#but shes still new to being free at this point
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vsa-pieldepapel · 3 days ago
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ralsusie became real and kinda popular in the fandom and i IMMEDIATELY thought of you. also your susie hadcanons... you're predicting it all....
so what are your thoughts on their dynamic in the new chapter? and on susie's character development overall?
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oh it's a fucking party in my house rn you have no idea. i have so many things to say about them that i don't believe its possible to make all of them coherent in a single post but i'll vomit some of it Before that tho i must say i am surprised at how many people thought of me w these new developmetns lol. mostly because the internet is so fast paced i thought no one would remember. thank you though.
i remember saying somewhere that I was convinced ralsei observing susie's independence and force of will would plant a seed in his head for him to strive for freedom and agency, and I'm surprised how dead on that was. Guts is widely accepted to be the stat for how much a character is willing to stand against the control of the player, which ralsei has Zero of in all chapters, but fascinatingly, even though he goes back to zero in ch4, at the tail end of ch3 before i fought the roaring knight i checked the power screen and ralsei had a single Guts point. this was immediately after susie consoled Tenna and told him, "did you hear that, Ralsei?" so i am convinced that single moment of guts was brought forth by her, by the lessons he learns from her character.
I had rather low expectations going into the new chapters because I really still wasnt convinced if Toby was self aware on how he was writing the holiday family, susie and noelle, and ralsusie, or if that was all serendipitous. The new chapters make me believe more strongly that he is aware and its not all coincidental. theres a lot here and i would have to make an entire separate post about it but I was incredibly pleasantly surprised by how many poignant, emotionally resonant moments happened between susie and ralsei building on how much they push each other to be better, and how it's emphasised that they're influencing the other. I was incredibly shocked in a good way that they had an actual argument, but Susie didn't resort to all the coping mechanisms we see her use with Lancer. Ralsei has proven now that he will be there by her side and she has decided to believe in that rather than keeping in mind that she could be abandoned at any turn, and I thought them being able to genuinely talk it out and MAKE it through an argument was an excellent indicator of how powerful their relationship is (and I do mean this all even if it's just friendship stuff for now, because the healthiest couples, anyway, are those where your partner is also your friend). I remember being skeptical way back when of people who made susie sporty and confident, because she struck me as feeling ugly, insecure, and not really that successful in that regard either, and I'm glad I was right. Her monologues about feeling unwanted and broken which feels very much the result of unstable circumstances like moving constantly, where there is no consistency to any one situation, and neglectful or abusive parenting were very resonant. Curiously though my fave part of all these new developments about susie are when it pertains to how she connects to the lore of the prophecy, which is another separate post. Basically, I love how susie is a "wild card", but that necessitates a LOT of elaboration. I like that her stubbornness and her will to fight are displayed for both when they're good and worth it and when they're dysfunctional. I also found the exploration of how an individuals psyche shapes a dark world fascinating.
The bloody handprint lives fucking rent free in my head. Again, I need to make a MASSIVE post to connect a lot of dots here idk how to do it. But I am very, very excited. Maybe it would be easier to organise everything if I was prompted to talk about specific things. I could make a pepe silvia style video about it atp rofl
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springismss · 3 days ago
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Okay, I hope you don't find that idea stupid. But I can't stop thinking about it.
What about a story where, whenever Dabi isn't with the league, he meets up with a girl? Like that's his best friend with benefits.
She's actually quirkless and her dad kicked her out when she was 18, cuz tf is he supposed to do with a quirkless kid? (His words.)
So she can relate to Dabi and that's why they're so close.
Now after 'Dabi's dance' and the big fight approaching, she's scared of losing him. And he wants that she always has a piece of him (meaning a baby).
If you don't write pregnancy trope that's okay, my love. But it basically ends with real emotional sex? And whispered confessions in smoke and flames?
ᱬ⛧ one last time ~ dabi
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pairing: dabi x fwb?! female reader
content: 18 mdni. p in v, fingering, pet names, implied need to breed, implied pregnancy, anime/manga spoilers for new fans/not caught up.
word count: 3.5k
links: bnha/mha masterlist | masterlist
a/n: thank you for being my first request, my love! might be a bit long, but fingers crossed, this is what you wanted. if you want a request, feel free to check out my pinned post that has my rules link in before requesting. as always likes, comments and re-blogs are deeply appreciated!
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The buzzing of the neon sign behind you became more apparent the longer you stood to the side of the shop. He had to be nearby by now. Reaching into your jacket pocket, you took out your phone and glanced at the time: 10:30 at night.
Huffing out, you shoved your phone away and rummaged in your other pocket, pulling out a cigarette. Bringing it up to your lips, you placed it between them and continued to rummage for a lighter, groaning in frustration when you realised you had forgotten yours. "As if tonight couldn't get any worse".
