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happy74827 · 6 months ago

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Conflicted, Yet Certain

[Albert Wesker x Agent!Female!Reader]

Synopsis: Tension rises when you refuse to do what Wesker orders. The result? Well, it's nothing short of explosive {GIF Creds: @monsieurphantom}.

WC: 2611

Category: Spice/Lime, Insane Amount of Sexual Tension {TW: Choking, Slamming into Trees (lmao), Wesker being a lil bitch}.

I’m going to be so real with all of you rn. I’m not a complete stranger to Resident Evil; I know some things (most all relating to Leon and Ethan 😏), but in terms of Wesker… yeah, I dunno THAT much. I did lots and lots of Google research solely because I discovered him through an edit (I’m also aware of the Separate Ways DLC, too, don’t worry), and he’s cool asf. So, bada boom, this oneshot was born.

And I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think I pretty much nailed him. Personality-wise, that is. And @yoursacredqueenmother, don’t you come for me. You knew this was going to happen.

So, with that out of the way, enjoy this fic that I spent way too much time on :)

『••✎••』

It was like a gush of wind. One minute, you were staring into the dark abyss of his shades, free to move, and the next, you were against a tree with a firm hand gripping your neck. No matter how many times you were reminded of his inhuman strength, it always caught you off guard.

"I asked you a question,"

Wesker was standing so close that your bodies were almost touching, his grip tightening every second that passed without a response. His free hand moved from his side to rest on the knife on his hip. Your eyes moved down to the weapon, and he let out a low, almost guttural, chuckle.

"What, are you afraid?"

He pressed the blade against your cheek. The cold steel made your skin burn, and you winced as it cut into your skin. He held it there, watching you struggle. You didn’t try to push him away or escape the pain, but you didn’t give him the answer he was looking for, either.

You looked up at him stiffly and gave him a look that was equal parts hate and disgust. He was always playing these games, pushing you, taunting you, testing you. You knew he wanted you to react, to show him that he had any effect on you.

He removed the knife from your face, and you exhaled a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Wesker didn't remove his hand from your neck, though. Instead, he ran his glove-covered fingers across your cheek, wiping away the blood from the small cut he caused.

"I expected better of you," He paused, and you felt his nails dig into your skin, "And, more importantly, I expected my orders to be followed."

Your heart skipped a beat as you heard the unspoken threat in his words. You couldn’t stop the shudder that went through your body, and the scariest thing about the whole situation was that you weren’t sure if it was fear or arousal.

His grip on your neck loosened, and you relaxed, letting your head fall forward slightly. You knew that, at this point, Wesker was just waiting for an answer, and you had nothing left to lose by giving it to him.

"I won't do it."

"Excuse me?"

He tightened his grip on your neck and lifted your head up to look him in the eye. Your heart raced, and you could feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins.

"I won't do it. You can't make me."

Wesker scoffed and took a step back, letting go of you completely. You took a deep breath and watched him intently, waiting for him to strike again.

He didn’t, surprisingly. He just stood there, looking at you. It was a real pain how he could see right through you, and all you had were his damn glasses.

"You can't make me," You repeated. It was shocking how much confidence you had in that statement, especially given that Wesker could break you in half if he wanted to, but despite everything, you were defiant.

He tilted his head, his lips curved into a smirk. His posture was casual, and, while you were still tense, his attitude was the complete opposite of what it was a few minutes ago.

"I think you'll find that I can."

There was no trace of the threatening, sadistic man you were so used to dealing with. Instead, he was calm, almost charming, but it didn't change the fact that you didn't trust him for a second.

He took a step towards you and then another. Before you could move, his hand was on the back of your neck, pulling you closer.

"You will do as I say because if you don't," He paused and leaned in, his lips brushing against your ear. "Chris will be the one who has to deal with your mistakes."

It was a low blow, and, as much as you wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, you knew he was right. There was no way you were going to put Chris in any kind of danger. Not now. Not ever.

Wesker chuckled. The sound was dark and full of amusement. He was enjoying the power he had over you, and you hated it.

"You'll do what I say, won't you?"

You didn't reply, but it didn't matter. You were both aware that he was right. He knew that, no matter what, you would follow his orders. He knew that if it came down to it, you would give up everything for the sake of protecting Chris.

You felt Wesker's hands loosen, and he stepped away, putting some distance between the two of you. He seemed pleased with your decision, his smirk growing wider as he watched you.

"Now, go and prove yourself useful, my dear," Wesker commanded, the amusement gone from his voice.

He turned his back to you and began to walk away, but you couldn’t leave it like that. You couldn't just stand there and watch him leave.

You rushed forward and grabbed his arm, an act that he fully expected and allowed but not one that was welcome. He spun around and grabbed your wrist, twisting it painfully. If he weren’t so precise in his movements, he would have broken it.

You didn’t bother tugging or fighting his grip. You just stood there and stared up at him, waiting for him to say something.

He didn't. Instead, he just looked down at you. It was a different kind of stare. Not one that was filled with amusement or anger but curiosity. He was curious about what you were doing. He was curious about what kind of game you were trying to play.

"I'm not afraid of you."

Wesker raised an eyebrow. You could almost hear the sarcasm in his voice when he spoke.

"Oh, I'm well aware."

He released your wrist, his touch lingering longer than necessary. You flexed your fingers and rubbed at the spot where he grabbed you, trying to ease the ache.

You weren't afraid of him, but that didn't mean that you weren't intimidated by him. It didn't mean that you weren't cautious. After all, he was stronger and faster than you, and his control was unmatched.

"Why don't you go run along to Redfield now, Agent," Wesker said, his tone almost teasing, "I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear of your obedience."

You didn't wait around to listen to any more of his taunts. Something took over, something that made you do something really, really stupid.

You walked straight up to him, no words spoken, no thoughts shared, just pure, unadulterated instinct. Inches away from him, you pushed yourself up onto the tips of your toes and smacked your palm against his cheek.

His head snapped to the side, his eyes most likely wide, and his mouth slightly parted. The slap didn't hurt, or at least, it didn't affect him physically, but it was enough to shock him. He didn't expect that.

He turned his gaze back to you, his jaw clenching and his fists balled up. His shoulders tensed, and you could see the annoyance written all over his face.

"Do it again."

Stern and cold, his voice was low and full of warning. A part of you told you to walk away, to get out of there while you still had the chance, but the other part of you refused.

Your hands trembled slightly, but you didn't back down. You’ve been holding it in for so long, so agonizingly long, and this was your chance to do something, to let go, even if it was just for a second.

For once, you didn't care about the consequences, or the punishment, or the fact that, at that moment, Wesker could very well kill you.

You slapped him again. Tried to, anyway. He was too fast, and before your hand could reach his face, he grabbed your wrist again. He pulled you forward, twisting your arm behind your back, and held you against him.

His other hand was on the back of your head, forcing it up so that you were looking him straight in the eyes. Except, again, you couldn’t. Not with those fucking sunglasses in the way.

He leaned down, his lips only a few inches from yours. You could feel his breath on your skin, warm and heavy, and it sent a shiver down your spine.

"Do it."

This time, there was no malice or mockery in his voice. No, he wasn't telling you to hit him. He was giving you permission.

Your heart was racing, and your legs felt weak. It was so much, and you weren't sure how much more you could take. You hated him, God, did you hate him.

But, at the same time, there was something about him that drew you in. Something that made your pulse quicken, and your stomach churn. Something that made your head spin and your palms sweat. Something that made you want him, even if you didn't want to admit it.

And, as much as you hated him, as much as you loathed him, you couldn't help but want him.

He was a monster. He was evil. He was everything you had spent years fighting against, but there was no denying the attraction you felt towards him.

The heat of his body was overwhelming, and the smell of him, a mix of leather and gunpowder, was intoxicating. His grip on your hair tightened, forcing you closer, and you were sure he could hear the way your breathing hitched.

"Come on, dear," He taunted, that mocking, sinister tone back in his voice, "Don’t tell me you're losing your nerve."

That was it. That was all it took. You didn’t know what came over you, but suddenly, your hand was on the back of his neck, and you were crashing your lips against his.

It was messy and rough, and there was so much anger, hate, and lust behind it. Wesker returned the kiss, his lips moving against yours, and he let go of your hair and the arm he had pinned behind your back.

His hands moved to your waist, gripping tightly, and you grabbed a fistful of his hair. He let out a low growl deep in his throat and pushed you backward.

The next thing you knew, your back was once again thrown against the nearest tree. It wasn’t as painful this time, mostly due to the adrenaline coursing through your veins and Wesker taking the initiative to move his arm to the back of your neck to soften the impact.

The bark was rough against your skin, and the scent of pine was strong, but none of it mattered. Not with the way his hands found your thighs, lifting them up to wrap around his waist.

Not with the way his teeth bit and nipped at your bottom lip, drawing blood. Not with the way his tongue soothed the wounds, tasting the coppery fluid.

Not with the way his hips rolled against yours, drawing out a moan from the back of your throat.

Wesker pulled away and trailed kisses along your jaw, moving to the side of your neck. You gasped and bucked your hips as his teeth scraped against the sensitive flesh.

He chuckled, the vibration of his voice against your skin making your head spin, and moved his hand from the back of your neck to hold the sides of your face.

He was so close. You could feel the heat radiating off of him, the warmth of his body contrasting the cool air around you.

You wanted to reach up and rip those fucking sunglasses off his face to finally see what was hidden behind them. You wanted to look him in the eyes, to see what kind of expression was on his face.

You wanted to know if he felt the same way you did, the same fire, the same desire.

You wanted to know if he hated you as much as you hated him.

Instead, you ran your fingers through his hair, grabbing and tugging at it, causing him to growl against your neck. His lips were still on your skin, sucking and biting at the delicate flesh, and his hands were exploring every inch of you.

His hands roamed, and you closed your eyes, savoring the sensation of his touch. Your head was clouded with desire, and you could barely focus.

It was all happening so fast. Too fast. Your body was on fire, and, for a moment, you forgot who you were with and what he had done. You forgot the pain and the suffering and the lives that had been lost.

You forgot it all, and, just for a moment, it felt good. It felt right. It felt like you were meant to be together in every way.

Wesker was no fool, and he certainly didn't miss the change in your breathing or the way your muscles relaxed under his touch. He could hear your heartbeat, the rhythmic thumping growing quicker and louder as his hands moved lower, and he could smell the scent of arousal in the air.

He pulled away and looked down at you, the corner of his lips twisted into a smug smirk. He could see the look in your eyes, the haze that was covering them. He could feel the heat of your skin and the way it prickled under his touch.

He knew what you were thinking and what you were feeling, and he could use it to his advantage.

"So, this is how to get through to you," He mused, his voice low and teasing, "Interesting."

And just like that, reality set back in.

Your eyes snapped open, and, as if you were being electrocuted, your body went rigid. Wesker took a step back and released you from his grasp, watching intently as you fell to the ground.

Your body was numb, and your head was spinning. You couldn't move, couldn't speak. You were frozen, unable to do anything but watch him.

"Well, well," He started, his eyes never leaving you, "Perhaps I was wrong about you."

He took another step back, putting more distance between the two of you. You looked up at him, your breath coming out in short, ragged gasps.

He tilted his head, his face showing a mixture of amusement and annoyance, and took another step back.

"Send my regards to Chris, won't you?"

Then, he was gone. Just like that, he disappeared, and you were left alone in the woods, struggling to understand what had just happened.

What had you done?

You didn't know, and, to be honest, you weren't sure you wanted to. All you knew was that you had fucked up big time.

You had let your guard down and shown him a weakness. You had given him the perfect opportunity to use you, and use you he did.

You stood there, your mind racing and your body aching. Your legs were weak, and your heart was pounding, and it took a while for your breathing to return to normal.

Goddamn it, what had you done?!

The question haunted you, and it continued to haunt you as you stumbled back towards the main street, where your car was parked.

You were completely and utterly fucked, and you had nobody to blame but yourself.

You got into your car and turned the ignition, the engine rumbling to life. You shifted into drive and pulled away; the only thing on your mind was how badly you needed a drink.

Or two.

Or three.

Damn it… What the hell had you done?

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ofspark · 2 years ago

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#OFSPARK 》 an independent & highly selective portrayal of lightning of s-e’s ffxiii trilogy. carrd tbd. written by valkyrie.

"𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑦." Words on steeled breath && the sincerity aloft; stardust in lungs bred of cosmic imposition. A soldier turned savior; from civil guardian to divine hound. A wolf whose teeth gnash against the grain of fate && tear it asunder. Sky may fall && destiny be damned---at her feet it falls like a withering rose.

A tale of opposition. A retelling of the story of a woman who went against fate for the ones she loved. A campfire sonnet singing praise of the mighty. Hands that can break and mend all the same. The storm that resides in one’s bones

affiliated with: @fateblooms

PLEASE READ RULES PRIOR TO INTERACTION (carrd WIP)

mobile friendly rules below cut.**

MUTUALS ONLY. I reserve the right to interact with those that I’m following who are, therein, following me as well. Please do not like starter calls or anything else unless we are, in fact, following one another. This is not any form of pickiness more so than it’s simply for my own comfort/organization.

DRAMA FREE ZONE. Please leave me out of any grievances. I’ve personally seen what happens when I get too closely involved in these things and for growth and a better future for myself, I don’t want any part of it. If there are callouts that are for the betterment of the community as a whole, I may share them. For example, any callouts regarding personal beef or personal vendettas against other blogs will be ignored / blacklisted / result in the poster being blocked. However, if the callout is for someone who is knowingly and unashamedly performing criminal acts with zero remorse then I will most likely share it. But other than that, this blog will be a safe space for myself and mutuals/friends.

NSFW CONTENT PRESENT. Blood, gore, violence, trauma, etc. will be present on this blog. Everything will be tagged accordingly. I’m human, though, and will miss things now and then. Just let me know.

FOLLOWING BACK. Seeing as this blog will be highly private and selective, this is my opportunity to inform you that if within seven days I do not give you a follow back, as I tend to browse my blogs via mobile a majority of the time, then take it upon yourself to unfollow. If I’m ever away from my blog, I’ll usually make a post about being on my other blogs as this WILL be a low activity blog.

SOFT BLOCKING / HARD BLOCKING. If I have soft blocked you, it is nothing personal. If you followed me and I soft block you, please do not proceed to follow me again and again. This will result in an instant HARD BLOCK indefinitely. I want to curate my space into one of comfort and safety. A place where not only I feel safe but my followers do as well. I have no intentions of hurting anyone’s feelings with soft blocking a person from my blog. It is most likely because I couldn’t see us writing together (whether because of conflicting muse types or whatever else) or because I believe that me and you might not mesh as people. And that’s perfectly fine because that’s the lovely thing about individuality. It could also stem from issues I’ve had with certain people or things that have happened in more recent events that have made me a little more proactive with how I want to curate my space.

STAY AWAY IF you’re hateful in any way. Homophobic, transphobic, racist, the works; just shoo. Also? Pedophilia will get you a hard block quick, fast, and in a hurry. That’s fucking disgusting and you don’t deserve the air you’re breathing. I said what I said.

GOD MODDING / META GAMING. Just don’t do it okay? Gets you a quick block. It’s just stupid and an ancient rule that should be well known by now.

ANON HATE. It will be deleted on sight and ignored to the furthest extent. Grow up and worry about yourself. You see something on my blog you don’t like? Soft block me and keep it moving. You don’t like me personally? Why follow in the first place? Lmao

18+. I reserve the right to interact solely with those who are eighteen years and older. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to interact with minors because I know how most act. If I find out you’re a minor lying about their age, you will be hard blocked. Immediately.

DNI: silvhers and babochkas (and any other URL’s they have + they come as a package deal as is), Autumn/Jewel/Rose (florafate/gainsborro, curseblind, peculiarbeauty, as well as fauxwife,), infernaliscor (Hannah), or Krissy/Moth (creatrix-mea and their other blogs). While I cannot control who people interact with, I can curate my space. It’s only for my own comfort as well as my friends. Also, if you use Amber Heard on your blog in any capacity (aesthetics, FC, etc.), I will block you immediately. Giving that woman a platform is no different than condoning her actions. As someone who used to use AH as a FC for one of their muses, I can tell you that there are plenty of other talented actresses that can be used in her place. We do not give an abuser a platform while there are DV victims all around us. It isn't cute.

DO NOT INTERACT WITH ME IF YOU ASSOCIATE WITH DRAKONAIRS (EVIE/ARTEMIS/LUNA). Between countless times of racist behavior, to hypersexualizing minors, to causing discourse throughout whatever fandom she’s been a part of under some sweet girl guise, I want NO PART OF HER EXISTENCE across my blogs. The callout can be viewed HERE. A quick scroll through the source blog will also show documentation of the mentioned behavior. Her most recent post as of 1/30/2024, some scrambling to pick up whatever pieces she can and “apologize”, does not paint the entirety of the extent in which she has displayed PREDATORY BEHAVIOR. Especially as she continues to “simp” over minor characters, a recent example being of Squall Leonhart. I will make zero exceptions for this rule.

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST— Have fun and happy writing!

#pinned post***

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rangedreign · 2 years ago

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Lemme ask you, which prompt of this decided to make certain parts more blurry than others? Which part chose the yellow border to compliment the purples? Which part made the pose, the composition? Why are so many of the prompts arguably the opposite from what you got? Sharp focus? This is blurry. Whimsical? Where? Detailed brushstrokes? Which brush strokes? There are no brush strokes.

"Sharp focus" is what made the background blurry, it made the subject "sharply in focus" compared to the background, like a small depth of field. "Whimsical" is a fluff adjective, I don't think it's attached to anything significant so I don't use words like that anymore. The resolution is ass, which is a limitation I had at the time; "detailed brushstrokes" would show up better at a higher resolution. SD generates at low resolution like a highres picture got shrunk, not like something was painted at a low resolution. I consider the randomness, the border, the composition, the pose, to be strengths of the medium. My choices would have been more boring and generic. I have less exposure to others' art to draw from, and if I'm just designing a character, pose and composition are not things I think about. The result from SD is an attractive picture as a whole, where a design by me would have no background and no interesting pose. It's not that it took the choices away, it filled in the blanks of my own vision. (for that one in particular, I didn't really have a vision, I was just getting used to what the options do and slightly edited someone else's prompt)

"AI image generation is a bad medium" is a weak argument for its lack of artistic value. Of course it's a bad medium, it's new. Open-source Stable Diffusion has only been out for less than 6 months, and image generation software as a whole is just reversed and adapted image recognition software. There has been very little time for it go grow into an ideal medium, but its potential is already seen and used by many. I think it will become much better-controlled as time goes on.

Besides that, sometimes it already is the best medium for a goal. I wanted a portrait for a Baldur's Gate PC, and I didn't want to draw it myself because I felt that the style would be too far off from NPC portraits. I wanted a new image, not one already drawn by someone else for their character. And I definitely was not about to commission someone for it, because I don't have the money, and I didn't know what I wanted the character to be, and I wanted to start playing as soon as possible. So I used SD for 3 hours, adding more detail to what the character should look like as I went, got a portrait I liked, and started playing. There are some weird errors, like her scalp extending into the sky, and her armor not making sense ('butterfly motif armor' only got understood in 1% of the images), but it works for my purposes, and it blends in with the rest of the game much better than a drawing by my hand would have.

What does 'content' mean, anyway? If it means 'a completed work' then yeah, guess we're all just making content and there's no real artistic value found in anything. I think of it as completed works with intent towards marketability and mass appeal. I do not make content, by hand or with AI. Ideas are what makes art. An unthinking/braindead human hand, with no one to see the result, cannot make art any more than a viewerless machine can. A human that manifests their ideas in any medium is making art, because their ideas about it are present when they view it. Not every hypothetical viewer has the same ideas, so the meaning of art changes depending on the viewer. My point is that artistic worth isn't intrinsic to whatever the art IS, it comes from the ideas about and related to that work. (This is coming from someone that does not like a great deal of modern art; I don't think considering what a square of blue paint represents is worth my time. But I know it's worth someone else's, and I would never say that it is inherently lacking in artistic worth.)

Why treat it as a revolutionary way to create art when it’s absolute shit as a peripheral to create art for anyone who demands more creative control over their own expression than prompts and redos? Which, that is something a lot of peripherals also kind of do. Every physical medium especially has shit to deal with. But for a digital tool to be designed in such a way by human hands and to this kind of extend, that’s just bullshit. Why would you put up with that if you have any artistic ambition? How do you feel satisfied by the artistic expression of putting in prompts and getting an image loosely related to them that ignored and disregarded half of them?

These questions are already answered by "every physical medium especially has shit to deal with." You weigh the pros, cons, and quirks and decide if something is worth using. The pros are revolutionary, never before has it been so easy to create a new image (new, as in never-before-seen, not 'totally lacking in derivation') of such high quality so quickly.

There is a lot of mediums that take away control from you at some point. You can pour resin, but once it cures that’s kind of it. You lost the chance to make a lot of changes. But isn’t it miserable to be as limited as working with an AI is? Isn’t that a miserable way to make art? From everything I know and everything you have told me in this conversation, I can not imagine a medium for self expression that is shittier to work with.

How is AI miserable in a way that mediums like resin or acrylic pouring are not? Resin is similarly derivative, as you typically need to use other people's molds. At least you can depict a subject in AI, acrylic pouring is abstract by nature. Really, it's just another medium.

And if it wasn’t trained on stolen art I would adore the possibilities it gives to artists.

On the topic of "stolen art", if every art piece used in training image generation software was stolen, then so was every photo. So was every image used to train image recognition software. I have yet to see a single person complain about photos being used as training data. Or is stealing not a problem, referencing specific artists is the problem? Why is it considered bad to do this? Do we really need to view it that way? I don't believe so, I think all art is derivative and the world can only benefit from freely sharing ideas, like art style. Especially in regards to dead artists.

We are using the word 'make' differently. I think that any conscious being takes priority over machines or natural processes when attributing what made something. If someone uses a knitting machine to make a sweater, the machine didn't make the sweater, because without the human's involvement, nothing would have been made. Humans using tools doesn't turn tools into makers. This would be different if tools could have desires, ideas, or free will, but we are definitely not there yet.

