#but oof the colours are so pretty

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[samathekittycat]

you're the cool mcyt mutual I have no memory of meeting, in a good way though, like, for real, you're just epic my mutual, also your blog colors are very nice to look at, not to derail, but very pretty colors going on

i am BLUSHING you are sooo sweet MWUAH :D

no yeah my memory is as poor as the reading comprehension on this site. all of you are like pokemon. to me. you spawn randomly and if im lucky enough to catch you then yippee! where did you come from? i dunno. have some cake

[autism-corner]

im going back to having yakumo hair...

[cupcakesmoothie]

Tw: Implied Suicide

This was from a story I wrote 3 years ago, or June 2020 according to my notes app.

It was going in a pretty interesting direction, but I don't think I'm going to continue it.

[csainzsgirly]

I would love something with Mr. Charles Leclerc. He's been away for 21 DAYS due to the triple header and his wife (the reader) has had enough. She puts on a special lingerie set she recently bought in a colour she knows Charles will love and waits (im)patiently for her lovely husband. The moment she sees him coming through the front door wearing the outfit shown in the photo I attached to this request, she can't take her hands off him. (His arms in that photo make me drool) She needs him right there, right now. So Charles gives her everything she wants including an orgasm for every single day they weren't together and the filthiest dirty talk in French. Thank you very much ☺️.

We all want to put our teeth in his biceps, don't we? warnings: 18+, google translated french (mon dieu), charles being so hot and getting deserved head, him giving it raw (be responsible irl please) and giving orgasms that are illegally good.

Your body collides with Charles with a soft oof, but he catches you effortlessly nevertheless. He laughs as he spins you around in the hallway, your face buried in the soft material of his shirt, the bare skin of your thighs wrapping around the linen pants he was wearing. He could barely make the sentence I missed you so much from your muffled voice, your lips pressing to his neck to reclaim him as yours. "I missed you more, baby," Charles replied, his other arm wrapping around you after he dropped his bag in the hall. "An eight time Grand Prix came back home to me," you purr, your ankles locking behind his back as he hadn't moved from his position in the hallway yet. "I'm so proud of you," you continue, happily accepting the kiss he pressed to your lips. Charles shifted you a little in his arms to hold onto you better, hands finding the bare skin under the silk robe you were wearing.

The robe fell open with the slightest movement, revealing the pretty set you were wearing, the see-through lace doing little to cover your tits properly. You grew hotter under his eyes, his pupils widening and the crystal colours fading into a dark swirl that caused a shiver to run up your spine. "Charles..." you hum, your fresh manicure tickling his biceps when you ran your hands over him, feeling the taut muscles before your palms warmed his chest. "Don't make me wait," you finish. "You're that needy?" he breathes, his lips brushing over yours, leaning back when you wanted to kiss him. You whine in response, your lower lip jutted out slightly. "Tu es tellement nécessiteux que tu veux que je t'emmène ici?" Charles asks, his palms kneading your ass, pulling you over his growing erection as your back hit the wall in the hallway.

"Oui," you reply with a small voice. "Need you here, now," you feel out of breath without having done anything. Your lips mold together in the most delicious kiss you could have wished for after not being able to kiss him for 21 days. Charles groans against your mouth when your hands continue to run over him, riding up his shirt, feeling his abs, your nails scratching his pecs. "Want if off," you muttered, gasping when his lips kiss down your throat to your neck next, the stubble on his jaws and cheek tickling your skin. Charles put you back on your feet, complying with your request to get his shirt off, swinging it over his head and dropping it somewhere. You slipped your arms out of the robe, letting it fall to the floor as well. "Putain, tu es tellement belle," he whistles through his teeth, his hands feeling you up, pulling you against him again. Your fingers dance across the waistband of his sweats, pulling on the string to loosen it.

You don't waist time sliding down to your knees, dragging his pants down and freeing his awfully hard erection from his shorts. Your pussy clenches around thin air at the mere sight of his cock, the shape so perfect, the girth making your mouth water, the slick leaking from your cunt ruining the fine lace of your thong. No sight was as pretty as looking up at Charles while you had his cock between your lips. The sigh that escaped him was enough to make you whine around his cock while your hand stroked him, your tongue lapping around the sensitive tip before you took more of him. He plants a hand against the wall behind you, muscles in his upper body flexing while the other hand moved into your hair in the back of your neck. Charles grunts as he keeps your hair out of your face, his hips rolling forward with each flick of your tongue and bob of your head.

Charles' abs clench as he watches you gag and struggle, your eyes glistening slightly as the corners started to water. "Prends-moi bien, bébé," he compliments through gritted teeth, watching you gasp for air as you pull back slightly. He's obsessed with seeing you like this, looking up at him with big eyes, your lips glossy from your spit, swollen from sucking him so well. Your hand glides over his cock again, you're about to take him back in your mouth as he pulls you up. "J'ai besoin de te goûter," he mutters, taking his turn to get on his knees, moving one of your legs over his shoulder. You could barely register the moment he pulled your thong aside, his hot mouth landing on your pussy without a warning, his tongue diving between your folds and licking you up. Your back arching off the wall and your fingers curling into his hair. "Charles..." you moan, the coil in your lower abdomen tightening when he sucked your clit into his mouth. His stubble scraped over your thighs, roughing up your soft skin.

His palms kneaded your ass again, pulling you more over his mouth. He licked, slurped, sucked, like you were the first thing he ate after a twelve-hour journey back home, making you whine and mewl with desperation to cum. And he wanted you to cum on his tongue. Charles' pace quickened when he noticed your short breaths, the frantic pulling on his hair. White-hot pleasure clouded your vision when your body reached a peak it had been craving since the morning he left for the triple header. He had been too busy for phone sex and your fingers simply couldn't do what he could. Your knees buckled with a difficulty to keep standing up, so he got up as well, his body pressing against yours to keep you up right. You weakly moaned against his mouth when he kissed you, tongue brushing over your lower lip before deepening the kiss, fingers dancing down your stomach and past the elastic band of your thong.

"F-fuck," you tremble when two of his fingers enter you, easily finding home between your slippery walls. "Shit, baby, you're so fucking wet," he muttered, pulling his fingers out of you to lick them clean before he gently let them enter you again. "Look at me," Charles demands, making you lift your eyes to his as he starts a pace that has you on the brink of an orgasm embarrassingly fast already. He curls them up against your g-spot, fingertips massaging the sensitive spot inside you. You're a mess when you cum on his fingers, an arm around your waist making sure you don't fall over. "Need to be inside you," his voice rasps. "Need you inside me," you emphasize, causing a small smirk to curl his lips before he turns you around, forcing your back to arch a little so he can easily pull your hips back. "Mon dieu, I missed this pussy," Charles growls, sinking into you deeply with a swift thrust of his hips.

Your eyelids flutter as he spreads you open, the sensitiveness of your previous orgasm and the burn of your stretching walls causing your lips to part with a nearly pornographic moan. You're slightly disappointed he turned you around to fuck you from behind, as your fingers were itching to dig into his shoulders, to claw at his back. Charles' first thrusts were slow, and he was taking in the feeling of your perfect cunt around him, squeezing him tight, inviting him to push in deeper, before he quickened the pace to fuck you hard and deep. You couldn't keep your sounds down anymore, skin to skin sounds filling the hallway, the wall becoming nearly uncomfortably hard as you leaned your forearms against it. "That's it, baby. You're so good to me," he praised, knowing you were close as you cried out his name when his fingers landed on your clit.

You felt on the edge of passing out, the pleasure curling your toes and swirling up your nerve system, a hand reaching back for him letting him know you needed a couple of seconds. Charles grew possibly even harder at seeing you struggle to take him, your hand landing flat on the wall in attempt to steady yourself, moving your balance from one leg to the other, his cock still inside you. He had to pull out briefly to turn you around, lift you up against him. Your arms curled around his shoulders, ankles locking behind his back again. He moved you up and down his cock, struggling to hold himself together as well, feeling on the brink of his release for a couple of minutes already, but he needed to make you cum again, needed to make up for the time he was gone. There was nothing he loved more than taking care of his girl. "Charles, baby," you whined, nails digging into his arms that were holding you tightly.

Your tits were bouncing as he fucked you harder, the straps of your bra had fallen down your arms, the lace of your thong stretched so far you were sure it was ruined forever now. You looked so gorgeous to him, so fucked out, cock drunk, overstimulated. Nothing felt better than his body tensing against yours, hot seed painting your walls and his grunts against your mouth. You ran your hands over his broad shoulders, feeling his skin that was slightly damp with sweat now. "Welcome home," you said, a little out of breath. A smile curled his lips as he let out a small chuckle. "I missed you," he repeated, kissing your lips sweetly before letting you slowly down the floor. "I'm so happy you're back," you added, kissing him once more. "You don't think I'm done with you, right?" Charles' lips trail down your jaw again. "I sure hope you're not," you hum, feeling him getting hard again.

[cherryblossom-enthusiast]

Bloom (Joel Millerxf!reader)

A/N: Naaaah whoever decided Joel Miller should be played by Pedro Pascal did it for the people who have daddy issuesssss. Here’s something I whipped out because Pedro leaves in my mind rent free. Pleaseee give me some suggestions or prompts for things to write

I tried starting a tag-list but it literally burned in flames when I tried setting it up. Please just turn on notifications if you would like to be updated for @cherryblossom-enthusiast if you want to keep up with my writing :)

Synopsis: Joel Miller was neither friend or foe. You’ve barely talked to the man considering his reclusiveness. But you can’t stop staring and wanting. Turns out, he can’t stop staring and wanting you either. 

Warnings/ Tags: E (18+). Smut bby. Fluff, GrumpyxSunshine (Reader is a florist!), Unprotected PinV, Language, Dirty talk! Joel, Praise Kink, Rough sex, Fingering, SLIGHT spoilers

Word Count: 5.3K Words

Masterlist 

Your breath clouds your vision like a puff of white smoke.

Winter. The very word is a tragedy.

Food is harder to come by, light leaves much faster. The world is as bleak as it is and yet winter still cascades around you, turning everything black and white. A lifeless painting.

The chilly wind picks up and a shiver runs through your body.

“Y’good?”

The voice is lazy. Slow.

Warm.

Considering who it’s coming from, the level of warmth is a fucking marvel.

A hulking figure approaches your side. With a deep sigh, you turn your head and you’re met with the most tired eyes you’ve ever seen on someone. No shine, no luster, just an outpour of exhaustion from every small gesture he decides to do.

Joel fucking Miller.

You remember the first time you talked to him all too clearly.

You’d never been friends. Acquaintances even. Makes it a bit hard when the son of a bitch was as recluse as he was. They were the new residents of Jackson. Him and the girl he holds tight to his chest.

You were intimidated by him at first. Joel was all gruff words, long sighs, and blank stares. But the more you paid attention to him, the more you understood how he worked. Especially, when it came to the people he cared about. The man didn’t take shit from anyone. Nobody bothered him, and he returned the favour.

For the most part, that stayed true. Joel was the kind of person who always vied to stay invisible, be like every other person. Unaffected for the most part. But as you start to water your flowers on a clear-skied summer day, you hear him laughing.  

The richness of that laugh is still embedded into the deep recesses of your mind.

Joel wasn’t hard to understand as long as you really looked at him and boy did you stare.

You look over to his porch and there he is, “take no shit” Joel Miller with Ellie, teaching her how to play the guitar. You can’t quite remember what they were talking about. Something about “dinosaurs” and “T-rex hands”, but his adoration for the girl was so palpable, so intoxicating.

It was your first time seeing him so- loose. Like he actually gave a damn.

That’s when you knew Joel Miller would burn the world to keep that girl happy.

Ellie’s voice calling your name snaps you out of your thoughts. “How are you doing?!”

The tips of your ears burn, thinking about how weird it must have been staring at the pair for so long. “Enjoying this weather, how are you doing today Ellie?” You flash a bright smile.

She runs off the porch, practically hurling the instrument back at Joel. You hear an oof from the man behind her and you almost let out a small chuckle. Ellie stops in front of you, notebook in hand. The girl was always drawing or writing something. “It’s a great thing you came out,” she starts and pulls a pencil out from her back pocket. “I’ve been meaning to ask all about your pretty flowers.”

“Hopefully I have some answers.”

The girl babbles on about anything and everything she could think of. From what she thought were the coolest flowers, to what colours reminded her of planets. The conversation happens a while. You’d hit every single plant in your garden by the end of it.  

Ellie points at your rose bushes with the back of her pencil. She reminds you of a reporter. All serious, wanting to get a big scoop, thirsty for any ounce of information she could get. “How about those? What are those?”

“Ah,” you move away so she can have a better view. “Those are called roses.”

“Uh-huh” She writes enthusiastically in her notebook “and what do those mean?”

“Well, each colour means a different thing, but that colour specifically-“ you point at the flowers behind you using your thumb “red roses, mean passion, affection, and-“ you pause, trying to find the proper words “things akin to love.”

Ellie stops her writing and looks up at you. Her eyebrows are creased and she looks so ridiculously cute it makes you giggle. “Basically, you’d give it to someone you reaallly reaaallly like Ells.”

“Like- Joel?”

That gets a proper laugh out of you. “Not quite.”

She doesn’t seem to be satisfied with your answer but leaves the reply alone. In true Ellie fashion, she moves on by asking another question. “What flower would I be?!”

You pretend to think about it for a moment even though you know exactly what flower you would give her. Not that you’d given that particular question much thought, but you just knew. When you find exactly what you’re looking for, you squat to quickly pluck it from the ground and turn back to Ellie. You outstretch your hand “I think I’ll give you a yellow lilly.”

“What does this one mean?”

You ponder it, letting out a hmmm and place the flower behind her ear. “Well it wouldn’t be special if I had to explain it now would it? I guess you just have to brush up on your flower language.”

Ellie lets out a whine. “But you’re the only who knows anything about plants here!”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to bother me more.”

A wild smile blooms on her face.

“Ellie!” You turn to discover the owner of the voice behind you. Tommy Miller approaches your direction, carrying a bag of supplies and produce. “You said you’d help Maria with supper tonight!”

Ellie jumps. “Shit!” She runs towards Tommy without a single care in the world. Halfway, she calls back to you and thanks you for your time. Tommy lifts his hand to acknowledge your presence and in return you lift your hand back to wave goodbye. Before you know it, the pair disappears, Ellie eagerly asking Tommy if he knew what her new flower meant.

“She’ll be talking to everyone bout’ flowers for while.”

Shoulders tensing, you swivel your head to your side. Joel stands beside you, hands in his pockets, a small smile gracing his face.

It catches you off guard completely. In the months you had spent as his neighbour, Joel had never spoken even a mere sentence to you. There was acknowledgement, maybe a simple wave, that nod men his age do when they want to greet a passerby. But hearing him direct his words to you hits you like a wave. A tsunami of shock.

He seems to notice your plight and his once loose posture turns rigid. “Sorry,” he mumbles “I should stop botherin ya-“

You shake your head in defense. “No, no, it’s just-“ Letting the tension roll of your shoulders, you sigh out a laugh and extend your hand, introducing yourself.  He clasps it with his own and your arm goes limp. His hand is larger, the callouses hard against your skin. It should feel weird, uncomfortable even, but none of those feelings come to mind.

