolutely flawless. That was unavoidable. With budget cuts / scheduling issues, we regularly have crew members simply vanish offscreen outside of one scene, meaning cohesive arcs for your faves was not likely. Not to say they couldn't have done better - my benefit of the doubt for the TealOranges breakup and Oluwande x Zheng dried up about when I realized he was literally just her Stede stand-in for the parallel - but something like Jim's revenge plot from S1 was realistically not on the table without, like, turning half the crew into seagulls to afford it.

The union building works around this constraint really well. They turn "the crew" into the side arc, and then weave Izzy's beats in so that they aren't just about Izzy. The breakup boat crew working together to comfort each other and protect him turns them into a unit, and Stede's crew taking it upon themselves to address the trauma vibes while the captains aren't in the way solidifies it across all our side characters. The crew goes to war with Stede's cursed coat and wins, they Calypso their boss to throw a party, and they capitalize on a chance to make bank with an efficiency Stede could only dream of.

We don't get specific arcs, but Frenchie, Jim, and Oluwande are defaulted to as leaders in just about every situation, and Roach is constantly shown sharing his inventions with different characters. Individuals can dip in and out without feeling like the sideplots stutter. Any sense of community in S2 is coming from this arc - even if there are cracks at the points where it joins to other storylines (Stede and Edward, Zheng, etc.)

So why does it work? Well, because it's a workplace comedy, and you can tell they are familiar with working on those. They know where the beats are. They know where to find the humor. They know how to build off of S1 because they made sure the bones were already there - an eclectic group of individuals that start as just coworkers, but bond over time in the face of their struggle against an inept boss who they grow to care for and support while maintaining an increasingly friendly antagonism because, you know, inept boss.

OFMD does its best work in S2 when it's being true to its original concept... and its worst work when it seemingly loses confidence in its own premise.

"The show is the relationship," right? It's a romance set in a workplace comedy. The setup of Act 1 was all about creating a character-driven narrative. So given that... where the hell are we getting the dying of piracy and a war against the English Navy?

That's not a character-driven romcom backdrop, it's an action-adventure plot from Pirates of the Caribbean or Black Sails. It's plot-driven, creating an antagonistic force that results in your characters' problems. Once the story is about the fight against the Empire, the dramatic question becomes the same as those adventure stories - "Will the British Navy defeat piracy, and will our protagonists come out the other side of the battle?"

Forget the wedding. The wedding is no longer the climax of the story, its back to the happy ending flash our romantic subplot gets after winning this fight.

Except, of course, trying to pivot your story to a contradictory dramatic question near the end of Act 2 can be nothing short of a disaster, because either you were writing the wrong story until now, or you've completely lost the plot of the real one. I shouldn't even be trying to figure out if they are doing this, because it should be so obvious that they wouldn't.

And yet.

What do the Zheng and Ricky plots add to the story if not this? Neither of these characters have anything emotionally to contribute to Stede and Edward - they truly are plot elements. It's a hard break from the S1 antagonist model, but it also takes up a lot of valuable screentime. This was considered important, but still Zheng's personality and motivation only gets explored so far as it's an Edward-Stede-Izzy parallel with Oluwande and Auntie, and they only need the parallel for Izzy's genre-jumping death scene. Which follows a thematically out-of-left-field speech about how piracy is about belonging to something good (workable) and how Ricky could never destroy their spirits (um...?). And then David Jenkins is pointing to it and saying things about "the symbolic death of piracy" and speculating S3 might be about the crew getting "payback"??? An idea floated by Zheng right before our temporary retirement, btw.

Fuck, the final episode of S2 didn't have time for our main couple to talk to each other because it was so busy dealing with the mass explosion of Zheng's fleet and Ricky's victory gloat. We get lethal violence associated with traumatic flashbacks until they need to cut down enemy mooks like it's nothing, at which point we get jokes with Zheng. The Republic of Pirates is destroyed outright, and it feels like they only did it because they got insecure about their "pirate story" not having the right kind of stakes. Don't even get me started on killing a major character because "Piracy’s a dangerous occupation, and some characters should die," as if suspending disbelief on this aspect makes the story somehow lesser, instead of just being a fairly standard genre convention in comedy. Nobody complains about Kermit the Frog having an improbably good survival record.

Did someone tell them that the heroes have to lose a battle near the end of Act 2, so they scrambled to give them one?

