#and my intention is not to throw shade ok

[angel-fruitcake]

[x]

💙 these 2 old men were blessed & rewarded with very nice hairlines. handsome kings, aging like fine wine 💚

[lukolabrainrot]

Hey there, what do we think about Nicola’s IG post for Camilla’s bday. It’s a collage of 4 pictures taken by paparazzi of her and Camilla last year and in the caption she said something like remember when the paparazzi took photos and you protected me by covering my face. I feel like that is for sure throwing shade at a certain someone. Like she could’ve chosen any photo with Camilla. She has sooo many, why that one and why this caption. Also the way the photos were stacked looked like A’s recent soho house photos with her friends.

I feel like Nicola’s being very cryptic and sending messages through her posts recently including the scrabble board. I don’t know what that was about exactly but I feel like she posted it for a purpose and the person who that was aimed at would understand. I dunno I might be over analyzing but I think we should paying closer attention to her posts.

I also feel like that means we are headed in a positive direction because it means she cares about Luke and feels protective over him and is letting everyone know, even if there is currently a bit of tension between them. Not saying there is tension but just a feeling that she’s not very happy with how he’s handling things at the moment.

What do we all think?

Ok I just reblogged a post about this, but I am going to add this (and a lot of this is just based on my gut feelings/opinions based off of everything I've seen, so these are all just THEORIES):

First, I want to start by saying we will NEVER know exactly what anyone's SPECIFIC intentions are on SM posts unless the publisher publicly clarifies it.

HOWEVER, N is VERY intentional on SM. So is A. L... not so much (I've known a lot of dudes like him who just don't really care to put a lot of energy/thought into SM, EVEN if they have it and utilize it). So I get the impression this might be the case for him as well. Intentionality takes thought and energy, so I do agree that N and A's recent SM posts are VERY intentional, but what those exact intentions are, again, we will probably never EXACTLY know. What/who is the common denominator between these two women though? L. Sooooo, I feel pretty confident that he is at the root of most of these more "cryptic" posts/stories on N and A's SM.

Now, normally, I would say WTH is a 37 y/o woman doing playing petty and shady SM games with a 23 y/o woman that wants the attention?? Well... I think SM is the only way for them to communicate with each other, and these two women have a LOTT to say to each other (which totally makes sense if ANY of our theories on L/N or the PR tour/papgate/A are accurate). Which is why I do think a lot of N's recent SM activity has been shade, but more directly towards A. Since the London premiere, I personally think L/N are dealing with their complex feelings over everything in private mainly because people are analyzing EVERYTHING they do.

If you have read my other theories on this blog, I don't think L/N are in a terrible place rn (but are very likely having to work through a LOT of complex things in private). I am sure they BOTH aren't happy about how this all publicly played out. And as I have mentioned, I think EVERYONE in this situation has made some mistakes (some more than others though). Please look through my "timelines" posts if you have any more questions on my thoughts on this.

I have also said this before, but I will say it again. N AND A WILL NEVER, NEVERRR BE FRIENDS. Based off of everything I have seen and know about these two women, they have VERY little in common (and A is very insecure and envious of N). Therefore, these two women are probably NEVER going to talk alone face-to-face (I personally don't think A has the cajones to address anything with N to her face). A (based on her public image and actions and everything else we know about her) seems like such a selfish, two-faced mean girl (just my opinion). N appears to be the opposite of that, and I believe would be more inclined to address things with A face-to-face. Since that is not an option though, N has utilized SM to share her real opinions/feelings with A. And yes, I do believe N is protective of L (BECAUSE THEY REALLY LOVE EACH OTHER). I don't have any solid proof on this, it is just a gut feeling, but I think a lot of N's most recent "cryptic" posts/stories are hinting that L/N's connection is not going to be ruptured by immature, selfish, and insecure behavior from A. And I think that is a really good sign for us Lukola fans.

Lastly, who again is the common denominator here? L! Could he have handled this WHOLE situation better? Yes! I've mentioned before though, he got ANNIHILATED on SM after Papgate. And he has been getting hate on SM from people in the fandom for years (him AND N already had to leave Twitter because of all the hate they were receiving). Therefore, I believe he is FED UP, but also TRYING to stay engaged just a LITTLE bit on SM. Yes, N has also gotten a lot of hate on SM, but she and L are very different people, and I get the sense that she is able to navigate the hate a little better than L. Therefore, L has taken a major step back from his public engagement online, and to be really honest, I don't believe he will be returning to his typical public SM activity anytime soon. Now, what other people AROUND him post on SM, I think that has a lot more to do with THOSE INDIVIDUALS than L himself (again, just my opinion). How aware/involved L is with any of these posts/stories that adjacent people in his life are posting, we will probably never know. L is a chronic people pleaser though, and I got the sense from what I have seen that he is not very good at setting firm boundaries with people in his life (which likely played a role in SOME of the SM activity we have seen recently from adjacent people in his life). I think there is a lot of self-reflection going on for him at the moment in terms of determining HOW he wants to move forward in his career and HOW he wants the public to see him. I think he is still figuring it out...

Anywhooo, like I have mentioned multiple times, the whole situation seems to be REALLY messy (and I am almost certain that both L/N didn't want all of this to play out on such a public stage). And we will never know the full story of what was/is going on BTS for everyone. However, a lot of the recent posts/stories from N have been very interestingggg 🤔

[fangirleaconmigo]

In your expert opinion, do you think there’s any deeper reading to interpret from Geralt’s rebound with Essi, and traits she shares with Dandelion? (I know it wasn’t authorial intention in the least, but when he kissed her within 10 minutes of meeting, I got a “she’s a lot like Dandelion, surely she’s safe to embarrass myself with” vibe).

Hi Nonny!

Essi and Dandelion, Poets and Parallels, Ballads and Broken Hearts

Thank you for the ask! I'm on my lunch break from work, but I'm so happy to be answering Witcher book questions again that I'm sneaking off to do this.

Essi is such an interesting character, right? On one hand, she seems to be treated as the 'anti-Yen" by the narrative and the thing that Geralt 'should' want, thereby reinforcing his love for Yen when he *doesn't* fall in love with Essi.

But then there are all the curious parallels and similarities with Dandelion, which also makes it fun to analyze in that way. The list of similarities is long: their profession, personality, looks, their level of talent, and my favorite, their readiness to throw hands on behalf of Geralt of Rivia. And then there is The Ballad.

Ok. I'm going to set authorial intent aside for the moment, because writers write things all the time they don't intend to write. And I think any artist worth their salt should be thrilled that their work is layered and interesting enough to inspire differing interpretations.

That being said, let's get to the fun part.

SPOILERS SPOILERS FOR ESSI'S STORY PLS DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

Profession, personality

Let's look at Essi's introduction! She enters the scene acting just like Dandelion. Both poets are mercilessly insulting one another in their fake-genteel way. (Lots of shade, as well as out and out insults)

Geralt is taken aback, thinking they are fighting, but then they fall on one another embracing and he's like...oh lordt. There's two of them.

"The Witcher was taken aback, but not too greatly. A professional colleague of Dandelion's could not, indeed, differ much from him in terms of predictability."

--Sword of Destiny pg 195

So we have profession, and personality being very similar. Bards with sharp tongues and ready emotions. Then we have looks!

Looks.

I've done a post on Dandelion's looks here. And Essi is similar! Blonde hair, blue eyes, and beautiful. Same same. Sorry, her eyes are a dark blue whereas Dandelion's are cornflower. Much different so contrast.

Level of talent.

They are both beloved and famous. When Ciri is studying at Nenneke's temple, she has access to both of their books of poetry.

[Ciri] read The Adversities of Loving and Time of the Moon, collections of poems by the famous troubadour Dandelion. She shed tears over the ballads of Essi Daven, subtle, infused with mystery, and collected in a small, beautifully bound volume entitled The Blue Pearl. --Blood of Elves pg 298

And Geralt adores both of their voices. When Essi and Dandelion are singing together, Geralt thinks to himself that they have the most beautiful voices that he has ever heard.

They Stay Ready to Throw Hands for Geralt of Rivia.

The text even classifies Essi and Dandelion together on this. And as I said, it's my favorite part of her character, and not just because I love Geralt. It shows her strength, her strong sense of self, her courage, and her values.

First, she, much in the way that Dandelion does, uses her fame, connections, and higher social standing to protect Geralt. And she throws Dandelion into the mix for good measure to strengthen her threats. So when Duke Agloval threatens to drive Geralt to the border with a whip. Essi reponds.

"...please dont threaten Geralt. It so happens that Dandelion and I have several friends...King Ethain of Cidaris...always says that our ballads aren't just lively music and rhymes, but a way of spreading news...Do you wish, your Grace, to be written into the chronicle of human kind? I can arrange it?" --Sword of Destiny pg 212

And when Geralt turns down Agloval's 'offer' of permanent work killing sea creatures in a permanent war with them, (keeping in mind that the noble has stiffed Geralt twice on payment so far) Agloval invokes Geralt's poverty in a demeaning way.

"Oh how proud," Agloval smiled. "How haughty. You reject offers in a way some kings wouldn't be ashamed of. You give up decent money with the air of a wealthy man after a lavish dinner. Geralt? Did you have lunch today? No? And tomorrow? And the day after? I see little chance, Witcher, very little..."

It is so infuriating. Agloval is saying...who the fuck do you think you are? Someone important? Someone with status?? Someone who is allowed to decide his own ethics for himself?

This is a constant theme. The...know your place. Stop trying to think for yourself. Ethics look stupid on you, because you aren't 'real' enough of a human being to have them. So it is super satisfying when Essi lets loose on him.

"How dare you!" Little Eye cried shrilly. "How dare you speak like that to him Agloval!...How can you be so base?"...

Geralt tries to stop her. He sees little point.

"Stop it Essi," Geralt said. "Stop, Essi, there's no point." "Not true," she said angrily. "These is a point. Someone has to tell it straight to this self-appointed duke....who now thinks he has the right to insult other people."

And she isn't done.

"Yes, Agloval, " Essi continued, clenching her shaking hands into fists. "The opportunity to insult other people amuses and pleases you. You delight in the contempt you can show the Witcher...you should know that the Witcher mocks your attempts and slights., that they do not make the faintest impression on him..."

Then we bring Dandelion back in. Because guess who also feels anger and revulsion when Geralt is treated so contemptuously? Let Essi say it...

"The Witcher doesn't feel what Dandelion and I feel, and we feel revulsion."

Sword of Destiny pg 237

That's like...not even half of her unloading on this guy. She is like...you are worth less than Geralt, so jot that down.

Now..

The Ballad

Here is why the ballad matters to me. I think that perhaps even more interesting than how Geralt responds to Essi (interesting though it is) is how Dandelion responds to Essi. Why does he think someone who is almost exactly like him is perfect for Geralt? I mean, he sees himself in her so much that he thinks of her as his sister.

He loves her more than Geralt does I think that is clear. Geralt cares deeply about her. But to Dandelion, she is like his family.

He is put in a shitty position of seeing her distraught and anguished about her feelings for Geralt and Geralt afraid of leading her on or hurting her. Geralt and Essi go back and forth, making it insufferable for Dandelion as a third wheel.

I talked about it here here and here.

Dandelion's response is the subject of controversy in fandom, and there are many valid and differing reader responses. But it seems clear that Dandelion has come to terms with the fact that Geralt and Essi will not be together in love, despite his advice to Geralt. So he suggests they just fuck to get it out of their systems and then everything will be ok. (that's his solution to most things)

So, if he is at ease with that, why the ballad? At the end of the story, Dandelion composes a ballad while Essi and Geralt sleep.

Dandelion, staring into the dying embers, sat much longer, alone, quietly strumming his lute. It began with a few bars, from which an elegant, soothing melody emerged. The lyric suited the melody, and came into being simultaneously with it, the words blending into the music, becoming set in it like insects in translucent, golden lumps of amber. The ballad told of a certain witcher and a certain poet. About how the witcher and the poet met on the seashore, among the crying of seagulls, and how they fell in love at first sight. About how beautiful and powerful was their love. About how nothing - not even death - was able to destroy that love and part them.

Sword of Destiny pg 246

Why this romantic song?? About a witcher and poet?

Yes, it could be just for the ballad, for a successful song. The text talks about the real story not being a good one for a ballad.

But there is so much emotion and magic in that scene. What is he thinking? What is he feeling?

Of course you know about what happens next, Essi's heartbreaking end, and Dandelion's crushing grief. She dies of smallpox during an epidemic. Dandelion is there. Did he go as soon as he heard? Was he visiting her expecting some lovely evenings singing around a fire and found her dead?

However it happened, Dandelion does not leave her to die alone. He does not turn tail and leave, avoiding smallpox. He literally carries the cold dead corpse of this woman he loves, who he sees as his sister, in his arms...

...Dandelion had carried her out in his arms between corpses being cremated on funeral pyres and had buried her far from the city, in the forest, alone and peaceful...

He buries her alone with his own hands! Oh how his heart must have shattered. It is moments like that, that you see the deeper, kinder, even (dare I say) noble side of the vain, braggadocios, whorish bard.

It goes on to say that Dandelion could have changed the song at any point to be a true version (the one where Essi dies), but he never did.

No, Dandelion stuck with his first version. And he never sang it. Never. To no one. Sword of Destiny p 246

Yeah.

To me there is a story about a young girl who cares enough for ten people, who has a huge heart, and a deep soul. A fearless girl who feels things too big for her to handle for a man others call a monster. A girl whose voice is like an angel.

And then there is a story about a broken hearted poet who loved her (far more than Geralt did) and who wrote a song about a witcher and a poet and he never changed the words and never sang it to anyone.

And I wonder if he wasn't writing that ballad about a witcher and a different poet entirely.

*sob*

[castlebyersafterdark]

re: weddings, if you think about it, anything humans do is weirdly theatrical in a way. even throwing a dinner party. so i tend to lean more towards enjoying the concept of weddings at their purest form: celebration of love. marriage, on the other hand... whoo boy. im part romantic and part skeptic, which i think leaves me in a good middle place. i know that in the west, marriage itself really is more about contracts and legalities than love, especially when you consider down the line and the changeable nature of humans. you marry your partner as they are now, but they'll be ten different people (and so will you) throughout the duration of your time together. people who understand this i think are better suited to adapt to all life's challenges. this is why i always cringe when i see people who want to get married and you know what they mean is 'i want to have a wedding.'

your thing about not thinking anyone would ever marry you is so.... man. same! but look at you now! so lovely. all we see here is your personality but that's compelling as heck, and good conversation is such an attractive feature. im sure youve broken plenty of hearts without even knowing it. i know compliments like that dont always convince people they're loveable, so i won't ramble. im sure your fiance gives you all you need in that dept, but yeah. protect that small inner child who still thinks he's unloveable, vinny! hug him close always 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

and lastly please do tell us about the sibling weddings lol, i wanna know now! MY inner child always liked the idea of two men (or women) getting married in a traditional way, it seemed like a bigger up yours to the bigots because it highlighted how it didnt have to be any different except swapping out the genders. and i think thats beautiful, just the image of two men in nice suits with an aisle etc.

Well said on what it should be and so often instead is! I think a lot of people, despite best intentions, want the wedding more than the marriage I feel. But, for every vapid party planned for the sake of hyping up a single day in the course of a lifetime, there's other events/ceremonies that are soooo beautiful and pure - no matter how lavish or simple. Ahh, the spectrum of human experience. And I do enjoy those who have very nearly "traditional" marriages despite being a same sex couple - very true, why can't we? A big middle finger to greater society because anyone should be able to do what they want. The day celebrating your love together should match the couple's taste and personality. So, when you're chill and love a gathering of friends and into having a really fun time - that's my priority. And when you're marrying someone who is a self-described "bohemian type" (he's such a dork 💙) combine all that with cool lowkey rustic vibes. It's very loose ideas right now but it's going to be so great!

Feeling bashful about everything really. Why do I always fall into vulnerability on here, haha. But like I've said before, as long as people keep sticking around, there's gonna be a mix of fandoming and gossip and my diary I let my nameless, anonymous online friends take a peek at 🤭 It's therapeutic! Broken hearts, unfortunately yes. And mine has been shattered and in need of stitches several times as well. Nothing but gentle care these days. It's so strange and different. Even years on now. I don't know. Reality continues to shock me and I catch myself a lot like, why am I still surprised about all of this??? We are all always a work in progress and that's ok 🥲

GOSH the siblings, the siblings. Ok. Why not. This is getting long so under the cut:

Listen - I got a lot of brothers. I only regularly stay in contact with one of them 💁‍♂️ The jab was about... the hypocrisy of religious weddings sometimes? No shade if someone truly wants traditional or gets married in a church, totally fine. I have nothing against it!! I've been to some lovely church based wedding ceremonies. I am not religious. But... my siblings. They're suuuuch assholes and we weren't even big church goers growing up and I just remember sitting through several weddings as a teenager thinking it was so weird that they were up there pledging themselves to god like - what is this? Who is that for? The expectation of extended family and the families they were marrying into? My parents certainly didn't push it. Idk. I guess it's just the thing you do for most people. But it felt odd, knowing the person and if you've ever been to a catholic wedding in particular they are just so... ritualized? More so than other denominations? It was just really weird for me. Not about me, I know!! But, still. Family 🙄 Soapbox over. Maybe the teenage angst of the time overrides it all for me and that's what stuck 🤣

[miserys-inkwell]

Luckily for all of you I will be doing my best to avoid my complaints about the shitty ass changes they made to the plot, if only so this post doesn't achieve novel length by the end of my tangent.

They genuinely, self ad-fucking-mittedly, really put zero fucking effort into making Ursula look like Ursula in this movie, take away the cgi tentacles and lighting, and the makeup looks like what you'd expect to see on a label for an "Underwater Sorceress" wig at Spirit Halloween. She doesn't look like she's gonna offer me a trade deal in exchange of the eternal torment of my mortal soul she looks like she's about to ask to see the fucking manager. But I state: what is the point of designing makeup for Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch if you aren't going to even look at the fucking source material for how she's supposed to look??? Especially when her over the top makeup is such an important and recognizable part of her appearance. That would be like if they remade the Lord of the Rings movies and made Gimli or Gandalf clean shaven.

