#and in that moment i realized just how inferior i am

[lizard-dumbass]

I just realized that im not dressing anywhere near as punk/goth as i could be

[semification]

- DIE WITH A SMILE . . . VERITAS RATIO ✧.*

Veritas comes to realize that he loves you, but perhaps he comes to that realization far too late.

content: fem reader, death, penacony quest spoilers, angst with comfort (?), blood & injuries, veritas is a meanie (but he INSTANTLY regrets it!1!), friends to (grins evilly) …lovers

authors note: first fic on this account i hope you guys like it <3 i ran out of motivation while writing this halfway can u tell. anyways go stream die with a smile by bruno mars and lady gaga because i was listening to that song on loop while making this fic and i think its a super fitting song for this hehe

wc: 5.9k (its a quick read i promise)

masterlist

“You’re being ridiculous, Veritas.”

Bickering with Dr. Veritas Ratio was not out of the ordinary. In fact, it was a pastime for the two of you, engaging in various academic debates to see which party presented a better argument. It was seen as a great deal of praise to be able to do such a thing with an esteemed man like Veritas. It made it seem like you two stood on the same ground–the same ground of a man who felt so out of reach.

“Oh, really now? I’m the one being ridiculous? I am ‘ridiculous’ simply because I am looking out for your safety, Y/N?”

This… however, this was not normal. This quarrel felt personal, stemming from your feelings instead of facts and objective data. This felt like an attack on your friendship–but from the amount of vile he’s spitting from his mouth, you wonder if Veritas has ever considered you as a friend in the first place.

The more he speaks, the more you are reminded that you didn’t stand on the same ground as him. You felt terrifyingly inferior, and even though he was right in front of you, you felt like you were miles away from him. 

“No, I’m saying you’re ridiculous for calling me weak and incapable because apparently, I’m not good enough to go on this expedition when it’s my fucking job.”

However, you mostly felt like a fool.

You felt like such a fool for falling in love with a man like him. You fell in love with him because of his neverending thirst for knowledge. You fell in love with him because you were just as much of a bibliophile as he was. You fell in love with him because you wanted to spread your knowledge around the universe as much as he wished to. You fell in love with him because, for a moment, you thought he saw you differently from everyone else, and that he truly enjoyed being in your presence.

You turn away from him, tears forming in your eyes. You stubbornly blink them away, because you think back to what started this argument in the first place.

You had just finished detailing your mission to Veritas, which was your routine every time the Intelligentsia Guild dispatched you on some kind of research expedition. This mission was different, however. You would be gone for three months, longer than usual–and the mission was very combat-oriented and dangerous, which wasn’t like your usual expeditions. Despite the warnings, you still accepted it, thinking of it as something new, but nothing that you couldn’t handle.

Veritas seemed to think otherwise, however, because when you peer over to look at his reaction, he looked very displeased. 

(It wasn’t a very uncommon look to see on his face, but you could tell he seemed more serious–like how the frown lines on his face were deeper than usual.)

You weren’t particularly surprised by the expression on his face. What surprised you the most was the first thing that came out of his mouth after hearing your expedition’s rundown. “Are you sure you’ll be able to go on that mission?”

You look at him incredulously, surprised at the amount of distaste in his voice. His displeasure was directed at… you? “What is that supposed to mean, Veritas?”

“I’m saying that you’re too weak and incapable to go on that expedition, Y/N. I do not know why the Guild would assign you such a difficult mission. They truly are overestimating your power.” The words came out of his mouth so casually, like you had just asked him about the weather. Is this how his students feel when they take his infamous course with a passing rate of a mere three percent? How his students feel whenever they get scolded by him?

You just can’t believe it. He said those words like it were a fact—straight from the myriad of encyclopedias that he’s read. Maybe because it was a fact in his head: he saw you as nothing but “weak” and “incapable”.

A stray tear manages to escape from your eye, and you quickly wipe it away angrily before turning back to Veritas with a sniffle. No. You cannot cry in front of his face. Crying is an expression of weakness–of vulnerability. And what you are trying to prove to Veritas is that you are not “weak”. You are not “incapable” either, and you are going to prove that to him by going on this mission and making him eat his words. 

“I will be leaving in three system hours. Do not bother showing up during my departure.”

You cringe at the way your voice shakes at the end, but you stand firm. Those words were the last thing you said to him before leaving his office with a bitter heart. When you exit his room, you finally let your emotions run free, letting the tears stream down your face without end. You quietly sob as you retreat to your own office, closing the door and letting out a shaky exhale, escaping all the nosy whispers and chatter of the Guild members.

You sob at the heartbreaking realization that just when you think you’ve gotten close to the “untouchable” Veritas Ratio, he pushes you away just like how he does to everyone else… because that’s just simply what you are to him. 

Another person who fades into the background, and nothing more.

Dr. Veritas Ratio is a man who exhibits prestige and greatness like no other. Throughout his academic career, he obtained eight PhDs and graduated with the First Class Honors Degree, which hadn’t been awarded to anyone for two Amber Eras. He was gifted with knowledge, and now he uses that knowledge and spreads it far across the cosmos to “cure idiocy”, treating it like a disease that needs to be treated.

And yet, for once in his life, he refuses to admit it out loud, but he’s acted like the one thing that he completely loathed. The very thing that he was trying to exterminate.

An idiot. He was an idiot, and it was all because he could not word himself correctly when he spoke to you. He has written hundreds of papers, essays, and dissertations, but time and time again, he could not seem to think—to be able to formulate the proper words to say when it came to you.

And now, Veritas has royally messed up, and for once in life, he has no idea what to do.

He was just genuinely concerned for your safety. It was all he thought about once you had finished detailing your expedition to him. He wanted to convince you—to pick the right words to say so he could persuade you not to go, but it seems that his fear of being seen as vulnerable shone through first. It reminded him of the days when you two weren’t close; the days he spoke to you while wearing his alabaster head.

He only wears that head because he “can’t bear to see idiots,” but given how he just called you “weak” and “incapable” in the argument that just transpired, one could almost laugh at the hypocrisy of it all. Veritas may as well talk to himself while wearing the alabaster head.

Because only idiots would address you with those terms. 

You were an enigma to Veritas from the very beginning. People from the Intelligentsia Guild rarely stood out to him, but you were different—sticking out like a sore thumb the moment he laid his eyes on you. 

That’s because your presence utterly enchanted him—you had similar tastes in literary works, you matched his sarcasm and topped it off with even wittier replies, and you also wanted to use your knowledge for other people to learn.

You were not weak and incapable. He saw you as anything but that, in fact. He was at fault for the argument, but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud, for Aeon’s sake.

He knows that he owes you an apology, it’s the least he could do... He just needs to apologize, then convince you to not go on that expedition. You’re scheduled to leave soon—approximately two and a half system hours—he still has time.

And yet, his mind is being stubborn. He knows that he needs to apologize, but he just can’t bring himself to. He can’t remember the last time he’s genuinely apologized to someone—an apology without a trace of sarcasm at that.

“Trouble in paradise, doctor?”

He could recognize the esteemed gambler’s voice from miles away, and it irks him how he always seemed to show up at the worst times. Aventurine’s got a knowing gaze on him—a stare that can pierce through any poker face so he could see exactly what they’re thinking. “I suggest not meddling in any business that doesn’t concern you, gambler.”

Except he’s already got him. “This is about Y/N, isn’t it?”

Hook, line, and sinker.

Aventurine believes that one’s eyes are the windows to the soul–and he doesn’t miss the way Veritas’ eyes soften when he says your name, smiling at the unintentional answer to his question. He definitely doesn’t have the best poker face in town. For such a stoic man, he surely cannot put himself together when it comes to anything that has to do with you.

Aeons. Just what were you doing to him?

There was no use hiding it from him, so he just silently nodded, with Aventurine clicking his tongue. “Rumors fly fast in the guild, especially when Dr. Ratio’s dear friend Y/N was seen walking out of his office crying. I just had to see what this was really about, you know?” 

You were crying when you left?

He doesn’t voice his concern out loud, of course. Instead, Veritas just sighs heavily. “All I wanted to do was convince her to not go on that mission that she’s currently dispatched on. It just seems… far too dangerous.”

Aventurine’s got an idea of what happened next considering how you ran out of this room crying, but he decides to ask anyway. “Oh? And how did that work out for you?”

Veritas refuses to meet his gaze, his heart sinking when he simply thinks about what happened earlier. “…”

“At least humor me, doctor.”

He turns away from Aventurine completely, a deep shade of red coating his cheeks. Was it out of embarrassment? Shame? Whatever it was, he didn’t need him to see it. “…I called her weak and incapable.”

When Aventurine doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, Veritas speaks to fill the silence. “I admit, I did not know what was going through my head when I addressed her with those words.”

The uncomfortable silence drags on for a little longer until it’s interrupted by the piercing sound of Aventurine’s laughter. His laugh makes the red spread across Veritas’ cheeks even more—uncharacteristically so, especially since he’s normally so put together. He doesn’t even have the heart to tell Aventurine to stop laughing, because a small huge part of him feels that he deserves this.

He deserves to sit through this feeling because he knows you faced the same humiliation when he shut you out.

“Hahaha! I can’t—“ Aventurine’s nearly keeling over in laughter, and the gambler swears he could feel tears build up in his eyes. “Oh, please! You have such a way with words, don’t you?”

Aventurine continues, failing to conceal his hysteria. “Weak and incapable? If anything, that’ll only fuel the fire. She’d want to go on that mission just to prove you wrong.”

“I’m well aware. It is exactly what happened after all.” You’re leaving soon. The thought of you leaving makes Veritas’ stomach churn, and he has no idea why. Out of all the many expeditions you’ve been sent on, this is the first time he’s felt this way–been filled with so much dread.

“Well,” Aventurine pretends to think for a moment, putting his hand on his chin. “It won’t hurt to sacrifice a little bit of your already enormous ego to apologize to her, no? There’s enough of your pride to go around.” 

I don’t know if I can bring myself to.

Veritas doesn’t say those words out loud. Instead, he masks his worries with a scoff. Aventurine doesn’t have to know. “Watch your mouth, gambler.”

“Oh my, I really struck a nerve there, did I?”

“Researcher Y/N? I’m sorry sir, she just departed a few minutes ago.”

You left.

The three system hours hadn’t even passed yet—there were still two hours before your scheduled departure—and you left early.

You left, and he didn’t even get the opportunity to apologize. 

The researcher could only watch as the great Veritas Ratio, normally so composed, looks away from him wide-eyed and mouth slightly agape. He’s utterly dumbfounded, a look that is never seen on his face. What is he supposed to do now?

You’re too late.

For the next several weeks, Veritas could only wait anxiously for your return. Worry follows him like a cloud, and even his students pick up on his weird behavior. It’s all so grueling—waiting for you without so much of an idea of how you’re doing or if your expedition is going well. 

While waiting for your return, he plans out his actions for the next time he sees you. He doesn’t want to apologize over text–Veritas sees it as inappropriate and prefers to show his sincerity in person. Face-to-face is how he is going to do it, and he sends you a message in preparation for that. “I’d like for us to talk when you’re back. Please message me immediately upon your arrival.”

…Except an error message stares at him back when he presses the send button. It’s almost mocking him in a sense, like the universe is doing everything in its power to prevent him from atoning for his mistakes. Of course you weren’t going to have signal when you’re so far away from him. Just what was he expecting?

You were scheduled to return after another few weeks, and Veritas could only prepare for the days to pass by excruciatingly slowly. Until then, he thinks over what he’s going to say for his apology. Maybe he could give you something too. He thinks that finding a way to get your favorite flowers is a nice start.

You’re tired.

Exhaustion envelops you like a blanket, and after trying your hardest to resist, you just can’t anymore.

You’re so tired. 

You finally succumb to the fatigue, falling onto the ground as your sword clatters with a thud. You lay there, lying in a pool of your own blood, accepting that this was the cruel fate that the great Aeons above bestowed upon you in the end. You laugh at the absurdity of it all, but it only comes out as a weak cough, which quickly transitions into a fit of hacking up crimson droplets—lighting your throat on fire.

It was a fragmentum monster ambush. The planet you were exploring contained a lot of them–mainly due to the Stellaron corrosion that it was experiencing. After three weeks of exploring, it was supposed to be just another day of collecting data and extracting information for the guild. You’ve done this countless times already–anything out of the ordinary happening was beyond you.

The ambush had occurred when you least expected it–you barely even had the time to draw out your sword. One thing led to another, and at some point, there were just too many of them that leaving the battle unscathed was out of the question. And at the end of it, you were a mess, standing in a field of bodies with blood sticking to your clothes–a mix of the fragmentum and your own. The worst part was that it was mainly your own, with the source coming from a deep gash in your abdomen. You were losing blood at a terrifying rate.

Panic fills your veins once you fully process the gravity of the situation. Heart thumping, you realize that you’re going to die–and you are going to die alone.

What a pitiful end this was.

You’ve sent a distress call to the guild, but you know that your fate has been sealed already. You’ll be long gone before anyone will be here to help you, and they’d just be here to clean up your remains. You hope that the guild would at least grant you a proper funeral.

It’s truly comical how fate works. People your age are usually too busy thinking about marriage, or deciding how many kids they want to have in the near future. And yet, here you are, on the precipice of reaching death’s door, thinking about your funeral. 

Your vision turns blurry, and you sniffle as hot tears begin to roll down your cheeks. Fuck, you don’t want to die. There are far too many things that you haven’t done. And yet, you can’t find the strength to continue on either. You’re just so, so tired.

In the midst of your cries, you softly mumble out a name. A name that you love, hate, and everything in between with a passion.

“…Veritas.”

You initially wanted to go on this mission with the intent of exploring this planet, but after the argument, you know you went mainly because you wanted to prove him wrong.

You wonder if he truly meant those words. Even if he didn’t, maybe he was right, because look at what your determination had cost you–lying in a pool of your own blood, all because you wanted Veritas to see that you weren’t weak and incapable.

Even though you went on this expedition angry at him, (a part of you still is angry) you’ve never wanted to see him so badly in your life. You were going to die with many regrets–perhaps the biggest one was that you never got to tell Veritas how you truly feel about him.

You just want to see him once last time. Is it selfish to ask for one more day with him? One more hour… or to engage in at least one more heated debate. Hell, you’d even take one more minute with him. And in that minute, maybe you’d slap him in the face for what happened. But maybe you’d tell him you love him and kiss him over and over, apologizing for even thinking about slapping his stupidly perfect face. 

Despite how much of an asshole he can be at times, you love Veritas Ratio. You love his snark and sarcasm and everything about him, and you’re going to die without even knowing if he loves you back. This is your biggest regret.

No, you can’t die like this. You need to tell him. You have to.

As darkness starts to cloud your vision, you use all of your remaining strength to pull your phone out from your pocket despite the wound in your abdomen screaming in protest. Your fingers shakily make their way to Veritas’ contact, and with a pained breath, you begin to type.

“Take me to where she sent the distress call, now.”

There was a bunch of commotion in the guild—too much commotion considering how early it was. Veritas could only wonder what all the clamor was about, but he froze once he heard your name leave one of the researcher’s mouths. 

And his biggest nightmare is now a reality once someone finally fills him in on the situation: Your signal had disappeared off the radar, but not after you sent a distress call to the guild. You needed help, yet you were so far from his grasp. “But Doctor, we-“

“I need not repeat myself. Her life is in grave danger, and yet here you are, arguing with me and wasting precious time when this time could be used saving her.” His words surprised both himself and the guild member, who shakily nodded at his request. Veritas was certain that if you were just anybody else, he could have less of a care about your distress signal. But no, this was you—and he needed to make sure that you were okay.

Veritas looked calm and collected on the outside, but on the inside, he was falling apart. Calm yourself, you need to be the strong one in this situation. She’s the one in danger here.

Aeons, all he had to do was convince you to not go on this expedition. Instead, he made everything worse with his poor choice of words, and now he’s paying the price for it. He could only hope that he wasn’t too late.

Wait for me Y/N. Please. That’s all I ask.

In his office, there’s a bouquet of your favorite flowers resting on his desk, and they’ve slowly begun to wither away.

When Veritas finally arrived at where you were last seen on the signal, there were bodies littered everywhere, and he could only hope that none of them were yours. Paired with those bodies was the color red—crimson was scattered all over, and it was practically all he could see. Did you take all of these fragmentum down by yourself?

As Veritas inspected all of the fragmentum bodies, all slain by a single blade, one of the researchers accompanying him pointed out a trail of blood leaving the site. It makes him freeze, because it might be…

“Y/N.”

Shit.

He immediately goes after the trail without an ounce of hesitation. The scene laid before him is something that has only haunted him in his nightmares, yet at this very moment, it lies before him as a terrifying reality. 

His blood runs cold, and for the first time in his life, Veritas Ratio is rendered speechless.

Your limp body lies in front of him, in a pool of so much blood that just seeing it sickens him to his stomach. He can’t feel his own body as he falls to his knees, paying no mind to the other researchers around him. No, right now, it was just you and Veritas. Nobody else.

With trembling hands, he pulls your body close to his own as your blood taints his clothing. Even though he knows you’re too far gone already, he can’t help but try to feel your pulse, because there’s a part of him that just refuses to believe that he’s too late.

There was nothing.

It probably hasn’t been beating for a while, and that thought leaves him utterly empty, with a single stray tear rolling down his cheek.

If he were just a little bit faster, maybe he could’ve saved you. If he could’ve just formulated his words correctly so he could convince you not to go on this expedition. If he could’ve just apologized…

If he could’ve just been… a better friend.

