#all of this is of course just a fun thought experiment because he is ultimately just a boring misogynist

[michaelmilligan]

The Jonmartin manifesto no one asked for but needed to get out

So, I've not been in the tma fandom for long yet, having only listened to it for the first time a few months ago. But from browsing the Jonmartin (and teaholding and jmart) tag regularly, it seems to me like most jonmartin shippers fall into one of these two categories:

They would find each other in every universe; or

It's a miracle they even got together in this universe

(Obviously, that's an oversimplification, and people who express one view in one post can easily hold a different view at another time - these are fictional characters we're talking about after all, and headcanons don't need to be consistent and can even contradict each other. This is just the general vibe I got so far.)

Anyway, I wanted to add my own two cents on the topic, because while I understand where both of these views are coming from, I think neither of them is ultimately correct.

(Putting the rest under a read more - be warned that this is NOT a spoiler-free post, so if you haven't finished listening to TMA yet and you want a spoiler-free experience, you probably shouldn't read this.)

So, before we get to my own opinion, let's first look at where the two options I mentioned above come from, shall we?

"They would find each other in every universe"

Obviously, this view is highly romantic - star-crossed lovers, finding each other again and again. It is both a good foundational basis for AUs, and a ray of hope in the face of the tragedy that is the tma finale.

Of course, concerning the finale, this is a rather different take than concerning AUs (since it would mean the very same characters finding each other again in a different world, not fundamentally different characters, shaped by said other world, also finding each other). And maybe when people express this view, they mean more the finale fix-its than AUs, though I suspect that plenty of people mean both.

It's a nice, comforting thought. And don't we all need some comfort after the finale? Yes, we certainly do. (Except for the people who read only hurt without comfort and angst, I guess. You do you, and I'm glad you're having fun, but personally I do desperately need some comfort, lmao.)

Is this view supported by canon though?

Cynical minds would say no, and personally I'm more inclined to agree with them, though as I've said, for me the truth lies outside of those two rigid stances (somewhere in between, I suppose).

I don't see much in canon which points to Jon and Martin falling in love under any circumstances/in any universe, especially considering their... let's say difficult relationships at the start of the show. But of course we must also take into account the specific circumstances in canon (more on that below) and interpretations vary, and I do very much enjoy AUs, so I'm certainly not trying to throw shade if you're on this side of the 'divide'.

Mostly, I think there CAN be other circumstances in which those two get together, outside the canon ones. (I'm writing a canon-divergent jonmartin fic myself, lol.) Let's get into that while we look at the other view, shall we.

"It's a miracle they even got together in this one"

Ah, the Martin-approved stance. One could say 'well, they literally said it in canon' and be done with it. However, that would require us to believe that the opinions of the characters are always true and correct, which. Lmao. We only have to listen to season 2 of tma to know that this is very much not the case.

And even if S5 Martin is not S2 Jon at the height of his paranoia, he's still very much a man shaped by his own life and experiences. I'm sure he would call himself a realist, but he honestly seems more like a pessimist to me. Which is understandable, given his life, and his association with the Lonely, which has often been (in my opinion accurately) compared to depression.

The thing is, Jon did treat Martin horribly in S1, and then he admittedly treated everyone horribly in S2. It was only in the course of S3 that their relationship got more, let's say, equal, with Jon no longer thinking Martin would be 'contributing nothing but delays'. (And then of course we have S4, which I LOVE even though it hurts me deeply. Then again, that's the whole show. And, obviously, S5 my beloved.)

So. Jon seemed to hate Martin in S1, while Martin was arguably already in love with the man. (Arguably. We do know that he acted catty to Basira in S2, so it's reasonable to assume that he started liking him at some point in S1, or even before the show started.) Then a lot of traumatic things happened, and they got together.

This means it must be the traumatic things that made them compatible, right? Just like Martin says in S5?

Well, one could see it that way. Jon certainly changed over the seasons, coming off his high horse and such. (In S5, he arguably gets back on it quite a bit, but then he IS the Eye's specialest little princess in a world that's literally ruled by it. And also he is slowly losing his grip on his own humanity. But I digress.)

And I do think that the trauma channeled a lot of those changes - the first time we see Jon being actually emotionally open (something he still struggles with over all seasons, because people don't just change fundamentally that quickly) is during Prentiss' attack on the Institute. They're in a situation where they might reasonably die (they even expect it, because they don't know that Elias is just rubbing his greedy little paws as he waits for things to get worse before he saves them with the gas).

I do think that moment could have been a big turning point for Jon and Martin, if it hadn't been immediately followed with the discovery of Gertrude's body, and Jon's subsequent descent into paranoia. Jon opened up, and also saw that Martin was rather competent during the attack, which could have led to them becoming closer, respectively having at least something like a normal work relationship.

But then Jon got paranoid and interpreted everything he saw negatively, including Martin's competence, which was twisted in his mind to 'What if he's just been pretending to be incompetent and is actually an evil agent out to kill the archivist'.

(Big sigh.)

Anyway, before I lose myself in the red string as well: Yes, Jon seems to 'mellow' over the seasons, especially with regard to Martin, at the same time that he's going through terribly traumatic events.

But does that mean that it's actually the trauma that's changing him and his relationships? Partly, certainly, but I would argue that trauma doesn't make you nicer or kinder. It might make you realise some things, but that doesn't mean that you can't realise those things in other ways.

And does it means that they couldn't have come together if they had met under different circumstances? Also not necessarily! I would even argue that the specific circumstances they met under were detrimental to Jon's first impression of Martin. And yes, this goes beyond the dog story.

So let's try and dissect their relationship from the start.

A theory of... something like nuance, or whatever

The starting situation

(Yes, I did have to use a Supernatural gif, thank you for asking. No, I will not apologise. <3)

Alright. So let's start with what we actually know about Jon and Martin's first meeting. Obviously, there's the dog story, though as far as I know that's not 'canon' because it wasn't actually in the podcast. I still like it, and think it adds another reason to Jon's behaviour, though I don't necessarily think it's necessary, because Jon already had lots of other reasons to tell himself that Martin wasn't worth his time.

1.1. Jon has issues. More at 11.

First of all, we learn throughout the podcast that Jon doesn't actually have any qualifications to lead an archive. He's probably 29 when the show starts (in 2016, going by the fandom wiki stating that he was born in 1987, which is reasonable given everything we learn about his age).

So, he's 29 and suddenly appointed, after four years of working in one department, to become the head of a completely different department. He does not have a degree that would give him credentials for leading an archive, nor are we told that he has ever even worked in an archive. For all we know, and that he knows, he is woefully underqualified. (This is also, I think, highlighted in S2 when Jon threatens to resign, only to then be baffled by Elias saying that he would be difficult to replace. Elias means something completely different than his skill set as an archivist with a lower case 'a', presumably, but then Jon doesn't know that.)

This means that Jon is in a highly stressful position, because he's trying to do a job he doesn't actually know how to do, while also trying not to let on that he doesn't know how to do it!

It doesn't help that Jon is also terribly scared of what all might be lurking in the shadows (or even in the light), as he himself admits during the Prentiss attack. He is extremely high-strung from day one, basically a wet chihuahua shaking in a slight breeze, while trying to seem like a strong bulldog.

We also know that Jon asked for two people to be his assistants: Tim and Sasha. They both worked in research, and Sasha also briefly worked in artefact storage, making them both qualified to help Jon with following up on statements. But I think more than their qualifications, Jon probably requested them because he knew and got along with them.

Imagine: Your boss tells you that he's promoting you into a position you're not qualified for and which you have no real clue how to do. Wouldn't you rather have people around you who you're already friendly with, and who are likely to cut you some slack if you're not perfect on day one? I know I would!

1.2. Elias is a little shit and I want to kill him with hammers (affectionately)

And then Elias transfers Martin.

I'm going off the dog story again, because again, I like it, and I think it does fit neatly into canon. If this story is to be believed, Elias neither asked nor did he tell Jon that he was giving him another assistant. He apparently simply told Martin 'you work at the archives now, congratulations' and then went back to his office to smile smugly to himself.

This is a VERY bad start for a working relationship, because not only does Martin come in unannounced, this also comes off as Elias not respecting Jon, or potentially even sending someone to report back to Elias (because Martin is the only one who doesn't have an established rapport with Jon).

Jon never verbalises this suspicion, so maybe this is too much interpretation on my part, but in any case it's cause for a lot of resentment on Jon's part, and since he can't exactly let it out on Elias (who is rarely there, anyway), he simply lets it out on Martin.

He finds reasons to do so, of course, insulting his work and all that. It's probably easy, especially in the beginning, because not unlike Jon, Martin doesn't have any qualifications to work in an archive! He worked at the library before, and we know that his degree is made up (which we can only assume Elias knows, considering he can know almost anything).

(I actually find the question on why Elias transferred Martin in the first place extremely interesting, and might get into that in another post. But this one is already too long, lmao.)

1.3. Martin is too nice, aka Jon has even more issues

This is mostly my personal headcanon, though I do feel it fits Jon's character - which is that he doesn't know how to deal with nice people.

Not kind people. Not friendly people. But nice people.

People who do things seemingly out of the mere goodness of their heart. Like bringing their mean boss tea when he never asked them to do that. Like being friendly even in the face of insults. Someone who constantly takes himself back in favour of other people and their opinions.

People like Martin is appearing to be. Appearing, because Martin isn't actually like that. He does have his opinions, and he could probably grumble up a storm in S1 about Jon, but Jon is his BOSS, and so he plays.

Martin also IS genuinely a nice person most of the time (when he's not on a revenge rampage, making his boyfriend murder people). He doesn't have to do nice things for Jon like bring him tea in S2. But he does. Because that's Martin's way of trying to reach out, to show other people that he means no harm (and that he can be useful).

(I also think that Jon's snappish behaviour, where Martin never quite knows what will set the man off, might remind him off his mum, but again I digress. :))

But I think Jon doesn't know how to deal with that, because even when he's not in the height of paranoia, he still suspects that people who are THAT nice (especially when they have no reason to be nice because he's being an arsehole to them) have a secret agenda. This is playing into what I said under 2 (the part that might be too much interpretation on my side lol), because if Jon suspects that Martin is reporting back to Elias, or is at least someone who would not be friendly if he found out that Jon doesn't know what he's doing, then he can't allow himself to relax around him, and he certainly can't allow himself to be lulled into false security (as Jon would think) around him.

Tl;dr on this point: I think Jon is wary of Martin's niceness because he thinks he might be fishing for gossip/anything he can use against Jon. And even if he isn't, Jon thinks he would be likely to use anything he learns against Jon, because they weren't friends to begin with, and Jon's behaviour has made them anything but that.

(We have to remember that this is the guy who says in S2 that he knows what it's like to 'lack the respect of one's peers', aka the kid who got bullied by at least one older kid, and likely had no or very few friends - plus he believes in the supernatural, which doesn't exactly lend itself well to getting academic respect.)

1.4. They were fucked from the start, your honour

Basically what the meme says, but yeah. The they were put in practically guaranteed that Jon would be wary of Martin, and that Martin would be trying extra hard to make friends with him, which in turn would make Jon even more wary/hostile.

And Elias made it worse, either knowingly or by negligence (not telling Jon about transferring Martin).

If we add the whole dog story to it... they were fucked. I do actually wonder if, assuming we take the dog story as canon, Elias actually somehow managed to set that up. Or whether he was at least cackling (sorry, smiling ever so silently, but smugly) in his office as it happened, or whenever he ended up knowing that it happened.

2. Yes, we've had one starting point, but what about second starting point?

As we have established above, the starting situation for Jon and Martin was... not ideal. So, would they have gotten together easily given a different starting point, like in a cute coffee shop AU?

Eh.

It's true that the specific situation they were in made it a lot harder for them to actually communicate and see each other as they are than it had to be. That doesn't mean that a different situation would have made it easy, though.

Their personalities still make it hard, though, as even without the added stress of a new job, Jon is still a little chihuahua shaking in the corner, who tries to make up for it by barking at everyone, and Martin is still the guy trying to approach him with treats and getting his hand bitten.

There are certainly specific situation that could make it easier, especially if Jon isn't scared as hell, and has maybe already learned that not everyone who does something nice for him wants to just pull on his strings. (Yes, I do think that the thing that makes Martin, according to Annabelle, suited for the Web, is the thing that put Jon on edge at the beginning. I don't know if this was intended at all, but it makes me cackle.)

The beauty of fanfic is that we can do whatever the hell we want. But I think the most fun thing an AU author can do is think 'What would have to happen, in this specific scenario, for these two to get over themselves and get together?'

Excursion: Martin, my beloved depressed blorbo who I am certainly not projecting on, haha

Because it IS both of them who need to get over themselves. Of course Jon's issues are the most obvious, and I've certainly expanded on them enough. But Martin also has a problem, and it's that he's constantly hiding his true feelings and opinions, especially anger and fear.

That makes sense, perhaps, in a workplace, though considering he's dealing with a walking, talking worm hive and a stalker boss... Let's just say it probably would have helped Tim, too, if Martin hadn't been so desperate to make everyone be friends again.

Because Martin is always TRYING to make everything better for everyone, but he's actually not helping anyone. Being nice to Jon and bringing him tea doesn't help battle his paranoia. And trying to tell Tim not to be so angry at Jon, and can't they all be friends, doesn't actually help Tim with his anger.

All Martin is essentially doing is making himself small and saying 'let's get along, pretty please' every now and then. I don't know if it would have helped if he had expressed his own fears and anger, and maybe Jon would have misconstrued that as well, too deep in his paranoia already. But at least Tim might have realised that he was not alone in all this. (His biggest problem, as he says in S2, is that he feels that no one has his back, which I think at least partly results from no one expressing the same anger, aka no one validating his feelings.)

Anyway! (Jon voice) Excursion ends.

3. (To the melody of 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor') What shall we do with these total idiots?

So, how ARE these two going to get together, if they're so woefully unequipped to deal with each other?

Well, first we need to give Martin a good helping of self-confidence. Then we need to kind of give Jon the same, since his problem ALSO is that he's unsure of himself, he just tries to make other people small to cover it up, instead of making himself small. (And isn't that a funny thing to do for someone who we know was bullied. To become a bully himself. Oh, the snake, biting its own tail...)

The easy answer is, of course: You can come up with your own version, get creative. <3

The more complex answer is: A lot of stuff, probably. Jon and Martin will certainly need time to get to know each other, and of course it depends on what situation you put them in to start. But there will be misunderstandings, and there will be hurt feelings, and I am going to soak it up all like a particularly slowburn-greedy sponge.

I feel like there are probably five million ways to get them together, and some might be cute and fluffy (if they go to therapy first, I guess, lol) and many will be full of tears. <3 (Jon voice) And I want to see them all on my desk by Friday! So get to it!

In all seriousness though, yeah, I think there's not one right way for them to get together (though canon did it well imo). But it's also a little more complex than we might give it credit to (very much including me).

4. So what now?

I don't know. I'm not your dad. Write a fic. Draw a picture. Put down your own thoughts on the matter. Or take a shower and clean up your room, young Padawan!

(Though actually, if you've read this post from start to finish in one session, what you should probably do is get up and stretch and get some water.)

And above all! And this is imperative.

Have a good day. <3

[bad-comic-art]

you gotta admit it's impressive cho can draw that well with only one hand

see I think a lot of people assume Frank Cho is like constantly jerking off but while his art is extremely horny there's an odd sexless-ness to it and it's my theory that his doesn't actually know what masturbation is at all, all his art is an almost childlike (not a dig at his quality children often use art to express complex ideas they're incapable of fulling articulate) grasping to understand what exactly he finds so enthralling about these stacked babes drawing them over and over again always the same like a madman trying to discover some great secret of the universe

he's a man with a lifetime of horniness crystalized, burning, in his heart unable to get the poison out and if someone could gentle-parent him into cranking his hog he'd become a completely normal person but instead he's Frolloing out Hellfire to the Sears catalog bra section scared and confused

[wolfish-trickster]

Don't make me choose

Gojo x fem!reader

Part 2

Word count: 1.4K

Summary: it's been some time since you've started dating the infamous Satoru Gojo. But lately you feel more like the two of you are just cuddle/fuck buddies and not a real couple. You make him choose his priorities which is something the strongest doesn't like.

Warnings: bad grammar (possibly), typos, angst, very little comfort

When Gojo Satoru first asked you out you couldn't be happier. The first time he caught your eye was when he zoomed past you together with Geto on one bike. You got so startled you fell to the ground and scratched your knee. You thought at first that they will just leave you there and probably laugh at you later at a pub, talking to their friends how they knocked over a clumsy girl in a park. What completely shocked you was Gojo running up to you with Geto pushing their bike behind him asking you if you were okay and if you need any help.

The rest is history.

Now, three years later, things have been going well. Mostly.

You had the ultimate boyfriend experience. Nice dates, wholesome anniversaries, moving in together, having fun. You did everything in your power to not get boring, for him to not get bored. You cooked, cleaned, asked him how his day was, acted silly with him even when you were exhausted after a long day.

So why? Why was he spending more and more of his free time away from you?

It started out small. The first time you started noticing was like a month ago. As soon as he came home he told you he's going to the pub with Geto and Nanami. You told him to have fun of course, not wanting to seem like that girlfriend that doesn't allow their boyfriends having fun without them. Then from one weekend it became every weekend. Both of you were busy during the week, the only time you had for yourself was during the night and weekend. It soon became just nights.

Even during the week it was "babe, i have a day off tomorrow i'm going to Geto's" or "sorry we have to move the date night to sometime else, Geto is sick and has no one to take care of him" and once even "babe, remember how you told me about this place you used to love as a child? I'm going there with Geto! What a coincidence, right?". The last one hurt the most. Honestly, the last one was also what made you start noticing these in the first place. Once you looked into the past and counted all the times Gojo chose to spend his free time with his best friend instead of you you nearly slapped yourself. It was too many times. How could've you been so blind?

All off days were for Geto. All special days were once again for Geto. Weekends, holidays, his and yours birthdays, all for Geto fucking Suguru.

You needed to have a talk with him.

If he comes back that is. Lately he started to have sleepovers with Geto. As if both of them were teenage girls. You did ask to join them but they always told you off to "not disturb their boy time".

Steps echo outside your apartment. The door unlocks. And in comes...

"Babe," comes the voice of your beloved white haired guy, "I'm home."

"I can hear that," came your answer. You prayed it didn't sound too agressive. Your stomach was full of nervous butterflies, making it even worse to come up with a decent way to start the talk.

While you were thinking he came from the entrance hall to the kitchen where you were sitting and kissed you on the crown of your head. "I wanted to ask, do we have plans next wendesday? Because Suguru said he'd-"

"Listen," you interrupted him before he could even finish, "can we talk?"

Gojo chuckled. "That's a very scary sentence."

"Why? Have something to hide?"

"Nope," he put his bag down and leaned his back against the wall, "I'm listening. What is it?"

You took a deep breath. Then another. "Don't you think you're spending a little too much time with Geto?"

His playful smile loosend into a neutral line. "Elaborate?"

"It's just... you've been with him so much lately and I miss being with you-"

"I'm with you all the damn time. Every single night we-"

"Can't you let me finish?!" you said a little louder than intended but enough is enough. "Is that all you see me as? A fuck-buddy to warm your bed?"

Gojo groaned in annoyance. "No, of course not. But you're literally overreacting over here!"

"Overreacting? How? By wanting my boyfriend to be home on his off days? To spend some time with me and have fun like before?"

"Have fun times with you? What am I your babysitter?"

"Are you Geto's? All the fun stuff we used to do you're doing with him!"

"No, no darling," he stood up straight and walked towards you, backing you into the corner, "all the stuff we used to do I did with him first. He's my best friend! I've known him half my life! You have to have at least a bit of empathy to understand that."

Even cornered by a giant of a guy like him you didn't feel fear. The butterflies in your stomach died. What remained was just pain in your chest predicting what was about to come.

"Do you even see me as your girlfriend anymore, Gojo?"

"Oh, so we are on last name terms again?" he asked sarcastically and walked away to pour himself a cup of water.

"Answer me."

You watched him drink. Slowly. You've never seen a man drink this slow.

"Of course I do," he put the glass down, "what kind of a bullshit question is that?"

"It's how I feel Gojo. You're never here with me!"