“Joel Miller, nice to meet you.”

Maybe you were silly for expecting more, but nothing really happens after that.

There were some conversations about small favours and errands here and there, but not to anyone’s surprise, Joel’s got more than one hard layer of rock. He’s as immovable as a mountain. You naturally went back to the role of spectator. Stupid little crush that wouldn’t go away.

How could it when he was the man that he was.

He repeats his question from earlier and it finally snaps you back to your current reality. You were in the middle of rounds during this god-forsaken weather. “Y’good?”

Joel wasn’t even supposed to be your patrol partner. You had gotten wind that your original partner caught hold of the flu and since Joel was otherwise wide open for the afternoon other than indulging other people’s requests, he took up the opportunity. The walk started off as awkward. You didn’t know what to say or how to approach him so it stayed quiet for the majority of the time, but the more you walked, the more comfortable it became. Usually, going out of Jackson’s walls still scared you. Having Joel by your side gave you a bit more re-assurance. You aren’t oblivious. Everyone knows how brutal he can become.

You shrug and look back at the vast expanse of land in front of you, overseeing from the cliff you were on. “’Just enjoying the natural splendour.”

Joel stays silent for a small while but replies. “I’d believe you more if you didn’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’d get into a ring and fight winter one-on-one”

The comment makes you scoff. “I’m tough as nails Miller.” You stare directly into his impenetrable eyes. “I’m sure I can handle a little snow.”

-------------------

Joel opens the door to a safehouse, making sure not to drop his gun until he knows for sure the area is safe. Once he’s satisfied, he leans the shotgun against the wall and motions for you to come in with a nudge of his head.

Both of you had been making record time getting back, but not even a racehorse could outrun the storm starting to brew. Halfway through your trudge back, Joel pats your shoulder, explaining that with the poor winter jackets the both of you were wearing and the wind whipping your faces, it’d be best to stop by a small cabin him and Tommy scouted a few rounds back. Not wanting to freeze to death, you obviously agreed to the idea.

It left you here.

Setting your bag down, rubbing your hands together, patiently waiting for Joel to start a fire in the hearth.

Joel.

Joel.

Alone with Joel.

He stands up from his crouching position and turns back to you. “You’re free to set-up your sleeping bag closer to the fire.”

“Oh, no- no, it’s alright.” You speak quickly. Almost too quickly. “You made the fire, I think you deserve to enjoy the fire.”

“But-“

“I insist.” You state it in a tone that says “that’s final”.

The man sighs. “Alright ma’am, whatever ya say.”

The two of you unroll your packs, splaying your sleeping bags so that your toes are towards the hearth. You take off your boots and sit on your make-shift bed. It was uncomfortable, you haven’t had to sleep on one in a while, but you’d gladly take anything over having to stay outside. Joel follows suit.

“Turns out I couldn’t handle a little snow.” You remark.

A small puff of air comes out of him. Coming from Joel, it may as well have been a full-blown laugh. You turn to take a glimpse at him and another small smile is on his lips. It’s only the second time you’ve ever seen one on him and it knocks all the air out of you just like it did the first time.

He’s distracted and that’s when you take the time to really focus on him. He looks softer in the firelight, the whites in his hair more prominent, his usual dark eyes having a glow to them. He looks less- burdened, and with that smile on his face, dare you say, despite your current situation, just the tiniest bit peaceful.

“You should do that more.” The words slip out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“What?”

“Smile.”

Like a toddler caught with the cookie jar, a crook caught in the headlights, Joel tenses and you mentally punch yourself in the face. His face goes back to the stoic front he usually puts on.

“Sorry, I was just-“ you start to apologize.

“It’s fine.”

Silence once again ensues. The air becomes as awkward as it was before.

“So-“

“What-“

You both talk at the same time.  Joel gestures to you, asking you to go first.

“I was just gonna ask what we could do to kill time.”

Joel shrugs and continues to stare at the fire. “We could always just sleep.”

“Nah c’mon-“you push “don’t be such a bore.” You ponder some more and think of an idea. “How about twenty questions?”  Your rounds partner says nothing, and you take the chance to convince him even more. “I’ve lived beside you a whole year and know nothin about you-“

“Probably for the best.”

Oh.

You understand. Of course, you do. But you can’t stop the small twinge of disappointment growing in your chest anyways.

When he makes the statement, you pull back. “Sorry, I just wanted to know more about you.” You fiddle with your nails. “Been staring at you for god knows how long and the most I’ve gathered is you like wood work.”

Joel perks up at your confession.

Dumb.

So dumb of you to admit that.

“You’re right, it’s better if we just go to-“

“No, let’s play.”

His sudden change of attitude to your idea throws you in for a loop. “Really? You sure?”

“That your first question you’re wastin’ darlin’?”

Your already tired brain short circuits at the nickname. “What?” No- I-“

The man has an amused look plastered all over his face. “Okay, well- shoot then.”

You think up of something stupid on the spot. “Favourite movie?”

“None. Got too many.” He answers.

“What? Well that’s not-“

“My turn.” He cuts you off once more. “Favourite flower?”

It doesn’t even take you a second to respond. “Oh easy, the lotus flower.” You ponder your next question. “One thing you don’t like?”

“Smiling.”

That gets a genuine chuckle out of you.

“Your thoughts on coffee?” He continues.

Your nose wrinkles “Bitter garbage.”

He puts his hands up to surrender. “I respect wrong answers.”

“Pet Peeve?”

He looks up at the ceiling and takes a moment to really think about it. “When I have nothing good to trade for coffee.”  He takes another few seconds to think of another good question before he hits the lottery. “Why don’t you like winter so much?”

A loaded and good question indeed.

You shrug. “Cause.”

You get an eyebrow raise. “Cause?”

“Cause I don’t know-“ You go back to picking at your nails. It’s become a habit, doing it every time you’re nervous. “The world already looks dead and winter comes along and makes it even more dead.”

“That why you like flowers so much?”

It was your turn to raise an eyebrow. “You’re not even letting me ask a question before you ask me another one?”

This flusters him. “No, I just-“

Embarrassed Joel Miller. Never thought you’d get to check that off your bingo card.

A wide smile breaks on your lips. “ I’m just kidding, Joel.” He lets out a sort of grumble and it makes you smile even wider. “That’s a part of it sure.” Your eyes haze over as you start to remember life as it once was. “My folks were florists” you start to explain “before all this shit went down.” It was a small shop, with wide glass windows, and plants of every kind. “Hated it. Didn’t want anything to do with em’ especially my father, some dumb teenage kid who thought it was embarrassing.” You scoff. “But taking care of plants was the only thing I was good at, held it to my chest like a life-line.”

Memories play in front of you like an old film. Sometimes you forget that there was something before all of this.

All this carnage.

All this wreck.

“Before my dad died, not to this, thank god, he kept on trying to take care of the shop.” You recall his pale ill-stricken face and frail hands.  “I got mad, made a fuss, yelled why he’d take care of some dumb flowers but not himself, and you know what he said?”

You remember his words, as clear as crystal, even twenty years later.

“Isn’t it a wonderful thing that these flowers still grow? Despite all the noise and all the chaos, something as beautiful and as frail as this is surviving. When I think of the way I’m helping that, I can’t possibly suffer.”

Joel stays silent at your admission.

You notice that you may have gone a little overboard.

Jesus- dump it all on him why don’t you?

Trying to make the mood lighter, you quickly change the subject. “Besides, when it’s summer, Ellie visits me more.” Joel Miller chuckles at the mention of the girl. You decide then it’s definitely one of your favourite sounds. “I like seeing the two of you together.”

“Hm?”

“You both always seem so lost in your own world. Nice to see, considering you got that grumpy scowl on all the time.”

“That right?”

“Uh-huh.”

He slowly nods, gazing back at the fire. “Some of us aren’t monsters and smile 24/7 like you do.”

You’re offended by the comment. “Wha- I do not!” You exclaim. “What’s wrong with smiling anyways?”

Even more chuckling. He’s getting real comfortable with doing that. “Nothing, when it comes to you anyways” he remedies “But you do it all the time, watering people’s yards, baking them an apple pie, hell, I’m pretty sure you laughed when you slipped on ice this morning. You got your emotions all over your face you know that? Infects all of Jackson.” He takes a slight pause. “Reminds me of Ellie.”

“Oh god, you saw that this morning?”

“Oh yeah,” He teases, words elongated in that Southern drawl. “Mitts flying into the air and everything.”

Your face practically feels like an oven. “How do you even know about all of that?”

Joel shrugs. “Cause.”

“Cause?”

“Maybe you haven’t been the only one staring for god knows how long.”

Time stops.

Suddenly, air doesn’t matter, heat doesn’t even come close to existing. A supernova could happen, and you’d sit here just as shell-shocked. Nothing matters other than Joel.

Joel and his stupid accent.

Joel and what he just said with that stupid accent.

You swallow thickly and bless your heart, you don’t know what comes over you, but you take a chance to keep pushing. “You think I’m gonna “infect you” with tons of smiles soon too, cowboy?”

He doesn’t reply all to quickly, and for those couple of seconds where all you can here is the fire crackle and the wind whipping outside, it feels like a brick ton is laid upon your shoulders.

“Maybe you already have.”

Goddamn.

All the stolen glances you’ve taken of him flashes in your mind.

“Joel,” you mutter. The man beside you continues to stare at the fire, refusing to make eye contact with you. “Joel.” You repeat, more firm with your tone.

He finally decides to look in your direction and God- your heart pounds so hard, you think it might just come out of your chest. Those eyes. Those damn coffee-coloured eyes of his that usually looks so cold, so despondent are the warmest colour of molten chocolate you’ve ever seen. You can tell he’s clenching his jaw and the view almost knocks you out cold.

With a shaky breath, you start to messily list all the things you’ve always wanted to say. “Tell me now if I’m taking this the wrong way so I don’t keep embarrassing myself, but I swear to everything I hold sacred, if I don’t kiss you right now, I’m going to have a very frustrating ni-“

A growl from Joel cuts you off and before you know it, he’s crossing oceans to get to you. A strong hand grips you by the neck, and firm lips plant themselves squarely on yours.

It’s pathetic how fast you keen under his touch, how fast you grab the collar of his shirt to draw him closer to you. You open your mouth to moan and he takes that chance to slip his tongue inside of your mouth. It’s dizzying, downright intoxicating the way Joel kisses you. The way you’re kissing each other is every look, every stare, every word that was ever left unsaid between the both of you that’s exploding into something cosmic.

You lift yourself up and straddle his lap. You press down and feel the growing hardness in Joel’s jeans. He groans into your mouth and you continue to press your hips down farther.

Joel stops kissing you. A needy whine escapes your lips. “Are you sure you want this darlin’?”

Your panting is heady. “Joel if you don’t fuck me right now, I’ll have the liberty of fucking myself with my fing-“

You know you sound downright hopeless, but you’ve been wanting for so damn long.

He flips you down onto the sleeping bags so fast, you don’t even have time to finish. He rucks up your shirt and starts to pepper small kisses from the center of your breasts, down to your stomach. It makes you whimper as you continue to finish taking of your top.

Joel gets to quickly unbuttoning the rest of your clothes, peeling the jeans off of your body until all you have on is your bra and panties. He hovers over you and takes off his own shirt. He’s all muscle and hard chest. The mere sight of him shirtless drenches your underwear faster. He takes a few seconds to peer at your half-naked form. “Damn, you’re a sight.”

“So are you.” You admit in a small voice.

He wastes no time, delving back in between your legs. He slides down your underwear and immediately ghosts his fingers over your cunt. Shivers run down your body as your eyes close in bliss.

“You imagine it was my fingers?” His dark voice pulls you back.

“Ever since I first set my eyes on you Miller.” You heatedly reply.

“Great,” he pushes two fingers inside you making you boom a moan towards the ceiling. “Been thinking it was your fingers around my cock too.

He works into you, his fingers large and stocky. Joel starts off slow, languid, making sure to tease every reaction out of you. You don’t think it’s possible to get wetter than you already are, but every thrust of his fingers proves you wrong. He curls both at the same time, and your hips immediately lift from the pressure. Joel pushes you down with his other hand. “Na-ah darlin’,” That southern drawl of his is deeper, lazier than usual “I finally got you where I want you, you’re not going anywhere.”

As he keeps your hips down with his palm, Joel increases the speed of his fingers. “Why didn’t-“ you choke “you do anything earlier then?”

A mocking scoff leaves him. “You’re too good for me, doll. Got too many issues. “

“Then why now?”

“Because I’m still a selfish fucking asshole.” He groans, rotating his thumb around your clit. “And when you sit in front of me, all flushed and pretty, asking me to fuck you, how could I possibly have the strength to say no?”

You see Joel spit on your slit and it’s what does it for you. A rush of electricity passes through your body and it renders you senseless. You mewl and twist in his hold, but Joel makes sure to hold you through your orgasm.

Your mind is hazy, it turns into a mixture of fog and smoke, but your refuse to leave him hanging. After a few seconds, you prop yourself up and kneel right in front of him. Not breaking eye contact for even a moment, you take your hand and start to palm his length over his jeans. He trembles beneath you, jaw clenching as he lets out a groan. You slowly unbuckle his belt, pulling down the rest of his clothing and waste no time finally gripping him directly.

Shit, you knew a man like him would be big, but this is-

The sound that comes from Joel’s throat is devastating. Somewhere between pant and moan, losing total control. He thumps his head on your shoulder, seeking out the crook of your neck. You continue to work his cock, building up speed, tightening your grip. His tip leaks pre-cum and the way he bunches up your hair desperately, like he needs to hold onto something to keep from losing control only prompts you to keep going. The feeling of power is addicting. “Don’t mess with me” Joel Miller keening under your touch.

He suddenly pulls your hair and it’s enough of a shock to make you stop your hand and whine. “I know you’re having fun doll, but you keep doing that and I’ll finish. Waited too damn long for that to happen.” He grabs you by the hips and flips you over making you let out a small yelp. He positions you so that your ass is towards him. “Bend.” He orders.

So you do.

He palms your ass and gives it a spank. “Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to touch this? Flaunting it around-“ He squeezes “shoving it in my direction, wearing those pretty dresses of yours.”

“Ever think it was on purpose?”

There’s another slap to your ass to respond to your comment.

He lines up his cock to your entrance, gliding his tip to coat it in your wetness. You quiver, breath hitching, skin prickling.

“If I fuck you, there’s no going back for me darlin’, if you want me to stop you have to tell me right now.”

You groan in frustration. “Fuck me Joel, please just-“

He buries his full length into you all in one thrust.

You think you’re ascending to heaven, knocking on the pearly white gates itself. He gives you a couple of seconds to get accustomed to his massive size. “You okay?”

“Mmhm?” Is all you can make out, trying to nod your head that’s pressed up against your sleeping bag.

“Good,” he starts to move as you cry out in pleasure. “Tell me to stop and I will, but otherwise-“ He shoves himself even deeper. “I’m not holdin’ back.”