All these could haves, yet Veritas didn’t act on any of them.

Pathetic.

Your phone is beside you, and Veritas gingerly picks it up. The screen was still lit, despite it being shattered to oblivion. It was open to the messaging app—specifically his contact.

It was never sent due to poor signal, but you were messaging him before you died. He was your last thought.

“I’m sorry Veritas. I just don’t want you to think I’m weak and incapable.”

“Still, I want you to remember that”

You were the one apologizing to him, even after everything was said and done. He can’t even fathom that.

And weak and incapable, huh. You were anything but that. If anything, Veritas was the weak and incapable one. He was weak for not being able to swallow his pride even if he was the one in the wrong—and he was incapable of simply apologizing to you.

And the last message… What is it supposed to mean? 

What do you want him to remember?

When Veritas was sent to Penacony and matters with the head of the Oak family, Sunday, had been dealt with, he was finally allowed to leave. It was the first mission the guild had assigned him since you left, and his efforts to prevent Aventurine from going on an all-out suicide mission helped Veritas take his thoughts away from you, even if it was just for a moment.

And yet, you always find your way back to haunt him. Not even the Land of Dreams could prevent that.

Still, he had done his part, sorted out his deals in Penacony as a representative sent by the guild, and it was time to go.

It’s been a few months since your death, and Veritas thinks that living without you is like living without the sun. It’s funny how he’s only realized how much you’ve changed his life only after you’ve gone. You lit up his life, both metaphorically and physically—and now, everything feels so dull, and he constantly longs for your presence in the darkness. 

But now you’re gone, and he feels so terribly lost, even now as he does paperwork in his office. Life became way more monotonous after you had left. The quiet is suffocating, because Veritas can only think about the times that the quiet office was filled with your voice instead. 

Even now, in the rare moments that Veritas picks up a book nowadays, he thinks about how much you would have enjoyed it as well.

Paperwork is one of the few things that he finds solace in anymore, as it helps him drown out his thoughts so they don’t end up drifting back to you.

…You.

His eyes land on your sword before he can even do anything about it, and he swallows thickly. Your blade is displayed on his wall, another way for Veritas to show his honor for you. 

The blade you singlehandedly used to defeat all those monsters, and the blade you’ll never be able to wield again.

He tears his eyes away from it before his thoughts can spiral again. He can feel his vision start to blur, and he blinks the tears away before they escape. He wonders how many tears he’s shed for you since you’ve been gone.

Veritas tries and fails to focus on his paperwork once more until he’s interrupted by a knock at the door.

He thinks a walk will do him good.

He stands up from his desk and slowly walks over to his office door, wondering who it could be. He rarely gets visitors nowadays, unless it’s something that’s of utmost importance. Everyone else is afraid to talk to him, as Veritas became… colder after your death.

If anyone were to ask why—it’s because when you died, a part of Veritas did too.

He turns the door’s handle, only to see…

You.

You were standing right in front of him, in the same outfit that you were in the day you left for your mission. Except this time, you were alive, and Veritas has no idea what to think.

You’re the first one to break the silence, whispering his name. “Veritas?”

Hearing you say his name feels like he can finally breathe again. “Y/N? Is it really you?”

Before you can even answer his question, he engulfs you in a tight hug, breathing in your scent. Veritas held you like his life depended on it—because at this moment, it felt like it did. He says the words that hve been on his mind for the past few months. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry darling. If only I hadn’t-“

You pull back from the hug, putting your pointer finger against his lips as a signal for him to stop talking. Barely even registering the endearing name that he called you, you smile, cupping his cheeks before sighing tenderly. “I’ve forgiven you a long time ago, Veritas.”

He only hugs you tighter, coming to a revelation that only makes the pain in his heart ever worsen. He saw your lifeless body himself, he paid respects to your body at your funeral… and he laid your favorite flowers on top of your gravesite where your body rested, even though those flowers were supposed to be an apology gift. “You’re… not real.”

“I’m still in Penacony, right? This is all a dream.”

You smile, nodding in conformation. “Nothing truly gets past you, does it? You’re dreaming what you desire the most right now.”

“I promise you that we will meet again, Veritas. it will not be today, but the day will eventually come, and I’ll be waiting for you every step of the way.” You breathe in deeply. “But right now, you need to wake up from this dream, before it's too late.”

He’s not sure if he wants to wake up, though.

“But what if… I just want to stay here with you?”

“We both know it’s not what you really want.” You can see right through him. “If you stay with me in this dream, you’ll be living nothing but a simulated life. I may be here with you, but you’ll never truly fill that hole in your heart, because I am not Y/N. I’m just a creation of your deepest desires, and you know that I’ll never be her. That is not a life worth living.”

“I know she would want you to live your life to the fullest, to truly experience things, to teach your students unforgettable lessons… so they become great people like you.” You pause, looking right into his eyes. They’re filled with pain, sorrow, and the desire to cling on to the past. “And when your time comes eventually, she will be waiting for you. You will apologize once again, because you never got to apologize to her before she died, but she has forgiven you long ago, and it’s all because…”

Despite that, you have to teach him that it’s time to let go. “She wants you to remember that she loves you, Veritas Ratio.”

“Still, I want you to remember that… I love you.”

A tear rolls down his cheek at your words, and then another…. and another. “Even if I don’t know how to apologize?”

You let out a watery laugh, nodding your head. “Even if you don’t know how to apologize.”

“Then… I will do as she asks. It is the least I can do to make up for what I’ve done.” He says, and he takes a deep breath before his next words. “Can I… hug you one last time? Even though you aren’t… actually her.”

“Go ahead, Veritas. But I’m afraid that after this, you have to let go.”

You need to let go.

He nods before wrapping his arms around your figure. It was such a vulnerable act, like a man putting the entirety of his heart and soul out for you to take. He breathes in your scent, wanting to take it in once last time before he has to bid you goodbye. You feel a few of his tears staining your clothing, but you pay it no mind. 

How many tears has he shed for you since you’ve been gone? Not enough. He doesn’t feel that it’ll ever be enough.

When he opens his eyes, you’re slowly fading away from him. There’s a melancholic smile on your face, your eyes meeting his—filled with pain, sorrow, a desire to cling onto the past, and yet… a hint of acceptance.

“Still, I want you to remember that… I love you.”

Yes, he remembers. And he’ll remember your words for the rest of his life, until the moment that he leaves this cosmos on his deathbed. He’s just hoping that you’ll wait long enough for him to say it back.

Before you’re about to fade away completely, you lean in one last time and whisper to him…

“It’s time to wake up, Veritas.”

He wakes up from the dream pool with a gasp. The water splashes around him, and a few stray tears roll down his cheeks. 

The rest of his actual Penacony trip went by surprisingly smoothly, and he doesn’t mention the dream that he had to anyone. It was like a secret shared between you and Veritas–and he was going to treasure that secret forever. 

And now, the Charmony Festival has commenced, and the fireworks have begun. As he watches the sparks explode into thousands of dazzling rays of light above, he pulls out his phone to text you. Almost like one final goodbye, because he knows it’s what you would’ve wanted.

“I love you too, Y/N. I will love you my entire lifetime–past beyond the boundaries of eternity, even after all the stars long die out in the cosmos.

I long for the day that we will meet again… because then, I’ll finally be able to tell you this confession in person. For now, I hope you can continue to find the patience to keep waiting for me. 

…Until the stars align, and we’re able to see each other once again.”

He looks up to the endless bursts of blazing rays lighting up the night, mixed with the eternal shine of the cosmos. It was truly a sight to behold. And for a split second, he could feel someone by his side watching the fireworks with him. It warmed his heart, even if it were just for a moment. 

“Aren’t these fireworks beautiful, Veritas?”

“They will never be as enchanting as you, Y/N.”

[tim-shii]

hi! just found your acc and i just want to say i absolutely adore your work first off. you bring my wife (aventurine) to life beautifully.

saw the as a boyfriend and oh my GOD the part about him getting anxious over reader speaking with ratio? so good. i need jealous pouty aventurine. and honestly might be a bit ooc for ratio but i think he’d encourage it just to get under aventurine’s skin tbh.

up to you though, i’d love for you to write a lil drabble or something of the sorts expanding on this, whatever you have the imagination to write.

that’s all~!

a/n: tysm ?! ure so kind im glad very happy !! that u adore my work 🫶 we have to make sure wife is loved always 🫡 here's jealous aven from this ; @svnarin proofreader !! (she told me to put it here)

cw: bf!aventurine, slight angst

“such lavish proposal. are you certain i am the person who should be hearing that?”

“absolutely. you’re the perfect person i should be consulting about it.”

aventurine is not a jealous person. he’s confident in himself, you had praised him several times of how much of an amazing person he is. jealousy means there’s a lack of trust between the two of you and aventurine doesn’t like that idea at all. he thinks that trust is a significant factor when it comes to relationships. he doesn’t keep secrets and even if he does, he’ll eventually open up to you after some time.

aventurine is a quartz-based gem stone. a stone that brings good fortune and helps you create your own luck. it’s also green. the same green in the monster’s eyes that’s currently chomping down on aventurine. he can’t help it! can he really blame himself when uneasiness swirls in his stomach after seeing you with dr. ratio?

out of everyone he gets jealous of, it just had to be him. veritas ratio. his good friend, veritas. the most logical man aventurine has ever known.

while aventurine is confident in himself, no doubt there’s a part of him that feels inferior to the doctor. the man has radiant violet hair that compliments the tone and structure of his face. he also has a slightly muscular build compared to aventurine’s more slender one. there’s a lot to compare and aventurine isn’t sure if he can even list it all out.

his brows furrowed, eyes dulling as his thoughts consumed him at once. what proposal? what’s that about? and perfect person? he doesn’t understand. are you leaving him? can he really not make you stay? was it something he did? something he said? but he can’t ask you those. because what if instead of an answer, he’ll be greeted with a farewell—

a flick on his forehead snapped him out of the daze. aventurine blinks back, now finding you in front of him.

“i was right. he was sulking.” he hears veritas quip.

“not sulking. more of, in a daze.” your fingers thread through his soft locks, aventurine hums at the affection, absentmindedly leaning his cheek on your palm.

“you give him too much credit. he’s probably wallowing in the sorrows of his mind for no apparent reason.” ratio snickers ever so quietly.

“or he could just be tired and sleep deprived.”

“or he’s jealous. he glares at me any longer, my skin will start withering and rotting.” for a doctor who has more than eight doctoral degrees, he can be quite the drama queen.

“goodbye, doctor. thank you for your opinion, i shall greatly treasure your wise words.” veritas only shook his head before slipping out the door. once he’s left, all your attention shifts to your boyfriend.

aventurine lets you sit atop his lap, gloved hands instantly finding home on your hips. for a moment, you both stare at each other in complete silence.

“spit it out. what’s wrong?” you spoke first.

aventurine sighs. “i didn’t like seeing you with him.” for all his life, lying came easy. with his good looks and charming personality, making people believe whatever he says is child’s play. but aventurine can never lie to you. he doesn’t have the heart to face you once you’ve realized he’s fooled with your thoughts.

you raised a brow in amusement. “so you were jealous?”

“no. i don’t get jealous.” he grumbles. “i just,” aventurine gazes at you with a fond look, an expression so serene and completely enamored. “i’m better looking than him, right?”

blood rushed to his cheeks when he felt your lips on his. his hold moved from your hips to your neck to deepen the kiss, left thumb caressing over your pulse. he chases your lips like an intoxicated man once you pulled away. only to be stopped by you leaning your forehead on his.

“the best looking man in my life and in the whole universe. my most beloved, too.”

“you flatter me.” he grins stupidly before pulling you in for another kiss.

likes and reblogs are appreciated! masterlist

[aromacaque]

Quick S5 Analysis and Theory

I AM GOING TO RAMBLE ANALYSIS BECAUSE THEY ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY

I cannot stop thinking about the way Wukong reacts to Macaque when he goes "oh no 'gee thanks for saving me macaque!...'" cause if this were before the S5E2, he would have snapped back at him, like he always does.

We know Macaque does this solely to rile Wukong up. It's how we're introduced to his character in S1E9 and he does it throughout the series. This is why he did it here too (or at least partially), BUT WUKONG DOESN'T TAKE THE BAIT THIS TIME.

While he's obviously still reeling from seeing the memory of their fight he was forced to watch,

you can still see that, for a split second, Wukong almost does snap back, but he instantly rethinks that and decides to be passive

Macaque, again, pokes at him trying to get a reaction, but this time Wukong doesn't even think about snapping back. He simply responds casually/lightly (before then realizing that MK is in danger)

This tells us possibly two really important things

Macaque sacrificing himself in S5E2 was a turning point for Wukong's perception of him. An increase in personal trust/faith/etc.

2. Seeing the memory of their fight made him rethink his behavior toward Macaque

For the rest of the season, they don't get a lot of moments because of, well, Everything, but we see Wukong is not only more willing to show concern for his wellbeing, but also seems to be more open/emotionally vulnerable in front of him than before (in little moments, anyway).

Granted that has been building up since S4E11, arguably before that but I'm not going to deep dive analyze season 3. He's being more communicative with Macaque in S5E1 about MK too. In other words, not completely shutting him out or pushing him away, which seems like their natural progression from S4E11 as well.

All of that being said, this brings me to The Scene. Which I am completely normal about because there's so much to unpack about it and I am so normal about that. Evidently.

First of all, they wanted to hold hands during their final moments. MK and Macaque are the two most important people in Wukong's life, I feel like that speaks for itself.

BUT it's Wukong who reaches out here.

This is Wukong's first major attempt to bridge the gap between them, at least in such a direct way. In my opinion, it's almost a wordless forgiveness on top of acknowledging how Macaque has changed and improved himself, as well as his reciprocation of that behavior. He wants to fix their relationship too, just as he has seen Macaque willing to do the same.

This moment being interrupted was actually a good thing. It's a good visual reminder that, despite them both wanting to reconcile, they aren't Quite there yet. There's still a lot left unsaid between these two, most importantly Macaque's death. (I'LL GET TO THAT. HOLD THAT IN YOUR BRAIN)

For macaque, this moment has another important meaning.

AND NOW I GET TO TALK ABOUT ONE OF MY FAVORITE WRITING TOOLS HELLO PARALLELS!!!!

In S2E7 we are introduced to this shot of Wukong on a pedestal over Macaque, turning his back on him and abandoning him. This is firmly established in that episode as one of the main reasons Macaque resents Wukong.

He is also portrayed as above him, subsequently nodding at Macaque feeling inferior to him.

In S4E11, we actually watch how this dynamic destroys their friendship. It is a MAJOR reason for their falling out. Macaque feels neglected, overlooked, ignored. Promises are broken and trust is lost. To him, Wukong is selfish, self-righteous, egotistical, uncaring, etc.

Obviously we as the audience are aware Macaque has a rather skewed perception of Wukong that seems to be influenced by his projection of his own insecurities, but that is a whole other analysis for a different time.

In S5E10, this shot is paralleled. Visually demonstrating that Wukong isn't forgetting about him this time. He looks for him. Macaque is being considered in a way he had previously believed was lacking in their friendship.

Not only that, but they are on level ground. Balanced and equal.

Macaque is reluctant to reach back out. His trust in Wukong is practically non-existent, has been for a while (understandably), so it's a little hard for him, but he reciprocates because, like Wukong, he's acknowledging that he has changed. He wants to try to fix this too.

TO RECAP!

They know they both want to fix things

They can see and have acknowledged changes in their behavior on both sides

Wukong seems to be less prone to arguing back, which will most likely make Macaque less likely to try and provoke him. All in all, they will be more civil with each other and most likely argue much less.

They are being held back by things left unsaid.

WHICH LEADS ME TOO...

WHERE DOES THIS LEAD THEM IN S6?

The obvious is they need to address Macaque's death. If they don't do it in this season it's bad writing and they are dragging it out for too long. It's the obvious natural progression here.

This is where they will have an actual, long overdue constructive conversation. It is literally singlehandedly the only thing preventing them from reconciling at this point.

Now, the problem, is how this would happen. Because we all know neither of them are going to randomly apologize out of nowhere. It's gonna take something to push them into that direction. And that should be how it happens otherwise it'd most likely feel forced in the script.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO A THEORY. A GAME THEO-

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of this particular theory, but just know that I am a firm believer in the "Macaque was consumed by his own powers and that's what killed him" theory. I do think Wukong played a substantial role in his death, enough for Macaque to reasonably believe Wukong killed him, but ultimately it was less Wukong directly killing him and more indirectly causing it and not saving him.

That being said, Wukong and Macaque's relationship is a major subplot in this show with a considerable amount of focus. They have been slowly building to their inevitable mending relationship since Macaque's first episode, which means that they're going to want to reach that climax in a pivotal emotional moment. Not a random conversation smacked into an episode.

And what is going to be plot-relevant next season??

MACAQUE'S CHAOS POWERS.

S5 built up to Macaque being an established member of the group

(Also the VO here being "change can be terrifying" is absolutely foreshadowing to some degree)

Now, there's also something else I need to address. Macaque has gone out of his way 3 separate times, 4 if you count the LBD fight, to save Wukong. On the other hand, Wukong obviously cares about Macaque, but ultimately hasn't had many opportunities or reasons to try to save him specifically.

With all of those details in mind, I think Wukong will need to take direct action by either saving him/protecting him/etc. because I think it would be a high-stakes moment that inevitably kickstarts an apology/conversation between them. Maybe it's something that reminds Wukong of their fight or that macaque can die (hence the chaos powers potentially harming Macaque in some manner or maybe a potential difficulty controlling them reminds Wukong of their fight, something along these lines).