Closing your eyes, you took a moment to calm yourself, trying not to let the thoughts get to you. You'd only managed to get over what happened when you turned eighteen. Coming home from being out with friends to find your bag packed, kicked out moments later because your father couldn't handle having a quirkless child around him any longer.
As far as he was concerned, you were dead to him the second it became clear you were never going to have a quirk. You were a part of the population he detested and wanted to try to abolish. An utter failure as a daughter. In his words "No one will want a freak like you. Your lot need to die out because what the fuck am I supposed to do with a quirkless kids?".
The memory was all but patchy, but you would use it to keep you going until the day you died.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, doll".
Opening your eyes, you glanced to your side and smiled. Relief washed over you as you turned to the person who spoke. No matter what, you could always count on them. "Dabi! I didn't think you were going to show". Lifting your hand, you went to grab the cigarette between your lips, only to be stopped. Blue flames light the end for you.
Sucking in a breath, you savoured the way the smoke filled your lungs, clamness washing over you. Removing the object from between your lips, you passed it over to the male who stood beside you, smoke blowing from your lips as you breathed out. "I'm surprised you wanted to meet with me tonight, thought you had some business with the league".
Shrugging his shoulders, Dabi took the cigarette and pulled it to his lips, mimicking your actions. "Told them I had someone to meet. Didn't know when I'd be back because they're important".
You knew he was being honest; he was from the day you met him.
You'd only been out on the streets for a few days, but you'd still managed to fight tooth and nail to find somewhere reasonably sheltered to help keep you safe from the elements. That's when you met Dabi. He'd just so happened to be in the same area you were sleeping.
When he caught sight of you, he was going to kill you; you were no good to him or the league at that point, but the more he saw you fight against him, albeit quirkless, he realised you were a lot like him. Especially when he heard how much of a failure your so-called father thought you were.
No one knew who he was, what his name was or his background. All they knew him as was Dabi. Yet he felt like he had found someone who would be on equal footing with him in some sense. Had you had a quirk, then maybe you could have joined him in the league, instead, he opted for befriending you, eventually becoming friends with benefits.
Benefits he knew both of you were happy to agree on. Benefits that made the two of you grow closer until you considered each other best friends.
Whenever he wasn't with the league or grew bored, he always found his way to you to pass some time. It didn't matter what, as long as he was with you, that's all that mattered.
Pushing your body off the wall, you took a few small steps and ran your hand up his arm, fingers ghosting over his parted lips as you smiled. Part of you didn't want this friends-with-benefits agreement; you wanted to be the one who he woke up to every day and fell asleep to every night. The one who he gave every single part of himself to, not just his body. "You're looking sentimental, doll, doesn't suit that pretty face of yours".
Furrowing your brows, you looked up at him and opened your mouth to speak, only to feel a rough kiss steal your breath away. Hands that disposed of the cigarette before clinging onto your body, dragging up your side, before lifting you.
On instinct, your legs wrapped around his waist as your fingers threaded into his hair, needy moans slipping past your lips as you felt bites at the sensitive skin on your neck. "Fuck, need you now princess. Need to feel that pretty cunt of yours squeeze around me".
Sighing out, you tugged on his hair harder, earning a deep groan in the crook of your neck. "Well, what are you waiting for, buddy? Don't you know it's rude to keep a girl waiting?".
It wasn't too long until you found yourself in a room, face pressed into the mattress as Dabi roughly thrusted into you, drool pooling under your mouth as you moaned out. From the corner of your eyes, you took in the face of the man who became your self-proclaimed best friend, the man who you gave every part of yourself to with no questions asked.
Little did you know what the next few months would bring and the way your world would nearly flip on its head.
Staring at the screen in front of you, you placed your hand over your mouth, the shock evident on your features. He had to be joking, right? Yeah, that's it, it was all one big joke to get back at a hero he obviously didn't like.
Still, those words rang in your head the more you dwelt on them. "My name is Touya Todoroki". Dabi, your best friend, was the son of the number one hero. The son he thought he'd lost.
Letting your head drop to your chest, you felt your heart beating erratically. Panting for breath as you tried to get your head around everything. Everything that was going to happen and what you were feeling. Deep down, you knew that was it, you'd only get to see him a few more times before he disappeared again.
Only this time, the feeling was almost replaced by something more, something almost like dread.
Glancing at your phone a few hours later, your eyes lingered on the text that Dabi had sent you. A text to let you know he was coming to see you again tonight, with a location where he wanted you to meet him. A location you were now at.
Chewing your lip, you tore your eyes away from your phone just in time to see Dabi walk in, eyes widening in shock when you took in his new appearance. Everything seemed the same except for his hair. Hair that was once black was now white. He really did want to prove everything to Endeavour, by the looks of it.
