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idkwhatimdoinghere1655 · 1 year ago

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Birthday Plans - Charles Leclerc

warnings - smut near the end, nothing too hardcore

The bright sunlight streaming through the curtains of yours and Charles' bedroom window disturbed Charles, and gently ushered him awake. He turned onto his side, expecting to see you lying beside him. Much to his disappointment, you weren't there.

"Baby?" he called out, but his voice was drowned out by the silence of your apartment. That was odd, he thought, since he hadn't noticed your departure. Normally, he would feel the temperature drop beside him and the bed would shift slightly, but he hadn't even realised.

Wanting to find you, he reluctantly pulled himself out of the warm and cozy confines of your bed, and padded through your apartment to find you. As he walked through the hall, he spotted random pieces of confetti sprinkled about the floor.

That was when it dawned on him. Checking his phone, he saw what day it was. 16/10/23. He couldn't believe that he'd actually forgotten that today was his birthday, and he realised exactly where you were. He also couldn't believe that you had let him forget.

For the past three years since you had been together, you had made his birthday the biggest deal of the year, without fail. Whether it be organising the biggest party he had ever been to, fully comprised of all of the people he loved and cared about on his yacht, to a quiet day in with his family.

This year, he had asked for nothing too over the top, since he just wanted to spend the day with his favourite person in the world. "My love?" he called out again, but he didn't expect a response. The double doors through to the kitchen were closed, which was odd, since you usually left them open.

Opening them, he was greeted with the loud pop of a confetti cannon, and a shower of red confetti. "Happy birthday baby!" You shouted as he walked through the door. Charles gazed around at the balloons stuck to the walls and lying on the floor, and plenty of birthday banners plastered about the room.

"Thank you, my love," he smiled, pulling you into a hug.

Turning out of the hug, you stepped over to the kitchen table, before skipping over to Charles and placing the party hat atop his ruffled locks. "Seriously?" he asked with a cocked brow. "Obviously, the birthday boy has to wear a party hat!" you playfully scoffed, putting one on too.

"Well thank you for all of the effort, sweetheart, I appreciate it," he told you, pulling you in for a kiss. Even if he was certain you enjoyed the thoughts of his birthday more then he did, it was always made a better celebration when you were planning it.

He wasn't looking forward to the fact that he was turning a year older, he was looking forward to the bright smile on your face when you got to show him whatever you had planned. Despite him telling you over and over that you didn't have to put so much effort into it, you always ignored his protests and did it anyway.

He always put effort into making things special for you, so you thought it was only fair that you did the same for him at any given opportunity - even if he didn't allow much room for someone other than you to be spoilt.

You just enjoyed the day that you got to celebrate him, since he was always celebrating you and you were able to make him priority for this one special day.

"Would you like to know what I have planned for today?" You asked, leaving your arms linked around his neck as his stayed on your waist. "Yes I would, I want to hear what you're going to do to try and outdo yourself," he told you.

"Well then you might be a bit disappointed, it's not very flashy" you winced, knowing this year's plan wouldn't be as extravagant as those of previous years. "I don't need it to be flashy, baby. You know we could do nothing and it'd be a great use of time spent," he said.

"So, I have invited Carlos, Arthur, Pierre and Kika over for some drinks and maybe some games, y'know, fun stuff," you explained, hoping he would like the sound of it. "Now that is my kind of night," he smiled, gently kissing your forehead.

"I'm glad you think so,"

—

"Does anyone want another drink?" You asked, hopping out of your seat and looking around at the group of people sat around you. "Y/N, I can get them, you sit," Carlos offered, but you shook your head.

"I'm already up, but thanks," you dismissed, collecting empty glasses that wanted to be filled. Charles watched intently as you were running around, playing hostess. You were making sure everyone was well taken care of, and he could see you pacing around the kitchen, making sure everyone got the drink they wanted.

He was mesmerised by the way your dress clung to you in all of the perfect places and he was infatuated by the way you moved. You brought through the numerous different drinks that everyone wanted, and Charles noticed that you didn't have one when you sat down.

"Are you not having one, my love?" Charles leant in to ask while the others talked about something that you weren't quite listening to. "No, I've had two, so I'll stop there," you smiled, not wanting to get too drunk.

"Come on, have a bit of fun. It is my birthday, after all," he said, giving you those puppy eyes that were too damn irresistible. "Fine, I'll have one," you caved instantly as a triumphant grin spread on Charles' face. That was the grin that came out when he'd gotten his own way.

You went to stand, but a firm hand on your shoulder pushed you back down into your seat. "Sit, I've got it," he said, standing and disappearing into the kitchen. He was back shortly after, handing you a glass with some sort of clear, bubbling liquid inside of it.

"What is it?" You asked, sniffing it to try and discern what it could be, to no avail.

"Drink it and I'll tell you," he smirked. You took a sip, and you still couldn't quite tell what it was. It was slightly bitter, but the edge was taken off by a hint of sweetness, and it tasted faintly of some sort of berries. "That is very nice, whatever it is," you told him, drinking some more.

Suddenly, that triumphant grin appeared on his face again. "I knew I'd get you to like gin and tonic at some point," he chuckled, winking at you.

"This isn't like the stuff you've been giving me," you scoffed, rolling your eyes at him.

"It's the one Arthur brought, it's in the kitchen if you want more," he smiled, taking your free hand in his and intertwining your fingers together. "Y/N, have you still got Twister?" Kika tipsily giggled. Her, Carlos and Arthur had been drinking slightly more than you, Charles and Pierre, so they were all rosy cheeked and giggling a lot.

"I sure do," you smiled, going over to the cabinet and producing the colourful box of the beloved game. Kika clapped, and Charles looked downright mortified. He was never a massive fan of the game, but he liked to see you have fun, so he allowed it.

"Ok, so we'll do the Leclercs' vs the rest of us,'' she said, and you were slightly confused.

"Four on two? How is that fair?" You asked with your eyebrows furrowed.

"You're technically a Leclerc, so you play with Charles and Arthur," she smiled, and Carlos and Pierre smirked at Charles. "You might as well be at this point," Charles muttered, smiling at you. Without anymore deliberation, Kika leapt up and set the plastic mat out on the floor.

"Charles, pick your challenger," she said, gesturing towards Pierre and Carlos, who were both reluctant to play - but it was all in good fun. "Carlos, you're one of the least flexible people I know, come on," Charles said, pushing himself off of his chair.

As the round went on, you span the spinner to see what Carlos would be doing next. "Carlos, left foot red," you laughed, looking at the tangled mess that he was in. His arms were crossed, and he somehow had to get his left foot under the entirety of his body to reach the red dot.

"It's not possible!" He complained as he tried to stretch his leg underneath him. As he groaned in discomfort, everyone was just laughing at him. Charles, who was also in a pretty compromising position was laughing too as Carlos' limbs collapsed beneath him and he clattered down to the floor with a thud.

"That was impossible," he huffed as he led on the mat on the floor as Charles stood and stretched his arms and legs out. "Good game, mate," Charles cockily grinned, offering a hand out to Carlos to help him up.

"Yeah, whatever," Carlos chuckled, hoisting himself up with Charles' help.

"So that is 1-0 to team Leclerc, Arthur and Pierre, you're up next," Kika smiled, straightening the mat out for the next round. Pierre and Arthur both groaned, reluctantly standing out of their chairs and standing beside the Twister mat.

Unfortunately for Team Leclerc, Pierre bested Arthur, leaving the game on your's and Kika's shoulders. "Y/N, you and me, let's go," she challenged, kicking her heels off to the side.

"Oh it's getting serious now," Pierre teased as he had to miss the flying heels that were coming in his direction. "I don't like to lose," she smirked, pointing at her boyfriend.

"Neither do I," you countered, leaving your heels beside Charles' chair as you stood to challenge Kika. "It's 1-1, let's see who can come out on top," Arthur said like he was presenting a football match or something. "Wait, so you're telling me we could have just let these two do it and our rounds didn't matter for anything?" Carlos asked.

"Yes," you nodded, and you watched the poor guy's face just drop.

"So I didn't even have to go through the pain and suffering that I went through?" he asked again, and everyone started giggling at him. "Sorry Carlos, the game is the game," Charles laughed, and Carlos looked dejected. "I am never hanging out with you guys again," he scoffed with feigned seriousness.

"Sure you aren't, Carlos," Arthur said, receiving a playful punch on the arm due to his comment. "OK, you two, OK, Y/N, right hand blue," Pierre instructed, flicking the spinner with his finger for Kika's turn.

You had your back to Charles, so you bent over to place your right hand on the blue circle. Your dress only barely covered your ass, and it took every ounce of self-control that he held in his being to not find an excuse to get you into any room in the house and have his way with you.

But, he had to remain a gentleman while your friends were there - even if he was going to find that incredibly hard. Especially when you looked as good as you did. He had to avert his eyes and look anywhere in the room but at you, but he was struggling immensely.

Thankfully for him, or not so much, his sinful thoughts were interrupted by Pierre giving you the instruction to put your left foot also on blue. He had dodged a bullet there, but Twister was most certainly going to send another huge one flying at him.

"Are you kidding me?" you exclaimed a few rounds later, as your left hand was supposed to go on the nearest yellow, which was underneath Kika's back. The problem with this was you were doing a crab over Kika, so you wouldn't be able to balance. "Just give it a go, you'll be fine," Carlos collared, loving seeing you two in a compromising position too.

By some miracle, you managed to balance yourself whilst still hovering over Kika. "So the next one is..." Pierre dragged out as he slowly spun the spinner.

"Pierre, hurry up!" Kika squawked, and you wanted him to hurry up too. Your muscles were aching as you held yourself in place. "OK, so, Kika, left foot green," he said, and all she had to do was stretch her leg out by one circle. "Y/N, right foot blue,"

"If I do this, I will flash you all, so look away," you tipsily laughed. Normally you wouldn't have done it, but there was alcohol running through your veins, so the logical and self-preserving part of your brain wasn't in full working order.

Arthur and Pierre averted their eyes, but Carlos looked for that second too long. "Carlos." Charles scolded as the Spaniard defensively held his hands up. He wasn't being disrespectful, he simply reacted too late.

Charles couldn't take his eyes off you, spread out all pretty for him as he uncomfortably shifted in his seat. His resolve was crumbling, and he was counting down the seconds until everyone left you alone. As soon as that door was closed, his hands were going to be all over you.

"Kika, left hand-" Pierre started, but her limbs too gave in under her. You breathed a sigh of relief as you were able to stand up, and your muscles were aching. "And team Leclerc win!" Arthur exclaimed, raising his arms in celebration.

"That was a tough one," you sighed, high-fiving Kika as she took a seat next to Pierre. There weren't any seats left, since Carlos had sat on the floor before Twister started. "Y/N, sit here, I can move," Arthur offered, noticing how there weren't any seats left.

"No, no, you sit down. I can sit on the floor," you dismissed, walking to Charles' side and attempting to sit down. "Absolutely not," Charles said, grabbing your wrist and tugging you onto his lap. You draped your legs over the side of the chair as your arms comfortably wrapped around his neck.

His hands found their perfect position on your waist as you leant your weight onto him. "My girl doesn't sit on the floor, especially not on my birthday," he whispered into your ear, his breath hot on your skin.

His words sent tingled up your spine, and you had to repress a shiver as you sat with him. "Can we do a round of this?" Kika piped up, snatching the Five Second Rule from the shelf beside her, and everyone audibly groaned.

"Just one round, please?" she asked, and you all caved in and thought it could be fun.

"Charles." You stated, tilting away from him as you looked at the car in your hand.

"Baby." he responded, intently looking at you as he waited for you to read him the prompt. "Name three vegetables!" you told him, turning the 5 second timer upside down as it made that strange noise. "Carrot, pea..." he fumbled, his brain short-circuiting as he couldn't think.

"Carrot!" he exclaimed as the timer ran out. For a second, everyone fell silent, and Charles looked utterly confused. "Carrot pea carrot? Name three vegetables and you say carrot pea carrot?"

"That's three vegetables, isn't it- Oh shit," he said as he realised what he had done. Everyone started chuckling, and you were just flabbergasted. "Carrot and carrot are the same vegetable, Charles. I know you don't cook very often, but I'm sure you have the ability to know that carrot and carrot are the same thing!" you ranted, and everyone was crying of laughter.

"Baby, there's no need to make it personal," Charles chuckled, trying to keep a straight face. "There are so many different vegetables in this world, and you name two of the most basic ones, and one of them twice. You adore pasta, and you have forgotten about the humble tomato. Maybe a pepper?" you carried on, and Carlos was practically rolling on the floor with laughter.

"I'm sorry, my love, I'm sorry," he laughed, kissing you on the cheek. You simply rolled your eyes at him as everyone calm down. "Carrot pea carrot my god," you muttered, and Charles chuckled at you.

As the six of you talked and sipped at the remnants of your drinks, you slowly shifted on Charles' lap to get more comfortable. "That is a dangerous game, baby," he said lowly in your ear. You couldn't help but shift a little more, as his hands braced on your waist to keep you still.

One of Charles' hands steadily moved along the inside of your thigh, his fingertips tracing the skin. He was getting dangerously close to you, as his fingers brushed over the thin lace that was the final barrier between him and you.

"Hey, later," you winked at him and you pushed his hand away. There was no chance you'd be able to keep yourself from being calm and inconspicuous if you let him do what he wanted to do. You wanted it, but you would never be able to live down the embarrassment if anyone caught you.

You all talked for another hour or so, and they all stood up to leave. You hugged everyone and waved them out of the door, and you were glad the night was such a success. You had enjoyed yourself, everyone else had enjoyed themselves, and -most importantly- Charles had enjoyed himself.

Once you had closed the door, you picked some glasses up off the tables and took them over to the sink to wash them. You couldn't be bothered to wash them now, so you just left them in the sink. You were putting away some of the bottles into the cupboards, and Charles appeared in the doorway.