Why this route?

Macaque has regained Wukong's trust. He basically says as much in S5E2. And while it's fairly obvious with Macaque's behavior and choices that he has learned from his past mistakes and is working on his faults, he definitely needs to acknowledge his wrongdoings. However, I think that would naturally happen during any conversation they may have (or the aftermath) regarding his death and their feelings.

That leaves Wukong because he made a promise to Macaque that they’d spend eternity together and that he would protect him and their home. A promise he broke multiple times and has not made up for yet. He needs to mend that and make it right to solidly regain Macaque's trust in order to reconcile.

[queenof3ferrets]

I don’t think people realize how deep Vil’s character goes. Like-REALLY realize it.

I am an aspiring writer, and I would say I have quite the keen eye so when I see people talking bad about Vil—-I get confused.

YES he seems harsh and pushy. And YES he doesn’t seem to act very nice around people sometimes and he acts cocky 24/7.

But there’s a difference between cocky and knowing your worth. Vil KNOWS his worth. And he isn’t just going to hide it because someone says so. Or because it’s easier to be modest and quiet.

And it’s what Vil is constantly encouraging others to do: to not hide.

But Vil also knows how harsh the world is. An actor can be one of the most hated people in the world because they’re constantly being filmed and people jump on their mistakes like lions hunting a limping giraffe.

So he KNOWS that a glass heart will get someone nowhere.

It’s why he acts so tough. And it’s why he gives tough love to others. If he never teaches his dorm members how to survive they’ll roll over and get killed the moment they step onto the field.

Hence, his harsh actions with Epel.

When Epel cries and storms off, Vil doesn’t scold him for it. He tells Epel to show him if he can hold his ground with his words. And how beauty is a weapon to be wielded well.

Vil scolds Epel when he calls dancing ‘feminine’ or ‘girly’ because he knows that mindset will get the boy nowhere. Vil knows beauty isn’t limited only to the female spectrum and tries to get others to see it as well.

It’s why Vil is so annoyed when Epel skips his routine but also because having a routine and ACTUALLY sticking to it is the hardest thing for some people. And Vil talks about this. (When you log in for the day and you get a reward, Vil LITERALLY talks about how routine and effort is the hardest part about beauty) and if you do keep up the effort it gives rewards.

But Vil also knows not all effort is repaid kindly.

That’s the whole reason he overblotted, basically. He felt inferior because no one saw him put in as much effort as he himself did, and people have the gall to scold him for it. That, or they overlook him for something they thought was better(Neige).

When I write, I don’t EVER want to hear someone I TRUSTED say that my work was second best to another author or that my way of writing was wrong and I should have to change it. Because I put time and effort into writing and it’s something I’m proud of. I put my soul into my writing and it honestly really hurts when someone does the exact things I mentioned before. And I’m sure Vil felt the same way.

Not to mention Vil has been through rough things in his childhood. Other children wanted to hurt him because of his talent for acting just because he played a part in a series too well and they couldn’t tell the difference. Adults never thought he could be a hero because he was too perfect and self-confident. Adults wanted someone like Neige to be the hero because he looked pretty and acted kind. (Basic protagonist things)

And Vil hated it. He gained traumas at a young age because other people alienated him. He grew to hate Neige because in the people’s eyes he was perfect and beautiful. And he grew obsessed with beauty because he didn’t think he was good enough for the hero roll.

His overblot was overdue at this point. Sure his actions should not be immediately forgiven, just like all the other overblotters actions, but they’re NEVER entirely to blame.

Because all of the boys who overblot were victims too. Not just Yuu or the others. They were hurting themselves just as much as others were.

And I hate it when someone like Vil is seen as a overly harsh person. Or someone like Leona who is only seen as lazy. There is so much more to them than that.

Vil respects people.

Vil sees how hard the people around him work.

Vil tries his best to show others their beauty in his way.

Vil knows that gems need to be polished from rocks before they can be embedded into a crown. But the work put in to get the gems ready is rough and long. And sometimes it looks harsh.

Vil learned his lesson after his overblot. There is no need to hang it over his head like blackmail. The same goes for the other overblot characters.

Riddle learned his lesson.

Leona learned his lesson.

Azul learned his lesson.

Jamil learned his lesson.

Vil learned his lesson.

Idia and Ortho learned their lessons.

[anilovie]

My Love, My Life

Summary: You and Anakin are on a supply-run and get caught in a storm, forcing you to find shelter amidst growing tensions.

WC: 9.3k

CW: MDNI, pwp, oral (f recieving), mild size kink, shared shower, lots of fluff

AN: I swear this whole thing was revealed to me in a vision.

You and Anakin had been watching the weather closely since being sent out in the dingy little transport ship. The mission was to deliver supplies and medical aid to an incognito Obi-Wan on the planet Leaze— before the storm got bad enough where travel became impossible. 

It was a simple mission, if not complicated by the sudden turn in their seasons, bringing forth a front of strong winds and heavy rains. Anakin could have even come himself, but the two of you played up the extent of Obi-Wan’s sustained injuries so that the Council would feel the need to send a medic – you – along for the ride as well. Any opportunity for you and Anakin to spend time together, you exploited. 

Really, Obi-Wan just sprained a wrist. He was low on food, water ammo, batteries, and his clothes had been all torn up in a nasty skirmish with some bounty hunters. “A joyride,” Anakin referred to this mission as. That is, until you began the descent into Leaze’s misty, swirling skies.

In between tracking his location and watching the weather radar, Anakin’s focus was on bringing you down to the ground safely — with a little more emphasis on safe, since you were here. Thus, his hands gripped the controls with a bit more force than normal, jaw clenched and brows furrowed as he met each gust of wind with a controlled parry. He pulled the shuttle through the misty skies, stabilizing the rocking foundations through the whipping winds that threatened to toss you right out of the air.

You weren’t sure how he could even see. The rain and leaves that had stuck to the window obliterated any view– he likely wasn’t even trying to see. You realized this as he answered Obi-Wan’s incoming call without even sparing a glance out the window, fingers flying over the dashboard, weathering the elements through intellect and feeling alone. 

“Anakin, Y/n, I trust that you’ve made it here safely,” Obi-Wan’s hologram displayed before you and Anakin. He looked alright – his disguise was off, for now, and he seemed to be someplace warm and out of the rain, a complete juxtaposition to the two of you.

As soon as the words warbled through, something slammed into the shuttle, rocking the foundations with an ominous groan as you began to plummet.

Anakin swore and yanked on the yoke, flicking some switches on the dashboard. “Working on it,” he bit through clenched teeth, huffing as the inferior ion engines sputtered and popped to life, breaking your fall. The shull continued to rattle and jerk, throwing you around in your seat despite being fully strapped up. 

“I can see that,” Obi-Wan quipped. “Well, once you make it to the ground, don’t bother coming to my location. The storm is worse than the reports have indicated. Find shelter for yourselves – I can hold out another day.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. It’ll do more harm than good forcing you out there in these conditions. I am safe where I am.”

“Which is where?”

The transmission cut out for a moment, shuttering off and on again as sheets of rain pelted the aluminum roof. You caught the last half of his explanation. “--they offered a room for the night, though at a high price. I hope you brought extra credits.”

“Some,” Anakin grit. 

“Perfect. Well, I won’t keep distracting you. It looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Obi-Wan bid goodbye, his cheery tone outlandish among your current predicament. “Happy landings,” he bid, and the transmission cut off.

Your fingers dug into your armrests, trusting Anakin’s skill to see that wish through. He was still deeply concentrated, and more than a little stressed as he pulled the yoke and typed over multiple colorful buttons. 

“Well, at least he’s safe,” you offered offhandedly, trying to diffuse the tension. Another hard gust of wind slammed into the hull, this time on your side, followed by a hard sheet of rain. You flinched. 

The lights had begun to flicker a while ago, and now they shut off completely, leaving you in the pitch black. Your sharp intake of air was audible, heart dropping to the pits of your stomach as the assault on the ship heightened.

“It’s okay, I did that on purpose,” Anakin explained. You could hear the strain in his voice, the clacking of his fingers over the overworked dashboard. “We need more power to the engines and thrusters. It’ll be a bumpy landing either way, but–”

“It’s okay,” you squeaked. 

“We’re almost there…”  

Bracing yourself, you squeezed your eyes shut and gripped the armrests, anticipation swirling around in your gut. You trusted him. You didn’t have to be so afraid. It was the weather you didn’t trust. Maker forbid you land in a pit of mud, swallowed up before you could escape. 

A sudden jolt threw you forward, the sickening screech of bolts and rods fighting to hold the metal panels of the shuttle together drowning out all other senses. Inertia pushed you forward in your seat, and you would have gone flying out the windshield if it weren’t for the double straps tightened over your chest, the lap belt, and the death grip you had on your armrests.

Slowly, the sliding of the shuttle ship began to slow, the tension in the shuttle easing, parts settling back into place. Then, the sounds of the vicious rain pelting the roof returned, your body relaxing against the seat with a huff, blinking your eyes open to the pitch blackness of the hull.

“You okay?” Anakin worried, clicking out of his own seatbelt to reach for you. 

You followed suit, fingers fumbling around in the dark for the clasps that would free you. “All good,” you released one set of straps, and Anakin found the two others for you. “Thanks.”

Another gust of wind nudged the shull forward, groaning under the pressure. Some lights flickered on, and there was Anakin fiddling with the control panel overhead so you could see. 

“I don’t think we can stay here for very long, unfortunately,” he said, and you weren’t sure you’d ever seen him look so stressed. “The ship appears to be sinking. We’ll have to pack a bag and get going.”

Abandon ship? In these conditions?

Again, your unshakable trust in him erased any fear in your mind. He’d done far riskier and more dangerous things – his own fear now was because of you. You’re safety. 

But you were fine – just a little shaky as you stood and reached for the supply crates in the back, rifling through them for necessities, tossing them to Anakin to shove into a bag. You managed to get half of what you’d originally planned to drop off for Obi-Wan into two bags. Anakin shrugged the larger one over his shoulders, and you took the smaller one.

You’d both come prepared, already wearing rain ponchos, but it seemed like they’d do little good as Anakin kicked the stuck door open. The sound of the rain coming down was deafening, a roaring torrent that could easily sweep you away. 

“Hold on to me,” Anakin yelled over the sound, and you hooked an arm around his, pulling you out of the ship with him.

Mud and rain splattered your face as your boots met the ground, and he immediately took off, dragging you with him. Again, your blind faith in him came in handy. All you could focus on was spluttering around the rain for any pocket of air you could find, trying to keep upright as your heels slipped and skidded in the mud, hoping you weren’t slowing Anakin down.

Of course you were slowing him down. You were no Jedi. But you both knew that, and he didn’t mind. Just wanted you out of the wind and rain so you wouldn’t catch a cold.

After what seemed like ages of the two of you fighting through the elements, narrowly avoiding trees and branches and sharp rocks, Anakin pointed out an abandoned shed in the distance. He ran for it, pulling you under the awning with him so he could pound on the door.

“No one’s here,” he spoke after a moment as you were still wiping water out of your eyes. Something clicked in the door, unlocking so Anakin could open it up and peer inside.

He found the light switch on the wall, flipping it up and down uselessly. “Power’s out,” he mumbled, searching around in the force for some mechanism of light. Apparently finding something, he released your hand. “I’ll be right back.”

You stood shivering by the closed door, dripping a puddle of water onto the ground as you waited for him to return. With your sight gone, your other senses were heightened – you could smell the dust of furniture long forgotten, hear the creeks of unkempt floorboards as Anakin explored the shed, and feel the bone-cold chill of the storm seeping in under the crack in the door. Wherever you were, it was very old, and likely abandoned.

Anakin came back around the corner brandishing a candle, shielding the flame with one hand as he made his way back to you.

“This looks like it was somebody’s home at one point,” he thought aloud, pointing to the way he just came. “That’s a kitchen over there, and there’s a loft with a bed in the back. Pretty sure I saw a shower, too. I can probably get the pumps running long enough to make use of it.”

You wouldn’t question how he could do that– sometimes it seemed like he had magical powers, even without the force. 

“Is there a fireplace?” you wondered, shaking off your drenched poncho and stepping further in now that you could see. “Maybe I could heat up some water to use, warm this place up a bit, too.”

Anakin held the candle out before him, casting shadows over the interior of the little shed. Right in front of the door was a wooden stairway – more of a ladder – that led to what you assumed was an attic. Deciding to avoid any bats or rodents, you agreed to keep that shut and rounded the ladder to what looked like a tiny living room opposite the kitchen, separated by a thin wall.

A couple threadbare sofa-chairs sat dusty and weathered on the dull carpet, a table set before the both of them, and – jackpot – a little stone fireplace in the corner.

“The wood from outside is too wet to burn,” Anakin poked at the empty log pit. “But I could break down that table and use it as fuel…”

“Good idea,” you chirped, taking the candle from Anakin to free up his hands for the task. “I’ll go look for more candles and matches.”

The kitchen was just as tiny, standing room only and no dining table. It consisted of a slab of wood for a counter, an empty ice box that was cracked down the middle, and some drawers which were also mostly empty.

One of the cupboard up top held a few random supplies, mostly rubber bands and bottle caps and dead batteries. But amid that was a bag of little tea candles, a few larger ones made of a slippery wax, and a box of matches. Half were no good, but you only needed to light one and then share the flame with all the others.

You planted the tea candles around on various surfaces, lighting the space up as Anakin broke down the table. You threw some old papers you’d found bunched in a drawer into the fireplace for more starter fuel, scratching another match to life against the grated box once Anakin dropped a leg of the table into the fire. You tossed the match in after it, satisfied when the flame caught the edge of the papers and flared to life, enveloping the wooden leg.

“That’s so much better,” you sighed, holding your hands out to warm by the flame. 

“Mmhm,” he agreed, crouched beside you. He stared, mesmerized by the flames for a long moment before suddenly standing. “Alright, I’m gonna go look at the pipes. Will you be okay for now?”

“Yup,” you nodded cheerily. “Where are the pipes?”

“There’s a cellar out back. Should be down there.”

“Oh…” this time, your shiver wasn’t from the cold. “Want me to go with you? Sounds kinda creepy.”

Anakin huffed a laugh, running a hand down the back of your head affectionately. “No, I think I’ll be alright, thank you. Want you to stay here and warm up.”

“I’ll go get the bed ready.”

“Perfect,” he brought you toward him with that hand, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead. “I’ll be back.”

Now alone, you fed the fire with some more wood from the table, crouching down before the bags to get out your and Anakin’s spare set of clothes. You hung them up on the sill of the fireplace, weighing them down with the candles so they could dry. 

There were a couple of large buckets beside the fireplace, probably meant for gathering wood. You took one and set it outside to collect rainwater. It didn’t take very long at all – it filled up from the downpour within minutes, and you hung it up on the metal rod above the fire to boil for drinking water.

Then you grabbed one of the thicker candles to light your way to the back of the shed. The floorboards lifted slightly back here, half of a wall hiding the bedroom from the rest of the interior. 

The bed was quite large for such a small space, half-made with a quilted cover. It looked all dusty and gross, so you tore it off and opened all the drawers and cupboards in the space, praying for some spare sheets.

Luck seemed to be on your side. There was a set of sheets, blankets, and even a couple of pillows stowed away atop the first shelf in the closet. You had to strain on your tiptoes to reach them, but eventually knocked them down to your height. You took them to the living room and shook them out, making sure no dust or any bugs hid inside, then brought them back to the room and made the bed.

It was a lot more than you were hoping for, for an abandoned shed in the depths of the forest.

With the bed all made and Anakin not back yet, you decided to use the old dirty blanket to wipe down the interior of the bathroom. There was a shower – if that’s what you could call it. Really, it was just a spigot attached to the wall with a drain beneath, the floor here made of smooth rock rather than wood. But if Anakin could get it to work, and you warmed up some more water over the fire, you could have a real, warm shower using the soap you’d brought from the ship. 

The sound of the door opening let in the roar of the rain once more. Anakin closed it behind him, shaking water out of his hair.. “Good news,” he called, voice carrying from the door to the bedroom in the small shed. “There’s a water heater down there that I got working, as well as the pipes. I just have to fill the tank and we’re good to go.”

“Ohh,” you cooed excitedly, rounding the corner to meet him again. “I found a bucket we could use– hold on.” You grabbed the spare bucket from the fireplace and handed it to him. “The bed’s all set, I found some clean sheets and cleaned up the bathroom. There doesn’t seem to be anything useful in the kitchen or anywhere else,” you shrugged. “But I think this will do pretty well for the night.”

“I think so, too,” Anakin said, and despite the howling wind and icy rain pounding into the roof and threatening to shatter the windows, he smiled. 

He left to go fill the tank, and you laid out the rest of the supplies before the fire. The bigger bag was for Obi-Wan– those things you didn’t touch. But you and Anakin had a couple extra blankets, some food, a blaster, maps, and your medical supplies. Most of it survived the rain.

By the time Anakin came back, you were still sitting before the fire, occasionally feeding it with more scraps of wood and poking it around with a longer piece. He kicked the mud and dirt off his boots at the door before coming in, shrugging off his poncho. 

“Alright, bad news…” he started this time. You turned to look at him. “The heater is the slowest thing I’ve ever come across. It’ll take hours. I don’t think showers are in the cards for us tonight.”

You twisted your lips, trying not to seem too disappointed. “Bummer.” 

All you wanted to do was get out of these sticky, soaking wet clothes and immerse yourself in a warm shower. But at least he tried, and it really wasn’t the end of the world.