Joel sets up a brutal pace from the beginning. He grips your ass tight, making sure you’re taking everything he has to give and all you can do is let him. There’s nowhere for you to go as he drives his hips into you, fully filling you up with every fast snap of his hips. To say it’s overwhelming would be a complete understatement.

Are you sure this is the same Joel Miller? Cool, calm, composed Joel Miller that has everyone quaking in their boots the minute he holds a knife or a gun. Because right now, he’s so undone. There’s no pattern to the way he moves in you, no finesse, just pure want.

He places his hand that was on your ass to your scalp. He pulls you up using your hair and once you’re flush against his back, he grasps your neck, continuing his unrelenting tempo to your pussy. You tighten around him.

“You like that huh?” He comments in an amused tone. “Who knew the town sweetheart was so fucking naughty like this.” You want to try and come up with a witty response, but all that comes out is a garbled moan. “Actually, don’t tell me. I’d kill anybody who does know.”

His thumb raises to your lips and you take the liberties of sucking it into your mouth. His hold on your neck slackens and the sudden rush of oxygen to your head has you teetering on the edge of consciousness. He takes his arm that’s around your stomach and travels it down further to your swollen cunt. Joel starts to roll your clit between his fingers and you think you’ll really black-out then.

“God, such a good girl, even when taking cock.” He whispers into your ear. You clench around him even harder this time and he knows you’re close. “You gonna come doll? Gonna come on my cock?”

A needy whine escapes your throat. Each roll, each rut, each jerk, grows more intense as each second passes. “C’mon,” he coaxes “do it.” With one last pinch to your sensitive clit, your muscles tighten and heat spreads across your skin. Your walls flutter and as your eyes roll back, vision blurring, you are hurled into your climax. With a choked sob, you slump forwards and the only thing helping you stay up is Joel’s hold. He follows you shortly after, sputtering your name on his lips. Pulling out quickly, he comes on your back.

Joel slowly lowers down the both of you, making sure not to crush you with his weight from behind. It was so gentle, so benign you struggled to relate it to the man furiously fucking you just a few moments earlier. Nothing but your pants fill the air for a while. You’re sticky all over, sweat and come coating your skin. Your body was buzzing from both pain and pleasure, but you couldn’t care less.

You roll your body so you can look at him. Joel’s face was and wasn’t everything you expected it to look like. You expect the flush, the hair sticking to his forehead, the clench of his jaw. What you don’t expect is the softness in his usual impenetrable gaze.

“I’m sorry.” He grumbles.

Your eyebrows knit and you place a palm against his cheek. Joel all but melts into your touch. “What for?”

“For wanting you this much.”

Taking both your arms, you wrap them around his neck and pull him towards you. He lays against you, hie ear right beside your mouth. “Thank you.” You whisper.

“What for?

“Wanting me this much.”

You hear his sharp intake of air and smile. You continue to pet his hair, peppering small kisses on his forehead. “I want you too, Joel.”

“You shouldn’t.”  He mutters a tired reply.

“But I do.” You take a deep breath and let him know all your thoughts. “I want all your grumpy stares, and your grunted words- You pause to give him another kiss “Your silent kindness, and that rare smile of yours.” Joel doesn’t say anything back so you continue to talk. “All of it. Will you let me have all of it?”

He pulls himself back, just enough to gaze back at you, full of admiration. “Just let me have all of you too.”

The beating of your heart doesn’t speed, doesn’t flutter past the finish line, instead opting for a slow steady pace, But the feeling in your chest was so heavy, so full, that you couldn’t mistake it for anything other than devotion. You grin from ear to ear. “Who would be able to say no at getting a chance to annoy you with more conversation.”

He lifts an eyebrow, and it only makes your heart fill up with even more with adoration.

This man that you’ve been pining for, holding you close here. Now.

You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Hell, you don’t know what will happen a few seconds from now, how this whole unpolished attraction between the two of you will buff out. The wind is still howling outside, whipping away at all the destruction and the carnage happening around you, but for now the world is still. The both of you are inside this cabin in the woods and for now, you don’t think, don’t plan, only exist and it is everything.

Maybe later you can hope that in this winter, something beautiful and strong can grow too.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It’s late in the evening when you finally get to relax the next day. Once the both of you had returned to Jackson, there were too many errands that had to be rushed in the time that you missed. Nothing else could be said other then a quick farewell between each other.

As you drag your exhausted body up the stairs of your porch, you almost don’t notice the flower in front of your doorstep, nearly stepping on it.

A wave of warmth comes rushing up from your toes.

You beam as you crouch and pick up a singular red rose attached with a note that says “Come over. We didn’t finish our game of twenty questions.”

- - - - - - - -

Want More?

[blimgus]

WHB SLEEPOVER SERIES -GEHENNA VER.

Hey guysss blimgus here

guys guys listen i've got an idea.

_______________________________________

Imagine spending your sweet time in Gehenna. Peaceful slow time in the capital passes with the occasional random explosions in the background. However, when the night comes it's time to head back to Satan's castle for a rest. But due to some devils fighting over your attention with each other, you decide that organizing a big sleepover would solve the problem!

By bribing Ppyong with some chocolate you get the necesarry stuff you needed from Minhyeok's room. You grab the definitly too big bag from the tiny Red Lump Devil and hand over his reward.You check the contents of it,while Ppyong stuffs a bunch of ferreros in his mouth.

------------------------

Satan

○ pretty chill about organising a sleepover, tells you that's a good way to boost morale

○ tbh i imagine he'll pick a classic white tank top and some heart boxer briefs xD

○ imagine having a casual romantic talk with him while cooking marshmallows over a burning toaster

○ he's totally up to play some games and have fun with you ( and his subordinates)

○ causes a massive pillow fight to unleash, anihilates most of the others(don't worry he'll go easy on you, but you will not escape your fate *yeets a pillow*)

○ however true chaos starts when you introduce him to Mario Kart

○ oh God I have the absolutely cursed idea. Like imagine playing Mario Kart with him as a foreplay later (gfhsjsbsb)

○when the time to sleep comes he'll flop down on the huge bed like some kind of a log

○ yeah you wake up to grab some water or go piss and have a Satan jumpscare bc either he sleeps with his eyes open (which totally glow in the dark believe me) or he just pretends to be asleep and we will never know the truth

Sitri

○ahhh Sitri my baby

○ like he's totally rocking the leopard print luxury pyjamas bc like that's so Sitri-coded

○he'll spend most of the with his tea on the sofa.The only person allowed to sit next to him is you, just so he can listen to your heartbeat a bit better ~♡

○ paint his nails, paint his nails

○ i totally see Sitri sitting with you in the kitchen, blind testing some awful convenience store tea and listening to him shit talking the diffrent brands while offering you to try some REAL tea (we all know how it may end)

○ when the places for everyone to sleep were decided, he got kinda fussy bc he was somehow expelled from the bed

○ baby got angy, but at least he gets to calmly listen to your heartbeat when you sleep...

Paimon

○ PAIMON PAIMON YAS QUEEN

○ No.1 sleepover fan

○ Literally teleported to you when he heard you say the word ,,sleepover "

○ Literally girls night , painting nails, eating snacks, doing each others hairrrr, playing dress-up

○ totally into watching Barbie movies, especially the Old ones, or some shitty romcoms

○ came up with the idea of organising a Just Dance tournament to decide who gets to sleep next to you,

○ offers you to help you clean off your make up before sleeping to get alone with you for a while

○ good night smooches from Paimon♡

Leraye

○ Golden retriever energyyyy

○ he would probably wear a kigurumi, or some cute long sleeved pyjamas with a teddy bear pattern

○ gets destroyed at Mario Kart oof

○ tbh I headcanon that the whole pillow fight started bc he accidentaly sniped Satan with a pillow from across the room.

○*insert boss battle music*

○ *insert the sounds of gunshots and screams*

○ all Hell breaking loose

○ also he gets really invested in the Barbie movie's story???

○at the end of the day, he goes to sleep with one of satan's decapitated plushie~

Belial

○Happily agrees to joining the party!...*insert jjyu cursing*

○ he comes wearing matching dark read top and bottom, ngl the colour matches his hair highlights nicely

○ also Jjyu is here with a tiny night cap

○Belial seems like that one person who comes to the party to share some banger music they found on Spootify

○ ya know some small talk with himm while the musics plays in the background

○ some time later puts Jjyu in time out bc he got a little out of control

○ in order to keep chatting with him without straining his voice, you decide to whisper to each others ears

○ so romantic

Zagan

○ Most of the time he just keep to himself. Don't worry he's enjoying himself, just not too good with talking.

○honestly i think he'll wear a black tank top and some totally normal pants. Idk he just seems like the neutral clothing type of guy to me.

○Tries to learn some Mario Kart. I mean he still ends on a higher place in the races than Leraye due to everyone """accidentaly""" targeting him.

○ Have you wondered who won the Just Dance tournament?

○Yeah, it was Zagan.

○ He absolutely destroyed Paimon and Sitri, much to their dismay.

○ Now he gets to sleep next to you!

○ Don't worry we keeping this situation "non-horni" so no naughty stuff or smth

○sooo he just lays there with you on his right side and on the left... there's a drooling and snoring Leraye.

Astaroth

○ honestly nobody expected him to actually show up

○but heyyy he and his snake are here!!

○ totally wears the darkest coloured robe and some classy black fluff slippers

○ kitchen talk with you, him and Sitri so real

○ low pitched chuckle coming from him when he sees you goofing around with others

○he loves hearing your laugh

○ agrees to tell you a bedtime story as long as you'll promise him to repay the favour later~

○ he spends the night on the armchair, his snake chilling on his shoulders, while he reads a book he brought to the party

___________________________

Paying my respects to people writing fanfics, bc it takes a lot of dedication to push out that many words and not go bonkers...

First time writing anything like that on this site, English grammar defeated me here.

Hope you like it!

-blimgus out

[hardlyinteresting]

Can I get "stop being so pretty, it hurts" with hotch and a drunk reader ?

Perfect

Day Six of the #MarchHotchness event. Find the other days HERE Thank you to @hotchfiles for creating this event 💕

I did a pole and most of you seemed okay with using this request to fill the daily prompt. The ideas were already so similar in my head, that it made sense to do it this way. (I have two more requests in my inbox, I have been working on them. I've been really busy with work lately, so I'm playing a bit of catch-up here! They should be out soon though!)

As always Request here! | Masterlist

The smell of cheap vodka lingers. The taste mixes with the flavour of your cherry chapstick. Around you the room spins; your vision is unfocused, but your laughter bubbles as you move through the kaleidoscope of lights and colours. It's been too long since you've been able to spend a night this carefree. 

You hips can't help but sway to the beat as your feet carry you with uncoordinated steps back to the table. Tripping over your own shoes sends you careening towards the floor, but you're spared the fate by a set of familiar hands. 

“Careful,” his voice is steady and even as he helps you to stand up straight once more. His palm is warm at the small of your back as he guides you over to where your friends are sitting. The world around you goes quiet. In this moment you think you'd follow him anywhere. Unquestionably safe, and entirely blissful by his side. It's perfection.

“I think it might be time to go home,” compared to his speech, your words are mumbled and slightly slurred. Your mouth struggles to keep up with your mind. Or maybe the other way around? 

“Then let's head home,” Aaron agrees easily. 

Your eyes stay fixed on him as he collects your purse and your coat for you. He moves with purpose. Calculating with each motion to complete the task as quickly and efficiently as possible. He has no desire to leaving you standing on your own longer than necessary. Ever the gentleman, the perfect man. 

“Thank you,” you smile, leaning into him after he's draped your coat over your shoulders. Your bag is still in his hand, the other rests on your hip. 

He's perfection; The slope of his nose. It's almost  impossible not to want to trace it with your finger. The line of his brow line, and the cut of his jaw leave you nearly always caught in awe of him. With your bottom lip caught between your teeth, you think he's far more handsome now than the day you met him. “Stop being so pretty. It hurts” 

“It hurts?” He asks, waving goodbye to the team as he leads you towards the door. He's teasing you, a smile playing at his lips. Beneath the playful tone you hear the trace of his concern. Upset by the very thought of you any less than perfectly content.

“Oof,” you huff with a laugh, “quit blinding me with the smile handsome” 

Your giggling only makes him smile more. Perfect.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Don't Speak 50

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, obsession, stalking, manipulation, reclusive behaviour, disordered eating, dissociation, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Reader is a reclusive loner who ventures down to the library on a simple mission. Her task is complicated by the man she meets there. (f!short!reader)

Character: librarian!Andy Barber, Steve Kemp

Note: getting close.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me 

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

Love you all. Take care. 💖

You hate the smell of hospitals. It clings in your nose even after you leave. You can taste it. It dries out the mouth. It stains like the blinding lights against the sterile walls. Your vision is washed out in the hangover of your outing. 

The doctor took your blood. He asked questions too but you didn’t answer them. Ann did. Even if you had tried, you wouldn’t have gotten a word in. 

You left with another appointment scheduled and an endless list of rules. No caffeine, no lunch meat, no hot baths, only sleep on your side... Your body is a prison. It always has been but now, it’s like solitary confinement. Dark and isolating. You can’t see the way out. 

You sit in the back of the car, staring at the seat in front of you. Like a child. She didn’t stop you from sitting back there but you can’t sit beside her. Maybe she prefers it too. Her touch has always said more than her words. She despises you. 

The colours of the city blur. Pallid and dull with the late dregs of winter. You hug yourself and a new tide of nausea overwhelms you as you touch your stomach. You try not to. It’s a reminder. You’re not showing yet, not there, but in other ways. You can feel it even if you can’t see it. 

Ann sighs as she rolls slowly down the suburban street. You recognise the brick house. You rarely see the outside of it. She hits the button below the rear view mirror and the garage door opens. You know what they do. They don’t let you out of the car outside, only in the garage. They’re hiding you. 

As she pulls in, you slump against the door. She unlocks the doors and clicks the button on her belt. You unhook your own seat belt and follow her at a delay. It’s easier to just do everything she wants. 

She hums as she stands, “oof, I’m sore,” she complains, “will you get the door.” 

You nod and go to the button mounted on the wall. Before you can hit it, a grizzly voice wafts through the frigid air, blowing in with the wind under the open garage door. Your hand lingers before the close button but doesn’t hit it. 

A man ducks to see through, “hi, excuse me,” he says as he raises a hand above him to grip the metal, “I’m looking to deliver a package...” 

“Oh, a package?” Ann echoes, “I’m not expecting anything.” 

“Uh, yeah, it’s for... Dr. Steve Kemp?” He shifts the flat box under his arm to read it. “It’s pretty cold out here. Think you can take it off my hands?” 

“Why, of course,” she strides along the length of the car, “I’m his wife.” 

The man nods as she approaches and his grey blue eyes wander over to you. His dark stubble refines the angle of his jaw as a tuque covers his hair. You squint. He’s familiar but you don’t know how. He stares for a moment then hands over the package, “just sign here.” 

He takes out his phone and presents it to her. She drags her finger over the screen then pulls back to examine the box, “thank you, sir. Bit late for a delivery.” 