Standing to your feet, you walked over to him, arms wrapping around his neck as you pulled yourself to him in a hug. A hug that needed no words as he wrapped his arms around you, pressing you closer to him.
Then you felt it, the wet patches on your cheeks as you pressed your face closer to his. Your heart continued to beat erratically in your chest as you tried to stop yourself. Stop the tears flowing, but try as hard as you wanted, you couldn't. You couldn't stop the way you were feeling.
Vulnerable and scarred.
"We both know I love nothing more than seeing people cry, doll, but not you. Tell me what's wrong".
Sniffling, you pulled back and looked up at him, eyes scanning over him as you took in every single detail of him you could. Every little thing, just in case this was the last time you saw him. "Dabi, I'm scared. I don't want to lose you, but this feeling in my chest, it won't go away. No matter how hard I try to swallow the lump in my throat, it won't work...".
Feeling the tears prick at your eyes again, you swallowed heavily, hoping the lump in your throat would disappear as you brought a shaky hand up to cup his face. "... I can't shake this feeling of dread, the feeling that you're going to walk out that door and I'm never going to see you again".
Humming out, Dabi removed one hand from his grip on you and lifted it to your hand, fingers intwining with yours after he rubbed the back of your hand. "You know, doll, I've always told you that being sentimental doesn't suit you, but I understand where you're coming from".
Leaning down, he hovered his lips above yours. He knew exactly what you meant. He was scared as well. After all this time, he was starting to realise how much he loved you. Sure, the begin with you were nothing more than an friend who was easy fuck but over time, he found himself falling deeper in love with you.
The way you sounded when you were talking to him, even more when you were moaning out for him when he slipped deep inside you. The way you touched him, like you weren't scared of him and how he looked. The way you looked at him like he was your equal, your long-lost friend, someone you were happy to spend time with, regardless of what you were doing.
So he did the only thing he could think of in that moment, the only way he knew how to show you how much he loved you.
Pressing his lips to yours, he let go of your hand to cup your face, eyes closing with a smirk as he felt you press closer into his body. This is how things would go before he pinned you down and fucked your roughly but you needed reassurance and that's what he was going to do.
The cool air lapped at your skin as you felt your body being laid down on the mattress in the room. After Dabi had broken the kiss you were sharing, he took his time to remove the items of clothing you had on, dropping them into a pile just to the side of you both. Looking up, you took in the sight of him hovering above you, body as bare as yours.
He knew you wanted to say something; the look in your eyes was evident. He wanted to say something too, but he wasn't sure how to get the words out he wanted. "Let me show you what I'm trying to say to you".
Rough hands slipped down your body, taking in every curve and detail as he took his time feeling every inch of you. From the way your neck felt smooth against his fingers to the way your breasts felt cupped in his hand, your nipples hardening under his touch and he rolled the palm of his hand over the mound.
Fingers travelling down your torso, until he reached just above the one place he wanted to be. Wanted to be buried deep inside. Normally he would have you squirming as he finger fucked you, bringing you close to your euphoria time again until you came undone with a broken cry. The place he'd sink his cock into and rut harshly while marking you in every way possible.
Letting out a shaky breath, Dabi let his fingers slip lower, listening to the way your breathing changed.
The way you sucked in breaths as the pad of his thumb rubbed circles over your clit. The way you panted softly when he eventually sank two fingers deep into you, slowly stretching your walls. The way you moaned out when he brushed against the spongy spot he knew would have you crying out for more when he was deep within you.
Normally, he'd drag this out as he hauled you around until you couldn't take any more, but you always could. Right now, though, he wanted to be inside you.
Letting his fingers slip out, you let a small whine pass your lips as you looked at him, eyes slightly glassy as you reached out. "Dabi, please".
He could hear it in your voice, the need and how scared you were. Manourving himself until he sat between your legs, he leant forward and let his one of his hands rest beside your face, the other lazily pumping his cock before he lined up the mushroom tip and pressed into you, pushing past that small resistance he loved.
The harsh thrusts were replaced by slow ones, ones that dragged the long moans from your very core. Ones that had you wrapping not only your legs around Dabi's waist but your arms around his neck as you tried to ground yourself. "Please, don't leave me".
The way you sounded, so vulnerable, it broke his heart. He didn't want to leave you, but reality was he would have to as he might never come back from this fight. "Hush now, princess, let me give you a piece of me. A piece that no one else will ever get to have".
Loosening your arms from around his neck, Dabi kelt up and placed a hand on your body, right above where he could feel his cock thumping into you. "This is where I'll leave that piece. A baby that will always remind you of me, no matter what happens".