“Maybe in the morning,” you reasoned, trying to stay positive. He joined you by the fire as you tugged on the clothes you’d hung up, seeing if they were ready. “At least these are dry, and warm now. That’s better than nothing.”

“It is. Smart girl,” he tilted your face toward his with a finger, crouched before you again. His lips met yours – wet meeting dry, cold meeting warm. It took you by surprise a little bit, the intensity he kissed you with out of nowhere. But you responded in earnest, as if the simple touch of your flesh could warm him from the torrents coming down outside. 

After a long moment, he pulled back an inch, mumbling against your mouth, “Let’s get out of these wet clothes, yeah?”

You nodded silently, standing once he gave you room to take the clothes down from the fire. 

You’d been on missions with Anakin before, just the two of you. But nothing like this – so raw, so intimate, so secluded from the rest of the world. You could feel a strange tension in the air between you two, not bad. Just… different. Like there was an energy pulsing alive, waiting for something to snap.

You’d been with Anakin for a few months now, and in love with each other for far longer. But… you’d never truly been with him yet. In any way. 

He knew you weren’t ready, and explained you could take it slow. As slow as you wanted. He, of course, was already experienced, and that intimidated you. Which is why it had been months, and you still hadn’t made a move to progress things. Just the thought of doing those things with him made you impossibly nervous.

But lately, like now, you were thinking about it more and more. You couldn’t do this with anyone else, you thought. Just Anakin. You loved him more than life itself, and your ability to express that with words or innocent touches was growing limited. 

You wanted more of him. And you wanted him to have more of you.

What are you thinking? You shook the thoughts out of your head as you took your clothes into the bathroom to change. These thoughts had nothing to do with the predicament you found yourselves in. The last thing he was thinking about was sex.

In fact, upon exiting the bathroom, you found him already changed into his dried pair of pants and nothing else, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for you with a tired, slumped look in his eyes.

He’d given you his spare shirt to wear since it was bigger and warmer than yours, and he wasn’t going to wear it anyways. You also had on a pair of shorts, the comfy ones you brought for sleeping since you thought you’d be in an inn right now. 

You approached him slowly, shadows cast over his face from the candlelight, flickering off the walls. The air was a bit chillier back here, away from the fire that you’d let simmer to embers for now. Naturally, you gravitated toward his shirtless form, slotting yourself in the space he’d opened up for you between his knees, and wrapping your arms around his neck.

“What an odd change of plans,” you muttered into his hair softly.

His flesh hand found your back, holding you close as he nestled his head against your chest. “Agreed.”

You remained like that for a moment, wrapped up in each other’s warmth and rain-damp hair, listening to the constant thrum of the downpour above, the gusting wind in the trees. 

“You tired?” you asked, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. You liked how it looked dark and burnished in the candlelight, holding the shape of a ringlet curl as you wrapped and uncoiled it from around your finger. 

“Very,” he breathed, turning his face into your neck to leave a kiss on your collarbone. “C’mere.”

Both of his wrapped around your back, securely holding you to him as he fell backward onto the bed, with you on top of him. You laughed, steadying yourself with your arms on either side of his head, ducking down to plant a sweet kiss above his brows. 

“You’re not even on the bed,” you pointed out, referring to his legs which were still on the floor. You pulled back the covers, and you both slipped under, instantly finding the spot between his chest and shoulder to lay your head. His arm wrapped around your shoulders and pulled you snuggly into his side, allowing you to slot one of your legs between his. 

This is how it always was when you and him could truly be alone, uninterrupted, with no threat of someone finding you out. It was a rare moment, which is why your skin sang with every inch it pressed against his, heart soaring in your chest as your body seemed to settle so perfectly against his, erasing any doubt in your mind that any of this could be a mistake.

Before long, and without even realizing, you slipped into a deep sleep. Despite the harsh weather outside, you’d never felt so comfortable, wrapped up in warmth and darkness. That is, until Anakin woke with a start, wrenching you out of your slumber.

“What issit?” you slurred, rubbing sleep out of your eyes. It wasn’t like when he’d have nightmares, where you’d usually wake up before him due to his tossing and turning and mumbling. This was sudden – like something had possessed him, stolen all the air from his lungs as wide eyes turned to you.

“The transmitter,” he said, throwing the blankets off of him and getting out of bed. Your head was still lagging behind, having no idea what he meant.

“What transmitter?”

“The one on the ship. The only way we can contact Obi-Wan. We left it behind.”

He was already pulling on his boots and reaching for his other shirt, sparing no time. You pushed yourself further up in bed, swiping your hair out of your face. “D’you have to get it now? Can it wait till the morning?”

“The ship was sinking when we left it. It could be buried in mud right now,” he rushed the words out, grabbing his utility belt from the sill and securing it around his waist. “I’ll be back in an hour. Go back to bed… I’m sorry for waking you.”

“No, I’ll come with you,” you were already swinging your legs off the bed too, about to stand up when Anakin put a hand on your shoulder. It was dark now, the candles having been blown out without you realizing, and you could barely see his face.

“No. Stay here. I don’t want you out there, it’s too dangerous.”

“It’s just some rain,” your argument sounded meek, even to you. “Come on, Anakin, I don’t want you to go alone. ‘S not fair.”

“Fair?” 

“You shouldn’t have to be out there while I stay here and sleep. I won’t be able to, anyway. It is dangerous, so I should come with you, in case something happens.”

“Y/n. No,” he said sternly, and you flinched. A heavy pause hung between you, where you searched for what to say among the scattered thoughts in your brain. He’d never been stern with you before. Ever. 

“I won’t be gone long. I promise I’ll be there and back as fast as I can. Okay?”

“But,” you insisted stubbornly, desperately fighting back the sting in your eyes. “I want to go with you, Anakin. I want to help you.”

You tried to stand up again, but the hold he had on your shoulders wouldn’t let you. You tried to fight back the emotion rising in your throat, threatening to spill over your eyes at his defiance. He was too strong, his word absolute– and for once, you couldn’t sway him.

The thought of him out there, alone in the dark and cold and rain… it killed you.

You grasped at his wrists, still holding onto your shoulders, and squeezed as if you could keep him there. As if he wasn’t laughably stronger than you, and could pull away from your touch without realizing you were trying.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? This isn’t like you,” his words came out hushed now. Worried. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” you sniffed, lip beginning to wobble. “Just don’t want you to get hurt.” It’s scary out there.

“I won’t. I promise… I’ll be okay. You’ll see,” he kissed the stray tear that squeezed out of your eye, collecting it with his lips before it could trail a path down your cheek. You tried to steady your breathing, shaky as it dragged in and out of your lungs, quelling the rising feeling of dread and fear.

Somehow, he’d coaxed you back into bed, on your back, tucking the sheets in around you nice and tight. Tight enough so that you couldn’t get out, perhaps. Whimpering in defeat, you felt another few tears squeeze out of your eyes, turning your head away from him to bury into the pillow.

“Don’t do this,” Anakin murmured, stroking a hand over your hair. “Please, don’t cry.”

“Fine,” you snipped, immediately regretting it. “‘M sorry… just don’t get hurt. Come back.”

“I will,” he whispered, and trailed warm kisses down your temple. 

And then he was gone.

His voice, his touch, his scent, his warmth – all of it, vanished like it had never been there to begin with.

It’s not the fact that he’d left to go do something dangerous on his own – it was the fact that he was out there all alone, in a terrible storm, fighting through the unpredictability of the elements. It had been violent for the short time you’d been out there earlier, the rain pelting your skin so hard it stung, the mud sticking to your boots, refusing to let you move, the wind nearly toppling you over if Anakin hadn’t been there to steady you.

You could have gone with him. You could have kept up. And Maker forbid anything happen to him – if he got stuck, trapped somewhere, if a tree came down over him, if he got lost and couldn’t find his way–

You couldn’t stay in bed. Half of you wanted to pull your boots on too and meet him out there, but you knew that was a stupid decision. You didn’t have his sense of direction, the built in radar that he had. And even as you peered through the cloudy window to the outside world, you knew it would be in vain. The night forest was alive with shuttering tree limbs, branches fighting each other in the sky as the terrible wind tossed them around. The rain never let up, the same suffocating sheet of water dumping from the moonless sky above.

Anakin was far gone at this point. You could only sit by the window, alone in the cold, dusty dark, until he returned.

The sleeves of your – Anakin’s – shirt had grown damp by the time you spotted his figure appear out of the trees. 

It startled you at first, worried some stranger had come across the shed in the same way you and Anakin had, and was now heading this way to seek shelter. Once he arrived, he might find you here, and maybe he’d try to hurt you.

You slipped off the ledge you were sitting on and grabbed for the water-logged blaster you’d set on the floor, shaking out some raindrops and hoping it wasn’t one of the things that got destroyed by the rain. 

Your worry was for naught - the closer the figure grew, the more you recognized the height, shape, and gait of Anakin Skywalker. The hood of his poncho was pulled up over his head, but it did little good as the wind tugged and pulled at it, letting the rain drench his face anyway.

You set the blaster down and met him by the door, pulling it open to reveal him soaked to the bone and panting. He truly had run the whole way.

“Anakin,” you started, trying to stay out of his way so he could take off his poncho and boots without spraying you with water. “Are you okay? Did you get the transmitter?”

“I made it just in time,” he explained, reaching into his belt pocket and brandishing the little metal device. Such a small thing, important enough to risk his life over. 

At least, to him it was.

“You must be freezing,” you muttered, still upset at the fact that you hadn’t shared in his suffering. You hated seeing him go through these things alone. You should have been with him. 

“The heaters have probably had enough time to warm the water up,” his attempt to distract you didn’t go unnoticed. “You wanna go check for me?”

You whispered, “okay,” and flit back to the bedroom, lighting a couple of candles inside so you could see. The spigot was stuck in place due to years of sitting unused and abandoned, but eventually you managed to wrench it to the side, almost splattering yourself with brown water.

Your face crinkled in disgust, but soon it began to run clear. You tested the temperature with your fingertips, pleased to feel that it was warm.

Anakin rounded the corner, leaning against the doorway of the bathroom with his arms crossed. “Is it working?”

“Yeah. It’s warm,” you pulled your hand away and wiped it dry on your shorts. “You should get in quick so it’s not wasted.”

“Wanna join me?”

His offer caught you by surprise.

Join him? In the shower? As in… naked?

The look on your face must have given your thoughts away. He chuckled and reached toward one of the tea lights you’d just lit, snuffing the flame out between two gloved fingers. “I can turn off the lights…” he teased.

Damn him. As if you weren’t already flustered – 

The steady trickle of the spigot remained at your back, seducing you to the warmth of the shower. It would feel so good to be able to wash up. And with there only really being enough time for one shower… it would make sense for the both of you to just do it together.

But Anakin had never seen you without clothes before. And you hadn’t prepared for that to happen today.

“Yes… no…?” he drawled, uncrossing his arms and reaching out for the other candle. Like the first, he pinched the flame out, blanketing the room in darkness. The sound of the floorboards creaking was the only way you knew he was approaching, tensing as you felt his hands tug at the hem of your shirt. “C’mon, sweetheart. I’ll behave.”

You were still upset with him being stern with you earlier. And even more upset that he didn’t let you go with him. 

But something about his honey-smooth voice reduced you to putty in his hands. Warmth budded and bloomed deep in your stomach, and a certain resolve passed over you. You didn’t want to be upset anymore. You wanted this. 

“Okay,” you whispered, fingers finding Anakin’s at the bottom of your shirt. You didn’t miss his slight inhale.

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” you tugged the hem up yourself, urging him to guide the material over your head. 

The darkness of the room was the only thing that offered you any sort of comfort, knowing he couldn’t truly see you just yet. You knew, logically, that he could fathom things in his mind without having to see them, but purposely ignored that fact.

You weren’t sure where your shirt landed, as he’d been the one to tug your arms out himself. Riding the adrenaline high, you slipped your thumbs under the elastic of your sleep shorts and pushed them down, kicking them somewhere in the corner.

And there you were, standing completely naked in front of Anakin Skywalker – your love, your life – for the first time ever.

Again, the only reason you could really do this right now was because it was pitch black in the room. You only had enough nerve to then reach for him, hand finding the soaking wet material of his own shirt as you shivered in the cold.

“Hurry up and get undressed, I wanna get in,” you pleaded. He’d gone eerily silent.

At your request, he started into motion. You could hear the sounds of his wet clothes slopping to the ground heavily, trying to fight the blush off of your face as you turned around to pull the spigot further. The water began to rain down in a warm current now, and you stepped underneath to douse yourself in the glorious heat.

“Where are yo–? oh,” you jumped as you felt his hands find their way around your waist, his naked chest pressed up against your back. The water sprayed over the both of you, trickling down his body to fall onto yours, shivering at the added heat.

The blood in your face grew warmer, trying not to think about how close his hands were to two very sensitive parts of your body. They spanned almost the whole length of your torso, tummy twisting as you realized just how big he was. Just how strong.

But he chose to be gentle with you.

Trying to steady your breathing, you reached for the soap you’d stowed away in the notch in the wall, flipping the cap open and squirting a generous amount into the palm of your hand. Anakin trailed his fingers down your arm, taking the bottle from you and setting it down again. 

You rubbed the soap between your hands, letting the excess drip down your body so it wouldn’t go to waste. Then, you began rubbing the suds all into your skin, feeling impossibly feverish at the predicament.

It just felt… wrong, somehow, to be touching yourself like this in front of Anakin. Even if you were just washing up.

His hands had returned to your waist, and you smoothed them over his own as you worked your way down your body. Wordlessly, he turned his hands over, capturing your soapy fingers in his and stealing some of the suds. You huffed a laugh, heart fluttering in your chest as he began to work that soap into the soft skin of your stomach, hips, and waist. 

You tried not to squirm too much. Forced yourself to relax, and just let him do what he wanted. He was obviously enjoying it, the way he lingered, rubbing circles into your soft skin, kissing at your shoulder blade as he brought his hands around and up your back, almost massaging the soap into you. 

The way his hands moved over your body was so different than anything you’ve ever felt before. You’d never been touched so tenderly, so unrestricted yet loving as you’d been now. And though he had free reign, he avoided the parts that might make you uncomfortable… until you grew bold enough to capture his wandering hands in your own, leading them to the soft mounds of flesh yourself. 

On instinct he squeezed, ever so gently, with your smaller fingers bracketing his own. “You can touch me,” you whispered, encouraging now that you were fully relaxed and comfortable with him.

“You’re perfect,” he replied, lips finding the curve of your neck.

What had he said about behaving?

As if he could read your thoughts, his lips released the skin of your neck with a small sound, pressing a kiss above that spot, and then one more under your jaw. Then he began to move his hands over your breasts, not quite sexual, but gentle. Caring. Washing you of rainwater and chill, so all that was left was the sweet smelling soap and the feel of him.

You sighed in relief, bones turning to mush in his hands. Soon, he reached for the soap again and squeezed more out, stepping around so that he was in front of you.

His hands found you again, your waist this time, the unpredictability of his touches making your heart hammer against your ribs. Something about it was so thrilling, not being able to see where he was or where he was planning to go, especially now that you’d given him permission to touch you. You weren’t sure where you’d draw the line if it came to that. If you’d draw the line. 

His touch remained wholly innocent, though, focusing back around on your stomach, dragging down the curve of your waist, your hips, the tops of your thighs. You could feel his breath on your tummy, butterflies flaring to life as you realized he was on his knees before you, dragging his touch up and down your thighs as his lips pressed a sensual kiss to the top of your tummy. Then above your belly button. Then one below–

You held your breath, anticipating him to keep going. But he lingered on the last kiss, and you could feel his teeth on your skin as he smiled.

“On my best behavior, remember?” his voice was deep, almost a purr. 

You could only manage a meek “Mmhm,” as he continued on, tracing his fingers down to your knee, lifting one leg slightly so he could trail kisses down your thigh, over your knee, down, down down, all the while rubbing soap into your skin in his lip’s wake.

By the time he reached your foot, you were bracing yourself with your hands on his shoulders, trying not to jump out of your skin as his lips continued. He kissed your ankle, the top of your foot, massaging soap into the soles of your feet. 

He wasn’t just washing you. He was worshiping you.

That much was clear as he released that leg and started over on the other side. 

You were almost relieved when he was done. Every inch of your skin was alive and buzzing, standing on edge with electricity and embarrassment and something else. Something deep, and smooth, and warm like bubbling molasses. You could barely breathe, glad for the moment of reprieve when he finally released you, and deposited more soap in his hands so he could wash himself. 

Your legs were jelly, afraid you’d fall down right there in the shower, completely baffled how he could just do something like that and continue on like nothing happened. Then, you heard the speed at which he was rubbing the soap over his own body – clearly, he wanted to get out to continue this elsewhere. 

You weren’t terribly ashamed to admit you were thinking along the same line.

Before the water could run cold, Anakin had urged you both under the spigot again and rinsed all the suds off your body. Then he grabbed for the single towel that you’d brought from the supply bag, turning the water off and wrapping you up in it.

“Hey– what’re you doing?” you pouted, undoing the towel just as soon as he’d tucked it into you, secure.

“Getting you dry,” he responded like it was obvious. You rubbed the towel over your skin quickly, then wrapped Anakin in it like he’d done to you. Or– you tried to, at least. You still couldn’t see, and completely missed your mark, caught off guard by the absence of the body you confidently reached for that you almost slipped, bracing yourself on the first thing you could reach.

“Woah,” Anakin chuckled, easily steadying you with his hands around your waist. Your bare chest was pressed against his, glaringly obvious with the way the cold air tightened your skin, and you blushed furiously. 