Also "Although having been inspired by drag queens, I didn't want her to look like a drag queen, I wanted her to look like Melissa" Is absolutely baffling to me??? Like first and fucking foremost, no kid going to see this movie is going to see Melissa McCarthy, I guaran-fucking-tee that they dont even fucking know who the hell she is (I'm not trying to throw shade at Melissa here, its just a fact that most kids (talking 12 and under) don't go to see a movie for a specific actor or actress, and the only thing on her credit list on IMDB I could find that she played a sizable role in that a kid would be interested in that they might recognize her from was the Ghostbusters movie in 2016 (4 female Ghostbusters? The feminists are taking over! I'm an adult virgin!), or maybe Mike & Molly from older family members watching it while they're around.) They're going to see Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch. The character isn't supposed to be you, you're supposed to be the character. You shouldn't want people's thought upon looking at Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch to be "That's just Melissa McCarthy in a white wig with uneven blue eyebrows." (Maybe they should have spent 3 hours on the eyebrows alone. Seriously I could have done better on the eyebrows, and I have horrible depth perception and the shakey hands of a caffeine addicted 97 year old that brews their coffee with Red Bull instead of water and substitutes the cream and sugar with 5-hour energy and cocaine.) You want people to look at you during your performance as Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch and think "That's Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch."

Ok, I know the mismatched uneven eyebrows were intentional but

So you're trying to fucking convince me that someone who wears makeup constantly. And has been in exile for what we can fucking assume to be well over a fucking decade. And has presumedly done her makeup almost every fucking day can't get her eyebrows even remotely symmetrical??? It doesn't read as intentional, it doesn't read as "she does her own makeup and sucks at it." It just comes off as messy.

Tbh I would have loved to see Lizzo as Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch, because first of all she said "I was down to make Ursula a THOT, shaking ass." Love that for her, And I can already hear the cries of "it's a kids movie that would be too inappropriate" HAVE YOU SEEN THE WAY URSULA WAS ANIMATED IN THE 1989 VERSION???? SHE WAS SHAKING ASS AND TIDDY AND I DONT HEAR A WORD COMPLAINING ABOUT IT. Plus she genuinely seemed excited to play the character. I do have a genuine reason for bringing her audition up, and that is she did her own fucking makeup for Ursula and you wanna see how it turned out????

Now that looks like Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch. They could have gone in this direction with the makeup by ya know, actually looking at the fucking source material. I'm not saying that a live adaptation of a character has to look note for note identical to the animated version, all I ask is that they actually fucking take the animated version into consideration. Especially when they're adapting such a beloved character, and especially when their appearance serves as much cunt as Ursula The Motherfucking Sea Witch's does.

Anyways, I'm gonna go tally up how many times I said fuck in this and then maybe take a nap I've been typing this out on my phone for like 2 hours now.

(This is once again about the make up itself.)

Baffling

[industrialgender]

forgot to post this earlier but tolking abt bands i sawwww ^__^

suotana: my 3rd time seeing them yay ^__^ rly good show i had so much fun and was smiling like a dork the whole time. highlight of the 1st day for sure!!!

anima hereticae: hadnt listened to them before. ok bm/melodeath band

kaunis kuolematon: 2nd time seeing them but this time i was at the front and it felt magical

kallomäki: ok dark folk band that puts on an amazing live show ^__^ 2nd time seeing them so i was ready and lining up to be smeared with heretic blood and chanting along

thrown: first band of day 2. metalcore so idgaf

swansong: decent melodeath band w a female vocalist. pretty good but i got the impression they dont have much performance experience

deathchain: good dm band nothing else to say

huora: rly fun female fronted punk band obvs id listened to them before but hadnt heard them live before.

suffocation: screaming crying throwing up. was right at the middle at the barrier and had so much fun ^__^ also i cant believe i got to see the legend terrance hobbs augh

the halo effect: ok melodeath band. hadnt listened to them before. they said they played mostly old shit and more bands need to do this!!

nicole: metalcore/alt metal band so they werent super my thing. the power on stage went out in the middle of their first song TWICE so that was the most amusing part

ingested: 2nd time seeing them and they were ofc great. 3 walls of death fucking killed me tho. missed the last 15 ish mins bc i went to see the next band buy had fun!!

inferia: fun pronogrind band ^____^ super happy i got to see them

body count: i already knew i wouldnt like them so i just chilled and listened to them in the bg (bc it was impossible to not hear them)

horna: augh this band is so good and i was initially so excited to see them but i was so tired and had an awful headache. i hope i can see them again soon and have a better time!

shade empire: first band of day 3. idgaf some ok melodeath/meloblack. didnt listen to the full set

rytmihäiriö: hardcore/thrash type band. ok background music

party cannon: omggg i had so much fun ^__^ literally had it all: pool toys in the pit, wife carrying pit, pushup pit, someone being carried on an infetable orca. this show made me want to dedicate the rest of my life to slam metal

warmed: good bodom type melodeath. wasnt super familiar w them before but enjoyed myself

marianas rest: 2nd time seeing them. only caugh the first 30ish mins of their set but theyre so captivating live omg

blackbraid: good usbm band ^__^ tho there was a cameraman on stage for 80% of the set and he kept standing in front of the band members -____-

thy art is murder: not a deathcore person but i had fun. the pit was SO crowded tho.

kyy: good bm band. had listened to them before but wasnt super familiar w their discog

shadow of intent: like ok melodeath/deathcore band. i barely glanced at the stage but i enjoyed this stuff in the bg tho

verikalpa: ok folk metal band. nothing more to say

satanic north: GOOD bm band. they had someone as a guest vocalist for one song but i wasnt trve kvlt enough to recognize him since he wasnt introduced....

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

capitalism is fucked!!! i hate the term "unmarketable skills". stop trying to make every single skill marketable!! sometimes i just wanna learn shit because it's fun and/or it might be helpful. I've learnt how to fix things and deep clean things just so i can help people out sometimes (and i dont need to throw items out much). not every single skill a person learns has to be used in their job/career and not every single hobby has to be monetized!

i just wanna do things because it gives me fulfillment yet everywhere I turn there's someone telling me why and how i should monetize every single skill i have. no shade to anyone who does have to or wants to monetize things because capitalism builds a world where you have to struggle to get money. its hard enough to get by and im not about to shame people for doing whatever they can to make a little extra cash (ofc as long as no one is hurt like dont steal art or shit like that). i just want people to realize that someone doesnt have to make money from a skill in order for that skill to be important.

if someone makes money because of a skill they have and someone else makes no money, the money-maker isnt any better at what they do. they found someone to pay them for it and that's the main difference.

in my ideal world we could all practice our skills just because we want to. there would be no need for people to sell their hobbies because wed all be safe and comfortable enough that we didnt have to work to live. those who wanted to sell their work would have more creative freedom since they wouldn't have to stress about making something that will sell. in that world youd be ok waiting around a few years for someone to buy a table you made. your livelihood wouldn't rely on whether you could sell that table or not.

anyway im just some guy and im not gonna solve capitalism, nor is any one person. i do like doing little things to help and i hope you do too! if you have the supplies, ability, and time, please try making something just for fun. bonus points if you make it out of things youd normally throw away. doesn't matter what you make as long as you enjoy it! if you decide to sell it later on then absolutely zero shame I get it but make it without the intention to sell it. it does not have to be super fancy you can literally just make a collage with fabric scraps and pieces of trash! and yay! you now have a thing!

[justmeinadaze]

Unattainable Part X (Eddie X Theater Girl)

A/N: I rewrote this like 3 times lol I needed theater girl to have a moment with Eddie where he is human. Because he is. Even though to they love each other and he's her "knight in shining armor" he's still man with some insecurities and fears like the rest of us.

Warnings: No smut in this one but definitely some angst and fluff near the end lol, Theater girl has a moment with her mom (there are mentions of the trauma there; not a lot but) , there is drug use and not the fun kind!

Word Count: 3900

“Are you sure you want to go back?” Eddie’s tone was low, laced with an undertone of sadness. It broke my heart but I had to go back home sometime and with it being the Sunday before going to back to school, I figured I might as well. “You can still stay here you know.”

I made my way towards where he was sitting at the end of his bed playing his guitar. His back was to me as he kept his eyes on the tv in front of him. Wrapping my arms around his shirtless torso, I placed a kiss on his bare shoulder. I felt his strong, calloused hand reach up to rub one of my arms. 

“Eddie, I have to go home.”

“At least let me go in with you. I can even stay in another room while you talk to her.”

“I promise, everything is going to be fine.”

He turned his head in my direction, bringing my hand to his lips, planting a soft kiss on the back. 

“I just want to know you’re ok.”

#####################################

When I entered through my front door, I immediately felt Eddie’s absence. The house was still and eerily silent. All the shades were pulled down making it seem darker than it should be. As I walked by the kitchen, I noticed the dishes piled high in the sink. 

“What are you doing?!” Eddie’s voice cracks comically behind me and he shoves me to the side with his hips. “Princesses don’t do dishes!”

I made my way up the stairs, glancing in my mother’s bedroom but there was no one there. 

Eddie jumps on the bed and crawls up to me planting a sloppy kiss on my lips. “I missed you.”

“You were gone for like 10 minutes!”

“Pffft! 10 minutes to long.”

As I enter my room, I throw my bags on the floor. I make my way towards the empty bed and look around my what now feels like an empty bedroom. I don’t even try to control the tears as I lean into the pillow, hugging myself as I cry. 

“Hey. You ok, baby? Do you need anything?” Eddies hand caresses my cheek. 

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” I smile up at him as he leans in to kiss my forehead. 

I had been home for 3 hours before my mom finally came home. I listened intently as she made her way into the kitchen, moving things around, and then stomped her way upstairs. 

“Oh hey. You’re home.” 

I can’t find it in me to reply to her so I simply look in her direction and nod my head. She comes in, sitting down beside me and it takes her a few minutes before she says anything else. 

“Look, um, I am sorry about what happened. You know”, she swallows and nervously runs her hands along her knees. “You know I would never hurt you like that. I would never…I would never…I would”, she starts repeating herself under her breath. 

I reach out and take her hand in mine. “I know, mom. I know.”

Her eyes are brimming with tears when she turns her head to look at me. She nods her head as if I affirmed something with my answer. She slowly gets up, heading for the door. 

“Oh! Something came for you while you were gone. I put it on your desk.”

I flash her a lazy smile and she returns it before heading for her room, closing the door. I slog over to my desk and see an envelope with a college insignia. I quickly open it and read through the letter. I got accepted into my first-choice theater school in New York. Smiling, I hug the letter to my chest.

Reaching for the phone, I dial Eddie’s number. 

“Yeah?” The sound of his voice immediately calmed my chaotic mind. From a distance I heard Wayne’s voice float through. “Edward! Is that seriously how you answer the phone?” Eddie huffs into the mouthpiece.

“Wow. You always know how to make me feel special.”

“Hey! Hey. Hang on a second.” He pulls the phone away from his face. “It’s for me, Wayne! Calm down!” I giggle at him as I hear him shuffle to a room and close the door. “Hey Sweetheart. You ok?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I miss you.”

“I miss you to. It feels weird not seeing your face.” I make a tiny aw sound at his comment. “How was she? Did you guys talk?” 

“I mean, we talked about as much as we normally do. She just got home and then she apologized so,” I shrug even though he can’t see it. 

“I’m sorry. I wish you had let me come with you so you wouldn’t have had to be alone for so long.”

“It’s okay. I did actually call because I have some good news to balance out all the bleh.” 

He laughs at my last word and the sound effect that follows it. “Tell me something other than bleh.”

“I, um, while I was away a letter came in from that school I applied to in New York and I got accepted.”

Silence. I was unprepared for silence. “Eddie? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. I’m here. That’s amazing, babe. I’m really… I’m really happy for you!”

Is he? Am I overanalyzing his tone right now? 

*snickers*

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I have to go. Wayne needs the phone and I’m just really tired. I’ll probably go to bed early tonight. I am proud of you.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, you should get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

“I love you to.” The last thing I hear is the sound of the lighter and his garbled voice as he places the cigarette between his teeth. 

############################################

The buzz around school was electric as everyone hugged their friends and talked about their amazing spring break. Eddie usually meets me by my locker in the mornings but today he didn’t show. 

Maybe he slept in?

Maybe he needed some time away from you.

When the lunch bell rang, I practically ran to the cafeteria to see if he was there and to my surprise, he wasn’t. 

“Dustin!” I shook his shoulder. “Where is Eddie?”

“Um”, he looks around confused. “I always assume if he’s not here he’s with you.”

“What do you mean? You haven’t heard from him at all today?” My voice gets a little shriller than I mean it to.

“No but that’s not uncommon. I mean…should we be worried?”

“No. No. I bet he just overslept or something.” I paint what I hope is a convincing smile across my face as I turn to leave. I’m on autopilot as I feel my feet take me out of the cafeteria and through the front doors of the campus. 

###########################################

When I pull up to the trailer, I breathe out a sigh of relief to see Eddie’s van. I jump off my bike and knock on the door. “Eddie! It’s me, Eddie come on.” No one answers. 

I make my way around to where I know his room is and see that the window is slightly open. I look around and find a brick in the grass near the front steps. I place it below his window, allowing for leverage, as I use all my strength to push up and through the area, crashing onto his empty bed. 

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was super attractive.” Eddie’s voice comes out husky and gargled. He’s lying on his back on the floor of his room in just his torn up blue jeans. He’s hugging his guitar with it flat against his tummy as he casually plucks at the strings in no particular order. Next to his head is an ash tray filled to the brim and a carton of cigarettes. 

“Eddie? What’s going on, babe?” He lets out a snarky laugh that I’ve heard before but never from him. He’s either drunk or on something. “Eddie…what did you do?”

I climb off the bed to kneel down beside him. His long finger lazily comes up to my face, pointing at me. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

He lets out a sarcastic ow as I slap his hand away and start digging through things around him. I grab his waist digging my hands into his pockets. Slowly I pull out a small bag of white powder, holding it up so I can look at it. “Hey. That’s mine.” As Eddie reaches for the bag, I get on my feet to keep looking around. “Hey! If you want some Special K all you have to do is ask, angel. You know I’d share with you for free.” I find what I’m searching for on his dresser. There’s a plate with more white powder on it sorted into lines with a rolled-up dollar bill next to it. 

“How much of this have you had?”

“Enough.” He starts strumming his guitar again. 

“Eddie, I’m not playing around. How much of this have you had.”

“Oh my god. It doesn’t matter. It’s mine. I bought it. I can take as much as I want! God damn. I can’t tell who you’re acting more like, my mom or yours.”

I don’t know what hit me first, the hurt or the anger. Of course, Eddie did drugs. We had smoked joints together but this… this was different. Like my mother he was using this vice to bury something, something that’s bothering him. I was hurt that he didn’t talk to me before it got to this point. I was angry that whatever it was had got him here. I was infuriated that I had spent almost 10 years of my life, my childhood, taking care of and watching someone I loved spiral like this. I refused to do it again.

“Oh. Ok. You know what you’re right. How much does this stuff usually go for?” I asked, my tone dripping with distain. 

“I paid, um, a $100 I think.”

“$100? Ok.” I grabbed my bag off the bed and dug through it before pulling out my wallet. I threw a bunch of twenties in Eddies direction. 

“Ugh! What the—”

“It’s mine now.” I grabbed the plate off his dresser and headed towards the bathroom. I cleaned the powder off the plate and emptied the bag into the toilet, flushing it down. Eddie swished past me on my way back to his room towards the bathroom.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! That was everything I had!”

“Well, Edward, according to your philosophy I paid for them so I could do what I wanted with them.”

From the doorway he was standing in, I could see his face twitch as I said his name. I had never called him Edward before and he didn’t like it. I pointed my finger at him as I spoke, “I will not baby another grown up. You’re the one that said we need to talk to each other if something is wrong.”

He scoffed as he leaned in the doorway, folding his arms. “What does it matter, right? You’re going to be leaving me like everyone else so there will be no one for you to baby.”

“Really?” I gesture towards him. “All of this is because I got accepted into that school?”

Something ignites in his eyes and he walks almost aggressively towards me until he is in my face. “You didn’t tell me you had applied or even talk to me about what I would want to do after we graduate!”

“You knew I wanted to get out of Hawkins. I never hid that from you.”

“Yeah, and where did I fit in to your plan?! Hm?”

“With me! Eddie, I applied there before I met you. I just assumed any school I got into you’d come with me.” Eddie shakes his head me and saunters towards his cigarettes. I watch him as he lights one and blows out smoke in my direction. “What do you want to do? Where do you want to go after high school?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?! You’re giving me this attitude because you think I’m going to leave you and that I apparently don’t consider you and your plans but now you’re telling me you have no idea what those plans actually are?!” 

“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m just being honest.”

“No, you’re being petty because you’re scared!” I close my eyes and try to control my tone. “Eddie, I get it. Trust me. You’re afraid that I’m going to hurt and leave you here.” I move my body in front of his and cup his cheeks in my hands forcing him to look at me. “I promise you; I would never hurt you like that.”

He stares through me and twists his face out of my hands, throwing himself on the bed. I swallow and blink back the tears that try to come. “Fine. You can keep pouting and doing this little thing here but I wasn’t joking. I already handle a drunk. I won’t do this again.” I wrap my bag around my shoulder and slam out the front door, leaving my bike on the front lawn. I need to walk and let out some steam.

############################################

I hadn’t seen Eddie since yesterday afternoon. Well, let me clarify. I hadn’t spoken to him since then. I saw him around school but went in the opposite direction to avoid the confrontation. I was exhausted. I was so tired of dealing with the bullshit like that. After leaving his trailer, my wall came up and it was higher than it had ever been. 

“Hey.” My mom lightly taps on my door. After school I had come straight home and curled up on my bed listening to music hoping to drown out the world. Having her knock on my door was way more startling than her just barging in. I was used to that. Everyone around me was acting different and it was throwing me off. 

“Hey. Is everything ok?”

“No! No, everything is fine. Um, that Munson kid is here.”

I let out a sigh. “Oh, thank you. Can you tell him I’m sick or something?”

“Thank you, ma’am. I can take it from here.” My mother moved to the side to let Eddie pass her into my room. 

“I’m going to work. They need some extra hands so…” We exchange a smile before she leaves Eddie and I alone. Once I hear the front door close, I turn my attention to him.

“What do you want, Eddie?”

“I wanted to talk, explain some things.”

“Now you want to talk. You know what?” I raise my hand dismissively in his direction. “You don’t have to explain anything, ok? You can do whatever you want.”

He exhales slowly, his feet shuffling across the floor to come sit on the end of my bed. I immediately get up, heading towards the other side of my room, crossing my arms. I need to put as much distance between him and I as possible. 

You have to be ready for the worst. I told you he was like them.