"I am here now aren't I?" he poked his chest with his forefinger. "I'm here every single day and night, twentyfour fucking seven ever since we moved in together! Well excuse me I want to have some quality time with my best friend from time to time!"

You didn't want this. The yelling, the arguing. But it has to be done.

Now as a finishing touch. "Who do you value more?"

"Excuse me?" was all he said, too surprised to not hear you yell in return, just calmly asking your question.

"Who is more important to you? Your best friend or your girlfriend?"

Gojo covered his face with his palms and threw his head back. "You can't be serious right now," he groaned. "Suguru is my best friend. You can't just make me choose!"

"So I'm below a best friend. I might as well be called your friend with benefits..." you say more to yourself than him.

"There you go hating yourself again," he shook his head. "I get it, you want to hear me say how much you mean to me, how you're the most important thing in the world and other stuff I've told you a million times already and yet you still slip into this state. I might as well record myself saying those things so you could listen to them everytime you're attention starved," he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He sighed. "You know what? I'm tired of this. I still care about you, but you have to understand Suguru is-"

"I know," you interrupt his rant. "I'm tired too."

Gojo sighs. "Okay. Good. I knew we could talk this out," he said and picked up his sleepover bag again. "I hate arguing with you."

He walked past you to the bathroom to dump his pyjamas into dirty laundry. "Let's go to bed, okay?" he shouted from there.

After a quick shower he walked out the bathroom with nothing but sweatpants on and a towel around his neck.

However you weren't there. Not in the bedroom, nor living room, nor anywhere else. Confused Gojo walked around the apartment, looking for any signs where you might be hiding. Maybe you want to jumpscare him again to light up the tension?

Fine, two can play this game. He tiptoed into the bedroom to your massive closet and yanked it open.

You weren't there. But neither were your things. He quickly checked under the bed to see your beloved backpack missing.

Panicked he started calling out for you, thinking this was just a prank.

It wasn't.

You made him choose and without even realizing it he did.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Chapter 4: Executed Jews

By Dara Horn, excerpted from People Love Dead Jews

ALA ZUSKIN PERELMAN AND I HAD BEEN IN TOUCH ONLINE before I finally met her in person, and I still cannot quite believe she exists. Years ago, I wrote a novel about Marc Chagall and the Yiddish-language artists whom he once knew in Russia, all of whom were eventually murdered by the Soviet regime. While researching the novel, I found myself sucked into the bizarre story of these people's exploitation and destruction: how the Soviet Union first welcomed these artists as exemplars of universal human ideals, then used them for its own purposes, and finally executed them. I named my main character after the executed Yiddish actor Benjamin Zuskin, a comic performer known for playing fools. After the book came out, I heard from Ala in an email written in halting English: "I am Benjamin Zuskin's daughter." That winter I was speaking at a literary conference in Israel, where Ala lived, and she and I arranged to meet. It was like meeting a character from a book.

My hosts had generously put me up with other writers in a beautiful stone house in Jerusalem. We were there during Hanukkah, the celebration of Jewish independence. On the first night of the holiday, I walked to Jerusalem's Old City and watched as people lit enormous Hanukkah torches at the Western Wall. I thought of my home in New Jersey, where in school growing up I sang fake English Hanukkah songs created by American music education companies at school Christmas concerts, with lyrics describing Hanukkah as being about "joy and peace and love." Joy and peace and love describe Hanukkah, a commemoration of an underdog military victory over a powerful empire, about as well as they describe the Fourth of July. I remembered challenging a chorus teacher about one such song, and being told that I was a poor sport for disliking joy and peace and love. (Imagine a "Christmas song" with lyrics celebrating Christmas, the holiday of freedom. Doesn't everyone like freedom? What pedant would reject such a song?) I sang those words in front of hundreds of people to satisfy my neighbors that my tradition was universal — meaning, just like theirs. The night before meeting Ala, I walked back to the house through the dense stone streets of the Old City's Jewish Quarter, where every home had a glass case by its door, displaying the holiday's oil lamps. It was strange to see those hundreds of glowing lights. They were like a shining announcement that this night of celebration was shared by all these strangers around me, that it was universal. The experience was so unfamiliar that I didn't know what to make of it.

The next morning, Ala knocked on the door of the stone house and sat down in its living room, with its view of the Old City. She was a small dark-haired woman whose perfect posture showed a firmness that belied her age. She looked at me and said in Hebrew, "I feel as if you knew my father, like you understood what he went through. How did you know?"

The answer to that question goes back several thousand years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The teenage boys who participated in competitive athletics in the gymnasium in Jerusalem 2,200 years ago had their circumcisions reversed, because otherwise they wouldn't have been allowed to play. In the Hellenistic empire that had conquered Judea, sports were sacred, the entry point to being a person who mattered, the ultimate height of cool — and sports, of course, were always played in the nude. As one can imagine, ancient genital surgery of this nature was excruciating and potentially fatal. But the boys did not want to miss out.

I learned this fun fact in seventh grade, from a Hebrew school teacher who was instructing me and my pubescent classmates about the Hanukkah story — about how Hellenistic tyranny gained a foothold in ancient Judea with the help of Jews who wanted to fit in. This teacher seemed overly jazzed to talk about penises with a bunch of adolescents, and I suspected he'd made the whole thing up. At home, I decided to fact-check. I pulled a dusty old book off my parents' shelf, Volume One of Heinrich Graetz's opus History of the Jews.

In nineteenth-century academic prose, Graetz explained how the leaders of Judea demonstrated their loyalty to the occupying Hellenistic empire by building a gymnasium and recruiting teenage athletes — only to discover that "in uncovering their bodies they could immediately be recognized as Judeans. But were they to take part in the Olympian games, and expose themselves to the mockery of Greek scoffers? Even this difficulty they evaded by undergoing a painful operation, so as to disguise the fact that they were Judeans." Their Zeus-worshipping overlords were not fooled. Within a few years, the regime outlawed not only circumcision but all of Jewish religious practice, and put to death anyone who didn't comply.

Sometime after that, the Maccabees showed up. That's the part of the story we usually hear.

Those ancient Jewish teenagers were on my mind that Hanukkah when Ala came to tell me about her father's terrifying life, because I sensed that something profound united them — something that doesn't match what we're usually taught about what bigotry looks or feels like. It doesn't involve "intolerance" or "persecution," at least not at first. Instead, it looks like the Jews themselves are choosing to reject their own traditions. It is a form of weaponized shame.

Two distinct patterns of antisemitism can be identified by the Jewish holidays that celebrate triumphs over them: Purim and Hanukkah. In the Purim version of antisemitism, exemplified by the Persian genocidal decrees in the biblical Book of Esther, the goal is openly stated and unambiguous: Kill all the Jews. In the Hanukkah version of antisemitism, whose appearances range from the Spanish Inquisition to the Soviet regime, the goal is still to eliminate Jewish civilization. But in the Hanukkah version, this goal could theoretically be accomplished simply by destroying Jewish civilization, while leaving the warm, de-Jewed bodies of its former practitioners intact.

For this reason, the Hanukkah version of antisemitism often employs Jews as its agents. It requires not dead Jews but cool Jews: those willing to give up whatever specific aspect of Jewish civilization is currently uncool. Of course, Judaism has always been uncool, going back to its origins as the planet's only monotheism, featuring a bossy and unsexy invisible God. Uncoolness is pretty much Judaism's brand, which is why cool people find it so threatening — and why Jews who are willing to become cool are absolutely necessary to Hanukkah antisemitism's success. These "converted" Jews are used to demonstrate the good intentions of the regime — which of course isn't antisemitic but merely requires that its Jews publicly flush thousands of years of Jewish civilization down the toilet in exchange for the worthy prize of not being treated like dirt, or not being murdered. For a few years. Maybe.

I wish I could tell the story of Ala's father concisely, compellingly, the way everyone prefers to hear about dead Jews. I regret to say that Benjamin Zuskin wasn't minding his own business and then randomly stuffed into a gas chamber, that his thirteen-year-old daughter did not sit in a closet writing an uplifting diary about the inherent goodness of humanity, that he did not leave behind sad-but-beautiful aphorisms pondering the absence of God while conveniently letting his fellow humans off the hook. He didn't even get crucified for his beliefs. Instead, he and his fellow Soviet Jewish artists — extraordinarily intelligent, creative, talented, and empathetic adults — were played for fools, falling into a slow-motion psychological horror story brimming with suspense and twisted self-blame. They were lured into a long game of appeasing and accommodating, giving up one inch after another of who they were in order to win that grand prize of being allowed to live.

Spoiler alert: they lost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was in graduate school studying Yiddish literature, itself a rich vein of discussion about such impossible choices, when I became interested in Soviet Jewish artists like Ala's father. As I dug through library collections of early-twentieth-century Yiddish works, I came across a startling number of poetry books illustrated by Marc Chagall. I wondered if Chagall had known these Yiddish writers whose works he illustrated, and it turned out that he had. One of Chagall's first jobs as a young man was as an art teacher at a Jewish orphanage near Moscow, built for children orphaned by Russia's 1919-1920 civil war pogroms. This orphanage had a rather renowned faculty, populated by famous Yiddish writers who trained these traumatized children in the healing art of creativity.

It all sounded very lovely, until I noticed something else. That Chagall's art did not rely on a Jewish language — that it had, to use that insidious phrase, "universal appeal" — allowed him a chance to succeed as an artist in the West. The rest of the faculty, like Chagall, had also spent years in western Europe before the Russian revolution, but they chose to return to Russia because of the Soviet Union's policy of endorsing Yiddish as a "national Soviet language." In the 1920s and 30s, the USSR offered unprecedented material support to Yiddish culture, paying for Yiddish-language schools, theaters, publishing houses, and more, to the extent that there were Yiddish literary critics who were salaried by the Soviet government. This support led the major Yiddish novelist Dovid Bergelson to publish his landmark 1926 essay "Three Centers," about New York, Warsaw, and Moscow as centers of Yiddish-speaking culture, asking which city offered Yiddish writers the brightest prospects. His unequivocal answer was Moscow, a choice that brought him back to Russia the following year, where many other Jewish artists joined him.

But Soviet support for Jewish culture was part of a larger plan to brainwash and coerce national minorities into submitting to the Soviet regime — and for Jews, it came at a very specific price. From the beginning, the regime eliminated anything that celebrated Jewish "nationality" that didn't suit its needs. Jews were awesome, provided they weren't practicing Jewish religion, studying traditional Jewish texts, using Hebrew, or supporting Zionism. The Soviet Union thus pioneered a versatile gaslighting slogan, which it later spread through its client states in the developing world and which remains popular today: it was not antisemitic, merely anti-Zionist. (In the process of not being antisemitic and merely being anti-Zionist, the regime managed to persecute, imprison, torture, and murder thousands of Jews.) What's left of Jewish culture once you surgically remove religious practice, traditional texts, Hebrew, and Zionism? In the Soviet Empire, one answer was Yiddish, but Yiddish was also suspect for its supposedly backwards elements. Nearly 15 percent of its words came directly from biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, so Soviet Yiddish schools and publishers, under the guise of "simplifying" spelling, implemented a new and quite literally antisemitic spelling system that eliminated those words' Near Eastern roots. Another answer was "folklore" — music, visual art, theater, and other creative work reflecting Jewish life — but of course most of that cultural material was also deeply rooted in biblical and rabbinic sources, or reflected common religious practices like Jewish holidays and customs, so that was treacherous too.

No, what the regime required were Yiddish stories that showed how horrible traditional Jewish practice was, stories in which happy, enlightened Yiddish-speaking heroes rejected both religion and Zionism (which, aside from its modern political form, is also a fundamental feature of ancient Jewish texts and prayers traditionally recited at least three times daily). This de-Jewing process is clear from the repertoire of the government-sponsored Moscow State Yiddish Theater, which could only present or adapt Yiddish plays that denounced traditional Judaism as backward, bourgeois, corrupt, or even more explicitly — as in the many productions involving ghosts or graveyard scenes — as dead. As its actors would be, soon enough.

The Soviet Union's destruction of Jewish culture commenced, in a calculated move, with Jews positioned as the destroyers. It began with the Yevsektsiya, committees of Jewish Bolsheviks whose paid government jobs from 1918 through 1930 were to persecute, imprison, and occasionally murder Jews who participated in religious or Zionist institutions — categories that included everything from synagogues to sports clubs, all of which were shut down and their leaders either exiled or "purged." This went on, of course, until the regime purged the Yevsektsiya members themselves.

The pattern repeated in the 1940s. As sordid as the Yeveksiya chapter was, I found myself more intrigued by the undoing of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, a board of prominent Soviet Jewish artists and intellectuals established by Joseph Stalin in 1942 to drum up financial support from Jews overseas for the Soviet war effort. Two of the more prominent names on the JAC's roster of talent were Solomon Mikhoels, the director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, and Ala's father Benjamin Zuskin, the theater's leading actor. After promoting these people during the war, Stalin decided these loyal Soviet Jews were no longer useful, and charged them all with treason. He had decided that this committee he himself created was in fact a secret Zionist cabal, designed to bring down the Soviet state. Mikhoels was murdered first, in a 1948 hit staged to look like a traffic accident. Nearly all the others — Zuskin and twelve more Jewish luminaries, including the novelist Dovid Bergelson, who had proclaimed Moscow as the center of the Yiddish future — were executed by firing squad on August 1952.

Just as the regime accused these Jewish artists and intellectuals of being too "nationalist" (read: Jewish), today's long hindsight makes it strangely tempting to read this history and accuse them of not being "nationalist" enough — that is, of being so foolishly committed to the Soviet regime that they were unable to see the writing on the wall. Many works on this subject have said as much. In Stalin's Secret Pogrom, the indispensable English translation of transcripts from the JAC "trial," Russia scholar Joshua Rubenstein concludes his lengthy introduction with the following:

As for the defendants at the trial, it is not clear what they believed about the system they each served. Their lives darkly embodied the tragedy of Soviet Jewry. A combination of revolutionary commitment and naive idealism had tied them to a system they could not renounce. Whatever doubts or misgivings they had, they kept to themselves, and served the Kremlin with the required enthusiasm. They were not dissidents. They were Jewish martyrs. They were also Soviet patriots. Stalin repaid their loyalty by destroying them.

This is completely true, and also completely unfair. The tragedy — even the term seems unjust, with its implied blaming of the victim — was not that these Soviet Jews sold their souls to the devil, though many clearly did. The tragedy was that integrity was never an option in the first place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ala was almost thirteen years old when her father was arrested and until that moment she was immersed in the Soviet Yiddish artistic scene. Her mother was also an actor in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater; her family lived in the same building as the murdered theater director Solomon Mikhoels, and moved in the same circles as other Jewish actors and writers. After seeing her parents perform countless times, Ala had a front-row seat to the destruction of their world. She attended Mikhoel's state funeral, heard about the arrest of the brilliant Yiddish author Der Nister from an actor friend who witnessed it from her apartment across the hall, and was present when secret police ransacked her home in conjunction with her father's arrest. In her biography, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin, she provides for her readers what she gave me that morning in Jerusalem: an emotional recounting, with the benefit of hindsight, of what it was really like to live through the Soviet Jewish nightmare.

It's as close as we can get, anyway. Her father Benjamin Zuskin's own thoughts on the topic are available only from state interrogations extracted under unknown tortures. (One typical interrogation document from his three and a half years in the notorious Lubyanka Prison announces that the day's interrogation lasted four hours, but the transcript is only half a page long — leaving to the imagination how the interrogator and interrogatee may have spent their time together. Suffice it to say that another JAC detainee didn't make it to trial alive.) His years in prison began when he was arrested in December of 1948 in a Moscow hospital room, where he was being treated for chronic insomnia brought on by the murder of his boss and career-long acting partner, Mikhoels; the secret police strapped him to a gurney and carted him to prison in his hospital gown while he was still sedated.

But in order to truly appreciate the loss here, one needs to know what was lost — to return to the world of the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, the author of Benjamin Zuskin's first role on the Yiddish stage, in a play fittingly titled It's a Lie!

Benjamin Zuskin's path to the Yiddish theater and later to the Soviet firing squad began in a shtetl comparable to those immortalized in Sholem Aleichem's work. Zuskin, a child from a traditional family who was exposed to theater only through traveling Yiddish troupes and clowning relatives, experienced that world's destruction: his native Lithuanian shtetl, Ponievezh, was among the many Jewish towns forcibly evacuated during the First World War, catapulting him and hundreds of thousands of other Jewish refugees into modernity. He landed in Penza, a city with professional Russian theater and Yiddish amateur troupes. In 1920, the Moscow State Yiddish Theater opened, and by 1921, Zuskin was starring alongside Mikhoels, the theater's leading light.

In the one acting class I have ever attended, I learned only one thing: acting isn't about pretending to be someone you aren't, but rather about emotional communication. Zuskin, who not only starred in most productions but also taught in the theater's acting school, embodied the concept. His very first audition was a one-man sketch he created, consisting of nothing more than a bumbling old tailor threading a needle — without words, costumes, or props. It became so popular that he performed it to entranced crowds for years. This physical artistry animated his every role. As one critic wrote, "Even the slightest breeze and he is already air-bound."

Zuskin specialized in playing figures like the Fool in King Lear — as his daughter puts it in her book, characters who "are supposed to make you laugh, but they have an additional dimension, and they arouse poignant reflections about the cruelty of the world." Discussing his favorite roles, Zuskin once explained that "my heart is captivated particularly by the image of the person who is derided and humiliated, but who loves life, even though he encounters obstacles placed before him through no fault of his own."

The first half of Ala's book seems to recount only triumphs. The theater's repertoire in its early years was largely adopted from classic Yiddish writers like Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Mendele Moykher Seforim. The book's title is drawn from Zuskin's most famous role: Senderl, the Sancho Panza figure in Mendele's Don Quixote-inspired work, Travels of Benjamin the Third, about a pair of shtetl idiots who set out for the Land of Israel and wind up walking around the block. These productions were artistically inventive, brilliantly acted, and played to packed houses both at home and on tour. Travels of Benjamin the Third, in a 1928 review typical of the play's reception, was lauded by the New York Times as "one of the most originally conceived and beautifully executed evenings in the modern theater."

One of the theater's landmark productions, I. L. Peretz's surrealist masterpiece At Night in the Old Marketplace, was first performed in 1925. The play, set in a graveyard, is a kind of carnival for the graveyard's gathered ghosts. Those who come back from the dead are misfits like drunks and prostitutes, and also specific figures from shtetl life - yeshiva idlers, synagogue beadles, and the like. Leading them all is a badkhn, or wedding jester — divided in this production into two mirror-characters played by Mikhoels and Zuskin — whose repeated chorus among the living corpses is "The dead will rise!" "Within this play there was something hidden, something with an ungraspable depth," Ala writes, and then relates how after a performance in Vienna, one theatergoer came backstage to tell the director that "the play had shaken him as something that went beyond all imagination." The theatergoer was Sigmund Freud.

As Ala traces the theater's trajectory toward doom, it becomes obvious why this performance so affected Freud. The production was a zombie story about the horrifying possibility of something supposedly dead (here, Jewish civilization) coming back to life. The play was written a generation earlier as a Romantic work, but in the Moscow production, it became a means of denigrating traditional Jewish life without mourning it. That fantasy of a culture's death as something compelling and even desirable is not merely reminiscent of Freud's death drive, but also reveals the self-destructive bargain implicit in the entire Soviet-sponsored Jewish enterprise. In her book, Ala beautifully captures this tension as she explains the badkhn's role: "He sends a double message: he denies the very existence of the vanishing shadow world, and simultaneously he mocks it, as if it really does exist."

This double message was at the heart of Benjamin Zuskin's work as a comic Soviet Yiddish actor, a position that required him to mock the traditional Jewish life he came from while also pretending that his art could exist without it. "The chance to make fun of the shtetl which has become a thing of the past charmed me," he claimed early on, but later, according to his daughter, he began to privately express misgivings. The theater's decision to stage King Lear as a way of elevating itself disturbed him, suggesting as it did that the Yiddish repertoire was inferior. His own integrity came from his deep devotion to yiddishkayt, a sense of essential and enduring Jewishness, no matter how stripped-down that identity had become. "With the sharp sense of belonging to everything Jewish, he was tormented by the theater forsaking its expression of this belonging," his daughter writes. Even so, "no, he could not allow himself to oppose the Soviet regime even in his thoughts, the regime that gave him his own theater, but 'the heart and the wit do not meet.'"