For a moment, he just let himself watch you. He had behaved for the whole night, but now his resolve had fully crumbled and he rushed up to you. "Hey, you-" you started, but were abruptly cut off by him pressing his lips to yours as he lifted you onto the kitchen counter.

The marble was cold on the backs of your thighs, and it sent shivers through your body. "You have been driving me crazy all night, you know that?" he told you between kisses. You could taste the alcohol on his lips as his kisses became more aggressive, more desperate.

"I probably could have guessed that," you smirked against his lips, running your hands across his chest and over his shoulders. His hands slid up your thighs, pushing the skirt of your dress over your thighs and hips.

As your fingers fiddled with the buttons of his shirt, you saw the hunger in his eyes. The pure lust. "Just because it's your birthday, you can do whatever. You. Want," you whispered, and you knew you could have just gotten yourself into something dangerous.

"Well then that makes this easier," he smirked, his lips ghosting across your neck and down your chest. "I have been wanting to do this for hours, but you just had to go and make things difficult for me, didn't you?" he playfully scolded, gently nipping at the skin on your shoulders.

The white fabric of his shirt was sent fluttering to the floor as you slid it off and over his shoulders. Your hands moved to his belt next, but he effortlessly tugged your wrist away. "Not yet, I want to see you squirm for me first," he said, slithering his hands up the sides of your thighs and to your hips, his fingers hooking into the flimsy slithers of lace that sat there.

He slipped the garment over your thighs and down your legs, discarding them to the floor just like his shirt. Charles looked at you with those big green eyes, keeping them locked on yours as he sunk to his knees in front of you. His eyes still trained on yours, he placed a hand on either knee and spread your legs as he slotted himself in between them.

"God have you been this wet for me all night? I would have sent everyone home earlier if I had known," he smirked, placing soft kisses up the insides of your thighs, nibbling on them every now and then. You shuffled closer to the edge of the counter, hoping he would take the subtle hint.

"So desperate for me, but I'm feeling nice. How could I make my gorgeous girl wait?" He teased, kissing dangerously close to you. You were desperate for it, he had gotten that completely right. You were positively throbbing for it. Without another word, he licked a thick stripe up your dripping folds.

You leant back against the kitchen cabinets, tangling your hands in his hair as he kept your legs split open with his hands. Every now and then, he would attach his lips around your sensitive bundle of nerve endings, just to keep you on edge. His tongue teased your entrance as you tugged on his hair even harder.

You pressed your hips into his face as he smirked against you. "If you wanted more, all you had to do was ask," he told you, sucking and nibbling on your clit as you moaned out in pleasure. It was like sparks of electricity pulsed through you every time he made the slightest movement on you, and it was becoming almost unbearable.

"Fuck, just like that," you mewled, running your hands through his hair again. He kept on licking and lapping at all of the right places, and you felt like a volcano was going to explode inside you. "Shit, baby, I'm-" you started, but you were cut off by him slowing his movements.

"You close, my love?" He mumbled, running his tongue over your clit again. You were so sensitive, moaning with every movement he made. "Mhm," you hummed, not able to form full words without moaning out. Charles knew you were close as he carried on teasing you with his tongue.

Just as you were about to come undone, he pulled his mouth away from you and kissed you on the lips. "You really thought I'd give it to you just like that? You made me wait, now you've gotta wait too, it's only fair," he mocked with a wicked grin plastered on his face.

"Baby," you whined, looking at him with those eyes that told him everything he needed to know. You needed it, and you needed it badly. But, he wanted to hear you say it. "Beg for it, baby. Tell me how much you want me. How much you need me," he instructed, sinking back down to his knees again.

He planted excruciating kisses on the insides of your thighs as he waited. "Please," you whispered, jolting your hips forward, desperate for the extra contact. "I can't hear you," he dismissed, nipping the soft skin of your inner thigh.

"Please, Charles," you groaned, louder this time.

"What are you saying 'please' for? What do you want?" He grinned, adoring the control he had over you right now. "Please, baby, I need to cum," you practically shouted, hoping it was enough for him.

"Oh you need it do you? Do you need me then, my darling?" He teased.

"I need you so bad right now, I'm aching for it baby," you grovelled, and that was like music to Charles' ears as he came closer and closer to you. "That was exactly what I needed to hear,'' he told you, diving straight back into you. His tongue circled your clit perfectly, and the extra pressure you had been so desperate for was being granted.

"Is this good, my love? Is this what you wanted?" He mocked, tasting the neediness on his tongue.

"Fuck, yes," you moaned, tipping your head back. Your breaths were short and shallow as you felt yourself crumbling. "I'm going to-" you began, but Charles pressed your clit that tad bit harder, and you felt a tingling wave of pleasure wash over you as you cried out for him.

He stood back up, aggressively kissing you as you could taste a mix of yourself and alcohol on his tongue. But, the taste of him was far more intoxicating than any alcoholic beverage could ever be. It ran through your veins and made you drunk on pure lust, and it felt better in every conceivable way.

As he kissed you, Charles thought over where he could take you. He didn't want to keep you on the counter, but your bedroom was far too far away for how much he needed you now. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the empty dining room table, and it was the perfect option.

He held his hand on your bare ass as he carried you over to the table and sat you down on it. He slipped the remnants on your dress over your head, leaving you completely exposed to him as your nipples pricked up in the cold. "Fucking hell, you're so goddamn beautiful, baby,"

He stole yours lips with his before you could say a response, and he wasn't in the mood for waiting any longer. You could sense his neediness, slinking your hands down to his belt and unbuckled it. He didn't have any protests as he kept his hands on the sides of your face, holding him there as he kissed you.

You pushed his pants down to his knees, and he couldn't be bothered to kick them off - he didn't need to, anyway. Charles pushed your legs further apart with his knee and stepped impossibly closer to you. "You ready?" he asked, despite the fact that he already knew the answer.

"Yes," you breathed as he gently eased into you, and the feeling of him filling you up was like pure ecstacy. He gave you a second to get acclimatized to the stretch before slowly starting to rock his hips into yours.

The feeling of you wrapped around his cock was unlike anything, and it sent straight euphoria surging through his veins. He touch every inch of your insides as he moved, the tip of his dick hitting that one spot that nobody else seemed to be able to find with every thrust.

You didn't know where to put your hands, so caught up in what he was doing to you. You linked them around the back of his neck, nails digging into his flesh as you came closer and closer to release.

"How the fuck did I get so lucky?" he groaned, hands gripping onto your hips so hard you were certain they'd leave bruises there in the morning. But you didn't care. "My girl is the sweetest in the whole world, and her body is perfect in every single way. It's like you're made for me, baby," he rambled as he picked up his pace.

His head was spinning as he leant in and peppered random kisses all down your neck. He was addicted to the way you made him feel and the way he made you feel.

He could feel your legs start to shake, but your walls were already clenching around him. "You close again, baby?" he spat through gritted teeth, rutting his hips into you harder and harder. "Mhm," you hummed, not able to formulate full words.

The feeling of you combined with the sweet sounds of you moaning for him sent him over the edge, and you dug your nails into the flesh of his shoulders as you came with him. As you both rode out your highs, letting the tingles slowly fade away, you clung onto him.

The room fell silent, before Charles broke the quiet with a, "Thank you, my love. You're amazing, and not just at that, of course," he softly chuckled, holding you in his arms for a moment.

"Happy birthday, baby," you smiled, leaning into his embrace as he tucked a lock of your hair behind your ear. "And this has been the happiest of birthdays for me. Yes, I love the yacht parties, but a quiet night in with my favourite people is all I need," he told you.

You sleepily smiled at him, holding your eyes open as you looked at him. "Are you tired, my love?" he cooed, looking at your half open eyes. Your cheeks were flushed and your hair was all puffy, your lips red and puffy from how much he had kissed you.

There were small red marks over your neck and shoulders from where he had gently nibbled at the skin as he gently ran his fingers over them. They were just small reminders of who you belonged to, even though there was no doubt in anyone's mind of who that was.

"Yeah, but we can stay up. Whatever you want," you said, suppressing a yawn.

"We can go to bed, I need birthday cuddles," he said, hoisting you up into his arms like a bride on her wedding day. "You get cuddles every night, what makes them different because it's your birthday?" you giggled, clinging onto him for dear life. But, you knew he would rather die than drop you.

"I don't know, they just feel more special when it's on my birthday," he explained, dropping you down onto your bed. He threw a hoodie from his drawer at you, before slipping some sweatpants up his legs.

Just as Charles hopped into bed beside you, you remembered something. "Shit, how could I forget?" you scolded yourself, scrambling out of bed and into the kitchen.

"Baby? You alright?" Charles asked, wondering why you had disappeared so quickly.

"Close your eyes!" you told him as you stood outside the door. Charles did as he was told as you walked into the room, trying not to drop what you were carrying. "Happy birthday to you," you started to sing as Charles opened his eyes. "Happy birthday to you," you continued as you perched on the bed beside him.

"Happy birthday dear Lord Perceval, happy birthday to you," you finished, completely off key. Charles saw the very poorly done Ferrari logo on the top of the cake, the prancing horse appearing to have three legs and his eye was very wonky. In the top corner, you had hand-piped a list of all the races he had won, as well as your favourite podiums of his.

"Blow out the candles," you told him, moving the cake closer to him. The orange flames on the 2 and the 6 were extinguished as he blew them out, unable to wipe the goofy smile off his face. "When did you make this?" he smiled, taking the cake out of your hands.

"Yesterday when you were out with Arthur," you told him, glad he had noticed that you had made it. "I know it's a bit shit, but I tried,"

"I prefer this to the actual one any day of the week," he said, grabbing his phone and taking a picture of the cake. "It's perfect, thank you baby," he thanked, looking at the cake again.

"Happy birthday, Charles," you said again, and you both hoped there would be many more to come.

A/N - Tanti Auguri to the love of my life, and the guy who makes everyday that slight bit easier. Forza Ferrari, and Forza Charles Leclerc 💖

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dixons-sunshine · 6 months ago

Text

Yielding Isn't My Middle Name—Chapter Two | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Chapter Summary: You and Daryl get a little bit more insight on your ambushers. The leader, Liam, is extremely suspicious, but you just can't figure out why. And to top it off, a certain secret of yours gets revealed that changes everything.

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of injuries.

Word count: 3.6k.

A/n: It's finally done. I powered through and got it done. Yay me! However, this chapter is pretty boring with limited action, but I hope y'all like this nonetheless!

Taglist: @dixons-girl89, @jupiter1700, @enlightndone, @shadowcitrine, @ddamm (comment/DM/inbox to be added!)

“I know, it's a lot to take in at first.” With a grand gesture and a big, inviting smile, Liam proudly showed off the beautiful landscape behind him, putting all of the luxuries they had on display for you and Daryl to see—well, as far as luxuries could go in a world ran by the undead. “But I promise you, as soon as you get settled into your new...” There was a slight pause before he continued. “...chambers, a wonderful life most certainly awaits you.”

The leader's voice barely reached your ears. The whole scenario baffled you; if they wanted you to join their community, why feel the need to ambush and kidnap you? Why tie you up and throw you in the back of a van, with a sack over your head to obscure your vision, most likely as a way to ensure you didn't know what turns they took? And why wouldn't they just ask you whether or not you wanted to join the community in the first place?

A million thoughts ran with the speed of light through your mind, but there was one thing you knew for sure; you didn't trust this Liam guy, and you certainly didn't trust this community. You could immediately tell that something was off. You couldn't figure out just yet what about it unnerved you so much.

“Dave, Marco.” At the sound of their names being called, the two guys who stood beside you and Daryl perked up, their backs straightening as they regarded their leader. “Make sure that the cooks make enough food for our newest additions. And,” he began, looking at you with a sympathetic look in his eyes. Whether it was real or not, you didn't know yet. “Call up doctor Miller and tell him to expect two patients.”

“Why two?” one of the goons questioned. He looked at Daryl in disgust, something that irked you beyond belief. “Only the sexy lady here seems like she needs it.”

From the corner of your eye, you could clearly see Daryl tense up. To the untrained eye, they wouldn't even have noticed the way the archer's body language shifted, but you caught it. Of course you caught it. You knew Daryl better than anyone, and you knew that he was getting more pissed off by the second. One wrong move, and that man was more dead than the monster's that roamed the earth.

“Jesus, Dave,” Liam reprimanded him, clicking his tongue and shaking his head in disappointment. “You knocked the guy out with some hardcore stuff. We don't know how much of the fumes he inhaled. I don't want to take any chances. Our guests need to be properly checked out.”

Dave grumbled something under his breath, but ultimately agreed. However, right before he and the other man, who you assumed to be Marco, walked off in the direction of a small building, he stopped next to Liam and whispered something in his ear. The leader nodded before waving him off. They left and soon disappeared, and your attention quickly got drawn to the leader again.

Liam turned back to regard you and your husband. His lips formed into a tight smile, his eyes squinting with the pull of the muscles. For some reason, the action sent a shiver up your spine, and definitely not the good kind you'd experience when Daryl softly traced his fingers over your back. You had a lot to be wary of, and this Liam guy certainly didn't make a very good first impression on you or Daryl. You were sure that your husband wanted to lunge at the man and pound his face into the ground with his bare hands, and you definitely didn't blame him. You wanted to do the exact same thing.

Liam motioned to someone over your shoulder. In moments, somebody was grabbing at your shoulders and hoisting you up onto your feet. You stumbled a bit, not tumbling back to the ground only because Liam stepped forward to steady you. You instantly jerked back, moving away from his touch. You would've punched him for even thinking of touching you when he was the reason you were probably light-years away from your friends and family, but the rope tightly binding your hands stopped you from doing so.

You heard grunting coming from behind you. You spun around and saw the same goon practically manhandling your husband, forcing him up to his feet. When Daryl struggled against his hold, the man decided that punching him would be a good decision. The sight of Daryl being knocked back down to the gravel unleashed a certain protectiveness in you, and you took a warning step forward.