“Got backed up with the ice up on the freeway. Everyone’s taking the back roads today.” 

“Ah, makes sense,” she says, “well, you have a good day.” 

“You as well, ma’am.” 

He backs up and marches off without another look or word in your direction. She looks down at the box and rolls her eyes. She backs up.  

“Close the door. It’s freezing.” 

You tap the button and the door descends with the thrum of the motor above. You wait for her to go inside first before you follow. You hear the kids and Steve’s low timbre. You wonder why the courier didn’t knock on the front door. Maybe he did but couldn’t be heard. The TV is blaring as the kids giggle and holler. 

“Steve,” Ann calls out as you leave your shoes on the mat, “you got a delivery.” 

He doesn’t answer. She keeps on down the hall and drops the package on the side table against the wall. She stops to peer into the front room. 

“Honey,” she says curtly, “package.” 

“Alright,” he says, slightly agitated as he helps Harper build blocks into a castle. “Thanks. Any idea what it is?” 

“I don’t know. Looked like more of those magazines. Aren’t those supposed to go to your office?” 

“Could be an old subscription,” he shrugs. You stand back in the shadows but he finds you, “how’d it go?” 

“Fine. She’s on track. She’ll have a scan next week,” she sniffs. “You made a mess in here.” 

“The kids are bored. It’s too cold to go outside,” he grumbles. 

“As long as I’m not the one cleaning it up,” she tuts. 

“Love you too, honey,” Steve says dryly.  

“Got enough to worry about with the baby...” she mutters, “I’m thinking of sending out a card as an announcement.” 

“Ann, really? No one cares about a third kid,” he chuckles. 

“I care,” she snips. “Aren’t you excited?” 

“Of course I am. I just don’t see why it needs to be a whole broadcast.” 

You shrink away from their argument as the children give pause at their parents’ tones. They might be young but there’s an obvious tension there. You don’t dare interrupt. 

“It’s a big deal,” she growls. “It’s almost dinner time. Did you take out the chicken like I asked?” 

“I promised the kids pizza. Figured we’d order.” 

“Pizza? It’s so expensive these day--” 

A knock cuts her off and she winces. She huffs and shakes her head. “Busy day.” 

“Could be Jeff. He borrowed my drill.” 

“Tell him to keep it,” she ignores the door and struts back down the hall. “You never use it anyway.” 

You flatten yourself against the wall to let her pass. You stare up the stairs, wondering if you should just go and hide. When they need you, they’ll find you. 

“Get the door, will ya, sweetie?” Steve says. 

You hesitate. That’s all you are these days. A thing to be used. You’re not a person to them. Just a means to an end. You nod. 

You go down the hall to the door. You’re nervous. You don’t like strangers. You’ve had enough of them for the day. All those nurses poking and prodding and preening over that thing inside of you. 

Just get it over with. You make yourself open the door. 

Before you can say a word, you’re name whispers with the wind. You’re seized and pulled into a hug. You barely catch a glimpse before the woman has you in her arms. You can smell her. She always smells of cinnamon. 

“You’re alive,” she says. “Oh my god, you’re alive.” 

“Huh?” You wriggle in confusion, “Amber?” 

“I’ve been...” she loosens her hold but keeps her hands on your arms. “I’ve been looking for you. All these months. I’ve been...” her eyes gleam with tears. “I’ve been so afraid.” 

You’re frozen by more than the chill creeping in around her. Something cracks. Like a toothpick between your fingers, you feel it. All those weeks of hiding behind a wall, of telling yourself not to feel, to just get through it. It’s more than her being there, it’s the care and gentleness in her touch. That’s different. 

She lets you go and holds you at arm’s length, “hey, bub, what’s... you okay? Come on, let’s go home.” 

You blink at her. You look around at your eyes burn with a glimmer of tears, “what?” 

“Home, bubba. Please.” 

“Why?” You breathe. 

“Why? Because...” her voice trails off as you sense a shadow behind you. 

You turn as Steve stands in the doorway, his hands on his childrens’ shoulders. His eyes narrow and his jaw squares, “kids, go find your mother.” 

“Daddy?” Avery says. 

He hushes her and nudges them both down the hall. They run up the stairs and he turns to face you. And Amber. You don’t like the way he looks at her. 

“Ah, took you long enough,” he steps up next to her. “Right, dove? She really took her time. Almost like she doesn’t care at all.” 

You look between them, a sinking sensation rising in your chest. “What?” 

You can’t understand any of it. That wall is slowly crumbling. The only protection you have from any of this. The only thing keeping you from destroying yourself. 

“As if you do, doctor!” Amber snaps.  

He snorts, “as far as I have it, I’m the only one who ever tried to help you find her. Thanksgiving wasn’t that long ago, was it? You can’t blame me for your lack of follow up--” 

“Bullshit,” Amber snarls, her tone and words frightening you. “I’ve been searching for months. I’ve been tearing my hair out and you’ve had her all this time. Do you understand what that man’s been doing? He just sits outside my house and--” She throws her hands up, “you’re just like him.” 

“I’m helping this poor woman escape years of abuse and neglect. Neglect of her mental wellbeing, narcissistic abuse, using her to prop yourself up--” 

“I never—she's my sister. I take care of her.” 

“You do, Amber? So where have you been?” Steve chuckles. 

She lunges forward but doesn’t reach Steve as he steps back and she’s caught from behind. Another man stands behind her, his arm hooked around her middle as he restrains her. It’s him, the delivery man. You recognise him now. He was on her Insta. 

“Amb, please, calm down,” he holds onto her, “shhh, come on. Everyone, let’s be calm.” 

His voice alone puts his words into effect. You feel calm. He slowly releases Amber and squeezes her sleeve. He looks between you and Steve.  

Steve grabs your wrist and pulls you behind him, “I should call the police. You’re disturbing my family--” 

“She’s my family,” Amber growls. “Bub, please, come home.” 

“This doesn’t have to be hostile,” the other man says. “We came here to bring her sister home. That’s all.” 

“She is home--” 

“Ask her,” Amber cries out. “Look at her. I know she wants to come home. Right, bubba? Ask her. Ask. Her.” Amber’s close to tears as she begs, “please. Listen to her. Why does no one listen to her?” 

The words hit you like a punch in the gut. She’s right. No one listens, not if you don’t say what they want. No one but her. Your sister. The only person you ever had. The one who kept you behind her when your mother was having one of her fits, the one who told you to lock the door when the screaming got loud, the one who held you even when it hurt too much to be touched. 

The one who loves you.  

“Home. I want to go home,” you say and try to push past Steve. He turns and holds you, an arm across your chest. “No, home. With her. Amber--” 

You reach for her but he keeps you from getting to her. Amber extends her arm as you wriggle against the restraint. You stomp your feet and thrash. 

“This isn’t my home!” You holler. “This isn’t--” You’re breathless and dizzy. “Amber, help! Amber!” 

“Let her go, man,” the other man says. He’s taller than Steve. He steps up, filling the doorway. 

“Curtis,” Amber whines. 

“She’s not fit. She’s manic. Having an episode. You don’t understand. She’s in treatment. I’m a doctor--” 

“She says she wants to go.” That man, Curtis, grits through his teeth. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Ann snarls sourly as she comes down the stairs, “there are children in this house.” 

“Shouldn’t be,” Curtis sneers. “The meaning is simple. We came for her, we’re not leaving without her.” 

“And who the fuck are you, pal?” Steve puts himself between you and the door. Ann latches onto your wrist and tugs you back. 

“Let her go!” Amber cries out. 

You twist your wrist free as the room tilts and spins around you. Your head bobbles as you look around at the hazy figures. You back up and turn, racing away from the chaos. You hear your sister wail and that man she’s with snarls. There’s footsteps and a clamour. A mess all around. 

You hurl yourself upwards and stumble over the top step. You’re not thinking, just doing. You burst into the guest room and tear open the drawer in the nightstand. You grab your sweater and your journal and a few random pieces of clothing. You bundle it all up and charge back out. 

“Fuck off of her!” Curtis barks. 

“She’s trespassing,” Steve snarls. 

“Oh, stop it! Stop it!” Ann shrieks, “would you stress a pregnant woman like this? Oh my, oh my!” 

You barrel back down the stairs and stop at the bottom. You look at Ann as she touches her stomach. You curl your lip and the realisation startles on you. Locking you up in the room, not letting you out front, keeping you inside all day long... 

“What is all that?” She turns on you. “You’re not going anywhere.” 

“Come on, bub,” Amber shouts as Ann grabs your ear. “Let her go, you bitch!” 

Steve slips in his socks as he tries to hold her back. He flies back as Curtis throws him into the wall and stomps forward. Ann cries out and cowers away as the sting of her pinch throbs in the shell of your ear. 

“Shoes,” Curtis snarls, “go get em.” 

You look down as he glances at your feet. He turns back and grabs Steve by the back of his sweater and drags him away from Amber. He spins him by the shoulder and pins him to the wall. He snaps his fingers. 

“Amb, help her find her shoes.” 

Amber squeezes by and Ann moves toward you. Your sister puts her arm across you and steps up to the other woman. 

“Touch her again and I’ll rip your pretty hair out,” Amber lurches as if she might actually do it. Ann shies away with a screech. 

“Please, please, don’t hurt me,” she keeps her hand on her stomach, “you wouldn’t hurt a pregnant woman.” 

You shrink away and scuttle down the hall to the mat by the garage. You bend down the back of your sneakers as you step into them. You come back as Ann sobs. 

“Oh, please, we were only helping her,” she rocks against the wall. “Please, don’t hurt my husband. Steve, baby, are you okay?” 

“Fucking take her,” Steve shoves Curtis off of him as he kicks his foot into the wall. “She’s broken anyway. Can’t fix that.” 

Curtis staggers a single step and tilts his head dangerously. His hand balls to a fist. “That’s fucked up, doctor.” 

“Curt,” Amber puts her arm around your shoulders and ushers you forward, “let’s just go.” 

“Yeah, fucking run like you do from everything, Dove. Isn’t that how it goes?” Steve snarls. 

You stop beside him and waver. Amber stops too. You look at her and nod. You pull away and she lets you go. You face Steve with watery eyes. 

“You’re evil. I hate you.” You say. “You don’t deserve those children. Or mine.” 

His eyes flare and he stands straight. Curtis looms and you turn away. You walk forward and Amber follows. You don’t look back. You can’t. You’re going home. 

[elyvorg]

Kieran Part 1: It’s All About Strength

I’m a longtime Pokémon fan who happily plays through every mainline game, but I’ve never been more than mildly fond of the occasional character here and there, because Pokémon isn’t much for deep and nuanced character writing. Then I played The Teal Mask DLC and came out of it with many, many Feelings and Thoughts about Kieran – enough so that it warrants a full, juicy analysis about all of his subtleties and issues. I never expected I’d write one of these character analysis rambles of mine on a Pokémon character of all things, but here we are. Colour me surprised and impressed.

For anyone reading this in the future: this was written before The Indigo Disk came out and therefore only talks about the events of The Teal Mask. Assuming The Indigo Disk doesn’t completely drop the ball on the best character-writing job that mainline Pokémon has ever done (please; please don’t), there will probably be a Part 2 to this analysis coming in a few months. (Aaaaand here it is! But you should read this one first, of course.)

(I’ll be referring to the player character as “you” here for ease of wording, but rest assured, this doesn’t mean I’m accusing you the reader of any of the questionable ways the player character treats Kieran. I was also very annoyed at being forced to lie to him, believe me.)

His weakness, and your strength

Kieran is a kid gripped with a crushing sense of inferiority and weakness. We don’t see all of where this came from, although we get a pretty good idea of part of it – his sister. So many times when Kieran tries to protest against things and assert himself, Carmine snaps back at him for doing so. Over time, that kind of thing would have made him feel like he’s wrong for trying to stand up for himself, leading to him letting people walk all over him. I don’t want to give Carmine’s behaviour all of the blame for Kieran’s issues, though, because there’s bound to be more to it than that. I expect some of it also came from him being bullied and outcast during his time at Blueberry Academy – I hope The Indigo Disk gives us glimpses into what Kieran’s life there was like before all this.

As a result of feeling so weak and inferior, Kieran admires and idolises people he sees as strong. This becomes clear early on with how much he looks up to you just for being able to beat his sister, someone else he also sees as strong. Apparently, he couldn’t stop raving about how cool you were and how he wanted to battle you all evening back at home.

He doesn’t want you to know that, though, based on his protest when Carmine comes out and tells you so. Kieran's probably rather embarrassed for you to hear how much he idolises you, after all. He also seems to think his request for a battle would be annoying and a bother – he says “You don’t mind?” in surprise when you accept, even though asking people for battles is supposed to be just what trainers do. Why would a strong trainer like you want to waste your time battling someone weak like him?

Kieran’s comment in the battle if you land a super effective move is also very telling: “Oof, ehehe… I guess I got a lot of weaknesses…” He tries to play it off as light-hearted, but, hm, that sure is A Way for a rival character to comment on you knowing about type matchups. And he most certainly does not seem to agree with his sister when she says he’s almost as strong as her.

(Fun fact: the game actually lets you lose the first battle with each sibling while still continuing the story. If you lose to Kieran in that first battle, he assumes you were holding back against him, as if that’s the only reason he’d ever be able to beat anyone. Perhaps he’s experienced people holding back against him out of pity before – maybe Carmine used to?)

He's flustered when Carmine partners him up with you, too, even though you’re the only option that he has at least a vague rapport with now – he’s still assuming someone cool like you wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time on him than you have to. Kieran worries he’ll “get in your way” if he sticks with you, so he hangs back and stays well out of your way instead. It’s a cute way for the game to justify him not actually following you around in the gameplay even though he’s supposed to be following you according to the plot, but it also just makes perfect sense for Kieran’s character. This is a kid who constantly tries to take up as little space as possible because he’s convinced that nobody wants him around. And it’s important that he seems to feel especially this way towards the people he looks up to (with the exception of Carmine, because she’s family and he spends most of his time with her already).

Then there’s the scene where he meets Koraidon/Miraidon. At first, I assumed it was there to introduce Kieran to our lizardbike friend because they’d be relevant later somehow. But they’re not! So the only reason this scene exists at all is for the purpose of illustrating to Kieran that, in his words, “you’re special”. You are A Protagonist, capable of befriending super special, rare, strong Pokémon with ease. (Just like a certain other special legendary Pokémon you’ll be meeting soon, how about that.)

Admiring the ogre

So, as you begin the trip to visit the signboards about Kitakami’s legend, Kieran starts to open up about how much he likes the ogre. Perhaps he feels safe telling you, because you’re an outsider and won’t frown upon him for it like the locals are prone to do. He probably gets that from them a lot and has learned not to bring up the ogre in town – another thing that makes him feel left out.

Even so, Kieran starts from the angle of “it’s so strong and cool because it won one-on-three”, since that’s a more acceptable reason to like the ogre that doesn’t question the validity of the legend, and is less personal to his issues. If you agree with him that the ogre sounds cool before he’s explained why he thinks so, he responds with “I knew you’d get it!” – you, who’s also really strong and cool, would obviously recognise that same strength in the ogre right away, right?