In Ala's memory, her father differed from his director, partner, and occasional rival, Mikhoels, in his complete disinterest in politics. Mikhoels was a public figure as well as performer, and his leadership of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, while no more voluntary than any public act in a totalitarian state, was a role he played with gusto, traveling to America in 1943 and speaking to thousands of American Jews to raise money for the Red Army in their battle against the Nazis. Zuskin, on the other hand, was on the JAC roster, but seems to have continued playing the fool. According to both his daughter and his trial testimony, his role in the JAC was almost identical to his role on a Moscow municipal council, limited to playing chess in the back of the room during meetings.

In Jerusalem, Ala told me that her father was "a pure soul." "He had no interest in politics, only in his art," she said, describing his acting style as both classic and contemporary, praised by critics for its timeless qualities that are still evident today in his film work. But his talent was the most nuanced and sophisticated thing about him. Offstage, he was, as she put it in Hebrew, a "tam" — a biblical term sometimes translated as fool or simpleton, but which really means an innocent. (It is the first adjective used to describe the title character in the Book of Job.) It is true that in trial transcripts, Zuskin comes out looking better than many of his co-defendants by playing dumb instead of pointing fingers. But was this ignorance, or a wise acceptance of the futility of trying to save his skin? As King Lear's Fool put it, "They'll have me whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for holding my peace." Reflecting on her father's role as a fool named Pinia in a popular film, Ala writes in her book, "When I imagine the moment when my father heard his death sentence, I see Pinia in close-up . . . his shoulders slumped, despair in his appearance. I hear the tone that cannot be imitated in his last line in the film — and perhaps also the last line in his life? — 'I don't understand anything.'"

Yet it is clear that Zuskin deeply understood how impossible his situation was. In one of the book's more disturbing moments, Ala describes him rehearsing for one of his landmark roles, that of the comic actor Hotsmakh in Sholem Aleichem's Wandering Stars, a work whose subject is the Yiddish theater. He had played the role before, but this production was going up in the wake of Mikhoel's murder. Zuskin was already among the hunted, and he knew it. As Ala writes:

One morning — already after the murder of Mikhoels — I saw my father pacing the room and memorizing the words of Hotsmakh's role. Suddenly, in a gesture revealing a hopeless anguish, Father actually threw himself at me, hugged me, pressed me to his heart, and together with me, continued to pace the room and to memorize the words of the role. That evening I saw the performance . . . "The doctors say that I need rest, air, and the sea . . . For what . . . without the theater?" [Hotsmakh asks], he winds the scarf around his neck — as though it were a noose. For my father, I think those words of Hotsmakh were like the motif of the role and — I think — of his own life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describing the charges levied against Zuskin and his peers is a degrading exercise, for doing so makes it seem as though these charges are worth considering. They are not. It is at this point that Hanukkah antisemitism transformed, as it inevitably does, into Purim antisemitism. Here Ala offers what hundreds of pages of state archives can't, describing the impending horror of the noose around one's neck.

Her father stopped sleeping, began receiving anonymous threats, and saw that he was being watched. No conversation was safe. When a visitor from Poland waited near his apartment building to give him news of his older daughter Tamara (who was then living in Warsaw), Zuskin instructed the man to walk behind him while speaking to him and then to switch directions, so as to avoid notice. When the man asked Zuskin what he wanted to tell his daughter, Zuskin "approached the guest so closely that there was no space between them, and whispered in Yiddish, 'Tell her that the ground is burning beneath my feet.'" It is true that no one can know what Zuskin or any of the other defendants really believed about the Soviet system they served. It is also true — and far more devastating — that their beliefs were utterly irrelevant.

Ala and her mother were exiled to Kazakhstan after her father's arrest, and learned of his execution only when they were allowed to return to Moscow in 1955. By then, he had already been dead for three years.

In Jerusalem that morning, Ala told me, in a sudden private moment of anger and candor, that the Soviet Union's treatment of the Jews was worse than Nazi Germany's. I tried to argue, but she shut me up. Obviously the Nazi atrocities against Jews were incomparable, a fact Ala later acknowledged in a calmer mood. But over four generations, the Soviet regime forced Jews to participate in and internalize their own humiliation - and in that way, Ala suggested, they destroyed far more souls. And they never, ever, paid for it.

"They never had a Nuremberg," Ala told me that day, with a quiet fury. "They never acknowledged the evil of what they did. The Nazis were open about what they were doing, but the Soviets pretended. They lured the Jews in, they baited them with support and recognition, they used them, they tricked them, and then they killed them. It was a trap. And no one knows about it, even now. People know about the Holocaust, but not this. Even here in Israel, people don't know. How did you know?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That evening I went out to the Old City again, to watch the torches being lit at the Western Wall for the second night of Hanukkah. I walked once more through the Jewish Quarter, where the oil lamps, now each bearing one additional flame, were displayed outside every home, following the tradition to publicize the Hanukkah miracle — not merely the legendary long-lasting oil, but the miracle of military and spiritual victory over a coercive empire, the freedom to be uncool, the freedom not to pretend. Somewhere nearby, deep underground, lay the ruins of the gymnasium where de-circumcised Jewish boys once performed naked before approving crowds, stripped of their integrity and left with their private pain. I thought of Benjamin Zuskin performing as the dead wedding jester, proclaiming, "The dead will rise!" and then performing again in a "superior" play, as King Lear's Fool. I thought of the ground burning beneath his feet. I thought of his daughter, Ala, now an old woman, walking through Jerusalem.

I am not a sentimental person. As I returned to the stone house that night, along the streets lit by oil lamps, I was surprised to find myself crying.

[ariseur]

sephiroth w/ a little sister!reader !? I don't see many headcanons / fic / anything of Sephiroth with this type of scenario although I consider it something cute & fun x'D, specifically Seph discovering that his little and beloved (?) sister has several guys with a love interest behind her. How would Seph be in the situation, would he be a protective older brother, would he be the type that scares them away with just a deadly look? My, many possibilities! (⁠☆⁠▽⁠☆⁠)

sephiroth’s little sister hcs 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

sephiroth (ffvii) x reader (platonic!!)

┊ ˚➶ notes ｡˚ 🎼

THIS REQUEST WAS SOO CUTE I NEVER SEE LITTLE SISTER HCS LIKE THIS EITHERR. thank you for the request anon, hope i did it justice !! 💗

┊ ˚➶ warnings ｡˚ 🎼

intended lowercase, mentions of pre and post nibelheim, mentions of hojo (he’s a warning within itself), possessiveness but like not in a weird way.. seph’s just crazy, lmk if i missed anything!!

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄

❥ soooo.. starting off!!

❥ i think that sephiroth with a little sister would definitely be interesting; the war hero now being seen with an ultimately younger girl, it’d be amusing seeing such a difference between the two especially if you’re shorter.

❥ i’m not sure how being sephiroth’s sister would necessarily work considering he was an “experiment” of jenova, and from my knowledge after lucrecia gave birth to him she was crystallized in the crystal caves? but if we’re ignoring that and maybe that didn’t happen or something like that idk, i think it’d be pretty hectic, especially if you were also an experiment of jenova’s cells.

❥ both pre and post sephiroth would love you dearly. pre sephiroth would make it a mission to visit you as much as possible and would try to fit some time in his schedule to go and hang out with you. usually, he’d go take walks with you or if you like food then he’d be insistent on making a trip of trying a bunch of new places.

❥ he is honestly your biggest defender— although i don’t expect a lot of people to disrespect you while a close-to-six-foot first class SOLDIER is looming right behind you. i dont know if he’d let you out of his sight all that often when you’re around him, his instincts just kinda kick in so he’s following you around like a dog.

❥ if you were known by genesis and angeal crisis-core era, and genesis hits on you or even tries to flirt??? ooh sephiroth is right behind you in an instant. he is NOT letting genesis get with you at all, i’m sorry in advance to the self insert x genesis readers that had this idea in mind but i def don’t think that seph would be okay with you dating his friends. even angeal, whom he trusts very dearly and knows that he wouldn’t try anything with you, would have sephiroth feeling iffy.

❥ if you had “suitors” or if you were popular with the boys ( and maybe the ladies too if you’re just THAT suave ), ooh sephiroth would have a heart attack. he’d want you to choose who you want, of course, but be prepared for sephiroth lurking around every corner like a cat. if you bring your partner to meet him? he’s gonna look like the scariest mf regardless if he’s trying to be or not.

❥ he especially doesn’t want you to do anything with his job. if you have jenova cells or if extraordinary strength then he might feel a little better if you were to be involved with the SOLDIER program or shinra, but if you’re a civilian then he’d rather not get you involved with his duties. there’s too much on the line and he can’t risk you getting hurt, also another reason why he prefers to keep you on the down low or for him to only visit you.

❥ also another thought, but i just keep imagining zack flirting with you or meeting you and thinking you’re absolutely GORGEOUS ( because if you’re related to sephiroth.. you gotta be pretty let’s be honest that mans so beautiful ) ( we don’t talk about hojo though, there’s no way he’s related to seph. vincent gotta be the daddy ), but then once he sees that sephiroth is your brother he literally goes WHITE. starts trying to subtly be more friendly and lowkey apologize for his behavior.. spoiler alert; zack is not subtle.

❥ now whatever you do.. don’t imagine sephiroth meeting you the day before heading out to nibelheim. whatever you don’t, think imagine you guys walking at night as he talks about how worried he is for his friends, and how he thinks zack is going to do. and whatever you do, don’t imagine reminiscing after the village burns down, your mind trailing back to the last hug he gave you before he found out what he really was.

❥ if you were to still stay with post nibelheim sephiroth, he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. he can’t lose you at all, not now— not now that he knows you’re the only thing he has left. he’ll go through the motions of being very cold to you sometimes and then being very overprotective

❥ he’d come home one day from only the lord knows where, and wake you up in the middle of the night. and when you finally awake, he wouldn’t let you go. i imagine he’d feel conflicted. sephiroth was dehumanized from birth and ostracized from a normal life as he never met his true mother lucrecia and hojo had no interest in claiming him other than for his own benefit as a scientist. if you were dealt with such things as well, or maybe you were separated because sephiroth was the superior experiment, it wouldn’t matter; sephiroth contained these feelings that he didn’t know how to feel or express himself about.

❥ he wouldn’t understand why he felt this way, especially having no sort of concept of family brought to him within the early years of his life, but all he knows is that he has you

❥ he only has you— and he’s not willing to risk losing you anytime soon.

[imfinereallyy]

Shared Kisses

for @steddie-week I’m behind on it but I couldn’t resist day 3, and it’s a little late because I fell asleep while writing it, that's how sleep deprived I am haha. prompt: first kiss

“Okay, okay! It's my turn now. Sir Steven, Lady Birdie, tell me, who was your first kiss?” Eddie giggles from his spot on the carpet. He smells like stale menthols and pine; Steve can’t get enough of it. He has to resist from leaning his head into Eddie and taking a breath of him.

Steve is starting to believe he needs his head checked. Again. Wanting to smell one of his friend's necks isn't normal.

Steve is also starting to realize that maybe that is because he wants to be more than friends. God, he is such a loser sometimes.

“Oh, this is unfair! You know the rules state that we can’t ask it back now. Boooo.” Robin chants from her place on the couch, where she hangs upside down. Steve is for once glad they aren’t playing a drinking game; he is sure Robin would have vomited by now otherwise.

“I still think this a weird game to be playing.” Steve dodges the question and nudges Eddie with his knee.

“C’mon Harrington, questions is an absolute solid getting-to-know-you game.” Eddie nudged his knee back.

“Dude we’ve been friends for six months.”

“Yes but there are so many layers I have yet to peel.”

Robin grunts from her upside-down position, Steve can tell all the blood has finally rushed to her head, and she tumbles onto the ground next to them. “Gotta agree with Metal Man here, Steve-o. I’ve known you even longer, and I still don’t know everything. And we are practically connected.

Steve blows air from his lips, “So this is just a ploy to expose all my secrets.”

Steve can tell that Robin, who might as well share a soul with him at this point, can sense how uncomfortable he is beginning to feel. Her teasing softens for a moment. “What if I went first, yeah?”

Steve pauses, “Yeah okay.”

“You got to promise not to make fun of me.”

“Of course, Robs.”

“I make no such promises.” Eddie interrupts but ultimately cuts the tension in the room. Steve kind of feels like it is on purpose, by the way his eyes skim Steve carefully, and the way Robin lets out a loud snort.

“Wasn’t talking to you doofus. I don’t actually respect your opinion of me.”

“Hey!” Eddie protests, but they all know he isn’t really offended.

Robin chuckles lightly, but continues. “It was in middle school, at one of my first girl-boy parties; gross, right? I hate that we called it those. Anyway. They decide to play spin the bottle, and I feel pressure because my only friend at the time is Barb, and she didn’t come and Colleen Walsh is doing it, and she—well, she’s the prettiest, most popular girl in school at the time and I’d be an idiot not to follow along. So we’re playing Spin the Bottle, right? And rounds go by, and it doesn’t land on me, and I’m grateful but Colleen notices. She goads me on to do it, take a spin since it isn’t fair I haven’t kissed anyone. So, wanting to get over being the center of attention, I reach over and spin it, and it lands on—“

“Wait.” Steve stops Robin, realizing she is about to out herself to Eddie on Steve’s behalf. He doesn’t want her to do that but on anything but her own terms. “Are you sure about this, Robs?”

Robin throws her head back and laughs, “Yea, I’m sure dingus. No need to worry. Anyway, you’ll never believe who it lands on.”

Eddie wiggles his eyebrows, “C’mon buck don’t leave us hanging.”

“Tommy Hagan.”

Eddie and Steve both start choking on air while Steve screams, “What!?!”

Eddie collapses on the ground with a dramatic groan, covering his face with his hands and mumbling, “why cruel world?” Robin giggles at his antics.

“You’re telling me it wasn’t….?” Steve trails off, hoping Robin gets the hint.

“That it wasn’t a girl? No dingus, just because I’m a lesbian doesn’t mean all my experiences are with women. Besides, I was 12; I didn’t realize staring at Colleen’s boobs wasn’t jealousy.”

“Oh, thank god, you know; I thought I was going to have to break the news to you that your gayer than the men’s locker room after a winning game,” Eddie mumbles behind his hands still on the ground.

“Only you would make a sports reference in relation to gayness, Eds. Also, wait, you knew she was lesbian? How did you know? Why are you freaking out then?” Steve rapid fires questions.

Still covered with his hands, “Like seeks like, Harrington. It’s like a sixth sense.”

Steve’s mouth goes dry, “You’re gay?” He says hopefully.

Eddie finally removes his hands from his face but doesn’t sit up. “Yea, Stevie, thought you knew, honestly. Not like it’s a secret, all of Hawkins talks about it.”

“I try not to listen to the rumor mill.”

A soft smile graces Eddie’s face, “One of the many things I love about you sweetheart.”

Steve tries not to blush, but ultimately fails. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re freaking out about Tommy. Sure, he sucks, but like I reacted that way cause I was friends with him at some point. What’s you’re excuse?”

Finally Eddie sits up with a groan. “Okay, promise not to laugh or freak out?”

Robin and Steve both nod and mumble a little “yea of course”.

Eddie rubs a hand down his face, “Okay, I freaked out because even though it’s not my turn to answer and I don’t have to, well—it’s because. Okay, I’m stalling; it’s because Tommy Hagan was also my first kiss. When I was 15, under the bleachers.”

Robin and Steve are both silent, Eddie looks at them expectantly. “Are you guys going to say anything?”

Robin speaks up first, “I think this is the closest we can get to not freaking out.”

“I think I would prefer that over the freaky twin silence.”

Steve still stays quiet while Robin proceeds to react, “Oh my god Munson! This is the funniest and freakiest thing ever. And not in a freak way you like! This is magnificent, oh my god….” Robin continues to cackle and make fun of Eddie, but Steve tunes it out. He can feel all the blood rush to his ears, blocking out all the sound from the room. Tommy. Tommy. He has kissed both of his best friends, one of which he wants to kiss himself. That just seems unfair to Steve. It hurts Steve, and he doesn’t know why. Actually, he knows precisely why.

“My first kiss was when I was 13,” Steve says abruptly, not making eye contact. The both of them stop their bickering and turn to Steve. They stay silent, as if they know Steve needs it to get through it. He is thankful for them both.

“I was 13, and my parents weren’t home. It had become the usual at this point, but I was sad because it was my birthday, and this was the first birthday they didn’t even send a card. And Tommy decided to come over to cheer me up; this was back, I guess, when he still cared too. And we didn’t do much; I didn’t like to make a big fuss about my birthday even then, but it was a nice night out just before the break of summer. So we decided to stargaze on the roof. And I don’t know how it happened, but one second we’re trying to find the Little Dipper, and the next, Tommy is kissing me. It was nice, honestly. To have someone you care about show you affection. And when he pulled away, I smiled at him, but he just stared. And then—“ Steve swallows thickly before looking up at Eddie and Robin, who both look at him with rapt attention.

“Then his face turns angry, and he punches me. He punches me so hard that I almost fall off the roof. He tells me not to be a queer, and if I told anyone, who would tell everyone what I was. And it seemed unfair, right? Because he kissed me, I only smiled. I haven’t kissed a boy since.”

Suddenly there is an arm around his shoulder, “Stevie….” Eddie tucks Steve’s head into the crook of his neck, and Steve begins to sob.

Robin quietly gets up, “I’m going to make us some tea.” Steve knows she can sense that he needs a moment with Eddie. Steve loves her more than life.

“I’m sorry this is stupid. I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

Eddie rubs soft circles on his back, “It’s not stupid, honey. He hurt you in more ways than one, and traumatized you from exploring yourself. You have every right to be upset. Thank you for telling us. You didn’t—you didn’t have to. You could have lied, or told us your first kiss with a girl.—“

“Colleen Walsh.” Steve interrupts into Eddie’s neck.

Eddie barks out a laugh, “Of course it was. Anyway, Steve, thank you for sharing. I’m glad you feel safe with us.”

Steve’s tears are no longer. “I always feel safe with you, Eds.” And the Steve finally does the thing he’s been wanting to do all night. He takes a big sniff of Eddie. Steve doesn’t care if it’s weird because he settles a sort of calm in him.

Eddie grips his waist tight, and puts a finger under Steve’s chin, pulling his face close to his own. “Yea, I do? Does that mean you also trust me?”

Steve can feel Eddie’s breath on his lips. He knows it’s probably not good how quickly his mood has changed, but he can’t find it in himself to care. The air between them is electric, and intense. Steve can feel it make his whole body come alive. “Of course I do.”

Eddie leans even closer, “Good. Because I think it’s a damn shame a pretty boy like you hasn’t kissed another boy since.” Then Eddie presses their lips together.

Steve isn’t sure if someone were to ask what his first kiss with Eddie was like if he would be able to answer. It’s indescribable; it’s perfect. But if he is to try, it would be this, soft, slow, deep, and oh so very good. Steve can feel the heat from Eddie’s lips pulsing into his own. Eddie’s hands' grip Steve’s face, angling him deeper as he slides his tongue into his mouth. Steve pulls him closer by his t-shirt. Going crazy off the taste of salt and chocolate that now swipes his tongue.

They both pull back a little breathlessly, hands still gripping each other. They lean their foreheads together, and Steve smiles. He smiles so big his face hurts. And Eddie does the most thing in return,

He smiles back.

The moment is broken, though, when Robin enters the room again with a bowl of popcorn and a loud “Oh thank god, I was sick of the pining. From both of you.”

Eddie sputters while Steve just laughs at her. “I thought you were making tea Birdie?”

Robin sits down next to them again, “Too much work and I was snacky.”

Steve throws popcorn at her head but isn’t upset at all. He leans his head on Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie kisses the top of Steve’s head.

Robin smiles fondly at them. Then her face scrunches up in pain, “Wait, all of our first kisses was Tommy Hagan?”

“Yep.”

“Unfortunately so.”

“God I do not want to give that twerp any more credit in life than I have to. Why are we all like this?”

Steve giggles while Eddie shrugs.