“You stay the fuck away from him, and keep your goddamn hands to yourself!” you yelled in anger, moving over to your husband and sinking down to your knees beside him. You thanked your lucky stars that your hands were bound in front of you and not behind your back, because it allowed you to trace your fingers over his face, searching for any bleeding. “Baby—”

“M'alrigh',” Daryl mumbled, glaring up at his attacker, his eyes alight with the fire of a thousand suns. “Asshole punches like a girl. No offense, Peach.”

You gave him a small smile. “None taken.” You helped him sit back up with a lot of effort, your hands straining against the rope and getting rope burn in the process. You clambered up onto your knees and carefully stood up, struggling to maintain your balance. Daryl followed your lead, and soon the two of you were stood in front of the leader.

Liam gazed at the two of you thoughtfully, his face unreadable. His green eyes flickered between you and Daryl for a moment too long for your liking before he readapted his smile. “Sorry about that, mate,” he began, his gaze landing on Daryl before moving over to the goon that had just attacked Daryl a few moments prior. “Peter just doesn't know how to behave himself.” The aforementioned man cowered under his leader's gaze, something you instantly picked up on and locked in the back of your mind. “Don't worry, he'll be punished appropriately.”

“Sir, please, I'm so—”

“Save it,” Liam snapped, glaring at the man harshly. “You know the rules, Peter. All actions have consequences. Those are the rules. If I ease up on you, the next person will expect me to do so and order will be disrupted.” He stopped for a few moments, simply staring at Peter with an unreadable look in his eyes. “You are dismissed. I expect you to be in my office in two hours. If you're not, well, you know what will happen.”

Whether that last part was a warning or a threat, you didn't know. However, what you did know was that for whatever reason, this Peter guy was deathly terrified of his leader. He visibly slumped and averted his eyes from everyone as he hurried away, practically bolting as if being chased by something.

Now being left alone with Liam, your eyes locked with the man's green ones. You couldn't quite place your finger on it, but there was something wrong with the man in front of you. He reminded you a lot of the Governor, the more you thought about it, but at the same time, he was different. It annoyed you to no end that you couldn't quite figure out exactly what about the green-eyed man made you feel cautious.

Well, his men ambushed and kidnapped you and your husband, so that was a pretty good place to start.

“Once again, I am so incredibly sorry about that,” Liam started, his face adapting a look of sympathy. “Peter is a rather new addition to my ‘police force’, so to speak. He hasn't quite learned that we don't resort to violence unless it's an absolute necessity.” He stopped for a second, looking at you before sighing. “Miss, I truly am sorry about what Peter did to you as well. Please excuse me for saying this again, but you do look like shit.”

You couldn't understand what this man's deal was. Merely a few minutes ago, while he was surrounded by multiple of his men, he had seemingly mocked you about the injuries you had sustained. However, now he was apologizing and being sympathetic? What was this man's motive?

“Now, Daryl and Y/N, I believe?” Liam began, successfully gaining confused and guarded looks from both you and your husband.

“How the hell do ya know tha'?” Daryl barked defensively, straightening his back to appear larger—almost as if he was facing a bear.

Liam's lips twitched up into a small wicked smirk at the archer, but he very quickly disguised it with a welcoming smile. “I know a lot of things, mate.” He shrugged his shoulders and motioned to the farmland surrounding you. “I need to know things to keep my people safe. They depend on me, you know?”

“Still doesn't answer my goddamn question,” Daryl practically growled, taking a threatening step towards the man. “How the fuck do ya know our names?”

Liam didn't falter under the Dixon man's harsh glare. If anything, he straightened his posture and met Daryl head-on, his height adding an advantage over the archer. However, having known your husband for a long time, you knew it was time to intervene before he started a fight he wouldn't be able to finish. His hands were tied and Liam had who knows how many people to back him up. The two of you were heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

“Daryl,” you called to him softly, raising your tied hands to gently grip his shoulder. “I really don't think that's the thing we should be concerned about right now. It doesn't matter if he knows our names. What matters is that we have to get the fuck out of here. We do that by playing along for now,” you mumbled into his ear, quiet enough to not alert Liam of your plan.

Daryl glared at the leader of the community for a few moments longer before stepping back, sharing a determined look with you. You gave him a small smile before turning back to Liam, regarding the green-eyed man with a strained, fake smile.

“I'm sorry about him,” you began, your voice sickeningly sweet. You were taking a page out of Carol's book—you were playing the wolf in sheep's clothing, biding your time until you and Daryl could strike back. You could only hope that your earlier outburst towards Peter wouldn't be used to call your bluff. “It's just that we weren't brought here under the friendliest circumstances. And now you know our names and it's a bit creepy. He's being wary.”

“For good reason,” Liam replied with a nod, motioning for you and Daryl to follow him. You shared a look with Daryl before following behind the man, Daryl following close behind. “You can't be sure about the dangerous pricks that are out there.”

“Ironic, ain't it?” Daryl grumbled lowly, glaring at Liam through his hair as the two of you followed behind the leader. He received a slight jab to his stomach from your elbow, and he let out a soft grunt.

“You see, that's why we built this place.” Liam walked on and motioned to the fields on his left. There were multiple people working on the crops; some watering, some picking, and some planting. You couldn't be completely sure, but you swore you saw a faint glint of metal wrapped around most of the workers' legs. Were you just out of it from the pain in your head, or were those shackles?

“Well, built is the wrong word. We found this farm back when everything first went to shit. The crops and the farmhouse were luckily still standing. We... expanded, so to speak. We built the walls to keep the flesh eaters out and built more homes on the property to house our growing population.” He stopped and turned back to you and Daryl. “I hope you don't mind, but you'll have to stay in the farm house with me for the time being. We're busy building new homes but it won't be ready for another couple of weeks, maybe months.”

“Jus' one question 'fore we decide,” Daryl began, stepping forward. “Why'd ya have to bring us here by force? Why didn't ya jus' ask us to come here instead of kidnappin' us?”

Liam stared at Daryl with a blank expression on his face. His face didn't give anything away, and it unnerved you beyond belief. However, he soon gave the two of you yet another smile. You were genuinely starting to wonder if his face was starting to hurt from the excessive amount of smiling.

“There's a reason for everything, champ. However, not everyone is allowed to know my reasonings to the things I do. That's reserved for the people I trust. But do know that I did it for your own goods. Between you and me, that entire building was surrounded by flesh eaters. You most certainly would've died without my men.”

“Wha' the hell do ya know 'bout—”

“Sir? I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but Dr Miller is ready for the new arrivals,” a small, timid woman spoke up, gaining the attention of you, Daryl and Liam.

“Ah, Mariah,” Liam spoke, nodding at her in greeting. He turned back to you and Daryl, using his hand to motion towards the woman. “Please follow her to Dr Miller. He'll make sure to patch you up and ensure you're fit and ready for tomorrow.” He walked a few steps backwards and clapped his hands twice. “Welcome to Sunny Meadows! Come meet me in the farm house once you're done.”

With that, he turned around and stalked off, leaving you and Daryl alone with the woman, Mariah. The aforementioned woman turned to look at the two of you. She was nervously fidgeting with her hands, her posture slouched and her eyes couldn't decide whether to focus on you, your husband, your wounds, the ropes tying your hands together, or the ground. You were confused by her obvious fear towards you. What people was she used to dealing with? Did she really think that you were going to hurt her?

“Please follow me,” she stammered out with a nervous squeak, turning around and speeding off into the direction of the very same building those other men, Dave and Marco, had disappeared into earlier.

You hesitantly started following her. Daryl grumbled and followed your lead, glaring at any person who dared to lock eyes with him. You had to withhold your chuckles at your husband, knowing that it was neither the time nor place for that. Under normal circumstances, you'd laugh at your husband's antics. But not now. Not when your main priority was getting the hell out of that place.

You soon arrived at the makeshift medical building. You followed her in, taking in the pure doctor-like feel of the building. If you didn't know any better and somebody had blindfolded you and brought you here, you would've believed that this was a legitimate doctor's office. But you did know better.

A man, who you presumed to be this doctor Miller character everyone was talking about, placed a syringe down on the table and gave you all inviting smiles. “Welcome!” he greeted you enthusiastically—and rather loudly, too. You winced at the sound, being painfully reminded of the incessant throbbing in your skull. “You both look rather terrible. Who should I focus on first?”

“Owen,” Mariah began in a soft voice. “If I may, maybe the woman? She took quite the beating.”

“Peter?” the doctor inquired, shaking his head and sighing when Mariah nodded. “That man has sent more patients my way than any scavenging trip accident has. I don't even know why your husband still keeps him around.”

Wait, husband? Liam was Mariah's husband? Then why was he treating her like that? Why was she so scared of him? A million different possibilities ran through your mind for the obvious fear the woman held towards her husband, and none of them were good. Daryl's ocean coloured eyes locked with your eyes. He visibly shared the same confusion as you. However, the doctor's orders caught your attention.

“Mariah, is it really necessary to have their hands tied? I can see the irritation from here. Please remove their binds.” Doctor Miller stopped for a moment, regarding you and Daryl with a thoughtful look. “Sir, ma'am, speaking from experience, please don't try to run or attack once those binds are removed. Whenever there's a new addition, the walls are very guarded. You'll be shot instantly.”

Mariah gingerly removed the ropes from your arms and tried to remove Daryl's. However, your husband flinched back at the foreign touch, making the woman confused. You simply gently pushed her aside and moved over to him, starting to untie his binds. This time, Daryl stood still, and in no time at all, his hands were freed. He rubbed his wrists, the rope burns visible.

“Alright,” the doctor started. “Ma'am, please lay down on the bed. I'll tend to you shortly. Sir, you may take a seat on that chair next to the bed while you wait.”

You looked out of the window and weighed your options. However, the doctor wasn't lying; there were multiple guards patrolling the walls in the distance. There also were guards walking up to the makeshift medical building, most likely being sent to ensure you and Daryl didn't try anything.

You had no other option. You had to continue playing along.

You slowly walked over to the bed and laid down. Daryl hesitantly plopped himself down on the chair next to the bed, his eyes darting around the room. He was clearly trying to think of an escape plan, but he wasn't succeeding.

“Alright,” Doctor Miller began, walking out of the side room and rolling a machine out with him.

You instantly knew what that machine was. “No, doctor, you can't. No, don't—”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Daryl stood up from the chair and glared at the doctor, his mind instantly assuming the worst at your reaction. “The hell is tha'?”

“Sir, please relax.” Mariah walked up to the side of the bed, grabbing a tube of some sort of gel from the drawer. “We have some new equipment we've been wanting to test out. We found this ultrasound machine yesterday. We just want to test it out and make sure it works.”

Your heart stopped beating. All at once, thoughts of your unborn baby flooded your mind. You couldn't believe that you had forgotten about the fact that you were pregnant. With everything that happened, your mind neglected to remind you of that pivotal fact. And now everyone was going to know, including your husband who you had yet to tell.

“Doc, I don't think that's a good idea,” you warned him, pleaded with him, but the man didn't listen.

“Nonsense. This'll be over before you know it. It won't hurt, I promise you.”

“Ma'am, can I lift your shirt?” Too frozen to answer her, you simply stared. Deciding for you, Mariah lifted your shirt a bit and opened the tube with the gel. “This might be a bit cold.”

The cold was the least of your worries. You had taken quite the beating. What if your baby was hurt? What if your baby was dead? What if the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat? All of those thoughts flooded your mind, so much so that you barely heard Daryl talking to the doctor.

“Why does she need'a do tha'? Can't some other chick do this?”

“I was going to ask someone to come in today to test it, but she's here now. Might as well get it out of the way.” Doctor Miller started with the exam, placing the object on your stomach and moving it around. At first, the screen didn't pick up a thing, and that made you want to cry. However, the steady thumping of a heartbeat could soon be heard, and a small figure appeared on the screen.

“Oh, wow. That's a strong heartbeat,” Doctor Owen Miller told you with a smile, the ultrasound depicting a growing baby. “Congratulations, you two.”

Your heart was attempting to jump out of your chest. It was amazing to you that the little blob on the screen would soon develop into a baby, your baby. You would pick out their name and scavenge for things for your little one, and you're sure Daryl would—

Oh, god. Daryl.

Slowly looking over to your left, you locked eyes with your husband. Instead of finding the love, affection and adoration that usually swam in his ocean coloured eyes, you found something else. You found anger, shock, worry, but above all else? You could see a renewed sense of determination in his eyes.

The archer was pissed at you for hiding your pregnancy and convincing him to let you wander beyond the walls, but he couldn't think about that. He had to get you to safety, away from these monsters. He had to keep you and your unborn baby safe.

The doctor should've heeded your warning. The doctor never should've insisted to take an ultrasound. Because of doctor Owen Miller, Daryl Dixon was determined. Daryl Dixon was going to tear that whole place apart, and anyone who dared to lay a finger on you would meet an agonizing end.

The people of Sunny Meadows were going to pay.