“Please don’t do that. Look at me. I swear I haven’t even had any weed today, ok?”

“Good…good for you, Eddie.” I try to make my tone sound strong but my lips vibrate as the words leave my mouth. 

“I fucked up. I know I fucked up. I just—” He gets up and tries reaching for me but I slip away from his embrace, moving again to the opposite end of the room. 

“I don’t care that you do or have drugs. I care how you use them.” My eyes glance quickly to his before focusing on something else in the room. “What were you numbing?”

“You were right yesterday. I was scared. Scared that, you know, you were going to go off and be this awesome famous college actress girl and leave stupid, freak, metalhead me here. I couldn’t face the idea that…. that you might now want me to go with you. You told me your news and, I don’t know, I just panicked.”

I sit back down on my bed and let out a heavy sigh. “What I don’t understand is”, my voice cracks as a tear falls down my cheek. “Why would you think for one second I wouldn’t want you with me?  I mean, Jesus Eddie, I spend almost every single day with you. I just spent an entire week at your house. I gave you my trust andmy body! What more do you—what happened to your hand?” While I was practically shouting at him, I glanced down and noticed his knuckles were red and bruised. 

“Oh”, he whispers, raising his hand to look at it. “I may have… punched the wall after you left. I kept thinking about what I said to you—” I headed towards the bathroom, coming back with a first aid kit. Grabbing his other hand, I moved him to sit on the bed. “Hey, I’m fine. It’s no big deal. OW!”

I ran a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol over his cuts. “Oh, don’t be baby.” I mutter under my breath. Leaning over him, I throw the ball away into the trash. I reach into the kit again and crack one of the tiny ice packs that are in there before placing it on his hand. “You must have hit it pretty hard. There’s some swelling here.”

His other hand comes up to cover the one I have holding the pack in place. “I’m really sorry. For what I said, how I said it, how it must of made you feel. You won’t ever have to do or deal with anything again, ok? Like I said, I panicked. I’m just a fucking coward I guess.”

“Eddie, you’re not a coward. You’re human. You got scared. I know I’m one to talk. When I’m in my head I try and hide what I’m feeling but you don’t let me and I’m not going to let you. You know I’m always here for you but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with whatever that was yesterday.”

He reaches out towards my chin, pulling me in for a kiss. “That’s fair.” I smile against his lips, before reaching up to kiss his forehead like he does with me. 

His head moves from side to side as he takes in everything. “Last time I was here I didn’t actually get to look at your room.” He points to the ceiling at my heavy metal posters. “Those are obviously cool.” Eddie rises from the bed and slowly starts taking a look around. He stops at my desk, running his hand over the A+ ribbons and theater certificates. He smiles as he gazes at my photos of me and some of the other theater kids tapped to my mirror. Crossing the room to my dresser, he picks up a framed photo of my family holding me when I was a baby. 

“You were adorable.” He grins over at me. I respond with a big tooth filled smile as I put everything in the first aid kit away and place it on the bed side table. I don’t notice him make his way to my keyboard piano in the corner of the room. 

“Hey! What’s this? It has my name on it.”

“Eddie!” I rush over to him trying to take the folded piece of paper out of his hand but he’s too quick and holds it up over his head.

“What is it? Were you writing me a song or something? Aw, Sweetheart. That’s cute! I thought you couldn’t sing?” He kept dodging my hands as I jumped up trying to reach it.

“I wasn’t trying to write you a song.” An embarrassed sigh escaped my lips. “I was trying to learn a song.” He clutches at his heart dramatically. “Ok, you know what, it was stupid. I was working on it after our first couple of dates and you were always playing the guitar for me over the phone and singing stuff so I wanted to surprise you but then I thought it was cheesy.” Eddie laughed at my babble as he reached for my arm to pull me into a hug. 

“Can you play it for me now?” I look up at him apprehensively. “Oh, come on. If it’s terrible we’ll just say my ears bleeding is punishment for yesterday.” I punch him the arm, making him giggle harder. 

Grabbing the piano, I motion for him to sit on the floor, and he does cross-legged like a child on Christmas morning under the tree opening presents. I sat directly across from him and placed the notes on the hold rack of the keyboard. I play with the keyboard for a bit before starting to play the notes I learned, singing to him slow and soft. 

“When everything feels all over Everybody seems unkind I'll give you a four-leaf clover Take all worry out of your mind

Let my love open the door

To your heart”

I glance at Eddie and notice the playful nature that was previously on his face has been replaced with a gentle smile. I focus my eyes back on the notes in front of me but I can still feel his own penetrating me as he watches me play.

“The only key to your heart That can stop you falling apart Try today, you'll find this way Come on and give me a chance to say

Let my love open the door It's all I'm livin' for Release yourself from misery There's only one thing gonna set you free

That's my love

When tragedy befalls you  Don't let it drag you down Love can cure your problems  You're so lucky I'm around

Let my love open the door

To your heart.”

When I look up at him again, he’s no longer smiling. Eddie’s head was tilted to the side and his eyes were scanning my face.

“See? I told you it was cheesy. I didn’t even learn the entire thing.” I say as I exhale a nervous laugh. After I slide the piano from between us, I reach out with my foot and lightly push at his knee. “Punishment served.”

Eddies hand quickly grabs my ankle as I’m pulling it away, sliding me forward and underneath him as he lays on top of me. He cups my face, placing a passionate kiss on my lips. I reach my arms up, twisting them around his neck, pulling him closer to me. When he finally pulls away, we’re both panting, trying to get some air back into our lungs. 

“That was beautiful.” He rubs the tip of his nose along mine. “I don’t feel like I deserved something like that. After everything.”

“Eddie, after everything you’ve done for me, I feel like that wasn’t enough.”

He leans down landing small kisses along my face. “You’re right.” He murmurs against my skin. “Next time, hire someone else to sing to me.” I roll my eyes as he starts laughing at me again. I shove his shoulder, rolling him on to his back with me straddling his waist. My hands brace themselves on his chest as he lifts his hips up to get into a more comfortable position, grabbing my own hips to hold me steady. He’s beaming up at me with that huge, gorgeous smile I adore so much. 

“Can I ask you something?” Eddie nods his head as his hands rub up and down my thighs. “Would you want to come with me to New York?” 

He grins as he sits up causing me to slide down against him. He bites his bottom lip, smiling up at me.

 “I’ll go with you anywhere, my Lady.” ##########################################

A/N: This is the song she's singing to him. I envisioned it being slower though like an acoustic version :)

Tags: @hufflepuffprincess24 @fanfiction-lover-24

[ezdotjpg]

If this is ok to ask do you have any tips on coloring art? Yours is amazing :)

thank u!! it's always okay to ask me abt art stuff!! I'm gonna assume that by coloring u also mean shading and rendering too. i have a post here explaining some color theory stuff i utilize a lot, so I won't talk abt that on this post. This, uh, got long......

first thing i’ll say is, if you struggle with color, don’t get too down on yourself. it's a deceptively complicated subject. It's easy to look at other people's art and get discouraged by how effortless they make it look, but chances are there was a considerable amount of effort involved. I still struggle with color, constantly. That being said, some stuff that helps me out is:

1. check your value structure. if your piece is turning out muddy or lacking depth, sometimes the problem is not necessarily the hues you've chosen, but that there's not enough contrast between lights and darks. I'll usually check this by throwing a black and white gradient map over everything just to see (this isn't a perfectly accurate way to do it, but it at least gives me the gist).

I was taught to thumbnail in 3 tones- black, white and gray. If your background is black, your midground should be gray and your foreground should be white. or any combination thereof, but the point is that they should contrast. These are general ballparks of what range of values each area should stick to. Here are some examples of ones I did in school (these have a bit more than 3 tones bc I do not follow rules lol):

I don't always thumbnail, but I do keep this concept in mind as I color. Basically, it's about making sure the eye knows where to go. In the case of that link piece, the general gist is, where the sunlight hits is the lightest value, shadows are the darkest, and link is mostly midtones where highlights don't hit. It keeps the focus on link and the flower. Even this piece is a little imperfect with the way the boots start to blend into the tree and dirt bc they're too close in both hue and value, but still.

Obviously, it's not value alone that makes the image work- Link's tunic is maybe a bit too dark in the black and white, blending with the tree, but it stands out in the color version bc it's so violently blue.

2. optical mixing!! basically, it's the way that adjacent colors blend to create a new color. It has a lot of uses in painting, but one of the best examples I can give is this Wayne Thiebaud painting:

Look closely at the edges. Look at the hints of bright red, magenta, blue, and green peeking through where they don't necessarily belong. you don't notice them at first, right? they blend in and aid in the overall light quality of the piece. they add life. they tie the palette together. that's one use of optical mixing! Wayne Thiebaud's paintings in general are great to study for this.

For a less perfect example, here are some places in my own painting where I use this. Look at where I place bright reds, blues, desaturated greens, etc. You can also achieve this effect by setting your background layer to a bright color, and letting it peek through (like an underpainting!) 

Optical mixing is also related to the concept of avoiding overblending. I struggled with this so much lol. It's okay for your shadows and highlights to have hard edges. it's desirable even, because cutting them in the correct shapes can go a long way in describing form. All of this, of course, is a stylistic choice i prefer, and you can apply it however you like

4. make limited, intentional color choices. You don't always need the entire color wheel. Like i've said before, an apple doesn't have to actually be colored true red to read as red. Decide what tone and mood you want your piece to have, pick a general range of colors that reflect that, and try to stay within that range.

Like, this is a silly example lmao, but in this piece, everything is between yellow, orange, and blue-green. saturation and value varies, but the hues generally stay in that ballpark. it keeps things harmonious! if you color picked say, wild's skin, it'd be way too aggressively orange to be a real skin tone. but it works in context, because there's not a more accurate true-to-life color in the palette to compare it to. your brain just accepts it. This lends to the sense of warmth in the piece.

5. In digital painting, don't be ashamed of using gradient maps, overlays, etc. All of the above info can help minimize a reliance on them, but they're still helpful tools! I use them all the time for final tweaks and lighting effects. my personal secret is grabbing a bright yellow or orange, getting a big giant airbrush brush, setting the layer to add/glow (i use clip studio, not sure the photoshop equivalent) and just very lightly painting it in the direction the light is coming from. i'll turn down the opacity if its still too strong even with a light hand, because the add/glow layer can just shoot things to overexposed white really quick. It creates a nice glowy lighting effect :-)

6. this is gonna sound like total garbage, but, just, look at stuff. like, seriously, put on your artist hat in every day life and observe things. take careful note in your mind of what color shadows are, what shape highlights take on different materials, how objects change color when lighting conditions change. do some studies, from real life or from photograph. studies don't have to be perfect- just try to block in basic shapes and colors, and zoom out to check whether it's creating the right overall effect.

hope some of this is helpful!!

[tteokdoroki]

an ode to winter | dabi.

♡ pairing: dabi/touya todoroki x fem!reader.

♡ word count: 14.1K

♡ rating: mature, 18+, mdni.

♡ genre: manga war arc!au, single-parent!au, unplanned pregnancy!au,  angst, fluff, smut.

♡ summary: touya todoroki had broken a lot of things, your heart, promises, your window a few times, but you swore he'd never leave your child feeling that way. but when he wants back into your life, will he take no for an answer? And do you even want to say it?

♡ warning(s): please read ! heavy smut, ( literally 5k of it ), MANGA SPOILERS IN THE EXTENDED ENDING,  mentions of pregnancy, mentions of semi-toxic!relationships, struggling with parenting, blackmail ??,   unprotected sex ( wrap it before you tap it, losers ), handjobs, oral sex ( female receiving ), fingering ( female receiving ),  choking, branding, squirting, spit!kink, needy touya lol <3

♡ author’s note(s): OK so this started out as a fic for my bestie @ozzy-bozzy​ but then turned into this long ass vent fic bc i do be struggling!! i’ve barely written for touya so apologies if his character is off. special thanks to @bakugous-trauma for beta reading n @doinmybesthere for the summary and beta reading and thanks for 4.7K MWAH <3

♡ masterlist | requests

the snow had fallen heavy that day, its flakes dancing along the window panes while you’d brought her into the world. you hated the cold, the way it nipped at your nose and stung at your cheeks, how it could freeze over a heart so badly that it would take years to thaw it out. you’d complained about the ice sheets that frosted your windows to the doctors, the ones on the roads too, but they’d simply wrote it off as your anxieties related to bringing kori home for the first time in such weather.

funnily enough, your daughter much resembled the cold in many ways. you’d named her ‘kori’; meaning ice, since her hair was white as the crisp blanket of winter outside and her eyes a piercing shade of aqua marine, that for a while, had no meaning written behind them except for a cool curiosity that you knew didn’t come from your side of the family. she wasn’t warm either, the first time you held her, her flesh against yours was almost a painful spark of frostbite— you expected that it was related to the lineage she came from too.

you thought that you’d resent kori when she was born; for the struggles that her new life had brought to you. you’d given birth alone and afraid, having lost friends and contact with your family due to keeping your pregnancy a secret. if they had known who caused you to end up in this situation in the first place, you were sure you’d have lost them all anyways. you hadn’t a chance to attend maternity classes due to the hours you worked in order to ensure yourself and your child’s financial security. although, prior to her arrival, dabi had told you that if you chose to give your daughter the todoroki name; you both would be looked after when the right time came.

and like a fool in love, you’d believed him, avoiding the apologetic gazes of the doctors and midwives who’d delivered your baby as you filled out her paperwork and birth certificate. one nurse even asked you if you wanted to contact endeavour for support, and you couldn’t blame her— the rumours of your child potentially being that of natsuo todoroki’s had spread fast through the hospital and it was a given, figuring his bad boy college reputation. natsuo and his ventures into the college life were no stranger to the media, so it didn’t surprise you nor the doctors to believe that this wasn’t the first time a girl had given birth alone to a todoroki child. you suspected that if there were any, enji todoroki would have paid them off.

so you let them believe what ever false truth that might have plagued the hospital walls about yourself and your daughter— not having the heart to tell them that you’d probably receive a much larger sum of money to keep hush about the child that you mothered and the child who’s father belonged to endeavour’s deceased, eldest son.

so you realised, thumb held by the chubby hand of your sweet infant girl; that you couldn’t hate her for the mistakes you’d made and the mess you’d become tangled up in— you could only promise to do your best in raising her despite the odds and difficult circumstances, you could give her the life and childhood that her father never had but most certainly deserved.

“miss yn...”

your midwife; himari enters the room, calling for you— tearing your gaze away from the hypnotising sea-foam eyes belonging to your daughter, the way she looked at you only reminding you of dabi. you’d told him once that his eyes always took you to the mediterranean sea, to which he’d laughed and mentioned you’d never seen it before. when the pair of you realised that this was true, the boy with the black hair and intoxicating stare made an oath to you, that he would take you there someday so you could bask in the warm sun and dip your toes into the clear oceans. you only hoped that this oath still remained true.

“miss yn...” himari tries again, this time stepping further into your hospital room. your thoughts had carried you so far away that you hadn’t realised how close she’d gotten as she lingered by your cot. her hands lay flat against her pale blue uniform, nails you note—neatly trimmed— and a smile that would have made you feel comfortable had you not known she’d volunteered to care for you because she too believed she’d be paid off by endeavour. you almost felt bad that she thought the silly lie was true and that she had a shot at a big time bonus but it was funny to think that no one would believe her when she eventually took to the news to claim that she cared for the next heir of the todoroki empire. “it’s says here, that kori is scheduled for feeding— i was wondering if you wanted to continue breast feeding or try pumping a bottle or two today?”

chewing on the inside of your cheek, you hum with hesitance. feeding kori was something you’d never discussed with dabi, some of the nurses had assured you that it was possible for you to do both— so that you could grow closer to your daughter and form a tight bond whilst also giving the opportunity to others to feed her when need be. there weren’t many others, but you figured that dabi might want to give bottle feeding a whirl when he finally returned from the league business. the business that had made him miss his little girl’s birth.

kori gargles from hunger in your arms, drawing your attention back to her tiny form. a stray strand of hair curls against her forehead from underneath her blankets and swaddling— the end you notice has a slight tint of red to it. the icy shell around your heart thaws. glancing back up to himari; you grin with a decision in mind. “i’d like to try breast feeding again, we can use the pump tomorrow.” you say, voice quiet.

“do you need any help getting her to latch?” your midwife asks, aiding you into a comfortable position to feed kori.