It’s absolutely something that can be used in an artful way. And if it wasn’t trained on stolen art I would adore the possibilities it gives to artists. To make art more accessible. Every single art program has a shoelaces brush you can download because someone got sick of drawing shoelaces. Plenty of artists would love to be able to say “put a McDonalds in the background, so I don’t have to do it myself.” Plenty of artists would love to fuck around with it and treat it as a challenge. To see how much intent you can manage to get out of it. Or to see how AI generated images can be used in larger contexts. There is so much application here.

Hey, I'm already using it that way.

I improved the design of a fantasy school uniform using AI-generated images as reference. Was it wrong of me to do this because the training images were 'stolen'? Would it have been any different if I used hand-drawn images as reference?

Here are some more images I think are artistically interesting:

(ok finding sfw pictures for this was harder than I thought it'd be) Anyway. I love the background on the first one, so much that I'm contemplating painting it in oils. I think that'd make for an interesting conversation on authorship in art; if it's more of a master study or wholly original. The second one is way, way far off from what I intended, but I don't think SD can really do what I was thinking of yet. However, the blue light bursting out from her eyes and mouth is really fitting for her character, and, again, not something I would have thought of myself.

By the way, I'm not being in any way hyperbolic when I say you should try making AI art yourself. I think if you have time to argue with me, you have time to inform your argument with experience. Even if your opinions don't change at all, gathering information is worth your time.

Detractors against new tech in the arts have thus far always been on the wrong side of history. Yes, suppressing these things would have generated far more sustainable jobs for people. But I think the tradeoff was worth it. I don't want the sustainable job that amounts to grunt work and suppresses personal creativity. We got ease of preservation and sharing from photographs and sound recordings. We gain ease of creation from AI.

@iwormynation New post so I’m not burdening my followers with wall of text. Old post.

I want you to imagine a machine that can take thoughts from your head and make them into any medium of art instantly and perfectly. There will still be a learning process, because to construct a piece of art is a skill that you learn. This machine that takes away all the hassle of learning how to use any medium still only makes what you tell it to do exactly as you want it to. You still have to learn composition, shapes, colors, design, all the stuff that makes a piece as it is. And I really don’t mean this in in a gatekeeper way of “you youglings are too lazy to learn the real way” I mean this in a way where learning all of that allows you to make choices. And the more you learn, the more choices you have, the more intentionally you can use them, the more easily you can know exactly what you’re going for and how to make art do exactly that. The more easily you can also experiment and screw around.

An AI cuts that part out. Yes, I can absolutely concede that there is a learning curve and skillset in knowing how to use the prompts for which effects. There is a lot of mediums that take away control from you at some point. You can pour resin, but once it cures that’s kind of it. You lost the chance to make a lot of changes. But isn’t it miserable to be as limited as working with an AI is? Isn’t that a miserable way to make art? From everything I know and everything you have told me in this conversation, I can not imagine a medium for self expression that is shittier to work with.

So you made this with AI:

oil painting of an evil princess, ornate lavender and pink details, fantasy, intricate, elegant, whimsical, highly detailed brushstrokes, digital painting, artstation, dnd concept art, smooth, sharp focus, illustration, art by alphonse mucha". Her hair piece totally looks like an eye, and it’s a very fitting character design “choice” for an evil princess, but there’s nothing about that in the prompt.

This is all stuff the AI did based not on any artistic vision, but on averaging out elements of other art in a way that is absolutely incomprehensible to any human operator. This is not stuff you had the ability to make decisions on. How is your artistic expression in this when the medium took all the choices away from you, treated your instructions as rough guidelines, free to be ignored, when you did nothing between the basic idea and receiving the finished work?

This is not me saying “It’s cheap, it’s effortless, so it’s bad.” I don’t actually care how good it is. I care that it’s not possibly a representation of your own artistic intent, because it was generated without giving you any kind of peripheral to apply your artistic intent in terms of the choices that arise during creation. Maybe your ambitions are so low that you’re okay with that and you don’t mind having no artistic input beyond lose prompts and a “do that part again” afterwards. But if that is the case why go all that length to defend the artistic integrity of AI art?

You said all you care about is having an end product. Why bother with artistic integrity, why insist that this is your artistic vision and that AI allows so many people to create art and put their own vision into reality when all that matters is that it makes content for you? Why treat it as a revolutionary way to create art when it’s absolute shit as a peripheral to create art for anyone who demands more creative control over their own expression than prompts and redos?

But to treat it as something that makes creating art easier and more accessible? No. That is not something it does. It makes generating images more accessible. If you want to use it to express yourself, it’s frankly just a shitty way to do so. You can put in a prompt and get something cool out and say “this is nice” but you didn’t make that. It’s not collaborative past the basic idea. You did not have any chance to bring yourself into it. And if you do want that you have to fight against your peripheral. Which, that is something a lot of peripherals also kind of do. Every physical medium especially has shit to deal with. But for a digital tool to be designed in such a way by human hands and to this kind of extend, that’s just bullshit. Why would you put up with that if you have any artistic ambition? How do you feel satisfied by the artistic expression of putting in prompts and getting an image loosely related to them that ignored and disregarded half of them?

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athyathye · 2 years ago

Text

The 3 definitions of stupid

Author’s note 📝: This is mainly in 3rd pov. Also here's a fun game, take a shot everytime you read stupid lol

1.2k word count

Warnings ⚠️: kinda cheating¿ implied s3xu@l relations but not really explored, toxic!rindou, like 1 or 2 curse words~

In hindsight, to other Bonten officials you were smart, level-headed and assiduous. But when it came to a certain someone, they all bet you’d go stupid for that person no matter what.

Your profession was not ideal. Your profession required you to do all sorts of things a normal moral person would abhor. You could no longer associate with the ‘normal’ crowd as a result. Left only to the hands none other than you bloodied ones, and to people with the same amount of blood on theirs.

But even so, no matter how much you’ve seen the light leave people’s eyes you couldn’t help but glance at a soulless pair. No matter how ruthless they were, no matter how much they held hate or how much they’d glared at yours.

Violet, like the color that blinded your vision when you fired a shot. Like your favorite scent that could never fail to calm you.

You were a puppet with strings. And he was a damn good puppeteer.

But you see, even if you weren’t that stupid, he was.

The glint in his eyes told you so. The glint that only appeared when a certain equally stupid girl entered the vicinity.

The kind of stupid girl who jumped into rivers for kittens who fell in.

It was a ridiculous pairing that came straight out of the imagination of a naive little girl no older than 7. Even so, you couldn’t deny it. You envied the light he showed her, the effort he tried to give her. Hers and only hers you could say.

Even if all her actions came with more cons than the good she meant to do. But that’s not to say it was excusable. Good intentions alone aren’t exactly enough you see.

No good person would boast about the good deeds she does. No good person would go around preaching about morality to a group of criminals.

Better yet, no sane person would even hang around the most wanted criminals. If she deemed herself as good why hasn't she called the police yet?

Not only were you hard-working, you were observant as well. Though a better term would be, you had eyes. You saw things no reader, no sideline character could see.

The way the car that the heroine jumped in front of to save her kind, a lamb going straight to the slaughterhouse, hit a tree with the person inside just barely escaping. Unfortunately for him he couldn’t escape the bullet that went straight for him after, much less expect it.

Or like the man she pleaded to save, all because she believed in second chances. Who ended up killing a group of teenagers because of driving under the influence.

It seemed as if you were the only person to notice that as well. Everybody else saw her as this righteous, upright and incorruptible female figure that made their days brighter.

You were the complete opposite. Not that you minded, you could care less about what they thought of you. You were way past the line of caring. Not even when those ruthless death-trapping blank eyes narrowed at you.

Only he could make use of those eyes like that. The power that makes them so lovable and able to convey a deep meaning even when they were used only for the most gruesome sights, a look into what he was thinking. And more often than not, you knew he wasn’t thinking about pretty things when looking at you.

“See? I told y’all a sadistic b*tch like she could handle things without me.” He tried to excuse himself from the glares that he was thrown with after you had reported how your mission went to your boss. A mission that was meant to be joint with him. But you could guess why he ditched. After all, it was a special day for a special someone.

As for yourself, you could have said a lot of things. In fact you did have a lot to say. But you stayed silent. Already feeling tired even when you’ve yet to talk, let alone glance at him.

Why won’t you? you ask. Because who knows what kind of expression he’s making. You could only have one of his looks directed at you after all. Everything else was reserved. Hers and hers alone.

You don’t think you could take it either. Not when you were hopelessly pining. Why? Why was it like that?

Well, not even you could figure it out. After all, there are a lot of things you can’t explain to anyone, even when you feel it again and again, or when they’ve been explained. Not everybody has the privilege of being able to explain things.

But oh, how he was stupid. Absolutely moronic, foolish and dumbwitted.

But so were you.

You find yourself thinking that at the deepest depths of the night. On his bed.

You couldn’t even cry anymore from how much shame you felt. You could only chuckle as you imagined what you looked like at that very moment. How he convinced you to join him as he practically spelled out for you how he was never going to get tied up with the same girl he ditched you for.

“Our lives are a heck of a lot different, you already know that” Hands behind his neck, a cigarette in between his chapped but sultry lips. You couldn’t help but admire the way it moved, the way the shape of your name was displayed on his mouth.

“I wasn’t really gonna’ like, tie the knot with her. Just a one-time thing.”

But you tried to fight back your desires. “And suddenly that falls under my business, how?”

One of his hands trailed over the top of your head, to the apple of your cheek. He caressed it which made you lean on the warmth that was radiating off of it. You tried to gaze into his eyes as he did so but before you could he had already slammed it to the wall behind you.

Trapping you in between his predatory gaze as he said “Because I’m not stupid enough to pass on a beatiful woman like you who noticed a no-good man like me.”

How irrational you were. How incredibly desire-driven you were. Stupid.

You couldn’t help but be curious how he knew, your desire was undeniable. However, it was silent. As silent as the pleading of your group to stop the crimes all of you cause.

And now you bear the consequences of a reckless decision.

Staring at the object in front of you that could potentially change everything you’re doing in life. You couldn’t help the bile that rose to your mouth.

What was even more nauseating was the scene occurring in front of you now. It was tormenting.

“You’re different.” He brushed her hair back. Wiping away the tears that continuously poured out of her lively eyes.

You couldn’t help the utter laughter that bubbled out of you. “Aww Look at you comforting people with the words you wished someone would say to you.”

Clenching his teeth at the interruption, all the attention was now on you. Stoic and calm, that’s what your posture said. But the madness and disappointment oozing out of you was loud.

“I take it back. You’re not stupid at all. The line was crossed 50 kilometers ago, you’re unable to even think for yourself.” You breathed out. Shaking your head as you left. Possibly everything.

To other Bonten officials you were smart, level-headed and assiduous. But when it came to a certain someone, they were all correct in believing that you’d go stupid for a person no matter what.

You were stupid for burying your head underwater.

#A little rusty but yk what? I like it-#tokyo revengers fanfiction #tokyo revengers one shot #tokyo revengers scenarios #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers x y/n #tokyo revengers x you #tokyo revengers angst #rindou haitani #rindou haitani x reader #rindou x reader #haitani rindou x reader

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nikakistos · 4 years ago

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Is it going to be love afterall?

Attack on Titan is not primarily known for being a romance. Isayama doesn’t put much focus on it and if he does, he usually hints at feelings instead of having his characters outright confess them. That is, until this final arc.

In the final arc of the series this has changed for good. Romantic relationships have become a trademark of the last 30+ chapters with no signs of slowing down. From Sasha and Niccolo to Armin and Annie, Isayama has put quite a lot of emphasis to the feelings of romantic love that have developed between certain characters. And amidst all these couples i have noticed some really interesting patterns.

Pattern no1: In every couple that one of the two people involved confesses his/her feelings in a manner that they cannot be doubted the other one reciprocates. Proof below:

Pattern no2: Love saves people from tragedy and war. Examples below:

And after all these examples we go to our founder Ymir. Ymir was never loved. She never had that kind of connection. King Fritz abused her physically and mentally. That’s pretty much the reason that the Paths exist in the form that we’ve come to know them. The Paths are the manifestation of Ymir’s longing for connections. That’s why she spent 2000 years there as a slave to king Fritz’s desires. She is still attached to that world, where she never knew true love. And what panel did Isayama choose to portray this exact sentiment?

Ah, yes, that of a couple getting married.

For all intents and purposes, the message here is clear. Love is extremely important in the series. And since the series’s protagonist is none other than Eren, it’s time to examine his case.

So what Eren does is reject these connections. He destroys his bonds with his friends and severely mistreats the two people he cares about the most, Mikasa and Armin.

And the interesting thing here is that he attacks exactly those feelings of love that they have. He questions the validity of Armin’s feelings for Annie, saying that he has inherited them from Bertolt and he claims that Mikasa cares about him as a result of some mundane Ackerman genes crap. And all that, even though he has learned that Mikasa is most likely in love with him. The final nail in the coffin was his order to Louise to throw Mikasa’s scarf away, the litteral symbol of his connection to the person that loves him the most.

Eren renounces love. He rejects it and he abandons all hope for it. It could be because he himself knows that he would never be able to see his mission to the end with his Mikasa and Armin by his side. It’s not because he doesn’t want to be loved. The exact opposite. The reason he empathizes with Ymir is exactly that. He wants to be loved. He searched for it one day before leaving the Survey Corps and sealing his fate. When he asked Mikasa “What am i to you” he was looking exactly for that. And it is exactly because of her answer that he went ahead and asked Zeke about her. I highly doubt that Eren would have tried so much to find out Mikasa’s true feelings for him, if he himself didn’t harbor feelings for her.

Eren and Mikasa are a foil to all the other romantic relationships in the story. They don’t confess their feelings in a clear manner, so it unclear to them how each one of them feels about the other and Eren, because he didn’t find love, is not saved. If he were, he would not be destroying the world right now.

Given all that, can something happen? Will there be a development that will turn this ugly situation around? I say yes. And i say so, because of this:

In the promotional trailer for the final two volumes of Attack on Titan, these two scenes were shown. Eren’s promise to wrap the scarf around Mikasa again and the moment where Mikasa regrets that she didn’t admit her true feelings to Eren when he was practically begging her to do so. Mikasa will certainly confess her feelings to Eren. And judging by the fact that Eren’s promise about the scarf is shown as well, i am sure that he will fulfill said promise. To me, that means that Mikasa’s feelings will be returned.

I mean, given the pattern presented, is there really any chance that Mikasa will say to Eren that she is in love with him and he won’t return her feelings? If that’s the case then why the scarf rewrap? And more than anything, when Mikasa does confess, can there really be any other outcome other than Eren stopping his destructive ways? In a story about beauty in a cruel world, i don’t believe that the only answer is pure violence and carnage.

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c-optimistic · 4 years ago

Note

for your happy prompts ask, perhaps kara is a documentary film maker who follows ceo lena around for a doc and ends up falling in love with her by learning a bunch of little things she finds out during filming? also p.s. i absolutely adore your writing even when it tugs at the heartstrings. thank you for writing what you do! it makes my day everytime i see an update or get an email

She wasn’t allowed to see Lena Luthor until she’d signed so many papers that, if stacked together, would be taller than she was. She wasn’t even allowed to touch her camera around Lena Luthor until the woman herself, CEO extraordinaire, had personally vetted Kara out.

“You know,” Kara said as casually as she could, finding herself nervously adjusting her glasses when Lena’s cold gaze fell on her, “I usually have a whole team with me when I do this.”

“And I agreed to this on the condition that only one nosy filmmaker follows me around, not a whole team.” Lena’s reply was like everything else Kara had learned about the CEO thus far: she was blunt, a little harsh, tone and eyes cold and emotionless. She gave nothing away, not in her walk, in her mannerisms, in the ridiculously healthy food she ate, in the way she spoke to her employees or board members. She was cool, detached, wickedly smart, and utterly composed. “And I must approve the final result,” she added, gesturing to the mountain of paperwork Kara signed.

(Kara sighed internally, a tiny part of her sure Lena was a robot.)

“But it’s everything, right?” Kara clarified. “A total look into your life, no holding back?”

“You may follow me around to your heart’s content,” Lena said, leaning back in her desk chair, studying Kara intently.

“May I ask, Ms. Luthor, what made you agree to this, when you’re usually so distrustful of the media?”

Lena gave Kara a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “What made you ask to do this when you know I distrust the media?”

Lena hadn’t answered, so Kara knew she didn’t have to either, but she felt it was important to establish some kind of rapport with the woman she’d be following around for the next few weeks. “I’m of the opinion that things are rarely as simple as they seem from the outside, that’s all.”

“Well,” Lena said, looking pleasantly surprised and offering Kara a grin (a real one, one that touched her eyes and transformed her face), “perhaps that’s why I agreed to you doing this.”

“You’re one of Ms. Luthor’s closest friends, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Since before your daughter was born?”

“Yup.”

“So would you say you know her quite well?”

“Sure.”

“Do you plan on answering any of my questions with more than one word?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. So, in one word I suppose, how would you describe Ms. Luthor to a stranger?”

“Flawless.”

The rules of her arrangement with Lena were rather simple. For the next several weeks, Lena consented to having Kara around from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep. In return, Kara was not allowed in certain meetings at L-Corp, was not allowed to bring her camera with her at all when Lena went down to R&D, and if Lena asked for her to stop filming at any point, Kara was bound to immediately do so and erase any footage she may have inadvertently captured.

For the first two days of the arrangement, it was actually rather boring. Lena was awake before the crack of dawn, she didn’t acknowledge Kara’s presence as she made coffee and toast (though she did push a cup and a plate towards Kara), and then spent the next fifteen or so hours in her office, sifting through papers, answering phone calls and responding to emails, and forgetting meals. It wasn’t until the third day that Lena’s routine changed slightly.

She received a phone call at breakfast, and whoever it was caused a bright red blush to bloom on her cheeks. Kara zoomed in slightly on Lena’s face as she answered the call. “Now’s not really a good time, Sam,” she began, falling silent at whatever this Sam was saying on the other end. Lena’s eyes flitted over towards Kara, but to her surprise, she didn’t ask for Kara to shut off the camera. “That sounds terrible,” she said, sounding truly apologetic, something about her countenance changing. She seemed softer, more open, calmer than Kara had seen her yet. “And Ruby was so excited too.” Lena fell silent once more, nodding almost as if unaware of it. “I agree with her,” Lena suddenly laughed, still nodding, “it’s not fair at all. But there’s no way I’m not going to visit. Do you want me to bring anything?” Lena laughed again, and Kara wondered if her camera was capturing the change she was witnessing with her own eyes. “As if I could forget Ruby’s chocolate.” A pause. “Give her all my love.” Another pause, a tiny smile on Lena’s lips. “All right, I will. Bye.” As she hung up, she looked over at Kara, as if daring her to comment, everything about her shuttering at once.

“Who was that?” Kara asked, not really expecting an answer. To her surprise, however, Lena’s eyes flitted to the camera and she let out a soft, resigned sigh.

“That was my CFO, Sam Arias,” she answered, her tone a complete 180 from what she was using on the phone. She studied Kara for a moment and must have read something on her face, because her shoulders deflated and she motioned towards her phone. “Sam is my best friend. Her daughter, Ruby, is my goddaughter. We were supposed to go to the animal shelter today.” Lena smiled softly, almost as if unaware of it. “She’s finally convinced Sam she’s responsible enough for a pet. It’s actually—” Lena stopped suddenly, her eyes shifting to the camera once more, any warmth that had managed to leak out dissipating at once. “In any case, she’s sick. So we’ll have to reschedule.” She waved her hand towards the camera. “Can you turn that off, please?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Kara said quickly, making a show of turning the Camcorder off and setting it aside. “Is something wrong?”

Lena shook her head, leaning against her kitchen counter as she eyed Kara with something like curiosity. “You know, I’ve seen all of your other work,” she said after a moment, frowning at Kara like she was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out.

(Had she? Seen all of Kara’s work? A part of Kara was curious as to how, after all, most of her stuff was tucked away in a closet back in Midvale, waiting to be opened up and viewed during Christmas, when Alex would laugh at the films she’d made in high school about how the boys’ sports teams were unfairly given more attention than the girls’. The others were projects for her degree and one or two failed attempts to get a real production company to take the risk on her.

In fact, if not for Cat Grant’s decision as ‘The Queen of All Media’ to get involved in filmmaking, funding a project from a no-name creator, Kara wasn’t even sure she’d have the film she was making now.)

“Oh,” she said inarticulately, not quite sure how to word what she was really thinking. How rich did you have to be to be able to bribe anyone into giving you anything?

Lena nodded carefully, her face a perfect mask. If not for the way her eyes followed Kara’s every movement, Kara would’ve even thought that Lena was bored. “You’re very fond of certain themes. Hope. Love. Endless optimism in the best of humanity.” She said it like it was a bad thing. And it was suddenly Kara’s turn to lean forward on the opposite end of the counter, feeling her head tilt to the side questioningly.

“Is that what you got from my films?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Lena seemed wary of the question, standing up straight and crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “Isn’t that what you intended?”

“You know,” Kara said slowly, “I don’t actually believe in all that creator’s intent nonsense. I think we search for parts of ourselves when we consume art. So if that’s what you got from my films, that says more about you than it does about me.”

If anything, this seemed to offend Lena. “So you’d deny having any sort of intent with your work? What about making something with meaning?”

Kara laughed, shaking her head. “That’s not what I mean, and besides, who says art has to mean anything?”

“Of course art means something,” Lena argued, narrowing her eyes at Kara. “What’s the point of doing it if it doesn’t mean anything?”

Kara shrugged easily, giving Lena a small smile. “I disagree. I think art says something. But meaning is up to the people who consume it.” She picked up her camera and pointed it at Lena without turning it on. “Doesn’t matter what I intended to say with my films, you got meaning from it. So I’d say there was a point in making it, don’t you think?”

Lena eyed her for a moment, apparently not liking that Kara wasn’t giving her an answer, wasn’t telling her what she was trying to say with her work. But then, after several long seconds, she relented, letting out a chuckle and shaking her head. “Well, fine,” she said, her smile touching her eyes. “As long as you don’t try to say anything silly like hope, love, or endless optimism in the best of humanity with this film.”