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

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agoldenblackbird · 16 days ago

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i'm gonna be a ranty bitch for a minute.

tbh i'm turned off even reading new buddie fic despite being a multishipper and have unfollowed a bunch of buddie accounts because i'm sick of the smug attitudes. one ask that i am otherwise not going to publish or respond to ended with 'sorry you don't understand media literacy bestie :)' fuck off. listen INFANT, i have been writing fanfic and original fic AND watching, reading and analyzing queer media since before you were born, i understand how character and story development works, and i know the difference between 'storyline i personally disliked' and 'bad writing.' this was BOTH, and it also was marketed to us as 'carefully crafted bi rep' and 'queer love story that is not about a bunch of pain and conflict FOR ONCE' so we have every right to be upset at the bait-and-switch.

the fact that i'm seeing the same exact posts - 'bt bones buddie CANON' that i saw three seasons ago after the bucktaylor breakup, or every time they thought buck and taylor MIGHT break up - says something. the fact that so many fans seem genuinely convinced (STILL!) that buddie is inevitable because there have been so many 'signs,' and then they rattle off a convoluted theory that would make the most hardcore taylor swift stan say 'wow, that's a bit of a reach,' honestly weirded me out a little when i first joined the 911 fandom. i have never been in a fandom where so many fans are insistent that their ship will be - not might be or could be, but WILL be - canon. i am skeptical both from past experience with other shows mishandling queer storylines or ship-baiting, and tim minnear's proven track record with this one of not really knowing what to do with buck's LI's. but i didn't want to yuck anybody's yum, so i let them have their theories and squee in peace, and unfollowed or blocked certain tags if i was seeing too much of it and getting annoyed. it's too out there for me, but i'm glad they're having fun!

yet they can't give us the same courtesy. they deride us as delusional for thinking that a canon pairing that was presented to us both in promo and the show itself as different and important (eg the bobby approval convo and 'buck getting off the hamster wheel') might last, and we're stupid to have ever liked tommy or lou or be disappointed at how the breakup was written, and if we point out the biphobia it's just sour grapes.

the bucktommy breakup is not the first time 911 has started out strong with an interesting storyline and fumbled it in the 4th quarter either because the writers got bored or in the name of needless drama/a 'gotcha' sudden twist. amir & bobby, eddie's fight club arc, the sperm donor SL, hen vs councilwoman ortiz, whatever the hell is going on with harry, the whole mess with shannon/kim, just to name a few. and especially the past couple of seasons, for me since 6b, the pacing has been off. they seem to have too much happening at once and many of the storylines don't have enough room to breathe to be narratively satisfying, or they get resolved in ways that feel lackluster.

if the toxic buddie stans who have been attacking lou on sm and sending death threats (wtf!) actually get what they want, which i admit is possible, but it's certainly not guaranteed….i don't know why they think the writers won't fumble that just as badly. it's not going to happen precisely the way they want it to because it is impossible to please everybody, that's what fanfic is for. but at this point i have zero faith that it would even be well done at all, and zero trust in the writers not to just sabotage or regress a character for funsies, and that's an excellent reason to stop watching the show. in most of my other fandoms i regard canon as a jumping-off point or a blurry outline at best, and i can have just as much fun in the 911 sandbox without any further input from canon at all, once i'm less angry.

#911 #911 8x06 #tevan #bucktommy #birdie rants #birdie stuff

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korn-official · 4 months ago

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JONATHAN DAVIS INTERVIEW FOR PIT MAGAZINE (date unknown but guessing ‘95 or ‘96)

“I had no idea that people would relate to me so much.”

Korn came together in 1993, in Huntington Beach, California. Now, their Epic/Immortal self-titled debut is winning critical acclaim from the music community. Dark, intense lyrics front this hard-hitting sound. The band is comprised of Jonathan (vox, bagpipes), Fieldy (bass), Brian (guitar), James 'Munk' (guitar), and David (drums).

Be sure to eat your vegatables, son.

Pit: Tell me about the bagpipes - how did you come up with that? Are you of Scottish descent?

Jonathan: I went to a high school that had a pipe band. I started taking lessons at school; then I took private lessons and started competing. I always wanted to learn how to play that instrument, but I never thought I'd play it in a band. Then we wrote this song and thought we'd try it; it just worked.

Pit: How did the band come into being?

Jon: Munk, Fieldy and David had been playing in a band for like the last ten years, and then Brian got in the band. The singer didn't work out. They saw me in Bakersfield, where we all grew up, and asked me to try out. We just clicked. We wrote three songs our first practice. That's how Korn started; two months later we were signed. And here we are.

Pit: You're from Bakersfield, California. What kind of childhood did you have?

Jon: The normal hell-childhood. It's like out of a Stephen King novel - it's crazy. Nothing to do... Only thing I did was study music, because my dad owned a music store. So I took a lot of lessons. Eventually I learned to play a lot of things.

Pit: You're very impassioned when you're on stage. How do you feel when you're playing live?

Jon: I don't really know; I just get in a state. I don't know what I do. I get to a point where I feel everything - all the pain that I feel inside, all the passion for my songs. I can't remember anything after; I just go for it. The band tells me what's going on after. Haven't you ever gotten that freaked out?

Pit: I have, but not on a regular basis.

Jon: Well, that happens to me every time. There were a couple of shows where I snapped out of it, and I just hated the shows. Things went wrong.

Pit: What do you expect to see in the crowd?

Jon: I usually just see lots of kids going crazy - jumping around in pits. I expect to see the kids having fun.

Pit: Is there a message in your music?

Jon: I guess the only one is to be honest with yourself. I'm tired of seeing hardcore kids acting like they're so tough, so hard, so bad, but they actually have feelings. It's hardest to be yourself. If you've got to be a fake, then who are you trying to fool? I have a lot of problems with all the testosterone.

Pit: Is it hard for you to be honest with yourself?

Jon: It was for a while, but it's not anymore. Now that I have my music I can get all this out. It's like therapy for me.

Pit: You're album has gotten a lot of critical acclaim. How does this affect you?

Jon: I think it's great. I never dreamed it would be like this, but getting good reviews makes it worth it. I had no idea that people would relate to me so much.

Pit: What do you think makes your music different?

Jon: Maybe it's our grooves. That's a good question.

Pit: What do you see as the world's biggest problem right now?

Jon: Us, I guess. The people. The politics. Stuff I don't care to talk about. I hate politics. Everyone should just kill politicians. America is a huge business; they do fucked up shit to us.

#korn #korn band #jd #jonathan davis #interviews & articles #self titled era

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project-sekai-facts · 4 months ago

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is it me or does prsk not really cater towards hardcore yuribait or yaoibait as much even when given the opportunity especially compared to other gacha games, like even the wedding events neither of them was focused on a popular pairing or even just in general with the stories (except for minoharu and vbs i guess?)

Yuribait and yaoibait are strong words that aren't exactly right to describe project sekai. They're just alternative ways of saying queerbait, which implies a marketing strategy of attracting a queer audience by falsely promising representation. While they didn't advertise queer representation, spn and sherlock were accused of this due to the way they wrote their leads (i guess spn did become genuine rep. Ish). Proseka isn't that, neither are similar franchises, like bandori or love live for example. Even if they rarely say things outright, which admittedly is in part because of corporate greed and appeasing fans, I wouldn't say it's queerbaiting, especially for this game and the two I've outlined (well LL has a complicated history but this isn't the time or place). The whole idea of falsely promising queer rep or marketing off it doesn't really happen here, especially in project sekai it feels very genuine and clear even if not labelled. I put this down to the writers saying on record that they want the characters, and their relationships and issues, to feel realistic and relatable.

To actually answer the question now my little media ramble is over, yeah it does feel less compared to other games, especially bandori which gives content to multiple pairings for the same characters. Like don't get me wrong prsk has quite a lot of ship tease when you really get down to it and track through all the stories, but it definitely feels limited to only a handful of pairings. While prsk does give moments for multiple pairings for the same character sometimes it's just... less ig. Again i think it's just to do with the intentionally realistic way of portraying the relationships, so imo it makes sense that they only pick a hanful to give much more obvious or outright romantic subtext to (aka mmj/vbs), even if they still give little moments here and there for other pairings for those characters, as well as giving less-fleshed out or explicitly romantic shiptease for other pairings that don't include those characters (does this make sense? it's hard to talk about shiptease in the game without explicitly talking about shipping. oh well...).

(Also as an aside: mmj is also a bit of a genre thing, and a lot of a Love Live thing. I'm not reaching by saying that either, it showed up on the results to a survey about media the staff at colopale like. mmj does take a few cues from LL here and there, (rooftop practice, genki orange leader, the white feather, airis character design and voice actress) so this is probably one of them)

Even though the wedding events don't usually focus on a ship (aside from the Honami/Kanade one (for context it's honami's most popular ship at least on pixiv, although it's still on the rarer side of things, and it's not that popular in terms of Kanade pairings)), they have always featured popular ships on the card lineups, aside from the most recent one. the first one had cards for the two most popular Akito pairings, and the second one had An/Kohane and Shizuku/Airi. The second one is particularly notable since the event didn't go lightly on the ship tease at all in some parts, though it makes sense since both pairings have romantic text and/or subtext in the story. Even the first wedding event had a tiny bit in one of the card stories, and this year's one managed to squeeze in a scene where Minori imagines Haruka getting married (presumably to her).

We also had the buddy funny spend time event back in 2021, which was explicitly a double date event featuring an/kohane and minori/haruka (again two pairs with romantic text), and we've had other events that follow a sort of similar concept of two popular pairings doing something together, without the double date thing attached, but you can tell what they were thinking lol. I don't really wanna elaborate on that bc I don't wanna start a whole thing but if you look through the event list you can probably work it out.

But then again, this is the Hatsune Miku friendship game. Friendship and community are two of the core themes of the game, which again explains why it might feel like there's less romantic teasing and such compared to other games. Because there is. The events and other stories prioritise writing the platonic relationships over giving ship tease. There's definitely events that you can come out of with little to no moments for the ships you like. This isn't saying that other idol games don't focus on the friendship by the way, I'm just saying prsk has much stronger and consistent themes. From an objective perspective it has the best writing of the major idol games on the market (maybe, idk what's going on in bandori nowadays I've heard MyGO and Avemuji are really good).

Yeah it's the hatsune miku friendship game which prioritises realistic characters and relationships that's about the best way I can put it.

(aside #2: back to the idea of queer content, while they don't write the game, sega is pro-lgbt and is a sponsor of tokyo pride, and offer protections for queer staff. Other sega franchises like Yakuza and Sonic have queer characters! And mizuki is about 5 events away from coming out as trans unless they fumble super badly. So it's a nonzero chance that prsk can and will include textual queer rep in future (i mean they already have lol). It genuinely is down to the realism other fan appeal. Again this isn't to hate on other franchises I'm a huge fan of LL and a casual bandori enjoyer, prsk is just Like This)

#this is very rambly and i only came back to answer this because it's relevant to whatever discourse prsktwt has been having #for the last week or so LMFAO. hope this makes sense because i REALLY didn't want to name anything at all #ik i did but i tried to keep it to an absolute minimum #asks #mod talks

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minamorsart · 8 months ago

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What , And how did you start pairing lotura, And Plance .?

Ooooh boy am I excited to answer this!!! This is going to be a long answer, hope you don't mind! Because I have some specific memories about these two ships, particularly lotura, that I would absolutely love to share with you!

Prepare for a long read! Hehe

Starting with lotura, when season 3 came out and Lotor made his debut, of course I was all 👀👀👀 Because that day something awoke in 19 year old me that I didn't realize could ever be awoken lol. And I wish I could remember exactly what my reaction was to his cat-and-mouse chase with Allura in the episode "The Hunted", but at the time I must not have considered the idea of them ever going in the direction of a romance. Looking back now though, how could I have been so blind??! That chase scene is HOT. I mean just look at them!!! Look at Lotor especially woah mama 😳

Season 4 was mediocre to me at the time, I will confess, for a lot of different reasons. But then season 5, man... SEASON 5!!!! I remember it was March 3rd, 2018. I wasn't keeping up with the show anymore, but I just so happened to see an article online that said season 5 had been released the day before on Netflix. I told my sister and we decided, "eh, let's watch at least the first episode."

And we watched the first episode, alright. And then another, and then another and another until we watched all six episodes in one sitting. We were both blown away! Lotor... Allura... together???? 😲

Their adventures, their chemistry, their clear attraction to one another... I was OBSESSED!!! I shipped them hardcore after that. They were and are still my #1 OTP, and it's because of them that I really tried to work hard and improve my art! I wanted to draw them all the time, making mini comics and AUs, and while their tragic ending actually left me in tears and I was upset for a really long time, I can now say that I have been able to heal and move on from it--eh, mostly anyway, haha.

It still hurts, but 5 years later I feel that I've matured and come to a greater understanding and acceptance. I have come to really appreciate how perfect they are for each other, both aesthetically of course (cuz lookit that sexual dimorphism babeyyy) as well as the many, many things they have in common. I have also come to appreciate their flaws, their imperfections, and the mistakes they made regarding each other and their relationship. They may have gotten a sad ending, but they were still truly equals in every way. It's just beautiful, and my love for them now is stronger than ever :')

For Lance and Pidge on the other hand, it's not quite as clear as when I started shipping them! I remember rolling my eyes at Lance and Allura's first meeting, like "okay Lance is one of THESE guys, here we go 🙄"

Other than that I didn't really ship Lance or Pidge with anyone! If I'm recalling correctly, I don't think it wasn't until after season 6 that I started shipping them together. I remember reading metas and analyses of their relationship that people were making in anticipation for season 7's release, and the more I thought about it, the more I started to really like the idea of Lance and Pidge getting together! And there are definitely subtle hints throughout the earlier seasons of Pidge's feelings for Lance, as well as their fun chemistry with one another, like the episode "Space Mall"!

The hints are not so subtle to me now, but back then it wasn't until I watched season 7 that I actually became hopeful that they could be a couple! I especially loved the moments when Pidge indirectly called Lance "cute, in a creepy, hideous sort of way" lol, and when Lance become very protective over Pidge in such a way that I don't think we ever saw him react before! I was honestly taken aback by that moment!

And again, their ending was definitely less than satisfactory, particularly Lance's ending (still hate it with a passion), but just like with Lotura's relationship, I have also come to appreciate many things about Plance's relationship today. While Lotor and Allura have so much in common and are able to reach an understanding with each other that they can't with anyone else, it would seem at first that Pidge and Lance are far too different to be compatible. And it is true that they are very different, but for one, that can be a good thing! The foundations of some relationships are built off of their differences. It can make someone more compassionate and more open-minded when they have a willingness to accept and appreciate the differences they have with their partner, and a willingness to take a genuine interest in the things that their partner is passionate about, even if they don't completely understand.