“no,” you smile after getting settled, pushing down your gown to expose your breast to your little girl. “i’ve got her, i can take care of her.”

you say the words more so to yourself than to himari, a hidden reassurance that you’re more than capable of raising your daughter on your own.

for now at least.

that winter, dabi never came home.

the snow melts, the flowers bloom and the seasons change. your daughter grows with the swift transition of the weathers too, her hair is a little longer now but the small curl of red against her forehead remains hidden and the same. her eyes open wider, still that deep shade of ocean blue, she can sit up on her own, throws toys out of her crib  and her favourite movies are bambi and bambi two. they’re the only things that she watches, which you hate, because they remind you of her. an innocent child who loses one parent and is left in the care of the emotionally closed off other.

you hadn’t realised how much you would need dabi, but still he is nowhere to be seen.

raising kori on your own proves a challenge, especially now that she’s a little bigger— it was easy after she was born; she was quiet and only made a fuss when she was hungry or needed to be changed. went down easy too, that was until her wails reared their ugly head as soon as the colder parts of winter hit. no matter what you did, the girl would cry for hours on end until her face would hurt from how scrunched it was and her fingers would turn red from the grip she had on your hands.

since her birth, you and kori had to move three times due to the noise complaints about her consistent crying throughout the day, evening and night. by the time february rolled around, you’d ended up in an apartment not so far from dabi’s old neighbourhood— it was a shitty area with high crime rates and an eerie feel to it that made you clutch your purse tighter when you walked home from the late night shifts— you had never had any intentions to raise kori in a dump like this, you wanted a better life for her than what dabi had, but your shabby two bedroom apartment in the dark side of town would be enough for now.

the rent was cheap since your current boss at the local grocers market was close friends with the building manager, but your boss was also a sleaze who thought offering you an extra 10% off of your weekly shop and an expired coupon for the coffee joint down the street would be enough to get into your pants. he was just another thing on your list that you hated about the world, about the current life you lead but you needed to keep him close to keep your rent low and a roof over your head.

besides, it had been a few days since you last saw him at work— the asshole was probably taking a few days to himself while you and your colleagues practically ran the store.

you can’t leave kori with a sitter; they never worked with her. your daughter was far too temperamental for the average person and would spend one night with her before taking their pay and quitting. the only person able to handle your beloved little girl was the old lady who lived two floors above yours, mrs. yamamoto. she was a sweet woman, widowed by fifteen years and had taken a liking to kori that one time you’d helped with her groceries when she couldn’t make it out in the february winter after your little girl was born.

it seemed kori liked mrs yamamoto as well, she was only ever quiet in the woman’s presence and you put it down to how high she had the heat up in her apartment. one time, it was up so high the power in the building went out for an entire night— which was hell for you since kori wouldn’t stop bawling. however; you appreciated the help, you’re sure that without the help of the elder woman you would have been far under the surface— drowning in regret.

but sometimes, it’s easy for the darker emotions to slip through the cracks— take a choke hold over your sanity. there would be nights where guilt would consume you and tears would flow heavily down your cheeks while your daughter slept. it was hard being alone, no one to confide in about the troubles of parenting or to reassure you that you were doing a good job at taking care of your child.

it didn’t help that winter was coming up again, kori’s first birthday fast approaching. the sudden milestone only made you wish that dabi was around more — it hurt you to know that there was possibility he’d run out on you and his responsibilities as a father but part of you believed that your lover was better. the eldest todoroki son appeared way too excited throughout your pregnancy to leave you with nothing.

despite not being able to make it to appointments due to his criminal nature, dabi had somehow manged to find the money to get you a 4D ultra sound of your baby, telling you a few odd jobs here and there allowed him to scrape the cash together. you never asked what it was that he did, afraid of what you might find in the eyes of the man that you loved so much.

why did you allow yourself to love a man who wouldn’t have given you the time of day if he hadn’t broken into your home? his seafoam eyes a glowing shade as he threatened your life through shards of broken glass and then wails of cop sirens outside. were you just as broken as he? had you not realised it yet? you could blame this whole mess on the fact that he kept coming back, but you always let him back in. dabi was a broken man who only knew blood and grit and grime and you were the girl with a chance to lead a normal life— yet you poured all of your heart and all of your soul into loving him because you were so sure that you could fix him.

and every single time you’d convinced him, convinced yourself that what you had could be normal and domestic— dabi would slip between your sheets, pinning you to your bed with your name heavy on your lips and the emotion of love painted into the turquoise flecks in his eyes. they burned with passion while his heated cock sunk between your plush thighs and welcomed him into your warmth. the moans you’d share while your skin slapped together, creating a bubble of safety where you were the only two people on the world.

dabi made promises against your swollen lips as his fingers swirled hidden messages of desire into your slick, puffy clit. he couldn’t give you the ring, the wedding or the house with the white picket fence and dog barking at the post man in the front yard— but he could give you every part of him from the good to the bad, the beautiful to the ugly and he would seal that promise with a throaty groan of ‘you are mine and i am yours...’ into your ear as you came together.

but it seemed that like all things, dabi’s promises were broken like shattered glass— never meant to be kept or eternalised. the shards cut your delicate fingers, the pain numbed as you were left to pick up the pieces and be strong for the small life you were now responsible for.

you were careful to not let the door fly in and hit the wall opposite as you unlocked it, stumbling into your two bedroom with kori’s chubby legs locked around your hips and bag full of groceries in your other hand. “look princess,” you coo down at your daughter sweetly, watching as she drools all over your staff lanyard from work. “we’re home!” bending down, you dropped the produce off by the door before heading off to your living room area, propping kori in front of her toy mat.

smiling down at her, you brush the pure white hair that curls over her cobalt eyes and kiss her freckled cheeks— heart swooning at the way kori giggles in your arms. she’d been on her best behaviour the entire week, keeping out of trouble with the staff at her daycare and mrs yamamoto in the place upstairs, so it was only right that you treat her.

“you hungry babygirl? want mommy to make your favourite, hm?” kori is barely old enough to talk aside from a few babbles and repeats of mama but that doesn’t stop you from asking.

“mmmamamamaa!!”

you press another kiss to her baby fat cheeks before heading to the kitchen to prepare her favourite dinner— spaghetti. ever since kori started eating her solids, she hadn’t been a picky eater and you noticed that her appetite much resembled dabi’s, who couldn’t afford to be fussy about any of the meals you’d made for him before he disappeared.

making the sauce is easy, a dish you’d prepared from when you were a child and used to cook with your parents— you retrieve the ingredients from the groceries and pull out the stuff you’ll need to cook them. you mince the vegetables easily like you’d been taught as your mind gets away from you.

you wish that dabi was here to enjoy the domesticity of your current life— maybe him being around would lift the dark cloud over your life. sometimes it hurt to know that he would be missing out on moments like this and you could imagine him sitting by the couch while kori played with her toys and you cooked for them both. in this world, he’d laugh at her fascination with colder toys and magnets— make a joke about how much your little girl resembles him and kiss your cheek when you served them both up their favourite meals.

tears pool in your eyes at the thought of your wish never being granted and that’s all it takes for you to slip and cut your finger while chopping up the garlic. “fuck!” you boss, dropping the knife and squeezing your hand around the wounded digit. you know that the clattering of the knife has scared kori, and from the way she looks at you, you can already tell that she’s seen you injure yourself. “god, fuck...that hurt.”

there’s a pause in time, while you rinse your cut under the tap, cold water soothing the sting before kori starts to wail like her life depends on it. in a rush, you grab a tea towel in hopes that it’ll stop the bleeding and head straight for your baby, hoping that you’ll be able to soothe her. by the time you reach kori, her eyes are red with tears and snot dribbles from her nose down to her chin while she babbles loosely all the new words she’s learned— in a whiny tone.  

“baby, don’t cry mommy’s got you,” you murmur to her, reaching out to the little girl with open arms. your heart breaks at the way her bottom lip wobbles in a watery pout. kori crawls into your arms, white mop of soft baby hair buried into the junction between your shoulder and your neck— her tiny body shakes with awful heaves and cries while her tears dampen the old hoodie of her father’s that you wear, effectively ruining the fabric. “come on honey, it’s okay! momma didn’t mean to scare you...”

she snivels in your arms, quiet for only a second while you walk around the apartment bouncing her. walking kori up and down seems to soothe her for the most part, a trick that worked when she was first born and had her horrible crying fits. “good girl, mama’s got you...” you continue to soothe her, brushing a finger under her white lashes to remove her tears. all is well for a second and it seems her tantrum has calmed, until she grabs onto your wounded finger and makes you curse in pain again.

“shit!”

“m-momma-!” kori whimpers, face creasing in pain as her cheeks start to heat up again. you fear that if you don’t do something soon she’ll bust a lung from crying.

you shake your head in an attempt to calm her down, baby sobs striking right through your body and resume bouncing her, hoping that it’ll work. “shhh kori, honey, it’s okay— mommy’s okay and so are you...” in the process of comforting her, you somehow trip over the discarded knife, sending it flying into the cabinets across from the island and making another loud noise that further spooks kori.

at this she screams bloody murder, the sound of her little chest heaving giving you a splitting headache. you were tired, tired of your daughter’s crying , working long hours with no help and raising a child all on your own. you were tired of the pain spreading through your head and your body and your heart. you needed an out or break at the very least.

you should feel guilty for what you’re about to do, heading for the nursery with a heaving baby in your grip. you can’t think of anything better to do than put kori down for a nap and hope that her crying tires her out— you do your best to pry the little girl from clinging onto your clothes and tuck her into her crib as she sniffles, quickly backing out of her room before she can call for you and make you feel even worse than you already do.

you close the door quietly behind you, somewhat sliding down it while your own sobs take over your body— shaking you violently as you hug your knees to your chest. you don’t know how long you sit there, biting your lips and holding onto in your whimpers while tears stream down the apples of your cheeks, but eventually

you find yourself drifting off with dreams of your happy family.

you jump awake a few hours later, surrounded by a thick darkness from the sky outside. the hum of the city streets helps to bring you back down to earth as you rub the sleep from your puffy eyes and blink away the exhaustion. you don’t quite remember when you’d fallen into a slumber but you figure that kori must have eventually, judging by the quietness that surrounds your apartment.

the blanket of the night allows your guilt to burn brightly in your chest— you shouldn’t have left her alone. scrambling to your feet, you stumble over to the kitchen counter and grab your phone to read the time. 11:06pm. it’s just about time that you check on your daughter, but with two steps of heading to the nursery and you’re met with foreign sound that doesn’t quite fit in with the usual creaks and squeaks of your apparent.

happy gurgles belonging to your baby creep out from underneath her bedroom door, low humming or singing to accompany her sweet sound. humming that you don’t recognise. with a pang of fear to your heart, you reach for the knife on your kitchen floor as a weapon of defence— this would go down nicely with the police. a single mother on self defence...yeah, that could work out.

the knife shakes in your hand as you approach kori’s nursery, barely steady even when you push open the door.

“...touya?”

nothing could prepare you for what you’d see after walking into that room but when your eyes fall witness to your love standing in the centre of the room with a little tuft of white hair cradled to his bare chest. the air around you tingles with warmth as if dabi has heated the place up with his quirk and your little girl curls into him as if she’s known him all her life. but she hadn’t, he hadn’t.

all at once, your heart heals just as it breaks— it’s been so long since you’ve seen the villain that you can’t help but notice all the changes in him, the way his eyes droop a little more with exhaustion and his hair dusted with a the slightest bit of white. he was noticeably thinner too, maybe from being away from a warm bed and good food for too long...so a half of you was relieved that he was home, the other— hurt and betrayed.

“hey beautiful,” dabi’s timbre voice fills your entire being, stimulating your senses into a dull tingle. his lips a drawn into soft smirk as he rocks kori back and forth, your  baby’s eyes flutter with the gentle indication of sleep. “how’ya been?”

if you weren’t frozen in shock, you would have given the villain a piece of your mind. how dare he...after all this time apart from you, from his daughter...ask how you were doing? your eyes flutter to the open window behind the oldest todoroki son, as if you need to look away from him to convince yourself he’s real and he won’t disappear when you look back.

proven right by meeting the cool, chartreuse sea of his eyes— your throat runs dry as all you’d ever dreamed of saying in this moment, flees from your mind. “what are you doing here?” you say, trying to sound firm even though your voice falls through.

touya stays quiet, twirling a long finger through the small curls on his—your daughter’s head. “i was in the neighbourhood.” he mumbles, gaze tearing away from you to focus on the content infant he has in his arms.

you should feel angry, you should be screaming and kicking at dabi— forcing him out of your home with your child safe in your own arms but your body doesn’t will you to. hurt seeps through your veins at the casual aura in his tone. of course dabi would treat the situation as if it never existed and that he’d been with you the whole time. the pain of seeing him with her as if he’d been in kori’s life from the very start wraps around your heart in a poisonous grip and squeezes hard until you’re choking back a sob, letting it sit in the base of your throat.

you refuse to break in front of him.

“you need to go. you need to put her down and you need to leave.” you attempt to assert yourself in a harsh bark, almost making dabi jump. he’d never seen you like this before, but then again he hadn’t seen you in a year. he could only imagine what motherhood had done to you, especially facing it on your own. touya hesitates, kori shifting in his soft grip— one he didn’t even know that he had as a villain but you steady yourself and repeat your words. “touya, i said you need to leave.”

“why? so you can fall asleep and leave her crying on her own again?” the villain spits out, harsher than he intended. he watches your face fall and your body curl in on itself and he feels bad. dabi had promised you a lot of things since realising he loved you, and not hurting you like his father hurt his mother was one that he’d just broken. relenting, the dark haired villain eases kori from his pec and tucks her into her crib.

there’s a beat of silence and then. “i’m sorry.”

“you should be.”

“yn,” he sighs, running a hand through the light roots of his hair as he leans over his child’s crib. the young father tilts his head, scanning kori’s face while he identifies every characteristic she has from the family he’d done his best to free himself of.   “i’m sorry, it’s just— just that she was cold and crying, so i took off my shirt and held her and she warmed up and—“ dabi pauses his quiet rambling, finally looking up from the slumbering baby tucked away into powder blue silk and locks eyes with you. “and she probably has my mom’s shitty quirk. and i can’t get over how much she looks like them, how big she’s gotten.”

touya finds his shirt after admitting that, throwing on the thin white material before closing the window he came through. he moves with the swiftness that comes with his job, and it’s almost peaceful to watch. you stay plastered by the door, torn between falling right into the palm of his hand and demanding the answers that you and your daughter deserve.

it makes you feel a little sick when he gazes down at kori with pride, it makes you queasy at how easy she was to handle to him. touya todoroki doesn’t know half of what it was to raise his child...but did that make you a bad mother? was there something he shared with kori that you didn’t? dabi hadn’t known what it was to love someone other than himself until he’d met you, but you’d spent your entire life around family and friends who took care of you and made you feel cherished every day. you had all of that before you had dabi, and you’d given it all up for him.

shouldn’t you be the one to easily put your daughter down for a nap? to soothe her tears? and for him to come so briskly into your lives and take care of it all when he doesn’t even know what you’d been through, hurts most of all.

“you don’t even know her,” you start, tremble to your bottom lip as the sob in your throat builds up and threatens to burst. “you never saw her after she was born, never cut the cord, never knew her weight. you don’t know how tiny she was when she came into the world, you don’t know because you didn’t come!” with each word, stray tears manage to escape from your tired eyes, but you’re too fixated on dabi to bother to wipe them. it hurts to cry, it stings even as they stream down the apples of youth cheeks but you don’t move.

“yn, sweetness, i—“

“i know how much she weighed when she was born, four pounds and thirteen ounces. she was so tiny i was scared that she would break—“ you’re gasping now, almost choking yourself out on the pain that burns brightly in your lungs and claws its way up your throat. “i know her favourite foods, what fabrics irritate her skin, her favourite stuffed toys, how she likes to be swaddled in her blankets at night or that her curls make her face itch but they’re practically untameable.”

you start to heave, losing breath with every word and dabi does nothing but watch, keeping an eye on kori to make sure she stays sleeping as he steps towards you. “i know that i love her more than i’ve loved anything in my entire life, despite how much i suffered alone bringing her into this world. and i know that i named her kori after the ice that frosted the windows of my hospital room while i waited for... you.”

touya remains emotionless while you descend into madness, letting you cry it out. “i’ve been watching...”

you want to scream, beat his chest and blame him for how insane you’ve become. “watching isn’t enough touya, she needed you. i-i needed you.” you whimper, falling limp against the door frame as your hands move threateningly towards your hair as if you’re going to rip it out from the root. “...you couldn’t come and visit? not once i-in the eleven months that she’s been alive? not once while she’s been breaking me down and giving—“

“giving you a hard time? i tried, i took care of you from afar...i’m the one who made your boss disappear. the one who put his hands on you.” dabi sneers towards the end of his once gentle words, standing a breaths width away from you. you hate that you crave the same touch from him as he gave to kori, but you’re still so mad at him.

eventually, it all becomes too much and you succumb to the tears that wrack your exhausted body. you sway with each choked wail that tumbles from between your chapped lips and dabi surges forward to catch you after kicking the knife from earlier away, letting you sink into the warmth of his embrace. he feels like home, smells like safety and not a word is uttered as he brings you to the floor and cradles you like he did with his daughter.

dabi doesn’t need to say sorry when he shows you through how close he holds you to his heart.

when you finally calm down, dabi lifts you bridal style to your bathroom and draws you a bath with the salts and lavender extract from the cupboard above the sink. neither of you speak except for when he softly offers to help you undress— to which you decline— and when he tells you he’s going to fix something to eat.

you knew damn well that the villain could not cook, he hadn’t been when he was little since endeavour took away the entirety of his childhood and you’d only taught him the basics when he was still on the run and stopped by your place from time to time. his favourite thing back then had been to watch you cook to the weird music you kept playing, hips swaying to the beat and a sparkle in your eyes— but you didn’t do that anymore, he could tell those days were long gone.

dabi orders in takeout in the end and you have half a mind to curse him out for using your money— but the day’s events have exhausted you beyond your wits end, so you eat with him in silence atop your double bed after dressing in an old shirt of his. “stay the night.” is what you tell him, scared that he’ll leave. he puts his cigarette out on your balcony. the doors usually stayed locked so kori couldn’t crawl out on her own but you opened it for him since dabi liked to smoke and you hated the ash.

he promised to quit back then, and he hadn’t now.

“i’ll stay.” dabi says, throwing the butt over the ledge and stripping his clothes as he follows you to bed. he decides not to mention he wanted to stay anyway. you peel back the covers enough for him to slip in behind you, heated arms wrapping around your waist and settling on your tummy, where he rubs small patterns into your skin. the villain’s chest is  overwhelmingly warm against your back— reminding you of the days where you would spoon and he’d wait with baited breath for kori to kick.

both of you lay together, wide awake in the dark for goodness knows how long. touya’s breath balmy against the nape of your neck and if you focused hard enough, you could feel his eyelashes fluttering against your skin. he pretends to sleep, refusing to acknowledge that his proximity to you affects him in the worst of ways— evident in how his prominent hard on presses against the swell of your ass.

rolling over, your heart skips a beat at the way your love’s eyes still manage to glow brightly in the dark— ignited by the flames of his quirk and emotions of angst from the past.

they flicker as he looks to you, pale skin illuminated by the silver moon slipping in from your balconies, scars as enticing as ever. tentatively, you reach a hand out to cup his face, not kidding the apprehension that paint his matured features even as you run your fingers down the scars on his jaw. “been a while since we’ve been like this,” is all you can muster up, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek while your free hand snakes between your bodies in an attempt to pleasure the man.

fear strikes you right in the chest, leaving you panting as dabi flips you onto your back quickly, pinning your wrists against the bed. “don’t,” he growls, almost feral in tone and in his eyes. “don’t do something you might regret in the morning.”

you lay still, staring at the man above you in an attempt to read him. doing so had always been hard, but tonight you can see every detail of his life and every part of him.  the fear of being his father and disappointing another group of people, a broken man torn between the people he loved and the life he led— you could finally see him. you wondered if it hurt him to be away from you and his child, if he ever thought of you.

you take a deep breath, fabric of the sheets fuzzy in your ears as you shake your head up at him. “i could never regret being with you,” you sigh, dabi’s gaze lowering. “i just need you...”

your proclamation is all the permission dabi needs before he ascends on your neck, almost whimpering at the taste of your skin against his tongue. you know that he’s avoiding your lips, scared that things may not feel the same if he kisses you there— as if your love might have fizzled out from the months that you’ve been apart. the villain’s mouth is hot against your skin, sharp teeth sinking into the column of your throat— it’s not hard for him to find the spots that make your back arch and body tingle, the dark haired man  would be embarrassed to admit that he had your body mapped out in his brain. you were all that he thought about in the months between then and now.

you miss his lips, but you fear that if you push your love to far he’ll clam up and withdraw from you completely. you can’t lose him while you have him now. in the meantime, your bodies press against one another hotly, burning while dabi paints shades of blue and purple deeper than his eyes against your flesh before lapping at each love bite with an odd tenderness people wouldn’t think he possessed at first glance. as he works, touya loses grip on your wrists, allowing them free roam across the expanse of his back.

your nails leave light tracks across his back, trailing up from his muscled back to the nape of his neck— curling in the white roots of his hair in an attempt to tug him up to your lips. “baby,” the old pet name tumbles from between them before you can catch yourself, laboured from where you’re short of breath. “please kiss me, please..”

with newly mussed hair, dabi is still for a moment before leaving one last mark at where your jaw meets your neck— wet tongue lolling over the fresh bruise while his large palm move back to cup your head. a thumb belonging to a scared hand runs over your bottom lip, pulling the plump flesh down while he watches your face for a reaction. “are you sure that’s what you want, beautiful?” the villain chuckles into the dark of the night, pink muscle running over his own lips to wet them in anticipation. “you want your man to kiss you?”

your senses go into overdrive, desperate for any kind of contact from the man above you— he feels so close and yet, a million miles away, even with his body making its way between your thighs and your chests pressing together eagerly.