Robin can’t keep a straight face anymore and falls into laughter. “Wait, does this mean we are all bounded by this? I completely unrelated, non-upside down experience?”

Eddie speaks up before Steve, “I believe so, Lady Buckley. A trauma outside of other worlds binds us. We have been bound since before the slain of Vecna.”

Robin shrieks, “Awee, guys! We were always meant to meet then.”

Then Robin tackles the both of them to the ground in a bear hug. Steve’s not even mad that she’s in the middle of Eddie and him.

Because this, right here, is all the love he’ll ever need.

***

I'm behind on steddie week, but I want to throw my hat in the ring. Have a written a first kiss thing before? Yes I have. But I can’t resist. Thank for the read, love this community so much.

[soratoninn]

/ some typa’ way. a. arlert /

tw . . . mature, female anatomy (she/her) pronouns, black coded reader, l word, switch armin, fingering, rough sex, titty fucking, raw dogging, blowjob, dirty talk, pn ( babe, baby ) alcohol, choking, mentions of overstim, (2) rounds, creampie

length. . . 11.4k

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ★

your miserable sighs radiated off the walls of the hazy and dimly lit bar. you twirl the callus of your index finger around the crystalline shot glass, thinking rough and hard about not only your life in nursing school but also the affairs in your outside life. you were exhausted no doubt. not only having to stay arm and arm with your work and professors but also having to do shifts at a nursing home to gain experience. you were working your ass off now, but you knew sooner rather than later it would pay off.

a life full of chanel bags, travel, dior, fun, first class, no kids, shaking ass on a lavish yacht with your bestest girlfriends, chauffeurs, and exotic restaurants.

to sum it up, a life you deserved.

but although that was the future and right now the present sucked, you still had things keeping you sane.

those things being those best friends you had plans doing not so classy activities with, the few professors that actually put in the work to explain materials to you after a long lecture, some of your co-workers,

and then last but not least—

your fuck buddy, armin arlert.

an upcoming police officer still undergoing school and training with his best friend, eren. you two had gone to different high schools but were initially introduced your junior year by your friend—christa, who you were also attending nursing school with.

the blonde didn’t have as good a stomach as you did. she couldn’t stomach wounds or even the thought of having to probably stick her hand in a woman during birth to potentially save their life if they were hemorrhaging. which is why you were a bit confused about why she wanted to join the particular field of nursing she did. but you were sure when it came time, she would find her place and not disappoint due to her concentrated and caring attitude.

but enough about christa. back to armin.

to put it simply, armin was sexy. and you knew the minute he got his uniform, gun, and badge, he would be the ultimate panty dropper.

but for now, he was yours.

you both had developed a friendship over time and it gradually got deeper by the time you two had graduated.

the first time you two had fucked, it was completely unexpected. you two were at a varsity college party and unlike your friends that were undeniably fitting in, you two had a much harder time. you had driven your drunk friends to your house and let them crash there. you were catching up with one another and one thing led to another and sooner rather than later you two were quietly and without any experience once however—sharing not-so-innocent touches in your old bedroom.

deciding that you didn’t want your intimacy to end, you both kept it up. beginning to grow more mature and experienced in bed, he slowly learned your body. what you liked, where you liked to be touched, and the parts that he touched that drove you insane. he made love to you soft. gentle. like he had all the time in the world.

never in his life dreaming of hurting you.

and it was nice at first! of course, it was! he treated you like a princess in bed and gave you nothing less than princess treatment. showing you the delights and sweet pleasure of his tongue and the ecstasies he could bring about with just two fingers. he was what anyone woman would want in bed.

but there was the con of him being too damn soft. it was so fun with him and you really didn’t want to ruin it because of your selfish tendencies and wants. you wanted him to be rough with you. you wanted to be manhandled. treated like a whore. for him not to stop until you were a sobbing mess.

you wanted to be fucked.

and you knew he just wouldn’t go for it.

you tried to initiate it once before. telling him to put his hand around your throat and moaning out for him to go harder. faster. and he did go harder, and somewhat faster— making sure his strokes were nice and deep to get you pumped up. but the thing was that his hand didn’t meet your neck once.

“girl, what’s wrong? your vibes been off since we got here!” your friend aliyah asked, and you groaned at her question, grabbing your shot and downing it quickly. “I’ll tell you, it’s that lil piece of hers that got her feelin' some typa way,” your friend, hope kicked in, and you rolled your eyes. you drop your head with a whine and feel your friend's hands rub your back.

“he just won’t. . . he’s so perfect it’s just. . .” you trickle out and they let out a few ‘awes’. “what’s wrong?! tell us everything!” aliyah exclaims taking a sip of her alcohol-infused soda.

“armin. . . he just won’t…” you stop, not even being able to verbally spit the words out. “come on girl! get it out! it’ll feel much better!” hope encourages and you finally feel something snap. “he just won’t fuck me right…” you whisper, and they gasp. before they can jump to any conclusions, you make sure to clear up any speculations degrading armin as a partner.

“no, not like that! he’s really good in bed. like the absolute best! he’s patient, slow, encouraging, and he’s really sweet,” you say, and they tiredly deadpan in confusion. “but… i don’t think i want our sessions to be slow and sweet anymore.” you finish, and their expressions light up. they clasp their hands together with a squeal.

“oh my god! our precious little y/n wants to be fucked like a slut!” you embarrassingly slap your forehead with your palm, feeling all eyes on you right about now. “wellll, have you considered talking to him about it?” hope asks, and you go right back to sulking.

“no, but i’ve tried to hint at it but he just didn’t get the memo i guess,” you respond and they finally begin to understand where you were coming from.

“well, baby, i hate to say it… but a closed mouth don’t get fed. if you want him to do something, you have to tell ‘im. you can’t expect him to read your mind,” aliyah states, and you nod your head in comprehension. “yeahhh, i know. . . it’s just that armin is literally one of the best things that i have right now—“

your friends cleared their throats dramatically and started glaring holes in your head. you sighed before smiling and giggling.

“second best.”

“and i just really don’t wanna fuck it up because of something so small,” you added, and they just smiled. “don’t think too hard on it, baby. i’m sure everything’ll come around,” hope said, and aliyah agreed.

you feel a weight lifted off your shoulder and finally feel able to enjoy your night with your best friends.

as your conversation ended, little did you know a certain muscular dark-brown-haired man was eavesdropping on your every word. he drank his last sip of shirley temple (without alcohol), taking the cherry in his mouth and letting the sweet juice ooze to fire up his taste buds. he threw the stem in the cup and let a twenty lay flat on the wooden bar island.

ᝰ

a tired armin walked out of the steaming bathroom with a white towel wrapped around his hips and one drying the blonde strands of his hair. he strolled over to the dark wooded nightstand of his apartment and grabbed his phone checking for any notifications.

notifications specifically coming from you.

much to his dismay, nothing. absolutely nothing from you. he sighed before putting it back down. you hadn’t texted him for over a week. we’re you ghosting him? he hadn’t been sure what he had done wrong.

so that’s exactly why he had sent his man bun having friend to spy on you at the bar you occasionally attended with your girlfriends when you had spare time.

and as if on cue, his spying friend walked through the door of their shared apartment. he removed his black hoodie the minute he walked through the door— his prominent v-line and built figure becoming more and more toned by the day from him working out like a maniac to prepare for life in the police force.

“so, how is she?” armin voiced first, and eren took his hair from his elastic hair tie. “looked healthy and alive to me,” eren responded nonchalantly whilst walking to his dresser to pull a black tee from his drawer. while eren had his back turned, armin dropped his towel and took the opportunity to pull on a fresh pair of cotton boxers.

“you hear anything important?” he asked while pulling a white beater from his drawer. the room went silent for a bit as if eren was deciphering something. and then, a light bulb popped into his head.

“actually, yeah.”

armin continued to search through his drawers for a pair of sweat-shorts, waiting for him to finish up with his words. he finally found a pair, putting them on and letting them loosely and comfortably hang from his hips. as armin reaches for his reading glasses, eren finally finishes his sentence.

“something about you not fucking her right,”

eren concludes, and armin freezes.

his arm stopped in mid-air not even touching his glasses. he turned around, meeting his friend's eye with a glare. “that’s not funny, eren,” armin deadpanned. they shared cold eye contact before eren broke and snickered.

“chill out lover boy. she didn’t say that but from what i’ve heard, it was something about her wantin’ to be fucked like a slut instead of all that mushy shit you keep doing.” armin slightly gasped, and his eyes dropped to the floor. he grabbed his glasses and put them on, letting his eyesight enhance.

“armin, don’t take it to heart. she doesn’t wanna ditch you. she just doesn’t wanna fuck everything up by making you uncomfortable. and of course, her being an awkward overthinker and taking the literal worst approach, just like you would— she just started avoiding you,” eren stated, and armin sat down on his bed with a sulk, sighing heavily.

“i know, i know. i just. . .” armin’s hands that rested between his thighs came up under his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “are you comfortable with that? like the whole being rough thing? i don’t think i’ve ever seen you real mad before,” eren asks, and armin moved his hands.

“i’m more than comfortable, i just don’t wanna fuck up and accidentally hurt her,” armin groaned out, and eren smirked.

“think you could hurt her more than her sexual frustration?” armin gave eren a stink eye and before he knew it, eren was laughing uncontrollably like a kid. “you’re an asshole, eren,” armin slightly smiled, and eren fell dramatically back on his bed.

“hey, don’t think too hard on it,” eren remarked at armin’s evident fuzzy expression. “i wanna do it. i’m gonna do it. it’s just that i like some of the mushy shit we do,” armin said, and began to ponder a little on his answer. “actually, I like a lot of it.” he finished and eren snickered.

“well, you don’t gotta stop doing everything you’re used to. really that’d make shit a lot more uncomfortable and weird faster than your head could spin. so just stick with what you're used to but just rock it out as you go” eren replied and armin took in the information. “yeah. you’re right.”

eren sighed before rolling over on his side, starting to get comfortable in his bed. before he could drift off, he uttered a few restless words to armin. “don’t forget. you owe me for making me look like a fucking creeper at that bar.” armin smiled, grabbing a book and a small flat panel book light from his nightstand.

“yup. wouldn’t forget for anything in the world.”

ᝰ

like always, you were incredible exhausted. you had did a shift at the 7-3 shift at the nursing home and lord knows you were tired. you thanked the heavens that you didn’t take the night shift because you weren’t sure if you would’ve been able to handle all the stress. you get out of your uber, and stride to your house. the house you grew up in, fortunately that your mom let you take while she was away living her life with no kids in jamaica.

you push the key in the door, twisting it and letting the door open. you walk in kicking it shut with your foot and locking it. you throw your key on the silver plate on the nightstand next to your front door. you head straight for the showers at this point feeling dirty and undignified. you felt like you smelled like old dirty must with a mix of musky lavender and old people. it was the fucking worst.

you walk into your bedroom, deciding to go a little more revealing considering you’d be alone tonight (so you’d thought). a black bra with matching panties and a robe. you took your scrubs and undergarments off, throwing them directly into your hamper. you twisted your frizzy hair into twists before sliding your pink butterfly decorated bonnet on. you put

your phone on the charger and rest it on the nightstand— and you wrap your towel around your body.

walking out of your room into the bathroom, you turn the knob of the shower and hold your hand out to check if the water was hot enough. when it was to your liking, you stepped in and automatically began bathing. you breathed out steadily and comfortably at the feeling of the water on your skin. you felt as if you were washing away not only the dirt, but your inner sins. showers like these were always the best after a long day.

you grabbed your rag, getting your sensitive skinned soap off the shower organizer and began lathering your body in it. there wasn’t a thought in your mind at the moment, but there was an unmistakably unsettling feeling settling on your skin.

it was as if your mind and energy from within was telling you something was going to happen. but you couldn’t mind it right now. not when you were so hyper fixated on how good the water against you felt. after about twenty-thirty minutes in the shower and the skin on the callus of your finger took a pruny look.

you wrapped your towel around your body and walked to your bedroom. you dry your body down, and begin to lather up in your shea butter and your method coconut, rice milk, and shea butter lotion that you grabbed off a high shelf from target. taking your bonnet off you take your curls out from the twists, slightly combing them out, but not too much to keep the slight tight lock look. you put your hair up in a loose ponytail, admiring the way the somewhat curls spilled out.

slipping your panties and bra on, you wrap your silk black robe around your figure. you slide your vanilla white fluffy slippers on and grab your phone and charger to ensure you wouldn’t have to move a fucking foot off the coach unless it was to use the downstairs bathroom. walking out of the bedroom, you make your way down the hall and start down the steps.

you walk into the living room and plug your phone up and put it on the couch before playfully jumping on the couch and rolling all the way over to the kitchen. you wobbly and giggly walk into the kitchen, and grab a glass from the bar cabinet. you slightly run the callous of your index finger along the bottles that courageously stood on the shelf. you decide you on an average, but good bottle of red wine.

you pour yourself a glass and open the refrigerator. your eye twitched, simply not wanting anything. but then your eyes fell upon a bag of green seedless grapes, and you smiled in victory.

putting the grapes into a bowl and washing them, you grab your wine and make your way to the couch. you put your drink down on the coffee table, carrying your bowl to turn out the light. sitting down you scroll for a movie or a show, settling for nonetheless the classic, shameless. your favorite porn with a plot. you grabbed the folded blanket on the couch and spread it over yourself.

this was fucking amazing.

you were finally laying back, your feet propped on the comfortable couch watching one of your beloved shows.

you had lost track of time, but all you knew was that it was dark outside and your glass of wine and grapes were gone having fallen pure victim to your mouth. you had dozed off to sleep with the show still running. maybe it was a symptom of working and going to school so much that you hadn’t even recognized that you were even asleep.

but you were pulled away when there was a knock to your door. you jolted awake, and shook the sleep away and let your hands rub at your eyes. god, what fucking time was it? you looked at the tv box surprised as you read 8:45 PM. no fucking way you were going to sleep now.

you stood up and rewrapped your robe, and slid your slippers back on. another knock erupted from the person behind the door and your eyebrow lifted. “just a minute!” you call out and you walked to the door — tiredly forgetting to look out of the peephole. you unlock it and open the door while continuously rubbing your eyes.

to your surprise, it was…

“armin?” your groggy voice is apparent as just having been sleep. “what’re you doing here-“ before you could finish your sentence, all of a sudden you were being shoved into your house. the door shut with the kick of a foot and suddenly your chest was pressed against it. the stupor of tire had fallen right out of you from the surprise. “armin! what are you— oh. . .!” you couldn’t suppress the sound of surprise that fell from your lips as armin suddenly snapped his hips up into you.

he offered you no words of welcome. instead, whispering in your ear; “do you want it?”

his words shock you at the suddenness off all of it. at the same time, you felt like you knew what “it” meant, but at the same time you didn’t. armin had never been this rough with you before. but with all the pent up sexual frustration you had from him not doing you the way you wanted to be did, you felt no reason to say no. in fact, you felt more motivated to get him more worked up.

“yes. . . yes, i want it.” you reply, grinding your ass back on him and you hear him groan behind you. you feel him ease up and you taken the opportunity to spin around and wrap your hands around his neck. he placed his hands on the back meat of your thigh motioning for you to wrap your legs around his waist. his strength coming in handy from him spending various hard working days and building muscles at the gym. his head dropped at your neck, sucking fierce hickeys into your skin.

you sigh blissfully at the feeling of him licking over your pleasure points. “why’re you being so aggressive, armin?” you softly breathe, rubbing your hands into his hair and massaging his scalp just the way he liked. “why’re you avoiding me?” he puts bass in his voice at the word you and you gasp as he bites your neck while violently pushing his hips up into you.

“i don’t know what you’re— fuck… talking about—“ you whisper out in between passionate moans. “tell me what you want.” between the malicious grinding and the nipping at the pleasure points of your neck, you felt your pride bit by bit going out the door he quite literally just came in from. “how do you want me to fuck you, y/n? a closed mouth won’t get fed,” his breath hit the shell of your ear and you let out a whine.

“please. . .” you moan, feeling overwhelmed in pleasure as you begin to work yourself up. “tell me, baby. please what?” his words came out like a command mixed with a whine and you budged. “armin. . . i want you to fuck me rough… fuck, please.” you feel him let out a shaken breath at your words as if he wasn’t expecting you to be so brazenly blunt.

“god, you’re so fucking hot. c’mere,” his command immediately fires and blazes up the candle lit between you two and your lips meet roughly. he walked toward the staircase and carried you at the same time. he pulled away from your lips for a bit, focusing on getting up the steps safely. it’d be a real mess if he lost footing and tripped down the steps with you still in his arms. that would surely kill the mood.

he gasped as he felt your lips kissing and slightly biting his neck, making sure not to leave any hickeys. you could hide your marks easily with makeup or even a long necked shirt under your scrubs. but armin unfortunately couldn’t. not when he was at training or at the gym. so that was a rule that was set between you two. finally, he was up the steps and he walked to your bedroom. he walked in and kicked the door shut with the heel of his shoe.

the minute he did you were already placed on the bed by him. he was already taking his shoes off and socks off, kicking them off to the side. he’d stalk toward you, and look you in the eye before rubbing your chin and jaw. “you sure you want this, babe? i don’t wanna hurt you,” his thumb rubbed over your lip and you smiled. the terms of endearment that you both called each other always made you feel bubbly inside even though you two weren’t in a relationship.

“you have no idea how much i want this armin. i want you so bad,” your hands rubbed over the tent that bulged out of his pants. he groaned before grabbing your hand. he had already knew where you were going with it.

“not like that.”

your hand rested back at your side and you noticed as his eyes were fixated on your chest then at your lips. you were slightly confused on what he was aiming at but then, it hit you.

oh.

his hands rubbed over your shoulder, and he smoothly slid your robe off your shoulders. you tense at the feeling of cold being met with your skin and the hair tickling feeling of the robe being slipped off. when your robe was entirely off of your upper half, his head slowly moved down to your head in a leaning position, and his hands placed themselves on either sides of your cheeks. his soft, buttered lips engulfed yours in a steamy kiss and you feel your thighs begin to tremble.

his hands rubbed the sides of your belly and you moaned into his mouth. his hands slither from cradling your face to your back. his hands maneuver their way to your bra and he unhooks it letting the hooks swiftly fly apart. he only moves away from you when you’re seemingly running out of breath. with another steaming tongue kiss, he moves away from you and stands at his full height. he takes your bra completely off and you shudder from the slight breeze in your room.

your eyes look up to his face, then down to his belt. his belt and pants were in the way at this point. your teeth slightly bite down on your lip and you give him a doe eyed expression. armin always gave you what you wanted the minute you gave him these eyes. your eyes fixated on his belt and your hands followed in pursuit. your hands rubbed the rough strap of his belt while letting your eyes roll up and meet his. keeping eye contact with him, he cracks first and you watch him toss his head back with a groans.

“can i please take these off, baby?” you ask, referring to both his pants and belt. he sighs blissfully. “fuck, yes. please,” he responds and you smile in victory. your hands scramble with his belt buckle, sliding the belt strap out and the metal part out. once the belt was unbuckled, you automatically remove the button from his pants and you slow your pace down a bit as you pull his hard cock from his boxers.

before you could take anymore control of the situation, armin grabbed a slight rough hold of your chin and moved your head up. you gasp and your arms move away from his cock on instinct. “slow down, i’m not going anywhere. okay?” his hand extends to your lip, and rubs your bottom lip. you repetitively nod in response and even you were taken aback by your sudden push into submission.

“talk to me, baby. i need you to use your words.”

fuck, you knew he was good at dirty talking you. he would always guide you through sex. but something about this felt so different and more sinful.

“yes, yes. okay,” you impatiently respond. “please let me touch you.”

armin felt his heart drop at this moment. you were already begging for him and he hadn’t barely touched you. he felt an ominous tingle settle on the back of his neck. it was taking him everything not to just bend you over the bed and take you over and over again until you physically couldn’t take it anymore.

“open your mouth.” you felt your stomach drop at his words. the tingles you felt in your stomach couldn’t be missed. you humbly abide by his command and part your lips, opening up enough so that his cock would fit. his hand tugged your head forward bringing you closer to his cock— which was dripping with pre-cum.