And two, at the same time, Pidge and Lance DO have things in common! They both love their families, both have a stronger connection to Earth compared to the other paladins, and they are able to bond with one another over fun pastimes such as video games! How cute is that??!

And just like with Lotor and Allura, I also love Pidge and Lance for their flaws. It did take me a while to come around to Lance, because while he has his funny moments and one-liners, I also found him very annoying at times lol. But I think the fact that he can be really annoying honestly makes him the most realistic character in Voltron. Not necessarily the most relatable, at least not for me, but definitely the most human! Because there are people in our real lives that we love and cherish deeply, but they absolutely have their moments where you go, "ugh, you're so annoying and it really frustrates me when you act this way" but we still wouldn't trade them for the world 🥰

And just to draw one last comparison between Lotura and Plance, I especially LOVE how incredibly different the two pairings are even from each other! To me, Lotor and Allura are sexy and passionate, while Pidge and Lance are pure and fun! They're all so unique and special in their own ways, and they bring so much to the table, both for their characters and for their relationships.

I can't help but write essays every time I get asks, I'm so sorry lol 😭 There's so much more I could say about these guys, but I think I'd better stop here haha! I had a lot of fun writing about Lotura and Plance, and I hope you had just as much fun reading this! I really love these characters a lot. I'm so incredibly grateful that they exist, even if in the form of fiction, and I'm even MORE grateful that my love for them has continued to grow over the years. Thank you so much for the ask!!!! 💖💜💙💚

Oh and one last thing: we were robbed of a lot of different potential interactions with a lot of different characters, but I have to say it would have been fun to see more of Lotor and Lance interacting with each other! Lance was always acting out due to his jealousy, while Lotor on the other hand mostly just ignored him lol.

#asks #lotura #plance #lotor #allura #vld lance #pidge gunderson #katie holt #voltron #voltron legendary defender #meta #voltron meta

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lemotmo · 15 days ago

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Hi, I need to get something of my chest if I may. If not, feel free to ignore this message. ❤️ I've been so livid and angry about some peoples rasist, sexist and dare I say queerphobic behaviour all because of a fucking FICTIONAL character!! It's been going on for months but this is really the tip of the iceberg, like fuck those hypocritical asslickers and lfj for instigating it, for everything they said. Wanting for Ryan to get deported? Like where to? Texas?? All of a sudden he's not white enough lmao. And everything else they are saying about him and Oliver and Angela Bassett??? I'm not saying lfj didn't get hate but lmao he knew for like two months that he was leaving... Them claiming he's a victim and that he was bullied of the show when he was only a guest star and sorry to say not that great of an actor... I have no sympathy for him and based on all the problematic shit he said, I'm glad we are rid of him and his minions. Good riddance I say, no one is going to miss them! And with the shitstorm they are causing, why would the show want lfj back or any show for that matter??? I wasn't around prior to S7, but I understand what Tim meant about the fandom being worse than ever. I've been in some fandoms where things were tense but nothing like this. Sorry for the rant, it's just so infuriating to see how they behave toward real life people over a bland fictional character. They can like who they want for whatever reason, but imo there here are tons of better gay characters out there and claiming he was some revolutionary representation or whatever tells me all I need to know about them. Sorry again for the rant idk who to talk to about this. Hope you have a nice day! ❤️🙏

Oh Nonny, it's clear you needed to get this off your chest. It's okay. I get it.

You only came in during season 7? You missed such a great period before that. I'm not saying everything was alway perfect and there definitely was fandom discourse. That's unavoidable. But it was discourse on another level. Nowhere near the level we reached over the last couple of months.

But as soon as the Tommies appeared things changed considerably. We were all harassed, accused of terrible things and called 'delusional' for shipping Buddie, a ship that had been around since season 2.

We went from a relative peaceful fandom to a toxic fandom in one single episode. I got called homophobic for not really vibing with Tommy two days after the episode had aired. It was the beginning of a long and very exhausting journey for all of us.

Tommy/Lou and his unhinged fans are the worst thing that has ever happened to the 911 fandom.

But what is done is done. We can't go back. We can only move forward from here. And the future seems so much brighter. No more Tommy and after the way Lou egged his fans on to attack the show and Oliver? Well, we won't ever see him back at ABC. 😏

So let it all out Nonny and then move on. We're in the thick of things right now, but it will all soon pass. As soon as the fandom moves on to the new episode, the Tommies will scatter and probably follow Lou to SWAT. Some hardcore Tommies will stick around, but if we all collectively ignore them, they'll eventually go away as well.

I hope you have a lovely day Nonny!

#anti Tommies #anti Tommy fandom #L complaints #Things will get better!#They always do!#nonnies galore

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bones4thecats · 11 months ago

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Okay if it's okay can I please ask for Yui and Poseidon but how would Yui react to Poseidon asking Yui for kianna's hand in marriage

And the rest is up to you

Also this is where kianna in a romantic relationship with Poseidon

Type of Writing: Request Characters: Poseidon Name: Poseidon Asking Yui for Permission To Wed Reader Requester: @nunezs-stuff

A/N: This was a very cute request! I have to admit, this was one of my favorite Poseidon pieces. Now, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day/night, lil bubbles🫧

✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋆⋄✧⋄⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅

🔱 Poseidon, the Tyrant of the Seas, and one of the Four Brothers of Olympus. He was someone that everyone feared, and you did to, long ago, that is

🔱 He did not like any other species besides the Gods, and he didn't like most of them, but you were different than the rest for some odd reason, one that not even Hades could figure out

🔱 The God of the Sea would watch you work in his castle with your sister as the newest nymphs, since one of his higher-ranked ones decided to save you both by sacrificing some of her blood to do so

🔱 Poseidon would observe everything you did, and his normal hardcore and dead stare would change slightly into a warmer one

🔱 You fit it very well among your new species and family, so much so that many different nymphs from other Gods' homes, such as Apollo's, would speak of you as if you were their sister

🔱 He had to listen to Zeus' constant rants on how amazing you were, and when Adamas and Hades began to join in, Poseidon had to figure out what they were speaking of

🔱 That was the start to your whole relationship!

🔱 Fast forward many years later, you and Yui were living very high lives in the same palace that Poseidon resided in as his most high-ranking assistants

🔱 Yui was usually a very weary girl to be around, and Poseidon knew that, so whenever he needed to speak with her, he would let his trident rest in his room or somewhere away from his reach so she would feel at ease

🔱 That was what he had to do today, and today, their conversation was going to go far past the usual professionalism they usually carried

🔱 She knew how much Poseidon dislikes showing emotions, and most of the information on his feelings came from you

🔱 But, seeing him look at her in the eyes for the first time ever, she payed the most attention to his words, since showing disrespect may result in something horrid

🔱 Poseidon reached into his pocket and held out a small box and opened it, making her eyes widen

" Are you going to- " " I would like your permission in finalizing my relationship with your sibling, Y/N Komori. And, since they do not seem to like your father, your permission is the only one that truly matters here. "

🔱 Yui smiled and chuckled, making Poseidon cock and eyebrow at her reaction. He expected her to be serious, this was her sibling's heart she was lying in his hands, after all!

🔱 She nodded, gifting him her permission, which made him nod and thank her before making his way out of her room

" I wish you luck with her, Lord Poseidon! "

🔱 He turned around and gave her the sight of his rare smile and nodded, saying;

" We are to be family, Yui. You may call me Poseidon. " " How about brother? " " Don't push it. "

#Record of Ragnarok #RoR #Shuumatsu no Valkyrie #SnV #RoR Greek Pantheon #Record of Ragnarok Gods #RoR Gods #Record of Ragnarok x Reader #RoR x Reader #Shuumatsu no Valkyrie x Reader #SnV x Reader #RoR Greek Pantheon x Reader #Record of Ragnarok Gods x Reader #RoR Gods x Reader #S/O! Reader #GN! Reader #RoR Poseidon #RoR Poseidon x Reader

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34saveme34 · 9 months ago

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SMG3's search history - what could it be???

my mind isn't the best rn (I'm sick) but this once again on my mind

And I think it's a bit trickier than we think but I'll try my best to list the possibilities

some important things to note about his search history:

Luigi liked whatever he was looking at

4 understood it faster than Mario. note the "What, I don't get it-"

emotional reactions 3 tends to have certain things (will get into it more)

the fact that he only really acknowledged 4 when he went back with the memory wiper

Mario commenting "what the hell was that search history" I hate you, Mario, you could've said something more interesting about it, that could give something away off of it.

So yeah, these were the things I wanted to point out

since Luigi liked whatever he was looking at, and we know this man likes men the most, especially big men, I think we can easily assume it was something gay. I'm sorry Jenny SlipperyT truthers, besides not like there isn't any gay mc porn so, still a chance

HOWEVER

something really important I want to point right back at "What, I don't get it-" Mario's comment is very specific here. If it was like raunchy ass hardcore gay porn, he wouldn't say that. He would've screamed immediately, being freaked out. So it's something REALLY weird that isn't immediately obvious. However 4 and Meggy knew way faster which gives away that maybe whatever 3 was looking at they were more familiar with.

Now, there's quite a few things that people in this show we've seen freaking out over. One being especially true is fanfiction, but

and here comes in my 3's preference thing- he didn't seem to like that stuff either, not even for a single second

However may I present to you..... something that might blow your mind...... something you maybe didn't think of

THIS episode

and actually the part that the thumbnail shows

when they are looking at the cakes

you might be like "But, dude, he is also flabbergasted about it?"

Really?

this ALWAYS struck me as odd

right after seeing that stuff, Mario is understandably under trauma while 3 immediately goes into planning to make cakes like that of himself

and Mario's reaction makes it feel like 3 wants to make them like the last ones, like yes you can interpret it in a different way, but my way of seeing it is also just as valid

aka the idea that 3 likes some weird ass shit, perhaps sometimes things that might not come off as sexual at first, or even cursed in some sense.

Now... the point you are waiting for me to address. The fact that he only really focused on 4. That gives me gay vibes, Idk how else to look at it. The idea that he was mainly scared of 4 seeing his search history doesn't help either. It only makes him look more gay. Like Mario and Meggy were literally right there, he could've said "Hi guys" he didn't have any noticable reason to only address 4. So what makes sense? That his search query had to do with 4 in some way. No other way to go about it. There's a thin sliver of chance that he only addressed 4 because he did search this weird shit on his computer and not anyone else's. But I don't think that's enough ground to make it more valid than it being connected to 4. Like, this reminds me of someone denying 4's queerness saying that the line "what will you do when you bring over a girl and/or boy?" as boy relates to the homies in a platonic way, as if, dude, keep being homophobic.

so what do we know?

it's gay

it isn't immediately noticable that it might be sexual in nature

it connects to 4 heavily

Now I present to you...... The combination of wonderbread and smg4

the wonderbread kind of fetish thing when you don't immediately realise there's a fetish going on, which fits well with 3's rather interesting taste

which might for example suggest perhaps characters that look similar to 4 in specific situation, it can go many ways but it has to be gay, considering Luigi's reaction, canonically said he is scared of women (in SMG4's search history)!

so yes what I'm saying is that 3 has some sort of weird fetish regarding 4 that definitely looks gay, he would definitely want to hide something like with his life after all

Although I still find it weird how comfortable 3 was to search that stuff at 4's computer

also might I point to also the fact he APPARENTLY has his credit card linked to 4's pc as well, as revealed during the 2023 wotfi prep stream??? he is AWFULLY comfortable at 4's pc

I don't know why he would that, like... he isn't actually stupid, were his feelings making him this stupid? Was he getting some kind of sick pleasure out of doing it at 4's room? We may never know, considering how stubborn 3 is and also a big damn liar

#smg34 #smg4 #smg3 #Nicc-thinks #this is. still one of my favourite posts #suggestive

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inhuman-obey-me · 1 year ago

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First of all, love your analysis!! They are legit my favourites <3 second, do you think the brothers have had past relationships before MC? Were they intimate or just some fwb kind of thing? Do you think that some nobles try to get with one of the brothers? Sorry if I sound nosy!! Just wanna know your guys opinions cause you guys always have the best answers! >:D (ps. you guys are my favourite obey me blog hehe)

Ahhhh thank you, you're so sweet!! Σ(O///O) (,,>﹏<,,) Apologies for the delay in answering this!

As far as past relationships before MC go, yes we think there probably have been some. It is a dating sim, so of course they want to make it that MC is ✨special✨ for them, but let's think realistically about it. They've all lived an incredibly long time before MC!

We certainly do know that nobles and others are interested in them. Barbatos mentions that all of them have fan clubs, and there's even a memory UR card titled "Popular with the Ladies" after all! And Great Witch Maddi is infamously aggressive for trying to get with some of them, including frustrating the hell out of Satan and Lucifer -- as well as a rather dark implication about what she might have done to Mammon once.

As to the particular nature of their past relationships, though, it probably varies a lot from brother to brother!

Lucifer doesn't do anything half-assed, and he's way too prideful for anything that could damage his or his family's reputation. He might go on a few dates for political reasons, but he thinks of those as work, not romance. If he actually gets into a relationship, it's serious. That said, he's such a workaholic that past relationships are probably pretty few and far in between except with Diavolo.

Mammon is the type to hook up intending it to be a casual one-night stand, and end up in love before he knows what's happened. He falls in love fast, and though the relationships may have burned up just as quickly, he really loved them -- even if he might never admit it.

Leviathan prides himself on being a hardcore shut-in, so his relationship history is probably mainly littered with online relationships with fellow gamers. He may have been too shy to actually ever meet up with any of them, or maybe not.

Satan has a lot of acquaintances and is generally well-liked within the Devildom, so he's undoubtedly had his share of admirers. And he's always trying to expand his horizons by trying new things, to get away from being "only wrath." So yeah, he's probably tried dating casually, maybe had some that were considered more serious, but didn't really have that full-blown understanding of love until MC came along.