“Sorry– couldn’t find you,” you mumbled, hopelessly patting at his chest with the towel now that you had him.

“Alright, let’s get you dressed and out of here before you take us both down,” he teased, bending to retrieve the clothes you’d both discarded in the dark.

You let him pull his shirt over your head first, shielding you from the nippy air. You were disappointed with the loss of contact, but glad for the sense of normalcy. He knelt before you again and urged you to lift your leg with his hand around your calf, guiding one leg, then the other into your shorts, pulling them up until they rested comfortably on your hips.

He pulled his own pants on, the only thing he’d be wearing, and you finally reached for the bathroom door, ready to be able to see again even if it was only by candlelight.

It was like re-entering life, after being in the dark for so long. You turned to see if Anakin was following you, finding him close behind as he shut the door behind him, and just the sight of his ridiculously handsome face, gilded by the glow of the fire, set your heart aflame.

You needed his lips on yours. Now.

This time, he was taken by surprise with the intensity of your kiss. You stood on your tiptoes and captured his lips with yours, barely noticing as he fell back into the door slightly, hand finding your hip to steady you. His surprise quickly melted into an intensity that matched your own, hot lips sliding over yours, tongue dipping into your mouth for a taste, palm guiding your jaw just how he liked.

He kissed like he was drinking you in, breathing your air, as if he wished to share the same skin as you. And though you’d started it, now you were trying to keep up, head growing fuzzy from lack of oxygen as he began to guide you backward, onto the bed.

As soon as your back hit the mattress, the reality of the situation dawned on you. He wasn’t slowing down, and you didn’t want him to. His touch dragged fire across your flesh, tracing down the places he’d just worshiped under your clothes, pulling you so close to him you could feel his heart hammer in his chest.

Your hands buried in his hair, the other on his shoulder for stability, grounding as he released your lips with a gasp, wasting no time before claiming the sensitive skin of your neck with the same furiosity. 

“Anakin,” you breathed, not really sure what you wanted to say. You just wanted to taste his name in your mouth, the way the syllables sounded so pretty, so perfect between your teeth.

He answered with a short “mmm,” listening but not really. He was too deep into it, kissing and sucking and nipping at your neck, tongue laving over the small hurts that his teeth dug into you. 

Somehow his flesh hand had drifted to the elastic of your shorts. You’d missed it before, too caught up in him toying with the skin over your pulsepoint. But now his fingers teased the elastic that he’d just put on you, and despite your livewire nerves and the pound of your heart, you lifted your hips in invitation.

His mouth detached from your neck, shocked again as he breathed, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” you forbid him from asking again by pulling him back to your lips. You needed the distraction, bracketing his jaw in both your hands as he pulled your shorts down your legs, slowly. Giving you time to back out.

You kicked them off once he reached your feet, flinging them out of sight. Anakin settled back between your thighs, your knees squeezing his waist, squirming as his touch now roamed free under your shirt.

“Anakin,” you pulled away to breathe once again, lips swollen and wet, filled with the taste of him. “I– I don’t know what to do.”

His eyelashes shuttered, delicate as a butterfly wing, and he leaned back in to peck you gently on the lips. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he murmured, eyes all melted and soft. “I’ll take care of you.”

There it was again. That blind trust. 

He could do whatever he wanted to you right now, and you’d let him. Half dressed, strewn over the bed, all for his taking… and he moved down your body to recount the kisses he’d pressed to your stomach in the shower only moments before.

Your muscles clenched and unclenched, hips squirming as you felt an uncomfortable warmth, a wetness, an ache between your legs the further down he moved. You were no stranger to that feeling, or how to relieve it– but you were new to sharing it with someone else. Sharing it with him. 

Though it made you incredibly nervous to have him down there, the need for his touch outweighed everything. He kissed your stomach, hips, and thighs until he felt you relax under his palms, and only then did he slide his hands beneath your knees, pausing one last time to ask:

“Will you let me taste you?”

It felt like something exploded in your face, with the intensity that heat bloomed in your cheeks. Those bejeweled eyes shining in the candlelight, intent on you, hands clutching the plush softness of the backs of your thighs, breath ghosting over the bottom of your stomach– it was almost too much.

“Okay,” you answered quietly, nodding your head. “Y-yes.”

His responding grin was wicked – roguish. Broad hands pushed your legs up and spread them apart, baring it all for him to see.

It was quick– so quick you barely had time to be embarrassed, like ripping a bandaid off. He just… did it. And now he was looking at you, holding your thighs so steady in his strong grasp that you couldn’t even dream of closing them on him.

You threw a hand over your eyes, unable to watch him look at you.

“Baby,” he breathed, flesh hand releasing one of your legs so he could slot it between your thighs, thumb pulling you open a little. You didn’t think it was possible to be more embarrassed as he studied you, only opening your eyes to look at him when he tugged at your wrist in silent demand.

“C’mon, don’t be shy,” he teased, though when you blinked open your wet eyes to look at him, his face had melted into one of adoration. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, before pressing his lips to the swollen bud of your clit, taking you by surprise again. “The prettiest there ever was,” he smirked when he saw your reaction, pulling you open with both thumbs now so he could press a hot, deep, lingering kiss into you.

You gasped at the contact, blood rushing in your ears as your back bowed off the bed. Sparks of pleasure battled the humiliation as he continued planting sweet little suckling kisses to your clit, over and over, as if he couldn’t get enough. 

Once you’d relaxed back onto the bed, and the first pathetic whimper left your mouth, he let his tongue roam your folds, collecting your taste.

He knew this was new for you, so he went slow. Started gentle, getting you used to the feeling. And it was strange for you, just a little bit, but mostly it felt… good. So good. Indescribably good. So much so that you couldn’t believe you’d held out on this for so long.

Couldn’t believe you were letting him do this to you now. 

Your hips twitched and jumped as his tongue traced down to your entrance, teasingly licking you in circles, using pressure like he might try to put it in. The thought had you reaching for the bedsheets, needing something to squeeze in your fists. One of his hands intercepted yours, bringing it back to your thigh so he could hold you still and let you squeeze his hand at the same time. 

He licked your arousal up, truly drinking you now, allowing his tongue to lave over your clit all slow and smooth and warm. You mewled, a sweet, innocent sound that went straight to his cock. With a desire to pull more pretty sounds from you, he kept drawing circles over your clit, increasing the pressure and speed until your eyes were closed, and you were biting your finger between your teeth, unable to help the sounds escaping you.

“Fuck, Ani–”  gasped, thighs falling open by themselves now, inviting him deeper. He licked you again, closing his lips at the top of your heat to suck your clit into his mouth, pulling it between his lips with a pulsing suction. 

He didn’t let up. 

Your muscles tensed, the fuzzy warmth building in your gut, between your legs, spreading down your thighs, becoming all consuming. And just when you thought it would burst, he let go.

“Shit,” you cried, breathless as your hips rocked against his mouth. He laughed, sticking his tongue out so you could hump the met muscle, hot breath fanning over your most sensitive parts. His teeth gleamed in the firelight, dark eyes trained on you, and you had to shut your own so you didn’t cum right there.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he pulled his face away, pinching the inside of your thigh just enough to sting. You forced your eyes open, meeting his gaze again. “Stay with me, pretty girl.”

His mouth, shining with your slick, lowered to your pussy again. And you couldn’t stop from moaning, hips canting up and down even though you knew it made his job more difficult. You just couldn’t help it– it felt too good. 

And he knew that, so he was nice. It was your first time, after all. So he relaxed the hold he had on your hips and let you squirm, just a little, to delude you into thinking you had even an ounce of control.

“You gonna cum in my mouth, sweet thing?” he spoke against your cunt, sealing the words off with a loud, wet, kiss. “Gonna make a mess for me?”

You’d never appreciated the velvety timber of his voice more than right now. 

“Mhm,” you whimpered pathetically, eyes squeezing closed. And again, he let you. There would be other times to play his wicked games.

“Alright, sweetheart. Whenever you’re ready,” he soothed, returning his mouth to your clit. He licked and sucked, sliding his tongue back down to your hole and breaching the entrance like he’d fantasized about doing with his cock for so long now, carving the exact path he would take. You gasped for air, humming it out in cute helpless whines and whimpers, cheeks permanently stained in a flush.

“Anakin, I–” you wanted to say you loved him, no matter how pathetic that sounded. But it was true, it was all you could feel as his lips suctioned around your clit again, pulling it into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue in torturous circles. You loved him, loved his mind and his body, and the way his lips and tongue were pulling that glorious wave of heat from out of you now, swallowing the gush of hot slick that escaped from your pulsing hole.

He brought you down with his thumb on your clit, soothing gentle circles into it as you cried, body shaking and jerking beneath him. He watched you come undone with a small smile on his face, not allowing you to escape his attention for even a moment. 

The last gulp of air that you took to settle your shivering muscles felt like the sweetest breath you’d ever taken. Anakin climbed back up your body, hands sliding over your knees, so he could kiss you deep on the lips.

You tasted yourself – it wasn’t bad… slightly salty, but not quite. That mixed with the taste of Anakin had your brain turn to mush again, lips lazy and compliant under his.

“See how good you taste?” he hummed, going back in to flirt his tongue around yours. “Fucking delicious.”

“Anakin–” you were pushing at his chest now, the buffer of arousal no longer shielding you from so much embarrassment. He laughed as you covered your face with your hands, immediately trying to tug them away again.

“It’s the truth,” he insisted with that lover’s pur, and you pouted once he finally succeeded in seeing your face again. He traced your bottom lip with his thumb, still smiling. “You okay?”

“Mhmm,” you nodded, unable to fight back your own matching smile. “‘T was so good, Ani. Didn’t think… didn’t think it’d be like that.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm,” you shook your head, leaning into his warm palm as he cupped your cheek, thumb still stroking your bottom lip. “Thank you. Do you– do you want me to…”

It took him a second before he realized what you were talking about. His eyes widened slightly and he looked down, then laughed. “No– no, you don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t you want me to?”

“Of course I do,” he insisted, mirth and adoration oozing from his gaze. “But I can handle it tonight. Think that was enough for you.”

You pouted again, about to insist, but he kept you quiet with a kiss. “Another time, okay?” he whispered against your lips.

You nodded, complaisant.

“Good.” With a deep breath of his own, he lifted himself off of you, carefully closing your legs so they wouldn’t ache from being held open for so long. “Wait here,” he requested, and then left for the bathroom again.

He grabbed the towel you both had used, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Can you open up for me?” he asked, fingers sliding around your thigh in silent request.

Your face burned even harder than before, somehow, as you fulfilled his request, spreading your legs a bit so he could clean you up. It was a strange feeling, almost more intimate than what he’d previously been doing– but it was quick, and it felt nice now that your arousal was all cleaned up, and he could slip your shorts back on with you having to get up. 

Anakin retreated back to the bathroom and was gone for a few long moments. You had an idea of what he was doing, another burst of heat blooming in your stomach at the thought of what was going on behind that door. You had half a mind to suggest helping him again. You were more than willing.

But he came out only a short time later to find that you’d straightened all the sheets, and were now waiting by the pillows for him to come back to bed with you. He blew out the candles as he passed them by, getting into the bed and wasting no time pulling you onto his chest.

He’d never felt closer to you. And you, him.

In the morning, you’d probably be embarrassed again, recalling what you’d done. The storm outside seemed to trap you in a bubble, your own world, and everything else seemed so far away now.

You pressed your palm to his chest, letting the strong thud, thud, thud of his heart lull you to sleep. Before he could feel you drift off, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“I love you,” he said, and you heard it in your dreams. 

divider from @saradika

[likesomanywrecksdo]

blitzø and his relationship with masculinity in ghostfuckers

Obviously blitzø has this bulletproof, as millie said, facade he puts up but deep down there is this fear that if he opens, he will get laughed at if he opens up to anybody. Blitzø's relationship with his masculinity is extremely fragile. Now knowing cash beat him, it makes sense to assume that the feeling of helplessness he experience from his dad's abuse made him always have to feel invincible. Over time, this solidified into him having to be overly harsh and brash (downplaying moxxie's achievements). This facade, in his mind, became all anyone in his life has ever known (unaware that the cracks in this very facade is what makes people more drawn to him anyway). He believes it is expected of him to keep it up no matter what, the specific types of jokes he cracks, the type of digs he makes at moxxie, and of course, his feelings.

This whole episode has been blitzø trying to deny his feelings whne they are SO fucking obvious to everyone in his life. With the hypersexualizing of the mission, he is trying to erase the perception from millie's mind that he is "moping" and just revert back to what everyone expects of him. He really doesn't need to hide how shitty he's feeling, he obviously doesn't want to either but he HAS to because these practices are so ingrained into his mind he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

In the flashback, he gets so pissed that millie even brought up the notion that they don't deserve all this. In reality, blitzø was probably thinking the exact same thing but hearing it voiced out in the open immediately triggered his need to reaffirm that he is the least insecure and most masculine and confident person ever.

When Rolando traps him in the abandoned movie theatre and makes him watch every single moment where he has ever felt inferior or insecure, this issue is mentally brought to the forefront of everything. Everything he had been running from for 15+ years he is being forced to confront and he is chained down having to deal with the fact that there is some slimy infestor demons weeding through his darkest moments and choosing which one would sting blitzø worst. He can't speak, he can't move, he can't do anything except stay paralysed in that spot, Rolando wants him to come to terms with the fact that no matter how successful he is, if you are vunerable enough to share your trauma? That is all people will see you as. Weak.

And then there's the root of it all.

Cash Buckzo.

The man that taught him that violence is masculinity. The man that never once even thought of displaying empathy or vulnerability as blitzø's ONLY male role model throughout his childhood. Blitzø toxic masculinity mindset is all subconsciously so he can appease his father. It's why he makes fun of Moxxie, because his relationship with masculinity is so fucked that when he sees somebody that isn't conforming to typical gender norms he has been taught, he has to drag them down in an effort to convince his mind to keep perpetuating this facade because other what was all his suffering for? He could at least be the son his father wanted. The memory of Cash's outbursts still make him flinch, no matter how successful he is he can't escape the cycle of wanting to please his dad.

why he loves stolas

of course I have to make this about stolitz, who do you think i am?

ANYWAY. As I said before, blitzø's only male role model throughout his life was Cash, violent, angry Cash. That was until Stolas came along. Stolas altered blitzø's entire brain chemistry regarding masculinity because here is the most powerful person blitzø has ever met and actually formed a relationship (IT WAS NOT A BREAKUP copium goes hard btw) with and he's.......a bottom?

Nah but really, it's no shocker that Stolas displays more classically "feminine" (whatever that means) traits, which he has been taken advantage of by paimon, stella and likely other memebers of the Ars Goetia but blitzø sees Stolas' masculinity completely differently. Power dynamic or no, blitzø looks up to Stolas, likely because of how different he is from the men that blitzø has met before, including Cash. This paired with the fact that Stolas is not weak by ANY means, blitzø has seen firsthand how strong he is (blitzø is yet to witness stolas' mental strength but when he does i will be screaming and crying) and that is what attracts blitzø to stolas. Stolas was able to do what blitzø never could and break the cycle of toxic masculinity.

[cloudspaintedblue]

Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just A Rat In A Cage

Erik Destler(The Phantom) x GN!Reader

Warnings/notes: Mentions to past abuse (of Erik), inferiority complex (Erik). This is a drabble+headcanon post

Erik who’s heart aches when you inform him you won’t be in the lair for days, how is he meant to pass the time without his angel? Perhaps writing ballads of sadness, the compositions getting tears on them from how much emotion he plays on his organ

Erik who cries when you return with gifts for him, he doesn’t deserve them, he begs you not to waste your energy and when you argue he only gets more upset.

“I am not worth this! I beg of you please.. I can not accept such a gift, not for such an unworthy monster..”

Erik who finally gives in after your pleading, sniffling while his hands shake to retrieve whatever it is you have given him. His eyes stinging as he opens it, vision going cloudy before the tears start again.

Erik who falls to his knees, inevitably scuffing them as he clutches the gift in his hands. ‘He is not worthy!’ He repeats, you sit down beside him, reaching out to remove the gift so you can hug him without it breaking.

“No mother please—!” He shouts through tears, not yet realizing his mistake, he’s scared to lose it. A precious gift given to him by his angel, he can not lose it!

Erik who despite clutching his gift with all his might drops it the second you embrace him, he is too shocked to wrap his arms around you in return—well only for a moment, as soon as he is fully aware of what is happening his arms are around you, gripping so hard one could guess you were his next victim. However that’s not the case, he simply longs for your comfort; longs for your warmth, the warmth he was deprived of a child and deprived of up until recently.

Erik who calms down with the slow rocking of your bodies, feeling your heart beat—the heat from your skin, the comforting words from your lips. It all feels fake, like he is not worth it, but still he clings to it. For if it is fake, for if it is just a dream; he would condemn himself to death so he could live in this dream.

[missfrieden]

I got bored on my way to work and then on the way home. So here I force a random drabble on you all.

Summary: Let's set the scene shall we? You jabe a random question for Tech, that catches him a bit off guard.

Rating: Mention of sex

Pairing: Techxreader (think I managed gender neutral)

Note: Hope all of you know what dyscalculia is. Because Tech having a partner which is useless with numbers, is endaring to me.

Word count: Listen drabbles are often from my phone notes, so yeah I ain't counting them.

Rabbits

That night, as Tech shook out your blanket, preparing the bunk for the both of you to settle in, you are lost in thought, a playful question forming in your mind. As you climbed into the bunk and snuggled down into the soft covers, you looked up at the man who had become the center of your galaxy. There was a hint of curiosity in your eyes as you turned to him.