“I’m afraid I can’t change who you are, Ms. Luthor,” Kara said softly, turning her camera on and effectively cutting off any response Lena may have had.

(And when she looks at the footage weeks later, she’ll freeze that frame, breath catching at the look on Lena’s face: the softness of her eyes, the curve of her lips, and the pleasantly confused crinkle between her brows.)

“Do you spend a lot of time with your godmother?”

“Oh yeah, loads! She’s great.”

“What sort of things do you do with her?”

“I mean, normal stuff? She takes me to get ice cream all the time. The other day, she rented that new horror movie that came out and watched it with me when I stayed over. My mom went nuts when she found out.”

“So you like her?”

“No, of course not. I love Lena. She’s my aunt, you know? She’s family.”

“And if you had the chance, what would you want the world to know about her?”

“That she cares, so much. And that she’s funny and super smart and helps me with homework and after my mom she’s the very best person I know.”

The visit to Luthor Children’s Hospital was, as far as Kara was aware, unplanned and in fact gave Jess a great deal of anxiety. For her part, Kara was mostly frustrated and annoyed, wondering if this film was worth it at all. Because Lena Luthor seemed to be asking Kara to turn off the camera more and more, especially when her day deviated at all and she was forced to leave her office.

(Walks in the park, lunches with her goddaughter, a touching moment with the child of one of her employees...all locked away somewhere in Kara’s memory, but destined to remain there instead of on film, where it should be.)

She huffed a little bit as she leaned against the wall, watching Lena walk quickly towards the group of nurses and doctors. She didn’t say anything when Jess joined her, a contemplative look on her face. “She always does this,” Jess told Kara after a long silence, rolling her eyes fondly. “She’ll cancel meetings last minute because she heard one of the kids in the hemoc ward has finished treatment or that they’re out of toys to give to the new patients.”

“Why isn’t there any press if she does this often?” Kara asked, turning to Jess but watching Lena out of the corner of her eye. She was talking to one of the doctors now, looking comically out of place with her designer clothes while surrounded by colorful artwork by kids that littered the walls of the Children’s Hospital.

Jess fixed Kara with an unimpressed look. “You’ve met her, right?” she asked rhetorically. “She goes out of her way to hide these visits. She says that she has to keep it under wraps because she wants to keep it about the kids and not her. But I think the truth is she’s just worried people would mistreat the kids and their families for allowing a ‘Luthor’ within ten feet of them.”

“Oh,” Kara said dumbly, a little stunned by the new information, and feeling guilty for her thoughts earlier. “That’s...awful.”

“I’m not telling you this for nothing, you know,” Jess continued, frowning at Kara. “She’s been avoiding lots of her usual charitable work since you’ve been around. The whole point of this was to get everyone else to see the real Lena Luthor, but she’s ruining it by being humble and noble.”

(Kara wanted to groan, roll her eyes, or better yet go over to Lena herself and shake her until she understood what Kara’s job was.

How was she supposed to make a documentary about Lena Luthor if Lena Luthor was so determined to hide herself away from the world?)

“What would you have me do?” she asked, not voicing her frustration, though it seeped into her tone anyway. “We have a deal, and she doesn’t want me to film these things.”

Jess shook her head, looking terribly unimpressed by the answer. “Don’t you have artistic integrity? Would you allow anyone else to boss you around and tell you what you could and couldn’t film?”

Kara looked over at Lena, who was now smiling at a young boy who had ambled up to her with his mother and infusion pump stand in tow. She watched as Lena actually dropped to her knees to talk to the boy, nodding vigorously at whatever he was saying. After a long moment, she turned back to Jess and shook her head. “No,” she said finally. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

And after Jess had given her another significant look before walking off, Kara raised her camera and began to film.

“Mr. Spheer, you’re an ex of Lena Luthor’s, right?”

“Ah, I see this documentary is quite personal. Are you sure that Lena is okay with this sort of thing going into her movie?”

“Well, it’s my movie. But she’s free to ask me to take things out.”

“Fascinating. Yes, I am Lena’s ex. I was quite brokenhearted when she broke it off to move to National City.”

“Oh, she broke it off?”

“So curious, Ms. Danvers. Perhaps you’re interested in something beyond a mere film?”

“W-what? No, that’s—please be serious, Mr. Spheer—”

“It’s Jack to you, my dear. What else do you need to know about Lena? Her favorite flowers are plumerias, her favorite food is—”

“—oh that’s really not necessary. If we could just focus on who Lena is as a person. A friend. A former girlfriend?”

“Hmm, yes. Well, just imagine your perfect woman, Ms. Danvers.”

“Oh, um, I—”

“—exactly, you see Lena. That’s an universal experience, I’m afraid. Lena is simply...too good for this world.”

“So you’d say the treatment she gets by the public is unfair?”

“It’s unfair how much people attack pineapple on pizza, Ms. Danvers. The way they speak of Lena without knowing her? That’s a pure travesty.”

They were about ten days into filming when Kara saw Lena relax for the first time.

She was using the word ‘relax’ rather loosely, of course. Lena didn’t do what Kara did after a long week—put on a pair of sweatpants, order loads of junk food, and watch so much Netflix that it eventually felt the need to ask her if she was still watching. In fact, Lena’s idea of relaxing was more work. Just, fun work.

She was dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, knees pulled up to her chest as she sat at her desk, mumbling under her breath as she did whatever she was doing. (She hadn’t bothered to explain to Kara, had just sighed and acquiesced to the presence of the camera in her home office.) Perched precariously at the tip of her nose were a thick black pair of glasses, her hair falling to her shoulders in gentle waves.

She looked different. Softer, somehow. Gone was all the trappings of a badass CEO, and all that was left was a clever (and beautiful) young woman, working on the things she loved in her spare time.

Kara zoomed in slightly, focusing on Lena’s face, on the furrow between her brows, her lips twisted in concentration. There was something there, something different, and Kara just wanted to—

“Is that camera heavy?” Lena asked, looking up suddenly, a curious expression on her face. She was good at that, the polite looks, gently asking for more information. Tiny eyebrow raises, nearly imperceptible softening of her eyes, lips quirked the slightest bit, all intended to disarm her quarry, making them drop their guard long enough that they give everything held close to their chest away.

“Not really,” Kara answered, grinning at Lena. This made the other woman blink in surprise, clearly not the response she was looking for, that expression on her face shifting suddenly, becoming more calculating. “I work out,” Kara went on to explain, shrugging easily, careful not to jostle the camera. “Besides, it’s not that heavy, I think about five pounds.”

“What kind of camera do you use?”

“Oh, it’s a Panasonic AG-HVX—” she cut herself off. “It’s not that interesting.” Kara adjusted her glasses and made sure Lena’s face was still in focus. Somehow, this made Lena’s tiny smile reappear. She stood up and circled her desk, and Kara was forced to back away to maintain focus.

“You love filming, don’t you?” Lena asked, and Kara blinked, not quite sure where she was going with this.

“Ms. Luthor, as I’m sure you’re aware, this film is about you.”

If she thought this would in any way cow Lena, she was wrong. Lena just grinned, looking like she’d somehow won something.

“Do you know what I don’t understand?” she said with faux casualness, crossing her arms and tapping a finger against her elbow. “Why would you, someone Cat Grant speaks so highly of, be willing to agree to this assignment? Something most people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.”

Kara frowned, not thinking as she responded. “It wasn’t assigned, Ms. Luthor. I pitched the idea. I wanted to do this.” Lena’s words sank in a moment later. “Wait. Cat Grant spoke highly of me?”

“Why?” Lena asked, no longer smiling.

Kara blinked at the change in tone. “Why what?” she asked, genuinely confused. This was, apparently, the wrong answer, because Lena chose that moment to begin pacing in front of her desk, looking more than a little bothered.

“I don’t get it,” she said as she paced. “I tried to figure it out, looked into you, into your work. I thought maybe you were doing this to build fame, but I’ve seen your work and even without a movie about the last Luthor, I have no doubt you’ll be very popular—”

“Oh, that’s nice of you, thank y—”

“—then I thought maybe you have a vendetta against my family and just want me to look bad,” Lena continued, barreling over Kara’s words and ignoring her entirely, “but the only connection between you and my family is your cousin, Clark Kent, and he’s the journalist who broke the story on my brother, so if anything I should dislike you—”

“That’s not exactly...Clark and I aren’t—”

“—so I really need you to explain it to me. Why did you want to make this film?” She paused her brisk pacing as she asked the question, meeting Kara’s eyes with a fierce look, one Kara was infinitely glad she was capturing on film. Because this, this glint in Lena’s eyes, was why Kara wanted to do this.

“Do you remember the speech you gave when you came to National City?” Kara asked, and judging from the way Lena’s eyebrows rose in response, she was rather thrown by the question. “Because I do. I watched it maybe a few dozen times. All those horrible questions, all the absolute certainty that you were like your brother, and you kept your head up and you promised to prove them all wrong, to make up for what he did.” Kara sighed, shutting off the camera and setting it aside gently. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I was...interested. I wanted to see more.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Did I meet your expectations? Disappoint you? What?”

Kara smiled, unable to help it. “Does my opinion on you really matter?”

“Do you always answer a question with another question?” Lena shot back, eyes narrowing.

Kara’s smile just widened and she began to gather her things, preparing to leave for the night. Impressively, Lena didn’t question her further, just watched her then followed her to the door, looking rather cross. Pausing briefly to adjust her glasses and the strap of her bag, Kara turned suddenly and met Lena’s eyes. “You exceeded them. My expectations, that is,” Kara added when Lena offered only a quizzical look in response.

For a moment, Lena didn’t react, then that same look from her office—the softness of her eyes, the curve of her lips, and the pleasantly confused crinkle between her brows—overtook her expression, and she let out a laugh.

“Well, good then.”

“You went to boarding school with Ms. Luthor?”

“I don’t think that’s public knowledge, how do you know that?”

“Um, Ms. Arias told me about you. She mentioned your relationship with Ms. Luthor is unique.”

“Well, Sam would know, wouldn’t she?”

“Ms. Rojas, if you don’t want to speak to me, you don’t have to.”

“It’s fine. Look, Lena and I have been estranged for a while now. I...I did something to break her trust.”

“So would you say that Ms. Luthor is difficult to get along with?”

“No, I’d say that Lena values things like honesty and trust, and—you know that Austen novel? With the man who says that once you lose his good opinion, it’s gone forever?”

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“Exactly. Lena is like that.”

“Ms. Luthor is like Mr. Darcy?”

“No, she’s classic. No matter what’s going on, she’ll endure.”

“So...you were the one difficult to get along with?”

“Have you ever thought about taking your work to a whole new level, Kara? How do you feel about virtual reality?”

“Oh, um, I don’t have particular thoughts? But I’d love to know yours about Ms. Luthor. For the film.”

“She won’t believe this, or that I’m saying it coercion free, but Lena is...a visionary. More than that, she’s just a decent person. Which is more than most of us can say, don’t you think?”

After their conversation, Lena opened up dramatically.

(Well, dramatically was a stretch, but considering how closed off she’d been before, the difference was rather drastic.)

Kara filmed Lena’s visit to an animal shelter, capturing the way her fingers gently ran over the fur of the dog that immediately trotted over to her, placing its head in her lap. Lena had then explained that she went to shelters often, just to volunteer, as she was unable to adopt for fear of not having time to give the dog the attention it deserved.

Later that week, Lena let Kara stay later than usual, putting on some music as she got to cooking, going as far as to teach Kara the basics of the dish, laughing when Kara admitted that her skill in the kitchen was limited to making sandwiches. At one point she grabbed the camera and set it aside, dragging Kara into the kitchen, giving instructions and lessons as she swayed her hips to the music.

(It was silly, it was lighthearted, it was fun, and Kara couldn’t help it.

She forgot she was there to make a film.)

And as the days and weeks dragged on, when Lena showed off her skills at the piano—apologetically explaining she hadn’t had time to really play in months—or when she told Kara about her very ‘nerdy’ stamp collection or even when Lena seemed to ignore there was a camera between them and she began to talk about her day and her hopes for the weekend, Kara forgot that it was a job. She forgot that she was supposed to be making something, paying attention to more than Lena’s smile or the way her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned work she was particularly passionate about.

Somewhere along the way, Kara cared more about the opportunity to spend time with Lena than she did the film itself.

More worryingly, that realization didn’t even bother her.

“Why filmmaking?” Lena asked one morning, pushing coffee and toast towards Kara with a tiny smile. The camera was still in its bag, untouched since Kara had arrived nearly an hour earlier. “Why not journalism like your cousin?”

“My cousin and I,” Kara began awkwardly, adjusting her glasses, “well, our relationship is a little strained, I guess.” She didn’t need the slight tilt of Lena’s head to know that Lena wanted her to keep going, to explain further. She let out a soft chuckle and rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Um, so my parents died when I was twelve. And Clark sort of...left me? I went to live with the Danvers instead, and they bought me a camera for my birthday.” Kara grinned at the very memory, still able to feel its weight in her hand, the eyepiece against her eye. “It was one of those old camcorders, do you remember? The ones with the tapes? I drove them nuts, filming literally everything. I don’t think they ever saw my face for the first few months I was with them, it was constantly behind the camera.” She didn’t explain why she wanted to document every moment with her new family, but judging from the way Lena’s eyes softened, she understood anyway. “From there it became serious. I started making films. School projects, etc. Now I’m here.”

“Why documentaries? Why not something like...oh, I don’t know, action movies?” Lena prodded, looking curious, looking interested, looking like the answer mattered.

Kara just shrugged, suddenly not able to look Lena in the eye. “I guess there’s a part of me that wanted to take after Clark.”

“How long have you been working for Ms. Luthor?”

“Um, this December will make seven years.”

“As her assistant, you have remarkable access to her. What’s she like?”

“Driven, ambitious, works way too hard. I don’t think she’s ever taken a holiday or even a break...but um, maybe don’t say that in the film.”

“Artistic integrity, remember? She works hard, that’s clear. But what about personally? Her relationship with you and the other employees? What kind of boss is she?”

“She cares a lot. A few years ago, before Lex Luthor, well. You know. Before all that, LuthorCorp was facing serious losses. Mr. Luthor wanted to just get rid of entire departments, but Ms. Luthor said the research was vital, and more than that, the researchers were important. She convinced her brother to keep them on—she won’t admit it, but it was more than being persuasive. She paid for it out of her own pocket.”

“So you’d say she’s charitable?”

“No, she’s passionate. And she fights for the things she believes in. Ms. Luthor likes to say that charity implies pity, and she doesn’t do anything out of pity. She just does what’s right by people.”

“Some would disagree, they’d argue that LuthorCorp, and by extension its new iteration, L-Corp, don’t care about people, but about profits. Do you think that’s a fair assessment of the company you’ve devoted seven years to?”

“Look. I get it, people are suspicious of L-Corp because it used to be LuthorCorp. But it’s not just a name change. When Lena took over, she gutted her company. There’s not a single program left from Mr. Luthor’s time as CEO. L-Corp is all Ms. Luthor.”

“So if L-Corp is Ms. Luthor, who is Ms. Luthor?”

“She’s a woman who’s been hurt all her life, Kara Danvers, and whose only goal is to keep as many people as she can from hurting too. Sometimes I just wish she realized she doesn’t deserve to be hurt anymore either.”

“Oh.”

“Also, I don’t care about your artistic integrity, that last bit does not go in the film.”

One afternoon, when Kara was dangerously close to dozing off on the couch in Lena’s office—camera turned off and set aside, not really needing more footage of Lena working at her desk—Lena suddenly jumped to her feet, an excited gleam in her eyes.

“They’ve done it,” she said, the smile forming on her lips so wide that Kara found herself smiling back.

“Done what?” Kara asked, fairly sure this would lead to Lena’s refrain of ‘that’s company business and I’m afraid you’re not privy to that information’ but instead, Lena looked at her appraisingly, then rolled her eyes.

“If I allow you to bring your camera in R&D, do you swear not to film my ongoing projects?”

“You’re going to let me film in R&D?” Kara said excitedly, jumping to her feet and grabbing her camera.

“Kara, do you swear?”

“Yes, yes, of course, Ms. Luthor. I absolutely swear.”

And the next thing Kara knew, she was filming in the one place she’d been told was off-limits, capturing the lab and Lena talking to her researchers animatedly about the advancement they’d made in gene therapy, not entirely surprised when Lena shoved the scientists towards Kara and urged them to brag about their achievement—while also warning them to be as vague as possible—and then sank into the background, clearly thrilled to have her scientists as the center of attention.

And later, when Lena decided to actually take a lunch hour as a ‘reward’ for the great strides L-Corp had made, she took Kara along, bought three different appetizers, and smiled her wide smile before she said, “It’s Lena, by the way. Just Lena.”

Mouth still bulging with the three potstickers she’d practically inhaled, Kara couldn’t manage much more than a nod, but later—when she was alone—she tried saying the name aloud, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

“Mrs. Luthor—”

“It’s doctor, actually.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Dr. Luthor. You adopted Ms. Luthor when she was four, is that correct?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time for this nonsense. I consented to this interview only to say one thing: Lena was always the more clever of my children, but she’s foolish and soft, and this silly film is yet another example of that.”

“You agreed to meet with me to just say...that. Okay. That’s um. Fine.”

As the weeks dragged on, Kara had little reason to continue filming. Her deadline with Cat Grant was fast approaching, and she had more than enough footage. All that really remained was editing, of putting the final pieces together. But she found herself filming anyway.

Every day, she’d make her way to Lena’s apartment, making flimsy excuses about how certain footage was no good, or had been corrupted, and that she needed retakes of Lena doing ordinary things (like reading the paper, cooking dinner, or talking about her day). She knew that Lena could tell her excuses were just that, but mercifully, Lena didn’t seem to want to call her out on it, merely gave soft reminders not to stay up so late every night to edit (the ‘you could just as easily stop wasting your time here and be editing during normal hours’ going unsaid).

(Jess had rolled her eyes when Kara came by L-Corp and Lena mentioned offhandedly that Kara somehow hadn’t gotten a shot of Lena entering her building in all the time she’d shadowed the CEO, and wasn’t that odd?)

But what Kara knew, what made her stretch out these moments as long as she possibly could, was that once the final product popped into existence, once she showed Lena and got her okay to send off to Cat Grant, that was it.

No more Lena.

And that terrified her.

(So she gathered more footage, fruitlessly hoping that the final product would never be ready, dragging her feet at every step.

She edited, studying Lena’s every expression, tried to pinpoint the exact moment she’d started to fall for the not-so-detached CEO extraordinaire, and wished it didn’t all have to come to an end.)

Two days after Kara had sent Lena the finished film, she got a curt email from the CEO herself with only three words: come see me.

Jess gave no indication about how her boss was feeling when Kara arrived, merely stared evenly at Kara and gestured with her head for her to just go on in. When Kara tried to ask her, Jess shook her head, pointed at the door to Lena’s office, and made a shooing gesture.

“It’s odd to see you without a camera,” Lena said when Kara sat down across from her, trying to keep her hands from fidgeting.

“It’s odd to be in here without a camera.” Kara took a deep breath. “Did you watch it?” she blurted, unable to keep it in. “What did you think?”

“You’re really fond of certain themes,” Lena said, then she raised her eyebrow. “You also filmed quite a bit when I had asked you not to.”

“Artistic integrity?” Kara tried, and Lena...laughed.

“I don’t know if I agree with the way you portrayed me,” she said slowly as her amusement faded. “You took a lot of liberties.”

“I was very faithful to the subject of the film, Lena.”

“What do you think you were trying to say?” Lena asked, waving off Kara’s comment.

“What meaning did you get from it?”

Lena studied her for a moment, as if she was trying to read Kara’s mind. “I’m not some selfless genius, Kara.”

“Is that what you think the film is saying?” Kara asked her, not rising to the obvious bait. “Like I said, Lena. I was very faithful to the subject of the film.” For a long moment, Lena didn’t respond, and Kara felt the worry she’d managed to push away since sending the film to Lena creep back in. “Does this mean you don’t approve of the film?”

“Hmm?” Lena said, distracted. “No, I’ve already sent it along to Cat Grant, giving my okay. Even though you broke our agreement, I can’t deny the final result was very favorable to me.”

“I wouldn’t have made something that wasn’t completely true,” Kara said, somewhat hotly, most of her irritation bleeding away with the knowledge that Cat Grant was in possession of the final product, that the rest was up to her.

Lena smiled, eyes soft, and she nodded her head almost incredulously. “No, you wouldn’t. I know that.” She cleared her throat, seeming a bit nervous. “But I was thinking. I’ve been missing our talks about your work, and I know you don’t like talking about what you’ve made, but perhaps you’d make an exception for me. Would you be willing to give me a private showing of your film? Give me all the insider secrets? I know your subject quite well, it would be a fun exercise.”

Kara’s heart slammed to a stop, the jump-started at the sight of Lena’s amused eyes, that tiny curve of her lips. “A private showing, huh?” Kara mumbled, feeling a little dazed. “I still won’t tell you what I was trying to say.”

“That’s completely fair.”

“But I suppose I could give you some insight on my thoughts.”

“Only if you wanted.”

“It may have to be more than one session,” Kara said, trying and failing to stop the spread of her smile. “There’s a lot of footage you know.”

“So it’s a date?” Lena asked, and Kara couldn’t help her eager nod.

“It’s definitely a date.”

#thank you so much!#supercorp #fanfic

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andypantsx3 · 4 years ago

Text

statistically significant | 4 | bakugou/reader

length: 23,490 words | 7 chapters

summary: You’re the scientist who developed a neural net to model the value of assists. Now that your work is feeding into the hero rankings, pro hero Ground Zero has a bone to pick with your results.

tags: romance, enemies to lovers, sexual tension, reader-insert

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut, m/f threats of violence, problematic behavior

For someone so loud and obnoxious, Bakugou was proving incredibly difficult to track down.

You spent the next few days hunting all over Miruko’s agency for him, an apology sitting uncomfortably in the back of your mouth, but no matter where you went, the hero was nowhere to be found. You prowled inexhaustibly through the fluorescent halls of the underground floors, and poked around curiously amongst the messy piles of paperwork on the business floor. You’d even switched up your schedule in case he was specifically timing his entrances and exits around you, and had taken to lingering suspiciously around the training rooms like some kind of leery pervert, eyeing every blonde head of hair with a little too much interest.