Gasping out, you looked to him just in time to feel him lifting your legs up, pressing them against your chest as he pressed his cock deeper into you. "I'm going to make love to you so you'll always have a piece of me".
Letting out a sob, you arched as best you could as he pulled out, hips snapping back to push the head of his cock deeper into your cunt once again. He wasn't going to stop until there was a definite chance you'd end up pregnant.
Before long, the sounds of desperation and neediness filled the room "Fuck, princess, I'm going to fill you so full you'll be feeling me for weeks".
You couldn't answer, too dazed by the building pressure. All you could do was nod, drunkily repeating his name over again until you snapped. A broken cry sounding from your throat as you arched once more, walls of your cunt helping him as he emptied his seed deep within you. Flooding your womb until you couldn't take any more.
Lying in a tangle of limbs, you both panted, trying to regain composure. Neither of you wanting to leave the other anytime soon.
It has been four months since you last saw Dabi. No calls or texts had been responded to. It was like he disappeared from the face of the planet.
Holding your hand over your mouth, you coughed into it as you scanned the area. The path of blue flames led you this way, but you still couldn't see him. And the heat, the heat was starting to become overwhelming, the more flames you encountered. "Fuck, where are you Dabi?".
Letting your hand drop, you tugged at the hem of your shirt until it ripped enough for you to make a temporary mask to stop you from breathing in any more smoke. It was dangerous enough, but you couldn't risk getting hurt right now. If he wasn't dead already, he'd be dead by the time you got your hands on him.
Pressing forward, you walked a few more minutes, stopping when you saw a figure ahead. A figure dressed in white. "Dabi?".
Tensing when he heard your voice, Dabi turned to look over his shoulder, eyes looking at you, before his features softened. Of course, you'd track him out here, getting ready to head off into battle. "What do you want, doll?"
Stopping in your tracks, you could feel your heart thumping erratically, threatening to break out of your ribcage at any given moment. "I need to talk to you". Your eyes tracked him as he turned around, revealing the white outfit he was wearing. He looked handsome, but to you, he always did. "I don't have time".
Ripping the material off your face, you walked forward and grabbed his hand, refusing to let go as you shook. "I don't fucking care if you don't have time, you'll make time for me and listen to what I have to say to you".
Casting his gaze to the side, he studied the area up ahead. He still had some time before he was due to fight, so he guessed he could listen to what you had to say. "What is it, doll?
Sucking in a breath, you sighed it out before casting your gaze up to meet his. "I love you, Dabi. I know you don't feel the same way. What we did a few months ago was something to console me, but I can't take it any longer...",
The tears you felt prick your eyes began to slip down your cheek as you rested your hand on your belly, thumb rubbing the skin in a way to comfort yourself. "... I can't do this on my own without you. I feel like my heart is breaking each time you ignore me".
Tilting his head, Dabi watched as you gripped your top, tugging at it before you reached for him, desperate to pull him closer to you. He hated seeing you like this; it reminded him of the first time he ever saw you all those years ago.
You still reminded him of his younger self.
Letting out a sob, you gripped hold of his hand and pulled him closer, letting his hand rest on top of your belly. Under the pads of his fingers, he could feel how the skin was stretched slightly. How something pressed against the palm of his hand as he looked at you.
"I love you, Dabi, more than you'll ever know. I've loved you since the stupid ice rink incident when we nearly got caught in the changing rooms, climbing out the window. When you thought setting off the fire alarm was a brilliant idea, only to get yourself stuck....".
You took in a shaky breath at the memory. Your sides were hurting for days after every time you saw him. Safe to say he was as pouty as ever.
"... I crave the way you feel against me. Your kisses, your touches, everything. I love every single part of you, and I feel like I'm dying without you by my side. I know you don't feel that same, but that promise you made, to always have a piece of you with me, it came true".
He could hear it in your voice, the pain, the hurt, the pride and the love. He could hear every emotion you were feeling at that point. He might have been a villain, but who was he to deny you his feelings when you just poured out your heart to him?
The sound of footsteps behind him caught his attention, a quick glance confirmed they were nothing but minor heroes, heroes that would be good kindling for his flames until the real threat came. Lifting his free hand, he let out a blast of flames, screams echoing as smoke began to grow thicker.
Turning his attention back to you, he used that same hand to cup your face, thumb running across your lips before he leaned close. Lips pressing against yours as he kissed you deeply. Not in a needy way like he normally would, but in a way that told you how his very soul felt.
Of course, part of him didn't want to go to this battle. To say fuck it and turn around with you, to live his life as norally as he could with you by his side.
But this was something he had to do. Something to help calm the demons inside him. To prove to his father that he was something.