“Tech?” you began, your tone light and inquisitive. Tech, always attuned to you, looked over with that familiar, attentive expression. “Yes, Y/N?” You hesitated for a moment, biting your lip, a nervous habit, as you considered how to phrase the question. But then, with a smile, you decided to just go for it. “Have you ever… I mean, have you ever counted how many times we’ve had sex? We’ve been together for about a year and a half now, so I was just wondering.”

Tech blinked, the question clearly catching him off guard. But true to form, he didn’t miss a beat. His mind quickly scanned through the mental data he always kept so meticulously organized, and within a moment, he delivered the answer with his characteristic precision. “Yes, I have,” he replied, almost too matter-of-factly. “We’ve had sex approximately 214 times, and that’s not including the individual rounds within each session, which total to 367.”

Your eyes widened in shock and surprise, mouth falling open slightly as you processed what he had just said. “Wait… what?” you laughed, clearly amazed. “Tech, that’s… we’re like rabbits!” Tech frowned slightly, confused by the comparison for just a moment before realization dawned on him. “Oh, you mean in terms of frequency,” he said, his expression clearing. “I didn’t intend to imply anything, I just… well, I tend to keep track of details like that. It’s a habit of mine.” You couldn’t help but laugh at his earnestness, your heart swelling with affection. The idea that Tech had been keeping such precise count was both endearing and a little surprising, but it was also so perfectly in line with who he was. “Tech, you’re amazing,” you said, still chuckling. “But seriously, why do you keep track of it?”

Tech hesitated, clearly trying to find the right words to explain himself. “Well,” he began, somewhat awkwardly, “I suppose it’s because I’m a person who finds comfort in data and patterns. Tracking these moments allows me to… analyze and understand our relationship in a more tangible way. It’s not just about the numbers, it’s about ensuring that our connection remains strong, that I’m meeting your needs… and, well, it’s just part of who I am.”

As he spoke, he began to stammer slightly, his usual composure wavering as he tried to articulate something that, for him, was both deeply personal and difficult to put into words. But before he could finish, ypu leaned in, placing a gentle finger over his lips to stop him. “Tech,” you start softly, your voice filled with warmth, “you don’t need to explain. I love that you’re so precise, that you care enough to keep track of things like this. Someone in this relationship has to be good with numbers, and if it isn’t me, then I’m glad it’s you.”

You smiled at him, eyes shining with affection. You had always admired Tech’s incredible mind, the way he could handle complex calculations with ease, while you struggle with even basic math because of that stupid dyscalculia of yours. But you had never felt inferior because of it, Tech had a way of making you feel valued and appreciated for who you are, no matter what. Tech’s tension melted away as your words sank in, and he relaxed, returning your smile. “I just… want to make sure you’re happy,” he said quietly, his voice full of sincerity. “That’s the most important thing to me.”

Your heart swelled with love as you leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. “And you do,” you murmured against his mouth. “Every single day. I wouldn’t change a thing about you, Tech. Not one thing.” You stayed like that for a moment, wrapped up in each other, the warmth of your connection surrounding you like a comforting blanket. When you two finally pull back, you settled against him, resting your head on his chest, closing your eyes, a contented smile on your lips.

“I’m really glad you’re the one who’s good with numbers,” you said softly, your voice tinged with a hint of playful teasing. “Because I know I can always count on you.” Tech chuckled softly, wrapping his arm around you and holding you close. “And I’ll always be here to count on,” he replied, his tone filled with warmth.

As you lay there, the quiet of the night settling around you, Tech couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the incredible person in his arms. You understood him in a way that no one else ever had, and you loved him for exactly who he was, numbers and all.

Main Masterlist

And as you two drifted off to sleep, Tech made a silent promise to himself that he would continue to cherish and protect this incredible bond you shared, ensuring that your relationship remained as strong and full of love as it had been since the very beginning.

Tag: @spectacular-skywalker @neyswxrld @clonethirstingisreal @sleepycreativewriter @moonwreckd @sskim-milkk @heidnspeak

[sunnysideaeggs]

some criticisms i have of episode 2. read the tags first please.

disclaimer: i am a targtowers’ stan first and foremost. that means: aegon, helaena, aemond and daeron. they’re my favorite characters. that’s where my ‘loyalty’ stands. everyone else (including alicent) comes after.

helaena’s grief should’ve been a bigger point in the episode. this is HER episode and aegon’s (i’m not complaining about him but her screentime was so low). everyone else, rhaenyra, alicent, yada yada is secondary.

alicent can light up candles for her enemy’s son but can’t even attend the funeral of her grandson 🙄 she doesn’t cry, curse the blacks, want to bathe in the blood of jaehaerys’ killers, or can even bring herself to say his name.

i love aegon’s performance. i love all of his grief manifested in rage and anger. he cries but he will kick everyone later. tom go get your emmy.

girl your daughter just lost a son and you want to talk about you fucking your bodyguard. i’m tired of her. helaena is with all right of ignoring her.

once upon a time there was a boy that loved horses 😭 jaehaerys my dear

a larys/aegon scene is all i could wish for. the cold mastery of secrets and torture combined with the unstoppable wrath of a wounded man. i need more of them.

i like how the funeral seems, by all accounts, normal but by helaena’s viewpoint everything is too much. the people claim for her showing support but it’s all noise. the carriage showing her little boy so that people know who to blame but it only reminds her more of what happened. he even looks like he’s sleeping.

tbh this scene shows how rhaenyra doesn’t fucking care about helaena and her children. the first thought she had when she heard of the news wasn’t to have compassion or empathy, but to do damage control and worry about her reputation.

lmao i don’t have a clue what daemon’s intentions and rationality is. he only cares about looking mighty and dangerous to other people even when he does dumb shit, then justifies it. he lives only for other people’s opinions but then everyone hates his ass lol. dilffailure.

also he’s the embodiment of living for a dick measuring contest he ends up losing. all of daemon’s behavior can be attributed to erectile dysfunction.

how the writers found time for an oc prostitute having a mommy kink scene with aemond but didn’t have more time for a longer scene with helaena and literally anyone is beyond me.

aemond talking about his regret for luke but not about the death of his nephew 💀 luke died like three years ago condal pls get over it. aemond would care more about jaehaerys than poor little luke.

some much needed baela character development. i love characters that are like the female version of their dad but then also fucking hate their dad lol

i liked the tidbits of the dragonseeds during the episode. i’d like some nettles too :) but i guess the only female and canonically black character is a little too much for this show amirite :)

of course daemon would never be able to bend to anyone he considers inferior, much less rhaenyra, who under any other circumstance would be seen as ‘lesser than him’. it reminds him of his failures. i’m glad we’re on the same page.

aegon never had a chance right? aegon was literally raised by hightowers in love with targaryens. he never would’ve been able to surpass viserys and rhaenyra in otto and alicent’s eyes. nothing he did could’ve changed that.

otto’s little laugh cost him a job lol. i’m sad we didn’t get his cats.

the focus on rhaenyra in the arryk/erryk fight is too much for me. once again, leave secondary characters have their moments instead of shoving r or a down my throat please. this is their especial moment, their last moment. rhaenyra being all 😨🧍🏼‍♀️ between their shots does nothing for the scene.

otto’s realization of his life’s work being flushed down the drain is so touching and painful in a way to me. he’s like tywin if he lived long enough to see cersei and tommen fuck everything up.

‘i have sinned’ ‘i do not wish to hear of it’ that’s peak cersei and tywin from that one scene when she confessed the incest.

daeron exists? yay. and once again i’m fucking tired of alicent not reacting to mention of daeron, not comforting helaena, bashing aemond, ignoring aegon. where’s the love for her children?

the scene of otto putting resting his face on his hands? chills. it should’ve lingered there. showcase otto’s regret? grief? idk. pity it just lasted half a second because we needed to see alicent once more.

from now on, alicent is cancelled for me. i don’t care anymore about her. any parent that leaves their child in distress to go fuck can eat shit. i gave that treatment to daemon in laena’s funeral and i’m giving it to her.

we have more sex scenes of alicent than we have of daemon and aegon combined. yet she’s the pious queen and they’re the lechers. condal please write accordingly.

how do i watch a show when i don’t care for the two main characters, because they’re cardboard cuts of women who don’t do anything? i don’t know.

[coolmanjohnny]

SAW: (unrated) rant

Okay. I just watched the unrated version of Saw (2004) in theaters. So for some reason, they alter the ending for the unrated version of Saw. I have no idea why they chose to do this. I didn't see much discussion going over the details so I thought I'd go over it and why I think its inferior to the original cut. (Forgive me if I seem nitpick-y, I just love the original film so much haha. Totally fine if you like the unrated ver., I'm just sharing my thoughts here.)

To start, the unrated is advertised as a version with more gore/blood, which it does fine on that part. There are a few extra seconds of shots, for instance, the scene where Amanda is sifting through organs, some of the crime scene photos, and the wire trap maze is slightly longer. Here is a good article that goes over the Director's Cut with more details if you are interested. (I believe the Director's Cut is the same, if not very similar, to the unrated version? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) Also, I think the colors are also less blue? I can't confirm this though. I believe there may be a few other details changed as well, but they're not super relevant. Feel free to share any ones I'm missing just for fun though.

These extra shots are fine, thumbs up emoji. My problem starts and ends with the final moments of Saw (unrated). This is Tumblr. You all know the ending to Saw and are probably obsessed with it. It's incredibly impactful and angsty. Its one of my favorite ending sequences of all time. I still think about Adam being left to die alone often. RIP.

Now, lets go over what's changed in Saw (unrated)'s ending:

Some of the final lines are cut out. (Why???)

For some reason, they cut the line where Adam asks, "Am I gonna be okay?" and Larry turns back and says, "I wouldn't lie to you." Why would they do this? I don't know. I can only speculate. Maybe they thought that it contradicted with Lawrence's character, since he is in fact a liar/adulterer? Maybe they thought it was too "hopeful"? Homophobia? (joke)

I think that it's really a shame, because it makes Larry much more likable imo. This one moment is representative of his character development in the film. There are a lot of complex emotions tied with that one line. For once, Lawrence isn't lying to Adam. He truly does want to help. At the same time, you can tell that he feels uncertain. He doesn't know if he actually will be able to make it back in time (if even at all).

Notice how he responds to Adam's question in a roundabout way. He doesn't know if Adam will be okay.

In a way, Jigsaw's trap did work. Lawrence learned empathy. LMAO. It is also makes Adam so much more tragic, any last glimmers of hope he had left get ripped away as soon as he realizes that Jigsaw isn't who he thought it was. They are both fucked. (Ignore that Saw 3D exists for a second here, lol. I definitely think that the original implication here was that Larry is screwed. Either Kramer gets to him, or he bleeds out.)

Here is the original scene for reference:

2. The end credits are changed.

Saw ends with Adam's haunting screams bleeding into the end credits. There's about 20-30 seconds of silence/very subtle music. Then, it leads into the song "Bite The Hand that Bleeds" by Fear Factory. I just LOVE the angst.

Now, lets see what the unrated version is like. (I had to really dig to find this lol.) Obviously, there is no longer licensed music. It instead plays the "Saw theme". (I believe Hello Zepp/Overture is the official name of the song?)

It's...fine. (Once again, forgive me for nitpicking. I'm starting to think that I may be overreacting a bit, lol.)

I sort of understand why they would change the licensed music. It makes the first film feel more "connected" with the sequels; now they all have matching theme songs. (Another idea is that they simply didn't get the rights back to the original song for the re-release. I'd have to do more research on this.) However, it still makes me sad, lol. I just love how edgy and aggressively 2000s the original end credits feel. It matches the film's tone so well imo. The filmography of Saw reminds me a lot of early 2000s nu-metal music videos (unique colors, over-edited to hell, etc.).

I want to really emphasize the importance of film preservation in this post. Thankfully, the original theatrical cut of Saw is pretty easily accessible. (However, this isn't the case for all films. Star Wars is probably the most famous example.) I am just a little saddened that some first-time viewers will end up watching this version of the film without being aware of these changes. I love Saw so much you guys

[yggdraseed]

Women in Jujutsu Kaisen

Let’s get this out of the way first: if you’re reading this because you enjoy reading posts by people who hate Jujutsu Kaisen, you’re going to be disappointed. I actually like Jujutsu Kaisen a lot, I have a lot of positive things to say about it, and I’m going to be explaining my reasoning here. You should probably move on if you want trash talk. But if you have a negative view point that you’re nevertheless willing to reevaluate or recontextualize by looking at things from a new perspective, please read on.

A lot has been said about how women are written in Jujutsu Kaisen. A lot of good, and a lot of bad. I think a lot of the bad comes from how Jujutsu Kaisen was praised so early on for how it’s women were written, only for people to either not see it or have their expectations not be met due to events in Shibuya and the Culling Games. However, while I try to respect diversity of opinion, I feel like a lot of people aren’t really grasping why the way GeGe Akutami writes women was lauded. I think a people have lots of different ideas of what makes for a well-written female character, and don’t find what they’re looking for in Jujutsu Kaisen, thus they get angry and they post online about how GeGe Akutamisogyny isn’t going to beat “the allegations.”

I’ve never liked the justifications put forth for that argument. There’s a lot of subtext to how the female cast of Jujutsu Kaisen are written that can’t fit neatly into the simple world of page and panel counts or win-loss ratios. And, fortunately, there are tools for feminist literary analysis that I am going to employ in what will hopefully be a short trilogy of posts, starting here.

When I see people criticizing how women are written in Jujutsu Kaisen, I usually only see them using one point of interest: the outcome of a fight. If a female character doesn’t win a fight, then some people in the audience take that to mean that GeGe Akutami hates that character, hates women, and doesn’t want them to succeed — or some variation of that, perhaps less extreme.

This is a product of Jujutsu Kaisen being a Shonen, and thus being on the radar of Shonen fans who — let’s be honest — are not known widely for consuming anime or manga outside of the Shonen demographic. Shonen is heavily focused on conflict and competition as storytelling, it’s why the term “battle shonen” is used so prevalently. And Jujutsu Kaisen doesn’t try to deny its own Shonen heritage: it uses fights for storytelling all the time, sometimes even more than other Shonen seem to do.

I think this might also be a cultural thing. Anime and manga are written very differently from Western movies or comic books, with very different cultural background and different artistic sensibilities. However, that’s a topic that I’ll unpack another time, maybe not even in Part 2 or 3 of this post.

Point is, we need to step back and get some perspective. People who use the losses or deaths among the female cast as evidence that GeGe hates women, or sees women as inferior, or has some sort of passive, culturally-inherited sexism in their worldview are suffering from tunnel vision. You need to look at the story as a whole sometimes, not just the one subject in question.

Go back to the Goodwill Event, and the fight between Nobara and Momo. Their whole conversation is a huge part of why Jujutsu Kaisen was praised early on for how Akutami writes women, and I think the subtext of it really went over some people’s heads. It did mine, the first time around: to me, it just felt like a competent, if tired “girl power” moment for Nobara. But as I invested more time and thought into reading the series, and as I learned more since first viewing that scene, I started to realize what I wasn’t seeing in that scene.

Momo shares something in common with all of the Kyoto Students, Todo and Miwa being the exception. In addition to seemingly coming from a more-or-less established sorcerer pedigree, Momo shares the general pessimism that hangs over the Kyoto Students like a dark cloud. There’s this very morosely Japanese sense of “woe is me, but there’s nothing to be done” about Momo, Mai, Noritoshi, and Mechamaru, in one sense or another. These four are people who will complain about a problem, then just sit while it washes over them and batters them like a wave. They just accept the unfair hand they’re dealt in life, and while they don’t like it, they treat it as something no one can overcome. Furthermore, on some level, I think these four don’t necessarily want to overcome the misfortunes and injustices they face.

See, Momo pours her heart out at length about how hard it is being a woman and being a sorcerer. And the way she talks about it is a very different critique of society than you’d see in a lot of Shonen. She talks about how women are expected to be perfect: beautiful, graceful, exquisite, the model of femininity, while also keeping up with the macho “might makes right” sensibilities that dominate sorcery. In her words, “men have to be strong, women have to be perfect.”

This isn’t something that’s just being plucked out of thin air, this is a criticism of the girlboss culture that arose through the 2000s and 2010s up to now. Women are expected to battle sexism alone, in their own lives, by being exceptional: rather than reforming cultural structures that put women at a disadvantage to men, girlboss culture says women just need to always wear perfect makeup, always be fashionable, always work 2.5 times harder than men, and find time to raise children and have a side-hustle at the same time. Instead of fixing the problem, it’s telling women, “Just work harder. Just be better.” As if women haven’t been having to work harder for nothing in return for the past 50 years, holding down jobs that they have to go above and beyond to prove themselves in as compared to male coworkers for whom the job might as well be a guarantee by comparison, having a ceiling put on their promotion while men who didn’t put in as much work get to move up the company ladder, and frequently having to juggle having a child and taking care of housework in addition to the expectations of jobs that often don’t afford maternity leave. And then, on top of all of that, the expectation is then foisted on to have the time and energy to perfectly craft your hair, makeup, and outfit for the day, and if you miss a single step of the whole stupid dance, you’re seen as an underachiever. That’s girlboss culture, and that’s what Momo is indirectly criticizing when she laments the contradictory and unfair expectations women in the sorcery world have to uphold. They need to fight just as hard as the men, while wearing skirts and not getting a single scar on that pretty face.