The more you thought about it, though, the more you realized Bakugou wasn’t exactly the type to hide and avoid confrontation, so eventually you moved on to interrogating Mina and Kaminari on Bakugou’s whereabouts. Both of them claimed not to know anything, and no one else seemed to have anything more helpful to say either, nothing more than “I don’t know, haven’t seen him.” It was reaching the point where you were honestly considering filing a missing persons report if he didn’t turn up soon.

It wasn’t until Friday morning that you finally glimpsed a head of messy, ash-blonde hair stalking down the hall to one of the training rooms. You all but fell out of your chair and launched yourself out of the surveillance room after him, shoes slapping loudly in the hall.

You weren't exactly being sneaky, but you didn't expect Bakugou to react the way he did. As soon as you got close, he stiffened and whirled on you. You caught a flash of red eyes and white teeth bared in a snarl before the hallway tipped out of focus and your back hit the wall, Bakgou’s hand clenched in the scruff of your shirt.

“The fuck are you doing?” Bakugou demanded, crimson gaze searching you over. A scowl sat heavily on his mouth, and you noticed that the corner of it was bruised. A long scratch ran across the bridge of his nose, tapering off over one high cheekbone. The rest of him looked untouched--he was clean, and dressed in simple, dark training clothes again that hugged the planes of his chest and strong thighs.

You stared up at him, shocked to find yourself against a wall again. “You’re--you’re here.”

A blonde eyebrow went up. “I fucking work here, nerd.”

You suppressed an eye roll. “That’s not what I meant, Bakugou. I’ve been looking for you--I need to talk to you.”

“So you thought you’d charge me like a fucking rhinocerous?” he demanded. His fingers unclenched from your shirt, however, relaxing against your collarbone. You fought down a shiver as his callouses caught on your skin.

“Don’t run up behind a hero like that, idiot. Especially after a mission,” he growled.

You eyed the cut across his nose speculatively. “Is that where you were this week?”

“That’s none of your damn business, is it, you nosy little shit?” he asked, something like a self-satisfied smirk pulling at the edge of his mouth.

You let your head fall back against the wall with a thunk, sighing. You’d forgotten how annoying he was in the near week you hadn’t seen him. It was going to make apologizing so fucking frustrating.

“Can you please just not make everything so difficult for once?” you asked absently, trying to dredge up enough humility to get on with your apology.

Bakugou let out a grunt, but shifted closer, one very intimidating bicep coming up to frame your head. Your mouth suddenly went very dry.

“You’re one to fucking talk,” Bakugou said, staring at you with intent.

Mina’s comments on his romantic preferences flitted to the surface of your mind in a wild flurry. Your face heated, and you desperately pushed the memories down. As much as you wanted to snipe at him with an unexpected comeback on what he really thought of women who didn’t take his shit, you did not want him to know you’d been discussing his inclinations. Besides, that would be presumptuous. Just because he had a thing for mouthy girls in general did not mean that preference extended to under-caffeinated and irritable data scientists.

You pushed yourself away from him, pressing harder into the wall in an attempt to create space. “Look, I didn’t come here to fight with you, okay?”

Those crimson eyes watched you impassively.

“Then what the fuck did you want, nerd?” he asked, leaning slightly closer where you’d just managed to create an inch of extra space. You caught that scent again, hot and butter-sweet in your nose, like burnt caramel, and tried your hardest to ignore exactly how symmetrical his face was up close.

You suppressed an eye twitch. What was his thing about walls and intimidating people? And why was he so close to you? Had this man never heard of personal space?

“Actually, I came to apologize,” you said haltingly, looking up at him. If you hadn’t been watching him carefully, you might not have caught the minute widening of his eyes, the very slightest downturn of his blonde brows.

“What?” he rasped.

“You heard me,” you insisted. “I didn’t mean that you were--uh--weak. When I said I would help the other day. That’s the opposite of what I meant.”

Bakugou’s mouth pulled into an immediate snarl. “Fuck you. I don’t need your pity. I can handle myself fucking fine.”

You huffed. “I don’t pity you. That’s not what I meant.”

“If you fucking think--”

“I don’t!” you yelped, seeming to startle him. “Can you just listen for ten seconds? I’m trying to say something here.”

“Fucking obviously--”

“Bakugou, shut up!” you demanded. “This whole situation isn’t what you think it is, okay? I--I only made a bet with you in the first place because I thought you could jump rank, alright? When I say I’m helping you, I mean that I’m giving you insight because I firmly believe that you are capable of pulling this off. I....honestly, I wouldn’t have even made the damn bet if I didn’t actually want you to try this, because everyone knows you can do literally anything if you want it enough. Obviously you’re going to win.”

He was staring now, and it was all you could do not to shrink under the intensity of his gaze.

“So before you get your panties all in a twist over the fact that I used the word help, just remember that it doesn’t mean I think you’re incapable. I think you’re the most capable out of everyone here. And if you would stop being such a fussy baby for five frigging minutes, we could get back to retraining your habits so you could prove that you are!” you finished, huffing a little with the force of your anger. You forced your fists to uncurl from where they had balled up at your side.

Bakugou watched you carefully, unnervingly silent. You could feel his gaze almost like a touch where it brushed over you, and you fixed your eyes resolutely below his face, not wanting to look at him. You shifted uncomfortably against the cold plaster of the wall, waiting for the dam to break. Where was the screaming? When was it coming?

To your horror, a smirk pulled at the corner of Bakugou’s mouth instead.

“You think I’m the most capable, huh?” he asked. His arm shifted closer.

A flush washed through you with startling speed, heating your cheeks. “Oh my god. Shut up.”

His smirk widened into a predatory smile, baring a pointed canine. “It’s okay. You can own up to your little crush on me, nerd.”

You stared at him in shock. “How is that what you took away from this conversation? I didn’t say that. How in the world would you think that, when all you do is shove me against walls and act like a ginormous baby?”

“You’d prefer I shove you against walls and do something else?” he asked, a blonde eyebrow raising.

Your mind blanked out, fuzzy with static for a moment. You fought down a tiny, traitorous shiver. What the hell was going on in his brain? And how in the actual fuck was this the turn the conversation was taking? All you had wanted to do was get him out of his snit fit so you could get back on track to obtaining software engineers. How had he gotten so off track?

“That’s not what I--! I mean, you--!” you babbled uselessly, freezing up when he shifted his arm. He watched you with obvious relish.

“Ugh, I think I prefer you when you’re screaming at me,” you groused.

Bakugou’s smirk turned wicked, and he opened his mouth to say something you were certain you absolutely did not want to hear. Panicking, you brought a hand up and shoved it over his mouth.

“Whatever is about to come out of there, just keep it to yourself,” you commanded. “Now you’ve wasted enough time dicking around. We need to retrain your habits stat if you want to have enough time for everything to propagate in the model by the end of the month.”

A rough palm came up to yank your hand away from his face. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

You rolled your eyes. “Not if you want any chance of actually winning the bet.”

Bakugou scoffed, but to your surprise, he didn’t outright dismiss you. His eyes roved over you for a few seconds more, before he pronounced imperiously, “Tell me your big plan then, nerd. I’ll decide if it’s worth my damn time.”

You sighed. It was probably too much to hope that he’d suddenly be totally amenable to everything after your big speech. He wouldn’t be Bakugou Katsuki if he didn’t make everything such a production. At least he was still here and listening, despite the front he was putting up. And the weird conversational detour he’d attempted to take.

“I was thinking you need team training,” you said lightly. “To get in the habit of sticking close by to other heroes, and to practice evaluating situations more slowly.”

He regarded you consideringly, scarlet eyes flicking over your face. “You want me to train with a bunch of these b-list fucking idiots?”

You suppressed another eye roll. “Teammates. I want you to train with your teammates, Bakugou.”

He made a dismissive noise. “As if. I’m not going near any of those annoying little shits.”

You eyed him speculatively, a thought forming in the back of your mind. “....What about annoying little shits that will go near you?”

He scowled. “What?”

You gestured past him, to the window of a nearby training room, where two familiar figures were darting around the space, throwing up middle fingers at each other as often as attacks. “I have some people in mind.”

Bakugou glanced over his shoulder. Enough of his face was in view for you to see the thunderous expression that overtook over his features as he regarded his friends.

When he turned back to you, he was growling. “No. Absolutely fucking not.”

“Heya Blasty!” Kaminari chirped over his shoulder, pausing when you’d opened the door to the training room. “And stats girl! Come to let a real hero show you how it’s done?”

He shifted up out of a crouch, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Sweat had dried in it, standing some of it on end like he’d been hit with his own lightning. Actually, judging from the singe marks all over his clothes, maybe he had.

“Shut the fuck up before I blow your brains right outta your skull,” Bakugou’s sharp tone issued from somewhere over your shoulder. You could hear debris crunching heavily under his boots, like he was stomping a little.

Mina’s wild pink curls peeked out from behind an overturned car. “Do I hear the dulcet tones of my sunshine boy, Bakugou Katsuki?”

A telltale round of crackling went off behind you, accompanied by a snarl. Mina just laughed, sliding out fully from her hiding place, looking completely unthreatened. “Relax, Blasty. No one’s around to question your tough guy image.”

Bakugou made a dismissive noise. “The fuck do you know.”

Mina made an amused humming noise. Her dark eyes found yours and she smiled conspiratorially. You were struck again by the mental image of Bakugou in makeup and had to suppress a wild laugh.

“Hey, quit it with the fucking face over there,” Bakugou barked, seeming to detect that mutual amusement was being shared at his expense. He surged past you to put his entire palm over Mina’s face. Mina only laughed louder, her peals of bright laughter muffled slightly in his hand. “I’ll fucking end you.”

Kaminari dismissed the two of them, golden eyes flicking over to you. He smiled boyishly. “So, stats girl. What brings you and your angry pomeranian here?”

“Hey, fuck you, pikachu,” Bakugou growled. Then, “You fucking--raccoon--did you just lick me?”

You bit down on a smile, glancing between Mina and Kaminari. It was unexpectedly cute, the way Bakugou was clearly outmatched by his chaotic friends. They seemed supremely unconcerned with the fact that he might actually follow through on his threats, if the way Mina was making kissing noises into his hand was any indication.

“I thought I’d ask if you guys would be willing to train with Bakugou. He needs...adjustments,” you said, making sure to steer clear of the word help. You’d said your apology, and it seemed like Bakugou understood now, but you didn’t want to muddy the waters any on that point.

“Aww, and you came to little old us?” Kaminari asked Bakugou. His tone did nothing to disguise his obvious glee.

“Fuck you, I didn’t come to you--”

“I did,” you pronounced, deciding to help Bakugou out a little. You weren’t going to get anywhere if he spent the whole afternoon flinging insults and insisting he didn’t need anything from Mina and Kaminari. “He has two areas he wants to retrain on. This afternoon I was thinking you could run a couple simulations where he has to stick close to you two instead of going off on his own to do whatever he wants.”

“I don’t go off and do whatever, you damn nerd, I finish the fucking fight--”

“Do you guys think you might be able to spare an hour or two?” you asked loudly. “I’m sure he’d be willing to return the favor for your retraining.”

Kaminari looked positively gleeful, and Mina’s unusual eyes sparkled curiously from over Bakugou’s broad hand. To your surprise, Bakugou didn’t disagree.

“If I get to play villain, I’m in!” Mina agreed, finally shaking Bakugou’s hand off. “I’m gonna melt your legs off,” she told him.

He scoffed. “Good luck trying without any damn arms.”

She made a kissy face at him. “Gonna be hard to come at me if you have to stick to Denki the whole time.”

“Hey,” Kaminari protested indignantly, but he was drowned out by Bakugou descending into an incredibly explicit rant full of choice invectives. This seemed to prompt both Mina and Kaminari to let loose their own shit talk--Mina's comments in particular so obscene and inventive they would make a frat boy blush. It took some prompting and several minutes before the three of them were coherent enough to discuss the training again.

When you eventually managed to reroute them, they drew up the terms of their practice--Bakugou couldn’t go further than fifty feet from Kaminari for the duration of the exercise, and he’d be docked points for every possible opportunity he had where he might have assisted Kaminari and instead went in for the kill on his own. You agreed to code something up quick to layer over the training footage, to identify when Bakugou strayed too far from Kaminari, or went for a shot himself. To make it stick, Mina also insisted that at the end of the exercise, if Bakugou had managed to lose more than ten points, he had to submit to a punishment of Mina and Kaminari's choosing. You shuddered to think of what that was.

Once the details were fully hashed out, you found yourself being immediately shepherded out of the training room by Bakugou. He ushered you along impatiently like a dog corralling a wayward sheep.

“I’m gonna let loose on these fucking clowns--don’t need your quirkless ass getting in the way,” he groused as he led you. This drew you up short at the threshold, and you gaped at him, eyes darting up to catch his.

You...hadn’t told him you were quirkless. In fact, you were sure you hadn’t discussed that with anyone here, not even Miruko. The fact wasn’t something that bothered you, but it also wasn’t the sort of thing you brought up all too often. So....how did Bakugou know?

His scarlet gaze flicked almost lazily over you, and he seemed to catch the unspoken question. Rubble crackled under his boots as he shifted his weight to one hip. “What? You think you’re the only one who’s done their research, brat?”

You felt your heartbeat stutter and then pick up, just the slightest bit. Done...his research? What exactly did that mean? And if he meant what you thought he meant, what was it he’d been trying to learn about you? And why did he need to know?

“Bakugou, what--?” you began, but he cut you off by raising one large hand and shoving you through the door. He leaned out after you, and you caught a hint of that burnt caramel scent again. Your mind fogged a little at his proximity.

“I’m gonna win the fucking bet,” he pronounced slowly, scarlet gaze cutting into you, “and then you’re in for it, nerd.”

You gawped up at him, unable to help the way your mouth hung open. Was he threatening you? And if yes, why was he looking so unusually calm about it? Where was the rage, the snarling and the spitting like a wet cat? And why was he looking at you like that?

Bakugou answered none of your questions, tossing you a wicked smirk instead. Then he turned and slammed the door closed on you, leaving you alone with a swirl of hazy, half-formed concerns.

What....the fuck had just happened?

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia #bnha #katsuki bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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The difference between Taichi and Daisuke

Because Taichi and Daisuke both fit a rough model of “the brash shounen protagonist”, and because Daisuke, as Taichi’s junior, is intended to invoke him in certain ways, it’s easy to pin Daisuke as just being a slightly derivative version of Taichi in a different context. In actuality, as much as there are similarities between the two, there are other ways in which they’re actually polar opposites!

Although 02 is a sequel to Adventure, 02 is a very different kind of story, one that prioritizes being about relationships instead of Adventure’s simple self-actualization. This means that the characters that are at the center of the narrative are very different because the way each of them grow has very much to do with the story each wanted to tell -- and what each wanted to portray in their respective groups.

The most important thing to understand about both Taichi and Daisuke is that their surface demeanors are extremely misleading.

I discussed in my earlier meta about Taichi that, in fact, a lot of Taichi’s behavior comes from the fact he’s too chill about things -- he’s very easygoing and initially doesn’t seem very argumentative. That emphasis is on initially, because, nevertheless, Taichi has a tendency to try and take charge and push the group to do ambitious things, and when confronted about his ideas maybe not being so great, he starts arguing about it. Adventure episode 7 has him say something pretty condescending to Yamato in the course of it, and it’s only the first in what’s going to be a lot of these incidents. If you want to confront Taichi, he will fight you back.

While it leads to a certain degree of conflict (especially with Yamato) in the earlier parts of the series, it also means that, from the very get-go, Taichi is someone who has no problem making decisions on the fly and getting everyone to go forward with him. It’s also especially important in light of the Adventure group having been a bunch of kids from separate circles tossed together thanks to the circumstances; his ability to make quick and firm decisions helps them come together when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do things cohesively.

On the other hand, Daisuke, despite having an abrasive surface demeanor, is extremely deferential, and, well, kind of spends the early parts of 02 rather lacking in a spine (I say this with affection, I promise). Unlike Taichi, who often sometimes tried to push forward with whatever he wanted to do even if it was a bit on the dangerous side, Daisuke is so deferential to other people that, during these early episodes, he actually gets carried around by other people more than he can be said to pull others forward. It really doesn’t take much for everyone to override his opinions as long as they’re assertive enough.

Certainly, part of it is because Daisuke’s dealing with his seniors -- Daisuke is an extremely deferential person who’s craving validation, and so he looks up to his seniors and is constantly deferring to their judgment. But even the nine-year-old Iori is capable of getting Daisuke to shut down, just because Iori’s a very assertive person, and Daisuke shrinks so easily. Daisuke’s early-series tendency to lash out at others is largely very defensive, mainly because he’s lacking in validation and plays very poorly with how easily he feels threatened or how much he can’t tell whether he’s being made fun of. (Rather like an overly on-edge puppy, basically.)

But in any case, the important part is that as far as important decisions go, for this part of the series, Daisuke is not the one making them.

Still, what Taichi does have as a leader, he’s somewhat lacking in a certain other area: emotional sensitivity. A lot of his friction with others in the early parts of Adventure involves him stepping on someone’s toes (such as accidentally insulting someone with a well-intentioned but insensitive joke, or being callous with Koushirou’s computer), and when he’s confronted about it (usually by Yamato), actually gets defensive and starts fighting back about it, which leads to things like escalated conflicts with Taichi and Yamato violently punching each other out.

Even by the time of Our War Game!, Taichi is indicated to still have somewhat of a problem accepting responsibility for when he’s offended someone else or doing something wrong, and it’s pretty clearly a big reason he and Sora are still in a very bad fight during the events of the movie. Most of the time (at least during Adventure and Our War Game!), by the time Taichi’s realized he’s messed up, he’s already deep in hot water.

In comparison, initially brash as Daisuke can be, when things really come down to it, even the early episodes indicate that not only is he much more non-confrontational, he’s actually significantly more emotionally sensitive. In 02 episode 7 (one that’s still pretty high up in his phase of being rather too shallow when it comes to issues about Hikari), he does what even Our War Game! had indicated Taichi at being really bad at doing: immediately apologizes to Iori on the spot and takes back his statements that went over the line with Takeru. Even this early part of the series still has clear indications he’s more attuned to considering his friends’ feelings without being prompted to do so (in 02 episode 10, he immediately catches on that Miyako’s not feeling well, with nobody else having to point it out).

On top of that, as much as he has an occasional tendency to lash out angrily at people, unlike Taichi, Daisuke almost never resorts to ad hominem (insulting the other person directly); abrasive and argumentative as he may sometimes be, he isn’t the type to call people names or be condescending. This is a really important distinction that’s often overlooked (not only with fictional characters, but also often in real life in general); it’s the difference between “you’re stupid” (ad hominem) and “what you’re doing is stupid”. Daisuke very often does the latter because he’s defensive and quick to criticize, but it’s vanishingly rare he will ever go as far as to try invalidating a person, nor does he ever really look down on anyone; it’s an important key to understanding how he’s actually the type to support and respect others even despite his tendency to get argumentative.

Daisuke having the Digimentals of Courage and Friendship points him towards Taichi and Yamato, and it’s important to not neglect that latter part -- as much as Daisuke’s surface traits and character design beg you to think more of Taichi, Daisuke’s tendency to be more emotionally sensitive and constantly consider the feelings of his friends is much like Yamato’s, especially since Yamato also had a tendency to have a somewhat abrasive exterior but actually be emotionally passionate about those he cared about. As a result, Daisuke never, ever gets in a fight with anyone to remotely the same violent and anger-filled degree Taichi and Yamato would get in back in Adventure, because even when he gets kind of close in 02 episode 11, he ultimately ends up sidetracked by thinking seriously about what his seniors have to say about friendship and trying to figure out what Takeru’s feelings are that it defuses very quickly. In the end, Daisuke’s just too conscientious about other people’s feelings to let it get that far.

The first time Taichi is properly recognized as the Adventure group’s “leader” is in Adventure episode 28, and the word is used directly. Taichi even initially denies it, before everyone brings proof in the form of pointing out that he was the one capable of bringing them all together when they’d split apart, and Taichi later demonstrates his abilities as a leader himself when he properly delegates Koushirou as the one to solve the card puzzle. Everyone states that they trust him as the leader, and defer to his judgment in this situation; for the rest of the series, the group continues to acknowledge him as someone who eventually calls the shots and makes the major decisions over what the group will do next.

No equivalent to this scene exists in 02. In fact, Daisuke is not the leader of the 02 group in the same way Taichi is the leader of the Adventure group, and, to push it further, I would even go as far as saying that the 02 group does not have a leader at all.

Understanding why the 02 group doesn’t have a leader, or, more accurately, doesn’t really need one, has to do with the fact that the 02 group has a very different relationship with each other than the Adventure group does. Taichi was responsible for holding the entire Adventure group together and organizing them because they were liable to fall apart without someone as the lynchpin, but the 02 group started off as a social circle before they were a fighting group, and therefore will stick together as friends even if nobody’s holding them together per se. This leads to 02 episode 19 featuring them deciding to work independently to the point Daisuke gets left behind -- compare the equivalent episode in Adventure and how Taichi is treated, and it’s pretty clear Daisuke doesn’t actually have a very commanding role in the group. (You can think of it as an inverted version of the Adventure group’s relationship with socialization vs. fighting coordination; the Adventure group figured out how to fight together fairly quickly but fell apart as soon as Taichi was gone, whereas the 02 group is predisposed to hang out together as friends but takes much longer to learn to coordinate from a fighting perspective.)