“you know what to do to me baby,” you don’t hesitate as you lick his tip and soon wrap your lips around it. “fuck yes, there you go,” you slowly move your head in, feeling tears prick your eyes automatically. you hollow your cheeks, and feel your head begin to cloud up at the lewd sounds that you two made as you both set a pace. his thumbs roughly dig into your head and he started to snap his hips up, meeting your mouth.

you hands gripped his shirt as you were really starting to depend on breathing through your nose. you felt your jaw begin to sore up and numb a little already from how rough he was being with you. “just like that b—babe, fuck. suck it like that. you’re doing so good f’me.”

armin was in heaven right now. he felt like the luckiest man on earth to see the sight laid upon him right now. your eyes lidded, your pretty hands gripping onto his polo white tee for dear life, and how fucking nasty and sinful you looked. your spit coated his cock in the nastiest way when you gave him head. but he didn’t want to get too lost in pleasure and forget about the tasks at hand. but it was so damn hard to find the courage to tell you to stop sucking him.

finally, after a few more thrusts and a few more gargles, he finally told you to stop. “fuck, fuck, stop.” you stopped the minute he told you to as if you’d been frozen. you pull him out of your mouth with a pop and he lets out a shaky chuckle as he wiped the spit from the side of your mouth. you give him a cloudy look of confusion and he just snickers again. “don’t wanna finish too quick. i still have a lotta other things i wanna do to you.”

fuck, he was driving you crazy. his words. his praise. his everything.

he guides his hands to yours and he puts your hands up to your chest. you already knew where this was going and you let yourself handle the rest. you pushed your tits together and armin admired the blasphemous sight before him.

“you gonna let me use you?”

“yes.”

“if it’s too much, you’ll tell me to stop, right?”

“mhm.”

“are you sure you sure you want this?”

“god, armin please just use me already,” your words make armin snap to realization. he was fucking up again. he had come this far and he wouldn’t dare kill the mood. “okay,” was all he said, before rubbing his cock on your tits. out of nowhere, you felt sudden wetness on your chest. your eyes peer down and— holy fuck.

he just spat on your tits.

he used his cock to spread his saliva all over your chest, lathering you up. he stopped when he was right under your boob, and to your surprise, he pushed right on up. he let out a moan, and your legs snapped shut like a swinging door. your thighs rub together and you whimper, beginning to work yourself up.

every-time he pushed his cock up, your lips were faced with his remaining inches. you could feel it. you were soaking. you were trying to release the tense feeling between your legs by rubbing your thighs together, but to no avail, it wouldn’t get you off. you wanted— no you needed to be filled by him. you needed to speed this process up. thus, this time when he pushed himself up into your breasts, you darted your tongue out on his tip.

the pitch of his moans went up, and his pace increased as he got needier and needier. “holy— fuck, fuck, fuck. . .” he moaned, and you could tell he was nearing the edge. it felt fucking amazing to know you were making him feel so good.

his whimpers were constant and the turns and twists of your stomach never ceased due to the lewdness of your activities. his face balled up and his hands gripped at your shoulders. “fuck. . . no more, no more,” he breathed out and you let your tongue lay flat back in your mouth. you stopped holding your breasts together and his hard cock snapped right back up to his abdomen. the sinful sight of you added kerosene to the fire that was already sparked between you two.

“fuck. turn over. turn over right fucking now.” his command does not slip into one ear and out the other. you immediately turn your body over, spreading out comfortably. you put your ass in the air and turn your head to the right side to catch a glimpse of him for his validation. “there you go, baby. so good f’me,” your pussy clenched at his praise, and his cold palm began to rub all over your body, starting at your asscheeks. he noticed how you sensitively jolted at his sudden touch.

“you must be so worked up. i’m so sorry, baby.” his hands rubbed down your sides before maneuvering down to push your panties down your thighs. you feel a shiver run down your spine at his actions. this position was so intimate to the point you couldn’t even hide from him. but at the same time, you couldn’t imagine running considering how needy he had you. “‘min…” you whimper out his name as he rubbed your thighs— clearly avoiding where you needed him the most.

“fuck, you’re so wet. this all for me?” he asked already knowing the answer. you groan at his question, and try to push your ass back on him. “what do you think, captain obvious?” he grins at your cattiness.

“should i not touch you at all?” you whine in regret, and your lips pout. “please, i’m sorry.” he smiled at your compliance and rubbed lovingly at your sides. his hands trailed back down toward your ass, and he finally let his finger slide between your lower lips. your whole body shuddered and soft moans spilled from your plump lips as he began to slowly circle your clit with both his ring and middle finger.

“fuck, a—armin. . . you’re driving me crazy,” you spill out with a groan as you push yourself back on his fingers. “i know, i know. i’ll make it all go away,” he reinsured softly, but in the most mocking tone. he let himself steady on the bed, towering over you. before you could register his sudden shadow, armin’s middle finger was buried into you with his ring finger slowly coming with it.

your mouth made an “o” shape at the sudden pressure. your surprised moans came quickly.

he curled his fingers inside you in search of the spongy spot that would make you scream for him.

without any surprises, he found it instantly.

“shit— oh shit,” you moaned out as his speed increased tenfold. usually when armin fingered you, he took his time with you to make sure you were fully prepared and to maybe even see if there was anything else he could do while doing it that would get you even more turned on.

but this?

this was rough and done without any remorse.

he was pounding you from the back with his long, slender fingers like a madman. your cheeks were flushed and you were drooling stupidly onto the pillows from your mouth being dropped open from pleasured shock and moans. you cried out at the feeling of armin’s fingers continuously fucking your spot, and your thighs began to tremble.

your mouth felt dry as if you had swallowed sand. but you still felt the need for his validation and permission.

“m gonna cum, ‘m gonna cum. armin please let me,” you cry out and he’s surprised at how submissive you were being. he wanted nothing more than for you, his pretty girl, to get what you wanted— which was sweet release. any other time, he would’ve gave it to you without any questions asked. but right now, you bitching about sensitivity before he got to the main course of the night was the last thing he needed.

thus, his response simply being a mean;

“no.”

he pulled his fingers out of you with a lewd popping sound, but that was nothing compared to the audible whine you let out feeling your euphoria that was to come being snatched away from you. you look back at him with a spiteful face, straight mean mugging him. before you could continue, he shut that shit down immediately with a hand around your throat.

“fix your face, y/n. only reason i didn’t let you cum was because i wanted you to do it on my dick,” he states, squeezing the sides of your neck ultimately forcing you back into a clouded and compliant state of mind. “but if you keep it up with this little attitude of yours, i won’t give you anything.” you whined out at his words, not wanting anything to do with the consequences of your actions. “i’m sorry, i’m sorry. please armin, i need it so bad,” you babble and armin just smiled.

he leaned down and kissed your shoulder, letting your neck go and you finally let yourself properly inhale and exhale. “since you have such good manners, ill give it to you. okay?” you nod repeatedly, letting out a stream of “yes” and “please”.

with your consent valid in green, he wrapped his hand around his cock, and brought it to your dripping hot sex. he rubbed your clit with his tip vertically, letting out a chilled breath at the way your pussy was already coating him in the nastiest way and he hadn’t even got a taste of her.

“m gonna put it in now, okay?” he leaned down with his dick in his left hand while he used his right to place himself as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head. “you’ll tell me if i’m too rough or if you wanna stop and take it easy, right?”

“mhm, i will. i swear,” in these moments with him kissing the side of your head and whispering in your ear about how lucky he was to be with you in these moments made everything that wasn’t him and the comfortable cotton sheets under you dissolve into nothingness. it was just you, him, and your bed floating above ground without gravity holding it down.

and you were still floating as he kept whispering in your ear and slowly sunk himself into you. your mouth was dropped open with no sounds coming out as you instinctively focused on the pressure on your lower half. armin was panting out breaths trying hard not to absolutely obliterate you in searching for his own pleasure.

his whisperings of; “i’ve got you,” and “you’re doing so well already,” never ceasing. once he sunk all the way in, he could feel your cunt pulsing and clenching on him. he knew you were trying to adjust, but if you kept this up he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do what you wanted.

“stop. fucking. doing. that.” armin hissed out. the aggression in his tone masked the neediness that coated him like polish. he slowly moved himself back, before sliding into you. he wanted to go slow with you first before speeding up because he didn’t want to overwhelm you.

now, you were both softly moaning in symphony. you couldn’t deny that you loved this position and the way he was fucking you in it. part of you hated yourself for even daring to complain about the way he fucked you, but you couldn’t deny your interest in trying different things. but you did feel like shit and overall ashamed about the way you went about it.

“m sorry, i’m s—hm! sorry ‘min,” you babble out, slightly stumbling on your words as you could feel him pressing against your spot. armin’s brows furrowed, but his confused face shortly took on a face twisted in blind pleasure. “f—for what?” he asked, kissing your shoulder blade.

his affection made tears prick your eyes and your heavy breaths kept coming out. you kept trying to form coherent words but they all came out pressed together.

“foravoidingyou.”

the chuckle that armin let out came out raspy. his hips continued to grind into you at a somewhat faster rate, but it was still nice and intimate. he swapped with his left hand and used it to hold himself up. he now used his right to wrap around your throat, squeezing the side making your head go airy. your eyes rolled back and your pussy clenched. armin grunted from the pressure.

he used his hand to turn your head and let his lips press against yours. you both breathed into each others mouths intimately. “s okay, baby. don’t think. just feel good.” you listened to his command, nodding repeatedly. he took advantage of your soon open mouth and slipped his pink tongue inside. you rocked your hips back on his, and the wet clapping sounds that filled the room made it obvious what you two were doing.

you two sloppily made out and you moaned as he suckled on your tongue. he pulled away from your lips, before suddenly licking them and your teeth. “focus on me, baby. i’m all yours,” he moaned out, his eyes going doe and his abdomen clenching up.

god, if only you knew he could fuck you like this forever. but much to his favor and his dismay, he couldn’t.

and he wouldn’t.

he moved up, sliding out of you as he stood up off the bed. before you had the chance to whine and beg for him to come back, a hand was being wrapped around your ankle and you were being dragged backwards. you gasp as your ass is met with armin’s length, which he taps on your pussy.

he marvels at the way your pussy was practically drooling on his cock. you were fucking perfect for him. “you’re dripping on me. . .” he lets his right hand find it’s place on your ass while the other grabs his cock ready to put it back inside. you burned with anticipation. you knew what was to come and what sort of treatment he was about to feed you. maybe that’s why you suddenly tensed up. he tried to slip back inside of you, but was shortly denied entry when your tense walls pushed him back out.

“i’m gonna give you exactly what you’ve been wanting, baby. but i need you to relax f’me, yeah?” you nod, still feeling your heartbeat out of your chest. “breathe for me, baby. we have time. if you’re not ready it’s okay. we’re here to be safe.”

you didn’t want to stop. not at all. you ached and it was an ache only armin himself could relieve. you look back at him with one side of your cheeks buried in the bed.

“i need you, please, armin.”

the doe eyed (fuck me) look you gave armin made something in him snap suddenly like a rubber band. suddenly the patient, proper young man his mother brought him up to be flew out of him like a bat out of hell. he gripped your hip and grabbed himself before again, rubbing himself against your cunt vertically.

“you are driving me fucking insane,” he aggressively rasped, before mercilessly sinking his cock into you. the gasp you let out was elongated. he wasted no time pulling his hips all the way back and snapping them inside of you. you let out a hiss and a moan feeling him drag so expertly against your walls.

now, all that ran through armin’s head was what eren told him you said at the bar. his simple and blunt words of; “something about you not fucking her right” played back in his head like a broken record.

and maybe that was why he felt the need to show you just how strong and swift he’d gotten during long days of training and long nights at the gym. he wanted you to feel it. to feel him. and maybe that’s why he didn’t recognize how his pace had increased— fucking you like an animal that had something to prove.

“ah, ah, f—fuck!” you loudly moan. armin hissed at the tensity of your walls, biting down on his bottom lip. his hands slide up and grip your hips to bring you backwards to meet his thrusts.

“min’. . .” you moan out, your hands gripping the pillows strongly trying to brace yourself. something about this type of sex made you feel vulnerable, but you felt so good.

but little did you know, armin hadn’t even made half of an effort yet.

“you’re fucking me—mphm— so goodd,” you pant out and armin groans. “yeah?” he panted out in a raspy voice, not once letting the rock of his hips come to a halt. the fast, wet and loud clapping noises that came from you two were fucking nasty. nastier than they were before when he was fucking you slow and with pure purpose.

“mhm,” you moaned back to him.

his head tilted back with his lips parted as he let out soft moans. his hair fell back with him, and his eyes forced themselves shut as he was grasping in the pleasure. after a few seconds of drinking in his own pleasure, he gained back self control and decided it was time to really make you feel good.

his hair was messy and his forehead began to develop small beads of sweat due to quite the workout he was getting in. his grip on your hips stabled and he’d begin to brace himself for the way he was about to fuck you. because little did you know, the speed and intensity he was fucking with you just a moment ago was nothing compared to how he was gonna fuck you now. he pulled back letting only his tip rest inside of you.

he knew that you probably thought he was gonna go right back to how he was doing you before. but it was quite the contrast because when he pushed in, he was automatically angling at your spot.

you didn’t realize how long your loud moan was until your voice had cut off, not allowing you to let anything out.

he pulled his hips back before slamming into you again and you shuddered at the sensitive feeling of him in your stomach. he kept up with fucking you aggressively with a fucked out flushed face and upper teeth digging into his plush bottom lip. the increased speed and impact of his thrusts had you sobbing crocodile tears in fat globs.

“baby, s’ too deepp. . .” you cry and sniffle into the sheets. you felt the wind being knocked out of you from every push of his hips. you had no fucking idea what was going through armin’s head right now and that scared you. but you couldn’t lie that it made you wetter, which gave him all the more access.

“take it. i know you can.” his words make you whine, but you never would’ve expected that his response to your brattiness would’ve been a hard palm coming down to brutally slap your ass. you sobbed loudly, your mouth sputtering apologies. your cries fell on death ears as armin continued fucking you with no remorse.

instinctively, your hands went behind you to push at hips to try and slow him down. “move your hand.” your attempts failed as armin gripped both of your wrists in his left hand while his right roughly clapped down on your ass. you tried to pussy out and run away from the pleasure, but armin at this point was sick and tired of your shit.

he spanked you once, before once turned into five times. he groaned as your ass jiggled back in his palm and he left your bottom stinging and red. “stop fucking running,” he started, his tone husky as he growled listening to you sob and moan out in pleasure into the sheets.

“why do you never listen to me? do i treat you too well?” you shook you head no repeatedly, not being able to form words from how perfectly his tip rested against your spot. your legs were shaking and you were sure how long you would be able to take him like this.

“y/n,” he called out your name, and he had felt you clench on him.

you were going dumb on him a little too soon for his liking.

“open your mouth and talk.” your lips quivered and you forked over the first response that thankfully spilled into your head.

“i’m sorry. i’ll be good. i love the way you treat me, armin.” if armin wasn’t red before, he was definitely now. “then let me make you cum. please, baby. i’ll make you feel so good,” he meant for his words to be slightly dominant, but they only came out in a whiny tone and you nodded, sniffling.

“o—kay.” he let you catch up with your breath, before pulling out halfway and pushing back in. he gripped your wrist behind your back with both of his strong hands to help you meet his thrusts. his veins were bulging out of the back of his hand while he grabbed them. his pace increased and you were sure passersby heard not only your moans, but his too. the bed kept hitting the wall, possibly even putting a dent into it.

“armin, a—armin!” tears kept spilling from your face and you felt your orgasm about to roll in. “y—yes, baby? fuck— you feel so fucking good,” his praise made you moan out and clench his cock. “cum— i’m gonna cum!” he whimpered in response, feeling his abdomen begin to swirl with a tingling sensation he was all too familiar with.

“m. . . me too,” he whispered, panting out. he was swearing under his breath, saying how good you were making him feel, and how he felt so lucky to be with you like this.

with another thrust of his hips and more words of praise, you had came with a cry and scream of his name. you couldn’t hold yourself up anymore and your knees had given out. thankfully, you had a caring man behind you who immediately wrapped his arms around you. he held your waist up to fuck you through your orgasm. he leaned down and pressed kisses to your shoulder.

he was moaning close in your ear, his heavy breaths for air kissing your ear. “m so close,” he moaned out, and your walls involuntarily clamped down on his cock. your teeth bit down on your lip and you whimpered at the sensitivity. but you wanted his validation more than anything right now. “s okay min, you can use me.” he moaned back at you in response and he could feel your legs shake under him.

he knew you were sensitive from your recent orgasm and the last thing he wanted to do was cause pain for you. “t—thank you, baby. thank you so much. i. . . i’ll be quick. i promise,” he babbled in your ear, and you were still hazy from how hard euphoria had hit you. you tried not to focus on the raw stimulation as armin continued to drill himself into you.

he was a moaning mess in your ear, and you knew he was bound to cum soon from how sloppy his thrusts were.

everything armin did was done with precision and was always thoroughly thought out before he carried it out. but when armin was about to release, it was a side that not even he himself knew he had.

“agh, fuck!” he whimpered and he was right on the tipping edge. he continued on for a few moments until he finally pulled out and after stroking himself, he finally busted. he came on the stinging skin of your ass. he was trying to be careful to not crush you with his body weight.

you both took breaths for air trying to catch up with the session you two just had. he was the first to catch up and he rolled over to lay next to you. he let his arms wrap around you, pulling you into an embrace. he rubbed your bare back and you sighed into his touch. “that was really. . .” he started and you smiled.

“fucking amazing,” you both finished and you looked at each other with widened eyes, startled. you both laughed and you snorted, causing more laughter to emit from you two. once the laughter died down, you both looked into each others eyes, and he moved a sweaty piece of your hair out of your face.

“you look so beautiful. you always do,” he said with a blush on his face, and a toothy smile paints your face. you lean in and press a kiss to his forehead, then to his cheek, and finally to his lips. it was funny how he had just literally obliterated your insides and now he was cuddled up with you while rubbing your back.

“thank you, baby. you treat me so well.”

his face was still flushed and you found it to be normal. well that was until he started to look away from you and avoid eye contact with you. your hand went to his cheek and caressed it with your thumb. “min, what’s wrong?” you ask, genuinely concerned.

“i. . .” he started, and he looked at your smiling, encouraging face. due to that, he felt less insecure telling you what he wanted from you. “i wanna go again.” his words stun you a bit, and he automatically takes it as a no. “m sorry, m sorry. i’m so greedy for asking that,” he apologizes repeatedly, and you immediately snap him out of it.

“no, no, you’re good. i promise. just— can you get me towel or something to wipe off the. . . y’ know…” he nodded as he got up and you admired how strong he’d gotten. his chest and legs were toned, his abs were coming in, and his calves were looking strong too.

he went into the bathroom and grabbed a fresh towel off one of the metal hooks. he walked back in and sat back on the edge of the bed. you turned over and his hand gripped the towel as he wiped his own sticky substances off the curve of your ass.

he balled the towel up before tossing it into the hamper— ultimately making it. he smiled in childish victory watching you move back to rest your head in the pillows. he chuckled, laying his palm flat for stabilization as he climbed on top of you. he kissed your lips lovingly, and your hands found their place on either sides of his cheeks. your inner thighs found the sides of his hips. he pulled away from your mouth slightly— but overall, he was still close. a sloppy wet sound emitted from your mouths.

“how do you want it?” he asked, panting against your kiss swole lips. in this moment, you wanted him to be closer than ever to you. you wanted him to be slow and to treat you like delicate glassware that would break by one small irresponsible touch. you kissed him again, wrapping your arms around his neck trying to bring him closer to you. when you parted again, he was blushing against you and you could definitely feel his cock hardening against you.

“i want you to be slow, please?”

“yes!” he says louder than usual, and when he realized the height of his tone, his cheeks took on a pink hue. “yes of course.” he said that im a more regular tone and he toothily smiles at you, leans his face to the side, and kisses you smoothly. he behaved like a man who had just hit the lottery. although he had just came to find out he enjoyed fucking you like a man who had lost his morals, he loved fucking you slowly and worshipping every last part of you.