If you’re sceptical at first instead, he stresses that “it was all alone!” and still managed to hold its own – the more personal side of the reason he likes the ogre coming out just a little. By the second signboard, Kieran’s gotten a bit more comfortable with you, enough to start touching on that more deliberately. He mentions that it’s shunned, and that he likes its strength because he admires that and wishes he could be that strong himself.

Then he invites you to see the ogre’s den, something completely unrelated to the purpose of the school trip, because he trusts you enough to feel sure that you’ll get what he’s trying to illustrate about the ogre there. He points out that it seems like a lonely, miserable place to live, and that he’d happily let the ogre stay at his house if it wanted. He’s not quite explicitly saying so, but Kieran clearly empathises with the ogre because he relates to that kind of loneliness. Though he doesn’t want to outright say that the legend is wrong and the ogre isn’t actually the bad guy – maybe he’s got backlash from the villagers before for suggesting it –  he's got to believe that to be the case.

(I’ve seen one or two people suggest that Kieran fawning over the supposed bad guy in the legend is an early hint to his potential for darkness, but I really don’t think that’s it. There’s plenty of reason for Kieran to relate to and see the sympathetic side of the ogre in the story due to his own status as a social outcast, without it needing to be a case of “he just likes bad guys because he’s Edgy”.)

Later, at the festival, Kieran has a quiet chuckle to himself when Carmine’s talking about the Loyal Three being heroes, and says it’s funny that she doesn’t know anything about the ogre. Then he conspicuously changes the subject when she implies that it’s just that he likes edgy bad guys, because that’s not it – but at least now he has someone who does get it. Carmine mentions later that she feels Kieran is trying to one-up her about the ogre, and maybe this is true. Perhaps this is one small way in which he can privately feel superior to his sister, because he’s more right than her, or than anyone in the village, about the ogre’s true nature. And while that’s more due to luck and a large helping of projecting his own issues onto it than out of any genuine inside knowledge of the truth, Kieran is the one person who understands the ogre best.

Or, at least, he understands it best… for the most part. Because there is one very key way in which Kieran is actually thoroughly wrong about what Ogerpon is truly like.

Misunderstanding the ogre

This begins to be apparent at the second signboard, when Kieran’s gushing about the ogre’s coolness and says “it didn’t even care when everyone shunned it”. From meeting Ogerpon later, we know that this is patently not true about her – she’s terrified of humans because of how they see her, so really she hates being shunned! But Kieran doesn’t imagine that to be the case about her, even though he empathises with her presumed loneliness and is basically projecting his own onto her. He sees the ogre as somebody who is shunned and alone, like he is, but who, unlike him, is strong enough to not let it get to them. Someone in the same bad situation as him, but with strength that he only wishes he could have to deal with it.

In that same conversation at the second signboard, Kieran then goes on to talk about how his sister always does everything for him, and he’d like to become stronger and more independent and reliable. And, “then, just maybe… I could be that ogre’s friend.” As if he doesn’t think he’d deserve to be Ogerpon’s friend unless he was already strong, just like she is.

He mentions a couple of times that he comes to the Dreaded Den a lot but has never once seen the ogre, which might seem a little strange at first. Obviously Ogerpon kept well hidden from him because she’s scared of humans – but, did Kieran never try to call out to her? To tell her that he’s not afraid of her, that he admires her strength and she must be lonely and hey, maybe they could be friends? If he had, then surely over time, Ogerpon would have grown to trust him and shown herself – so apparently, Kieran never did try to call out to her in an attempt to befriend her. Because he felt he wasn’t worthy of her friendship, not when he’s so weak, so inferior to someone as strong and cool as her. (A lot like how he wouldn’t have had the courage to tell you how much he admired you, if his sister hadn’t blurted it out for him.)

While you’re visiting the den with him, Kieran assumes that “a powerful ogre like that would only show up if it heard some kinda battle”, leading to him challenging you again. Since he admires the ogre for its strength, he’s assuming that the ogre also values strength just as much if not more than he does, which really isn’t necessarily true about Ogerpon!

During the battle, Kieran says he’ll “put up a good fight” this time. Which is to say, he still feels so thoroughly outclassed by you that he isn’t remotely expecting or even trying to win – he just wants to at least not go down quite as pitifully as last time, not when he’s potentially being watched by his idol the ogre. And when he loses (the game requires you to win this and all future battles against him), he laments how he’s ever going to be able to beat you, and then he muses, “If the ogre saw that battle, I’m sure it’d be thinking, ‘That kid’s got some real strength…’” He is assuming that Ogerpon would like you, far more than she’d ever like him, because of how strong you are. This is very important.

(As it happens, Ogerpon was secretly watching that battle, but as for whether she’s actually thinking what Kieran imagines she is about your strength – who knows?)

Friendship! Or is it…?

By the end of the den visit, Kieran has just enough confidence to invite you to the Festival of Masks, and to his own house to get ready to go together, which there’s no way he’d have been able to do at the start of the day. He’s so surprised but thrilled to hear that you consider yourself his friend – based on that and his grandparents’ reactions, you’re likely the first friend he’s ever made, which would not be surprising. It’s lovely watching this shy but sweet kid actually smiling and feeling comfortable around you and happy to have someone he can call a friend for the first time ever. And GHHHH it is so painful in hindsight knowing where things are headed.

Even with you calling yourself his friend, though, Kieran still feels inferior to you. He dejectedly offers to give you his mask for the festival when you find yourself without one, even though it’s the ogre mask, his favourite, his thing – because he instinctively feels that if anyone should be the one who gets left out, it should be him, like always, and not you.

The whole time, Kieran’s bound to be feeling thoroughly insecure about this new friendship. The idea that he’s actually made a friend, and not least someone as cool as you, likely feels far too good to be true, more than he deserves, and I suspect he might be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he mentions to Carmine that you’re coming to the festival with him, her response is vaguely evasive, and Kieran responds to that in a very prickly, defensive way. It reads to me like he thinks Carmine is jealous of him befriending you before her, and that he’s afraid she might try to take you away from him as a result. Whether that’s actually true or not isn’t really the point (I think Carmine might indeed be a little jealous, but she would not do something that deliberately malicious) – what matters is that Kieran believes this may be the case and is liable to view all further interactions with you and Carmine in that light.

Then, at the festival, Carmine pressures Kieran into playing Ogre Oustin’ even though he doesn’t really want to. She’s probably doing this in an attempt to encourage him to have fun, but since he doesn’t find it fun (because he doesn't like this game where he's pretend-killing the ogre!), it’d be easy for him to feel like she only did it because she wanted him out of the way so she could hang out with you. And it’s while Kieran’s doing that that you and Carmine meet Ogerpon without him. Of course, that’s nothing but pure unlucky bad timing – Carmine had no idea Ogerpon was about to show up – but from Kieran’s point of view, with his obvious history of being maliciously left out of things by others, it’s easy for him to feel like there was some deliberate element to it.

At first he doesn’t know it has anything to do with Ogerpon, though. But still, when he gets back from Ogre Oustin’ and asks what you two were up to, Carmine abruptly shuts you up before you can speak and is blatantly hiding something – which Kieran takes to mean that you were laughing at him behind his back. That’s something else he must get a lot, for him to be automatically assuming it’s happening here. Really not so far off from his fear that his sister’s going to try and take you away from him, either.

Carmine’s lie isn’t done out of any malice – she is genuinely trying to protect her brother from feeling bad over being left out of meeting Ogerpon – but she sure is doing so in a way that’s going to make him feel even worse over being left out on purpose once he realises the truth. Carmine does care about her brother in theory, but this girl has zero social brain cells. And we the player are forced to play along with the lie whether we want to or not, which awkwardly turns our player-insert character into a very specific kind of character who would do so. I guess they either also have zero social brain cells, or they’re kind of a doormat who’s swayed by a forceful personality like Carmine’s. This part is frustrating, but I have to accept it because of the delightful things it does to Kieran’s arc, which really is the important part here.

Learning of the lie

The next morning, it seems like Kieran’s largely managed to brush off the weird bit last night where you and his sister were maybe laughing at him behind his back, because he greets you with a smile, ready to go see the last signboard. And then Carmine… forcefully demands that he finds somewhere else to be, because you’ve got business with her. Kieran protests that it’s not fair that you’ve been spending all your time with her lately – score two for his fear that she’s trying to take you away from him – and when she snaps back at his protest like always, he runs off.

But he doesn’t run off that far, because he stays close enough to listen in on the conversation. The discussion of Ogerpon’s story goes on for long enough – and takes long enough to get to the important part – that Kieran pretty much has to have stayed to eavesdrop on purpose, which is a little sketchy of him. Still, I can’t blame him all that much, what with his background of being mistreated, and the way Carmine’s behaviour gives him ample reason to be afraid there’s something going on here – of course he’d have wanted to know for sure. Perhaps he was even trying to hope that listening in would prove that you’re not actually hiding something bad from him and he was just being paranoid.

Except that actually, it turns out the truth is so much worse than Kieran had feared. Never mind just laughing at him – you and Carmine met the ogre without him and then hid it from him as if he didn’t even deserve to know. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it then turns out that he was right all along about the ogre being a good guy, and his own grandpa didn’t even think it was worth telling him that, and now you’re still just going to keep lying to him about it all and leaving him in the dark.

(Really, I have to side-eye their grandpa a lot more than Carmine here, because he’s a grown dang adult and has so much less excuse. He says he’ll tell Kieran the truth “when the time is right”, but what does that even mean? The “right time” would be right now! Heck, it should have been the moment he realised that Kieran had already intuited the truth!)

And all this being lied to and shunned and left out of things (like always) stings even more for Kieran because it’s coming from someone he’d thought was his friend. He’d actually dared to hope that someone – and not just anyone, someone really cool and strong – actually wanted to be friends with him? Of course that was too good to be true. Why would someone as cool and strong as you have ever wanted to befriend a weak loser like him, anyway? (After all, cool strong people only ever want to be friends with other cool strong people; that’s how it works, right?)

Probing about the lie

The correct thing for Kieran to do with this situation would have been to simply come right out and confront you about the lie. But of course he doesn’t have the courage to do that. He’s far too used to being shot down whenever he tries to assert and stand up for himself (no thanks to Carmine). And since he only learned about this because he was eavesdropping, it’s easy for him to imagine having that turned against him, and the whole situation being treated like he’s the one in the wrong for doing that.

Still, it seems like Kieran might want to at least indirectly give you the opportunity to tell him the truth. He heads off to the village shop to act like he was there the whole time, and then casually asks you what you were talking about back there. He’s maybe trying to hope that you don’t really want to lie to him and only got swept up into doing so by his sister’s forcefulness, and that you’ll tell him everything now that she’s not here, because, you said you were his friend, right? Later on, too, at the third signboard, the way Kieran brings up that his family is descended from the mask maker feels suspiciously relevant, as if he only thought to do so because he overheard the story and is trying to give you a chance to go, “Hey, speaking of that mask maker, actually…”

But no. It sure seems like you’re very deliberately choosing to keep him in the dark. As such, he’s bound to be feeling extra small and awkward at the signboard, just wanting to “get this over with” and be done spending time with you, because you clearly don’t want to waste any more of your time with him than you have to, right? The awkwardness of the third signboard photo, with Kieran obviously not wanting to be there, and your character’s very strained thumbs-up, is heartbreaking in comparison to how cute and happy the first two were.

During the conversation there, Kieran mentions the ogre being alone and treated like an outcast in a way that is very clearly also talking about how you and Carmine are treating him right now. The game pointedly lingers on his response to your comment, regardless of which dialogue option you choose. If you agree that that sounds awful, he says, “You think so too, huh?” – you think that it’s bad to treat someone that way, and yet, you sure are treating him that way anyway. If you instead mutter an awkward apology, Kieran asks, “For what?” This could read like he’s calling you out for not being able to admit to what you should be apologising for, but actually, I’m not sure that’s it. It could also be him genuinely asking that, because he doesn’t realise you need to apologise for anything. Hold this thought, I’ll go into it more in a bit.

It's because he’s weak

The other thing that happens at the third signboard is Kieran challenging you to another battle. He doesn’t really explain why, but I suspect he’s hoping that if he wins and proves his strength to you, you might just tell him the truth, or at least it’ll give him the courage to confront you about your lie. This is the first battle in which he says he wants to win and is actively trying and hoping to do so, rather than just accepting his loss before he’s even started. His optimism is pretty fragile, though, as he laments “it wasn’t supposed to go like this” if you hit him super-effectively, and “why does it have to be like this?” when he’s down to his last Pokémon.

But of course, he loses, just like he must secretly have been expecting to all along (how could he ever beat someone as strong as you?). And so he concludes, “it’s all ‘cause I’m too weak” – not just losing the battle, but everything. Why he’s always left out and shunned by everyone, why you lied to him and went behind his back about something you knew was important to him – it’s because he’s weak. He was battling you to try and prove that he’s stronger, strong enough to deserve better than that… but of course he isn’t.

A particularly important little subtlety is that he mutters “That’s why I…” – because it would have been easy to expect this line to say “you” instead. That you lied to him and shunned him because he’s weak, that it’s your fault for choosing to treat someone weak like this. But Kieran isn’t framing it that way. He’s thinking of it as his fault, simply for being weak, and that’s why he will always inevitably be treated like crap by everyone around him. As if that’s nobody else’s fault for choosing to do that, but simply the natural way of things when someone’s weak. As if he deserves this for being weak.

(So: what are you sorry for? You shouldn’t be sorry for anything; it’s his fault, isn’t it? Someone as strong and perfect as you could never be conflicted or in the wrong.)

By the end of this signboard visit, Kieran’s leaving on his own, saying that he’s got to get stronger with his Pokémon. All of this is happening because he’s weak, so he needs to be stronger – and apparently, that means “strength in Pokémon battling”. In reality, even if he did become the best battler out there, that wouldn’t necessarily make him any better at standing up for himself in social situations or being independent and reliable in other ways, but he’s very much conflating the different kinds of strength. This probably has a lot to do with his schooling at Blueberry Academy, which teaches Pokémon battling, leaving him overly focused on battling strength as the only kind of strength that matters. Perhaps he was picked on at school because he wasn’t very good at the battling classes, which wouldn’t have helped. I hope we see some glimpses of this in The Indigo Disk.

And on the topic of Kieran fixating on getting stronger at Pokémon battling: his Furret is never seen in his team again after this point. It was one of the first two Pokémon he used against you, so it’s presumably one of his closest Pokémon partners, which makes it heartbreaking that he ditches it from his team because, clearly, it’s too weak. Even worse, he’s inflicting being left out and shunned on someone else – someone he probably cared about – precisely because it’s weak. That’s just what happens to people who are weak, right? Guh. Poor Furret.

Outburst at Loyalty Plaza

Kieran most likely spends the next 24 hours alternating between fervently training as hard as he can, and stewing in his feelings of loneliness and rejection and betrayal. His grandpa mentions that he spent that night in his room after not even eating dinner, which, yeah, when he’s sharing a house with two of the people who are lying to him, not surprising. Oof. And more than just pain and betrayal, he’s got to be feeling so much anger, anger which he’s never been able to truly express, because every time he tries to stand up for himself he always gets shot down – but that only makes the suppressed anger worse.