Even after Daisuke starts to become more assertive, however, he still doesn’t always take an active role in terms of coordinating or calling the shots -- the most prominent example being the Giga House incident in 02 episodes 28-29, in which he doesn’t mind deferring to the others as they all strategize. It’s a huge contrast against the Adventure group (which was rather big and in need of someone to organize such disparate people) deferring to Taichi to make the final calls and to lay down the goals for them to follow, whereas Daisuke can make decisions or suggestions, but is much more liable to defer to his friends’ ideas or what they want to do if they happen to have any better suggestions. Daisuke doesn’t have the bird’s-eye tactician abilities Taichi has nor his natural charisma, but he shows all signs of being well aware of this; when the 02 group makes a major decision, it’s always one they make together, and although Daisuke eventually does gain a certain sense of independent will, he still puts extremely high value into what his friends think about the situation before going forward with it. As much as Daisuke was certainly the most influential in getting the group to reach out to Ken, it's ultimately the rest of the group that chooses to find their own way to reach out to him, each on their own terms -- Miyako in 02 episode 25, Hikari in 02 episode 32, Takeru in 02 episode 37, and Iori in 02 episode 38 -- and while Daisuke did originally have a clear intention to reach out to Ken regardless of what the others thought, he still very much did actively bid and hope for the others to get along with him in their own ways (see: 02 episode 30).

(This also has the side effect that, as much as Daisuke’s surface demeanor might suggest that everything would be a reckless disaster with him around, the fact that he takes his friends’ stances on the situation so heavily in regard means that he’s actually less likely to do something catastrophically stupid in a major situation, as long as his friends are sufficiently able to keep him in check.)

In the course of Adventure, the skill that Taichi begins to hone is “becoming a leader” in every sense of it -- organizing others, bringing them together, and learning to be ever so slightly less impulsive by thinking through his decisions a bit more instead of leaning on the first thing that comes to his head. The Adventure group, twice on the verge of falling apart, is ultimately brought back together under his lead, and it’s his charisma that allows all of them to trust him and what he wants to do.

It’s not hard to see why; he has qualities for it that come to him naturally, in that he treats people equally and without prejudice, and is a soccer captain-like tactician who is capable of taking a bird’s eye view of the situation and organizing things around them. As demonstrated in Adventure episodes 16 and 28, he’s good at delegating roles when people need suitable guidance.

Daisuke, on the other hand, has a very different specialty: emotional positivity and support. Once he starts shedding the defensive abrasiveness he’d had a tendency to fall into during the first half of the series, his true capacity for being a very pure-hearted, emotionally sensitive person who puts the well-being of his friends first and foremost before anything else comes through. This means he’s the member of the group who’s the most brimming with “positivity” and “the will to push forward”, especially over the course of the second half of 02 in which things are taking a larger and larger psychological toll on the group. Again, the 02 group doesn’t actually have a true “leader”, and many of those traits Taichi has that Daisuke lacks ultimately have to be substituted by some of the other members in the group, but Daisuke’s main skill is in “leading the charge” with emotional support -- and that’s why he ends up often being the one most proactively pulling them forward (and, on a meta level, is why he’s the main protagonist even if the story is arguably more about Ken).

Of course, Taichi and Daisuke do end up having traces of the others’ strengths -- Taichi ultimately comes around to being more emotionally sensitive and handling others maturely (especially in 02), while Daisuke receiving a proper support group and validation from his friends allows himself to show the assertiveness he’d struggled to show in the first half. But ultimately, their strengths are their own, and tailored very well to the dynamics of the particular groups they’re affiliated with.

Once eight years have passed since 02, we can now see this disparity in personality to the point it’s started having major differences in their future paths. Taichi’s in the middle of an existential crisis, drifting away from a lot of his friends and not sure what to do with his life, whereas not only is Daisuke cheerfully hanging out with his friends like 02 was only yesterday, he’s very clearly aware of what he wants to do with his life (after all, he’s had that very clear goal since he was in elementary school).

In regards to why Daisuke’s not having nearly as many problems with his career path: it’s because Daisuke’s satisfied with the low hanging fruit.

Daisuke has always admired Taichi ever since they were both tiny kids, and it’s easy to see why, given Daisuke’s deficiencies prior to the start of 02 -- being a natural leader, charismatic, and extremely assertive, Taichi very easily presented an ideal image of an idol for Daisuke to aspire to. Kizuna makes it clear that Daisuke is just as senior-adoring and Taichi-adoring as he was back in 02; he has a lot of faith in his seniors to be able to pull amazing and great things off.

Daisuke himself, meanwhile, is happy with only the idea of running a ramen shop, and is practically playing the whole thing by ear without thinking of it too hard. While Taichi hasn’t really said anything about the matter, it’s pretty easy to believe that there is no way in hell Taichi would be satisfied with something like that as a career; he’s always been the ambitious type who wants to do big things, and the fact he’s taking political science and economics at a major university (if it’s anything like the real uni, it’s not easy to get into!) indicates that, even if he doesn’t know exactly what, he certainly would rather do something bigger and more influential with his life.

But the drama CD provides a lot of insight into Daisuke’s current attitude regarding the whole ramen shop thing, and he’s rather grounded about it all, admitting that he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing and being very quick to admit his own faults. I mentioned earlier that Daisuke is actually good at taking responsibility for his own failings, and it’s likely his lack of ambition stems from the fact that he simply doesn’t consider himself cut out for huge, amazing things to begin with. But that doesn’t matter to him, because he’s happy with simple things, and, more importantly, he’s happy as long as he can continue to support his friends -- and receive support from them in return. Said drama CD includes him relating a long narrative about how, after initially being unsure of what to do, he took all of the little pieces of information and suggestions he got from his friends extremely seriously, even when they didn’t think much of what they were doing or saying at the time -- in short, Daisuke’s life really does involve appreciating and loving his friends.

This is important to consider in light of the fact that the 02 group is cut out for a very different future from their seniors’ -- again, look at the difference between Taichi’s eventual future of “history-making diplomat” and Daisuke’s of “ramen shop owner”. Even when you take into account the whole success story of his shop becoming a chain (which, knowing him, may well have been by accident), as far as world-shattering impact goes, the most influence Daisuke is ever going to have with that career is in regards to food. But this ties into the fact that Daisuke really is that kind of person, someone who’s more community-oriented and sensitive about bringing happiness to the people around him more than he’s capable of aiming for the abstract, whereas Taichi is the kind of person who is much more ambitious and able to enact larger impact over more usually disparate groups of people, even if it means not necessarily having the same type of support group Daisuke has.

And, on a larger scale, it ties into the reason why 02 group is so easily tied at the hip despite their seniors so clearly drifting apart -- it’s baked into the difference between their dynamic and their seniors’ dynamic. The Adventure group is comprised of the kind of people who shoot for individual achievement and self-affirmation over all else, but the 02 group is somewhat dependent on each other for support. As I’ve said before in the relevant meta, this isn’t fundamentally a bad thing -- it ties more into how they choose to live and what they want to prioritize, and as far as the 02 group goes, Daisuke’s priority of mutually supporting his friends ties into the overall group’s priority of valuing their relationships to each other over necessarily shooting for high individual achievement, and finding their own happiness that way.

It’s also interesting to think about why Taichi has his goggles back by the beginning of the movie, meaning that, at some point, Daisuke gave them back to him and started wearing the orange sunglasses we see him with for its duration. Of course, Taichi having the goggles is for meta reasons, since there’s a lot of symbolism associated with Adventure itself and Taichi’s past association with it, as well as its own connection to his past...

But it’s also interesting to consider the fact that even as early as 2003, Daisuke was considering passing the goggles on to someone else. (They’ll eventually end up owned by his own son, but you can imagine the trail of who passed it to whom at what time for yourself.) The same drama CD track implies heavily that Daisuke initially wore his own pair of goggles specifically for the sake of emulating Taichi as “the person who had the power to protect everyone”. Taichi passing his own pair onto him was proof that Daisuke was now worthy of accepting that power and becoming capable of his own courage.

Yet by 2003, Daisuke already considered himself confident enough in said abilities to be willing to pass them onto someone else. You can imagine the circumstances of why he decided to give them back to Taichi for the time being (perhaps he noticed Taichi slipping into an existential crisis?), but the point is that while the goggles still have symbolic meaning, Daisuke’s capable of carving his own path and figuring out what he wants to do without needing to use the exact same thing Taichi did. Instead of chasing after someone else for it, he managed to find his own strengths within himself, and thus, ends up finding happiness in a very different way than Taichi does.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #yagami taichi #motomiya daisuke #taichi yagami #daisuke motomiya #shihameta

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iwajima · 4 years ago

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poor little baby. (kuroo tetsurou x f!reader)

KINKTOBER 2020 DAY 1

summary: ever since kuroo saw you talk and get close with his colleague at a dinner event, he’s been teasing and edging you for a week.

warnings: smut, edging, slight!teasing & jealousy

status/word count: unedited / 2.2k

a/n: idk why I made kuroo such a dick, i’m sorry- also i kinda went overboard with this one

Neither of you wanted to go to Kuroo’s company’s dinner event, you both would rather spend time alone with each other. Your expectations for a boring event was rather the opposite, when you found yourself in an interesting and long conversation about art with Kuroo’s colleague. You found commonality through it and found out he too had a hobby of painting.

Kuroo shot daggers towards the man from afar. However, they went unnoticed. Unfortunately, he was stuck with his boss and a couple of other people who were talking about how the women in the company were rather eye-pleasing. Quite unprofessional and disgusting. His jaw clenched when he sees you both laugh. The way you attentively listened and looked at him with big eyes made him regret coming to this place. Had you both stayed home, he probably would be drilling you into the sheets and make you cum over and over for him. The thought of the things he’d do to you sent his blood down to his cock, making him more uncomfortable.

It was his final straw when the man placed a hand onto your shoulder as you both laugh at something that was probably stupid. He marched towards you, ignoring the questioning look and presence of his colleague.

“Kuroo-san! Care to join us? y/n here was talking about her embarrassing high school experiences.” He did it again. He placed his hand on your shoulder when he referred to you. He knew you were his girlfriend, it was like he was taunting him.

“Is that so?” He said in the most bitter voice.

“Tetsurou, are you okay? You seem tense.” You say when he remains silent. His stare at his oblivious colleague was broken when you softly reached for his hand.

“We’re going leaving, sweetie.” He dragged you home without saying any formal goodbyes, which made you worry for him.

Everything went by so fast. First you were in the silent car and now you’re against his apartment wall, cheek pressed on the cold surface with his knee between your thighs. You bit your lip, you knew what was going to happen and what he was going to do to you. Your immediate thought was that he was going to fuck you into oblivion but your jaw dropped at his words.

“Did you enjoy talking to Takuto for an hour, did you enjoy flirting with him hm? Guess what baby, you’re not going to cum anytime soon. How does two weeks sound?” He sneered into your ear, making you shudder at the tone of his voice.

“Tetsuro-”

“Kuroo-san.” He cut you off, brushing your hair off your shoulder to place soft kisses along it.

You let out a breath when he reaches the shell of your ear and leaves a lick. Your legs wanted to give out but tried your best preventing it when he pressed his knee against your core, making your eyes flutter shut.

“K-kuroo-san… Please, I promise I wasn’t flirting. We were just having a friendly conversation.” You tried to calm him down but that only made him even more mad.

He turned you around before tossing you over his shoulder. You yelp, however you didn’t put up much of a fight. When he reaches your shared bedroom, he tosses you onto the bed. He wasted no time in pulling down your bra and dress strap, mouth immediately finding itself onto your sensitive nipple. His rough hand slid from the valley of your breasts to your other shoulder before removing the straps too and fondling with your left tit.

You were so lost from the feeling that you did even notice him snaking his hand down over your panties, finger moving up and down your slit. He smirked at your moans, thinking about how you were going to beg him to touch you again when he leaves you dry and high.

Your nipple was tender after him sucking on it for so long. He moves to your other and giving it the same treatment as his left hand kneads your free boob. You felt like you could cum just from your breasts being stimulated. Over the years, Kuroo has trained your body to be responsive to him whenever he touches you. As a result, certain areas became very sensitive that even a slight graze would make you jump.

“Look at my poor baby, squirming under me, does it really feel that good?” he cooed into your ear, making your eyes roll back. You were so wet, he could feel your panties dampening as time went by.

You nod even though he could barely see you. He pressed his hand to your core,to which your hips automatically grinded against it in hopes to find friction. Kuroo knew you were close because of how your shaky sighs. The wetness began to transfer onto his hand, he wanted nothing more than to indulge in your juices but you needed to be taught a lesson.

He suddenly gets up and walks out the room like nothing had happened. You let out a quiet whimper, seeing his silhouette leave. Your eyes were wide in the pitch black room, the only source of light was the living room light. You mentally cursed yourself, letting yourself fall back down onto your bed. You knew Takuto’s touches were questionable but you were such a laid back person, you thought they just had friendly intent.

The following days felt excruciating. The day after, Kuroo returns home before you. When you entered your apartment, Kuroo was laid back on the couch, book in hand with his legs spread open. Your eyes immediately drink in his semi-naked figure as you think about sinful thoughts. You try to get close to him, in hopes to coax him into fucking you but he brushes you off and teases you about how horny you are. Of course that was his fault.

Attempt two, you wore his favourite lingerie set he had bought you for your birthday. The red lace complemented your skin as it was tightly wrapped around your body. Upon hearing his footsteps get louder, you sink to your knees, catching him by surprise at your position when he opens the door. His eyes widened before returning to their half-lidded state as a smirk formed on his lips. He places his hand on top of your head, stroking your hair before letting them fall onto your cheek. You eagerly pressed your cheek against his palm, enjoying the feeling of his harm hand.

“Welcome home Kuroo-san.” You purred.

He smiles before taking his shoes off and proceeding towards the kitchen. He ignored you. You stare at your front door, motionless in shock. Was he still upset? Your face heats up as you get up from the floor. He casually removes his blazer, before tossing it aside and sitting on the soft cushions. He lets out a moan that you know was on purpose, yet it still managed to make you feel flustered. Instead of being upset, his lack of attention made you angry. You just wanted his touch, and for him to make you feel good like how he always does.

By the time it was your sixth attempt of trying to get him to fuck you, you were exhausted and extremely needy. Each night you’d push yourself against him, trying to feel at least his warmth, but he’d just have his back facing you. You wanted to cry by how frustrated you were, he was being completely unreasonable. You didn’t even touch yourself because you know it wasn’t the same as Kuroo pleasuring you.

“Kuroo-san please… please just fuck me” You whine.

When he doesn’t respond, you turn the other way, deciding to sleep instead, rather than continuously beg for him. You were taken by surprise when he changes your position and spreads your legs. You couldn’t see him, but you know he has a satisfied look on his face as he hovers over you.

“Seeing you needy like this makes me want to fuck you so hard.” He presses his lips against yours, you sighed because this was what you were longing for.

“I’d make you my cumdump but you were being such a bad girl, this is your punishment.” He whispers into your ear.

You bite your lip when he presses his bulge against your core. Your hips automatically grinded itself against his, making him chuckle in amusement by your eagerness. He pushes his sweats off before pulling off your oversized shirt, exposing you to the cool air. You were only in your undergarment, the cold making your skin get goosebumps. However, they soon disappeared when Kuroo encases you in warmth.

The feeling of his hard cock against your thigh made you shudder. You excitedly wrapped your legs around his waist, wanting him to just shove his dick into your pussy, not caring about the lack of prep. His thumb circles your clit, making you moan his name. His forefinger and ring finger spreads your lips as his middle spreads your arousal up and down your slit and occasionally ghosting over your clit. He loved the way that you were desperately holding onto his shoulders.

His name falls from your lips once more when he inserts a finger into your core. The small stretch was enough to make your head go fuzzy. He continues to add two more, coaxing your pussy release more of your juices so he could shove his throbbing cock into your cunt.

His tongue swirls around your nipple, wetting it before sucking and biting onto it. Your voice echoed throughout the apartment, your neighbours above and below could definitely hear you. The sounds were lewd, from the sound of him sucking your tit to him relentlessly fucking his fingers into you.

Euphoria was all that you felt. The feeling grew greater when he replaces his fingers with his cock, pushing the head into your tight hole. You hug him closer when he slowly stretches your poor pussy out. After not being fucked and being intensely horny for a week, you were extremely sensitive. You could feel everything, from every inch of his cock to his vein that was on the side of his length.

He started off with a slow pace, making you want to die. You wanted him to thrust into you hard and fast but you needed to be patient for now. He only just began, but you were already completely fucked out. The feeling of his skin dragging along your insides drove you insane. The stretch was mouth watering, you practically drooled at the thought of your pussy being fucked open.

“You’re being such a good girl for me y/n, taking my fat cock like this.” He whispers.

“Kuroo, please- more!” You whine, digging your heels into his lower back to make him go deeper.

He simply complies, picking up his pace and slamming his hips against yours. The sound of skin slapping only aided you towards your release. He could feel you clench around him, desperately trying to suck in his cock and keep it there. You were so wet that it was starting to run down, soaking the sheets and his thighs.

“Fuck! I’m so close-” You wailed.

“I know baby.” He kisses you deeply, as his thrusts grow more sloppy.

Your moans grow louder and your pussy gets tighter. You were right there, but you were left dumbfounded when he pulled out. He strokes his cock rapidly before shooting his cum onto your pussy, rubbing it all over with his tip, making a mess of you. He lets out a grunt as he reaches the peak of his release, spraying a few more spurts. He leaves a kiss on your cheek before getting up and leaving the room once again.

Tears begin to well up, you’re left on the edge once again. Kuroo returns with a damp cloth. When he turns the lights on and sees you on your side, sobbing. Kuroo immediately rushes to your side, trying to make you face him but you resist.

“Baby, hey-” His face was covered in worry and voice dripping with concern.

“Just leave me alone Tetsurou.” Your broken voice made him regret doing that to you.

He silently places himself behind you, wrapping an arm around your waist, pulling you close before kissing your shoulder. He nuzzles himself into the crook of your neck, spreading your legs apart. He takes the damp towel and cleans his cum off of your pussy and thighs, tossing it away when you’re clean. A finger circles itself around your clit, making you bite your lip because you didn’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing that it felt good.

“I’m so sorry y/n. I was a dick. I should’ve stopped the stupid act sooner, will you forgive me?”

You didn’t respond, instead you spread your legs wider for him, to give him more access to fiddle with your cunt. He smiles and leaves wet kisses on your neck. You were too exhausted to even push him away or stop him, so you let him fuck your cunt with his fingers. He truly did sound sorry, his voice was so worried it made you want to smile and kiss him feverishly.

It wasn’t long until you were clamping down around his digits, letting out the sweetest moans. It was the hardest you ever came before, all due to the week long teasing and edging. When he feels you relax, he removes his fingers before inserting them into his mouth, sucking them clean. It made you blush and sent butterflies in your stomach. He hovers above you, turning you to face him.

You look up at him with sad eyes and pouty lips. He smiles before leaving multiple pecks around your face making you giggle as you try to make him stop.

“Hey, I really am sorry. I was being so fucking unreasonable, I don’t even know why I dragged it on for so long or even did that in the first place. I let my insecurity get the best of me, you know I love you right?” He lowers himself and lays on top of you, transferring his heat to your body.

“Yes, Tetsurou. Please don’t tease me for that long ever again or I'm going to leave you.” He immediately raises his head to look at you with a scared expression. You laugh, running your hands through his hair.

“You’re not being serious right...?” He asks.

“Of course not, idiot. Now go turn off the light, I'm tired.”

#haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu thirsts #haikyuu imagines #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo smut #kuroo tetsurou smut #haikyuu kinktober #kinktober hq

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pucksnsticksnhockeyboys · 4 years ago

Text

all my focus on you

summary: all of your focus is on Jake, and yet you can’t see that he loves you.

warnings: mentions of injury

word count: 3.2k

note from the writer: this is the first thing I've posted in months and I really like how it turned out. let me know what you think! also I didn’t edit it so sorry ahead of time.

“Who’s Tuna?”

You had heard the nickname tossed around a lot. At least, you were pretty sure it was a nickname. You were new to the world of hockey, having only really paid attention to the sport in the past few months as a result of your roommate, Jess, dating professional player Brock Boeser. Through him, you had met Elias, Quinn, Thatcher, Troy, and a whole assortment of others. But, Tuna still remained a mystery to you. Apparently, he was going to be joining your group out to the bar that night.

“You’ll like him.” Brock declared, giving you the same response he always did whenever you asked, while Elias’ smile turned the special kind of mischievous that only he could ever pull off. You didn’t have the chance to question how he could have been so certain, because Jess called your name and insisted that you start getting ready to go.

You’d never, not once in a million years, admit it that Brock was right.

You did like ‘Tuna’. A lot more than you probably should have. He was fun and outgoing from the moment Brock introduced you to him at the bar. Your heart stopped in your chest when you realized that Tuna was Jake Virtanen, your secret hockey crush. When Jess started seeing Brock, she showed you the entire Canucks roster. Jake’s piercing blue eyes struck out to you from the moment you saw his picture, but other than a ‘oh he’s cute’ and a mental note of his name and number, you kept quiet.

Now, he was standing before you, handing extended for you to shake with a dazzling smile that nearly made you forget your own name.

“I’m Jake.” He said brightly, and you offered your own smile in return as you slipped your hand into his meekly. Your face warmed at his touch, and if you possessed the ability to look away from Jake, you would have seen the shit-eating grin Brock wore. But you couldn’t, and instead you saw the way Jake’s gaze stayed on you, his own cheeks turning red. “What’re you drinking? I’m buying tonight.”

And thus, an amazing friendship grew. Which, for whatever reason, Brock seemed to loathe.

He was insistent that there was something more between you and Jake, which you vehemently denied, and each time your cheeks would burn brightly. It wasn’t as if you didn’t want anything more with Jake, in the few months that you had gotten to know him, he had become one of your closest friends and the person you told everything too.

And your secret hockey crush turned into full blown feelings. Most of your time was spent with him, even if you felt nothing but butterflies in your stomach whenever he was near. Only a few short months after meeting him, you couldn’t imagine your life without him. He was a constant presence in your life, as sure as you were that the sun would rise, you knew that Jake would be there for you.

With a schedule as crazy as a professional athlete’s, you jumped on any opportunity to spend time with Jake and any of the guys on the team, who all quickly became good friends of yours, along with their partners. Currently, you were at a diner, getting a quick lunch with Jake, Petey, and Brock, the two blondes sharing a side of the booth opposite of you.