“ready?” he whispered in your ear and he put his face in your neck, licking the side of it. “mhm, yes,” you moan out as he started to suck deeper bruises into your neck. your body shivered intensely in anticipation. he kept his face hidden in your neck. the inner thighs that were just resting on his hips turned into your legs being wrapped around his slutty waist.

you could feel his tip sliding up and down on your clit. you let your fingertips play with the locks of his hair and massage his scalp as he slowly slid himself back into you. your lips part from the blazing stretch.

“fuck. . .” you both whimper in sync. when he bottomed out inside you, you were a whining mess. you were still a lil sensitive from your previous orgasm and feeling him twitch inside you left you with a feeling of fullness and euphoria.

armin knew that all the feelings you may have felt at once may have been overbearing, so he kissed your forehead lovingly and dipped his head to your ear. “doing so good f’me,” he moaned in your ear and your top teeth dug into your bottom lip in response.

“you feel so good. . . i could stay inside you forever,” he whispered, and you moaned back at him in response. “g—goddamn baby. . .” he whimpered and when he confidently pulled his hips back and snapped them up, you could feel your resolve crumble bit by bit. you felt ashamed each time he would fuck inside you and talk to you in the dirtiest ways because of the way your pussy would squelch— ultimately talking back to him.

you had truly felt whole with him pressing kisses to your head, him whispering how proud he was of you, how lucky he was to even be within an inch radius of you, and how good your pussy felt. all the intimacy mixed with pleasure was too much for you and you knew your neighbors fucking hated both of you.

there were four words to describe how you felt in these moments.

loved.

cherished.

respected.

comfortable.

never once had you felt neglected by armin and it was insane how one person, a man at that, could make you feel so valued and precious.

you felt a tear spill from your eye at the overwhelming feeling of him fucking you so good. “i feel so good, armin. . .” you whimper, your hands struggling to find their place before settling on his back. you were trying to be careful not to mark him up, but you just couldn’t help it. your nails dug into his back before you knew it. but to your surprise, he just moaned in response. “i love the way you make me feel— ah!” a sharp gasp emitted from your throat as you were cut off by his cock sitting right at your spot. your eyes had widened up and armin grinned.

bullseye.

he had snapped his hips back up as if he was teasing you and it was no surprise when your nails gripped him harder and a noisy moan escaped you.

“right there, baby?”

you couldn’t even sweep up a response as you were left speechless. your eyes were halfway shut as if you were high and he could tell you were left in a feeling of euphoria that was hard to process. you were trying to speak, but all that was coming out was nonsense, whimpering and whining. he couldn’t help but feel bad for you as tears began to feel your eyes and your legs shook around his hips.

he kissed your lips and made a frowning face. “awe, ‘s okay, baby. i’ll make it feel better,” he says as he nods his head somewhat mockingly. but damn did he live up to his expectations and make it feel better he did because right after he said he would, he chased the spot down effective immediately. “oh— fuck!” you moaned, your back arching up into his chest. if you thought the noises of your pussy were embarrassing before, you were utterly mistaken because these noises were just downright nasty.

he was beating your pussy up raw and all you could do in response was just lay there and take it. “oh m’ fcking. . . mphm, fuck!” as you moaned, your mouth hung open pathetically and armin took the opportunity to suckle on your bottom lip, occasionally biting it. if only you knew how good you looked taking him down like this. although his pace increased, his gentleness and the intimacy he provided didn’t cease once however. once he stopped sucking your lips, he started kissing all over your face in places like your cheeks, forehead, chin, and jawline.

once again, the feelings of his love begin to swell in your heart. his lips fanned your ear as he whispered the nastiest things you had ever heard in your life. such as; “i can never get enough of this pussy, i swear.” your nails drug down his back the harder he went and the more he whispered in your ear. you felt your heart jump when you heard him hiss in what you assumed was pain.

you knew nine times outta ten, you drew blood from him. “m sorry,” you cried out, tears spilling from your eyes, and armin could’ve melted from your cuteness. you were too fucking adorable.

“its okay, baby. i know you can’t help it,” he whispered, kissing the side of your lip. he sat up, sitting on his knees and grabbed your hips to drag you forward. your bit the inside of your cheek at the feeling of him ultimately dragging you down on his cock. but he looked in you in your eyes as he readjusted himself inside of you to fit snug against your spot. through your teary eyes, you could see him grin.

“does that feel good baby?”

you swore— the audacity of this motherfucker.

he had your legs twitching uncontrollably and you were practically reduced to a whimpering mess. then he had the balls to you a dumbass question such as that. of course it felt fucking good. but you wouldn’t— no more so you couldn’t open your mouth to speak against it.

when he pushed forward with his tip punching right at your spot, your walls spasmed and you clenched his cock. his teeth grit at the feeling of your tight walls sucking him in as if you were trying to milk him for all he had. you were nonetheless reduced to a dumb mess. you could feel your pussy leaking a mess onto the sheets below and the sticky slick that emitted from the both of you made him slip in so fucking easy.

your vision was blurry as armin kept fucking you. his fingers dug into your hips as he rocked you back and forward to help you meet his thrusts. it was safe to say that he was using you like a sex doll, but there was still him now moaning compliments. you were sure the entire block you lived on had an idea of how good your pussy was.

the man on top of you looked so fucking good. his head tilted back. his mouth dropped slightly open with the prettiest sounds coming from it. his head dropped as he looked at you. he let his left hand take control of your hips impressively as his right hand was now used to rub your bottom lip soothingly. he dropped down to lean his face closer to yours, and he began to fuck you much deeper. your tongue hung from your mouth disgustingly as you could feel the release you were waiting on.

his hips grind into you in the sexiest way possible. you couldn’t believe how good he had gotten at this. his tip knocked against your cervix and you moaned. “a—armin, i’m gonna— oh, god.”

armin knew what was gonna happen better than anyone. so instead of letting it break his stride, he let his thumb hook into your mouth and like a slut, you sucked on it the second he slid it in. he smiled like someones proud father and took it of your mouth. he stopped for a moment, letting you breathe. his left hand now left your hip and he sat up once more, towering over you. he let his hand wrap around your throat and squeezed it tighter than what he did previously. “is that too tight?” he asked and you cutely shake your head no.

“‘s just perfect, ‘min.”

he blushed, and slid himself back into you. you moaned loudly the minute he put it back in. it was like he was an expert at automatically finding your spot. it was insane the way he knew your body and its routes. he could tell he had surprised you when he put his spit soaked thumb on your puffy clit because when he did, you screamed and clenched him nice n tight.

with his thumb rubbing tight circles on your pearl and the hand on your throat experimentally squeezing the sides, you were seeing fucking stars. you knew what it was the second you started seeing white lines cloud your vision. you were about to cum, and you couldn’t even verbally tell him. armin could tell you were though because of the way you were trapping him as if you wanted him to knock a son into you. your toes were wiggling dumbly in the air and your eyes rolled back into your skull.

and just like that, you came. but what you didn’t pick up on was that this release was different from others because the minute you came, you loudly moaned three words that would change your relationship. words that a normal person would want to tell someone over a nice dinner.

you didn’t expect to yell so suddenly;

“i love you!” as your head was in the clouds.

but what was also unexpected was that the minute you said it, armins crumbled and came. he had spilled one right inside you and you couldn’t complain. when you had realized what you said, your eyes had widened like you had seen a ghost.

armin’s cheeks were pink like he’d been sunburnt as he was catching up with his breaths. sweat rolled down his forehead and down his body, and as if he was in a fitness commercial, the pearl of sweat rolled down his abs. he looked too damn good as his glow started to come in.

you both were looking at each other lopsided and stupid. both of you blinking dumbly as if he didn’t just batter your guts up.

you were the first to break the silence with a; “armin, i—“ but before you could finish, armin cut you off. “did you mean it or was it like some. . . in the moment shit?” he asked and your eyes darted to the side. “i won’t be mad with you either way, y’know—“

“i meant it,” you rush out nervously. you feel your cheeks heat up nervously and a flush of heat coat your body. the nervousness made you accidentally clench his cock and you both hiss at the sensitivity. his cock was beginning to soften inside of you and he bit his lip. “imma take it out now. ‘kay?” you nodded and braced yourself for the nasty feeling. he slowly began to pull out of you and you shivered. it was uncomfortable, but there was still a slight quiver in your lower belly.

the second he was out of you, he pulled your body into his giving you kiss after kiss. “fuck, you don’t know how happy i am to hear that,” he says and you smiled. he lay his head atop of yours and pressed a kiss to your hairline. you hear him sniffle and you gasp.

you grab his cheeks and pull him away from your hips. you were surprised as his salty tears landed on your face. “armin, why’re you crying?!” you in a slight panic. he chuckled and dropped himself to your side. you pulled him closer to you and rubbed his scalp. “i don’t know. . . i’m just— so happy,” he continued to laugh and you smiled. he was so adorable. his arms closed around you and pulled you into a tight embrace. you felt like he was squeezing the air out of you, but you couldn’t complain. it was kinda comforting in a way.

after cuddling for a little, you both had decided it was time for you to pee, and a well needed shower for the both of you. as he sat up, he stretched his muscles and you let your head sit on your palm as you enjoyed the show. you couldn’t help but feel bad at the nasty cuts starting to form on his back.

but oh well.

at least people would know exactly who he belonged to.

“hey, you never said you love me back,” you mention, tapping your lip. he chuckled, letting his fingers comb through his hair leaving him with an effortless sexy push back look. “oh, oops.” he shrugged his shoulders with a smug grin and you let out a dramatic gasp. “asshole,” your hand fell on your heart with an offended look on your face.

he rolled his eyes sky high and you gasp again before throwing a pillow straight in his direction— to which he of course caught. he tilt his head with a cocky smirk.

of course you found his expression hot as fuck though.

armin laughed before getting back on the bed and scooping you into his arms. he tickled the sides of your stomach and you giggled. he showered you in kisses all over your face and he was so damn swift you could barely meet him with half of them. he stopped and you two maintained eye contact with smiles on your faces.

“i love you too, y/n.”

butterflies pooled in your stomach and he kissed your forehead.

“so when am i taking my pretty, sexy, n beautiful girlfriend out?”

2023 WRITTEN soratoninn on tumblr, wattpad, and ao3. do not copy, modify, redistribute, translate, or write spin off stories based off of my own content. remember, plagiarism is annoying.

~ if you want to be tagged in future works, lmk in the comments.

[velvet-glory]

Thank you undueodium for the template! It was a ton of fun to fill out 😊

Extensive thoughts below the cut! (Warning: very long...)

Necessary disclaimer that all of this is of course just my headcanons and how I perceive the characters. I'm not claiming I know the Ultimate Truth™, but these two guys have claimed basically 99% of my brain capacity in the past 7 months and mean the world to me. I thoroughly enjoy picking them apart and analyzing them both as individuals and a pair because they scratch an itch in my brain that I simply can't get enough of. But as with all things, we resonate with different things in fiction and in life. Anyways, enjoy!

Boothill being ace

This is something I always worried talking about in public, since talking about sexualities in fandom spaces feels like SUCH a risky topic I usually don't even want to open, but it's very important to me. Being ace myself, I personally see him as sex-neutral to favorable. I think it's an activity he didn't mind doing, and even saw as occasional fun, but it wasn't anything really special. He preferred building strong emotional bonds with his family and friends. Romantically I think he had one or two crushes, but never really anything serious. The life he lived didn't allow for it, and the (queer)platonic bonds he had were more than enough.

With the change of his body, the physical aspect fell away, so it’s purely a mental thing now, and he already had next to no desire for it before. When the opportunity arose, maybe he would take up the offer, but he was also just too busy wanting to hunt Oswaldo down to indulge in pleasures like those too often. He didn't see people in that light and didn't miss it. (I also think that there were some... more forceful people that were curious and really wanted to experience what his cyborg body was capable of, which only turned him away from sex even more. So now it became a conscious avoidance, too, on top of the lack of attraction and medium-to-low libido.)

Sex really only starts to feel special once he gets with Aventurine, as he sees it as a way to bond and feel loved. I think sex is a very integral part of their relationship (but if I got into that, this would get WAY too long). It starts to feel even more fun and Aventurine is mighty pretty—seeing him blush and gasp and moan is what's rewarding, not the physical aspect and involvement of his body (especially since I hc that he can't feel anything below the neck aside from maybe his groin thanks to emulators). It's also why I see him more as a service top—Aven's pleasure comes first. That's what makes him feel pleasure. That gets him that mental high.

Aventurine riding him feels good not because of the actual act and feeling, but what it stands for. The power Aventurine holds over him. The intimacy it embodies. Knowing that he is the one to reduce Aventurine into a sweaty, moaning mess. How they both lay everything bare for one another.

There's also the fun aspect to him realizing that sex actually does matter to him in the context with Aventurine. Where losing his genitals wasn't really something he cared about too much in regards to sex (this can also be seen through a gender lens, but I'll be focusing on it in a sexuality way), some insecurity may creep in. If it matters to the person he loves, of course it also matters to him. He just becomes very aware of... everything. About their differences, both in the short-term and long-term. How that will affect the... everything they have. Whatever they have. There's a lot to unpack here. I promise I'm trying to keep all of this as brief as I can but I'm failing.

Boothill and touch

For Boothill, it's not about the actual, physical sensation, but about the intention behind it. Getting kissed on the inside of his wrist, where a pulse would be, is special. Where his heart beats even more so. To have Aventurine treat his body with care and affection—treating it human, despite him not even seeing himself as alive anymore, nevermind human, even if he laughs about it—is what gets to him. It also makes his spine such an insanely vulnerable place to kiss and touch, since he has to expose his back for it. The places his body has been scratched/damaged, like on his lower abdomen, are also highlights.

Basically anything goes and is fine to touch, but the more vulnerable a place would be when made out of flesh, the more intense he feels about it being touched and kissed. And especially his neck and face, since those are still human.

To be accepted and appreciated for what he is now, and not like he is lacking anything, is what matters. And Aventurine does just that.

Aventurine being demi

Aventurine being demi feels kinda self-explanatory. Even if he may use sexuality and sensuality as a tool, I don't think he truly experiences that attraction until a strong bond has formed, which... has frankly not happened often, if ever. Nevermind romantically. That requires you to be vulnerable and allow others close to your heart. That's what made the bars a little difficult to fill out cause... there's so many walls he has put up, but he acts in certain ways. He acts flirty and sensual, but it's not genuine. It is and it isn't. He's a walking paradox and probably struggles to really understand himself, too.

But Boothill makes him feel safe, which makes him want the man carnally (lol). It lowers the walls around his heart. Nothing sexier than explicitly being asked for consent and being respected and loved by a sexy cyborg who wears his heart on his sleeve, I'm afraid. Plus, I think Boothill not actually having a human body massively helps him in overcoming the first hurdle regarding his trauma.

Aventurine's sensitive areas

Similar to Boothill, the more vulnerable an area, the more it means for it to be touched. Especially his chest, hips, inner thighs and neck are sensitive and feel the best. Boothill kissed his stomach once and he has been obsessed ever since. His lower back? Yes please. Especially if Boothill's mouth and hands are busy elsewhere. A kiss to the center of his palm speaks louder than any words and it makes his heart ache.

I think his arm pits are ticklish so they're a bit of a no, but it's a soft no. Because he trusts Boothill so much, I think he's really fine with anything, at least down the road. It does take a little while to build up to this, but fortunately Boothill is very patient and understanding in this regard ☺️

Kinks & Limits

Limits

This is actually a section I struggled a lot with. If it's a hard limit, I don't even go there, and don't even think of it. So I feel like there are likely some others that I didn't put down because well... I just don't think of them cause they're such a no lmao.

For soft limits, especially in regards to Aventurine, I think it's pretty complicated. He has some self-destructive tendencies. There's a lot of inner turmoil because of his trauma—he wants and he doesn't. He wants to be tossed around, challenges you to use him, because it's what he's used to, but he also doesn't. This would get way way too long if I went more in-depth on how I see Aventurine and his relationship to intimacy as a whole, but. It's just extremely complicated, and I feel like someone like Boothill is exactly what he needs to heal from all of that. Someone that allows him to let loose, to differentiate past trauma and future pleasure. Because he's safe. And eventually, he will overcome those fears that hold him back from truly letting go. Even if it will take time. (I'm speaking in general here and Aventurine's relationship to physical and emotional intimacy, and not about the specific limits I wrote down.)

They both definitely have their limits, but also... I dunno. It just heavily depends on the situation and how long they've been together. I think there's some kinks they would eventually explore in a safe way, especially in regards to bondage. Some mild power play, maybe—which would especially be a big step for Aventurine.

Kinks

Aventurine likes to receive, but also to see Boothill break, either in a submissive or dominant way. He likes to walk on the fine line, to see how much he can get away with. To push and prod until the tables are turned. Likes to see Boothill whimper but also have Boothill hold his hips a little tighter as he's pushed into the mattress or nearest surface. He likes the game, the risk. To gain and lose control.

And Boothill plays into it beautifully, because he aims to please first and foremost. He always has to hold back because he really could very easily seriously hurt Aventurine. His body is made to kill and that's a risk that Aventurine really loves.

As for Boothill's kinks... well! When most of your body is numb to pleasure, why wouldn't you want to practically short-circuit thanks to your very very pretty partner who also activates your lizard brain.

Dynamics

Boothill is very very attentive and fully focused on Aventurine—catches every little movement, every sign of discomfort—which is why I think he would be extremely good in bed, even if he has less overall experience. They are essentially tied in skill, though. (But also, you know. There's the fact that Boothill can get fun little upgrades for his privates, which Aventurine definitely enjoys ☺️)

I'm a switch and vers enthusiast, and while I do think they have a preference, in the end, it's about connection and about mixing things up. About having fun together and bonding.

When Aventurine submits, he does it to fully submit and be at Boothill's mercy because he knows he will be safe. Giving up the power, when he was always forced to be strong and stand alone, brings a sense of relief. But I do think that generally, he prefers to be in control, especially in the beginning. When topping, he tends to lean more towards service top as well, although a less dominant one. Boothill as a service top can be both dominant and submissive, though—whichever Aventurine wants in that moment, since he aims to please. When he bottoms, it really just depends on the mood, but I think generally he's less intense than Aventurine. He definitely teases Aventurine quite a bit like that, hehe...

Boothill has a cyborg body, so... he can do any speed and pace ☺️ Spiritually, Aventurine wishes he also had more stamina and endurance, but unfortunately he needs to catch his breath a little sooner.

I think Aventurine can be both loud and quiet (which Boothill especially loves to get him to that point), while Aventurine loves when he manages to get Boothill to be a little louder.

Miscellaneous thoughts

I would've basically have to fill this template out twice because honestly... How they are with others before meeting each other, how they are with one another at the start, after they get together, and how that changes them in general are all different. They constantly evolve and grow. There's so many facets to them, it was hard to pin it down to just a few dots. But I had already spent a good... I wanna say 11 or more hours on this, on top of the time it took to write all of this, so I didn't want to keep tweaking it even more :') So I’ll just be talking about a handful of things.

Who does what

This was a fun section to think about. Since I imagine that Aventurine fell first, I feel like he was both not subtle at all about his affections but also trying to play them off as just his usual behavior. Boothill, who is a little slower on catching on to his own feelings, really struggled with that. Although after he does realize his own feelings, and wonders if maybe it's reciprocated after all, he really doesn't wait around too much and goes for it.

I think Aventurine likes the idea of getting married, but the reality is just tricky with the lives they live. Commitment is also just scary to him, even if he does care deeply about Boothill (which is also very scary). Boothill also never considered to be settling down somewhere since he expected to lose his life on his quest for revenge, but Aventurine makes him wonder. But whether they live a domestic life somewhere quiet or enjoy traveling the stars together, one thing he knows for sure: he wants Aventurine at his side for it.

Boothill had a lot of siblings, both younger and older, so I think he has a massive soft spot for kids. Having a couple of rascals would be fun, but only if Aventurine was on-board as well. Similar to marriage, I think Aventurine likes the idea, but might doubt if he'd even be worthy or able of being a parent. Whether they do eventually adopt or not isn't as important as simply being together, though.

—

I think I'm gonna leave it here because this already got WAY longer than I intended for it to be... I just can't help but start yapping once these two are involved. Maybe I'll go back in the future and talk about a few more things, but if you actually got this far, then kudos to you 😭 Thank you for reading! I love avenhill a little bit if it wasn't obvious already...