The correct thing to do would have been for Kieran to confront everyone calmly about the lie as soon as he became aware of it. But because he couldn’t just do that, his resentment festered inside of him with no real outlet, until finally it becomes unbearable and explodes out of him and he has to do something to express it, no matter how questionable. So he steals the Teal Mask and runs off with it.

I don’t think Kieran actually has much of an idea of what he’s going to do with the mask. The one logical thing would have been to give it back to Ogerpon himself, but that can’t be his intent, because he doesn’t go anywhere near her den with it. And I highly doubt he’s planning to break it or anything like that, since he’d never do something that’d hurt Ogerpon. Really, I think he just wants you and Carmine to notice and acknowledge what he’s going through and what you’ve done to him – and if he steals the mask, you’re going to have to confront him to get it back.

He heads to Loyalty Plaza in particular because he’s conflating his own situation with Ogerpon’s. In amongst his pain and anger at the way he’s being treated, he’d have also been feeling a lot of anger at the injustice of how Ogerpon was and is treated, because he was right all along that she was never the bad guy, but she’s shunned undeservedly while the “Loyal” Three are lauded as heroes. Even though this outburst from Kieran is really all about his own situation, he makes it about Ogerpon first, because that’s easier for him to openly be angry about. He only brings up his own treatment as a comparison to how Ogerpon is treated like an outcast, as if the only way he can frame it as wrong in his head is by comparing it to something that’s definitely wrong. (After all, he deserves to be shunned because he’s weak – but Ogerpon didn’t deserve any of it, because she’s so much stronger!)

During Kieran’s outburst, Carmine blurts out an apology on realising that she’s hurt him – but Kieran basically just ignores it and continues to vent. Which tells us something interesting: that Kieran never did this out of any attempt to get you and Carmine to apologise for lying to him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have reacted in some way when Carmine did just that. So I think, in keeping with Kieran’s belief that all this is his fault for being weak, he doesn’t actually think you two need to apologise for anything. He’s lashing out because he’s angry and in pain and doesn’t know how else to deal with it, but he’s not consciously thinking that you and Carmine are in the wrong.

He’s also still holding onto the idea that you and Carmine were just laughing at him behind his back, which is of course not true, but when Carmine tries to say that, Kieran snaps back that she’s a liar. Given that she undeniably has lied to him about one very important thing, of course Kieran would find it easy to believe that she could be lying to him about anything and he can’t trust any reassurance she gives him. This poor kid must have such a history of being mistreated and patronised by others to jump to assuming things like this.

Lashing out with a battle

Then Kieran challenges you to another battle, promising to give back the mask if you win. Since there’s no way he is truly expecting to be able to beat you, this means that he never really intended to keep the mask forever. But he also doesn’t just want to seem like some weak pushover who’ll roll over and give in as soon as he’s confronted, so he at least wants to make you fight him for it. And based on his line at the beginning of the battle – “I know this isn’t right, but… I can’t just hand over the mask to you!” – he doesn’t want to just give up one of Ogerpon’s possessions so easily to someone who treated him like an outcast the same way those villagers back then treated Ogerpon.

Really, I think the battle – and the notably forceful way he asks for it, unlike the previous times – just comes a lot from Kieran’s anger, and his need to externalise it somehow. He even insists that he needs this battle, if you’re hesitant about accepting the challenge. There’s probably a part of him that wants to lash out with physical violence, maybe punch you or something, but he knows that’s wrong and that it’d look pathetically impotent of him anyway even if he tried. Happily, this world has a socially-accepted form of violence-by-proxy instead, so Pokémon battle it is!

As for the battle itself, Kieran’s switched up his team some more, removing Furret as previously mentioned, and adding two new members instead of just one like the previous times – but the Cramorant he uses here doesn’t stick around either. This is less sad to me than Furret, though, because he wouldn’t have been very close to it. Cramorant may even have been taken onto the team with the condition of “I’m trying out new team members to see who’s strong enough”, at which point ditching it is less of a betrayal and more of it simply failing a job interview.

(Meanwhile, the other newcomer, Gligar, clearly impressed Kieran a lot with its strength, as it becomes his ace for the final fight. Fitting that his ace there is not a long-time partner, but one obtained only after he began to fixate on getting stronger.)

He’s also more openly determined to win (despite his suppressed conviction that he could never beat you), and remains more optimistic than before even when things aren’t going so well for him. In fact, this is the only battle in which Kieran has lines for hitting you with a super effective move or a critical hit. That said, he’s still a little insecure, based on an optional line: “I need to get this right… I’m gonna make sure to give the right commands!” which tells us that he feels like his losses are his fault for making mistakes and choosing the wrong moves, rather than blaming his Pokémon for not being strong enough. He also has an absolutely great comment in this battle if you land a critical hit, which I have to highlight: “What can’t you do? You’re like the hero in a story…” It’s purely luck, but despite that, he’s seeing you as this impossibly perfect hero that he could never ever measure up to, and this delights me.

Losing the battle just seems to make Kieran’s frustration at his own inferiority even worse, to the point that he does indulge in some physical violence, towards the shrine. Which is as pathetic as he must have been expecting, and should in theory have been harmless enough. (Of course, it appears that this is what somehow resurrects the Lousy Three, but there is no way Kieran expected or wanted that to happen, so he can’t be blamed for that.) Then he gives the mask back, just as he promised he would, and (ignoring another attempt by Carmine to apologise – again, this was never about that to him) he runs off back home.

So I find it really hard to condemn Kieran for… any of his actions here? Sure, he stole the mask, but he didn’t do anything bad with it and gave it back just fine (and must have always been intending to). All he was doing was lashing out – unhealthily, but basically harmlessly – over the really very callous way you and Carmine had been treating him. And if he hadn’t done this, you two would probably never have told him the truth about Ogerpon, and he’d have remained out of the loop and never met her at all! That would have been awful!

And yet: making you and Carmine bring him into the loop about Ogerpon and getting the chance to meet her is also not something Kieran was aiming for here. Just before leaving in a sulk, he says, “Say hi to the ogre for me” – which means that he never expected to get to meet it himself. He is still, even by the end of this confrontation, labouring under the belief that you and Carmine don’t want him there with Ogerpon and that he doesn’t deserve to meet her at all.

Apologies, and a lack thereof

After you rescue Ogerpon from being bullied by the resurrected Lousy Three, Carmine shows up with Kieran in tow. Apparently she found him moping around at home and dragged him here to apologise to you about his stunt with the mask. Which, yes, does warrant an apology – but what really frustrates me about this part is that Carmine doesn’t apologise for what you and she did wrong. Sure, she blurted out a couple of cut-off apologies back at Loyalty Plaza, but those never had the intended effect when Kieran was in no emotional state to accept them. Here and now, he’s calmed down enough that he would be able to take on board an apology… but Carmine doesn’t give one. It’s possible that she already apologised at home before bringing him here, but if she’d done that, then she really ought to have got you to also apologise for lying to him, and she doesn’t – so I can only assume that didn’t happen. And you the player can choose to apologise to Kieran here anyway, but since it’s optional, it’s not given nearly the attention it deserves.

Since Kieran never gets a proper apology while he’s in a state to listen, it means he never actually ends up internalising the fact that you were in the wrong to lie to him and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Which would have been a really, really important thing for him to realise! As it is, he continues to quietly assume that all of this is his fault for being weak, with nobody to tell him that this way of thinking is flawed.

It's frustrating, but I do kind of get it, from Carmine at least, because she’s also a pretty flawed person. Her deal seems to be that she’s only able to be emotionally sincere in uncontrolled outbursts when she’s worked up, and when she’s calm she covers up her true feelings with bossiness and vanity. Which makes her not at all capable of apologising to Kieran when he’s in a calm enough state to be capable of registering it. These siblings’ issues do not mesh well. Still, here’s hoping that Carmine’s able to self-reflect enough to acknowledge her partial responsibility for Kieran’s suffering by the end of The Indigo Disk.

She does seem to realise her mistake here enough to make a point of trying to include Kieran in their Ogerpon adventures from here on out, at least. But it’s too little too late in terms of how Kieran views things. He seems to have assumed that Carmine dragged him here only to apologise, and not to properly meet Ogerpon or be involved in helping her out, because he expresses surprise when Carmine casually includes him as part of the Mask Retrieval Squad. He was expecting to be shunned and left out as always – what do you mean, she wants him there?

Meeting Ogerpon

The only interaction Kieran was expecting to have with Ogerpon here was giving the fixed-up mask back to her, because he wanted to be the one to do so – but she shies away from him when he offers it. Carmine comments that she’s probably scared of new people, and this is likely the truth, but Kieran’s silent response suggests that he’s not necessarily agreeing with that assessment. Remember, from earlier: Kieran is convinced that Ogerpon values strength. And he’s so used to being shunned by others, especially strong people, because he’s weak. It would be very, very easy for him to come to the irrational conclusion that the reason Ogerpon refuses him is because of his weakness, even though his sister’s suggesting something else.

Despite Kieran’s key misconceptions about Ogerpon’s values, he does continue to understand her better than most people in certain ways. When you try to head into town with her, Kieran’s the one to point out that she’s probably afraid to go in because of the way she’s been treated by the townspeople. He also comments that she’ll feel safe going to retrieve the masks from the Three as long as she’s with you. He empathises with that insecurity and social anxiety enough that, seeing it from Ogerpon in person, he can instinctively see that’s the case about her too.

And yet… seeing Ogerpon’s fear, and understanding that she’s scared of being shunned just like him (which he previously said the ogre didn’t care at all about!), doesn’t actually change the part of Kieran that is also irrationally convinced that she only cares about strength. There’s no moment in which he seems to be re-evaluating Ogerpon or realising anything new about her upon seeing her being afraid. The part where she’s shy and afraid, and the part where she’s strong and cool and therefore values strength in others, manage to be separate enough in his mind that he never actually cross-references them to realise that one of these surely can’t be as true as he thinks it is. So his false conviction that things are about strength to Ogerpon still remains, unchallenged.

Staying behind

Then, even though Carmine is making an active point of trying to include him, Kieran… chooses not to come with you on the mission to retrieve the masks. This is despite the fact that this’d be his best chance to spend time with Ogerpon and hopefully get her to warm up to him, which you’d think would be his priority when he’s quietly hoping to maybe have the chance to become her partner.

But even though it would be a logical choice for Kieran to come with them, it makes perfect sense to me why he doesn’t. As far as he sees things, you and Carmine are way stronger than him and already have the fights against the Three covered – he’d be nothing but a useless third wheel hanging back, only there out of Carmine’s pity for him and not because he’s needed. And in terms of Ogerpon, Kieran is the kid who visited her den countless times but never had the courage to call out to her and ask to be friends. Of course he knows he wouldn’t have the confidence to actually try and get closer to Ogerpon, especially not when she’s already got someone she likes (someone who’s strong while he’s weak, which is clearly what matters to her, right). He knows he’ll just spend the whole time watching Ogerpon obviously like you way more than him while not being able to do a thing about it, and it’ll just make him feel even more jealous and left out.

(Trust me, as someone with social anxiety who spent a lot of my childhood being low-key outcasted by my so-called friend groups, I get it. When you’ve lived like that, integrating yourself with new people can feel downright impossible, no matter how much you may want it.)

So Kieran doesn’t come on the mission – but it’s not like he just uselessly sulks around, either. He spends the time doing something else to help Ogerpon, something neither you nor Carmine seemingly thought needed to be done: telling the town the truth that she was never a bad guy. Because of course Kieran understands best just how hard it is for Ogerpon to be shunned and outcast by everyone, and of course he has some Strong Feelings that people deserve to be told the truth, hmm I wonder where that might have come from. This task is really difficult and scary for him, too, because he hates talking to people – but he does it anyway, for Ogerpon’s sake! What a brave lad!

(I’ve seen people side-eye the fact that the villagers accept the truth and turn around their view of Ogerpon so easily, but honestly it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I get the mask maker way back when being persecuted because the villagers of the time saw Ogerpon kill the Three and made assumptions, but, like, it’s been generations. All of the witnesses who had that emotional gut reaction to the fight are long dead. Most of the people alive today didn’t even truly believe the story of the ogre was real until the Loyal Three showed up – they just thought it was a fun folktale that gives their village some unique culture. So for them to be told “hey, the ogre is real, but also the story’s backwards and the ogre’s actually the good guy”… so what? I was always sceptical of Grandpa’s conviction that the truth must never be told to the village (because… people will get angry that they were lied to? So therefore you should just keep lying to them so they never find out they have something to be angry about? Yes, great tactic, it worked so well on Kieran). Kieran basically just went and proved that there really was nothing to be worried about all along and the people should have been told the truth ages ago.)

His final chance to be strong

So now we reach the end, where Ogerpon makes it clear that she wants to stay with you, and… and even though he must have seen this coming, Kieran can’t accept it happening without trying to fight against it.

This isn’t even really about Kieran wanting Ogerpon’s friendship in and of itself. It’s more about what the concept of being partners with Ogerpon means to him. This whole time, he’s been obsessed with the ogre, and yet only letting himself imagine that maybe one day when he’s stronger, he could be its friend. He’s fixated on the idea of befriending Ogerpon as something that will mean he’s strong and no longer alone and everything is good now. Obviously this is extremely irrational and not necessarily true nor the sole way to fix his problems, but that’s how things are in Kieran’s head.

And so, with recent events making him feel even more weak and outcast than ever, you being effortlessly strong and cool enough to befriend Ogerpon on top of everything else feels to Kieran like it’s about to take away his one chance to turn things around, forever. Of course he can’t just let that happen without at least trying to have things his way. He says right at the beginning of the battle: “I know you’re probably a better trainer for Ogerpon, but I… I…” – and he can’t even voice the end of that sentence. He can’t put into words why he feels like he needs to become Ogerpon’s partner even though he knows he's being selfish and she’d be better off with you, because it’s not based in any conscious logic and is all just one big subconscious irrational mess of his issues and inferiority complex.

I’ve seen a lot of people condemn Kieran for this part, saying that he’s ignoring Ogerpon’s wishes because he’s planning to force her to join him whether she wants to or not if he wins. However, I firmly disagree that Kieran has any such thing in mind here. Remember, he’s still labouring under the misconception that what Ogerpon cares about most is strength. He thinks she likes you so much because you’re so strong (remember the previous time he battled you in front of the den, where he commented that the ogre must be thinking how strong you are if it’d seen that?), and that she refused the mask from him that one time because he’s weak. So Kieran has convinced himself that if he can prove himself to be stronger than you, by defeating you in a battle while Ogerpon’s watching, then she’ll naturally choose him to be her trainer over you. Right?