Asmodeus is, well....let's just be realistic here. He's the Avatar of Lust. We saw the brothers giving him shit for hitting on everyone even when he was an angel, so of course he's probably hooked up with tons of people before MC. But the whole reason MC has been so special to him is because they're the first one that he feels like really loves him for more than just his beauty, so they're the first serious relationship for him.

Beelzebub is one of the "popular with the ladies" guys, but it just isn't really a priority for him. Still, he's not one to say no if someone invites him out for a meal, so he's definitely gone out on dates from time to time, even if some of them may have been accidental. But it seems MC is really the first to be equally important to him as his family, so any past relationships probably weren't nearly as serious.

Belphegor isn't a total shut-in like Levi, but frankly he just doesn't care a whole lot about anybody outside of his family. So he might have had casual flings with those who showed interest, but he likely would have hit a point where he would have decided it's not worth the effort.

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ladyluscinia · 1 year ago

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I think they were so worried about not getting a season 3 they ruined both the viewers expecting one and the viewers who would've liked it to end there. they've created an easily destroyable status quo because of course something needs to happen to get everyone back together for season 3. so it's not even a happy ending; it's so fragile, it's designed to fall apart the second that anyone learns that the show is back on. i get not wanting to bank on having a third season and wrapping it up but like. Galavant did that and did it better. WITH THE HEROES RETIRING AND THE TWO MINUTE MARRIAGE CEREMONY TO BOOT. But it gave an outline of where the plot might go from there and how the adventure will continue if it gets to. And it never got to, and season 2's ending is good because it's not /fragile/--it's not a cliffhanger, but you get the idea that they could keep going from there still. whereas this one didn't want to be a cliffhanger so much that they created the most breakable new status quo in history and if there is a season 3 it'll immediately be undone and I'll probably still watch it but like I'll /know/, y'know? They could fix everything in the first episode of season 3 and I'd still have to know that at one point, this was considered an acceptable outcome.

The thing that is driving me absolutely insane is they DID NOT HAVE TO DO THIS!

There's so many people looking at it like "well it's a shame that 2x08 clearly had to cram several episodes into one for budget reasons and it made the development weaker but that's the situation MAX put them in" and I cannot emphasize enough how much that is not true.

MAX did not break it to them after episodes 2x01 - 2x07 were written and half filmed that they would have to wrap up the whole plot in 30 minutes. Like absolute worst case scenario they had 10 eps mostly written and budget came back 20% over and they had to reduce to 8 total. More likely they knew they were getting 8 from the start.

It is absolutely nobody's fuck up except David Jenkins and his writers' room if they were unrealistic about what character beats were needed and would fit in the timeframe to reach a satisfying wrap up.

Worries about no S3 were on the table the moment it took until JUNE to get confirmation of S2. This wasn't sprung on them. If they wanted their story to have a "just in case" happy ending and then a "fully realized arc" happy ending, they should have fucking acted like it???

I was shocked when the first three episodes that dropped were so hardcore on destroying Edward's relationships and laying bare exactly how deep his issues went. It only made sense to me if they were going all in on getting a S3 and prepared to spend all of S2 focused on the implications of all that, and then the not-even two week in-universe timeline of the season reinforced my understanding that was happening.

"Shame we don't have time for our main couple to even start addressing their relationship or having moments of self-realization and sharing their issues," says guy who decided to make the first half of S2 about adding more problems on top of well established ones from S1 and the second half of S2 about throwing in a second breakup cycle instead of dealing with the fallout from the first.

Want Edward to end on a beat of feeling part of the found family? Well maybe adding a timeskip after 2x05 and then a crew chat in 2x06 where you make it clear he did an apology tour offscreen could help, but you also could have just not focused hard on him poisoning his relationship with every single one of them in the first place???

There's multiple different ways you can do Act 2 of a three act structure, and they did not have to choose one that ends on another dark cliffhanger beat or right at the open ended turning point toward growth? Like they didn't even do the one they picked in a way they could fit in their season. I feel like by the end of a struggles Act 2 both your protagonists need to have self-realized their issues and maybe had one conversation about it? Edward still wasn't talking about his guilt, and Stede wasn't talking about anything.

They aren't even at the turning point of growth and out of the backsliding / lessons learned era yet, that's why potential S3 will start on another backslide when status quo breaks and Stede starts "that's nice, dear"-ing Edward during the day and slipping out at night to vicariously listen to pirate stories or whatever (and they frame it like he's cheating).

We have two out of three seasons in a show that might only get two, and I feel like the characters have barely moved from their starting position.

Like idk maybe they are really good at coming up with character flaws - ex: Stede is repressed and bottles up his traumas until he mentally checks out / runs away - and just drawing blanks on how to believably "fix" them, but just going "well what if we just used this flaw to throw another miscommunication roadblock in their relationship?" is not getting them where they want to be.

The season was fundamentally designed against their stated goal and did not make what seem to be necessary writing concessions to the reduced screentime if they wanted their finale to land as an even plausibly happy ending. It's hollow.

And possibly not even salvageable in S3 since they aren't demonstrating the skills to salvage it.

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd 2x08 #david jenkins #ask #ladyluscinia #ofmd meta #ofmd critical

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buginateacup · 9 months ago

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Thoughts on the new Megamind movie and series

Hello friends it is Bug review time!

I have watched the new movie and show all of one time each. I'm gonna talk about what I liked, what I disliked and some thoughts on the new characters and places where there are cracks in the story to drive a roadtrain worth of fanfic through

A disclaimer before we begin, I am thirty or forty years old and I am not the target audience for this shit. I love Megamind and am a hardcore Megarox shipper and also a world building focused fiend. The original definitely had a broader age bracket appeal but this is a show aimed at something like 6-12 year olds. Therefore for better or worse they had to simplify and audience surrogate the shit out of a lot of this.

Megamind vs the Doom Syndicate

To be honest I think you could skip this and go into the new series cold. It's not a movie its a movie length pilot. It was fine and it definitely smacked of Studio Interference going "But you have to explain and set everything up!" (spoilers you don't). The Doom Syndicate is fun if very kid friendly and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them. Behemoth and Knighty Knight are my pals and Pierre Pressure and Lady Doppler are my catty bitches.

The dialogue was good but the pacing felt lopsided. It really felt like they were retreading things that happened in the original movie, especially Minion's entire arc which he just went through two days ago? They did a good job with it but still!

Stuff I loved

FAKE EVIL DATING - I wish they'd shown them actually having to pretend to evil date. But of all the things I thought I was going to get it certainly wasn't that! (So much fanfic y'all. So Much Fanfic).

All of the Doom Syndicate calling out that Megamind and Roxanne obviously have A Thing and neither of them dealing with it well.

Roxanne just casually hanging out in the Lair and also taking charge. that's my girl! Also she's a complete morosexual and she and Megamind deserve each other.

Mayor Roxanne. I didn't adore HOW they did it, I think you could tease a whole season (or an exceptional fanfic) out of Roxanne finding herself not only bored of her job but dealing with the trauma of "Every time I look at the camera I see Hal beyond it and maybe I have some issues with that" and wanting to make changes.

Megamind's Bedroom! There was a sound like a million fanfic writers crying out in glee.

Minion and Roxanne being bros!

Minion out of his suit! It was creepy yet adorable!

The Mayor being useless. When you are used to having a hero who solves every problem, why wouldn't you have a useless Mayor? (I like that he comes back in the show)

The Doom Syndicate in general. They had a good range of designs and were at their most fun when bickering together.

Mr Cuddly Snuggles.

Stuff I didn't love

It felt like a retread of a lot of things that happened in the original movie. Which it has been 14 years so fair, but also if you're going to set something two days after the events of the movie, why make it a photocopy of the original?

Everything that Keiko was doing in the movie that could or would have been done by Roxanne if we were still going via the original characterisation (Roxanne broke into an entire villain's lair right after Megamind took over the city but Keiko's the one with the bat???).

Megamind just spent a whole movie going on about how he didn't share the spotlight and it caused a rift with his oldest friend (again) but sure, we couldn't do this without you small child we just met an hour ago. Its pure audience surrogate and YoU CAn'T bE mEaN to CHiLdrEn! but it makes the pacing feel even more lopsided that this can be so rushed when the whole Minion thing (and not even touching on the whole Bernard issue) got all the attenion and sure we'll just shove this in as well.

(This is the part where I admit parentification of characters is a MASSIVE squick for me and anytime I read about people wanting to make Megamind and Roxanne Keiko's new parents it makes me want to throw up in my mouth.)

Also Exposition voicing the "I was bad but you showed me I didn't have to be" is sooooo not for me. One thing the original movie was extremely clever about was showing how privilege and wealth played a part in Megamind and Metro Man's eventual roles. Megamind wasn't just a bad guy, he was raised in a prison, totally othered, looked different to everyone else on the planet and sent to the naughty corner even when he tried to do things right. While Metro Man was a white western male fantasy who landed in the lap of luxury and even his bunker is a monument to himself.

This was totally discarded for the new movie and I think its the poorer for it, simply because it was such a SMART and SUBTLE thing that is actually relevant.

Again, for kids. Not aimed at me. But I still think it does a disservice to kids not addressing that whole very important aspect.

End result: It's been 14 years since we got any content and I will take it for what it is, a movie length pilot of Baby's First Megamind for a superior tv show. An opportunity for a thousand gifsets and Roxanne running somebody over with a firetruck. If you're watching to get something out of it you probably will. I will be writing 12394393487 fanfics about Megamind and Roxanne actually having to prove they are dating to the Doom Syndicate.

Megamind Rules

Definitely better quality than the movie (I'm not going to talk about the animation etc because frankly the answer should always be pay your animators better and give them more time).

LOVED Megamind just breaking into Roxanne's office. Nice to seee some things never change. LOVED the Bodyswap episode (again, so much fanfic). LOVE LOVE LOVED Megamind and Roxanne laying on the kitchen floor together. We did not get enough scenes of them alone together.

LOVED Christina Christo, tired adults just trying to get their jobs done is my JAM and CREAM and SCONES and I love her (also why I loved Roxanne in the original). Loved her and Minion hanging out in episode 5. They need to be buddies more.

LOVED Roxanne wanting metal tickets for Megamind, everything about them having a shared history and interests filled my heart with glee.

LOVED the shot of Roxanne aiming the degun, Mucho sexy.

Loved Roxanne and Lady Doppler havign a history. How come we got more about tha than we did Megamind and Roxanne?

LOVED Megamind and Roxanne bonding over old kidnappings.

Ep 3 was heaps of fun. Doctor Doughnut was silly yet joyful. and I appreciate the Go Fish gang appreciation of his evil laugh.

The move from news reporting to streaming is actually a reasonable thing to happen, but I wish they'd delved into it better from Roxanne's side of what the shift away from traditional reporting and media meant for her. Social media and news have changed A LOT since the original movie. Again its one of those rich seams that fanfic exists to delve into.

LOVED the cockroach episode, but a missed opportunity for YOU RAISED A CHILD (TWO CHILDREN!) IN JAIL HOW ABOUT WE EXPLORE THAT A LITTLE MAYBE??

I guess we just...have a giant Minion in the lake now?

LOVED the Doom Syndicate just hanging out. Lady Doppler is me, sitting on a bench drinking tea.

The cliffhanger is a cliffhanger because they wanted a cliffhanger. But so help me if Roxanne isn't working from the inside in the next 8 episodes I will riot.

Characters

Megamind. Learning to be a person is right. Every time he got to be one on one with another character he became more himself. Every time he was one on one with Roxanne I was riveted.

Roxanne. My girl! They sidelined the shit out of her in this series! Sure she went off and got herself top job (Megamind and Minion calling her "Your majesty" was for me specifically) but so much of what made her a fun character in the movie (complete lack of fear in the face of villainy, her banter with Megamind, her willingness to just break into a villain's secret lair to find shit out got pushed onto Keiko and it left Roxanne with nothing to do. I don't know what they're planning for the future but I could see Christina taking over as Mayor eventually and Roxanne joining the crime fighting crew.

I HATED every time they called her Roxie, that was set up as an unwelcome nickname in the movie so I don't know why they backflipped on it here. HOWEVER I am prepared to accept it on the basis it made Megamind saying "Roxanne" in episode 8 that much more impactful (though they still could have used Miss Ritchi).

Keiko. I love Keiko as a character? But I hate her role in the show. She's the audience surrogate and the "Kid Relatable" for the kids to latch onto and they had her Exposition Voice in the DS movie what was actually much more cleverly crafted and characterised in the original movie. As a person she's cool and I like having her in the show I just wish it wasn't at the expense of Roxanne. They could have kept her as streaming socials girl and still left the investigation/danger to Roxanne and it would also have meant more time to explore what the Megarox relationship could be building towards/developing from.

I cringed all the way through Keiko dealing with the Doom Syndicate because it was telegraphed from a mile away such a tropey Kid Approved plot. I LOATHE making the tension about characters who have fucked up needing to admit they fucked up when its way more impactful to have them fess up immediately and put all the tension into how to solve the problem.

Machiavillain. He looks like a cunty Barbie villain and I love that for him. I assume we have to be getting the other 8 episodes at SOME point because otherwise that's a lot of Adam Lambert for not a lot of payoff.

Minion/Chum. ALSO learning to be a person and I have always had a soft spot for him. Showing that he has about as much sense as Megamind is a delight.

Christina Christo. I love her and I love that she and Megamind are constantly arguing for Roxanne's affection. Probably my favourite new addition.

End result: It's very Studio Approved For Kids! Enjoyed the show a lot more than the movie length pilot. Needs more Roxanne. Needs 10000 more game nights with Minion's electroshock orgasm ball.

Megamind was and is a PARODY of the superhero genre, break more rules! Don't just plod through the studio approved plot points! Having the original movie be all adults was actually really refreshing because you could get a lot more out of subtle shit without having to spell it out. One of my biggest peeves and the cause of a lot of fanfic is why is shoving Megamind into the hero role any better than shoving him into the villain role? Let him go be a mad inventor without having to save the city! Let him be a crime fighting villain!