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.10 thoughts

[(N)Ice Boat]

(Topics: thematic analysis - Death for Death/talent, character analysis - Hisame, speculation - Kumugi/Magik/Minakata)

Dammit, I was wrong again, Ichi really did just make sashimi instead of turning Hisame into an outfit...I think @wickedsick predicted that, so good job, Wick

It was certainly well telegraphed, he was literally fileting her, and Desscaras/Kumugi were wearing the iconic sushi chef headband, I just was hoping for something a little more on-theme I guess

I'm not at all disappointed in this outcome, mind you, I'm just bitter about how I keep whiffing on what seem like easy pitches. I'll probably feel a lot better about it on reread, but right now I'm just a bit embarrassed

Enough lamenting though, let's focus on the chapter itself!

Good Enough to Eat

The sashimi boat really is the perfect solution to this trial, honestly. First and foremost, it's a solid reflection of Ichi's philosophy of Death for Death. As Ichi says in the flashback, the sashimi boat is an artistic and ritualistic expression of both respect and gratitude for the prey, the core ideology behind only killing when it is necessary for survival and not wanton destruction in the name of entertainment. The prey's life is not more valuable than the predator's, so Ichi wants to honor the life that he has taken for his own by treating it with dignity

Moreso than just the spirit behind Death for Death, it is also literally taking that philosophy to its logical conclusion by reflecting Hisame's own actions upon her. Hisame enjoyed putting her victims on display, making their frozen corpses into macabre architecture, so it's only fair that the same would be done to her. A punishment that fits the crime

However, it also is what allows Ichi to actually pass the trial because while it is a gruesome fate, it is not actually a punishment for Hisame. Like I said, it's a reflection of her own artistic sensibilities turned back on her; she is now the one being put on display as a grotesque art piece - of course she'd find that more beautiful than being trussed up in flowers or frills! She was telegraphing it the whole time!

It's also a fun play on Desscarass' attempt to cheat last week by saying true beauty is on the inside - by rending and exposing her flesh, Hisame can see her literal inner beauty in a way that is both novel and a perfect encapsulation of her sense of aesthetic

I do think that turning her into an outfit would have ultimately had the same effect, but focusing on Ichi's established specialties works much better as a bookend for this arc's themes

Playing to Your Strengths

While I initially wanted Kumugi to learn the lesson of individual capability directly, having her see it firsthand through Ichi's talents is a great way to set her arc on a slow burn rather than simply cooking it all the way through in one shot

Before, she was simply told of the idea, and now she's merely witnessing it in action, but she has yet to personally experience or internalize it, steps that will come later as she's forced to contend with her own shortcomings and insecurities

My guess is that she's meant to be more of the Usopp of the team, who even to this day is struggling to recognize just how far he's come in his personal journey. Like how Usopp had to learn to be brave in increasingly personally challenging scenarios, Kumugi is likely going to be put in scenarios that make her feel less and less suited to them, but through emulating Ichi, will slowly come to learn that her unique capabilities make her just as skilled as Ichi in her own way

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, what matters is that Desscaras' line about Ichi doing things that only he can do seems to have resonated with Kumugi, even if she doesn't fully understand why just yet

Speaking of things we don't fully understand yet, this chapter has left me with a couple of questions that I'm very excited to see addressed in the future

Gotta Catch 'Em All

First, as this is the first time we're seeing a non-combative trial, is it common for Magiks to be so peaceful when they become magic stones? Obviously Uroro was distraught, but should we expect most of them to be satisfied or even happy to be bested?

And for that matter, what does it actually mean to be turned into a magic stone? We know they can be returned to normal upon the death of their spell holder, but is it more of a seal or a cycle of death and rebirth?

Cus if it's the latter, then Magik psychology must be fascinating, as they're likely able to accept their deaths because they have such clarity of purpose in their lives. If it's the former, though, that raises a bunch more questions about their cognition

Are they conscious while in stone form? Is there any circumstance where they can be retrieved?

Uroro is obviously an exception where he can manifest of his own will, but when Ichi cast Inazuri and Inazuri appeared, was that simply an apparition to represent him, or was it literally Inazuri coming to summon the lightning? He didn't say or do anything, so it seems like it was just imagery, but is it possible that with more advanced mastery of a spell that a Witch can fully materialize a Magik as a familiar?

I'm starting to suspect that this might be the case, as Hisame's last words were "I wouldn't mind letting you take me on a date." Perhaps she meant it metaphorically to represent giving herself to Ichi as a stone, but with how bombastic and unique her personality was, I think it would be a huge shame if she's just gone from the cast forever

On the other hand, though, how many Magiks is Ichi going to acquire? He already has three, and one is already a major cast member; will the other two and all subsequent Magiks become a rotating ensemble cast, throwing in their two cents whenever the author deems it funny or interesting but forgetting about them the rest of the time because there's just too much to keep track of?

Or will they simply be inert, effectively dead to the narrative and only contributing as MacGuffins to solve increasingly specific and harrowing challenges with no semblance of personality or individuality ever again?

Both options sound bad when you put them like that, though they both serve a specific purpose to the narrative that would help it flow. I'm pretty sure that's why Shaman King abandoned the Pokemon-esque ghost of the week premise pretty early, since it wouldn't do to have Yoh juggling a bunch of side characters when one would perfectly suffice. Come to think of it, I think Kagamigami did the same thing...

Only time will tell, but I do hope there is a way for Ichi to connect with his Magiks on a more personal level, especially if it turns out that it's something Witches either weren't aware of or deliberately don't do to avoid forming personal attachments

Even if we don't get more insight into Ichi's relationships with Inazuri or Hisame, though, there is one relationship of his that I'm confident we're going to be seeing a lot more of

Teach a Man to Fish

I have no idea what role he's is going to play going forward or how long it's going to take to get there, but there is simply no way that Minakata isn't meant to be important

Minion to the Big Bad? The Big Bad himself? The Big Good?? I don't know! But mentors that protagonists fondly remember and were heavily inspired by as children always do one of two things: turn evil or die horribly. Sometimes both! Lookin' at you, Kite HxH

I don't want to speculate too much since we've basically learned nothing concrete about him, but being that he's a wanderer with a mysteriously hidden face, I'll bet right now that Ichi's going to meet an oddly large man later, walk away none the wiser, and then the man is going to pull out the deer skull mask and say something cryptic about how much Ichi has grown

Buuut just to make a particularly wild shot in the dark now with no basis whatsoever: I won't be surprised if it turns out that Minakata has something to do with Ichi becoming a Witch. Maybe Minakata did something to him, maybe Minakata is also a Manwitch. Either way, there's definitely going to be an explanation for Ichi winning that lottery and Minakata is currently the best (and only) lead we've got on that

And with that, we've completed the first full story arc. It's definitely proving to be as fun as I expected it to be, I'm just surprised it's taken this long to establish a long-term goal. I won't be surprised if we get another mission to establish a bit more of a daily life-style pattern, but I worry in Jump's current climate that waiting too long to raise the stakes will prove detrimental to Ichi's longevity. It was around this point when Shigaraki showed up in Hero Academy, Geto showed up in JJK, and God was established as the antagonist in Undead Unluck, so I'd say we'll at least get a glimpse of the antagonist in the next few chapters hopefully

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[some-pers0n]

hi hey just wanna let u know that i (this anon in particular) would always want to listen to your thoughts about The Thing youre excited about regardless of the reason or my knowledge or the time-space continuum!

YOU! Ohhh anon you poor soul. I'm terribly sorry. I have been holding onto this ask for a while, at least until the next time I felt as Energized about Them again. Shaking. Twitching. I don't quite know how to explain it. I can only take potshots at attempting to rationalize my thoughts behind them. With that said, here's more rambling about Engiemedic, the only thing I seem to care about

I've rambled about Engiemedic a fair amount of times before, either jokingly with goofy remarks about them or writing a giantass fic about them. They scratch a certain part of my brain that is difficult to really describe and pin-down.

Like I've never really "shipped" anybody before them. Did I like ships? Yeah sure of course. I've always liked considering relationships and thinking about how they intersect and are written. It's probably definitely the aroace bit of me talking, but I only really get involved in ships when there's really some substance to them.

It makes Engiemedic this weird fucked up anomaly to me then because what the hell do you mean that this decently popular non-canon pairing that's had all of like 30 seconds of shared screentime and maybe seven panels where they're in the same room at max has become so engrossing and fascinating to me. It's not like the usual ships where this happens to people; the ones with lengthy tragic tales tied to them or spend so much time with one another. It's just two silly guys

It just...perplexes me. It's odd. I can't describe what about it really draws me in, despite the fact I've written so much. I can at least try and figure out what it is though

I think the thing that made me first interested was simply the dynamic and jokes to be made. They are exceptionally silly, wherein I can fully believe them sticking together and doing weird experiments for hours upon hours. It's hard not to imagine them getting excited over whatever project they've been throwing themselves at. It's fun

Because ultimately both Engie and Medic are both unethical murderous science people, Medic obviously while Engie is a tiny bit more subtle. Their dynamic is interesting in that regard 'cause, when paired together, now you've got two weirdo freaky smart people tossing back ideas and before you know it now they're trying to create some sort of nuclear-powered contraption that explodes bones

It calls out to me in a way that other ships don't, especially Heavymedic. No shade to Heavymedic shippers out there, I think it's still a fun ship, but I don't find it as compelling with their dynamic. Heavy is a reasonable and level-headed guy. Yeah he kills people and laughs about their misery and whatever, but he's more stable than most other mercs. If Medic was to say "I want to self-isolate for days on end while I work to create the bubonic plague 2.0" Heavy would have concerns and try to stop him from doing it because What the Hell

Engie, however, would endorse it. I think Engie and Medic are very similar in that regard. They're dedicated to their crafts and understand the nuance and skill that it takes to partake in it. Engie obviously still has qualms and is there in case Medic clearly ain't right, but he's more likely to get caught up in whatever experiment that Medic is trying to do

Which brings me to my next point: the way they influence each other. When together, I think they are at their best and worst (morally at least). It's like that trope with two smart people coming together and being dumbasses, but instead it's with them making weird creations and doing odd experiments that ultimately do not benefit anyone. They simply do it for fun

On a more personal level, I think Medic draws out the parts of Engie where he tries to hide and represses. Headcanons, obviously, but I think Medic taps into Engie's more sinister nature as a maniac with a god complex and a hankering to kill and really draws it out. It's infectious and hard not to try and match his energy. Medic makes Engie want to get more creative with his projects and drives him to be more experimental and, of course, murderous

Likewise and, again, mainly headcanons, I think Engie helps Medic tap into a slightly more "human" side. I think Medic generally struggles with caring about other people, discarding them in favour of working on his own projects and being by himself. Engie is one of the first people he's encountered that not only likes him and enjoys his company, but is just as wacky and weird as he is. Engie is more charismatic and outgoing and, while still not too terribly great with the whole emotions thing, helps Medic out in case he's Not Doing Good

Their personalities intertwine so much they make me ever so slightly ill. They don't seem alike really at first glance. Medic is over the top, eccentric, and generally a giggly mad scientist. Clear to see the archetype he's based on. Yet, when you look past Engie's charming little quips about Texas, he's very much alike Medic. He has a god complex, is highly intelligent, morally bankrupt, etc and etc. He's just as eccentric and wacky as the doc is, but is only slightly better at keeping it under wraps

I just think they're really entertaining when put together honestly. Sure yeah I love me my angsty and fluffy stuff with them, but I think they're simply great when just working on some project and talking to each other. Their personalities bounce off of one another exceptionally well and it's hard for them not to get so caught up in their work that Oh No it's been Four Days and they haven't left the workshop/laboratory

Ultimately, yeah. I think they care about each other a lot that way. Their work is...intimate in a way. They're lab partners. They spend all of this time together, defying God's will with whatever unholy machination they've crafted, they got to have some sort of bond

What makes me happy is that I think a lot of people really like the concept of Engiemedic in any form. Platonic, romantic, whatever. I personally go for QPR stuff (something about their love being undefinable by normal standards blah blah), but I think it's a neat observation that makes me like it more. It's hard to deny that they're really fun together

Speaking of their connections, let's talk about their roles in the actual game. Y'all heard of the Heavymedic duo, with Heavy running around with a Medic pocketing him the entire time, but have you ever considered the Engiemedic duo?? Engie and Medic are the BACKBONES of this game honestly. All it takes is one Engineer or Medic on a team to shift the balance entirely. Everyone wants a good Engie and Medic, but it's a hard role to fill and nobody really wants it. However, they're needed. They're necessary. They're the main support roles of the game than, say, Sniper or Spy ever are. They're the underappreciated, yet incredibly vital parts of the team.

Honestly the Engiemedic duo is far more prevalent and makes far more sense than the Heavymedic duo, because tbh you can say that Medic is closely connected to any class. Soldiermedic duo where Solly just spams rockets and wipes out the entire team. Demomedic duo where Demo just spams pipes and annihilates every building. What makes the Heavymedic duo any special? God I'm sorry for being a little Heavymedic hater, I promise I think the ship is alright, but idk. I like Engiemedic a lot

Anywho, I think Engiemedic is extremely fun to write about as well as just generally experience. There's so much you can apply to them. It's hard to think of anything they can't do, really. They're great with humor, what with shoving them into a room with some cadaver and letting them have at it. They're great with angst because, with headcanons, they can be really heavily fucked up people trying to make things work. They're great with fluff because they're so silly and it's easy to think of them doing cute things with one another. The list goes on!

They're...special to me. They're certainly something. I could go into all sorts of other things too (more esoteric and metaphoric I'm talking), but eh who cares. I don't like delving too much into headcanons and my own weird readings with these more generalized rambles. I just think they're silly :]

[mc-lukanette]

Luka did his best to make certain of things. He never wanted to assume, nor get in anyone else's way. It wasn't because he was meek or passive, rather he was simply happy where he was and would rather gauge people's comfort first, seeing whether they wished to approach him first.

But he could also take a hint, and he'd smash every guitar he owned if he was wrong.

It started when Juleka had told them that Marinette had put more focus into her personal projects and gave away certain presents she'd been keeping in a chest. He hadn't been sure what caused the change, but guessed that it must've been some sort of epiphany or major life choice.

That alone wouldn't have affected Luka beyond being happier at seeing her happier, but then she began to approach him more. She sat next to him when he played, peered up at him with her eyes looking extra blue, and asked if she could come along to help whenever he went to get everyone drinks so they could keep going with their conversation. All the while, she would look absolutely happy.

He arrived at the Dupain-Cheng residence once to see her for a little creativity session, but the second Marinette's mother had called up that he'd arrived, there were rapid footsteps like she was moving around. He was encouraged to go up anyway, but he waited for all the noise to stop before opening the trapdoor.

He found Marinette sitting on her chaise lounge, one leg crossed over the other. She attempted to flip her hair - freed from her usual style - and only flinched slightly when it smacked her in the face. It was actually impressive how it was both clumsy and attractive of her.

Point being, she was blatantly gauging his interest in her, and Luka was indeed very interested.

He debated on what to do for a while. Asking her out was obvious, but he didn't have any experience. He'd been flirted with in school and confessed to once or twice, but he was never the one doing the pursuing, nor had he had a serious crush before Marinette.

He couldn't just do nothing though. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, a pleasant tingling sensation running through him at the thought of what that glowing face of hers might look like having fun on a date with him.

——

Luka arrived at the bakery, going through the side door as Marinette's friends were allowed to do in order to bypass the bakery itself. In his hand was a small, clear bag full of a few chocolate chip cookies he'd made.

While he was more used to cooking than baking, he knew that the actual quality wasn't important. Marinette loved using gifts and shows of effort as her way of expressing affection, which was what Luka set out to provide. He even caught himself smiling, thinking about them making horrible yet effort-filled presents for each other. They'd laugh about how silly they look, but ultimately keep each one.

He liked to think he wasn't an impatient person, but imagining the potential made him want to ask her out even more.

After ascending the stairs, Luka knocked on the trapdoor and called out, "Marinette?"

"Oh!" came a muffled voice from the other side. "Luka, you're here!"

There were some more shuffling noises, then a click as the trap door started to open. Marinette peered down at him with a smile, then gaped once he presented his gift.

"For me?"

He nodded, their fingers brushing as the tiny bag went from his hand to hers. She moved out of the way to let him in, Luka going into her room and taking a brief look around to see what she'd been up to. He could always feel her creativity spread through the room and it was one of his favorite things.

"Aw, they're so cute!" Marinette cooed, plopping down on her chaise lounge and raising the bag up to the light to admire it. "You made these?"

He nodded, though of course it was obvious that they weren't from a bakery. They were slightly misshapen and some had far more chocolate chips than others.

"Ohh, is this a flower from the Liberty?" she squealed, affectionately stroking the petals. "I almost don't want to eat any."

"Well—"

"I said almost," she huffed, already loosening the ribbon in protest. She took one cookie out, then retightened the ribbon to preserve the appearance.

Watching her, Luka warned, "They're probably not as sweet as the ones at the bakery."

"Please." She bit in and started chewing, only swallowing just enough to speak again. "I've had so many perfect sweets from my parents that all taste exactly the same. Give me imperfect ones any day."

He hummed, going over to sit down next to her. Though he wished to tell her that he’d make her as many as she wanted, he had to get past “step one” first. “Marinette?”

She'd just taken another bite, so she could only let out a grumble that she was listening.

Luka tapped his thigh in thought, mulling things over, then decided to just come out and ask, "...Are you doing anything on Saturday?"

It was her "free day" starting from when she'd tried to rearrange her life, but he figured he'd ask anyway. She dedicated it to "her time" usually, but had opened it up for him and only him on occasion. It was another - if not the - blatant hint.

Despite that, she pouted, squinting like she was trying to remember something. "Mmm, let me check..."

That was the second reason Luka had decided to ask her in her room: she kept her plans there. Marinette stood up, putting the rest of her cookie in her mouth, then wandered over to the center of her room so she could pull down her calendar and look at it. Her finger traveled across it to find the specific date, followed by a considerate tap.

She went to speak, but was delayed by the cookie still in her mouth. After swallowing, she admitted, "Oh, not yet, but I was planning to ask you out on a date then."

The atmosphere stilled, and so did Luka. He could see the moment Marinette realized what she'd said, her hand freezing in place on the calendar. He tried to say anything to comfort her, but what came out was more like a strangled laugh.

She beat me to playing the first note.

"W-wait! No!" Marinette turned, throwing her arms up and rambling, "I didn't mean—I mean, I did mean, but I didn't mean to do it now! My timing was off, you deserve better than that, and—"

"Yes," he interrupted the moment he could calm himself.

She paused, staring at him as if repeating the past few seconds in her head, then asked, "Yes that my timing was off, or yes that you deserve better than that... or both?"

"Yes, I'd love to go out on a date with you," he clarified, beaming up at her. Standing, he approached to be closer to her. "I was about to ask you out anyway."

"You—you—!" She gasped, jumping up excitedly and grabbing hold of his jacket. "Then yes! I want to go out with you too! I wanted to go out with you forever!" She tugged up and down on the fabric, still buzzing with energy, but halted at the realization, "Wait, but if I asked you and you asked me, does that mean we go out on two dates then?"

She was too cute. He wasn't sure if he could wait for Saturday, which suddenly seemed so far away.

"What about now?"

She tilted her head at him, curious. "Now?"

"Are you busy?"

She stepped away in contemplation, tapping her chin. "Mm... no? I think I finished everything I wanted to do." However, she pointed at him with a stern expression, apparently taking this situation extra seriously. "But, we'll have to go in sync down the stairs, or my parents will hear that we're both going somewhere. They won't be able to stop taking pictures of us!"

Luka weighed that in his mind, noting, "I could use a new wallpaper for my phone."

"L-Luka! You wouldn't!" Marinette shouted, blushing red at the mere mental image.

Their date today also suddenly seemed so far away.