Breaking from your lips, he offered a soft smile. A smile that you got to see before he let go of you and turned around. Taking heavy steps from your figure, he could feel his heart break with every desperate word you were shouting.
Begging him to come back. Begging him to stay by your side. Begging him to let go of everything, if he truly loved you, he would. Begging him to help you raise the one person that was half you and half him, you couldn't do it on your own.
He took one last look at you before disappearing into the curtain of his flames. To his fate that awaited him. He could tell by the scream you'd let tear from your throat that you'd heard his final words before he walked away from you.
"I've always loved you, doll, but it's too late for me now".
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© springismss 2025 - don’t repost, copy, translate, steal or modify.
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baigepueckers · 22 hours ago
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Caitlin Clark X Reader
Under the Spotlight
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You weren’t just anyone walking into Gainbridge Fieldhouse that night.
You were you…Y/N. Hollywood’s favorite new face. The girl the internet had decided was too pretty to be that talented and too charming to be real. You’d been on magazine covers, walked red carpets, hosted SNL.
And yet, tonight, none of that mattered.
Because tonight, you weren’t the star of a hit movie. You weren’t there to be seen.
You were there to see her.
You and Caitlin had met months ago…mutual friends at a crossover event, something casual. You’d exchanged numbers after ten minutes. Not for anything romantic. Not yet. Just a shared love for competition, for the way attention followed you both, whether you asked for it or not. You started with dumb memes and sarcastic texts. You bonded over the weird loneliness of being so known all the time.
She sent you a video once at 1:42 a.m., whispering courtside at an empty practice gym. “I’m supposed to be asleep. I just wanted to shoot for a bit.”
You sent back a voice note. “I’d stay up to watch you shoot.”
And after that, it stopped being casual.
She never called you her girlfriend. You never called her yours. But the silence between you? It was anything but platonic.
So when you showed up that night…wearing a custom black Fever jacket with her number stitched discreetly inside the sleeve…it was a choice. A quiet kind of confession.
You didn’t need cameras. You just needed her to see you.
You slipped into your courtside seat with that practiced kind of elegance, all poise and purpose. Fans started whispering before you even sat down. Phones lifted. Tweets fired. People didn’t miss a thing when it came to you…not who you followed, not who liked your photo at 2 a.m., not where you showed up on a Friday night in Indiana.
And Caitlin?
Caitlin noticed you the second she stepped onto the court.
You watched her freeze mid jog as her eyes landed on you. One blink. Then a smile…big and completely unguarded, the kind she only ever gave you in private. Her shoulders shifted like she had to physically reset herself to keep walking.
She bent to tie her shoe. You smirked.
God, she was trying to play it cool.
Warmups were a mess. She missed two open threes. Got hounded by her teammates. You saw Aliyah pat her on the back and mouth something…probably teasing her about you being there. Caitlin didn’t even argue. Just flushed and tried to hide her grin with her towel.
You couldn’t stop watching her. The way she moved, focused but constantly scanning for you. And when her eyes found yours again?
You mouthed “Focus, superstar.”
She exhaled a breathless laugh, shook her head and adjusted her ponytail like it would somehow settle her pulse.
But you knew better.
When the game started, she lit up. Dropped back to back threes like it was nothing. You could see her fire from your seat. But every made shot was followed by a glance your way. Like she needed to see your reaction. Like your approval meant more than any stat line ever could.
And when she took a hard foul in the second quarter and landed on her back, you shot halfway out of your seat, heart climbing into your throat. She got up fine, brushing it off. But she looked at you as she did it.
You pointed to your lips. “Careful.”
She grinned again. And missed the free throw.
You leaned toward the court and whispered, “Slipping.”
She laughed. Full, real, chest deep laughter. The whole arena felt it.
And apparently, so did the broadcast.
“There’s a certain energy from Clark tonight,” the announcer said. “Maybe something…or someone…giving her an extra reason to show off.”
The camera cut to you. Center frame. Steady. Glowing.
You didn’t flinch. You just tilted your head, smiled slowly and looked right at Caitlin.
Like a challenge.
She kept playing like she had something to prove. And she did. You knew it. She wanted to prove that this…you…wasn’t just some fleeting crush. That she could be Caitlin Clark and still be yours. Even if no one else knew it yet.
They won by four. She finished with twenty eight, six assists, and a defense that looked like a highlight reel. But when the buzzer sounded, she didn’t even glance at the scoreboard.
She looked for you.
And your seat was empty.
Her eyes darted. Jaw clenched. She looked around like maybe you’d disappeared. Like maybe she’d imagined the whole thing.
But then someone in a staff polo leaned in and said something, and her entire body relaxed.
She ran. Not walked…ran…down the tunnel.