Just... compare the wholly plot-driven struggle in 2x08 to Stede and Edward's character-focused storylines in 1x10 and tell me how 2x08 is providing anything nearly as valuable to the story. Because I can't fucking find it.

At best they wasted a bunch of time on a poorly integrated adventure plot as, like, Zheng's backstory or something, and just fucked it up horribly by trying to "step up" the kind of plot they did for Jim. In which case the whole thing will be awkwardly dropped but damage is done. Otherwise, they actually thought they could just casually add a subplot like this because they've done something wildly stupid like think "pirate" is a genre on the same level as "workplace comedy" and can just trample in-universe coherency while you draw on other media to shore up their unsupported beats.

Bringing us to the most infuriating bit...

---

"...end the second season in a kinder spot."

If this was the goal, the entire season was written to work actively against it in way that is baffling and incompetent.

The really ironic thing is that the reason that the Act 2 part typically gets a downer ending is because of the evil empire that OFMD did not have to deal with until they pointlessly added it. A plot-driven story has an antagonistic force - a villain - that the heroes need to defeat. Something external working against them. The story ends when they beat the thing, and it's not much of a climax if they do most of the defeating before you get there. Ergo, they have to be outmatched up to the climax. Ergo, the second part cannot end on them feeling pretty comfortable and confident going into the third.

The same rules do not apply in the same way to a character-driven arc.

We already established Edward and Stede declaring their love is not the end of the story. Nor, necessarily, is both of them confidently entering a relationship. Even once they've developed a bunch they will have to show that development by running into the kinds of problems that would have broken them up before and resolving them better.

David Jenkins keeps talking about this idea that S2 is getting a hopeful open ending and S3 will get into potential problems, and like... I don't see any reason why they couldn't have done that successfully. They didn't, but they could've.

If S2 grew them enough as characters and then had them agree to try again in the last minute of the finale, they absolutely could have had a kind and hopeful ending where you were confident they could do it. And then a potential S3 can show that. It's a bit rockier than they were counting on, but they have learned enough lessons to not break up. And then the overall plot can build to proposal (start of Act 3) and wedding (the romantic climax). It doesn't have to be a blow out fight to be emotionally cathartic.

(Hell, the main rockier bit that they overcome in the S3 Act 2 portions could be marriage baggage. I'm sure they both have some. It would work.)

In the same way focusing on our character's long term flaws and character-driven conflict makes an Act 1 "happy ending" more difficult, I suspect it makes an Act 2 "happy ending" easier.

Instead they wrote an Act 2 that failed to convincingly start development and got confused on its direction, and then presented a rushed finale ending in a copy of the predictable disaster from S1 as though it's a good thing. They yanked the story at least temporarily into an awkward place where a romcom is trying to sell me on a bunch of serious drama / adventure beats that it has not put the work into, and inviting comparisons to better versions of those same beats in other, more suited media that make it look worse. The need to portray everyone as reaching happy closure overrules sitting with a major character death and using it for any narrative significance, while still letting it overshadow those happy endings because a romcom just sloppily killed a major character with a wound they've literally looked into the camera and said was harmless.

If I'm being entirely honest, Dead Man's Chest ends effectively at Jack Sparrow's funeral and then cuts to the British Navy obtaining a weapon of mass destruction, and it still feels kinder and more hopeful just because I leave with more faith the characters are actively capable of and working toward solving their problems.

OFMD S2, in contrast, has half-convinced me our main couple would live in a mutually obsessed, miscommunication-ridden horror story until they die.

---

Additional Reading

Normally I link stuff like this in the post, but that requires more excitement than I'm feeling right now. Here's my alternative:

Where I thought they were going with Edward - really outlines the mountain of character development they still have unaddressed

Where I thought they were going with Izzy - touches on a lot of themes that might be dead in the water & also context that's still probably relevant to why Izzy got a lot of focus in S2

My scattershot 2x08 reactions

An ask where I sketched out the bones of this argument, and another where I was mostly venting about the fandom response

This one, this other one, and this last one (read the link in op's post too) about genre shifts and failure to pull them off

The trauma goes in the box but it never opens back up - the whole point of Act 2 is that they needed to start opening shit like that - and also they focus so much on needed character growth and so little on following through

They can't even carry through on character growth that we got last season???

Why Izzy's death feels like Bury Your Gays ran smack into shitty writing

EDIT: Oh and this post is REALLY good for outlining the lack of change in way less words than I did