And finally, so help me if Roxanne isn't front and centre beside Megamind where she belongs in the next season I will start biting.

FUTURE FANFIC I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO READING/WRITING

All of the evil fake dating. Make them have to fooool the Doom Syndicate. Make Roxanne need to stay over. make it only one bed. Make kisses with Megamind where they haven't even talked about the Bernard thing yet and they are both so messed up about it. (Fun fact! I wrote a fic with this premise way back before the show was even announced.

We're still fooling the Doom Syndicate and oh no they want to help plan the wedding.

We're still fooling the Doom Syndicate and oh no now we're actually getting married.

Roxanne actually dealing with her issues after the movie and why and how she goes into campaigning for Mayor.

Megamind and Roxanne breaking in the mayoral office (obviously).

Filthy sexy bodyswap shenanigans

How did Roxanne figure out Megamind's ticklish spots?

10 thousand character driven Roxanne hanging in the Lair moments

10 thousand Megamind hanging on the couch in Roxanne's office moments

A highly charged Roxanne and Lady Doppler bitter evil exes interaction (just for you @ejga-ostja)

Doom Syndicate shared public workspace office. Or just some random person going in to use the printer and constantly getting dragged into lackeying for them.

Metro City Meme War

An actual introspection on the move away from traditional news media and how it impacts Roxanne's decision to seek a new career.

Christina and Roxanne eat doughnuts and bitch about municipal planning

A Christina POV watching Megamind and Roxanne flirt/have awkward moments/dance around the Thing via a crack in the office door

A Christina and some other person in city hall epsitolary fic told via emails reporting on Megarox developments to the person running the pool and slowly getting more invested in these morosexuals getting together.

Megamind coming to find Roxanne for game night and finding her sacked out on the couch because being Mayor is HARD and napping on the floor beside her because being a hero is hard too

An absolute fuckton of hypnosis kink

Roxanne using her mayoral powers to address the fact that Megamind and Minion were raised in a prison and NOT ON MY WATCH THERE WILL BE REPERCUSSIONS AND WE ARE GONNA ADDRESS SOME SHIT

#Megamind #Megamind rules #megamind vs the doom syndicate #bug thoughts #someone save my girl she doesn't deserve to be sidelined for a kid character #Keiko is fine she is just IN THE WAY #shoo child the adults need to have nasty sex on the control desk

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le-fruit-de-la-passion · 5 months ago

Text

Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

#AHHHH FINALLY I'VE UPDATED THIS #thank you to all the lovelies who left comments on this both here and on Ao3!!!#shigaraki x reader #mha shigaraki #bnha shigaraki #my hero academia x reader

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multi-fandomlovers-world · 1 year ago

Text

141+ Colonel Konig With An S/O That Works IT In Marine Corps

TW: Fluff, Sfw

Not my gifs--------All supported by Tumblr

Requested By: Anon

N/A: I had no idea how to write this but I really tried my best. I hope it doesn't suck lol

Reblogs And Comments Are Highly Appreciated!! :)

Simon "Ghost" Riley:

Ghost knew from your file and when you told him, he wasn't surprised but could see how dedicated you were to your job

He'll just listen to you on what you do

Lowkey, he loves listening to your voice. It's comforting to him

You had an opportunity to show him what you do and he thought he was pretty cool what you do

"You're amazing at this, love"

He'll say as he thinks about going to Price to have you join the team. He believes you'll be great to the team (also because he wants you there and wants to see you 🤭

He might end up just staring at you the whole time

He won't ever ask questions. He just listens to you the whole time, with small "mhm" or "mm" so that you know he's listening (he's honestly more focused on you)

John "Soap" Mactavish:

John didn't know until you told him about your job. He thought it was actually pretty cool what you do

He'll end up asking questions and you tell him without him getting confused

He admires how much you love your job and how well you do

Like Ghost, he also thought about bringing you onto the team. He thought you'd make a great asset to the team (also because he wants to spend time with you)

John ends up getting lost while staring at you (to him, you are gorgeous)

While you're explaining something to him, he cuts you off by kissing you softly. Making you smile into the kiss

"I'm very impressed, Bonnie. You truly are amazing"

Most of the time, he's listening to you but Lowkey, getting distracted looking at you the whole time

John "Captain" Price:

He already knew from reading through your file. He was impressed by your work and how well you managed to get things done quickly

You explained to him a bit more on how everything is handled and how much I

He listens to you the whole time while walking with you

He ended up calling Laswell, telling her that he wanted you on the team because your stats were good and he couldn't pass it up (also he loves you so he wants you around more often)

"You are wonderful at this stuff, love. You don't suppose I could have a talk with your captain or Colonel?"

He does and you end up joining his task force

He kisses you softly and is glad you are on his side

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick:

Gaz knew already (He overheard Price talking about you in his office), he thought it was cool and interesting

He came and asked you questions, like what you do, how things operate, etc

He invested and listened carefully as you explained everything that you do

After explaining, he comes up and kisses you softly as you hold the sides of his cheeks

"You truly are something, aren't you? Thank you for showing me and telling me"

He thinks you'd be great on the team but he understands if you want to stay where you are working.

(let's be honest, he just wants you on base so he has someone to spend time with and love on)

"Colonel" Konig:

Like Price, he already knew your stats and read your file. He thought you'd make an excellent recruit to the team

When he met you, he was a bit stunned but he thought you were so beautiful

He's impressed by your work but he stutters over his words trying to talk to you (he gets nervous but it's ok we understand)

"Maus, I'd take you on my squad any day"

As you were explaining things, he ends up being more distracted by looking at you

He wanted you on his squad so he can spend time with you (also crushing on you hardcore)

He kissed your hand before leaving your work. He's already made up his mind that he wants you by his side and on his team.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously :-)

A/N: Thanks for Reading!!! Feel free to drop any requests

#cod mw2 #mwii #cod mw2 x reader #cod x reader #cod x you #cod x y/n #mw2 imagine #mw2 x reader #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #captain john price #mw2 konig #call of duty modern warfare

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unholyverse · 8 months ago

Text

waterparks // rock sound 25 icon issue

(full text under cut)

ROCK SOUND 25 ICON

WATERPARKS

WATERPARKS HAVE NEVER BEEN A BAND THAT ARE HAPPY TO SIT AROUND AND WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN, RELEASING FIVE STUDIO ALBUMS IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS WHILE CONTINUING TO GROW THEIR INCREASINGLY AMBITIOUS LIVE SHOWS. AS THEY ACCEPT THEIR ROCK SOUND 25 ICON AWARD, FRONTMAN AWSTEN KNIGHT TALKS US THROUGH THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BAND IN HOUSTON, TEXAS AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THE TRIO.

WORDS: JAMES WILSON-TAYLOR PHOTOS: JAWN ROCHA

"NO MATTER WHAT, ALL THOSE ALL THOSE BANDS LIKE GOOD CHARLOTTE, GREEN DAY AND BLINK, THEY'RE STILL GOING TO BE IN THE BONES AND FOUNDATION OF WHAT WE'RE DOING."

Let's start at the beginning - what are your earliest musical memories?

Alright, so you can start the article with this - as I crawled out of my mother, my dad made sure the first song I ever heard was 'Wouldn't It Be Nice? by The Beach Boys. The other day somebody asked me what would be the last song I wanted to hear if I knew I was gonna die. I mean, I have death songs, don't get me wrong. I've got songs that I would choose to die to, some Death Cab and Motion City Soundtrack. But I think because I love bookends and I love like tying things together. I would have to listen to 'Wouldn't It Be Nice?'.

He took you to a lot of The Beach Boys shows when you were growing up too right?

I do remember those. It would always be on the Fourth of July. How were they always in Houston? He'd also be listening to stuff like Van Halen. My mom really liked Prince. My dad didn't like my mom's music; she liked Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan. But I remember watching TV getting dressed in the mornings, VH1 and MTV, and being so afraid of Mudvayne. They would film it at that frame rate that's the same as 28 Days Later and they had the devil makeup on. So I remember music scaring the shit out of me.

Do you remember the bands and music that you first connected with?

I heard 'Fat Lip' by Sum 41 on the radio in fourth grade. We were in my dad's Honda Civic and I was like 'What is this?' Then I saw it on TV later. Then that got me into Green Day, Good Charlotte, Blink-182. It helped that MTV actually played those things so I could find them. So that was the first stuff that I really gravitated towards in fourth, fifth, sixth grade. Then in sixth and seventh grade, that's when I started getting more into what nerds would be mad at me calling emo like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, From First To Last. A few years ago at my parents' house, I found these mix CDs and they had Linkin Park, Chronic Future, that song 'United States Of Whatever', Bowling For Soup. That's when I was buying stuff. Basically once I heard 'Fat Lip', I was just like, 'well, now I'm going to hear all of the songs like this'.

You were lucky to grow up at that time where this kind of music was more easy to discover because it was everywhere in pop culture. That is partly why those bands are still so influential.

I feel like no matter what, all those bands like Good Charlotte, Green Day and Blink, they're still going to be in the bones and foundation of what we're doing. I can still explore as much as I want with production and go do weird shit and try and push things forward as much as possible, because that should be your job as a musician, at least partially. But at the end of the day, the house was still built on that.

As you started playing in bands and playing shows yourself, what did you make of the local scene in Houston?

I started playing shows when I was 13. I've done my 10,000 hours. I remember when I was in seventh and eighth grade; there were some punk bands in the Houston scene that I remember seeing all the fucking time. I still have all these flyers still. But the vast majority, I'd say 85% of the bands, were mainly hardcore. That's mainly what the Houston scene was. So I remember my friends and I would just spend every day at local venues. When you're young, you absorb things better and you learn more. I think that's why when kids start piano when they're three, they can be prodigies, you know what I mean? But I feel like I got that with music that ultimately wouldn't help me very much in the future. I could still list 100 bands from Houston that those people have probably forgotten that they were in by this point. But we would just hang out and if a local band somehow didn't pull through, they would let us go take their spot. I was probably in eight different bands over the course of like three or four years. Whoever I was with, we would just go play the shows. We'd make some songs up, we played covers sometimes. We covered The Used and Motion City Soundtrack, Scary Kids Scaring Kids.

Your first couple of Waterparks' EPs were self- made and self-released, keeping in that DIY spirit. Yet it still felt like you were ambitious and aiming high even back then.

Can I tell you the difference between then and now? See, I don't advertise this information but I don't even listen to that much music now. I'm trying to be better about that and I've got certain friends that will give me stuff to immerse myself. But I've gotten maybe a little bit frustrated. There's so many times where I keep finding cool people on Tik Tok when I finally do go looking for new music, and I'll talk to them for a second and maybe see if they wanna open up for us on tour but they can't because so many fucking people are just quiet signed to major labels. It irritates the shit out of me and the reason they're hiding it is because everybody is so obsessed with authenticity, which they have the right to be, you want your shit to be organic, homegrown, free range, cruelty free, all that shit. But everything that I look at is just a fucking marketing trick or ploy. What is the equivalent of me just being in my fucking room at my parents' house?

"I FEEL MORE LOOSE AND I FEEL LIKE EVERY TOUR I GET BETTER AS A SINGER."

In terms of your attitude back then, you were just treating those self-releases as if you were already on a major label. It didn't feel less legit to you.

Day and night, you're working on those things. It was very real. We're about to get to the point of this conversation where we start trying to quantify success and what it means and it's intangible, we can't do it. But what I do know is you can easily get tricked and be like, 'Oh, my Tik Toks are getting millions of hits' and then draw 20 people to your show. I've seen it happen. So I just care how many people ride with you and will leave their home to come see you play. I don't care how many fucking playlists you bought, I don't care how many ads you run on your Spotify, I don't care if YouTube picked you up on their fucking algorithm - good for you because they've never done that for us - but I want to know how many people fuck with you.

With your own live show, when did you feel like it clicked for Geoff, Otto and yourself? When did you first feel like you understood what a Waterparks show should be?

Maybe 'Fandom'. I didn't start taking vocal lessons till 2021. I feel like that's the first time where I look back and it's not just us playing a song and then stopping and then playing the song and then stopping. It's where we actually built a show. That's when we had 'Double Dare 2019' and 'Entertainment 2019' where we were playing for eight minutes straight and made me feel like fucking Green Day. Like some like 'Jesus of Suburbia', 'Bullet In A Bible' type shit. That's not me saying I thought we sucked during 'Entertainment'. That's not what it is at all. We did cool shit. We did Reading & Leeds main stage on 'Entertainment'. But I just feel like things clicked more on 'Fandom'. I feel so much more comfortable onstage every single tour. I feel more loose and I feel like every tour I get better as a singer. I better not get fucking worse. As long as you're continuing to practice and improve. I need to go fucking play tennis and boxing and all this other shit to be at my best when we're touring, you know what I mean? As long as I'm not fully just lounging and then going straight to the stage, I should, in theory, be a better performer.

You mentioned Reading & Leeds, which was one of many milestone moments you've had in the UK. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?

I give the UK a lot of shit for their food and everything but truthfully, those are my favourite shows in the world. They've always given us the most love and I just feel like the UK appreciates bands more. You know what I mean? I wonder if it's because the BBC still plays guitars? Or maybe they just care about rock culture more.

So to jump back a little, when you were making 'Double Dare', what aims did you have? What was on your to-do list around that time?