“touya—“ you breathe, barely able to finish your sentence before the man himself delves deep into your mouth. his lips move with hesitance at first, sucking on yours slightly and parting for air more often than he should but you grip him by the whites of his hair firmly and tug him further into the kiss. your tongue dances along the seam of his lips, prying them open as you seek permission for entrance— dabi groans lowly as you tug on his roots and force your way into his mouth, tasting him as if it were your last time.

you swallow each of his moans that mingle softly with your own, while your tongues dance together messily— the kiss were and sloppy as if the two of you were out of practice. your worries fly out of the window from there, it’s good to know that neither of you had been with others during your time apart instead you feel like a teenager making out with their highschool crush for the very first time. dabi’s hips rut into the plush bed beneath you both and you can tell that even the slightest touches are riling him up beyond belief— it’d been almost a year since he’d felt you against him in any way and it didn’t help that you were so ready to accept him.

that you still wanted him.

whimpering at the thought, the villain pauses against your lips to catch his breath— panting softly. you can feel him pulling away, questioning if he deserves to be with you after everything he’d put you through. so, cupping dabi’s jaw, you let your free hand slip between your heated bodies and glide your fingertips along the waist band of his sweats.

“yn, i ain’t so sure about this,” dabi sighs, body twitching at the proximity of your hands to his hardness, his eyelids flutter shut and lock away his beautiful blue eyes— holding fear, insecurity and desire. “what if ya’still regret this later on?”

smiling up at him, you thumb at his cheek and work your hand deeper into his pants, past his underwear. “you’ve been away too long baby, i would regret not being with you more,” you coo up at him just as you grasp at his hardened length, watching as dabi shudders in your grip. his cock leaks hotly against your soft palm from going untouched for so long, your fingers explore him— tracing down the thick veins on the underside of his length. “let me make you feel good tonight.”

“fuck, sweetness. talk pretty with that filthy fuckin’ mouth of yours.” touya breathes heavily against your mouth, both of yours falling open in hot moans. cheekily, you run a thumb over his tip, circling the slit at the top. dabi collapses on top of you, burying his mop of salt and pepper hair into your neck as he drives his hips into your hand at his own leisurely pace. “y’better live up to those words—shit, don’t go letting me down, princess.” jade orbs finally open, heavy with lust and desire as the air around you tingles with a newfound desire to make each other feel good, settling on the planes of your marked and scratched skin.

your grip around dabi tightens while he fucks into your closed fist, wet sounds filling the room from where he leaks at his bright red tip— almost hot as his hands that dance up your sides and tenderly touch at your hips. so unsure, yet so needy. clear, thick precum guides the movement of your hand as it slides up and down your lover’s girth— he’s much bigger than you remember, swollen with an impending orgasm and dabi stutters when you reach further down his boxers to grip at weighty balls full of his seed, just about ready to burst.

he howls from deep within his chest, the noise only muffled from the drool that glides across his tongue before the villain’s wandering and scarred palms stop at your rib cage, settling just under your breasts. you don’t bother to stop pleasuring him even as his quirk ignites, blue flames burning right through your night shirt to expose your skin to the cool night air.  without even a second thought, dabi’s mouth ascends on your tits, taking one into the hot cavern while his free hand seers marks over the other.

the thought have being branded by your man makes your hips jump and your hand squeeze his cock in your grip— a reminder of what’s to come later on. his strawberry tongue rolls across your hardened nipple and you yelp in surprise with the sudden feeling of cool metal across the exposed flesh. “y-you have your tongue pierced?” you squeal as dabi repeats his actions, loving the way you arch your back into his mouth and your heart rate speeds up.

“never know when a bit of metal’s gonna come in handy, sugar tits.”

you barely have time to formulate a response before your boyfriend’s mouth is back on you, biting and sucking and marking your raw flesh like a man starved of his last meal— you don’t let up either, quickly pumping his cock as he continues to leak, painting your hand with teases of his incoming release. you’re sure that his sweatpants and the sheets below you will be stained with his arousal from how much precum oozes from his dick, slicking up your hands and creating the perfect flashlight but you don’t dare to think of anything else but the way dabi’s face twists with pleasure as he desperately thrusts himself into the softness of your palm.

his cheeks flush red, globs of drool connecting the roof of his mouth to his tongue while his eyes grow fuzzy at each step he takes closer to orgasm, the very drool from his mouth covers each of your breasts as dabi switches between them— creating a layer of wet against your supple skin that shines under the moon. you flick your wrist around him, faster, harder— giving the villain everything you’ve got to make him feel good.

“shit pretty girl, y’gonna make me...cum,” touya shakes in your grip, eyes crossing and tongue becoming lazy against your marked up chest. his salvia pools against your skin while he pants and fucks your wet hand as if it were your pretty little cunt clamping down on him. “fuck, fuck, fuck. don’t you fuckin’ stop, don’t you dare fuckin’ stop...”

he barks out the demands, but there’s a neediness to his tone and whine to his voice that makes you grin with pride, even if you’re barely there from having your nipples stimulated beyond belief. “cum for me touya, please, wanna feel you come undone for me.” you beg him, ever so slightly and it’s just enough to push the villain over the edge, sending him into an earth shattering orgasm. you don’t dare to stop as you jerk him off, guiding down from his high as his cock twitches from release and paints your knuckles with the thick white of his seed. he mewls contendly into your breasts, slowing his hips while the world of colours dance behind his cerulean eyes.

“here with me yet?” you murmur to him, grasping his wild locks to tilt his head up towards your face— dabi looks so blissed out but the smirk on his raw and bitten lips tells you the night is far from over.

pressing a searing kiss to your sternum, your boyfriend’s pierced tongue makes yet another appearance as he trails the muscle down your soft tummy— biting your navel as he goes. “never left gorgeous, but don’t you fucking dare think for a second that this is over, y’got that?” he sits up quickly, grabbing hold of your doughy thighs and using them to pull you down the bed. the pads of his fingers start to burn marks into your skin, dancing along your legs and stopping just above the waistband of your underwear. “gotta stretch this cunt open before i give you my cock, remind you of who the fuck you belong to.”

spreading your thighs nice and wide, you release a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding as dabi’s hands finally come into contact with your slit, prodding at your slick folds from over your panties. lowering his face between your open legs, your boyfriend hums in satisfaction as he peels your sticky panties away from your pussy. “why, babydoll, you’re so fucking wet down here. this can’t all be for me, can it?” touya teases you, hot breath fanning against your unused sex while his fingers play with the string of your slick that coats them. “y’must’ve missed your man badly for your lil cunt to look this fucked up, s’pecially when i haven’t even touched’ya yet.”

you shiver and nod weakly, willing to say or do anything to feel more of your boyfriend against you. “s’all for you dabi, o-only you could get me this wet, n-no one else could take your place...” you mewl, hips bucking into the air while the man himself watches you grow needier and needier, hormones expelled into the air. dabi grins, leaning into your core once more to press his nose into your wetness, sniffing your spiked panties like the dirty man he is— only to then lay his pierced tongue flat against your folds, tracing your hole with the muscle while his nose bumps at your clothed clit.

“saved this all for me, huh? you’re so loyal, sweetness. waiting for me all this time…” he kitten licks at your cunt until you’re writhing amongst the already solid sheets, forcing his spit into your hole from over the thin fabric of your panties, creating a more prominent outline of your puffy lower lips as your thighs quieter around his head. they threaten to close as he works on you through your underwear— teasing and prodding at your sex to see if you respond the same way to his touches as you used to.

you force your shaking through his black and white locks, grabbing hold of his roots in an attempt to pull dabi back to your heat when he lifts his head from between your thighs— pushing your lips into a pout. “no, no no, baby, please— need you to eat my cunt, want your mouth on me, please!” you cry out, but you’re quickly pacified by his scarred hand which cups your pussy— seat of his hand grinding into your clit.

“god, if i had known you were still this eager to fuck me i woulda come home a long time ago, babydoll.” he chuckles, licking up your inner thigh and biting down on the plush flesh. “need’ta get rid of these though, they’re getting in my way.” the villain gestures to your panties, making you watch as his quirk burns it’s way through the silky material until it’s nothing but ash against your sheets. you gasp as soon as your cute little pussy is exposed to the cool air, missing the warmth of touya’s pink tongue against it. “better.” he sneers, eyes bright and glowing in the dark with a new sense of feral desire.

thick digits press into your tight hole at the same time touya takes to sucking on your swollen clit, forcing their way up your velvet walls in search for your pleasure spot. dabi chuckles against your sticky folds as you begin to whine, hips rolling up into your lover’s face while his tongue draws rough patterns onto your bud. you’ve missed him, missed this. the nights where the villain dabi would sneak into your home, becoming your touya todoroki between the four walls that you shared— where you would spend nights seeing stars by his hand or his cock and he would make you his over and over again. the memories have you clamping down on his digits like there’s no tomorrow, greedily sucking them in as he strokes at the walls of your sex and makes your whole body shake.

touya works hard at pleasuring you, apologising for his absence through slurping the juices from your folds only for you to gush and paint his scarred chin with more of your nectar. the way you taste makes him dizzy, he could spend the rest of his life between your thighs and never miss the outside world like he did before tonight. he wants to be good for you, make you feel good too and it’s not enough to feel the ecstasy roll off of your heavenly body in waves— he wants all of you, mind, body and soul to belong to him.

you can barely breathe, leaking with every swipe of his tongue against you and every twist of his fingers inside of you. you can feel everything at once, the euphoria crackling across your brain, high on the way touya makes you feel. “god, t-touya, don’ stop...feel so fucking good…” you heave in a drawn out moan, barely able to tell what’s up and what’s down as the villain pulls his fingers from your slick hole and replaces them with his tongue ( only after they’ve pushed down on your g-spot over and over again ).

“you’re not the one giving orders, sweet stuff, oh no.” dabi reminds you sloppily, looking like a child with no table manners as your nectar smears across his face. for his own satisfaction, he delivers a harsh smack to your pussy, watching as your entire body jolts and jumps up the bed. “your cunt is mine and i’ll do what i want with it, show you how much i missed it.”

his possessive words almost set you off, the knot in your stomach growing tighter with every pinch of your nub and every swirl on his tongue inside your walls, committing every ridge to memory. your body burns and you’re not sure if it’s from dabi pressing against you so hotly or because of the desire that fuels the fire inside you.

“yours, yours, yours!” you chant like a mantra, high pitched and whiny— your voice mixing with the crude sounds of your own pathetic cunt, that grows louder when dabi spits on your clit to add to your wetness. he lets it drip between your folds, fingers to busy with stimulating you to catch it before it slides between your lower cheeks, opting to use his tongue on you instead.

“ya’like that don’t you? missed your whinin’ pretty girl, fuck, even missed making you a fucking mess.” you keen into his touch, babbling incoherent praises to the man between your legs as he spreads you wider by the ass with one hand and forces his fingers back into your cunt with the other. his fingers curl into a come hither motion, repeatedly pressing down on your spongy spot as he sloppily makes out with your puffy nub— taking only one, two, three strokes to make your eyes roll into the back of your skull and your orgasm to wash over you.

your body convulses, shaking as you’re hit hard by your release— juices gushing all over your lover’s face even as he refuses to let up. “t-touya no...no no...can-can’t,” you whinge, tears clumping in your lashes. dabi spreads your lips again, using three digits instead of two to continue stimulating your clit until another release builds up inside your lower belly— clear liquid gushing out of your abused pussy and staining the sheets below.

he hums proudly, pressing a lasting kiss to your fluttering hole before reaching up to your lips to do the same, barely allowing you the time to catch your breath— chest heaving while you come down from your high. “so pretty when you squirt for me like that, sweetness,” dabi moans into your mouth, allowing you to taste yourself on him. but as soon as he comes, he’s gone— rolling you onto your stomach and lifting your hips so your ass sits in the air for him. “gonna take my cock now, kay?”

“kay,” you mumble into the sheets, brain too  fuzzy to resist as the villain manhandles you the way he wants.

after shoving down his sweatpants, the eldest todoroki grips the peachy soft flesh of your ass— smacking it a few times with his heat activated palms to watch the flesh jiggle and his handprint sink into the skin. you lean back, watching over your shoulder as his cock stands at full attention, hard from seeing you come undone on his fingers and tongue. it burns bright red at the tip, another fat glob of precum making it shine and making you dribble with anticipation. “y’such a fuckin’ slut, my beautiful slut… hungry for my cock even after i’ve wrecked your lil pussy so bad,” dabi says with a cocky lilt to his voice, the very tone making your hole clench around nothing. he taps his sticky cockhead against your slit, running it up and down your cunt three or four times— groaning as it slides between your cheeks. the sensation causes your back to arch as you wail, fingers gripping the bed covers so tight that you almost cause them to tear. “don’t you worry baby, ‘m gonna make up for lost time, you don’t have to miss me anymore.”

there’s a double meaning to his words that you don’t ask him to elaborate on, too caught up in the way he teases your hole as he dips his length in— only to pull it right back out. “don’t tease, need you badly,” you plead, earning yourself another harsh spank to your raw ass cheeks.

“shut the fuck up and let me fuck you,” the words are harsh against his tongue, but dabi utters them softly as he relents to his wishes. his cerulean gaze flutters down to where your bodies begin to join, his large hand gripping his length before he starts to push into your dribbling entrance. “god, you’re s’fuckin’ tight, you might as well be a virgin.” pussy spasming at his words, you leak against touya’s cock, creating a lewd squelching sound as he pushes more of himself into you. the weight of dabi’s thick girth causes painful, yet delicious burn which he eases by rubbing soothing circles into your clit once more. “been s’long, i outta fuck you open again, huh?”

“uhuh, take me again touya. make me yours, all over again.” you slur over the spit drowning your tongue, eyes fluttering shut when the villain’s hips surge forward his dick brushes against your cervix. his rough, calloused palm grabs your neck from behind, forcing you down into the sheets while he bottoms out inside of you and pushes the last of his cock past your entrance. the two of you groan in unison, touya sitting heavy inside of your walls before you muster up the energy to say. “move.”

he doesn’t need to be told twice, whilst dabi was enjoying the feeling of being engulfed by your soft, warm insides— cock twitching in relief from time to time— he finds it within him to pull back from your selfish cunt to thrust into you with all his might. the force pulls a broken squeal from between your bitten and bruised lips, your hips pushing back against dabi to keep him inside of you. the pair of you move in sync, bodies dancing in a sensual grind between lovers that moulds your cunt into the shape of your boyfriend once more. “oh fuck yeah baby, oooh, missed your cunny s’bad…” dabi yowls loudly, listening for the squashy sounds of your sexes moving against one another. “christ, you like when i talk about your pathetic little pussy like this?”

you bite down on your lower lip, embarrassed by your own bleats of pleasure when he degrades you like this. annoyed by your lack of answer, touya grabs onto your hips and pulls you off of his cock, only to slam them back into you seconds later. his pace is unforgiving and relentless from there, forcing your body up the bed with every thrust into your core. “yes! like it, love it, missed your cock so bad touya!” you cry, holding onto the sheets for dear life as his dick drags along your pleasure spots and his hands burn marks into your ass and hips.

weakly, you attempt to match his thrusts. circling the meat of your ass back onto dabi and squeezing around the head of his girth every time it plunges into your sopping pussy. your arousals mix as he pounds away at your hole, a thick string hanging between your bodies and dribbling down your inner thighs, tainting innocent skin. the wet noise reverberates across the room, creating a passionate symphony with dabi’s deep, pitiful moans.

even though it had been a while since the two of you had been intimate like this, dabi still knew all the ways to get your body going. he took you from behind but still let his marred hands wonder and explore the planes of your skin, pinching here and there, marking your body as his to use and his alone. there’s love hidden beneath his rough touches, little signs that he missed having you so close to him— having you split open on his cock while you dripped on his pelvis and ruined your bedsheets, was his own way of unleashing his pent up emotions of love, anger and despair onto you and you wanted it. you wanted his good and his bad while he fucked you like his life depended on it, balls deep inside the pussy of the woman he loved was where he was most vulnerable with you.