When Carmine says that he has to consider Ogerpon’s feelings, Kieran’s simply silent for a moment before saying “…I want to battle anyway.” He’s not denying that Ogerpon’s choice is what matters – he just believes, or is at least trying to believe, that her choice will be determined by this battle. And of course he doesn’t say anything like “Ogerpon will choose me if I’m stronger than you”, because – well, perhaps because a lot of this is also subconscious enough that he can’t articulate it, but even if any of it was conscious, he knows it’d sound stupid. Especially the part where he’d be talking like it’s possible for him to beat you, because deep down, he still completely convinced that’s impossible.

Plus, nowhere in this does Kieran bring up the fact that he told the village the truth about Ogerpon as a point in his favour for why she might choose him – which supports that it’s not about any kind of friendly gestures to him and he’s convinced she’ll make her decision entirely based on strength. (And it also proves that he did that out of a genuine desire to help Ogerpon, without any ulterior motives of trying to get her to like him!)

Just before the battle, he says: “Whoever wins gets to be Ogerpon’s partner… So don’t… don’t you dare hold back!” – making a point of demanding you don’t hold back, even though you might think he’d want any advantage he can get towards supposedly winning Ogerpon’s favour. But this makes perfect sense when you realise what this is about to Kieran. He believes that Ogerpon will choose (and deserves to choose) whichever of you is the strongest, and this battle won’t actually prove that if he only wins because you were holding back against him.

Kieran also thanks you for not holding back when you land your first super effective hit, which I enjoy. He’s so used to being patronised and seen as weak and pathetic, so he’s actually glad that you’re taking him seriously and viewing him as a legitimate opponent.

And, hey, he is! His team is pretty stacked: a full six Pokémon with solid movesets, and even strategic held items (at least in the postgame version). Assuming you’re not over-levelled, it’s quite a challenging fight, as it should be. Kieran is trying so, so hard to be strong enough, because this poor kid has convinced himself that all of his problems and pain are due to him being weak, and he is so desperate to fix that by proving himself even stronger than you, strong enough to win Ogerpon’s favour.

When he loses, he just crumples, and it’s heartbreaking. Kieran had so much more riding on this battle than just befriending Ogerpon – this was what felt like his one and only chance to stamp out the part of him that feels crushingly inferior and like he deserves to be treated like dirt. Guhhh.

And of course the first thing out of his mouth is, “Figures.” His inferiority complex runs so deep that, no matter how hard he’d trained and how genuinely really good his team had grown, he never truly believed that he ever had a chance at beating someone as cool and strong as you. He was just desperately trying to convince himself that he at least had a shot, because he couldn’t bear to give up without trying.

I really wish you could tell Kieran how good he was in this battle! It truly is impressive how much better he’s grown at battling since the first one, in such a short space of time, too. Just because he’s not quite as strong as you doesn’t mean he’s weak, not by a long shot. But nobody tells him any such thing, so Kieran continues to view things in that irrationally all-or-nothing way. He lost, so he's weak, end of.

Then he has to stand there and watch you battle Ogerpon in order to catch her. Before all of this happened, Kieran would have been so stoked to see his hero the ogre showing off just how cool and strong she is – and hey, her powers really are pretty awesome to behold! But here, despite the amazing spectacle in front of him, Kieran just looks supremely awkward. Like he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be here. Like he doesn’t even have the right to get to see Ogerpon’s full strength in all its glory. You’re the only one who’s strong enough to have earned this.

He does make one possible comment during the battle, if you land a critical hit on Ogerpon: “You really are good… I’m no match.” Which is a bit excessive, considering that really anyone is capable of critting Ogerpon if they get lucky – but apparently Kieran’s thoughts during this battle are still incredibly hung up on just how strong you are and how he’ll never be able to measure up to you. This goes to show that his issues at this point have shifted to be more about you than about Ogerpon. Which tracks, since his admiration for the ogre was never quite about Ogerpon herself and was more about what her strength represented to him – and now you’ve come along and given him an even bigger example of impossibly cool strength, in a much more painful way.

Once you’ve captured Ogerpon, Kieran manages to awkwardly congratulate you on it – hey, he’s doing his best not to be a sore loser! – laments once again why he can’t be like you, and then runs off. No doubt he’s feeling a huge heap of uncontainable painful emotions that he does not want to show in front of you or Carmine and needs to go let out in private. This kid is Not Okay.

So, in summary: Kieran comes out of all this with the message that all of his pain and suffering and loneliness is his fault because he’s still too weak, and he will only ever be strong enough to put all that behind him once he’s stronger than you. And to do that, he needs to get so, so much stronger, almost impossibly so, no matter what he has to do to achieve it. I’m sure this will be Just Fine leading into The Indigo Disk. (: (: (:

And one last thing: the game doesn’t let this happen, but if Kieran had won that final battle against you, I believe things might actually have turned out better. Because let’s face it, Ogerpon would probably still have chosen to go with you anyway, and if she had, Kieran would have been forced to face the fact that it was never actually about strength to her. It wouldn’t even be that hard for him to understand that, given that he’d already noticed the indications that she was scared of being shunned by the townspeople and that she liked you because you made her feel safe. This would help Kieran recontextualise things a little and stop focusing so unhealthily on gaining more battling strength as the One Thing that will solve all his problems. He still wouldn’t exactly be suddenly fixed and happy, but… things wouldn’t be quite so bad, at least. Alas, you are Too Protagonist to lose and let that happen.

[kleftiko]

hey i have a request! could you do pining!hawks x reader with trust issues? maybe kind of like a slow burn? you don’t have to do nsfw if you’re not comfortable with it!

❦ SORRY

cw: mature, mdni!, gn!reader, a bit of angst (okay a lot of angst is from your reactions😭)

PART 2

i can’t really do a slow burn in one sitting :/ but i do love me some pining hawks :)

if he were a puppy, his tail would be wagging every time he saw you. keigo was an innocent lover. maybe his desires weren’t innocent, but he grew up within the hero commission, he never had the chance to love and lose or have a broken heart.

when his eyes first landed on you, he finally got to experience all those feelings he never got a chance to.

and you were patient with him.

you might have been the same age as him but you were mature. you had relationships (wether romantic, platonic, or other) that gave you knots, tears, and bruises.

his crush was endearing, and you were patient with him. smiling when he said something sweet, telling him off when he overstepped a boundary, but you would never accept his propositions to go for drinks, or dinner. happy go lucky was never absolute. and though he called himself an optimist, there will always come a time when he puts you down. when he’ll leave you for someone else.

you truly believed that his crush was just that—a crush. if you gave in, he’d eventually tire and dispose of you.

but he was relentless.

the sweet flowers ‘anonymously’ arranged on your desk of yellow and red to match his colour palette. and chocolates for white day even though you didn’t get him anything the month before.

then there was the fact that whenever you spoke, his entire body turned to face you, sharp eyes glued to you. or when he would zoom in front of you just to hold open the door.

he was breaking you down.

actually, if you took the time to step back and look at the bigger picture, you would see that he already broke down your walls. otherwise, you would have found another job. boy, were you stubborn.

“you’re right, you’re right, we need move the event.” hawks sighed and crossed his arms before he flashed you his boyish grin. “how ‘bout we talk logistics over dinner?”

“can’t, i have a date with my instant ramen.” you didn’t bother to keep eye contact as you filed away things.

“i like ramen!” he said as you stood up, his feet padded behind you as you moved down the hall. “i actually make some pretty good shin, i top it with eggs and everything. i’m not asking you on a date—you know—you told me you’re not looking to go out. so i thought we could just hang out, like, friends, y’know? so i can come over, or you can come to mine—or if you wanna be fancy we can go out and get ramen—”

you shook your head at him and turned around to walk backwards.

“keigo, you’re adorable—“ but you overestimated your coordination, the heel of your foot catching the rise in the carpet as you began to fall back.

that would never happen with the no. 2 hero, though, who swiftly grasped your hips, pulling against the momentum of gravity and into his chest. a small ‘oof’ slipped out of your lips at the contact, and you looked up at him.

his eyes and smile were bright. “i’m adorable?”

you were trapped by his eyes. those stupid, optimistic, yellow eyes that drew you closer and closer until, before you knew it, your lips were on his.

your fingers perched softly on his chest. his hands froze, then moved about your body in awkward motions before relaxing and pulling you close. it was clear you took him by surprise, but he wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity.

his lips were soft and comforting, and if you could, you would spend the day kissing him, instead you subconsciously pressed your body into his, feeling keigo’s excited between his legs pressing against you. you wanted to just give in, have him explore your body like he always showed you how eager he was. you wanted to melt into his embrace and feel his skin on yours.

after that, though, he’d get bored with you. the excitement would wear out, and he’d go looking elsewhere.

that thought pulled you out of the trance.

you stepped out of his hold, breaths coming out a little too quickly. and your wrist harshly swiped at your lips, almost as if wiping off his kiss. you missed the hurt and broken expression on keigo’s face.

“sorry.” your voice was hard.

you didn’t give him another look at you walked away.

[alipeeps]

Episode 36

Xue Zhao: *calls Xiao Heng his brother-in-law*

Xiao Heng: *bluescreens*

Oh they *definitely* boned after the camera panned away from that kiss.

And now we know what Xue Li's plan was/what the drug she got from Jiuyue was.

Aaaaand Wanning's time as a hostage absolutely was exactly as bad as I suspected it was. It doesn't excuse what she's been doing but it does explain her interest in Shen Yurong and her jealousy of Xue Fangfei... her feeling like they had something she could no longer have. It also explains why the emperor lets her get away with so much - guilt over what happened to her (and the fact she weaponises it to get her own way as we saw with the changes to the entrance exam).

The fake pregnancy is particularly cruel given her history though - I suspect it's unlikely that Xue Li would have any idea about what she went through as a hostage and her resulting infertility but tbh who knows?

Sure does suck to be an imperial doctor though.

Well, colour me intruiged:

As a whumper, this gives me sooo many fic ideas! 😁😂

I freaking love Xiao Heng's friendship with the emperor.

And it turns out their common enemy is Lord Cheng... because Xiao Heng (well both of them really) believes Lord Cheng killed his father in order to take his place at the northern border so he could build prestige and an army to challenge the emperor. (Makes you wonder why the younger brother was chosen as crown prince and not him - with good reason it would seem!)

Meanwhile Shen Yurong continues to be living his worst life. There's no way out for him now he's been babytrapped too and dude is just pretty much dead inside:

And Xue Li is fully embracing her decision to be the chess player rather than the pawn:

Hnnnngggh... emperor of Zhao will ally with Yao and provide his troops to the emperor as long as Xiao Heng agrees to his conditions - what do you want to bet his condition is that Xiao Heng marries Jiuyue?

I'm honestly surprised Wanning didn't straight up lose her shit and attack Consort Li.

Ooooh Shen Ruyong is playing some chess master shit himself here. Finding a way to "save" Wanning's baby and reputation that conveniently gets him out of taking responsibility for it/being forced to marry her.

Oof and the visual framing. Literally him now standing above her. He has the upper hand:

Sucks to be you Li Jin.

[sanjifucker42069]

Looks Like Lingerie to Me - Part Two

Word Count: 1.4k

Part 1

A belated and awkward part 2. I’ll start writing part 3 in the morning (it’s like 1am lmao)

For those who need a visual aid, here. (oof feels like wattpad or quotev but girlypops i am cringe but i am free. it isnt a perfect representation, but its pretty accurate. titilating, no? ;) )

Warnings: Lingerie lmao…this is pretty short, and is just a set-up for part 3. A lot of this is my own feelings surrounding cis men in lingerie. As with part 1 gender neutral reader. Yeah! Hope you enjoy!

---------------------------------------

Sanji couldn't stop thinking about it. You thought he'd look hot in lingerie? You thought he looked slutty?

It had overtaken every waking moment. Any time he wasn't focused on a task all he could see was the dumb stare you gave him, eyes focused on his thighs.

He'd love to wear lingerie for you if it meant you'd stare at him like that.

----------------------

The Going Merry was docked, the Straw Hats carrying out their duties, and Sanji had a plan.

"I'm gonna go shopping. You coming (Name)? Sanji can carry our bags." Nami preened, looking absolutely glowing at the prospect of new clothes. Sanji bit his lip. He wanted to go with Nami and you, really he did, but if either of you caught on he'd die of embarrassment.

"You okay, Ji?"

Huh?

You were asking something.

"What? Oh, yeah, love. I'm fine. I'm afraid I have business to attend to on the island."

You blinked at him before smiling that dazzling smile up at him. He was smitten, his fortitude nearly wavering. "Of course. You do what you gotta do!"

Business his ass. Instead he hurried to check out the town.

----------------------

A small, seedy shop tucked away in an alley. Sanji entered the store warily. A small, old woman trotted out from the back. Sanji blanched. He didn't want to discuss this with a grandma! 

"Hello young man, here for something for your wife?"

Sanji felt himself flush. He tried to wander around the store. "No, no-"

"Your girlfriend then?" 

Ah. This grandmother didn't know when to quit.

"Not exactly?"

The old lady grabbed his arm. Sanji raised a brow, turning back to her. She was grinning at him, eyes narrowed and sparkling with something he couldn't place.

"Is it for you? Such a handsome young man as yourself." 

What? Sanji's face was on fire. He was flustered beyond belief. His hands were lightly shaking, eyes darting around for anyone else in the store.

"Come with me darling. My name's Bea." The old lady chimed, dragging Sanji with her. "What colour were you thinking?"

"Oh, um." Sanji was panicking, voice high. Did she even have lingerie for men? "Blue?" 

Bea hummed. "I do have blue, but I have a lovely pink set that would just make your skin pop."

Pink? Sanji didn't think it was possible to flush darker, and yet here he was. "I, uh, would it even fit me?"

"Of course sonny! You're quite slim." Bea swatted at his arm, patting his biceps for good measure as she led him through the store. "So, tell me about the lucky one."

"They're beautiful." Sanji began dreamily. Where should he even start? "The most gorgeous creature I've ever laid my eyes on. They have this laugh that just brightens up any room, and such a sense of humour. I’ve been smitten with them since I met them.”

“You two aren’t together?”

Sanji shook his head sadly. “No, no. We’re just good friends. They, uh… Do you know what shirt stays are?”

Bea laughed, patting the cook on the arm. “Say no more.”

She let go of him when they reached the back of the store. Sanji watched nervously as she carded through a rack of, well, did it really constitute clothing? Skimpy piece after skimpy piece were revealed.

And then he saw it.

It was a gorgeous baby pink. Bea ahhed as she removed it from the rack, holding it up to inspect it. She turned to face him, sizing him up next to the set. Sanji felt his throat go dry as he really took it in.

The set was a simple baby pink bralette, made from some kind of sheer lacy material with a flower motif. The plunging neckline was created to draw attention to the cleavage, and it was adorned with some delicate string of pearl-like decoration to highlight the collarbones. The panties were the same sheer material, clear that they weren’t to hide much. The sides of it were accentuated with cute ruffles that further added a feminine touch. Sanji felt lightheaded. 

Finally, it was a beautiful pastel garter belt that sat in the middle, completing the look. It too was made from the same stretchy, sheer lace. It would wrap around the waist, strategic cutouts to accentuate the waist, hips, and the bellybutton. The central cutout had a simple chain of pearls to add interest and movement. Four satin-looking ribbons led from bottom front and back, with clips attached to hold up stockings.