I could tell you the list. A big bucket list. I don't erase things when I complete them, I just add on. (Looking through his computer) Let's see…I can tell you one of the things it says here is 'A Rock Sound cover'. I tried to fill it out as much as I could with the knowledge that I had because sometimes you don't know what goals you can ask for. You know what I mean? I put 'Have a Top 10 album' and then you get to mark that off. 'Headline Reading and Leeds', not marked off. 'Have a music video on TV. Get shirts in Hot Topic. Play a show with Kesha. Get an apartment. Get a music video with 100K views. Record an album.' I got to mark that one off. There's a ton. I think when you're making that, you also have to look big. You have to project and manifest big shit. When I was in my parents' house thinking about 'Crave' with $0 to my name, I was thinking about playing that in arenas. We hadn't played a show to more than 500 people at that point. So yeah, I think it's always just pretending you're Coldplay. That kind of doesn't change. I mean, I guess until you become Coldplay, and then you're like 'how do we be as big as God?'

“AT A CERTAIN POINT, THERE ARE THINGS THAT YOU DEAL WITH THAT THERAPISTS DON'T UNDERSTAND. SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO ACCEPT THOSE THINGS."

You've been very fortunate to have some mentors help guide you towards those goals with Joel and Benji Madden and Mikey Way all there to give advice from early on.

So as we said earlier, we didn't have anyone in our corner when we were doing 'Airplane Conversations', 'Black Light' and writing 'Cluster'. Nobody was around; it was just us at home. Joel and Benji both reached out quickly after the other. They were the first people to ever give us the good shit. 'Hey, we see what you're doing. It's cool'. They were the first established people to ever reach out and give us props. I was babysitting and our fucking first label we had just signed with was like, 'Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?' I'm like, 'Oh, just probably babysitting, teaching guitar lessons'. And they're like, 'Well, do you want to come to Los Angeles and have lunch with Benji and Joel?' Then I'm hitting up Geoff and Otto and we come out and we talked about our goals. Fast-forward, they're like 'You want to do some co-writes?' I wanted to be a team player about it because back then especially, I was like 'nobody touches our shit, we don't get help from anybody, we are DIY'. I was so fucking close-minded punk about it. But when they heard all the demos, they went 'Oh, wait, you already have all these. Do you want to use these?' So that's 'Cluster'. That's when Mikey came through and was listening to us. He was always just so nice. He's like 'I'd love to play on it'. So I'm sitting there showing him the bass parts, and he's getting it fucking immediately. It was so weird. I felt like I could be arrested any second and just immediately sound like a crazy person. 'No, no, no, I was talking to My Chemical Romance and Good Charlotte's my friend'. At a certain point, there are things that you deal with that therapists don't understand. Sometimes it's hard to accept those things. Let's say I'm on a tour, which is already a scary thing. You're in a van, you're not fucking sleeping. You have no fucking money. Part of your team is trying to go back on the already shitty contract you have and you're getting fucking cheated on and you're doing just a bunch of crazy shit. You can't call a therapist for that shit. So I would talk to them, especially Joel. I would save those conversations, because I would have to go back to them so much. His time is valuable. It's almost like a cheat sheet in a way. It doesn't perfectly tie up all those bad things but those are probably the best answers I'm gonna get.

Let's talk about playing Warped Tour. You did it a few times in those early years and it must have been a pretty good learning process on how to grow your fanbase.

All 2016 we toured on 'Cluster'. 'Stupid For You' didn't come out until November that year. The reason I think I'm so good at marketing is because I had to do fucking all of it for four years straight. I was talking to somebody about this the other day where they were like, 'Oh man, if you guys ever opened for Taking Back Sunday, you'd fucking kill it. You'd get so many fans'. No, we wouldn't. And I can say this confidently, because I've promoted outside of three of their shows and I can tell you, those people did not like us. There's always the exception that proves the rule, but for the most part, I can tell you where we will and will not thrive because I've promoted to every fucking fan base. So Warped wasn't really different. Based on what shirts they were wearing at barricade or certain age ranges; I have a good meter of who will fuck with it and who will not. A Sleeping With Sirens fan would fucking love us, a Bayside fan would fucking hate us. You get what I mean? Paramore fans would fucking love us. An Alkaline Trio fan would fucking hate us. But the thing is, at Warped, you're kind of forced to exercise that muscle because all of those people are walking by. I wasn't shy on stage or anything but I think that could be one of the reasons I'm really good at crowd work. There's been a lot of bands we've toured with who say 'I don't know how you just talk to them for fucking five minutes between songs about different shit every night'. I don't know how you don't.

"IF IT'S NOT GOING UP AND GETTING BIGGER AND BETTER, I DON'T REALLY WANT TO DO IT."

Once you got to 'Fandom' and 'Greatest Hits', you were far more comfortable with experimenting musically and on the production side too. Did you feel a change in your confidence levels when you reached that era?

Confidence wise, yeah, but I think I'm too close to really see how big of a difference there is on certain things. I always wanted to be able to do 'Fandom' and even on the first EP with songs like 'Fantastic' or 'Silver', we are adding a weird synthy thing or vocal cuts. I was trying to explain that to this kid in the garage in the middle of fucking redneck nowhere woods, Texas. He just cut the voice and I'm like 'pitch it up and drag this one there'. Or bringing a weird, syncopated piano thing into the outro. I tried to make sure of that early on because I've always been such a fan of so many things. I just wanted that to come across even on album one. 'Crave' was a fully electronic thing, 'Territory' I wanted that to be an indie kind of vibe and then 'Mad All The Time' I wanted to be more industrial, kind of like Linkin Park with those weird, major melodies. 'Take Her To The Moon', full fucking pop song then throw 'Dizzy' in there with cut up shit and trappy drums. Then album two, we're gonna go fucking hard as hell with it on 'Tantrum'. I always felt like we were doing these things. But then I heard those albums the way I hear demos, where I think I hear kind of what they are in my head, what they could or should be. I remember when I showed the 'Fruit Roll Ups' demo to Travis (M. Riddle). He didn't really like it that much. It had all the same parts, all the same chords, vocals, the synth outro and the solo and all this stuff. But then when he heard the final one, where I went in with Zakk (Cervini, producer), and we beefed it up and added more stuff, he was like 'I love this one now so much'. But it's the same song. So when those first albums aren't seen as eclectic as the albums starting at 'Fandom', it would confuse me because I always felt like things were diverse. It really might just come down to the production.

One thing that certainly did change was how open you were in your lyrics. They were always honest but now they became a lot more specific over time.

Pete Wentz is my favourite lyricist and I love things just sounding as pretty as possible, trying to word things that people feel but in ways that they've never heard it described. You take a feeling like love, something that everybody fucking knows, and then just say it in a way with a combination of words that nobody has used yet. That was the goal for so long, but then I remember something kind of clicking when I was so mad and made 'Tantrum'. There was something that felt so much more cathartic. It actually gave me adrenaline and I wanted to chase that. That felt so good. There were certain songs like 'Reboot' or this demo called 'Play'. I wouldn't let a song go if it didn't give me chills. Certain lines like 'you're gonna be just like your mother', that's gonna make someone in real life so mad. So I think that's where that came from. Then songs like 'Turbulent' happened - 'you had your own Pete Wentz and Patrick combined' - and that's the start of the song. Are you kidding me? Who in the music sphere is going to hear that and not have some kind of reaction? And I just wanted a reaction. I could start 'Sleep Alone' and it doesn't have to elicit the same thing, but something as strong. They shouldn't elicit the same exact feeling, but they should elicit that dynamic level of emotional response.

“IF WE NEVER GET TO DO THIS AGAIN, I WANT TO GIVE THEM THE COOLEST SHIT POSSIBLE WHILE WE GET TO BE IN THIS SPOT."

As you mentioned earlier, it is hard to quantify success. A good example is the way 'I Miss Having Sex But At Least I Don't Wanna Die Anymore' became your most streamed song, largely due to a TikTok trend you had very little to do with.

I didn't even know it was happening. Now, there's so many viral songs that the cycle is quicker. Somebody can have a song that bangs on Tik Tok for two weeks and then it's done. But this was so early on. It wasn't a single; it was a deep cut song on the album. It still doesn't have a music video. Neither does 'Turbulent'. It's just so odd because it also makes you a little mad. But then it's also a little humbling in a way. Things are out of your control, but they'll be okay.

You are still touring your most recent album 'Intellectual Property' so it is probably too early to fully analyze it but, now that we are nearly a year on from its release, how are you reflecting on what you achieved with that record?

I've told you this before but if it's not going up and getting bigger and better, I don't really want to do it. I don't want to spin the tyres in fucking mud. If it's not happening, then I'm not gonna do the trap where things start downgrading and we have to play old albums. It's not what I want. I'm good enough at other things to figure something out but preserve that legacy. But 'Intellectual Property' charted higher than any of our fucking other albums, first Top 10 in the UK. We've sold more tickets to the 'Property' tour than the 'Fandom' tour and the 'See You In The Future' tour combined. I'll say that one more time - we sold more tickets to the 'Property' tour than the entire 'Fandom' tour and the entire 'Greatest Hits' tour if you put them both together and add them up. That's the indicator to me. That's what matters to me. I did say at the top of the cycle in such a simple way that I want one of the red songs above the green songs. That's literally what I told Fueled By Ramen. So that didn't happen because the Tik Tok lords did not mysteriously bless us in our sleep. We still sold more. We got more real people in real seats. More was accomplished and it was bigger and better.

It feels like you have the same aim with each tour too - growing and building on what came before. Yet, again, you have always had those bigger ambitions for the show even when you were in slightly smaller rooms.

Dress for the job you want. With all the rooms we did on the 'Property' tour, they're the same ones that we would do for 'Greatest Hits', right? So it's like, okay, we did it. We conquered those rooms. Now we have to move up. Shit. Because otherwise, you just keep doing victory laps forever in the same rooms. So some of them, there's no fucking chance in hell we're gonna sell these out. But it's cool to try. And the thing is, it's still selling on par with the 'Property' tour. Part of me is like, damn, I wish we could have as many sold out things but there are already more people going to this show than the previous sold out one. So I pick my battles. Yeah, you could go play to 1300 people in New York again or you could try and do the fucking big ass thing. So that's kind of where it's at now. You want to build a fucking real show. On the 'Property' tour, we actually got to build shit for the first time. We built a set and this time it is just a bigger version of that. It's just bigger and with more changes. It's not even a spoiler because that's so fucking vague, but to have the show and set change as the set goes on, it's fucking cool. Sometimes I see people who are doing these same size rooms (so this isn't remotely punching down, we're doing the same rooms) and they'll just have a banner. Give them more. Give them a show. I'm so grateful to actually get to be in these rooms finally that if we never get to do this again, I want to give them the coolest shit possible while we get to be in this spot.

"NO PART OF ME IS INTERESTED IN JUST REPEATING THE CYCLE OVER AND OVER AND OVER."

Speaking of bigger shows, you got to play in arenas for the first time when you supported My Chemical Romance. Given what a huge fan you are of that band, it must have felt quite surreal.

Dude, it was so weird and so cool. Every night, the first song scared the shit out of me and then you kind of get the rhythm of it. It's just so weird. Sometimes between songs, I just had to look and take a mental picture. I saw My Chem when I was younger in an arena and I could see the seats I was in, you know what I mean? I could see people in them. You get to a certain point where stuff doesn't blow your mind as much but that blew my fucking mind every day. I remember the first time we ever got to go in a bus. It was so exciting. Now, when I get in the bus, I'm like, 'Okay, but where's the charger in the bunk? Where's the air? Is it just gonna freeze my feet?' It's not to say I'm ungrateful it just becomes more normal. If you go to the best pizza spot every day, after years of having it, it's just a good pizza spot. But getting to go open for My Chem and everything around it and all the details of it, I just never got used to. We'd go to the catering room and we'd sit down and there's Frank and there's Ray. We were in this hockey arena in the locker room and I had all my outfits, planning them out, and at one point, Gerard came through. I was showing him the fits and everything and he was like, 'Oh, you have great style'. I don't think you can get used to that. It's crazy. Maybe My Chem is used to it because they've been playing arenas for years and years and years, maybe that's the standard now. But God, that blew my fucking mind every day.

As you start to think about wrapping up this era, what are the goals as you move forward?

I just want to go places that we haven't been because that's what makes me feel excited. Like with playing in an arena for the first time, anything that is a huge dynamic change. That's all I'm looking for. I just want to feel excited. The people who like us, I appreciate them because we're so lucky enough to be in a place where we don't have to tour into the fucking ground if we don't want to just to survive. No part of me is interested in touring into the ground this year. I feel like we've been on tour for the last two and a half years straight. 2022 was preparing for this album, 2023 was promoting this album. One thing I enjoyed about 2019 was that we only did a short opening run, early in the year, and then we did the 'Fandom' tour at the end of the year. But that whole spring, summer and fall, we were just making cool shit. That made me feel excited. We made so many music videos and just did a lot of cool shit. We got to focus on the creative. I never would have been throwing around Sunny D in my apartment bathroom taking pictures of it for the 'Fandom' album cover if I had jetlag. No part of me is interested in just repeating the cycle over and over and over. I want to just do things that we haven't done yet and make stuff for everyone. Because if we go play in Copenhagen, Waterparks is for Copenhagen that day. But when I'm home and we're operating at full mental capacity and everything, we can make things for everybody. At the end of the day, I never want to fall into a pattern and repeat myself and do the same shit. I want to expand and see what we can do, what our capabilities are like. Do something that somebody hasn't done yet. I want to rent a movie theatre and do a fucking real premiere. I don't want to give a bunch of shit away but there's a lot of things that are always in the works. As Awsten, the guy steering the ship on fucking Waterparks, whatever's going on I just want it to be new and cool and feel fulfilling. If we had some fucking tyrant label that was like 'We need an album now' I could go 'There's fucking 100 songs on here. Go fucking make your album, pick them. Go have Zakk mix them'. But it's just not what intuitively feels right and I want to follow that intuition. I keep looking back at the 2019 year map as kind of a blueprint. That's not to say I'm gonna stay home all year. But it's just gotta be new. I want that feeling of getting in the bus for the first time.

#i only edited one of these outside of adjustment edits bc i realized the shadowy thing actually worked for a shoot like this let me be lazy #waterparks #awsten knight #geoff wigington #otto wood #i.zip

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