[awsydawnarts]

Just saw some posts defending and discussing Gale and felt like throwing some of my current thoughts on the topic out into the void

I feel like it’s unfair to be too harsh on him for the actions he took as part of the war effort. Yes, Gale invented an incredibly fucked up weapon that caused the deaths of many innocent people, not just Prim. Yes, Gale suggested strategies that would have caused undeserved mass death and devastation. Yes, Gale was angry and cruel and violent and ultimately a destructive force rather than a constructive one. But you cannot look me in the eye and say that after everything Gale has been through-growing up poor and literally starving, losing a parent and having to step up as the head of his family, watching the obscenely rich use his peers as entertainment in their sick murder games that his best friend was eventually sent to and ultimately lost to (even though she survived)-you cannot say that you or otherwise good people you know wouldn’t have turned out the same way when all was said and done. Gale lived a life ravaged by tragedy, and he did the best he could in the circumstances he was in. At the end of the day, we have no right to judge him because we will never be in his shoes and have to make the choices he made during the war.

Completely pivoting here. On the other hand, Gale was a terrible friend and love interest to Katniss over the course of the books and deserves our full judgment and ire for it. His choices about the war are not a real part of life that most of us will experience. His choices regarding Katniss are. Everyone will encounter people who are jealous, insecure, and entitled in the ways that Gale is towards Katniss. Gale isn’t a villain. Gale is, however, very toxic, and absolutely an unnecessary presence in Katniss’s life after she comes back from the first games and he starts being a little bitch about Peeta. I haven’t reread the books in several months so I can’t pull up specific instances with page numbers and everything but Gale’s behavior towards Katniss is really gross and demanding, and he prioritizes what he wants rather than what she needs, such as when he gets pissy that she won’t leave Peeta to get tortured for information after they survived the trauma murder games together. He sees their relationship as transactional and Katniss as a part of life that is “his”, shown by how he realized he had feelings for her-when someone else was flirting with her and he realized he was jealous. Gale feels like Katniss owes him a relationship when she owes him nothing. He operates with no regard for her feelings and no consideration of her PTSD and how important Peeta is to her, while Peeta uses Gale as a reason for Katniss to survive the Quarter Quell. Gale can’t acknowledge what a horrific experience Katniss has been through and how much it’s changed her, and his lack of empathy towards her trauma is what really pushes them apart in the end. Prim was just the nail in the coffin.

I could go on but this is not a love triangle post, I’m trying to make points about Gale. I know it’s fun to shit on him (I’ve done my fair share), but I think it’s important to acknowledge why he behaves the way that he does and offer him *some* sympathy for his actions. Gale’s story is ultimately a tragedy, and I pity him for being put in situations where he was able to act on his darkest impulses and desires.

(He deserves NO sympathy for Katniss choosing to save herself the headache of being anchored to his insecure, selfish ass for the rest of her life though, get fucked Gale)

[bonefall]

So I decided to read through Bramblestar's leader ceremony from the original Ultimate Guide today- and I had a thought: have you chosen what cats give him his lives in Better Bones already? Granted, I'm sure you'll gut some of the canon placements for not knowing him in life (Lionheart) or being alive by the time he becomes leader (Goldenflower, Ferncloud, Mousefur) but Bluestar imparting clear judgement is a fun virtue considering his actions are anything but. Plus, Jayfeather could always gripe about it when he argues with Bramblestar. 'Wow Bramblestar, you sure displayed clear judgement when you asked me to let Sunrise BLEED OUT IN CAMP!'

I hadn't picked yet actually! I also haven't read his leader ceremony in aaaages. I never really liked it, felt full of TPB fanservice and didn't really say a lot about Bramblestar as a leader.

(But tbf that is probably because the writers have no idea what they're doing with him. He's generically noble and they have a double standard against female characters, so they just use his man pain to make the girls in his life feel wretched without examining WHY having defiant women in his life bruises his ego so easily)

But anyway, I don't have a FINALIZED thing yet, but here's a rough draft. It's a total overhaul. A big difference in BB and Canon is that Bramblestar is leader BEFORE the reveal, and long before the Battle of the True Eclipse. So all of these picks have to be from Po3 and before.

(BB context: Firestar was killed offscreen during the Fire Scene in an assassination, Ashfur took advantage of the situation to attack the Three. It was an arson set by Whiskernose and carried out by Thornclaw, Breezepelt, and possibly Harespring. Ashfur is still on the run, suspected of killing Firestar to hurt Squilf because he failed to hurt her kits)

(also if you want FULL full context go look at BB!Hollyleaf's character summary)

Gorseclaw -- Righteousness. His progenitor ancestor who set history into motion by betraying his siblings during Ripplestar's Rot, and whose curse continues down through the generations. He tells him he's proud. He SEES how much he's struggled. He's had to make hard choices that everyone else thought would be easy, and he understands. But he's done the right thing... and he tells him to keep doing it. Bramble briefly feels hot with shame-- did he really have so many ancestors in the Dark Forest that he had to hear from someone so ancient? Tigerstar, Pinestar, Oakstar... this life unsettles him and sets the tone for the rest of the ceremony

Snowcarve (Snowkit) -- Opportunity. The last time Brambleclaw saw his little uncle, he was carried off by a hawk after shoving one of them out of the way. He stands as a proud, starry adult before him: the age he would have been. He "speaks" through unfamiliar glyphs that form beside his head, and Brambleclaw knows somehow that this is the writing that he had been working on before his death. Snowcarve commands that he watch for that which he would have missed, to listen to those who are different and have new ideas, for opportunity is silent and tender. If your mind and heart are closed to what could have been, you will miss your chance and never know what you could have had. Brambleclaw tries to bring up that he's sorry he didn't save him-- Snowcarve taps his ear and shakes his head, giving him a stern glare. The words say, "you did not need forgiveness. It was my choice and I have never regretted it." In fact, he can wave his tail and welcome the next life;

Yellowfang -- Judgement. She asks him, "Would you ever blame a kitten for what someone else did?" Bramble is confused, "Of course not?" "Then stop blaming yourself for what others have done for you. I ran back into that fire to save my herbs and leeches. I put myself there, and Firestar knew that. Stop confusing blame for experience, guilt is not wisdom, pain is not good judgement."

Feathertail -- Kindness. A little bit of understanding goes a long way. When you get wrapped up in your anger, or your fear, slow down and consider the feelings and intentions of others. You'll find that most people are good. (He accepts the life but stops himself from arguing with her-- ok, sure, but what about everyone who isn't? He has a bit of a thought spiral wondering if the wise cat he'd travelled with had changed or if she was ever wise at all)

(Idk which elder is dying in Po3 yet, if it's Frostfur or Mousefur, but one of them gives a life) -- Confidence. There was a time where their own judgement lapsed, and they pinned their anger on him. They apologize for it, and tell him that this life is for living in spite of that. The strength to mind that you can't control what other people think of you, and the firmness to commit to what he believes is right.

Brackenfur -- Negotiation. To remember that every action sends a message, to understand that you must remain calm and make the right concessions to accomplish greater things. Don't let emotions like anger, offense, and spite cause you to ruin something you may have worked hard to build. (Brambleclaw is by the halfway point totally missing the point that these cats are trying to teach him nuance and mindfulness, and mostly feels betrayed and confused. He knows most of these things... and did the elder not just tell him to have confidence in himself in spite of people who hate him?)

Speckletail -- Courage. When everyone runs away, you run TOWARDS. People will rely on you now, and StarClan will give you the power to protect them. No storm, no beast, and no tyrant will find its way through you. When he takes the life he feels the rage and FEAR she did when she ran towards the bulldozer, the pride in her power as she attacked the human, and learns that Thornclaw was wrong when he told them she looked satisfied on the way down. After kicking him out she was terrified, but overwhelmed by relief and LOVE that her grandson was safe. It makes him collapse, and as he gets back up he's in tears, asking "i thought this was a life for courage, you were afraid!!" And Speckletail puffs her chest up proudly, "Courage is being terrified and doing it anyway."

Swiftpaw -- Acceptance. He has no warrior name. He has no adult form. When Brambleclaw asks him for his title, he simply says, "I give you this life to know when to accept what you cannot change, and the wisdom to see what you can't control." Brambleclaw can't help himself, this ceremony has been a horrible experience, "what a terrible life!" Swiftpaw dips his head solemnly, "yet without it, what a terrible death." But Swiftpaw also reminds him, this is not a part of his life that he cannot change. He can move on with only eight lives, and he will understand. But Brambleclaw says no, "I have a clan to protect. This is one of the things I can't control." He is surprised by how soothing the life is when he gets it though. He doesn't feel any of Swiftpaw's pain as he died. It's not about that. It's the quiet embrace of the void, the shouting as the patrol finds him and Brightpaw, falling away into silence, accepting that he is dying, and that it's okay to let go.

Firestar -- Trust. It HAS to come at the end.

Firestar opens up by asking Brambleclaw what's wrong, seeing how exhausted he is. He responds, his voice trembling, "I hoped it would be reassuring, but I feel more lost and powerless than ever. How can I be responsible for so many people? How will I protect them all? I will be blamed for everything that goes wrong and never know if I made the right choice!" Firestar goes hm, genuinely and sympthetically, "Those are very heavy and legitimate doubts for a new leader to have. I felt the same things when I was in your paws. He waves his tail, "So, I will give you the value that it took me many years to learn, something you were not given and so feel you cannot give. With this life I give you TRUST. You will face many trials in the near future, Brambleclaw. Your truth will crumble. Secrets will be revealed, friends will turn out to be foes, those you think are enemies may be allies, but you must not lose the ability to find the good in all of them. Remember that trust is a choice and an honor. Apply it wisely, but bestow it generously."

Bitterly, but with what dignity he can have in this situation, Bramblestar murmurs sadly, "So there will be betrayal, but I must still trust? I had hoped that you, of all ancestors, would not speak in riddles"

Though the world is blurring and the spirits of StarClan are fading away, he catches something pained and complex in Firestar's expression. Like he has so much to say, doesn't have the exact words to express it, and he's running out of time to find them.

"There were no riddles," he shouts already sounding far away, "Listen to what we have told you and you will find the way!"

(Basically he's shouting "WE WERE VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD ACTUALLY!!!")

We wouldn't get to see this happen in Cruel Season though, since it would be offscreen and not important to the plot of that book. I'd rather get it into Bramblestar's Thorns, which is about Alderheart, Sparkpelt, and the ways that they've been impacted by him as a toxic father.

The ceremony is written to highlight his major flaws. Especially the way that he's bursting with doubt, pain, and immediately tends to make things about himself without realizing. Bramblestar is a very unhappy person, and he often extends that misery to other people.

he's a tragedy to me, man. All these people turning out to tell him that love and faith exists for him and he can't even see it.

Anyway, bonus, some other thoughts for possible lives; (still possible some of these guys get swapped out)

Lionheart, his uncle, who died before he was born. He'd give a good life for wisdom but I think these others are a lot stronger.

Birchface, one of his Tigerkin ancestors in StarClan. Decided against him in favor of Gorseclaw; I think Gorse's both more interesting AND his distance is a good point of doubt for Bramble. They had to go back 4 generations to find a direct ancestor who isn't damned to hell. Birch would have just waffled about admitting mistakes anyway, still too fearful to admit that he is responsible for getting Frecklewish and Oakstar damned.

Bluestar, a leader who contributed to the death of his brother and mistrusted him when he was young... but honestly I feel she is kinda irrelevant. He didn't know her well.

Elderberry, one of his apprenticehood friends and the twin of Ferncloud/older sister of Ashfur. It could be cool for her to give a life of mercy and ask him to be rational about Ashfur's crimes (starclan won't say outright that Ashfur didn't do it because they're not entirely sure he was uninvolved until after his death in a few chapters, Dark Forest influence hiding the assassins), but it's actually a lot more important that StarClan is trying to warn him about the LEADER he will be and fatal flaws he will display for arcs and arcs, not waste a life on teasing the plot of a single book.

Cinderpelt, his cousin who died tragically. There's no reincarnation thing so she could be here to give a life, but I think the current list is a lot stronger.

Lynxkit, his oldest sister. Strongly considered her for acceptance but I think Swiftpaw's WAAAY stronger and I don't need both of them.

[ragingstillness]

The Boys thoughts 4x5:

Homelander’s conversation with Ryan: felt realistic to his character but also yikes (as always). Acknowledgement of his manipulation of Ryan +1 Acknowledgement of his own trauma +1 Equivalence of his experience as a deeply privileged white man to slavery -100

Ryan getting the PA to slap the Snyder parody: one of those delightful moments that The Boys does so well where I feel both positive and negative emotions about it. Do I think the Snyder dude deserved to be slapped by his PA? Absolutely. Do I think it’s a good thing that Ryan thinks the ultimate penance is receiving corporal punishment? No I don’t. I do like that Ryan actually let the victim do the punishment and receive the apology rather than white knighting about it. And of course I am deeply aware of how ironic it is that Homelander is helping Ryan stand up for sexual harassment victims when Homelander raped Ryan’s mom in a similar power imbalance situation.

Genuinely feel sad for Ashley that she lost her Ben Shapiro parody submissive (at least partially because I found it hilarious), but she got him back and that felt very earned.

I knew that Ashley and A-Train did more to Homelander’s apartment! Haha I can’t wait to find out what it is.

Man no one is having a great time or talking about it this episode.

Always happy to see more Esposito, love him as the ultimate traitor. Just betraying everyone left and right.

Not super fond of how they’re making it seem like Annie was wrong morally for beating up Firecracker. For falling for it? Sure. For reacting with anger? No.

Big fan of the V-ed up animals. Hysterical and very fun.

“Do you even know who Annie is anymore?” Um has more time passed that they’re showing? Because didn’t Annie decide to use the Starlight name again like two episodes ago?

I like that we got to see Hughie solve a bad situation on his own this time. He’s really coming into his own. Also, I like that we got another chance to say goodbye to his dad. Still sus that Hughie’s mom knows what V is.

Finally we got to see some of Simon Pegg’s comedic chops too. Him spinning around inside that guy had me laughing like nothing else.

Butcher taking that scientist captive? Honestly that doesn’t feel so much like a return to the dark side as just something his character would always be willing to do. Lest we forget he kidnapped Translucent, tortured him, pumped him for information, and would have killed him if Hughie didn’t get there first. I do feel like he’s relying less on other people which is a backslide from his character development but true to where his character was in the first season too.

Not a lot of sister sage the episode, glad to see she saw through firecracker’s fake inclusion attitude. I do feel like she’s growing closer and closer to dropping Homelander as an ally, something I suspected she would do from the minute they teamed up.

No Colin but I’m sure that’s gonna bite them in the ass.

What are the rules of Victoria’s headpopping? We saw her do it a little but there were many more opportunities. Does she need to charge up? Line of sight? Eye contact?

I agree that Victoria turned her daughter into a monster but only because she taught her not to value human lives and also because she turned her into some version of Parasyte: The Maxim.

Not a fan of Frenchie turning himself in. That’s not going to do anything, now they’re gonna have to break him out, and this show’s morality was never black and white enough that it could look at his actions and be like “you finally did the right thing”

Man when they all meet up with Hughie again he’s gonna have some stories to tell.

Side note: I am utterly amazed that now the secret of Compound V is out that no other country is sending like every spy in their arsenal to steal some. Considering how easily Hughie and the Boys can get it, it isn’t very difficult. Take one look at the nuclear arms race and tell me that every country in the world wouldn’t be quietly declaring all out war on Vought to get their hands on some.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

We Are the Series - final thoughts

There are so many reasons that I like watching series & movies from other countries. It's such a great way to broaden my perspective and to get outside of my bubble. To see the big differences in how people live around the world, as well as the little differences in day to day life. To better understand cultural norms, and storytelling norms, and how my own cultural bias intersects with both.

There's also all the beautiful cultural details, getting to see ceremonies and festivals and holidays. To see the beauty of the landscape. To listen to the language, and start picking up little expressions and to appreciate the nuances.

But along with all of the learning opportunities, I also absolutely love it when I watch something from a different culture, and have that "oooh" moment of recognition. That moment when you realize that regardless of culture, what is being depicted on screen is resonating deeply. Because someone halfway around the world has had an experience in common with you.

Let me tell you about my college friends.

It was pure dumb luck that we all met. An utterly random assortment of chance. But somehow this group of awkward nerds all blundered together within the first few weeks of college. Most of us were introverts. We were from all parts of the U.S. We came from all types of families. We were Agnostics, Christians, and Pagans. Over time we would intersect with other groups, we all had different majors, different casual friends & study buddies, people dated, people broke up, but our core group of friends was together all four years.

We didn't like going to parties much, it was too loud and crowded. We got drunk together, where we felt safe and happy. We'd go to the school dances as a group, and be silly. We'd sing songs (usually badly). We'd dance in the rain. We would sit on the roof of our dorms and read stories to each other. We would end up at the local playground at midnight when the slides & swings would belong only to us. As we got older and started being entrusted with keys to academic buildings, we'd go in late and play, having rolling chair races in the long hallways or playing sardines. We'd tease each other, and sometimes laugh so hard we could barely breathe.

We also were there for the breakups and the burnout. For the roommate conflict, and the family hurt. For the coming outs.

Of course things do change when you graduate, and we all dispersed back to separate parts of the U.S. (one of the disadvantages of living in such a huge-ass country). But we still keep up. We still can come together and have fun. Some of us play games together. Some of us travel together. Some of us still talk every single week, because we are family, and that's been the case for over 25 years.

I had a moment, when watching this show, where I realized that P'New must have had some amazing friends in his life. Because he just made a love letter to them.

And the friends in this show - they're my friends. Not in a one-on-one comparison kind of way, but in a "this is my little group of idiots too" kind of way. The playfulness, the freedom from judgement, the encouragement, the support, the love. The knowing that even if life pulls some of them further apart, that the way they are loving each other unconditionally now will always matter.

There are other things I liked about the show, I've talked about tropes before and how I enjoyed P'New playing with them in a "eff off with this old school BS" kind of way, the romances were fun and cute, but ultimately, this show was 100% about love for friendship to me. About what it means to find your people, to make your family, to choose love in all its forms without holding one kind higher than another. And to appreciate it when you have it, because it is so damn special.

How can I possibly come out of this feeling anything but good?

[tellmeallaboutit]

Three operas Raphael would take you to (and three operas you would hit back at him with)

Theater, opera and ballet kids, I received a wonderful comment from AO3 user CuddlesWithCats and thought I cannot let it go to waste.

This is the comment (quoted here as received):

Operas I would take Real World Raphael to: (1) Tosca: The rather terrifying, lawful evil Bad Guy gets stabbed to death by the heroine just after he's made a bargain with the her. This is THE most satisfying moment in all of opera. Of course she and her part of the bargain die soon after. (2) Gounod's Faust, specifically the David McVicar 2004 production revived at ROH: There's a dark orgy ballet, which Mephistopheles observes in drag. Seems like it'd be a "wtf" experience. Unless dear daddy actually is into that sort of thing as has made him watch it on loop. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/10746526/Faust-Royal-Opera-House-review.html) (3) Gianni Schicchi: Lighthearted farce about greedy relatives wanting to forge a will to replace an everything-to-charity one. The "lovable scamp" forger takes advantage of the opportunity to make himself the inheritor of the major assets (because of a background love story). Ends with him asking the audience if it really was wrong (no!), and to forgive his condemned-to-hell soul. Law stuff + likeable doomed soul -stuff. If only Il Tabarro could be the last feature, in stead of the usual first, so the evening could end in a good old-fashioned murder in stead of this admittedly tooth-rotting fluff.

Operas Real World Raphael would take me to:

(1) Gonoud's Faust: A devil (in spite of the name he's just a generic devil, the name isn't even mentioned IIRC, the part is just named that) on stage making a deal for a soul, singing a badass villain aria, having fun and toying with people, one-upping everyone until the last few minutes, and even then it's for just one "extra" soul on top of the deal. (2) Lulu: Twelve-tone serialism should count as torture for us plebes, so that's one. The sexy title character lives The Good Life with little ups and downs (such as the deaths of her two husbands), being adored and rich and famous. After losing the stepfather/lover/benefactor/target of her obsession, who has supported her so far, her life becomes a downward spiral ending as a dead streetwalker. So that's two. Not a threat or reminder at all. (3) Götterdammerung: I mean, there has to be some Wagner here. I think he'd find the ultimate hero getting killed because of an amnesia potion hilarious, and Gods perishing because they had made a bad deal and tried repeatedly to cheat their way out of the consequences, delightful. Plus, almost 6 hours of Wagner would be torture to most people, but ha! I am not most people, it would just mean *two* intermissions for scandalous acts.