Oh, maybe his shirt stays were kinda…

Nonetheless, it was breathtaking. Sanji had clearly marvelled at it for too long, as Bea chuckled, causing him to flush red. The old woman, lingerie in hand, led him to a mirror. 

“I’m…I can’t.”

Bea just chuckled, holding the hanger up against him. “Look in the mirror boy, I’ve been making lingerie for fifty years. This suits you.”

Sanji obeyed her, staring at himself in the mirror. What he saw took his breath away. He looked a mess, face red and hair messy. He had to hand it to the old woman, the colour was flattering against him. Even the cut looked good. Sanji shifted from foot to foot, anxiety creeping in. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about looking so…so feminine. 

Sanji was a man. It wouldn’t be right for him to wear something so delicate and gorgeous. Right? Of course women’s clothing was beautiful, the fabrics they used, the stylish designs he’d seen the girls on the ship sport. Men’s clothing just, well it was meant to be masculine and boring. Right? He couldn’t let himself give in to that want to feel pretty, that would be wrong.

Right?

Bea, clearly noticing his inner struggle, scoffed.

“Sonny.”

“Sanji.” “Right. Sonny, I’ve been doing this for a long time.” “You, uh, you already said that.”

“I know that!” Bea snapped, swatting at him. Sanji’s gaze drifted back to the pink lace. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. When I started, well, I made boring beige bras and the same lacy black underwear again, and again, and again. I got bored. I got creative! And when I got creative, I became determined to make people feel pretty. People, Sonny, not women.”

Sanji went rigid, his throat was so dry. Was he that obvious? All he could make out was a simple, “Oh?”

Bea grinned. “Everyone deserves the right to feel pretty.” Sanji opened his mouth to speak but the old woman just held up a wrinkled hand. “Nope. Don’t care if you’re a ‘man’. Everyone. Sonny, one day you’ll realise that being a ‘man’ is more than just grunting like an ape, or never showing any vulnerability, or even having a penis. Man is a state of mind, and Sonny, the sooner you feel comfortable in who you are, the more beautiful life is going to be for you.”

Sanji felt breathless. “Really?”

“Really.” Bea nodded, a fondness in her eyes. “Come, we’ll get you a choker to go with it, I have just the one.”

Sanji felt a million miles away as Bea led him to the shop counter. She handled a delicate pink satin choker with care, presenting it to him. It was a giant bow, a simple snap holding it in place around the neck. Simple, but delicate. If Sanji was honest with himself, he liked it.

“Like a million berry! Your precious one will love you in it!” Bea smiled fondly at him. “So, Sonny, you buying?”

Sanji sucked in a deep breath. When he spoke his voice was foreign to him, a shakiness underlying the wispiness. Sanji felt like he was treading water, unsure and scared of the newness of it all. He could drown at any moment.

“Yeah.”

“Good, good!”

So Sanji paid. Bea took extra care to wrap the lingerie up in a delicate pink tissue paper. His own little present. She then promptly put it in an unmarked bag. She understood, shooting him a wink.

“So, anyone, huh?”

“Oh yes, yes. You see, originally I made them for my girlfriend when I was a much younger lady. She was a farmer’s daughter, wonderful girl, shared many a kiss with her, and then some! Now I make these lovely ones for my current husband. You remind me a lot of him, Sonny. You see he lets me wear this harness thing that I put in his a-”

“Thank you grandma, I’ll be out of here now!”

“Yes, yes. Good luck, Sonny! Stop by with your sweetie and get something nice one day, okay?” Bea waved her goodbyes from the doorway, smiling that same sweet old woman smile. Sanji clutched the bag to his chest tightly. 

Right. Time to put the plan into place.

[snazzydwarf]

I watched Transformers One last night, and now that I've let it sink in over night I have some WORDS (In a positive way, this movie SLAPPED and I just wanna ramble haha)

I'll just be going over the main 4 however!

So Spoilers under the cut!!!

Okay straight off the bat I wanna preface that I'm not the most knowledgeable about the TF franchise, I'm more of a casual fan. I've seen some of the Bay movies, Bumblebee 2018, and a little of bit of a few of the TV shows. (I'm starting to read the IDW comics, but I'm not far)

So as a casual fan of the franchise this movie was EVERYTHING.

It's just so... refreshing to have a simple "friends to enemies" story line that doesn't try to get complicated. You can tell that the people working on the movie really fucking loved the franchise, and that they took the time to refine the movie.

Megatrons origin story is very believable and well paced, at time's I went "YEAH BEAT HIS ASS D" outloud. OOOOO AND HIS OPTICS CHANGING COLOURS SLOWLY IS AWESOME!!! I can't remember the exact scene (I have horrible memory) but there's this one frame of Orion standing up after being pushed away, and you can see D-16 standing up in the background behind him... and he's just covered in shadows, his optics are a muddy orange. No longer the bright yellow like they were in the beginning and UGG THAT WAS GREAT!!

Chris Hemsworth was actually really well cast as a young Optimus. I don't think he would suit a more war-torn and older Optimus Prime, however as Orion Pax I think he hit the nail on the head. He sounded young, hopeful and full of curiosity that it makes the broken friendship between D-16 and Orion Pax more impactful.

They spent the whole movie being at each other's backs, even when you can tell D was getting sick of his shit, they loved each other. D saying "I won't ever follow another leader" oof- and with his "the only person I can trust is-" being cut off short is GREAT foreshadowing.

At that point in the story I don't even know if he would have said Orion, or himself. Their bond is straining, tensions are rising high and they have hit a split road.

Elita I think, while not being as stand out as the other two, was pretty great in the movie as well. She had a more low-key character Arc, going from a stick in the mud looking for her next promotion, loosing it all because of Orion saving another bot (Jazz!!!!), being mad at him and willing to do anything to get back up the rank, having her whole world fall... and then finding hope within the last bot she would ever thought she would.

She is a figure head, someone who leads and gives commands, yet is bound and confined by rules and her superiors. I don't think she was every truly happy, but seeing Orion try his hardest and never loosing the spark of hope and bullheadedness inside him inspired her.

I believe that scene of her giving back the map to Orion was the first sign or her beginning to trust him, in addition to her not taking back the map later on.

OKAY NOW... BUMBLEBEE... well B-127 BUT MY LITTLE BEE!!

Oh you poor bastard, look at you! You're not mentally well honey, and the war has JUST started!!!! I really liked him in this film and I will defend him to the end.

Was he a little annoying? Yes. BUT it fits and it works. He's been alone for Prime knows how long, he's desperate for friends and companionship that he can't shut up now that finally, finally he has someone else to talk with.

I liked his jokes throughout the film, sure others can find it annoying (god knows the D, Elita and Orion kinda did) but underneath all of that is just a profound sadness.

You can see this when D-12 is standing up to Sentinel, he tells D to stand down, to kneel. Because he's afraid, he's afraid he's gonna watch as one of the first friends he's ever made be killed right in front of him.

He's also not as dense as other's think he is. He may be optimistic, loud and ever the chatter box who lacks the social ques of someone who's been alone for far to long, but he knows when to calm down. He was quiet when they found the bodies of the Primes, he was the one who had the Energon cube to give to Alpha Trion and he did that in a quiet and careful way cuz he knew that this was serious.

He doesn't crack a joke when they see the demise of the Primes and Sentinel's betrayal cuz he's also as shocked as the others. He's NOT an airhead, he's many things in this movie, but he isn't dumb. (also without him, legit nothing the movie was even possible, cuz he was the one who saved the SOS message of Alpha Trion and he was the one with the Energon cube... I'm just saying-)

Anyways, this was a great movie! If you haven't seen it (just spoiled urself mate lol) then please go watch it in the theaters if you are able to. It would be such a shame if this were to "flop" and we never got to see a sequel to this time line.

more thoughts in the tags cuz this has gone on long enough!

[azurem]

hihihi your arts VERY pretty!!! i wanted to ask how you would usually colour one of your pieces, they’re always so colourful but in a way that’s nice to look at

I'm not very good at explaining, but I'll try to explain my process!

First, I finish the lineart. Usually when I'm done with the lineart I already have sorta an idea of what color palette I'll use, either a single color or a color combo I'll use. If you have no idea, you could always pick a random bg color and build from there!

With the color bg chosen, you usually want to make it so the base colors and the bg don't clash (your eyes don't go owie at looking). You could put base colors and then lower the opacity to reach the same effect, whatever is easiest for you! I usually do it by eye picking, being careful of the color wheel

Here, Ink's main colors are orange, reddish, white and yellow. What I do to make them look more harmonious to the bg is to choose the colors by first choosing the "raw" color (for example, the orange), and then "drag" it until it's closer to the bg color (the pink, here). This will make it so the orange while technically stopped being yellowish orange (since it's now more of reddish tone) will look kinda orange in context and won't clash too strongly with the bg. I do this with all the colors following the same logic...! The more desaturated they are, the more "draggable" they are. Which is why the white I do usually ends up the hue of the bg color but lighter

I follow the same principle when uhh shadowing...!!! Usually I make it so the lightning and the shadows aren't the same "temperature" (warm base colors wont have warm shadows UNLESS i make them have cold lightning) so they usually end up purplish since I don't mess with the greens usually (they're evil and they scare me)

You choose the base colors, choose a lightning color (here it's a blue) and drag the colors accordingly. If the colors are too different, when choosing the shadow color, lowering the saturation will help so it doesn't come out too strong of a contrast...!

From there you can put the lightning using the same logic...!! Drag it to the other side if you want them to be complementary! (Orange here has a yellowish lightning for example)

Color the darks to imply lightning...!! (I like to do it in the eyes and ink's splotch) And voilà! It is done...!!

Most of my fanart follow that logic! See it very closely and learn my secrets!

Ink here is pinkish, and, as you see, most of his shadowing is pink leaning, while his lightning is more bluish leaning.

The reflective shadows (see Nm's tentacle being kind of pink) follow the same "drag" logic! Just try not to shift the values too much or itll look like a shadow/light (lowering the saturation is your best friend here)

Anddd that'd be all!! I put some airbrush on the base colors that follow the color of the lightning, but I forgot to put it in the examples! Oof!

[bbyquokka]

Hi this is my first time requesting to you so hello! (I’ll send a non-anon ask to you so you can see my profile and age💜)

I was thinking about cockwarming with Hyunjin and it being pure comfort and fluff. I notice in fics that cockwarming always leads to sex but I just want to experience it as is.

Just Hyunjin and the reader being very close with each other cuddling in bed after the she has a bad day at university. He seems like the romantic type who would cherish these types of intimate and vulnerable moments where they can feel safe together. He’d even give her his jiniret plush just to make her smile

warmth

FLUFF/SUGGESTIVE THEMES BELOW CUT – MINORS, AGELESS & DEFAULT BLOGS; DNI

warning: fem bodied reader, uni au, established relationship, pet names, cock warming, reader feels insecure, fluff and comfort, semi proof read. words: 0.7k ~ (724)

dont repost. dont translate. feedback and reblogs are highly advised and appreciated!

“hey darling. how did–oof!” hyunjin groans before laughing softly as you straddle his lap, forehead resting on his shoulder. he wraps his arms around your tired body gently, stroking your back. “rough lecture?”

“yeah.” you mumble against the material of his t-shirt. “i swear this professor hates me.”

“i doubt that darling.” hyunjin laughs softly.

“want cuddles.”

“here or?” you lift your head up and pout, eyes flickering below his waist. “ahhh, ok darling.”

hyunjin picks you up gently and walks to the shared bedroom. he gently places you down on the bed to strip, watching you do the same before getting under the duvet.

hyunjin slides in behind you, lips pressing gently kisses along the back of your neck. his fingers trailing along your sides, feather like touches that drive you insane.

“hyun..” you whimper impatiently. “please.”

“ok ok darling.” he laughs softly before slowly pushing his penis inside you. you both let out soft whimpers and groans, the feeling of being filled and stretched providing you with a strange sense of comfort.

his length is fully inserted, touching untouched territory. your warmth slowly drives hyunjin insane due to the fact that he is addicted to your warmth and how you feel. he presses his chest against your back to provide you with some skin on skin, arm snaking around your midriff and thumb stroking your stomach.

“better?” he softly whispers. you hum softly, giggling as hyunjin kisses your earlobe.

“stopp! that tickles!” you whine. hyunjin carries on for a few seconds before kissing your neck gently.

your walls flutter around hyunjin's length which makes him silently groan. he so badly wants to move but he knows you're not in the mood for sex of any kind. your energy screams 'hold me. i've had a shit day.'

“you're so pretty, you know that right?” hyunjin hums softly. you blush a soft pink, nuzzling into the pillow to hide the embarrassment.

“shh.”

“never. i will keep telling you that you're beautiful and pretty and gorgeous and–”

“ok ok! i–i get it.” you whine. hyunjin laughs before pecking your rose coloured cheeks gently.

“you'll be ok yn. i promise you.”

“will i? i'm starting to doubt that uni is for me..”

“why baby?”

“because everyone around me is so fucking smart and i'm just there. i'm surrounded by all this talent and smartness that it's suffocating but i also feel insufficient. maybe i'm not cut out for uni...” your voice cracks and wobbles. hyunjin furrows his brows before repositioning and reinserting himself so you're facing him.

“my darling.” he cups your cheeks gently, wiping away a few stray tears. “we all have our strengths and weaknesses. you shouldn't compare yourself to others which i know is hard to do when you feel insecure and low but, someone might feel the same way about you.”

“what do you mean?” you whisper.

“well, someone else might be comparing themselves to you. what you think is a weakness about yourself could be what they find strong about you.”

“really?”

“it's possible darling. you shouldn't compare yourself to others. which is hard, i know but you shine in other aspects of life to. you are smart and talented but being smart and talented doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means.”

“no?” you look up at him as he strokes your hair gently.

“you can be smart and talented in many other ways that don't involve solving equations and making art pieces so don't bring yourself down my love. you could hold a piece of knowledge that someone else doesn't know and they could find you smart. just because you struggle in one area doesn't make you any less of a person.”

“hyun...” you sniffle, leaning into his touch. “thank you.”

“anytime darling. do you feel better?” he traces your jawline slowly with the tip of his finger before leaning down.

“much better.” you mumble before pressing your lips against hyunjin's plump ones. the kiss is slow and passionate. his cock still nestled deep inside you, walls fluttering around his length and providing hyunjin with such warmth and comfort.

“i'll always be here for you darling. morning, noon and night and if i'm not here, you have this.” hyunjin hands you his jiniret plush to which you hold close to your chest. “i love you, yn. so so much.”

note: i do love a lil bit of cockwarming with some added fluff !! ty for sending this in, i enjoy writing cockwarming. should really write more of it tbh. don’t forget to leave feedback, reblog and tell me what you think here. i hope you all enjoy! ‹3

tags (open): @sstarryoong ; @unh0ly-dr3am3r ; @septicrebel ; @alyszaen ; @writerracha ; @hyunluvxo ; @aestheticsluut ; @xcookiemonsteer ; @telesvng ; @oshimee