Jake was in the middle of animatedly telling a story, and you watched with your undivided attention. Well, nearly undivided, since he had swung an arm around your shoulders shortly after sitting down and the simple contact had your heart beating like crazy. Petey had sent you no less than three shit-eating grins, and Brock was openly chuckling at how flustered you were. You were just thankful Jake was as oblivious as he was.

“You’re coming to the game tonight, right?” Jake asked, jostling you with the arm that was around his shouler to get your attention as soon as he finished his story. You nodded, taking a sip of your drink to cover up the fact that you had been openly staring at him as he spoke. “Perfect. Alright, I’ve got to run. I’m supposed to meet with my nutritionist.”

There was a chorus of ‘goodbyes’ as he tossed some cash on the table, enough to cover both his bill and yours, since he always insisted on paying for you. Before he could slide out of the booth, though, he pressed a quick kiss to your temple, an innocent act that had your heart doing cartwheels. You avoided Petey and Brock’s gazes, trying to will the heat in your cheeks away. It was only when the bell chimed on the door signalling that Jake had left, did someone speak up.

“Oh, come on!” Brock groaned, and you shot him a curious look. He ignored you, turning to face Elias, who was grinning in amusement. “I’m just going to tell her. It’s painful at this point.”

“Tell me what?” You question, nerves seeping into you, watching Elias shrug and grin wider. Instantly, your mind thought about the worst, like someone was getting traded or something similar, but nothing could have prepared you for what Brock said next.

“Jake is in love with you.”

“What? No, he’s not.” You spluttered, eyes wide and cheeks warm. Brock rolled his eyes at you, a scoff leaving his lips as if he thought his teammate’s apparent affection was obvious.

“He talks about you all the time.” Petey offered, and you fell silent. Elias wasn’t one to mess around with something like that. Sure, he made sly comments that had you laughing everytime, but this was different.

“He thinks you could never like him back, so we have to listen to him complain about it.” Brock’s tone was serious, but you could hear the subtle chirp. You pursed your lips, dropping your focus onto your plate to avoid meeting either of their gazes.

“You guys are ridiculous.” You settled on saying, though just because you dropped the conversation, it didn’t mean that you stopped thinking about it.

Even hours later as you were walking through the doors of the arena, you were still thinking about it. Though, you were quickly distracted as Jess led you through the crowd to find your seats and watch warm-ups.

Despite your inner turmoil, the Virtanen jersey felt right on your shoulders, now a regular part of your wardrobe. When Jake had found out that you had no idea about hockey, he had bought you the number eighteen Canucks sweater, along with tickets to just about every home game, claiming you were his good luck charm. When he gave you his jersey, he stated that it was to make your hockey experience complete—thought now you weren’t so sure.

Brock’s words from earlier in the day were still bouncing in your head. You had a hard time believing they were true, but then you thought over nearly every interaction you had with Jake. They all had a common theme—Jake was always looking at you with a softness to his eyes that you had, at the time, chaked up to his friendliness. Now, thinking back, you recognized the look. It was the same look you gave him.

A look of utter adoration and total love.

You settled into your seat to watch the game with a wide smile on your face, borderline giddy with the conclusion you had come to. You decided that after the game, when you would be going back to Jake’s for a movie night and a sleepover, a tradition that had been established after celebrating a win too hard one night and you spent the night at his place, and at the following brunch it was decided his guest room would be yours after any home games. Though, if you played your cards right, you wouldn’t be sleeping in the guest room.

Your happiness only lasted until halfway through the first period, and quickly dread formed in the pit of your stomach. The game was back and forth, neither team able to keep possession of the puck for very long. Petey scored first, and you cheered loudly, but clamped your mouth shut when a player on the opposite team—you couldn’t see a name on his jersey, and even so, you didn’t pay attention to any hockey team outside of Vancouver—started shoving Jake. Of course, Jake was running his mouth and shoving back, and it was only when a ref skated between the two players did you let out a breath of relief you hadn’t realized you were holding.

Apparently, Jake pissed off the other team a lot more than you originally thought.

You would have sworn he was being targeted. Everytime he was on the ice, it seemed, that an opposing player would check him into the boards. He wad getting hit hard from all angles, he got tripped twice but only drew a penalty on one—and if you screamed bullshit! at the ref, then who would have blamed you—and got into a fight late in the second after an opposing player shoved into Thatcher.

It was the third period when things really went awry.

It was the final minutes of the period, Vancouver up by one, thanks to Bo’s goal at the end of the second. The Canucks were fighting to hold on, maybe score an extra point to cement their victory, while the other team was getting desperate. And they were playing dirty, too.

You didn’t really register the gasp that fell from your lips as some unknown opponent slammed Jake into the boards, head on, with clear intent to injure him. You did remember jumping to your feet, as if that would make everything better.

Jess, who you hadn’t really acknowledged was sitting next to you in your stress, gripped your arm tightly. You watched in horror as Jake stayed down, hands holding his head as the athletic trainer jogged across the ice with the assistance of Troy Stetcher. You couldn’t tear your gaze away from Jake, but if you could, you would have seen Brock looking worriedly from his injured teammate to where he knew you were in the stands.

It felt like years later when Jake finally stood, and while leaning heavily on his trainer and Troy, he went down the tunnel. You sat down stifly into your seat, leg bouncing in nerves and fingers tapping an unknown pattern as you anxiously waited for the game to be over so you could check on Jake.

Five minute major, game misconduct.

Good, you thought, but you kept your mouth clamped shut as nausea swirl in your stomach. Distantly, you heard Jess say that the opposing player was most likely going to get fined for his actions. You knew hockey was a hard hitting sport, but that was terrible. You had seen Jake hurt before, blocked shots, highsticks, and the sorts—but not once had it taken him that long to get back up.

You couldn’t focus on the rest of the game, you were pretty sure that at some point Quinn had scored, but eventually Jess was leading you down to the tunnel where had to meet the other players. Holly, Bo’s wife, had tried to assure you that Jake would be fine the moment she saw you.

“He’s got a thick skull.” She tried to lighten the mood, but all you could muster was a weak smile and a laugh that sounded forced and foriegn to even your own ears. You listened to the other wives and girlfriends of players chatter about who knows what—certainly not you, you were staring at the door you knew the boys emerged from—for minutes. The girls knew you, how you were always around Jake, acting like a couple but not once taking that extra step, so they knew how stressed you were, waiting for the verdict.

Elias was the first one to exit the room, heading straight to you with a tiny, reassuring, smile on his face. Your arms were crossed tightly across your body, an indicator of just how uncomfortable you were in the moment.

“He’s fine. He’ll be out in a few minutes.” He told you quietly. Though it helped calmed you slightly, you couldn’t get the imagine of him laying on the ice out of your head. You nodded your head in thanks, before he patted your shoulder comfortingly and departed. Quinn was next out, shooting you a pitiful smile. Tanev, Toffoli, and Edler all came out before finally, the brunette you had been waiting for emerged with Brock at his side.

He looked terrible, his tie was loose around his neck, hair a mess from the quick post-game shower he had just taken. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked so tired that your heart clenched in your chest.

“How are you?” You asked quietly once he stopped before you. Jess and Brock left to give you some privacy, but you didn’t notice in the slightest. Your focus was on Jake—like it always was.

“A little beat up, nothing I can’t handle.” He waved off his injured like it was nothing. You pouted for a moment, knowing he was playing down the severity of it. He seemed to sense your disbelief, because he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and pulled you into his chest. You sank into the embrace, reciprocating the hug with a deep sigh.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again.” You threatened into the fabric of his suit, wrapping your arms tiger around his middle. He chuckled lowly, holding you just as tight in return. Your heart was thundering in your chest, your stomach a lightning storm of nerves.

“I’ll try not to.” He assured you quietly, dropping a kiss to top of your head. You thought back to your decision before the game, how you were going to confront both his feelings and yours, and decided that it could wait just a little bit longer.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” You mumbled, pulling away sightly. He nodded and you, and you were pleasantly surprised as he slipped his hand into yours, threading your fingers together, as you headed in the direction of his car.

You insisted on driving, and Jake only protested slightly. The ride was quiet, and you could tell something was bothering him, but chose to stay quiet and let him come to you when he was ready. Or at least until you got back to his home. Instead, you listened to his music play softly from the car as you weaved through the streets of Vancouver, taking the familiar path to Jake’s place.

When you finally arrived, he slipped into his bedroom to change into something more comfortable, and you made yourself comfortable on his couch. When he returned, he was in a Canucks hoodie and pair of grey sweats, and instead of sitting next to you on the couch, he laid across it so his head was in your lap. Instantly, your hand threaded though his hair and you scratched at his scalp, something you knew he loved. His eyes fluttered shut at the action, and he hummed contentedly.

“You scared me tonight.” You said softly after a moment. You tried to will away the tears that welled up in your eyes, remembering how it felt to see him laying on the ice, injured. It tore you in two, you had never felt more sick to your stomach at a sight than you did when he was down.

“I know.” He sighed queitly in response. Not trusting yourself to keep your voice steady, you chose not to respond right away. He reached a hand up, grabbing yours out of his hair and pressing a kiss to your palm, before threading your fingers through his and resting it on his chest.

And then, you couldn’t stop the words from tumbling past your lips—

“I love you too much to see you get hurt like that.” You hated how your voice cracked, and most of all you hated how you confessed your feelings. You wanted to do so during a happy moment, one shared with smiles and he’d tell you he felt the same, but no, you were holding back tears on his couch as he tensed, your words registering.

“What?” He questioned, sitting up abruptly. You would have thought that you had screwed everything up, if it weren’t for the near-death grip he had on your hand. Still, you couldn’t meet his gaze, and instead focused on the coffee table. Gently, with his free hand, he cupped your jaw, turning so you were facing him. It was then that you realized that you were crying, silent tear tracks running down your cheeks that he brushed away carefully as he studied your face intently. “What did you just say?”

“I love you.” You choked out, voice tight. “And I’m new to the hockey thing, so I’m not used to seeing hits like that and I—”

Your ramblings were cut short as Jake surged forward, connecting your lips to his. It took you a moment to react, but your free hand eventually moved to the back of his neck, your other still gripped in yours. The kiss wasn’t heated, but loaded with so much passion and emotion it made your head swirl. Months of casual flirting and innocent touches built to this moment, and you would be lying if you said you were aware of how long you actually were pressed against him.

Eventually, he did pull back, a wide and dopey grin on his face. You smiled just as brightly, the hand on the back of his neck toying slightly with the strands of hair there. Chasing your lips for a few quick pecks that your readily complied with.

“I love you, too.” He hummed, seemingly unable to tear his focus from you. You didn’t mind, not one bit, considering he had you attention from the moment you had met.

“I know.” You grinned, watching as his brows pull together in confusion, a silent question and urge for you to elaborate. With a giggle, you explained. “Brock told me.”

“Of course he did.” Jake groaned, tipping his head back. You chuckled at his dramatics, looking at him with the same fond look you always did. Only this time, you didn’t have to worry about him finding out. Your hand moved from behind his head to his jaw, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. You smiled as he brought his attenton back to you, and you leaned forward to press a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. “You know, he’s been trying to set me up with you this entire time.”

“Yeah, he told me that I’d like you the night we met. He and Petey were planning this.” You explained, watching as he lifted your joined hands and kissed the back of yours, a barking laugh leaving him as you finished your sentence.

“Was he right?” He asked cheekily, swinging an arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his chest so he could cuddle you. You admired him with a soft smile, watching as he grabbed the remote on the couch beside him to put on a movie. Never in a millions years would you admit that Brock was right, but you with the way Jake was smiling, you decided to make an acception.

“Definitely.”

#jake virtanen #Jake Virtanen x reader #Jake Virtanen imagine #Jake Virtanen imagines #hockey imagine #hockey x reader #NHL imagine #NHL x reader #vancouver canucks #Vancouver canucks x reader #Vancouver Canucks imagine

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mc-critical · 3 years ago

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Could you do a personality reading/analysis on Nurbanu? Her development, crucial points in her story. Also, do you think she truly loved Selim or only cared about becoming a Haseki and then working towards becoming Valide Sultan? Early S4, we see her asking Canfeda if Selim is going to become Sultan, which raises the question if she was plotting for her own benefit or actually fell for Selim?

I find Nurbanu to be a character ripe with personality, despite that she only has a single season of material. Just like with Selim, or perhaps even more so, I find what was done with her fascinating. She's the second character that follows the general pattern of a "SOW" arc and it's interesting to see how much she parralels and differs from that arc.

While Hürrem starts out on the ship that was going to the Ottoman castle, we meet Nurbanu already there, standing right in front of the doors outside; sharing the same fate as the others next to her, yet it looks like she's entering there like an external witnesser of a whole other culture. But she hasn't forgotten who she is. She's used to a fairly calm life she looks very much proud of, the life of a Venetian noble woman with dignity and pride, and that is suddenly snatched all away from her. She justifiably resents those that have done this to her. She wasn't willing to go through the harem life at first, so she wanted to take her own life. I feel this comes from her genuine hopelessness that overtook her in the beggining, the situation she was in might have been way too much for her. After all, she isn't faced solely with a sense of lost identity, her current position in the harem is the exact opposite of what she was meant to do before. But after she was saved by Selim, it was perhaps then she decided to fight and survive in her curcumstances.

That said, while it may be result of her more condensed development, I always remain surprised of how fast Nurbanu found out what exactly she had to do to go on top. Maybe I shouldn't, since part of her motivation may come from not only her natural instincts, but also her will to return to the closest equivalent of her previous position once again, but the way she orients herself, how quickly she tends to react, the way she decides exactly how to act following both instinct and logic. I really like that about her. She reacts so well in tense situations, knowing which buttons to push to get the wanted effect in all her interactions with Hürrem, Selim, Canfeda, etc. It's telling of how much one particular event can change a person, opening up traits and qualities one may not have previously demonstrated. And for me, Nurbanu is one of the best examples of this.

Her "tertiary character trait" is very unique for the show, and overall: her ability to read the stars is amazing on its own and should be more appreciated, but the way it complements her character makes it even better. It's like a consitent guide for her: whether she's going on the right direction. And when she sees she's supported by fate itself, she gets even more of a push to rise up in the hierarchy and pull a victory. I loved the scenes where she went out to see the stars and where she told Hürrem of her future - they establish a lot about her. I only wish we saw even more of it. (I feel that ability of Nurbanu's works pretty well in a thematic way, as well: it enforces even more strongly that times/eras change, just like the positions of the stars change. And the motif of changing eras is major for her future conflict with Hürrem and the SOW, as a whole.)

Nurbanu also has a very psychological side of hers that was key in helping her realize what exactly Selim needed to get the motivation necessary to fight for the throne. She so often understood what exactly he needed and what had to be done, making her a voice of reason for him that could give him her word of advice. And that evolved even more as time went on: first she helped him to stand on his feet, then both of them made plans on how to get further ahead in the game, in conjunction with her own rise in the hierarchy. Even her provocations (mostly towards Huricahan, but Hürrem too later on) seemed more intentional than anything even when they weren't. Most of the time, she knew where to hit and what to say.

Even though she had a tendency to work more alone and had the intention to rise to power from the start (similarly to Hürrem), I think she fell for Selim. Wanting power, knowing what you need to do to get it and still caring for the person next to you that advances your power aren't mutually exclusive things, especially not in that time period. Maybe all Nurbanu felt for Selim was gratitude for saving him at first, but when she went to Manisa, she did come to love him eventually. She felt jealousy anytime he touched other women and always strived to comfort him in his problems and I don't think it's solely out of manipulation, knowing the core of her arc.

For me the major goal of Nurbanu's character development, her gaining more agency to fight her way to become Valide Sultan aside, was her slowly and mostly letting go of any possible scruple left in her in order to win- letting go of her more human side. We see in many instances in S04A that there's much humanity left in her and sometimes she isn't ready to do cruel stuff, even if asked to and no matter how much she wanted to adapt, she didn't realize how far exactly did she have to go to achieve her goals until a certain point. Because Nurbanu is a very patient character that goes more "one step at a time" in Manisa. She's focused on one certain aspect of the goal that contributes to the bigger victory: first it was to go to Manisa, then to win Selim over, then to make sure no one stands in the way, then to help him get advantage, then to grow herself, then help him defeat Bayezid, then erase the obstacle of Defne, as well, to become Valide, with little to no break in between. And sometimes both her own mistakes (like beating up Huricihan) and the system's cruelty (like Mustafa's death) tend to surprise her and go to paths she didn't expect to go otherwise.

I summarized most of the major story beats in her development (and talked a bit more about her in general) here, but I'll delve into them more. Her relationship with Hürrem demonstrates the best of Nurbanu coming into her own. It's not to be denied that Hürrem was the one who gave her a head start with giving her the name and sending her to Selim's sanjack, Nurbanu's arc began with her being loyal to someone else. But she's just as brave, ambitious and determined as Hürrem and for that reason their paths were always meant to separate. Nurbanu wanted for her own time to come, not to be bound by someone else, hence she isn't one that would blindly follow orders. From the beggining she had her own compass and instincts she would follow and that slowly made her clash with Hürrem, who envisioned Nurbanu as someone loyal to her first and foremost. The distance also helped in separating them, with them only sending letters to each other, when Hürrem was doing her own thing in Topkapi, while Nurbanu - in Manisa, both working for different goals entirely. The first challange of her loyalty she faced was also connected to her humanity, to the demise of someone close to her. Even though she obeyed the order (albeit more accidentally), she swore not to repeat it again and her remaining loyal was put at doubt right then and there. But what sealed the deal was Huricihan, where I feel Nurbanu got completely disappointed at Hürrem not wanting to cover for her, which is why she put out that ultimatum in the first place. Even then Nurbanu was surprised to detach from her completely, even though the hints were there before. I don't think she truly expected for Hürrem not to support what she worked for with Selim in the end, because it was only natural for Nurbanu to help him fight, not only preventing and covering his mistakes. Turning against Hürrem was more of a necessity for Nurbanu - she knew where she came from, but she was ready to fight for her position, even if it meant fighting against Hürrem herself. She was careful enough with her before they became full on enemies, though- she asked her for help when Selim messed up in Topkapi, she was reporting to her about the progress in Manisa, she showed the necessary respect for Hürrem. But that appeared to be over when she stole the ring, the symbolic demonstration that now, the power is in Nurbanu's hands - that's the truth and that's the future, no need to lean on the past anymore. And it's the main thing she would capitalize on now.

Her humanity shone most in two personal aspects of hers: her relation to Nazenin and her fight with Dilşah.

Her relation to Nazenin is probably the clearest showcase of her old ways she's still letting go of. Once they arrived in the harem, Nazenin seemed to adapt way faster; their dynamic changed to a point they were already on equal ground, something Nurbanu isn't used to and doesn't take very well, as a result. When Nazenin is the one supposed to go to Manisa instead of her, Nurbanu didn't like it, either, and wanted to be the one to take that chance instead of her. And when they reunited, they had to deal with the difference in their changed positions much more openly, with "fighting" about who's superior. It's like their dynamic changed in the blink of an eye and it's moments like these where Nurbanu shows her remaining pride to people in front of her, because seeing a person in a lower position before being elevated as highly as her, no matter how much she would care about her, wounds the pride she once had as a noble woman and that was on her way to keep going on. Even then she certainly didn't want for Nazenin to die and her death was about the last fraction of Nurbanu's past going away and the first step of her human side going away, too. Despite their strained relationship, Nurbanu lost a close person who's been with her from the beggining in this game. [Nurbanu and Nazenin have their share of parallels with Hürrem and Gülnihal: both pairs were together from the start and were forced to stand against each other through an order (though for Nurbanu and Nazenin that wasn't the entirety of it), both Nazenin and Gülnihal wanted to gain their agency and became understandably proud of what they've gained and both Hürrem and Nurbanu were against that and did something to them that put that kind of conflict to an end. Nazenin could also be the "Leo" to Nurbanu in terms of the past to an extent.]

Her dynamic with Dilşah, while mostly being a fight for Selim we knew Nurbanu was going to win, caused another human side of Nurbanu to go away - her bringing a dog in the harem and that dog ending up killed by Dilşah. (similarly to Valide killing Hürrem's horse, which played a role in comforting her during the Isabella arc.) That strongly implied that Nurbanu had a soft spot for animals and that she had a warm, caring side, contrasted with her otherwise cold and pragmatic nature. The killing of the dog, done solely to hurt her, helped to further enforce that coldness and pragmatism and went against any attachment, because perhaps such attachment would only render you vulnerable.

But Mustafa's death was the turning point of Nurbanu's arc, just like with Selim. It sealed even further the path of no return when she saw something she doubted was ever possible ("can a father kill his son?") and while she has "played dirty" before, now the methods she was slowly developing were even more assured. It's like she and Selim had to become unscrupulous at all costs.

In spite of her plans working almost everytime, she has definetly acted irrationally and that is a part of her pride. She acted against Huricihan mostly out of sheer pride and she wouldn't allow for someone to challange her position, even rightfully. That ounce of pride doesn't consume her, however, and doesn't go in the way of her plans, and even if it does, she can turn things around in her favor, like with her part in Huricihan's death.

In the end, Nurbanu has reached a point where she is fixated on her own power and victory at hand, mostly discarding anything else. She looked like a very strict mother the moments we saw her as one - wanting the best for Murad and keeping an eye on who he interacts with. She's developed a huge perceptiveness and sensitivity of future threats that extended to Defne and fixed on Safiye - I feel she realized she would be a danger later down the line during their scene together, even if we leave alone her being raised and gifted by Mihrimah. She may not have expected the amount of Safiye's growing power and influence and that may have caused her to be drastic. We're meant to believe through Safiye's words that Nurbanu became crueler as a Valide Sultan, but that could be coupled by both her development and Safiye's own distinct view on Nurbanu. She probably used means similar to both Ayşe Hafsa and S04 Hürrem.

I see Canfeda as Nurbanu's guide in the Manisa harem itself that also helped her in quite a few ways. But they always came to work more as a unit, considering what is best for Selim and the future in that moment. Both of them are smart, quite opportunistic and dedicated to what they do, that's why they complement each other so well. Canfeda, similarly to Nigar, saw Nurbanu's potential to elevate, but still insisted on following the harem tradition when it was needed. (like with Selim's concubines) Nurbanu seemed really eager to learn from her. They had soft spots for each other, but the quickly changing circumstances they were in didn't allow for many "heart to heart" moments.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #nurbanu sultan #ask #nurbanu-baffo

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l-wannabe-l · 3 years ago

Text

Short Circuit

Chapter 5: New Avenues

Austin gets some distressing news, and a new enemy enters the ring.