You were waiting just past the edge of the noise, tucked in a hallway behind the press zone and watching the doorway like your whole body had been on pause.
The second she saw you, she stopped. Just stopped.
“You left,” she said, breathing hard.
“I didn’t want to steal your moment.”
She stared at you like she couldn’t believe you were real. “I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. You. Here.”
You stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat of her skin. “So have I.”
Caitlin’s mouth parted, and she glanced toward the corner, toward the last of the security team walking away.
You could tell she was asking herself: Can I? Should I?
So you answered for her.
You leaned in and brushed your forehead against hers. “You don’t have to be subtle with me.”
Her hand slid up your arm, fingers curling gently at your jaw. Her eyes were wide, shining. “I don’t want to hide.”
“Then don’t.”
And that was it.
Caitlin kissed you…slow, aching, like she’d been holding it back since the moment she saw you courtside. You kissed her back like you were done pretending, done waiting.
Somewhere down the hall, a photographer lifted their camera.
Neither of you looked.
Let them guess. Let them post. Let them know.
This wasn’t a rumor.
This was real.
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millersbabe · 3 days ago
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ˏˋ 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 ´ˎ˗
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part one
♡ joel miller x f!reader angst + grumpy joel + some violence + swearing
The world ending was something nobody ever thought could be a possibility, until it did. You’d watch movies about it, read comics about it, but never expect to wake up on the other side of it. It turned you inside out, made you do things you never thought you’d do. Be someone you never wanted to be.
But to survive, there was no choice.
Your boots crunched along the snowy trail you were following, covering the smaller footprints ahead of yours. Keeping safe your only companion. She stomped her feet, careful of being swallowed by the ice beneath her. She was only small.
“Not far now,” you whispered, adjusting the beanie atop your head to cover your ears. The two of you were scouting the new town you’d come across, for any signs of loot. Any signs of life and you turned the other way. You weren’t here to deal with conflict.
You’d found a drugstore with large, rusted vans parked in front of it, the windows smashed and blockaded over. Graffiti adorned the once white walls, telling a story of how it had come to be this way. You glanced around for an entrance, your eyes catching a thin window near the ceiling of the building. Too risky, you had no idea what was inside, how far the drop was.
All for loot that wasn’t vital, but could be.
“Are we going inside?” The girl asked, looking up at you. You shook your head, taking her small hand in yours and leading her onwards.
“Just a little further and we’ll settle down before it gets dark,” you instructed, your breath taking form as you sighed heavily. Some days felt better than others, but for the most part you felt lost. Entirely lost. Floating along a vast nothingness, no anchor tying you to anywhere, slowing you down to keep you from dizzying.
But you had responsibility. A child to keep safe, keep warm and fed, a duty to a found family you’d long forgotten through nights of fighting, running, crying. The road ahead stretched for a while and you could see it winding off in the distance, leading up towards the mountains. An impossible feat for the two of you.
You walked for a long while, the girl occasionally opening up with questions. She was more talkative than you’d ever been, but she brought it out in you. It had been over a year of just a six-year-old’s company. You wished for some socialisation for her, for people her age to talk to and learn from. Instead she had a 32 year old who was trying her best and just falling short.
“I’m tired.” She cried, chin tucking into her chest with a wobbly lip.
“I know,” you huffed, “just a little longer, okay? See that cabin up there?” You pointed to the top of the hill at a small, wooden cabin. That was surprisingly not burnt down or vandalised in any way.
But the look on her face shot you in your heart. Her half-lidded eyes, the cold collecting on her cheeks and nose. How could you defy her? You made it up the hill, carrying her in your arms along with her backpack on your back, with your own, and a gun slung over your shoulder. Safe to say you’d exceeded your physical efforts for the day. It was this cabin, or death.
You knew she was asleep from the snoring in your ear and she’d gotten just a little heavier. But you still scouted the place, stepping over the traps by the doors, peering through the cracks in the windows, breaking open the door with your free arm. It was untouched? The inside was still run down, but not in total disarray. The dining table that was pushed against the wall had a radio, walkie talkie chargers, and some kind of log book?
Your curious mind was getting ahead of you, so you flicked through it after adjusting the girl in your arm. Names, dates, information about a trail and no issues. You had no clue of the current date, not even what day it was, so these could be old memories of a community. You crushed the small part of you that was hopeful for civilization.
You put the girl down onto the floor, unrolling your sleeping bags from your packs. You were still wary of having stepped into a potential stronghold. Not that it was any good. A horde could flatten that door down if there were enough, you did it with a sleeping child in your arms.
“You need to eat, okay?.” You spoke to the girl, who was rubbing her fists in her eye sockets. You’d rummaged for food already, finding a few energy bars to add to your collection.