“s-shit, sweetness, you’re such a pretty mess, so fucked up on my cock, can feel you clamping around me like my greedy bitch should.” you’re stuffed so full, clenching every time touya drives his cock deeper into your gummy cunt, head prodding at the sensitive bundle of nerves inside of you. he’s losing his mind at how you choke out his iron hot girth, clear liquid seeping down your thighs at every thrust. “you’re my beautiful brain dead baby, letting me fuck you like this, yeah? missed you baby, missed this,” despite his words, touya is no better than you, mind hazy with thoughts of you creaming around him because of how good he’s made you feel. him, and no one else. you saved yourself for him after all these months, the least he could do was bring you to cloud nine.

he does so by angling his thrusts up to meet your pleasure spot every time, howling your name in the way he knows you like just to feel your hot cunny spew more of your juices out against his tummy. “missed you, thought about this for months,” you lament, elbows that kept you up finally giving out as your body tiredly collapses into the sheets— dabi’s balls still clapping against your ass. he follows you down into bed covers, chest pressing hotly against your back as the jackhammers into you from behind. “thought about your fat cock in my tight pussy, t-touched myself to you...made being alone worth it, made waiting for you to come home worth it. ‘cause i get to see your beautiful face when you fuck me…” you barely register what you’re saying, babbling incorrectly while the temperature of your body rises with your level of arousal.

behind you, touya’s cheeks burn with a new feeling. deep down, all he wanted was to be validated as a lover to you, he’d always been deemed as the bad guy incapable of feeling anything for anyone other than himself. but you, you had proved him wrong so many times and he still found your words hard to believe. yet, it felt good to know how much you loved him. snaking a hand down to your face, the villain squishes your cheeks together and brings you up to his own face despite the arch to your back— he keeps up his sinful pace, your lower cheeks bouncing with every push and pull of his length while he drips a globule of his saliva into your pouting mouth. “shut up,” he grunts harshly, although love is written across his cobalt eyes.

you smile up at him dopily, keeping eye contact with him as you swallow gratefully. “anything for you,” his hands slip from your squashed cheeks to your throat, cupping it as he holds you against him. more arousal pools in your lower stomach, turned on by the thrill of him being able to end your life right then and there, all it would take would be one flame but you know more than anything that dabi loves you and would never hurt you. “i love you, touya todoroki. i a-always will.”

your admission makes dabi’s heart stop in his chest, heated pants tickling your ear as he continues to take you and claim your body as his. with newfound vigor, he links his free hand with yours that lays against the bed and rams his cock into your core as hard and as fast as he can, determined to make you cum. “i—oh fuck, i love you too, sweetness…” the arsonist can feel the way your cunt flutters around his girth at his confession, tears building up in your eyes once more. god, you were so pretty like this, arched for him perfectly in the moon, stars illuminating every curve and dip on your body— showing off the stretch marks from where you’d carried his child. everything about you turned him on in the best possible ways and everything about you that turned him on, also turned out to be everything he loved about you.

your stupid big heart, your stupid big eyes when you say that you love him, your stupid smile when he used to kiss you and hold you and even now when he fucked you. touya todoroki was in love and in the worst possible way but he couldn’t say he regretted a single moment of it, not when you stayed true to him after all these months of being apart. you raised his child and you loved him all the same and a part of him is grateful that you never turned your back on him like everyone else he’s ever loved.

so the least he could do is make love to you, push his creamy cock into the depth of your core while kissing down your spine to watch you shudder oh so cutely. it’s messy and sloppy and the pair of you should feel nasty for the stench of sex in the air, lingering against your skin. but you don’t, how could you? not when love and adoration tingles in the air as well, it’s messy because of the unadulterated emotions you feel for one another— deep in vulnerability is where dabi grinds his cock slowly into you, hitting all the right places that make you scream his name into the night. makes him mumble incoherent praises against your bruised neck and squished cheeks as he lewdly licks a stripe up the column of your neck to behind your ear.

you gush around him and he grunts with ecstasy into your ear, tightening that knot in your stomach as you both step closer to your highs. “you like the way i fill this cunt up, huh? yeah? when i hold you like this, when i fuck you like this?” dabi mutters to you lewdly, holding onto his sanity by a thin thread as his own release sneaks up on him. “tell me you like it...fuck sweetness, please.”

“i love the way you fuck me touya, fuck! only you can make me feel this good,” you moan to appease him, bouncing back against his cock while his hips begin to stutter and your eyes begin to cross. it’s true, you love belonging to him, being able to bring him such pleasure and you know he feels the same way. the villain prods at your g-spot over and over again, stealing your breath away as he pulls you up and into your chest, changing the angle of his hips to bring you to the last hurdle. “baby—ohmygod—-touya! ‘m sososo close, don’t stop...don’t stop, gonna cum, give it to me, give it to me please!” you chant, eyes fluttering shut as you lean your head back against his shoulder and search for his hand, voice rising with every octave as you get closer and closer.

“fucking cum for me sweet girl, shit, cum all over this fucking cock.” dabi manages through gritted teeth, grasping your hand while the pace of his thrusts grow inconsistent.

that’s all that you need to hear before the damn breaks and arousal floods through your entire body courses through your veins. white dances behind your eyes in flashes as your release flushes out of your pussy and drips between touya’s balls, coating them in a layer your honeyed slick. you slump against your boyfriend, not able to mutter a word as you convulse in a silent scream and squeeze both his hand and cock alike.

gently, he pushes you down to the bed and pulls his cock from your intoxicating heat— his free hand clasps around his cock, palming himself towards a swift release. “yeah, oh fuck yeah, fuckin’ love you baby,” he cums on your back and your ass, thick, potent and milky seed landing on your flushed skin before he collapses beside you and exhaustion settles in his bones.

you black out for a few minutes after, fingers still intertwined but dabi manages to slip out long enough to retrieve a washcloth that's damp and warm to clean you both up with. you wake up just as he crawls back into bed with you, kissing your hairline while he makes himself comfortable. “almost thought i’d killed you for a second,” the villain jokes, slinging a loose arm over your bare waist and pulling you to lay on his chest.

“you couldn’t, even if you tried.” you counter sleepily, drawing star shapes on your boyfriend’s naked stomach. a comfortable silence sweeps over the room, despite the thoughts that linger on your mind. looking up at dabi, you notice him drifting off but still can’t help the words that slip from your lips. “why didn’t you ever come back?”

you feel dabi’s chest rise and fall with a deep sigh, fingers coming up to scratch at your scalp— something that used to help you to sleep when you were together before. “i was figuring out a way to get out of the league, to be with you and kori.” he says after some time, catching your eye as you give him a confused look. “shigaraki doesn’t know about her, i never told him. but i knew from the moment we found out about her, i didn’t want her to be a part of the life i’m involved in and knowing how the league works, they’d find a way to make use of her.”

you stay quiet, not knowing what to do with the new information and dabi’s reasoning for staying away for so long. on one hand you were grateful to him for keeping your daughter quiet and safe but part of you still wished he’d given you a sign to let you know it’d all be okay. grabbing your chin, he forces you to look up at him—passionate flames burning in his eyes. “i need you to trust me on this one sweetness, i promise nothin’ will happen to you nor kori. so long as i’m around.”

“pinky promise?” you ask him sweetly, feeling the truth to his words.

you hold up your pinky to the villain’s face, smiling through exhaustion as he rolls his eyes down at you. “pinky promise, babydoll. now get some shut eye, kay?” touya links your pinky with his, scoffing when you make him kiss them.

“g’night, touya.”

“sleep well, babydoll.”

the bed is cold when you wake up the next morning.

the panic sets in quickly, speeding up with the chirping of birds from your balcony outside. you shouldn’t be tearing up over the childishness of a pinky promise. he always made you promises but never actually kept the and as quickly as dabi had waltzed back into your life, he had left you alone and in the cold once more.

gathering yourself together, you stumble out of your bed— avoiding any mirrors that may show the cascade of marks dabi had left against your skin from the previous night. you feel embarrassed and ashamed that you let him back into your life so easily, especially now that you had kori to think about. tears start to well in your tired and puffy eyes as you head to the kitchen, thinking that a mug of coffee will calm you down before you prep your daughter for the day.

but as you wander out of your room, the familiar sound of your baby girl’s laugher drifts through the air— seemingly coming from the kitchen.  the sweet melody calls out to you and suddenly your casual stride to the kitchen becomes a brisk walk so you can reach her faster. “kori? baby? did you climb out of your crib again—?” you call out to her, stopping in your tracks when you round the corner.

dabi stands in the middle of your kitchen, still shirtless, with kori balanced on his hip— in one hand he holds a small blue flame, which you’re sure he believes is safe enough for kori to play with while the other steadies your baby girl while she claps and squeals. a first. you’re not too sure when the last time you’d seen her happy was, but you figure her father’s presence had something to do with it.

“i was going to make you breakfast, but the little shit woke up and i didn’t have enough free hands to make you a grilled cheese.” touya smirks over at you, diminishing his flame to grasp kori’s hand and use it to wave at you. she squeals happily, curls bouncing and eyes lighting up in a similar way to her father’s. your heart melts at the sight of them being together, seeing the mannerisms that they share and how joyous they seem. they both grinned the same way, shared the little twitch in their noses and even their sneezes. kori todoroki was an exact replica of touya todoroki, right down to the tiny red curl she had lost in her white locks.

“you know, i thought you’d left,” you make your way across to the island where dabi sets his daughter down and check her temperature— just in case her sudden change in mood is down to any sickness. “the bed was cold when i woke up.”

“didn’t i make you a promise last night, sweetness? i’m not going anywhere,” the arsonist reminds you, wrapping his arms around you from behind while you wipe at kori’s pudgy baby cheeks and give her the once over again. “if you’re checking the kid’s temperature, she's usually pretty cold because of my mom’s quirk. something ice related will be coming through, but she must’ve inherited your strong constitution. guess she has a normal body temp when i’m around ‘cause it balances her out.” while dabi explains the inner workings of kori’s incoming quirk, she claps and babbles excitedly from her place on the island— making a game out of throwing her toys off of it. all of dabi’s logic makes sense and you seem a little more relieved knowing how to take care of her from here.

picking her up, along with her stray toys, you set your baby down by her playmat again and switch on some baby-safe cartoons while you fix yourself and dabi some coffee, kissing all over kori’s face beforehand. he had whined when you pulled away the first time to give your daughter some attention, it was almost comical how the big bad villain had pouted then. “i wonder if there’s anything of mine she inherited or if it’s all you and todoroki genetics.”

“well, her pretty smile certainly didn’t come from me, babydoll.” dabi muses with a light chuckle, arms trapping you against his chest once more as you continue to make you both some much needed caffeine. the coffee machine whirrs as you sway together in the early morning sunshine, warmth from the sun brushing against your skin and touya’s hair tickling your neck before he presses kisses over your fading love bites while kori’s annoying shows play in the background. everything feels complete and at peace. you feel like a real family. “i could get used to this, this life with you.”

you spin in dabi’s arms, cupping his cheeks and taking in his face for the millionth time in the last twelve hours. “then stay, or at least visit some more now that you’re back. you may not feel it, but kori and i need you. everything has always been better when you’ve been around touya… and i mean that. stay.” you stare at him with pleading eyes, standing on your tiptoes to stare him down and communicate just how much you needed him here with you both.

and for once in his life, touya todoroki feels the most loved he’s ever really felt. here in this shitty two bedroom apartment with his angelic little girl and his beautiful girlfriend during the winter season— touya knows this is right where he needs to be. “i’ll stay, for as long as you’ll fuckin’ have me.”

“forever, then?” you ask, eyes lowering to your boyfriend’s lips.

“forever it is, babydoll.” the villain nods, following your gaze before leaning down to capture your lips with a promise written into your sweet kiss.

extended ending

you thought that the best kind of weather was when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds but the air around you was still as cold as a december’s day. the breeze is enough to make your nose run just a little, but occasionally the warmth of the sun’s rays radiates across your skin like a warm blanket, balancing it out.

it was the kind of weather where people didn’t know how to dress, some wore mismatched shorts and jerseys whilst others were decked out in scarves up to their cheeks and sandals where their toes flopped out. it was the kind of weather that reminded you of dabi and kori, they were your warmth and your cold, they balanced each other out and made your family whole.

kori sits on your right hip as you push the car door closed and wave goodbye to an accomplice of your boyfriend’s— your driver for the evening. your little girl’s curls are combed back into two even pigtails, dark blue bows in each one while the red lock of her hair ( now, much longer ) curls against her forehead stubbornly. she looks so pretty, all fancied up a dress that dabi had chosen for her on this particular occasion, the lace irritated her only slightly but the decapitated endeavour plushie her father had gifted her served nicely as a distraction.

you bounce her once, cooing down at your baby before you look to the hospital in front of you— a look of determination in your eye. ever since the night touya had visited you and swore to stay, he’d kept his word to the best of his abilities. being a villain was still a major factor in your relationship, he came when he could stayed if his job permitted it— taking care of your daughter when your shifts were long and even going as far as to learn his and kori’s favourite recipes to cook on the nights where you couldn’t or you didn’t fancy take out.

in the last few weeks his visits had become slightly more scarce with shigaraki becoming more and more demanding, but touya’s plan to leave the league was slowly coming to fruition along with endeavour and the hero society which had both carved a life of struggle for the three of you.

your boyfriend being busy had given you more time to reconnect with the friends you had lost over the last year, meeting up with those from college, mina and tsuyu ( who’d simply thought you’d gone off the radar ) for kori’s first birthday. they absolutely loved her and your sweet girl loved all the attention she was getting. you even had the chance to reunite with your parents, who were more remorseful that you felt you couldn’t come to them for help than the fact that you’d gotten pregnant during college.

of course, they all asked who the father was and you simply told them that he had died ( which was half true ), using the excuse that you were embarrassed to be widowed and with a child at your young age.

shaking your head, you enter the hospital and recite the words that touya had made you practice the night before. you were here by endeavours orders and needed to see mrs.todoroki. your lover had used some sort of hack to put you on the list of visitors for his mother but one look at kori was all the guards and staff needed to let you through. a few nights prior to today, dabi had asked you to do one thing for him before it all went down, kissing your knuckles over some sushi take out.

so despite your nerves, you would go through with this for him, especially if it meant your family could be together. some guards escort yourself and kori to rei todoroki’s room, leaving you with a curt nod and slightly more polite wave to your daughter. the room itself is slightly bleak, a chair and some blue cushioned sofas positioned in an L-shape parallel to the blanketed bed. there’s a tv in the top left corner which and a set of draws underneath where a clear vase sits— containing blooming blue flowers.

rei looks up when you enter, grey eyes flashing with confusion despite the blank look on her face as kori babbles happily in your arms. “who are you?” she whispers, hands retreating from her flowers and  folding neatly in her lap.

“oh! i’m yn, your son’s fiancé and this,” you beam kindly, further entering the room and being sure to lock the doors behind you. you nod your head down to your daughter who waves around her endeavour plushy— paying no mind to the situation unfolding. “this is our daughter, your granddaughter...kori todoroki! she’s just turned one and daddy thought it was about time she met you, isn’t that right pretty girl?”

“dada!!!”

rei blinks and you smile again. “she’s a daddy’s girl,” you explain and lift your hand to snow the small sapphire engagement ring on your ring finger. touya had proposed last night as well, certain your plan would work out. “and quite frankly, so am i! how can i not be when your son treats me so well.”

nodding slowly, the wife of endeavour looks down at her hands which you note, nervously fiddle with a stray petal. “so, natsu and you—?” you can see her trying to work it out, curiosity written across her features. you could see why the woman might think kori was natuso’s child— they looked a lot like each other just by first glance but rei was missing an important feature. the colour of kori’s eyes.

“oh no, your other son. the eldest one.” you correct her with a sinister shake of your head. swiftly crossing the room to set your daughter down in rei’s lap. you watch with an evil air of satisfaction as rei todoroki freezes with fear, as the mistakes her family paid out to touya suddenly come to the forefront of her mind. she wobbles with kori still in her grip and you shoot her a dark glare— reaching over to fix her flowers in their vase. “touya picked these out, always said that you loved them. such a pretty shade of blue, no wonder why they’re your favourites, right?”

“please leave.” she looks up at you pleadingly, shaking like a leaf in the breeze outside. oh how you wish your fiancé was here to see this but he had more important things to do.

rolling your eyes, you grab the remote to switch on the tv— pinching kori’s nose affectionately to make her laugh again. “come sit with me rei, let’s watch some tv to help you calm down.”

the woman nods weakly, barely moving an inch as you take a seat beside her with a smile. you skip channels a few times, pride swelling up in your chest when you finally land on the right one, touya’s broadcast flashing across the screen. he sits leisurely in a chair, shirtless with all of his beautiful scars on display— a painful reminder of his childhood and what he’d become. “i, touya  todoroki, was born as the eldest son of endeavour. today i’ve killed over 30 innocent people until now, some to protect my family. my daughter, who i have not been able to see due to my father. i would like to let everyone know why i’d end up committing such a hideous act.” he speaks such calmness and clarity, and you can’t help but feel emotional at how he stands in front of the world.

kori grins, leaping up at the sight of her father on the screen and claps her hands. “dada!! dada!! lookie s’daddy!!” she squeals while rei struggles to breathe, panic set in her eyes.

you put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, offering her a sweet grin in an attempt to calm her before the oncoming storm. “keep watching, mrs.todoroki, touya said we’d be one big, happy family after this.” the words are sugar coated and sickly sweet, carrying the dark meaning across to your fiancé’s mother.

looking away, your heart swells while touya tears down the hero society and spills the truth for all of japan to see. you were grateful to the man he’d become— loyal to you, to your daughter and the dreams that you had. the satisfaction of seeing the real villains of the world fall was much greater than any hush money enji todoroki could ever offer.

fin.

— TAGLIST:

@husband-to-tomura-shigaraki @grace-todoroki @toshiuwu  @whet-ones-write​

[patrice-bergerons]

I have been thinking about my M!lives verse this week (in which canon-ish Bond suffers a nasty head injury and wakes up in a timeline where M survived Skyfall and is just now retiring from MI6) where it’s called a hug is already set. Including, the 00Q angle and this scene-

M and Bond take to having breakfast together - naturally always at posh hotels bc neither wants to cook.  They were already closer in the M!lives timeline, having gone thru the events of Skyfall together, and it gets even worse when M sees Bond go to pieces when he wakes up from his injury and sees that M is alive.

Besides she is now retired and whether she likes it or not Bond is the closest thing she has to a friend.

Meanwhile, in the M!lives timeline, Bond and Q have tried dating but Bond, scared by how good a thing he had, went and thoroughly sabotaged it - like everything else in this timeline, he has no memory of this though.  And now Q told him he is glad Bond is ok but they can’t be friends.

M and Bond being who they are also start a game where they try and embarrass one another (or the waiters) during their outings - while M is in the loo Bond tells the waiter she is his senile mother; M another time tells the waiter Bond is a no good nephew trying to cheat her out of her inheritance - you get the picture.

And then one day Bond is at M’s house, because he had a seizure or passed out at breakfast or something and the hospital would let him go but only if he had someone to monitor him for a bit.  The door rings and Bond, who is wearing M’s late husband’s PJs, and seeing his opportunity, calls out ‘who is it, darling?’ before sauntering to the door himself like he owns the place.  

Except it’s Q at the door.  Come to drop off some baked goods.