(Just as an aside, I love the way this conversation comes about. Momo and Mai are pretty close to each other, to the point that it sometimes feels like nobody else in the Kyoto school likes or respects Mai like Momo does. And Momo targets Nobara with this whole speech because of the friction between Mai and Nobara, and because she wants to stand up for Mai. I like that element of both solidarity and conflict between women, about being a woman, and I’ve always gotten sapphic vibes from Momo and Mai, so I’m glad that she’s the one giving this whole speech and why she’s doing it. But I digress.)

And the thing is, she’s not wrong. Neither Nobara nor the story as an overall entity refutes anything she says. However, Nobara points out something else about Momo that she shares in common with the other Kyoto Students who were raised to be sorcerers: the way she treats her whole life like a job. Momo has internalized the culture she despises, and instead of trying to rebel, she just accepts all of it as “the way the world works.” She soldiers on, just as Noritoshi soldiers on with his family’s expectations, Mai soldiers on with her pain and feeling of being abanoned, and Mechamaru soldiers on with the isolation, unfairness, and general misery that comes with his Heavenly Pact. Soldiering on, as if soldiering on has inherent value when it leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing. Never addressing the problem, or trying to find a way around it; simply rolling that boulder up the hill, grumbling all the way. She and the other Kyoto Students have this sense of treating their own misfortune as a badge of honor. To them, they’re justified and validated because they have experienced more than their fair share of suffering. They’re always eager to flaunt the crosses they have to bear.

Momo treats being a woman as a curse. Funny how that ties into the rest of the narrative, huh?

For Nobara, being a woman is not some great burden she has to live with. Being a woman in general and being Nobara Kugisaki in particular is something she revels in, and it’s just the fault of everyone else if they think otherwise.

Let’s talk about Nobara, and let’s not reduce her to her death scene. When we meet Nobara, she’s immersing herself in the Tokyo way of life after moving from the countryside to the big city. She encounters a sleazy talent agency recruiter who’s pestering women on the street with his hand-rubbing, obviously nefarious ways… only for Nobara to stop him, turn him around, and say, “What about me?” He gets intimidated, tries to run, and she drags him back. From her perspective, he should be happy to have her, and the fact he isn’t means he’s ignorant of her beauty and wit and needs to be corrected. If he won’t convert to Kugisakism, then her charms are wasted on him, and he’s doomed to the dim world that is Nobaralessness. When she meets Yuji and Megumi, she introduces herself with a line that’s translated into English as, “I’m the only woman in your group.” But from what I’ve been able to gather, her line in Japanese is, “I’m the red mark.” The phrase “red mark” can mean “the one who’s different from the others” — like the one girl in a group of boys — or it can mean “the one who stands out.” So you can also read it as her saying, “I’m the stand-out of the group.” Nobara Kugisaki, everybody.

If you want to talk about how literary circles analyze how women are writing, let’s leave the topics of fight outcomes and feats to one side. One thing you immediately look for is motivation. What’s motivating a character? This is important for how female characters are written, and especially in Shonen, which revolves so much around characters with some goal or belief that the story pursues through fights and other forms of adversity.

Now poorly-written women will tend to be motivated by men. They’ll be attracted to a man, or trying to support or protect a man, or trying to find a man. This by itself isn’t a death sentence for a woman’s characterization, but it is a red flag. It’s also not as if women have to never interact with or think about men to be well-written. It’s not an on-off switch, a bad writing-good writing switch. It’s a meter, like Mahoraga steadily adapting to a technique. Just a little bit is fine, and can be even turned into good writing in capable hands. But if it becomes too prevalent and is never examined, then you get a situation where a story’s women are not permitted lives outside of being in a male character’s orbit.

How do we gauge this? Well, there are lots of ways, but one of the more well-known and simple techniques is the Bechdel test. The name is derived from Alison Bechdel, feminist author who penned such classics as Dykes to Watch Out For. Bechdel proposed a simple litmus test for how to tell an author’s seriousness about writing women, and it goes like this: 1.) Look for scenes where women talk to each other. 2.) In those scenes, check for how often they’re talking about things besides male characters.

This isn’t the only way to tell if women are written well or not, and some will say it isn’t even the best way, but it’s a good foot in the door to get us thinking about what divides well-written female characters from poorly-written female characters. I’m not going to go back and scan through the whole manga just yet, but let’s look at some examples.

— The aforementioned conversation between Nobara and Momo, where the two pit their different view of what it means to be a woman and a sorcerer against one another. — Maki and Nobara talking to each other after the encounter with Mai and Todo. Curious by meeting Maki’s sister, Nobara talks to Maki a bit about their upbringing. Having gained more insights into Maki’s past and personality, Nobara leans on her and tells her how much she respects her. — Miwa and Mai discussing the upcoming Goodwill Event in a flashback. Mai tells Miwa that Maki is weak, which leaves Miwa unprepared for their fight. — Maki and Mai arguing and coming to terms with what drove them apart. Mai just wanted a peaceful life with Maki, but Maki couldn’t be happy and authentic with herself if she just left things the way they were. She was forced to choose between herself and Mai, and Maki chose herself, knowing that Mai would suffer and that she’d shoulder some of the guilt for that.

This indicates that GeGe found it important to divorce the identities of the female characters from male characters. And this holds true in what drives and motivates the female cast.

Nobara is motivated by her own goals. She hates the countryside, and she loves the city; becoming a sorcerer is a way she can make a lot of money, live in the city, and pursue the kind of lifestyle she values. She wants to be a true blue Tokyoite, wearing trendy clothes and eating crepes and taking selfies by the statue of Hachiko outside Shibuya Station. She’s not doing this to avenge her dead brother, she’s not doing this to find her father, she’s not searching for a strong man to sire strong children — yuck. Nobara has aesthetic values and strongly held beliefs, and becoming a sorcerer lets her pursue those values and beliefs.

And if you really want to analyze the action side of Jujutsu Kaisen as an indicator for how GeGe feels about female characters, consider how Nobara takes to sorcery like a fish to water. Both Megumi and Yuji have their own internal dilemmas with being a sorcerer, but not Nobara. In a series where mindset is so important, Nobara has the mindset. Uro describes the model sorcerer as having “no concern for others and an overwhelming sense of self.” There is no one with a more overwhelming sense of self than Nobara. She’s loud, opinionated, loves to argue, flaunts herself, and demands other people give her more than what they think she’s due. She’s narcissistic, but that faith in herself makes her mentally strong.

She lacks experience, but even then, she learns and grows rapidly through the series. Due to running out of nails to fend off cursed spirits during the first stretch of Fearsome Womb chapters, she invents Hairpin as a way to reuse nails she’s already launched and embedded in a surface. She manages to land a Black Flash during the tag team fight with Yuji, and it’s her oppressive use of Resonance on Eso and Kechizu that turns the tides — a tactic which required her to hammer nails into her own arm. She takes it on the chin and gets her brain rattled around in her skull during the fight with Haruta, but even while borderline unconscious and suffering from a concussion, she forces herself to keep him talking in hopes Nitta can escape and manages to get to her feet and keep fighting despite the total disorientation and inability to summon her strength. While she didn’t win the fight, she showed more fighting spirit than half of the male cast tends to, and I find it kind of gross that people will ignore all of that and mock someone who kept fighting against the odds. That’s like laughing at Mumen Rider when he’s hopelessly trying to fight Sea King even as his body is breaking. I don’t exactly see what about either case is so funny or worthy of ridicule.

Even in the showdown with Mahito, people always fixate on how she dies, but never consider what led to it. She crosses paths with Mahito, and even knowing from Yuji what he’s capable of, she goes in — partially because he hurt Yuji, her friend, and she wants to make him suffer for it. And her technique turns out to be a worst case scenario for Mahito. She’s hammering his clone with Resonance and sending the blowback to the original while he’s fighting Yuji, dividing his attention and weakening him. Her only mistake was chasing him down, and even then, this isn’t the story punishing her. It’s the story being consistent with who Nobara is. She’s got a dangerous enemy on the ropes, her pride is bruised after the fight with Haruta, and she has a chance to get vengeance on someone who’s hurt her friend while helping said friend in the process. If she hadn’t followed Mahito into the subway, then she wouldn’t be Nobara Kugisaki.

And in her final moments, Nobara achieves something that’s considered to be out of reach of most sorcerers. She dies content, with a smile on her face. Nobara may not have realized her potential to be a great sorcerer, but she got what she, personally, wanted. Sorcery was a means to an end, and she got to live the Tokyo life and meet interesting people that she considers her friends. She got to fill out that finite number of seats in her life, and even meet a few people who pulled up a chair when she didn’t expect it. In her words, “It wasn’t so bad.” Nobody else but Toji and Gojo have gotten to die this satisfied — Toji because Megumi had grown up free of the Zen’in curse, Gojo because he was authentic to himself right to the end and left it all on the field. Nobara was authentic to herself right to the end, and that’s worthy of high praise. If she is definitely dead and not coming back, then she managed to accomplish what it was she wanted before dying. Not many get that luxury in Jujutsu Kaisen. It hurts because I liked her and admired her and appreciate the way she was written, and her dying doesn’t make the value of her character disappear from the story entirely. It’s the character’s death, it’s everything that led to that death and what that death means to them and to those who are left behind. And if it’s manga that explore death, nobody does it better than GeGe Akutami.

Lots of people will point to an interview where GeGe said that Nobara was not originally considered part of the cast, and they’ll use that as evidence that secretly, GeGe’s a big stupid misogynist who hates women and likes killing them in stories and blah blah blah blah blah. You know, first of all, I doubt that the editor held a gun to GeGe’s head and said “Put in a female main character or die.” Secondly, if GeGe really didn’t care, Nobara would just be a two-dimensional copy of Sakura who dies in the first arc or two. GeGe would not have put in the effort to set her apart from other female leads, or given her so many stand-out moments, or given her such an interesting motivation and world view. In short, if GeGe didn’t want to write a female character, they’d do what Kishimoto did: write Sakura. But that comparison is a can of worms I’ll need to pry open another time.

To sum up for the time being, no, GeGe Akutami does not hate women. Losing a fight does not make a female character worthless, and does not indicate a disdain for them on the part of the author. I don’t know about you, but I don’t read Shonen just to see who punches harder. I want to see characters be challenged, sometimes fail, learn, grow, and overcome adversity — and it wouldn’t be adversity if all the characters I like win and survive easily. I love Kashimo and will continue to love Kashimo, and Kashimo being super ultra dead doesn’t change that.

Look out for Part 2, in which I’m going to unpack some really contentious stuff when it comes to challenges and female characters in Jujutsu Kaisen. We’re gonna talk about the concept of screen time, we’re gonna talk about subtext, we’re gonna talk about great expectations and the great unexpected in Jujutsu Kaisen, and we’re gonna talk more in-depth about the narrative outside the narrative of Jujutsu Kaisen in a vacuum. If your sense for danger is giving you a bad feeling about this, then it should be: we’re talking about that. Switch on your Anti-Gravity System, it’s going to get messy.

[dia-souls]

Maybe a reaction for Carla and Shin who have Tomie!s/o

she has same powers, story ec.. with her.

Thanks in advance, dear! <3 ^^

Note: Welcome dear! You don't need to say thanks you waited so long for this ask. Instead of writting reaction, I decided to go for headcanons. Tomie is a fun character! She is scary and interesting.

🌹 _____________________________________ 🌹

🔮 Carla Tsukinami 🔮

At first Carla will like the way. She has beauty as well as power. She proves to be a good Queen as her powers gives her a plus point.

One thing that annoys him is that not only she seduces him but also seduces anyone who can be characterize as man.

He still doesn't respect her but sees her above normal human women but still she is way too inferior to what he posses as king.

Carla is also curious about her history? What is her origin? How does she posses such power eventhough she is a human.

His curiosity further increased when he sees her coming back to life again and again he lowkey freaks out but this will provoke his sadistic side.

Carla enjoys tourturing her as in this way he can clearly shows who is actually in charge of their relationship.

Carla in terms of power is stronger than her but her manapulating tricks and her intelligence always caught him off guard.

Carla internally will realize that she is provoking his jealousy and rage just so he could go crazy at first countless men head roll because he is stronger than any victims of her.

But Carla is also smart. He isn't dumb, he will start to realize the way she plays game with him and will start reading her pattern of doing work.

Carla knows he has upper hand over her and won't hesitate to degrade her verbally and physically to keep her in place.

He isn't going to let her do what she pleases with other men. He hates sharing or seeing slightest of her attention going to other men as it boils his blood.

Carla doesn't fall her succubus acts and her manapulating tricks but he did feel irk whenever he sees her with other man.

It will take Carla a bit off time to understand her tricks the more she interacts with Carla the more Carla gains dominance over her.

He starts to reads her acts the way she behave in order for the man to kill each other. At first this used to frustrate Carla but the moment Carla manged to acknowledge her abilities, he will become immune to her powers.

Carla laughs internally whenever she gets frustrated for not getting her way with him. She can try her best to be authoritative but Carla will easily put her in place by dominating her verbally.

Carla sometimes will use her own tricks on her. He will manapulate her to think that Carla is most powerful and that she should obey if she doesn't want to lose her head.

"Huh! Haha!! Hah.... It's funny you think you can beat a Founder King with your cheap tricks?! You really think you can manapulate and control someone as superior and strong as me?!! Make no mistake women I am not like the other pest you came across in past! I will make you submit to me!!

🌹 _____________________________________ 🌹

🐺 Shin Tsukinami 🐺

The moment he noticed her beauty he got whipped. He felt a great amount of lust and attraction towards her.

Shin loves the way she looks, the way she sways her hair, the way she bat's her eyelashes etc etc. He is whipped for her!

Shin loves that his s/o isn't a weakling and has power.

At first he will test her power to see if she by an small chance has upper hand on him but he realized she is very weaker than him.

This increased his ego. He will degrade her by using their power difference whenever she tries to use her power.

Shin literally gave a shrill scream the moment he realized that she can come back from dead

When he realized that she actually isn't a loyal one that's when he starts to go into yandere and his possessive side awakens.

Shin isn't smart like Carla he does falls for her tricks but this all backfires as Shin will not only kill her lovers but will torture her brutally.

Shin is known to love violence and his s/o provoked a dangerous side of him by giving him a reason to kill.

He will be laughing while killing all thoes victims as he is stronger than all of her victims and none of them can even touch his single hair.

Shin will definitely is enjoying all this. He doesn't knows he is being manapulated by his smart s/o neither does his care he is just enjoying this too much!

His s/o will literally regret trying to mess with him because she isn't safe too as after getting done with her lovers he goes to tourturing her since she can come back from dead.

Shin will use this to his advantage by tourturing her too much to the point she gets killed and smiles whenever she returns.

If she tries to run away he won't hesitate to drag her back to have fun with her.

Eventhough she is intelligent but compare to Shin brutal strength and his craze for violence she is nothing instead of being dominant she will be forced to become shin play thing.

Their relations ship will be filled with abuse with Shin never getting bore off her and not letting her go.

Unlike Carla, his relationship with her is brutal as he always compete with her in strength his jealous side makes him more sadistic.

"Neh!? Isn't it so fun!?? I love all this thing you do but don't misunderstand I will never let you go to another man you are my plaything since you are powerful how about we fight?! I am sure I will win but still it's so pathetic the way you try to use your weak powers against me!! "

🌹 _____________________________________ 🌹

[misfitclassismyfreetherapy]

Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #3

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The long-awaited, the sequel of a sequel, ✨ Mairuma Incorrect Quotes ✨Get ready..*finger guns* to be disappointed!

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Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #1

Purson: Lied? Ah hell no he's definitely not straight.

Camui: As much as I agree he doesn't really look like a demon who only has one gender attraction however, he never really shown any other type of gender other than the wonderful females.

Purson: Fine. Bet.

Moments later

Purson pointing in a random direction: Lied! Look it's Opera-sensei being shirtless!

Lied immediately whips his head around: Where?!

Camui:

( Yes, how did Lied-kun realize he isn't only bisexual? Opera. No need I say more.)

Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #2

Kerori, literally not getting any sleep because of her akudol career: My fucking mixed complex is so weird and a pain in the ass too, like I could literally be bawling my eyes out on the floor and writing depressing inferiority lyrics, and the next second I could be boasting about my cuteness being as superior as Delkila.

Agares, just trying to get some sleep because it's fucking 3 AM but not wanting to be a prick to his best friend finally opening up: Uh-huh.

Kerori, unconciously pining over a girl she often rejects: Also Gyari, she is such an unbelievable asshole. Like she says she wants to give me some of her company's Vill because she said 'you should rest, Kerori. My beautiful gem must be at her very best for me to be happy making you mine.' like fuck you, that shit you just said made my brain turn into mush and now I can't stop thinking about it you rockhead bastard.

Agares, covering his ears with his pillow not wanting to hear the hopeless pining for the hundredth time: Uh-huh.

( 💫 Agares and Kerori, the tsundere duo because it's literally my drug 💫 )

Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #3

Asmodeus, speaking to himself : Listen here, Alice. You don't want to have a stain on your honored position as Iruma-sama's soulmate. So you shall NOT allow your insufferable feelings get the better of you.

Iruma, does something Iruma-like:

Asmodeus, being incredibly in love: Fuck.

Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #4

Ronove: You're just like me!

Zeze: Oh I can see~

Ronove and Zeze singing together dramatically: We take responsibilties~

Vine, mumbling in a corner about shiny people being way too sparkling: Oh derkila, TWO of these types now?

The rest of the student council except Ameri, realizing that they're gonna have another version of Ronove: Aw fuck.

( Student council shenanigans because I can.)

Mairuma Incorrect Quotes #5

Misfit Class: We finally have a plan.