You joined her on the floor, after pushing the table in front of the door and putting everything you could find into your backpack. “So, on the menu tonight we have…”
“Canned peaches,” you offered with one hand, “or,” you dug into your bag, “canned pineapple.”
The girl pointed to the peaches, a cheeky smile on her face knowing she chose your favourite one. Not that you minded at all, any happiness she got took away a chunk of the guilt you carried.
At only six, she’d lost her dad, lost her mum, travelled to a completely new place with a new person, in hopes of a society.
The two of you sat in silence, chewing on your desired fruits with your flashlight pointed at the ceiling. She looked around at the cabin, whilst you looked at her. Studied her for any sort of hurt, trauma, loneliness. You tried your best to shield her from it, but there were some things just not possible to hide. She never touched any of your weapons, she’d hide if there were infected or raiders around. But she could hear it all. And that scratched at your insides.
“We’re going up the mountain tomorrow.” You declared, staring down at your empty tin of fruit. The juice remaining at the bottom, which you’d quickly guzzled down. “See what we can see from the top. And if you’re lucky we can slide down it.”
Once the fruit was eaten, you’d turned off the flashlight and tucked it under your pillow, next to your gun. The girl laid close to you, with your coat and her blanket covering her up. She was sleepy eyed as she looked at you.
“You don’t leave this cabin, okay? There’s traps outside.” You instructed. “But I’ll be here, okay?”
She nodded, it didn’t help her much, but she felt safe around you at least. You made sure she was asleep first, before closing your own eyes. Arms folded, willing your mind to settle. Every night was the same, exhausted physically but your brain was haywire. You’d eventually pass out from your brain beating itself up with anxieties.
You didn’t dream anymore. Just small sequences of memories, from times you wished you were taken away from, but you’d give anything to go back now. You heard creaking wood, seeing the girl’s mum carrying the infant in her arms, the floorboards of the room you were in creaking.
The creaking slipped into thudding, the memory stolen away from you as your brain began to stir. You instinctively grabbed your gun upon realising the thudding was real, aiming it at the door. The table bounced towards you as the door slammed against it, your knuckles whitening at the grip on your gun.
The girl slept through it all. You were stood up, gun trained at the person who’d barged in, their own gun held out in front of them. It was a silent duel, until the man’s eyes glanced down at the girl stirring awake. Every ounce of security you had over her was shattered. You had thrown your own sleeping bag over her, hoping it would look like a pile of blankets and not a child beneath it.
You took the small window of opportunity, the man’s head turned away from you as you pushed into him, turning his gun upward and off the girl. You hit his nose with the butt of your own gun. But you were quickly handled by another man slamming into your side, knocking you onto the floor next to her.
You groaned, the act of breathing making you wince, nonetheless you crawled along the floor in front of her. “Please.” You begged. “Don’t touch her.”
“How’d you get in here?” The second man drawled, the first clutching his nose as it bled. Your breath was shallow, so overcome with Adrenaline that you didn’t think first.
“The door!” You exclaimed, hands up but still covering behind you. “I broke the door.”
“How’d you get past the traps?” He questioned again, fury still dropping from his tone.
“They were easy to spot, I’ve done this before.” You winced and clutched your side, definitely having broken a rib with that slam. “Please, we’re just trying to get by.”
The man was quiet. Looking from his partner back to you, then to the girl behind. Every glance towards her made your blood hot. You’d tear them limb from limb if they threatened her.
“Hell of a hit.” The first man grunted, his voice nasally and wet from the blood melting down his face. You still had your guard up, despite theirs loosening.
“Who are you people?” You asked, standing up and gathering your things quickly. The girl had slipped her coat back on, her hand clutching onto yours.
“I’m Tommy,” the second man offered, “this fella with the broken nose is Jesse. We’re from Jackson a few miles down the mountain.”
“Jackson?”
Tommy nodded. “Heard of it?”
You shook your head. Slinging your gun over your shoulder and pulling the girl closer to you. You had met many people in this new world, mostly bad, some bad pretending to be good. So you just go through life assuming everyone wants to kill or eat you. And it’s gotten you this far.
“We got resources, food, clothes, everythin’ ya need. Come on.” Tommy beckoned you both out, Jesse following with his hand still attached to his face.
You let out a sharp laugh. “Heard that one before. Why should we just follow you, hm?”
Jesse made no attempt to explain, he just climbed back onto his horse. You’d split the bridge of his nose, making for a pretty hefty hit.
“We’re good people, I promise ya. If you don’t want to stay, we’ll give ya a horse and some food to take off with.” Tommy reasoned. “There’s a life for you and the girl down here.”
It’s what you came for. It’s what you promised her mother when she died, when you’d taken on responsibility for her. It’s what this whole journey has been for. You looked down at the girl, her hopeful eyes looking back at you. Your cautious brain fought tooth and nail with your heart. Ultimately deciding with your heart.