M with a look of utter, malevolent glee shining in her eyes, wraps her arm around his waist and replies ‘oh it’s only Q, dear.’

Q who is looking at them like he has been struck by lightning, growing a deeper shade of red by the second.  It’s not what you think, Bond tries to say but to no avail- ‘i’m happy for you’ Q says very quickly and ‘it really is not my business’ and 'it’s great seeing you both’ before he bolts.

M is extremely pleased to have gotten one over Bond.

She also tells him though that he now has an excuse to go talk to Q, and when James responds with a gruff he doesn’t want anything to do with me, tells him that Q came to her and told her not to sign the DNR the hospital was pushing when Bond was in a coma and it wasn’t looking good. 

If you are still intent on throwing yourself a pity party, she says bc Bond is looking at her all torn up, do it on somewhere other than my sofa, will you, 007.

[nationmckinleyscorset]

Completing thisss

Nah fr I'd be so mad if I was giving a presentation and someone was humming

"Love?" Fucking hippie

"A reckless lunatic sits in the whitehouse" never have truer words been spoken

Oop fugative Jimmy

"I love you even if you do have pudgy fingers" 💀

Don't trust the brownie my boy

Idiot

What is happening

This song is me when my mental health gets bad 💀 brownies hit different when you're sad

He's fucking a brownie? I- what?

Mae is so protective of Jimmy I love it

At least he finally got the ring off

Why is Jimmy humping Sally's leg like a bulldog?

Mary lane's smile has too many teeth imo, i feel like she'd bite me and not in a good way 😂

Oh my god he's like a dog he's going for everything pillars, furniture... Mary come collect your animal

I can actually see Mary being infatuated with Paris

Her eyes are killing me

Mary really I'd like the Janet of Reeder madness, I know I've already said it but it's true

The website I'm watching on keeps freezing and annoying me lol

"You'll forget the word no" I'm not too sure I like the way this is going

I wish I could say I wasn't expecting it but I keep comparing it to rocky horror so it only makes sense that she'd have a dramatic transformation in which she switches from pink to black and red

Love the fact we have the same nails rn XD

What in the 50 shades

"Whips, nip clips and candle wax" ON HER FIRST TIME?

I'm laughing so hard rn and I probably shouldn't be

She's such a top 😂

Tbf... it was one or the other. One of them was gonna get assaulted and I'd rather it was a guy with bad intentions than Mary sooo (Not justifying this)

"Shut up bitch 👊🏻" damnnn ok

That looks low-key painful

Get schooled Kochinski

NOT THE TONGUE

Ok wait im thinking hear me out. So Mary and Sally look alike, some kid who looks like Jimmy just showed up to the house, it's like a cycle: 2 kids get corrupted and become like Sally and the other guy who's name I can't remember and they keep bringing in kids similar to their younger selves. I honestly am probably just slow and that's probably obvious.

Who got shot?!?!?! OH MY GOD NO! NO NO NO!

Smelling salts aren't gonna help her you idiot she's dead

Oh I'm dumb lol

Yeah forget my theory she can't continue the cycle if she's DECEASED

irrelevant but Mae's got a murderess robe 💀I already know how this ends so I find that hilarious

A deathbed proposal? Aww lol

"We're happy, young and... hemorrahging blood 😁"

No honey romeo and juliet die know👏🏻your👏🏻shakespeare👏🏻

That's so sad though omg

That's a lot of blood jeeez

If they let Jimmy go doen for this imma throw hands

Mae please

If she doesnt tell the truth-

LMAO he said Mae please too 😂

STOP

OMG I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING NICE I SAID ABOUT HER

well, not everything but DAMN

DEATH ROW?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!

"IM... FINE... perfectly in control" relatable

Ralph being haunted by Jimmy is the funniest thing I've seen in a while

And now Mary is dancing with the devil WTFFFFF

Is she dressed as a maid?

This entire movie is such a trip but I think that's the whole idea 😂

Just realised their entire garden is growing weed 💀 reminds me of my dad's friends house 😊🤣

His dark circles are more prominent than Riff Raff's

Zombie flash mob timeee

If Sally dies I'll be so pissed

STOP

HE DID NOT

OMG I'm gonna throw up wtf

Mae screaming is literally me rn

Why have so many of the movies I've seen this week involved somebody getting parts of them getting bitten off

BROSKI WONT DIE

#justiceforsally

Sally was my second favourite character thoughhhhh

"Now I know that once you see you can't unsee" - Carrie The Musical

OMG HES STILL ALIVE THIS BITCH I SWEAR-

Oh to walk like mae XD

OMG what in the repo the genetic opera

Skewered like blind mag no disrespect to my girl or anything

Finally he's dead

OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING I low key wanna draw that now - Sally's body emerging from the garden

Satan's really just chilling with them all 😂

So are there more bodies in the garden? Cos there's more dead people than the number we've seen killed in the movie

The voices in my head when I'm trying to pay attention to someone giving me directions: (/j)

Jack had better die

OMG everybody shut up Mae's about to sing

TAKE. YOUR. HANDS. OFF. HER. TITS.

I hate that she's trying to be empowered but Jack's just stood there smacking her up

IT WASNT LOADED YES

Omg slayyy Mae

Definitely gotta cosplay her

Yes baby beat his ass 😂

Knowing how this ends is making this concerning cos like I know it gets so graphic

Jaw on the floor (just like Jack's body)

All the people walking out after that presentation traumatised 🤣

Stop omg that's way too coincidental

Just putting on lipstick like she's not covered in blood

She hit te floor (She hit the floor!) shawty got low low low low low low low (sorry it had to be done)

Does anybody survive this movie?

I hate that this is the norm for most movies I watch now

Is Jimmy gonna live? WAIT

Jimmys last words: "um..."

YAY!

Oml get him out the chair and cut the small talk 💀

Not the last minute Annie references 😂

Why is nobody questioning the fact that Mae is drenched in Jack's blood?

You choose: Paddington 2, Chicago, or Reefer Madness - who had the best prison musical number?

What am I watching?

The best American propaganda I've ever seen 🤣😭

Is Sally the same actress as Lady Liberty?

Cutting down the weed factory? Now it's definitely like my dad's friends house IM KIDDING JEEZ

did Satan just die? How? What?

And Mary went to heaven XD

"One day I'll get cancer or hit by a train!!! 😁😊😍"

Wtf was that ending oh my god (referring to the heaven scene)

I'd die laughing if the fire at the pep rally was the burning weed (Is it a pep rally? I'm British idk)

Final thoughts

Would i watch it again? Absolutely

Recommend it to a friend? Definitely

Favourite character? Mae

Was the music good? It was amazing 😂

@little-whats-her-name thank you so much for drawing my attention to this

Best of a hilarious play-by-play of people watching Reefer Madness for the first time that I found on the liveblog

[300iqprower]

As someone who never quite got to finish Persona 4, what exactly is it about Naoto's handling that is so questionable/problematic? I fully believe there's been a lot of mishandling, I've partially took a break from the game because of how Kanji was treated, but the fandom had me believe it was just a fairly standard Mulan-esque crossdressing storyline. I don't mind spoilers

Ok, here we go....[Full spoilers to follow obviously]

Kanji and Naoto are, in a vacuum, both incredibly well written and non-problematic characters. However, Persona 4 is unfortunately very much not a story that exists in a vacuum. The director of the game, Hashino, is a subhuman piece of shit incel who is openly homophobic and transphobic. My favorite go to is how in an interview when asked why in Persona 3 you were forced into romantic relationships with every female character which no option for platonic relationships, he responded it was because "I believe a non-romantic relationship between a man and a woman can never be genuine". He also stole credit from others to get his position and actually contributed almost nothing to the success of the series. I'm not a fan of the site it's on, but this thread does a good job of summarizing all the things he's done.

So how does this tie back into Persona 4? Well, it cast a very undermining shadow over the aforementioned well written characters, who deal with themes of sexuality and gender identity respectively but have a very pro-status quo resolution to both their stories that becomes much less nuanced with the knowledge that a raging bigot was in charge. The localization handled Kanji and Naoto much better than the japanese version did, and IMO effectively salvaged two phobic premises (the ideas of homosexuality being "confusion" and transgenderism being "a lie") by handling the characters with much more tact in their portrayal. I'd go so far as to argue Kanji is written to be pansexual instead, and as a bisexual I don't see the version of the game I played through as even remotely problematic, especially with how he's never written as if he "got over" his sexuality but rather simply stops worrying about gender entirely, which Naoto reinforces heavily due to his attraction to them not even wavering throughout the story's progression (and showing similar attraction to Yu at times). To be clear though my talk of localization is not me throwing shade at the japanese team, rather I'm saying likely because of the localization process giving Hashino less oversight, the localization team were able to portray it much better. The existence of things in both versions like Yosuke's romance route (that reportedly was going to be included until at the last second Hashino mandated it be cut entirely, retroactively turning Yosuke from a repressed gay into an outright homophobe due to never getting resolution that explains his wariness) shows that there was a clearly positive intent even in the japanese development side.

Naoto is the real can of worms though, not Kanji. Naoto's character arc revolves around the extremely patriarchal system of Japan, particularly Japanese law enforcement. They want to be a detective, but due to both their age and gender fear that they will never be accepted in such a role. The conclusion they reached was that if they can't change their age, they can still at least change their gender, and so began presenting as male. The crux of their arc revolves around their acceptance of who they are and not feeling a need to lie about who they are to please other people, presenting as female later on (though their actual appearance remains the exact same outside of a select few instances).

This is where it gets messy. In both Naoto's instance and real life, there ARE people who feel pressured into presenting as something besides what they are comfortable with for reasons such as insecurity, societal standards, or simple lack of understanding on such things. In a vacuum Persona 4 could be argued as simply telling a story of one such case very well. In context, however, this is disturbingly in line with Hashino's statements on transgenderism and him claiming it's equivalent to mental illness. No matter how well done it is in context, to the point I genuinely believe the people actually writing it did so with completely earnest and well-meaning intentions, those malicious intentions from the one in charge still undermine it completely and utterly.

This is where it gets even messier. As I said, the point of Naoto's character arc is self-acceptance and the understanding they do not need to label themselves to live up to the standards of others looking down on them. Understandably, many choose to claim Naoto is a trans character and treat them as such. On the other hand, one can also rightfully see it as flying in the face of the lesson of Naoto's character of how you should not conform to labels and the assumptions of others, especially since Naoto's story very clearly conveys that Naoto has no actual issue with their gender, but due to bullying over their stereotypically masculine interests and fears of the patriarchal society they live in, feel they have no choice but to live as a man. These are very real issues that many can empathize with, and it's understandable why those who particularly empathize with Naoto might find certain circles explicitly treating them as FTM something that rubs them the wrong way, especially when some of said circles are extremely vocal about this.

And so the end result is any actual discourse is basically FUBAR. While there are unquestionably transphobes who would use Naoto as a "gotcha", many have a genuine reason for not wanting to treat the character as trans. Similarly, there are many people who rightfully see the treatment of Naoto as female being a form of trans-denial and among those people are those who push back particularly vehemently. And in the end most any attempt to actually discuss this devolves into one side claiming acknowledgement of the obvious transcoding is disrespectful to the character, while the other side labels anyone who would treat Naoto as a woman as being transphobic.

[justletmeplayminecraft]

LL S7 can't hurt me if I'm still writing fics set in S2 finger guns

featuring: skittish etho my beloved, can be read as platonic or romantic depending on your jam, articfox!etho headcanon as seen a little here, Bdubs is big of heart, dumb of ass, set in a meta LL setting (aka they're all ppl playing a game who discuss things BTS and take breaks)

The Nether is sweltering. An endless expanse of deadly environment, with the nether fortress they looted just poking out of the thick fog in the distance. The clacking of bones is reminiscent of the wither skeletons that tried to lay waste to them. The grunting pigmen like the brutes that caused Mumbo's death moments before.

And Scar's sword swinging towards Etho with intent; green eyes nearly swallowed by bloodlust like the netherrack surrounding them. 

Bdubs has barely lowered his shield as a fluffy tail vanishes into swirling purple. The space Etho stood is empty.

"I thought we weren't supposed to use those abilities?" Scar asks, sword by his side and his eyebrows furrowed. Bdubs throws his shield on his back, running towards the portal.

"We're not!" He yells, jumping into the center with a final shout towards Scar. "Call a break, I'm gonna go after him!" 

-

Bdubs snatches berries from the first bush he sees. The thorns scratch his fingers, uncovered by his gloves, but he ignores it in favour of clutching the handful tight enough they threaten to burst. The land is empty of any glimpses of white. Nothing darting between trees, or curled up in the shade. 

"Etho!" Bdubs calls, waving the berries in the air. "We're on a break, buddy. Nobody's gonna hurt you." He keeps his eyes peeled, wondering if a spyglass would actually be useful here. Well, he thinks Etho would move too fast to follow. Bdubs groans, trying to figure out other things that could draw out the elusive fox. Chicken? Rabbits, maybe?

He jumps down a hill, tapping his free hand against his thigh. Where would a skittish Etho go seeking safety? He hears his communicator ping with a private message, sliding it into his hand.

<Grian> everything okay? scar said something happened

Bdubs sighs, smiling as he types his reply.

<BDoubleO100> etho's run off and hiding somewhere. 

<BDoubleO100> im looking for him though!

<Grian> ok, ill hold the break for you.

<Grian> if i see him ill let you know

<BdoubleO100> thanks g!!!

During the time spent chatting, Bdubs has wandered in Skizz and Tango's direction. The server is quiet and he imagines most of them will be hanging out at their bases during the break. But, if there's one place Etho might feel safe, then it would be with Tango and Skizz, right? Their two closest allies, on the server and off it!

-

"Bdubs!" Tango calls, holding his arm out in greeting. "Welcome, welcome."

"Bdubadubs!" Skizz calls, waving his sword in a way that makes Bdubs much prefer staying in the doorway. "And no Etho. Did he ditch you, homie?" Bdubs sighs. He crosses his arms, leaning back whilst Tango takes a seat.

"I'm looking for him, actually," Bdubs replies. "Neither of you have happened to see a small white fox running about, have ya?" Skizz's face scrunches up, but Tango's eyes widen, mouth opening.

"Where is everywhere?" Tango asks. Bdubs groans as he tries to mentally backtrack his footsteps. Curse of a new server, he has no idea where everything is yet!

"Ah," he says, smartly. A few seconds later he follows up with.

"No, we haven't. Where did you lose him?" Bdubs holds his hand up to gesture, resting it on his elbow. "We were in the nether and he ran through our portal. I haven't seen him since and I've been everywhere. I've been walking around with these berries like a fool, Tango." Tango snorts. He stretches a hand out, poking at the bundle of red. A few have burst onto Bdubs' hand, staining his skin and gloves, but they're mostly intact! He'll grab another bunch if he sees them.

"I came through our portal, grabbed some berries. I did a full lap around our base, I walked around the nearby forest… then I headed here!" 

"Bdubs," Skizz says, leaning onto his knees. "Did you actually check in your house?" Bdubs blinks.

"Ah."

-

Bdubs' lungs are burning, heels rubbing and food half gone by the time he makes it back to their base. He breathes deeply, resting his hands on his knees outside the cobblestone hut. It's a miracle he doesn't topple straight off the unfenced patio sides. But, despite his exhaustion, he opens the door to the hut carefully, slipping inside. He shuts it with barely a click.

"Etho?" He calls, voice a gentle whisper. He frowns, trying to scope the room without moving further in. Is he hiding in a chest again? No, oh-!

There, against the wooden bedframe. Underneath the white covers is a fluffy tail brushing the floor, and a little black nose half stuffed under the pillows. Bdubs places his weapons delicately in a chest, crouching a few big steps away from the bed. 

"Etho! Hey, buddy." The nose pokes out, two eyes following. Bdubs makes sure he's sitting on the left, where Etho's black eye can see him. "We're on a break right now, so you have plenty of time to relax," he explains. "So, I can just hang out with you, and let the others know when we're ready to continue! Sound good? Great." Etho doesn't move any further than that. If anything, he shrinks further back into the covers, snowy ears flat against his fur. 

So, Bdubs pulls out his communicator. He makes sure Grian know Etho's safe and that he's letting him calm down. Then he pulls up Snake, settling in for a few rounds of it as he waits for Etho to make his move.

Which Etho does in the form of a nervous footstep. He treads one paw down on the grass floor. Then another. Then in one swift movement, he's curling up in Bdubs' lap, blanket still wrapped around him. Bdubs can't help a soft 'oof', head falling back at the pain of a fox paw with its full weight on his leg. But his hand falls to Etho's neck, scratching around the shawl and the blanket to reach soft fur underneath. Like a big furry blanket. With a blanket of his own. Double blanket!

"Why hello there," Bdubs says, looking down at Etho. Etho flicks his tail, only getting slightly caught in the fabric. "Yeah, yeah, here you go." Bdubs holds out the berries (he picked the ones outside their house, too.) Etho snatches them one by one. His teeth don't catch Bdubs' skin once. Inventory emptied of the sweet treat, Bdubs holds his hands up. "All gone!" Etho stands, nudging at his palm. Finding them truly empty, he huffs, curling back up with no intention of moving. "Okay, okay," Bdubs says, laughing. He resumes petting him, ruffling small ears. "We can wait here for a little bit."

-

The session continues as normal once Etho gives his word. But Bdubs and Etho sit together a while longer. Etho's shawl pulled up, arms tucked around Bdubs' neck. They're sitting on the bed, now. Far comfier for Bdubs, who doesn't have a built in layer of fur.

"What do you think," Bdubs says, Etho lifting his head from his shoulder. "About making our base out of snow?" Etho smiles, solemn expression brightening as his ears stick up straight. 

"Yeah," he replies. "I think that'd be pretty cool."

[pars-ley]

Try again

Pairing: Hoseok x Female reader

Summary: When your job lands you at one of the most famous Fashion shows in Paris, the last thing you expect is to run into an ex - the current most sought after model in the industry.

Genre: Exes to lovers / Smut / Fluff

Rating: 18+ (NSFW)

Warnings: Model Hoseok / Dior Hoseok / Unprotected sex (you know the dealio, wrap it when you tap it) / Ever so slight exhibitionism / Nipple play /

Word Count: 2.3k

Beta: @birbdae​ thank you for looking over it twice because I’m so extra (sorry) and thank you for all your help.

Notes: This is for my secret santa project with @thebtswritersclub​ for @yutasgalaxy​ really hope you enjoy! And I also used my square “Jung Hoseok” from my summer bingo card for the @bangtanwritingbingo​ event.