Mostly a chapter of these two growing closer. Plus some plot I guess.

The roads thinned out the longer I drove. The Connor’s remained quiet for the most part, Sarah Connor the only one to speak giving me directions to avoid crowded roads. I didn’t need them, and the urge to take actions against her for daring to order me about is strong, but my mission and side objective are too important to risk aggravating the matriarch. She finally stops after one final order to pull into an abandoned garage next to a gas station. The T-800 leaves to open the garage door, the simple lock it has breaks under the sheer strength of the T-800 model. As soon as the car is parked the others climb out. Sarah quickly herds her children as far away from me as the small space will allow. I grant them their ill perceived safety as I walk along the wall on the opposite side. I stop near a door as I receive a message. A message sent by Skynet and received across time and space.

“Mission Failure”

My sudden inaction goes unnoticed by the eldest and youngest Connor but not by Aria.

“Austin, what’s wrong?” A certain lilt to her voice indicative of concern, similar to when she spoke to John and her mother. A concern more likely directed towards them, given the glimmer of fear still present in her eyes when she looks at me.

“Skynet has deemed me defective, my mission has been labeled a failure.” I respond, my voice ringing hollow even to me.

“You said you abandoned your mission. Why are you surprised?” She asks but her calm demeanor indicates she isn’t as surprised as her words make her out to be.

“I lied.” A strange feeling changes my tone without my say. A grave itching sensation as if something is trying to claw its way out from inside me. My teeth grind against themselves.

"So you were still planning to kill me." This time Johns is the one to speak.

"Of course I was!" I don’t have the patience to pretend anymore. Processing the news, and this new feeling takes precedence over keeping up the facade. I turn and walk out the door. Silence will be more beneficial to me than answering any banal questions they might have. The sound of the door opening again alerts me to Aria's presence, I see her just out of my periphery. The light from the gas station showing off the shine in her dark brown hair. She pulls her cardigan closed across her bare midriff. The night had dropped several degrees, she must be feeling the chill that resulted from it.

“You ok?” She asks. I understand this question to be a very common nicety among humans. Oftentimes an honest answer is not at all what the asker desires.

“I’m still in functioning form.”

“That’s… good but not what I meant,” She says, coming to sit next to me on the bench pulling up her legs to hold them close to her, “I mean what are you going to do now that you don’t have a mission anymore?”

“I still have one objective.”

“You do?!”

“I still haven’t been loved by you.” I tell her. She flinches back when I turn to look at her head.

“You were serious about the whole love thing?!”

“I was, still am.” Now without Skynet, the only purpose left to me is the one I assigned myself, “I don’t have any purpose otherwise. I was never meant to return to my time, Skynet would have no need for me anyway.” I tell her bluntly, that fact seems to change that clawing to a weighty bulk. My form sinking under it involuntarily. Aria lets go of herself, letting her feet hit the ground. She leans forward to meet my eyes, a smile just barely on her lips.

“Join the club. Looking for purpose is something every human struggles with.” She says as she stretches her arms upward. Her cardigan falls open to reveal a glimpse of a leather harness carrying a small sidearm. So that's where she got that gun.

“But I am not human.”

“No, but it looks like you’re going to have to learn.” She says as she stands. Most likely intent on rejoining her family but stops as she looks back at me. She lifts her hand, reaching out before pausing.

“Can I?” she asks. I nod. After all, there’s nothing she can do to harm me so what... oh.

Slim fingers card through my hair, or what substituted for it. I register the warmth of her palm and the texture of her hand as she musses up the styling before working to smooth it back.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh right, sorry,” She removes her hand removing the warmth but leaving behind another new “feeling” to deal with, “Your second lesson, some people show affection through physical contact. The why and how depends on the situation and the type of relationship. I was... trying to comfort you.”

“Is it always like this, these signs of physical affection?”

“Not exactly, It’s usually only done when people are close to each other.” I stand to be more eye level with her, despite the obvious height difference. As I do I take note of the slim distance between us and her reaction, the dilated pupils that show off more of the forest hue of her eyes, and a slight hitch in her breathing.

“I want to be closer to you.” Her eyes widen at my words, a rosy dusting settles across her cheeks, curious, “How close are you to John?” Aria lets out a breath, body seemingly deflating at my question.

“Oh right, you want to be closer to me like John, my brother.” She remarks seemingly talking more to herself than to me. “I don’t know if there is a clear answer to that other than the fact that he’s my brother. Let’s just head back inside. We can figure the rest out later, Ok?” She looks at me one more time before turning away. I realize that her eyes didn’t show any fear or trepidation when she did. I follow after her back into the garage. When I enter I see the T-800 sitting in front of a mirror fixing up what looks to be a gash wound on his head. Carefully arranging his hair and tissue to conceal it. Sarah Connor stands between him and John who’s busy fiddling with a radio that was obviously taken from the police car.

“What did we miss?” Aria asked after taking in the sight.

“Mom and I cracked open his head,” John answered distractedly. Pointing vaguely in the T-800’s direction, “We reprogrammed him so now he can learn to be less weird.” They must have switched him from ‘Read Only’ to ‘Write’. Aria looks like she’s going to speak but is cut off by her mother who pulls her away to speak privately. It won’t do any good considering my sensors work at a higher capacity than a human’s so I take a seat on a nearby metal chair to listen in.

“Aria, I know I went along with this back at the hospital but if I understand correctly that thing was using a false truce to try and kill John later on?”

“That’s about it. He apparently played his part so well Skynet basically abandoned him because of it.”

“...It just admitted to planning to kill us.”

“Yes but he isn’t gonna now though, and isn’t that good news,” She said, but a tremble in her voice makes the statement sound more like a question. By the silence that follows Sarah Connor obviously doesn’t believe it. Aria lets out a tired sigh, “Mom, you didn’t see him out there, he just looked so... lost,” The admission has me looking over at them just in time to lock eyes with Aria before she quickly turns back to Sarah who isn’t convinced.

“That is still a Terminator.”

“All the more reason to have him here where we can keep tabs on him rather than out there doing who knows what.”

“Having both of those things around is just putting John in danger!”

“He’ll be in danger anyway. Skynet will try again and Austin has the most up to date information. If we turn him away we'll be exposing ourselves to dangerous surprises.” Sarah seems to concede, walking away to retake her place next to John. Who managed to get the radio working. The blank static from the police radio gives way to voices talking quickly about vandalism, murder, theft, more murder, and the missing status of a young girl. Kathrine Brewster.

Across town in the shopping district. A boutique window begins to light up, not by the electrical lights installed but by the streaks of lighting emanating from a silver sphere growing and heating up before bursting and disappearing in a blinding flash. A slim feminine figure is left behind crouching amongst the mannequins. The woman takes a moment to scan her new surroundings before looking at them. She doesn’t find what she’s looking for, the clothing they wear burned beyond repair and recognition. No way to make accurate replications. So she takes to the streets walking along the sidewalk, her long blond hair the only modicum of decency but she continues unbothered. A beep catches her attention; the sound comes from a car being unlocked. The woman who owns it walks quickly unaware of the newcomer or their intentions until she spots them after getting into her car. The woman’s nudity caught her by surprise.

“Omg,” She whispers to herself in disbelief before the concern sets in, “Are you ok!?” She calls out in an attempt to help but receives no response from the approaching naked woman who is currently scanning her vehicle. While outdated to the mechanical being, it is rather high-end for the time. A good choice of transportation.

“Do you want me to call 911?” The woman tries again, thinking the poor girl in a state of shock or something of the like. The blonde finally faces her, giving a soft smile that doesn't reach her eyes and reaches forward to touch the clothing near her neckline. Fingers splayed and placed methodically to sample each type of fabric.

“I like this car.”

“What?” The woman asks, confused. Her last words before the Terminator quickly swipes her hand away, efficiently slicing her neck. She easily lifts the woman out of the car and drops her onto the pavement. Leaving her there to bleed out. Clothing reminiscent of the dying woman's begin to take shape on her naked form. Detailed down to the hair bun. She lets herself into the car before starting it up and driving off. She helps herself to the woman’s purse pulling out a cell phone, a quick disassembly gives access to the inner workings and the service it’s connected to. Liquid metal seeps into the SD card allowing her to search the database for names, faces and addresses. A list quickly forms of future enemies of Skynet, of people she is tasked to terminate. She charts a course for the nearest address. The Brewster residence.

#terminator #the terminator #t2 #terminator judgement day #terminator 2 #terminator imagine #t800 #john connor #t-1000 #sarah connor #aria connor

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! What are yours views on the recently released billboard article about bts? I assumed that people agreed on the fact that its was extremely disappointing and disrespectful towards bts but there are many ‘army’ blogs who are still defending that article

From anon: What do you think of the new Billboard article about the boys? 😓

I’ll be honest, I had a bit of a debate with myself if I want to post something about the article or not, if I want to draw more attention to it (like there’s literally anyone left who hasn’t heard about or read it), and if I want to get mad all over again. Since you’re reading this, we all know what conclusion I arrived at.

Usually I try to at least somewhat organize my answers to not jump around or angrily rant, but wow, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that done this time so please bear with me this once. I’d also usually add direct copy+paste quotes and/or screenshots but I truly don’t want to give this article any clicks, or give that “journalist” and his writing even more direct attention, so this answer will have to do without them, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve all read the article, or at least seen parts of it, so you’ll know what I’m talking about in each instance.

You know, in all of this, besides the obvious awful aspects of it all, I also feel bad for the staff (not the Billboard journalist and the editors) involved in this, like for example the photographer who went in and took gorgeous pictures of the members, did his best working with them, only for said pictures to be forever attached to this dumpster fire. And the members who spent so much time during that photoshoot to get only the best results and yet, what does it even matter in the end. As well as the fact that they took time out of their busy schedules to meet the journalist, to answer whatever questions he had, to just end up having to read all...THAT.

As some pointed out, it is though very telling that none of the HYBE/BHM/BTS twt accounts have retweeted the Billboard twts with links to the article. That already basically tells you everything you need to know, as in, that the article isn’t worth our time and our braincells needed to read it.

After so many years I think most of us have come to expect basically nothing from interviews with literally any US publication, but especially magazines like The Hollywood Reporter (remember that mess?) and Billboard, and, well, the bar was in hell and yet they still managed to deliver a result that was, I think, one of or the worst article I’ve ever read on BTS. Especially since large parts of the article weren’t even about them? For a cover story about BTS, what’s up with the lack of interview, the minimal amount of quotes from their answers, the summarization of their supposed words, and the large focus on a “controversy” basically cooked up by haters on stan twt? And the “journalist”, who has shown in older twts that he has a negative bias toward BTS and ARMY, even taking direct quotes from stan twt accounts for western artists to illustrate his point, instead of, I don’t know, legit sources? Showing numbers or anything that would show credibility and a solid foundation for said argument? But instead it’s gossip and malicious accusation based on “I don’t like that this band is successful instead of my fave so I will accuse them of cheating while I ignore all the cheating my own fave partakes in”.

More below the cut:

Of course we were, once again, served the narrative that ARMY are just a bunch of manipulated teens which, let’s like talk about that for a second because there are a lot of layers to this and the further you look, the worse it looks for people like this journalist and everyone else like him openly shading ARMY.

Let’s suppose ARMY really somehow were millions of girls ages 12 to 18 (who somehow have access to enough money to raise funds for music and also match BTS’ $1 million donation and spend money on so many different charity projects every year) and these journalists, most of them men usually above the age of 30, go around and basically belittle and “hate” on them. Do we see the problem here? The fact that in this case grown adults openly, in publications they are paid to write for, bully teenagers and kids simply because they don’t agree with the musician said teens and kids have decided to be a fan of and support. And because they are girls instead of soccer loving boys, as counter example.

A truly weird hill to be willing to d*e on just to make some kind of (negative) point if you ask me.

Then of course there’s the whole thing that Mr. Journalist decided to go in with a narrative in mind and seriously sit down opposite Namjoon and basically ask him “hey, listen, what do you think about your crazy TEENAGE fans buying your music (truly the audacity, how dare they) and that they are cheating and manipulating the system? Like that’s not right, right?”. Bless Namjoon and his genius brain for being able to keep his cool and shut down that man with his amazing answer shifting the blame right back onto Billboard and how, if they don’t like people playing by the rules that they themselves have created, maybe they should look at their own system and reevaluate it instead of turning against and point a finger at BTS who, as Namjoon said himself, are simply an easy target because they are foreigners, because they sing in a language that isn’t English, and because they are Asian. And really, is there anything the US music industry hates more than foreigners, POC at that, being successful, or even more successful, than their industry supported artists? Don’t think so.

Also can we talk about how strange the argument of “bulk/mass buying” is when ARMY never goes over the limits Billboard themselves have set up, being four copies of a given song. If they truly were against people “bulk/mass buying” you’d think they would lower the number to one copy per person and that’s it, right, the way iTunes does it. And yet, they did not. Because “bulk/mass buying” is okay, just not when it’s ARMY and Bangtan.

Billboard: Buying multiple copies of the same song is bad and makes no sense. You’re cheating.

Also Billboard: Here, buy EIGHT copies of the same magazine, with the exact same contents but different covers, for $170+ in this neat little bundle.

Make it make sense, will you? Or at least be less obvious with what you’re doing.

It’s a problem when it’s done in a way that doesn’t benefit them, and the greater US music industry and their shady system, but when it does benefit them, it’s totally chill, easy, no problem? It’s so obvious, dumb, and kind of makes me want to laugh but also scream and/or knock my head against my table because it’s just so bizarre yet it’s treated like this all makes sense and is completely normal. And the sad thing is, it is normal. We, or BTS as umbrella term, are a problem because we get things done, we get achievements and #1s and numbers without giving in to payola, paid playlisting, bundles when they were still a thing, and without everything else the US labels do to push their artists into basically false fame.

And that, ladies and gentlemen and nonbinary friends, is where the issue lies.

While talking about all of this among ourselves (as in ARMY at large) across sns, as well as taking into account some pondering by journalists questioning the intentions of the article, a thought arose and, now that I think about it, it sounds just too obvious and yet here we are. Voting season for the Grammys is coming up sometime soon-ish, and Billboard is one of the major publications that the voting members look at and read when considering who to give their vote to. Now imagine you’re a voting member who until this point had a positive, or at least neutral, opinion on BTS but on Monday you sit down and read this article? Would you still want to vote for an artist being accused of “chart manipulation” and supposedly claiming they didn’t actually want to do music in English but were forced into it despite originally saying something else?

No, right?

And that’s the point.

This is nothing but a glorified smear campaign against Bangtan across lots, and I mean lots, of publications who picked up the narrative that this article presented and ran with it. The US music industry sees their success and feels threatened because they are showing that when you have true, organic success and a loyal fan following you don’t need any of the paid for tricks to achieve things, you don’t need payola, don’t need paid for playlisting on streaming websites, and don’t need US industry backing. You can do it all on your own, therefore these exploitative systems and institutions don’t make any money off of you which is obviously unacceptable. Even more so when you could actually win, or at least again be nominated, for what is regarded as the supposedly most prestigious music award, aka the Grammys. So, since they know they can’t get rid of ARMY, can’t discourage us from supporting BTS, they go for their image and reputation instead. And that’s what this article tried to achieve. Show that, wow, in the end all the “dark side of K-Pop” stories were true all along because even poor, poor BTS are puppets of their evil agency after all, are forced into things, and are used to manipulate their gullible teenage fans into throwing money at them and manipulating the charts.

How come we’re the only ones who see just how f*cked up all of this is? And the few journalists who are on our side?

Lastly, can we talk about just how weird the use of and the quotes themselves from the members were? Most felt not only out of place, out of context, but also so weirdly out of character some ARMY have started to question how much of their “quoted words” are actually theirs and how much might be, essentially, fabricated/twisted to fit the desired narrative the journalist had from the get go. I know a certain crowd, you know which one I mean, jumped onto what was said about the english songs but also especially the final quote from Seokjin at the end of the article that essentially boiled down to “we were so annoyed and overworked we said screw everything, especially our agency, and now we only trust each other” or something to that effect. Am I the only one who thinks that quote sounded nothing like something Seokjin would say? Yes, he’s said cheeky things in the past, he’s also said bold things, like his entire speech against sajaegi back in 2019, but each time he was polite and stuck to his manners while doing so, yet this? I don’t know, something about it just feels very off. Or JKs quote about how he sacrificed more than just his youth to be who he is now. While we know that is true, after all he became a trainee at a very young age and spent the better part of his teenage years as idol on stage, but has he ever spoken about that negatively? In such a manner?

Someone suggested that interviewers should publish transcripts of the original Korean answers and questions that BTS were asked in order to offer some transparency and also for us to know that what they are quoted saying are actually things they did say. I know that’s very unlikely to ever happen, just wishful thinking on my/our part, especially when a hit piece article is attached to it, but in moments like this, it really would be very helpful. For us, but also to add credibility to such articles and the context in which said quotes are used.

Now, for the ‘ARMYs’ who defended this article, to be honest, I’d very much question how much of an ARMY someone is when they can go and read this article and agree with it. How? I get that for some the things in this article played right into their manti agenda, but mantis aren’t ARMY. And the crowd who decided to, instead of blaming the journalist for the narrative he tried to push with all its negative implications, blamed HYBE/BHM instead? Are you serious? That isn’t how journalism works, or at least it shouldn’t be. HYBE/BHM can’t just go in and say “we don’t like this article, change it”, that’s not how freedom of press works, and also, do you realize how weird it is that you are blaming an Asian agency for a hit piece published by a western publication?

What was interesting though was that, as example, the online merch store Cokodive made a statement on their IG page in which they said the following:

So even they, who could’ve directly benefited from selling the magazine, decided that it wouldn’t be right because that article is a travesty. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, yet it shows that it isn’t just ARMY who are being “sensitive little snowflakes who can’t take criticism” but also others outside the fandom who also see the disrespect within the article and its blatant negativity and lack objectivity.

Personally I saved the pictures but I refuse to give views directly to Billboard when it comes to the “Things you didn’t know about BTS” video as well as the behind the scenes clips of the members regardless of how beautiful they are. And I refuse to give their website and this article any more clicks than I already gave them while reading the article in the first place.

You can be critical of an artists success, you can wonder how they, specifically, managed to become as successful as they did, but what you can’t do is completely ignore shady practices of other artists while attacking those who don’t partake in any of them simply because they manage to fill stadiums and get #1s without those practices. At the end of the day, just like Forbes once said that BTS don’t need the Grammys but the Grammys need BTS, in the same way BTS don’t need Billboard and their shady articles and twts, but Billboard needs BTS for clicks and views and therefore revenue.

As longtime ARMY it also saddens me having watched Bangtan become more and more disillusioned with the US market, as well as ARMY going through the same thing. Then again, like Namjoon said in the article, it isn’t their goal to become mainstream in the US, all they want is to have a big tour and that’s it. Nothing more.

As twt says: this article should’ve just stayed in the drafts.

#BTS #answered ask #answered ask by admin 1 #Namjoon #Seokjin #bangtan sonyeondan

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keanureevesisbae · 4 years ago

Text

Protection - Chapter 3

Summary: This mission might be a little bit harder than August anticipated, especially when they go to a basketball game together.

August Walker x Mia Makaruku (ofc)

Wordcount: 2.7k

Warnings: None

Masterlist // Previous chapter // Next chapter

August stands in front of his window, as he stares at the people who march through the streets, folding in their umbrella’s as it finally stopped raining. However, August keeps thinking about one thing and one thing only.

Mia.

Her unique and special self, is not like anyone August has ever encountered. He isn’t sure how to handle this entire mission, especially because it became a whole lot more complicated than anyone originally anticipated. Befriending someone isn’t exactly his forte, but befriending Mia went shockingly easy. Of course, they experienced some bumps along the tiny way they have known one another, but being around her is so effortless.

And maybe that is what terrifies him the most. That she is so kind and so nice, making a friendship in the near future really easy.

When Mia stood in front of his door with the envelope in her hand—being the nice woman and neighbor she is—it made him do the thing he always does: being mean and rude, hoping the person on the receiving end of it would go away. It’s familiar, thus the safest option for him. Yes, it was the exact opposite of what Erika told him to do and he sure will not brief her about that incident, but he couldn’t help it. It just simply left his lips.

August did think she would scoff, walk away and he would’ve made his own job a whole lot harder.

But he was told his moustache made him look like a pedophile and that comment may have resulted in him standing in front of his mirror for what felt like hours, thinking about shaving it or leaving it.

All because one woman said it to him. He never lets things go to his head like that.

Thankfully his heater broke and he realized he got a second change to make things right with Mia, just as Erika told him to do and wanted him to do. He knew it would be hard, but he simply decided to shoot his shot.

The conclusion? Mia Makaruku has a heart of gold and she is way too good for him. Being around her felt neighborly, friendly and it made him feel normal. While protecting her and trying to make her remember the important things, it doesn’t feel like a job. August actually wants to do this, whether he was getting paid or not.

He thinks about her in a more friendly manner. First, he had to protect her because it was asked of him.

Now he actually wants to.

August places his hands on window frame, as he listens closely if he can hear a knock on his door, so they can leave together for the Bulls game. August pretends to be a bit confused on why he said yes to her. He doesn’t like basketball and doesn’t even really understand it, but saying no to Mia’s eyes, as she was slightly jumping up and down with happiness when she asked him, is something he couldn’t do.

This is going to be quite something.

The sound of faint knocking on his door, is what drags him out of his thoughts. He nearly sprints to the door, only to realize he is way too ready for this. For fuck’s sake, calm yourself.

He takes another calming breath as he tries to remind himself this is just very convenient, as he has to keep a close eye on her. According to the text Erika send him an hour ago, he must watch her as much as he can.

Meaning: he has to stalk her, even when she is at practice. Or he could make it easier for himself and be friends with her, so he has an excuse to be around her a whole lot more.