Balam: As long as it doesn't get you illegally in trouble

Misfit Class:

Balam:

Lied: FUCK! We planned this shit for two hours already!

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So yeah that's all. I decided to be nice and give them a break on the dark humor and trauma thing. Don't expect this to be your usual. This is one-in a life time sorta thing. Anyways I hope you enjoyed my post and have a good day or night guys, gals and non-binary pals!

[keruimi]

Her Breaking Point

Pairing: Semi Eita

Warnings: Angst with a happy ending. Slight mention of self-harm

Note: It feels like he is very out of character but I think it really suits him the best. Not proofread. Hope you all enjoy it!

_____________________________

I am known for being the girlfriend of the popular student of the Academy.

Semi Eita.

A talented musician with flawless volleyball skills that makes anyone love him.

Including me...

Ever since we became a thing, I was the happiest among the two of us.

An average student that have no talent nor knowledge. I just simply did my best just to be accepted in the academy.

But I have no forte.

I treated him right. Treated him better than I did with myself.

I loved him more than who I am.

The never-ending judgement whenever I walk through the hallways. The doubting snickers from what I can really give to my boyfriend.

Everyone questioned our relationship.

The whispers were so cruel that even I questioned his feelings.

He have nothing to love on me.

I have a bad personality, I'm not good at anything.

I simply have no worth to be with him.

Yet I tried my best to not be possessive on every action he did. I wanted to trust him.

I don't want to suffocate him with my worries that it would make me look paranoid.

That I allowed him to talk to any woman who approached him. Never prevent him from receiving the gifts that were meant for him.

Until the new manager of the volleyball team arrived in his life.

A woman who simply at his worst times when his mind started to break down.

A woman who soothes his worries with the words he needed to hear.

Comforting words that should be stated by me.

His volleyball training became a stumbling block for us to have our alone time together.

Meaning more time with her.

Those thoughts never left my mind when I started to walk back home.

If it weren't for the strict coach. I could have at least be persistent.

Always remind him that I still exist. That our relationship still exists.

Yet a feeling that I am sharing my boyfriend so easily started to occupy my mind. That I don't care who he was with.

But it really hurt me.

When after those moments with her, he started to really become distant on me. When it feels like the relationship label was the one left for me to assure myself.

The more I watch from the sidelines, the more I notice how their relationship improves. While ours started to deteriorate.

Until it started to feel like there were no 'us' in their world.

He treated her better. While I watch in the sidelines because I couldn't force myself in.

It was not my place to be jealous or ask for something when she was there more than I did.

It made me feel so damn inferior.

Until the last straw truly threw every faith I held for our relationship.

When one day, waiting in the park as cloud started to gather in the sky. When minutes turned to hours.

Until I finally accepted the thought...

Of him forgetting our second anniversary.

I can hear my footsteps on the wet concrete floor as the rain poured hard on the place.

It was cold. Very cold.

I thought I should let it slide like usual. I let it slide because they focus on winning the spring interhigh preliminaries.

I gave him space for him to focus on.

But I realized that I was never his distraction.

When with the slight gap between the gym doors clearly displayed the bond between my boyfriend and their new manager.

They were laughing at the bench during their break time as they had talk with the team.

It made me realize, I was never part of it.

I was never part of his passion nor his life.

It was just a temporary feeling that he seemed to have forgotten long ago.

That I realize there's no use in our relationship anymore.

When he looked at her the same way he did to me when we both fell in love with each other.

I unknowingly let go of the umbrella I was holding as my biggest fear finally drowned me.

I made no effort to keep our relationship stable. I simply let him slip away from me because I don't want to be a possessive partner.

I don't want to let jealousy take over that would make him think I never trusted a man like him.

And I knew I shouldn't give him my entire faith.

I felt my feet step back little by little before I decided to turn my back on the gym.

With trembling hands and anger blooming in my chest. I throw my phone to the ground as I stomp on it many times to ease the uncomfortable feeling in my chest.

The jealousy, the hatred, the pain, and the heartbreak.

I don't know how to remove them from my chest.

I'm so jealous.

I thought if I had nothing to give, I could at least be understanding of him. I can make him feel free without restraining him from anything he wishes to put his mind to.

But it was damn difficult.

The rain, the heavy breaths, and clouded mind was the only thing I remember until I see red in my vision.

That brought me the present where a hand held the scissors that cut through the skin of my wrist.

Yet it didn't ease the pain I'm feeling.

It was simply impossible to forget the pain.

Forget everything in the world around me.

I heard knocking on the door of my dormitory as I heard his muffle voice which fueled the anger within me.

It hurts. Why did I make myself for granted.

"Y/n, answer me please"

The time when I finally started to hate him.

I felt the blood on my wrist trickled down on my hand as I slowly sat down on the floor of the living room.

I don't want him to enter my heart anymore.

Avoiding the man became easier, when I got sick the next day and that turned into a week until I'm finally suitable to attend classes again.

"Y/n? Are you really fine to attend class today?"

I heard my dormmate ask me as I pulled the sleeves of my uniform to hide the marks I gave to myself as I felt a tear escape from my eyes.

It's really tiring to hide everything.

"I'm fine"

I wipe the tear that manages to escape and find the courage to face the outside world again.

I conserve myself by finally starting to respect my space instead of tiring myself to make anyone like me.

When it is only temporary.

"Y/n, someone's looking for you" my classmate uttered when the last class was finally finished.

I looked on the window when I heard her words as the reflection of the mirror showed his silhouette approaching the table as I didn't bother looking back at him who settled my things on the side before he sat on my table, waiting for all of the students to leave before he started to talk to me.

"Y/n.."

"Let's break up" I decided to bring up the thing that prevented me from being who I was.

A relationship that should only be considered a label and title, not a sign of rights.

Yet amidst the anger, it felt like my heart ached when I uttered those words.

"Can we please not go there?" I heard him muttered yet I never bothered to focus my gaze on him.

"Why not? Its the best decision I can choose"

I felt his breath hitched from my words as I stood up from my seat to start packing my belongings so I can escape towards the comfort of my own bedroom.

"Y/n please, I didn't mean to forget about it. I was so busy and tired that it slipped from my mind but my presents and plans for our anniversary are already prepared at that time"

"So?" I snap at him as I finally turn to look at him.

"How does that change anything when your presence is not there? You wasted my time Semi" I watch how his eyes glossed from my words as I looked back on my bag to close its zipper before I felt his arms surrounded my body making me stay still in my position.

"I'm sorry please. It won't happen again. I'll do anything, just stay. I can't bear losing you" he cried out but only one word appeared on my mind.

"Liar..." I felt that word slip from my mouth as a whisper as I heard a sob leave his own lips.

"Y/n"

"Get off me" I removed his arms from before I took the straps of my bag when he kneeled in front of me that made me halt from my steps.

"Please, give me a chance. I'll do better. Just..." He bit his bottom lip as I felt my chest started to feel heavy that made my hand turn into a fist.

"You don't know how much I suffer when I choose to stay." I started off as I looked out to the window where the sun hid behind the clouds that block the light I need to calm my mind down.

"You don't know how worthless I felt when I chose to stay. Why don't you just ask your manager out?" I glanced at him down who looked up at me as he took a hold of my hand.

"I don't like her that way, Y/n. I promise"

"Promise and promises. But was never fulfilled." I look at him with glossy eyes.

"I never felt like I was yours to begin with. I never feel like I am your partner. Other than the first few months of our relationship before that time started to fade, what else did you give?" I snatched my hand away from his grip as I took deep breaths to calm myself down.

"You never tried giving me the time I needed because of practices. You never give boundaries to other women just because I stayed silent. Don't you know she became my biggest insecurity?" I stuttered out.

"Semi Eita, out of everyone. You are the person who made me feel like I'm not deserving of any love."

"Let those words sink in"

And I left the room in tears as I found my way back to my dorm.

I want him to leave. Leave and never look back like what he always did.

But it became difficult when he started to give his time to pursue me again.

Yet where will this end up again. That painful cycle will just repeat once again.

"Y/n, I brought you lunch since your dorm mate told me that you have been skipping lunch for weeks." His voice was so soft that I thought it was not the Semi Eita I once knew.

The hot headed, and competitive person I knew.

I slightly pushed away the bento before I continued working on the script for a grouping as I heard a sigh before he rested his head on the table.

"Y/n, it hurts"

It felt like those words made me want to stop from continuing my work as I felt the urge to just let out everything.

The pain I heard from his voice. The exhaustion was so evident that it feels possible that the moment he will stand up, he would lose consciousness.

"I badly miss you" his voice tremble followed by a weak sob that made me stop from typing on the keyboard.

We both feel like strangers to each other.

It felt like we couldn't see the person we once loved so much before.

"Stop it Semi. You're losing yourself"

I heard a low laugh before his hands reached my own ones.

"I really love you Y/n. I really do that why it hurts so badly" he stuttered out as I felt him tighten his grip on my hands.

"Is there really no other way to make things right?" He whispered as his grip loosened before he drew circles on my hands that began to remind me how much these small moments meant everything to me before.

But right now, it was something I never seek for anymore.

I got so tired that I'm not sure if that love I held from him is still here.

I don't know if it still existed.

Yet a part of me doesn't really want to lose him. A part of me questioned whether I acted too quickly.

Times when my mind became my own enemy just because of him.

Moments when I chose him over me.

"Semi-"

"I love you" he whispered that cut me off as I stared at his features that focused on the hand he was caressing.

Is it worth giving him another chance?

Just for the love that bloomed between the two of us before?

Those were the words that I thought to myself before. When that heartbreak and anger took over my heart until the love and happy memories I created with him saved the relationship I chose to leave.

I sighed in relief as I felt his thumb slowly apply the cream on my wrist as I leaned back my body on him who supported me from behind as my thoughts started to drift to the past.

I don't want to make him feel the feeling I felt before. The feeling of losing yourself because of love.

Because at that time, he was really so different from the man I loved.

The time where he would kneel in front of the dorm just to let him into my life once again.

The time he started to give me flowers, gifts that he usually never gave me. And even taking one flower from it so he knows when to buy me a new one.

The time when he never left my side no matter how much I wanted him to leave. The time he completely chooses me over the things he needs to finish.

It was those small things that made me want to give our love a second chance. A chance where we could be the better person for the other.

Where I can start to learn to speak for myself, say anything I wanted to say so the other would be aware of what could hurt me and what couldn't.

I was not that persistent that it became a miscommunication of feelings. Those miscommunications became a reason for small mistakes to be completely noticed.

It was a tiring memory but the warmth he radiates from his body as he soothes the wounds in my wrist.

He brought it up to his lips and left a small peck on it before giving a peck on my neck then to the corner of my lips making me smile and turn to look at him to give a quick kiss on his lips.

That break up became the reason for him to look after me better. Make the first move about everything if I started to hesitate on my words.

He finally made me content and secured.

A relationship that once hurt me. It became something we started to really cherish.

A bond that confirmed that...

He is mine and I am his

[bigdsgirl]

Thoughts on LND Episode 8

spoilers ahead! and screams! because ya know. this damn show.

"do you really not know? from morning until night, from child hood until now, it's been my fate and my task" - bye, i am going to combust now

the piano music has me rolling, i'm sorry lol

love that he is giving her time, especially after just shocking her with that announcement lol

the birthday card with no note. jfc. and the REPEAT GIFT??? omfg. i have so many feelings. and he goes back to the hospital!! oh it hurts!

the flashback at the pool -- oh she liked him first. "the feelings are still so vivid" - hate to say it but i think they never left babe.

his panic has me fucking cackling. "it was good, I did great" YES YOU DID BABY!!!!!!

alright the knife to head transition was kind of sick. i loved it.

throw the rock queen i dare you. NO YOU GO DO IT!!!!

I am just going feral waiting for them to open them at the same time - PUHLEAAASE! ugh boo.

aw momma & son moment - oh shit you are pretending to FORGET. SIR. oh this some bullshit. just communicate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE TIE! THE TIE! AHHHHHHHHH. no don't give it back, just keep it <3 let's start our shrine to him.

oh god mom thinks it's the ex but you would be WRONG!

HE WANTED TOI BE BURIED IN IT?????????????? WITH THE BLOOD??? BYEALKDKJAGKDFGJALFKGJAG

this girl just does not know how to respond, she is flustered as fuck and i love it

pick an expiration date to decide how much time she has lol and he is like PERISHABLE GOODS PLEASE I WANT YOU NOW!

hearts thumping let's gooooooooooooooo (and of course she bolts)

bahah this man gets sassed by the staff (i love it! you tell him!)

okay sir let's do the special! lets go! and of course we gotta start with his fave paramedic <3

the push ups oh girl, I am the same, we are just poor girls weak for our man

not the showing how they met please nooooooooo (or how mama imagines it?? lol)

i want this ex to GO AWAY PLEASE. idc what's happening, leave them alone! now!

her dad just standing right in front the CLEAR DOOR, in front of her and she doesn't see, god i love kdramas

ONLY 11 DAYS???? Girl, it's 11 days too many, just kiss him, <3

oh goodness, mom and dad got things to say. and i am sat for it!

"I don't want her to be a failure and live like me" well fuck that's a sucker punch. yikes.

these two men are hilarious i love that they are just such a mess together <3

"soaked in my feelings of inferiority" well holy fuck sir. "well mine is bone dry" OP--

dad acting like a 3-year old with his "why"

awww shit, i was hoping to see him be drunk with her. ugh instead we just got hung over.

teeeheee flash back of the drunk daddios! hehe!!

the mountain stfu, this is the humor i need in life -- phenomenal, oscar worthy performance

the way this son rolls is just like my middle brother lol, the amount of times he has tried to get family members to try crypto, oh sirrr. i am with you seok-ryu!

oh the hole in the heart, the babying. my goodness. "see if you can treat your sick child that way" --> look i know what's coming and fuck that hurts.

seung-hyo you DOG, "there are 10 days left"

also sir, where do you get your work bag from? I need it <3

tae-hui!!!! baby girl!!! ily.

ugh ruined. freaking ex-poophead is here.

look i get it, they were cute its all cute. but it's the wrong person, so I don't care.

okay they be laying it on thick with the digestive health shit - i know what's happening and i do not like it.

omfg her shock that he told her! he told seok-ryu how he felt!

okay look sir, the way your hands be clasped? the suit? the watch? it is a felony and you need to be taken to jail. it looks too damn good.

tae-hui, her outfit. ma'am the woman you are.

wait shit. i just realized -- she said she doesn't drink if I remember right? or am I wrong.

oh babe while are you pulling out so much cash. oh no oh no. mom is finding out about the cooking class. i am not excited for this.

WAIT BABE DONT TRASH EM!!! give them to me. no don't waste them!

omg the bag, not the bag. oh no. not mom.

omg yay! they are interacting <3 i love it! NO WAIT NO ITS A RUSE WHY IS MOM DOING THIS.

the eldest daughter in me is fucking quaking. I hated this growing up. the expectations. the disappointment for finding out something she loves that isn't what they want. omg.

oh i am so glad he is here stepping up for her. thank god.

this fucking hurts. oh lord. my heart is shattering for her.

he immediately goes after her, my heart, my heart. oh it's breaking.

he has a spot to comfort someone in case something happened. STOP IT WAS FOR HER.

I am having worries. every time he is a few steps behind, i worry that he has to follow her in death too (i don't want this to happen but fuck the gut is so sure)

he offered his kitchen for her!!!! ah!!!!!! hell yeah hell yeah!

he just cannot take his eyes off of her. and the nine days left, you TURD I LOVE IT.

it's observation day!!! me when I see them together like this:

oh my man look good in the uniform! <3 and they gave him a locker too??? how nice of them!!!

i freaking love the alarm music they use. the best thing ever.

oh wait. oh wait girl you gonna eat the side dishes??? hehe i love that. ope moment over. wait. he is being nice ish..... ish............ the joys of marriage lol.

oh no, oh no. is he asking for a divorce???? oh NO.

oh goodie, i hope the man is not allergic to bees. HAHAHAHAHAHAH. oh he might be. oh he is lol.

paramedics are the backbone, i always have such immense respect for them.

i also need to get this off my chest working in healthcare/public health -- never in a MILLION YEARS would a hospital actually allow the possible legal risk of having the man help with these calls. okay, now im back to la la land.

love the posters in the background of all the dramas 😭

the popcorn -- omfg. no no sir don't you dare. i will combust.

fuck he did.

girl why you pause. why you be like this what is happening. oh god it's him. and of course he is a new client. of course!

the way my man seung-hyo be acting like a child with the ex here. i am eating this shit up.

LOL of course he needs to leave leaving the two together.

THAT'S RIGHT YOU TELL HIM THAT HE HAS COMPETITION!!!!

lol me - both get out, leave my girl to cook. these two are too much, i'm cackling.

THE POPCORN YES GIRL. he is so happy about this, he is just lapping it up. and same king. same. "have some" you MENACE.

lol this man is gonna faint it's so much work. YAY CELEBRATORY DINNER! lol the bladder infection, brother TMI!!!!

"we end up dating each other" man is gonna become a paramedic to make sure he and mo-eum are gonna be together forever and no one can come between them 🤭🤭🤭

BAHAHAHAHA THE MUDFLATS MAN RETURNS!!!!!!!! I am SCREAMING!!!!!! they both just panic. wait no hold hands down there, pls <3

wait shit girl, you don't look good. girly no.

oh damn oh damn. seok-ryu. i get it but oh. oh it hurts so bad.

oh sweetie no. oh i get it, my hear hurts for you.

the WAY I KNEW - his and her secret. oh my.

now i must wait FOR MY BABIES TO RETURN.

and i will be sobbing <3