Taglist: @mwitsmejk​ @vantxx95​

The lights go dim and excitement blossoms like spring in your stomach as your eyes remain trained on the runway. Phone at the ready to take notes for this month's fashion article you are in charge of. 

The first model comes out and cameras flash wildly, illuminating the outfit. You scribble away rapidly recounting everything to write up later.

Dior's highly anticipated fashion show, one you had been eagerly counting down the days till. Flying out to Paris was the perfect opportunity for you to mark one destination off your travel list and you have not been disappointed at all. From the architecture to the food, you are undeniably impressed and living one of your ultimate dreams.

It's time for the most awaited outfit yet, everyone was on the edge of their seat poised. You look over at your photographer, he's in position and eager, looking ready to spring.

The lighting and music changes and out walks the model all in black. That's all the detail you notice as your heart stutters and stomach flips as your eyes shift rapidly to his face. 

Jung Hoseok. How did you not know he would be here? 

The cameras flash even more wildly, every photographer wanting to get the best pic of the most sought after model on this runway. Your hand however hovers over your phone, unable to scribble away like you were previously, too distracted by his general presence.

Swallowing the panic you feel rising into your throat you glance at your photographer, his eyes are already on you, pity creasing his brow but a message in his eyes that says "Focus on your job and get it together."

You take a deep breath and compose yourself, making notes on the outfit and nothing more. As soon as your eyes hit the harness stretched across his broad chest however, your legs squeeze together tightly, as not only do previous nights of passion flicker behind your eyelids but the temptation for one last night with him is almost too great to bear.

As you watch him strut down the runway, face impassive and professional, your heart pulls in a thousand directions. Memories of the few years spent together cloud your mind, taking you to another lifetime when he was yours and you were his - before fame, before everything.

You pinch the bridge of your nose hard, willing yourself to focus as you type wildly away on your phone, trying to stay focused.

The show ends a short while after your blast from the past's appearance and all you can think of is getting as far away from him as fast as you can. Before all your hard work of burying your feelings in an attempt to get over him is ruined by your self restraint.

As you head for the exit, a hand lightly grabs your arm. Turning you see a pretty young woman, a badge around her neck and a kind smile on her face, handing you an envelope.

"It's from Hoseok. He asked if I could make sure you get it." She said next to your ear so you could hear over the chatter of the other attendees.

You nod and mechanically take it. She's off through the crowd before you even get a chance to say thank you.

You head to the exit in a daze, clutching the envelope like it holds the answers to life's questions. As soon as you're out in the cool evening air you take yourself off around the corner of the building away from the scattering crowds. Your fingers fumble as you frantically rip at the envelope and open the piece of paper inside, instantly recognising his elegant hand.

Many love letters he would write to you with poetic words scrawled across the page, each sentence a meaningful lyric coming alive as your eyes danced across them with a barrier of tears waiting to fall. Those words tucked away in a box hidden deep in your wardrobe for those moments you wish to relive how he once felt about you.

You read and re-read the note, double checking the words are correct.

"I saw you as you came in, I always had the ability to find you in a crowded room and apparently that hasn't changed. 

I can't believe you're here. Please. Please, meet me at Guy Savoy at 7 o'clock tonight. I would love to see you and speak to you properly. I will book a table under my name. I really hope you show, you have no idea how much I've missed you."

That last line did things to your insides you weren't expecting. Your chest felt full and ready to burst open, love bleeding out of a fresh cut. Maybe you should just go back to your hotel and order room service, or go out for dinner with your photographer seeing as you were both here alone.

But you knew, even as you thought it, you knew you couldn't. You knew you had no intention of doing either. 

Folding up the note and shoving it in your pocket and went in search of your colleague to tell him you wouldn't be travelling back to the hotel with him. He wished you luck, even if there was a hint of apprehension in his tone, you ignored it and took a cab to the restaurant.

Sitting there waiting, your nerves were at their peak. You had chewed the skin along your fingernails until they were sore and you had now resorted to folding your napkin to make different origami shapes. Just as you didn't think your heart could take anymore, you picked up your bag but as you were about to stand and run away, you saw him. Walking towards you, shades on and the most familiar beaming grin that had always made your stomach flip. You couldn't help the pull of your lips, mirroring the same smile he wore.

He breezed up to you and wrapped you in his muscular arms, like a whirlwind his scent intoxicated you and jumbled your mind even further.

"You are a serious sight for sore eyes." he whispers in your ear before pulling away and pushing in your chair as you sit down in a daze.

"You're around gorgeous models all day, I doubt that." you reply, attempting to hide your blush.

He removes his shades and places them on the table, before pushing his fingers roughly through his hair. "Believe me, it’s not as glamorous as people think.”

There’s an awkward silence that falls on your table, with sly, shy glances from you both. 

“How’s it been? Your career I mean.” you blurt out, desperately trying to ease some tension.

He leans back in his chair and shrugs. “I can’t complain, at all. It’s going better than I could have dreamed.”

You nod, taking in how nonchalant he’s being. “I have to admit, I’ve been keeping track.”

“Of me?” he asks, shocked.

“Your career.”

“Really? I’m flattered.” his lips stretch into a toothy grin as a faint scarlet hue spreads across his cheeks.

“You should be very proud of yourself. You’ve accomplished so much, there’s no limit on how far you can go.” you find yourself saying all of this without meaning to.

He covers his face with his hands. “Ok, I appreciate this, really, coming from you this means so much, but I am more interested to hear about you.” he leans forward and places a hand on top of yours, the action causing your heart to soar. “What’s been happening with you? Are you still in the apartment?”

You nod as you take a sip of the champagne the waiter is pouring. “Yep, can’t bear to leave it, I love it there so much, a lot of memories too.” you add sneakily trying to gage his reaction.

His eyes soften. “Yes, we made a lot there.” his fingers entwine in yours, a movement far too comfortable for how long it’s been. "I miss it," he looks into your eyes so fiercely you're slightly taken aback. "I miss us."

Your heart inflates excitedly in your chest as butterflies swarm inside your stomach. But is this a good idea to rekindle an old flame, maybe there was a reason it was extinguished in the first place.

He senses your hesitation. "Are you with anyone?"

You shake your head. "No, I've dated but nothing serious. What about you?"

He laughs a bitter sound. "Same. I've not found anyone that could match up to you."

You hesitate again. "Hoseok…"

"Listen," he puts a hand up quietening you. "I know it was mostly me who instigated us breaking up in the first place but that is my biggest regret. I never should have let you go." he bites back the emotion in his words and swallows.

"But if you hadn't you wouldn't be where you are today." you add, squeezing his hand still clutching yours.

He makes a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. "I left my dream girl to follow my dreams and let me tell you, it wasn't worth it. If someone asked me to choose, it would be you. every. single. time."

He grabs your chair and slides it along closer to him. He reaches out to cup your face. "Please, let me come back." 

His plea does not fall on deaf ears. Your heart knows the decision it's made but you can't form the words to speak. Your libido overtakes the moment and you grab him by the collar of his shirt and crush your lips against his. The taste of him is so familiar and yet new at the same time. Sweet like butter as your mouths melt together as one. His arm around your waist almost pulling you off your chair makes you break away and giggle. The heat in his eyes is almost overwhelming, all your thoughts are no longer in your head but in your groin. He looks so good staring at you like that, like you are the reason for living, how could you not give into him?

"Come back to my hotel?" you whisper urgently.

He nods, throws some cash down for your ordered drinks, takes your hand and pulls you out through the restaurant. You jog along to keep up with his long legged stride. He flags down a cab and you're into it and moving off swiftly while his hands find you again. They roam your body, finding their way under your shirt and to your nipples. He rolls them gently between his fingers as his lips attach themselves to your neck.

His hand glides slowly along your thigh, up your skirt and just when he's about to reach the most desired area the cab stops abruptly, letting you know you've arrived. You groan with frustration but jump out, pulling him into your hotel and leading him up to the room. Your heart pounding so loud in your ears you can't think of anything, nothing but the taste of his lips or the feel of his skin under your fingertips and god, did you want to feel more. 

As soon as your door is unlocked you're on each other. Clothes can't come off fast enough and as they leave a messy path like a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards the bed. 

"God, I have missed you." he says as he glances down at your body before pulling you flush against him.

There's no time for sly touches or exploring, you're both too desperate to feel each other.

Your bare, naked flesh moulds easily together as he enters you, both of your moans echo out across the room. The feeling euphoric as it's what you know and yet what you are no longer used to. He moves inside you with a persistent, desperate rhythm as his hips wind in the most perfect way, hitting that sensitive spot every time and making your toes curl in consequence.

He looks down at you, a soft, determined gaze and says breathlessly, "I love you."

His words are your undoing, as you remember the sweet nothings he used to whisper to you while you were making love before. You unravel around him, blinded by pleasure as your back arches underneath him. He's quick to follow you as you feel his warm seed spilling inside you and you watch his face twist in pleasure, his eyes never leaving yours. The moment, so intense, almost too intense you had to look away.

Both of you breathless and riding on your high, lay back on the bed staring up at the ceiling. A thousand thoughts race through your mind as you panic that you've just made a huge mistake. What if his words weren't genuine? What if he leaves...again? What will you do then? You'll have to start over, all your hard work of pushing him aside.

Almost as if he can sense your rising doubt, his fingers entwine with yours, as he turns onto his side to face you, gently twirling a strand of your hair between his digits.

He watches you closely as if searching your thoughts, your eyes so open and vulnerable - letting him right in, wanting him to silence your fears.

He strokes your face and kisses you so softly your lips melt right into him. You want this. You want him. 

"Hey, I'm serious," he leans back, eyes burning into yours. "I want to come home to you. I want our life back, I want you, always."

Your panicking heart is soothed by his words and you relax and lean into his touch, your limbs softening against him.

"Please, can I have another chance?" he asks, so vulnerable and sincere any doubts are washed away in an instant.

"Let's give it a try." you reply.

He almost blinds you with his sunshine smile as he pulls you against him, his lips dancing happily with yours. And you lose yourself in him completely. You are his, utterly and completely. 

[bugsy-maria]

Chat Noir x Reader Part 2

I didn't bother to fight back, it was almost like Chat telling me that he hated me drained me of all of the energy I had and more. I saw as the Akuma delicately landed on my collar. the collar never was a part of the main costume but instead, it was added by me because I liked the look of it.

the Akuma vanished and Hawk Moth's voice filled my head.

"Dark Fang, I am hawkmoth. I will grant you the power to make the world that had wronged you countless times your own playground."

I felt the clothing that I wore disappear into new tight clothing. my tube top turned into a strapless bra with a ribcage design.  a corset pinched my sides gently and was blended into a short puffy black skirt. I had no shoes only thigh-high socks. and my hair was no longer long and puffy but instead a short bob. the leather band of the collar was turned into just a string that held a now white metal disk with the name, 'Togo' engraved on the back. I touched my hair, feeling a different sensation on my scalp, there were now soft ears atop my hair.

it was now that I took in what Hawkmoth said. "the world that had wronged you countless times" he was right. I was nothing but good to other people and all I got was nothing. the world took my family away from me, the world took Chat away from me, the world made me who I am but the world hates who I am.

I stand up, rain and hail falling harder that it starts to break car windows. the world needs to start over again to fix what has been down. people have ruined the world, humans have stained the world with the worst things imaginable. everyone except Adrien. Adrien did no wrong. he doesn't deserve to be punished. I swiftly make my way to Adrien's home. jumping up to a long-forgotten open window. I run through the halls till I reach Adrien's all too familiar door.

I open it to see him with his hands tangled in his blonde locks as he sat at his desk.

"Adrien," I spoke up, causing him to shoot up from his original position at his desk.

"Togo? what are you doing here?"

"I'm not Togo, I'm Dark Fang now."

"You're akumatized?!" his eyes widened.

"Mmmm." I hummed taking my seat at his bed. "And you know what? it's you're fault." I smiled at him.

"What did I do?"

"You told me to tell that guy that I loved him," I paused to stare at the scared look on his face. "He hates me now, he said that he loves Ladybug too much." I got on all fours on his bed and crawled my way over to him, causing him to back up.

"(Y/N)!?" he pushed the chair in front of him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Adrien, I'm going to save you."

"I don't need to be saved by a villain." his voice now stern.

"But we could watch the world go back the way it was before!" I started to get angry at him, my voice getting rougher. I mean why would he rather die with all these people who do wrong, than come and stay safe with me.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"Fine, hope you have fun drowning Adrien." I unemotionally said. I blew harsh winds so strong that they broke windows all over the world. rain rushed into the room as I jumped out of his room and onto a nearby building. I watched it from the Montparnasse Tower. thunder was now heard everywhere, and the only source of light for this half of the earth. I sat and watched as the world flooded below me.

I stuck out my hand in front of me and grew a single intense red rose out of it. I picked the flower from my palm and rolled it in between my fingertips.

"Togo! You need to stop this!" I heard Ladybug shout. I increased the wind at her, blowing her off the tower.

"Togo! Don't take it out on her!" I heard Chat shout at me, and his feet running after Ladybug. I looked at the rose then at the now flooded city below me. the rain stops as the sun comes out, the sun evaporates the water below us. the heat is ineffective to me, but when I look at LAdybug and Chat Noir I see that they are sweating so much that they could barely walk at a normal pace.

I raise my hand at them and flick cool air in their direction, I kept the air blowing at them to keep them from dying. they were the only friends I had, even if they did hate me.

"Why are you helping us?" Ladybug asked, swinging her Yo-yo ready to attack in case I did. her lucky charm long forgotten in the corner of the rooftop.

"You are my only friends left, thought we could share this new world."

"We aren't your friends anymore." I looked at Ladybug, then at the chat. his face showed that of regret. he must have known that he was the reason for this right?

"When I don't need you here anymore," venom leaked off of my words. I clenched my fist tight, taking the air away from her. her hands flew up to her neck, her yo-yo falling to the ground. I quickly used my wind to blow it to me. the sounds of her choking on her blood filling lungs were getting annoying but I knew it wouldn't be long before those sounds would stop.

"NOOOOOO!!!!!!!" I heard Chat scream his lungs out, he quickly caught Ladybug's head when she fell. I saw the tears fall down his face. the love of my life was crying over the death of another girl. the love of my life was crying over the death of another girl because of me. I caused those tears. I'm the reason for his pain. the pain he put me through, I am now putting him through.

suddenly I stopped seeing the world in black and white, the good and bad. I saw what I saw before, shades of grey. I had managed to fight off the Akuma with my feeling, I felt tears falling on my face upon seeing chat noir cry and Ladybug dead. the only friends I had besides Adrian and Marinette. I knew I wouldn't have much time left, but I couldn't break my Akuma because then it would go to Chat. I had to try the lucky charm.

I looked in my hand with my blurry vision, it was her yo-yo. I used the yo-yo to try and grab the lucky charm that lays on the other side of the building, I knew I didn't have the time to walk across. the lucky charm got to me. I could only pray that it would work for me too. Ladybug and I both have the power of creation after all.

"Stop! You'll never-" he cut himself off once he saw me. once he saw how broken I was, how I was showing emotion, and how the tears that spilled from my eyes and onto my cheeks were genuine.

"Pray that it works." I stared into his eyes and I knew that once I said that and once he saw the lucky charm in my hands he knew what I was talking about. "My collar, Lucky charm!" I shouted, throwing the object into the air. I saw ladybugs shoot out. the mess I made disappearing.

Black and White.

I saw as ladybugs repaired the beginnings of the new beginning.

"Cataclysm!" I heard from behind me, I turned around to see Chat holding out his hand. he reached out and before I could move he caught my collar. I fell to the ground, suddenly feeling dizzy, while I watched my clothing slowly disappear and turn back to what it was before. I looked around me to see Ladybug and Chat staring at me.

"I'm so sorry, and I know that no matter how much I say it nothing will get any better." my voice was shaky and broke during the sentence.

"It's ok Togo." Ladybug kneeled in front of me.

"Don't call me that, I don't deserve it," I said, standing up, keeping my head hung low.

"Then what do you want us to call you?" I heard Chat say from in front of me.

"You won't be calling me anything kitty." I smiled up at him, "besides I have to go now. Meet you guys at our spot? regular time?" I asked hopefully. they nodded and I fell from the building. my wind gently carrying me down to the ground. I ran to an alley.

"Balto, stop running," I mumbled lowly. I walked back to my flat near the Eiffel Tower. I quickly grabbed the box that my miraculous came in. "Goodbye friend." I smiled at Balto. a gray wolf kwamii. I slid the bracelet off my wrist and placed it in the box. I left my home, making my way to the spot we always met at, with no intention of meeting them.

~~~~~~~~~~

the walk home felt like decades. I tread up the stairs of the building I lived in. I took out my keys and unlocked my door. I turned on the lights to my empty home. I walked over to my room, wanting nothing more than to sleep.

I pushed open my bedroom door, the lights still on from when I left. but this time something was different. there was an all too familiar black kitty in my room, rummaging around my desk drawers.

"Kitty?" I clearly didn't think of my words carefully.

"Ahh!" his head quickly shot up as he pushed the drawer closed. "Togo, there you are."

"I told you to stop calling me that." I slumped on my bed still facing him. "And how do you know who I am!?" my eyes widened once the situation dawned upon me.

"A little birdy told me who you were." he rubbed the back of his neck. "Anyway, brought something of yours." he sat at my desk chair, placing the box I just got rid of on my desk.

"I returned it."

"And I'm returning it."

"I don't want it."

"Why not?" we were glaring into each other's eyes.

"Did you not see what happened today?"

"We all have those days."

"No one has this kind of day. I was weak and vulnerable. I killed Ladybug!"

"Dark Fang killed Ladybug."

"I am Dark Fang! and it's not like either of you guys want me to be on your team anymore anyway. You hate me and I'm not your guys' friend anymore."

"I didn't mean that." he walked over to me, taking a seat next to me on my bed.

"Sure seemed like you did."

"I was just angry that you were right is all. Ladybug doesn't like me back but I still keep trying no matter how little hope I had. I just hated that you always had that hope, you never once had a bad day. at least that's what I thought."

"it's always been Ladybug and Chat noir. there was never room for me."

"I do like the sound of Chat noir and his two ladies." he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, the touch setting flames to my skin. "Don't you?"

"Only if I can be your only lady," I replied cockily.

"Sure, but would you love me because I'm your best friend or because I'm Chat Noir?"

Tags:

@laic2299 @aproudfangirl13