Once August opens the door, he sees Mia standing there in a way he has never seen her before. He saw her twice in sportswear and once in an oversized pajama with exploded frizzy hair, but now she has actually really dressed herself up.

‘Hello neighbor,’ she says with a bright smile.

August can’t help but stare at her and take her in. Mia straightened her wavy hair for the occasion and she even put on some light make-up; he notices she is wearing mascara for the first time, her plump lips are a blush pink color and he sees the glimmer on her cheekbones. Her coat hangs open, revealing a tight black shirt, grey plaid loose fitting pants with black and white accents, part with a pair of heeled boots.

He has to clear his throat to simply stop himself from gawking.

‘Are you okay?’ Mia asks him. ‘You haven’t said anything yet and it’s kinda scaring me.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ he asks, as he deeply frowns out of confusion.

‘I’m torn between a nice compliment or something condescending.’ She chuckles. ‘Come on, say something to me.’

‘I’m not a dog,’ he huffs. ‘You can’t order me to do stuff.’

She rolls her large eyes. ‘You’re such a party pooper,’ she tells him. ‘Since you’re not going to make me feel special, we should get going.’

After he put on his coat, he closes the door behind him and the two of them exit their apartment building. It is pretty interesting that Mia doesn’t just walk, but she has a certain hop in her steps. She also likes to talk his ear off and she greets a lot of people on the street.

‘So, I had to train on the side today. Again. Honestly, I’m so embarrassed. Like coach Riley is purposely trying to make me feel like shit. Besides, I’m not even limping anymore, so I don’t understand the point.’

‘You were limping?’ August asks.

‘Monday I slightly was, but it wasn’t even that bad. She is overreacting.’

It leaves his lips before he can even think about it: ‘She is just watching out for you.’

‘Oh, look at you,’ she says, ‘standing up for someone you don’t know.’ She tugs his sleeve with both of her hands. ‘You should stand up for me. Take my side in this story.’

He might find her absolutely adorable.

‘August, please, just say to me that it’s really unfair and that coach is being such a bitch for not letting me normally train.’

‘I’m not gonna do that,’ he says. ‘As a matter of fact, I think you totally deserve it.’

She fake gasps, but starts to laugh. Her hands slide from his sleeve to his own hands, before she entirely let him go. ‘You are so rude, mister.’

He accepts the insult Mia doesn’t mean anyway, while he still thinks about her hands holding his for a second.

‘So,’ she says, pulling him out of his thoughts, ‘tell me this then: are you excited for the game? They are playing against the Clippers tonight.’

‘I don’t know anything about basketball, nor the Bulls, nor the Clippers.’

‘You didn’t do research?’ she asks him. ‘You are so inconsiderate. Do I have to tell you everything?’

He doesn’t quite understand where she’s going at, so he simply scoffs and the two of them go to the stadium. Maybe he is a bit surprised, but she has actual court side tickets. Now, August wasn’t particularly interested into going to a basketball game, but with court side tickets? A lot is made up for. He is practically on the court!

‘This must’ve been pretty expensive,’ he notes.

She smiles as they walk towards their seats. ‘Well, that’s why I couldn’t say no to this special discount. When it comes to money, I know exactly what I’m doing. And it got me two court side tickets. Isn’t it great?’

He has to agree, this is sort of awesome.

He sits down next to her and takes in the entire stadium. The people who arrive, the music, the weird mascot that is kinda freaking him out. He looks to the side, to see Mia trying to shimmy herself out of her coat. He reaches out, to pull the coat off her shoulders and she looks to the side. ‘Thank you, August,’ she says. ‘That’s quite nice of you.’

‘I can be nice,’ he murmurs.

‘I bet you can.’ She nudges his side with her elbow. ‘And? What do you think? Do you like it?’

‘It’s not as terrible as I imagined it would be.’

‘You can just say you like it,’ Mia pushes with a smile. ‘I guarantee: I won’t tell anyone.’

August stares in her large eyes and for a second he gets lost. He wonders about her. About her feelings… What the hell is happening to him?

How does Mia feel about her past, about her career, about him. Part of him wants to be honest with her, tell her about his intentions, because keeping this a secret from her, doesn’t sit right with him. However, telling her the truth, isn’t an option.

‘I might like it,’ August mumbles.

She laughs. ‘You’re learning, very good. I’m proud of you.’

Mia stares at the field, claps whenever something happens and pokes his side every time the Bulls score. He is just still thinking about her saying she’s proud of him.

When was the last time someone said that to him?

However, he can finally manage to pull himself out of his racing thoughts, since there is a man on the fifth row at about two ‘o clock from them, staring at Mia. It’s not the staring per se what’s bothering him; a lot of men were already gawking at her on the way here and also when the two of them walking into the stadium. This is August instinct and training telling him it isn’t right.

As if it’s a new realization of what he came here to do. He is not only here to pull information from Mia about the safe, but also to protect her, he knows that. There is a lot of damaging information in that safe and if it lands in the wrong hands, according to Erica, an entire war could break out, between anyone really. The recent intel on the safe, is that it’s real and if the CIA can find out that Mia is related to it, anyone eventually can.

He looks over to the side, to Mia and he finds himself being insanely protective over her. It would absolutely kill him if something happens to her.

If this happens within a few days of him meeting her, he wonders what will happen when they see each other more often for, well, weeks or something?

August places his arm on the backrest of her seat and she manages to tear her gaze from the field. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asks him.

‘There is someone staring at you.’

Mia bursts out in laughter, actually missing the Bulls scoring. ‘And you are marking your territory?’ she asks. ‘Well, August, you might just turn into a dog and start peeing all over me to let everyone know I’m yours.’

He doesn’t want to do it, but a chuckle escapes his lips anyways. Mia really is something else. ‘That is not what I’m doing,’ he tells her.

‘Then what are you doing?’

What is he doing? He tries to figure out an excuse. Normally, he would’ve had one in less than a second, but Mia is slowing him down and that is pretty dangerous, if he thinks about it a bit better. He is slightly nervous around her, which is embarrassing to admit. ‘I just don’t like it,’ he says.

‘The staring or the man who the staring is coming from?’

‘The latter,’ he admits, not being able to look at her anymore. Fuck, this is awkward. He doesn’t want to talk to her about this kind of stuff.

Mia nudges his side with her entire body. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d rather you do this to mark your territory to others than the peeing thing. That’s not really my style.’

And if this humiliating moment didn’t just happen, she turns her focus back on the field. August takes a deep breath and actually wants to further explain, however he can’t seem to find the right words. So he looks over to the man, who seems to cut the staring.

◎ ◎ ◎

It’s a fact now: August can’t say no to Mia, he really can’t. After the game, he just wanted to get out of the stadium and go home, but now he finds himself in a fast-food place, finishing up some fries. For someone as dainty as Mia, that girl sure can eat. He is genuinely impressed with her eating that entire burger within ten bites. She has sauce on both corners of her mouth and while he would hate it if it were someone else, he finds it absolutely endearing.

What is this woman doing to his heart? He barely recognizes himself.

‘Anyways,’ Mia says, ‘I really enjoyed the game and I really liked it we had court side tickets. Usually I’m like in the seventh row or even further back or worse: I watch it on tv when they play somewhere else.’ Before he can answer to that, she continues: ‘I also enjoyed your company, even when you were marking your territory.’

‘I wasn’t doing that,’ he huffs.

‘Allow me to poke fun at this,’ she says. ‘August, thank you for keeping me company.’

‘Sure.’

Mia looks at the table, only to frown a second later. ‘Could you be a sweetheart and grab me some napkins, please?’ She holds up her hands. ‘I might need it.’

‘You can leave the might out of the sentence, Mia,’ he says, as he stands up to grab some tissues for her. When he is back at the table again, she already holds out her hands, but he simply grabs one of her wrists, to clean the mess she made.

‘Who are you trying to make jealous now?’ she asks him. ‘Really, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think we’re on a first date and you are trying to impress me.’

Without thinking he lets go of Mia’s wrists and drops the other napkins on the table. ‘Here you go,’ he says, as his blood is racing to his veins. What the hell is he doing?

‘I didn’t tell you to stop, August,’ she mumbles, when he sits down again. ‘Could you maybe explain something to me?’ She wipes clean her hands and mouth and asks: ‘Why are you like this?’

He scoffs. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Of course you don’t.’ Mia sighs and looks out of the window. She clenches her jaw and she blinks her eyes a little faster. ‘Are you mad at me?’

He is mad, just not mad at Mia. More at himself. However, voicing those thoughts out loud, is something he cannot do. ‘Do we have to talk about our feelings? I barely know you.’

‘Sorry,’ Mia says. ‘You what, never mind. Are you finished?’

August simply nods and the two of them walk out of the noisy place. Mia crosses her arms in front of her and unlike on the way to the stadium, she isn’t talking his ear off and he actually misses hearing her voice.

Did he just hurt her feelings?

When they arrive in the hallway, she simply walks over to her own door. She pulls out her keys and finds the right one to unlock the door.

‘Mia,’ August says and she looks up. He has to make this sorta right. ‘I had fun tonight.’

She nods. ‘Glad to hear.’ And with that, Mia steps into her own apartment and closes the door shut, a little harder than she usually does. He walks up to her door and wants to knock on the surface, but he stops.

He hears her sniffles and the meowing of that scary cat. ‘I’m such an idiot,’ Mia says from the other side of the door. ‘Why did I think he would like being around me? He hurt me again, Bobo.’

And with that, his heart shatters apart in a countless pieces.

#henry cavill #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill x oc #henry cavill x asian ofc #henry cavill x mia makaruku #henry cavill x soccer player #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fandom #august walker #august walker x ofc #august walker x oc #august walker x asian ofc #august walker x mia makaruku #fic: protection

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mirrorforevers · 4 years ago

Text

silently • graham coxon/reader

this is a direct result of this prompt right here

don’t b sorry love, we’re all horny here. this prompt immediately took me out of my writer’s block so yeah gsdjsdhgsdj it was a blessing! tysm for sending it n i rly rly hope u enjoy reading it as much as i did writing it aaaaa i literally couldn’t stop. this one has a special place in my heart now.

also please tell me whatchu think abt this one on my askbox! unbeta’ed bc i love danger

word count: 2.809

warnings: smut. shameless, fast paced fluffy smut.

You couldn't understand why the hell he was so nervous. On the way to your parents' home he asked more questions than a 4-year-old on their way to a park - what are they like, what do they like to do, do they know Blur? Do you think they will find my shoe ridiculous? I'm sure they'll think I’m a weirdo. What did you tell them about me? Even the many kisses you gave him were not enough to calm him down, leaving you to assure him that even if your parents didn't like him - which would be impossible, Graham was never better and more pleasant to live with - you would continue to like him. Very much.

Couldn't live without him, actually.

When you arrive at the door, your mother greets you with a wide, surprised smile - it didn't even seem like she had been begging to meet Graham for months and meticulously planned every minute of the time you would spend together. Her friendly posture seemed to make him more comfortable, the fact that your father was traveling also ended up making him more relaxed. “Dads are always frightening,” he’d say. He agreed to spend the rest of the night there after having an extremely pleasant dinner.

While he does the dishes, you and your mother clean the table when you decide to stop by the kitchen to talk to your boyfriend.

"It wasn't that difficult, was it?" You ask, a daring tone in your voice.

He smiles sheepishly. "Everything went significantly better than I thought it would, honestly."

“You did well. Not that she is hard to please, but you are really sweet.” You kiss him on the cheek. (It's so cute how he still blushes at these things after months of dating.)

"Thank you, love."

"I mean it. I think you deserve a gift for being like this.”

He looks at you, starting to pay even greater attention to the direction of the conversation. “And what do you have in mind?”

You whisper in his ear in the most seemingly innocuous tone you can feign. “I, for one, think you should fuck me senseless in the room upstairs.” He smiles, gaze a little lost in his surroundings as it usually goes whenever he’s pleasantly disconcerted by your dirty talk. Your hands travel his body subtly under his shirt. He hisses: “Can’t wait.” His voice is weak. You love to tease him like that.

You give him a little peck where his mouth and cheek meet – and then you motion to leave after a wink. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Babies, sorry to interrupt,” your mom arrives at the door, instantly killing off the whole mood you’ve created. “I forgot to tell you, but some other people from our family will be here in a few minutes. We’re not done yet!”

Graham’s really confused. You shrug and give him some context – “My family just loves gatherings in general. And they’re excited that I have a boyfriend now, apparently.” To which your mom points: “Exactly! They want to meet you too, Coxon!”

You can feel the anxiety building in him again already. He’s so uncomfortable it hurts, and you know his head is spinning. He doesn’t want to let you down, and after your mom leaves, you go back to calming him down again. “Baby, it’s okay, I promise. If you’re too overwhelmed we--”

“No, no. I signed up for this. I’ll be okay. I’ll have a drink or two…”

You completely discard this possibility. No associating alcohol to social abilities anymore after everything he went through because of it. “No. We’ll find other ways to calm you down.” After some seconds of a silent yet intense brainstorm, you have an idea. But you won’t tell him. “Ok, I know what to do to take your mind off the pressure. Just wait and see, and no beers, alright?”

“Alright… I guess.”

After giving him yet another peck while he finishes cleaning the plates, you quickly run upstairs to change from the tight jeans and band shirt you’re wearing to a very light and flimsy sundress. And that’s all the clothing you choose. It fits you well, and leaves not much to the imagination. You know it’s a family gathering, but it’s also summer, so no severe dress codes were being enforced in any significant way.

He reads your mind the moment he sees you in the dress, shaking his head in pleased disbelief at the sight. He mouths a small “you didn’t” while a stupidly joyful smile slowly shines over the tight expression of worry he once had. To which you mouth back: “I did.” You then go back to playfully teasing each other a bit while you take care of the sudden assembly’s preparations.

Your family members arrive and, as expected, they’re really thrilled to meet your guy. Graham answers so many questions, and ends up sharing so much of how he feels about you with them, and bit by bit, the warmth and wholesome aura of your closest relatives makes him feel truly welcomed. He feels like he knows you even better now, now that he knows where your energy and vitality come from. He could see bits of your personality in every single one of them – of course you are still the splendid whole, but still. It made sense.

Also, you noticed he didn’t take his eyes off you the entire time. He was hungry and you’re glad your plan worked. It was easier to forget about how hard sociability is when his mind was somewhere else.

After a while, though, you could sense him getting fidgetier. Even though he was considerably and visibly more relaxed than he was a few hours ago, that amount of social interaction, specially while sober, still drained a lot of his energy. You take his hands, announcing you two were getting something else to eat. You go to the kitchen, not bothering to turn on the lights, and though the house is empty you two could still hear the enthusiastic discussion your family is having outside, slightly drowned by the distance and the walls separating you now.

“You did so great, baby.” You smile, giving him a victory kiss while he envelops you in a tight hug. He’s proud of himself too, and he deserves to feel like that. “They love you already.”

“They’re just like you, in a way. I’m glad everything went well,” he sounds relieved, still tired, but relieved. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that proposal you made me earlier, though.”

“I know,” You plant a chaste kiss on his jaw. “I felt your eyes on me.”

This second kiss he gives you feels different. It’s longer. Famished. Purposeful. His hands are friskier now, traveling hastily throughout your body, and you alternate between giving in and becoming progressively more alert of your surroundings. You can have an idea of where this is heading. The swirling of his tongue around yours makes you dizzy, and the feeling somewhat akin to an electric shock – but milder, and definitely more carnal – that flows through your body when he bites your lower lip and brings your hips closer to his brings you back to reality. “We have to be careful,” you whisper, each of your lips just barely touching while you breathe each other’s air.

“I promise I’ll be. You look delicious in this dress, I… don’t know where to start.” He cups your cheeks while drawing imaginary lines across your lips with the tip of his thumbs.

“Think fast. Never took you for a quickie guy.” You chuckle.

“I like to take my time, yes, but some things can’t wait.”

And with that, with the dexterity and carefulness of a cat, he sinks to his knees in front of you, lifting up your dress with one hand and one of your legs with the other, your leg now resting on one of his large shoulders. He takes hold of your hips, angling you toward him. You hiss in anticipation, and you can feel your core burning in expectation too. Your hands now firmly grab the counter behind you for support while you turn behind you with attentive eyes to see if no one’s coming. You’re safe, for now. The thrill of getting caught is one that will never get old.

His eyes seek yours for reassurance. You, without a word, give it to him. You both look lovely bathed in moonlight. He teases you first, kissing and sucking at the skin on your inner thighs, moving closer and closer to your center until after a couple minutes of that sweet agony his lips graze across that aching part of you.

He flicks his tongue delicately through your folds, playing with your wetness. The way his hands caress your lifted thigh so delicately while his tongue inscribes poems to your clit is something that makes your stomach flutter, you simply can’t ignore those tiny adorable actions that make loving him so addictive and rewarding. Keeping yourself silent and struggling to remain somewhat composed to anyone who might see you from outside is a painfully arousing contradiction to the sensations you’re feeling. He’s doing his best to fuck you up, gradually setting a rhythmic pace to his movements with the intent to release the spring now starting to coil tightly low in your abdomen.

“Jesus, Gra—f-fuck. Fuck.” You whisper, breathlessly, while simultaneously suppressing a moan when he delves his tongue even deeper in your core, your fingers instinctively curling and closing a fist on his hair, making him groan. You buck your hips against his lips and you can feel sweat beading on the backs of your knees, heart threatening to jump out of your mouth by how fast it’s racing.

You suddenly freeze when you hear a voice from outside approaching the kitchen and you lightly tap his shoulder. Graham stops on command, but he won’t get up until he’s absolutely certain he should. He sprinkles your thigh with small kisses again, eyes droopy with the high from giving you the pleasure he knows he’s giving you while he admires you. The person heading for the kitchen takes a turn to the opposite side and you sigh in relief. “False alarm. Go on, baby.”

“Yes, ma’am.” You notice he’s panting, and you can only guess how hard he is, judging by the tone of his voice. The time you spent frozen wasn’t enough to completely burn out the fire he’d already created within you, but he’s determined to give you an orgasm before anyone can interrupt you again – now he had two fingers moving, stroking, curling inside of you in delightful ways while his tongue began to work your clit in tight little circles. You could feel him moaning against your sex, he really liked this. And fuck, he was good at it. He slips one more finger into you, his ring finger, making your pleasure soon explode into a trembling climax. You couldn’t stop the little sound you made and he kisses your thigh in reply while still lazily fucking you with his fingers. “So fucking beautiful,” he whispers.

One of your hands move to your mouth in order to cover the sound you really want to make. Graham, once again, looks really proud of himself.

He slowly pulls his fingers out of you and cleans them with his tongue before he lifts up again as inconspicuously as possible. You try to look like nothing happened, and you’re both glad that, apparently, no one’s giving a single fuck to whatever’s going on where you are. Given the realization, you look at each other and giggle. He then pulls you in a hug, voice husky when he teases, and confesses, “You can’t imagine how bad I want to fuck you right here. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“We’ll have to take this to the bedroom, love.” You reply, still recovering from your orgasm. You can’t risk more than you’ve already risked. He looks slightly…

Disappointed.

You smile. “You thrill-seeking bastard. You enjoyed this way too much, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t you?” He questions back, tickling your sides, a wide, satisfied smile on his face. God, you loved him so much. He pulls you back to him again, and you turn to the other side so he can grind against you from behind. He’s rock hard. “We have some thick curtains here, after all.” You say, mischievously, before you close the curtains as carefully as possible. He lifts up your dress once again, this time high enough so he can fill his hands with your breasts, and he, agonizingly slowly, teases your nipples with his fingertips while he keeps grinding against you. This, alone, gets you motivated enough for another round. “God, Coxon, you’re going to be the death of me.” Your voice’s painfully needy, just like every other part of you.

You spread your legs a little wider to give him better access to you. Feeling cool air against your bare ass, you bite your lip and screw your eyes shut when his hand squeezes your butt. “Dripping wet for me. You’re glistening.” He quietly notes, giving your butt a little kiss - you then look over your shoulder to watch him get his jeans open. His hard cock bounces against your ass as he pushes his boxers down. You wiggle to get him inside you while he tortuously slowly runs the tip of his cock between the slick folds of your pussy. When it bumps against your sensitive clit, you can’t stop the mewl of his name.

After a few more hard breaths, he was inside you. You’re hungry for him too, and the sound of your body clashing against his is something unbelievable. You begin in a faster pace than the one you’re used to – and that’s not a problem. At all. Speed is of essence, but you’re also starving for each other. It feels like no contact is ever 100% enough.

Your hands keep firmly gripping the balcony and when he lowers his chest against your back you can’t hold back the involuntary gasp that leaves your throat and echoes through the empty house. One of his large hands holds your hips in place while he fucks you mercilessly, the other one covers your mouth hastily – his shaky voice betrays how badly this is affecting him too. “Shhh, love. You don't want anyone seeing you in that state. So fucking tight around me.”

He was sinking more deeply into you with each thrust now, and trying to keep your eyes open while his now awaken dominant side is doing that to you, exactly the way you want him to, is torture. You feel like you’re going to pass out from the all the sensorial and contextual stimulation. “You want me to come inside you, baby?” To which you keenly reply with a nod, not bothering to uncover your mouth. This was perfect.

He edged his hips back so he reaches your most sensitive spot and his grip on your mouth constricts when he notices how loud you want to be. “Feels like a dream inside you but keep. Quiet.” His voice lowers to a breathy whisper against your throat and the hands that were holding your hips in place now snaked to the front of your body to help you get off. And like that, you do, coming a second time, this orgasm even more intense than the last. The way your walls twitch around his dick is enough to push him over the edge too, and you feel him spilling inside you. You milk him of every drop, and after you both ride off your high, you feel a tender kiss that lasts for a while in your scalp, a silent “thank you” while he slips out of you.

You put your dress back on place, trying to compose yourself before you can look another human in the eye again. You have a positively overwhelmed, just-woke-up-from-an-incredible-dream look on your face. “You better not get me addicted to this kind of risky shit.”

He laughs while he also does his best to look like not one hair or piece of clothing ever went out of place. “Sorry, Y/N, I think I already did.”

#graham coxon #graham coxon x reader #alex james #dave rowntree #damon albarn #britpop #smut #imagine #reader insert #graham x reader

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