“Okay.”
The girl climbed onto the back of Tommy’s horse, hands clinging to the material of his jacket. And you’d situated yourself on the back of Jesse’s, holding onto his coat with a much less firmer grip.
”Sorry ‘bout your nose.” You called out, over the sound of the galloping and the wind catching in your ears.
“You held your own, I’ll give you that.” He replied. No hard feelings, it seemed.
You glanced over at the girl behind Tommy, her frightened eyes taking in everything around her. She’d never been on a horse, she’d not seen another person in a long while. Things were clearly sitting on her brain more than you’d like. You longed to tell her it’d be okay. No more running, no more wondering about food and shelter anymore. You hoped Tommy was as good of a person as he claimed, because you weren’t sure how much longer you could fight.
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lancerslover · 2 days ago
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the swim lesson
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pairing: president!john f. kennedy/petite!innocent!secretary!reader
summary: when president john f. kennedy finds out you can’t swim, he generously offers to teach you how in the white house pool
warnings: 18+, smut, dubious consent, age gap, antiquated views on gender norms and appropriate workplace behavior
word count: 2.6k
a/n: hi my angels! this fic is a long overdue response to a request i received months ago. it’s not my best work but i hope you all still like it a least a little lol….also, the beautiful moodboard for this fic was made by the lovely @vintagedebutante <3
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“I don’t have all day now, Y/N.”
You glance up at the President. You sigh, and he chuckles.
You’ve been standing in the same spot in the White House pool for ten minutes now, nervously hopping from foot to foot on the little ledge where the slippery floor begins to tip down into the deep end. Even though the President is grinning playfully at you, the words he just said send anxious sparks through your body. He has a point—he doesn’t have all day. Judging by what you know about his schedule today, he probably only has about fifteen minutes before he has to head back into the Oval Office. And that means, at some point over the next fifteen minutes, you’ll have no choice but to finally move forward in the pool.
You’ve always had an irrational fear of water. Something about submerging your entire body in liquid—how it slops slimily at your skin and pulls you deeper and deeper—has never sat right with you. And when the President found out you felt this way during one of his daily chats with you and the other girls in the secretaries’ office, he vowed to help you conquer your fear and teach you to swim. At first, you thought his offer was nothing more than a kindly, chivalrous display of workplace friendship, but the other secretaries had a different theory. After the President walked away, they told you that they thought the only reason he wanted to teach you to swim is because your fear of water is the one thing standing in the way of you joining the rest of the girls in the skinny-dipping parties he holds in the pool. Apparently, he had been asking them lately why you never come out to swim. After all, he always explicitly tells whichever young lackey is in charge of carting his girls around to send all the young secretaries down.
“But—but why should he care if I’m there?” you squeaked after the girls explained this whole thing to you.
“He must have a particular liking for you,” one of the girls named Marcia replied, smirking, with a fake-casual shrug.
“Or maybe he just can’t be satisfied until he’s seen every one of his secretaries naked,” a secretary named Lizzie said with a wry laugh as she filed one of her long pink fingernails. “You know how men like him are.”
You do not, in fact, know how men like him are. You don’t really know how any men are, actually. The extent of your experience with the male species consists of the time you shyly kissed your prom date back in high school and the few milkshake diner dates you went on in college. All of this free-wheeling, hypersexual, skinny-dipping stuff people are apparently doing nowadays—people who didn’t grow up as a cloistered Catholic school girl, that is—is completely new to you.
Needless to say, you have complicated feelings about finally attending these skinny-dipping parties. You’ve never been naked in front of anyone, obviously, let alone in front of several of your coworkers and the President, who your entire family worships—he is the first man to represent your religion in the country’s highest office, after all—and who you’ve always been taught is the perfect American role model, and who you’ve had a crush on ever since you saw the “Senator John. F Kennedy Story” special on TV back in ‘58. The idea of being intimate with him in any way—but especially in such a public way—honestly makes you want to vomit. But at the same time, you can’t seem to stop your body from clenching up with jealousy every time the other secretaries flounce back into the office from the pool and tell you all the slick, wet, handsy details of their most recent skinny-dipping escapade. One time, apparently, one of the girls had started to slowly strip-tease in front of the President and then he grew impatient and rolled his eyes and yanked her into the water while she was still in her underwear. Another girl was once cornered against the pool wall by the President, and when she teasingly tried to swim away, he caught her by the ankle and pulled her back against him.
So, when the President offered to teach you to swim—and essentially offered you a one-way ticket to start taking part in these skinny-dipping parties yourself—you gave it some long, hard thought and ultimately decided that you were more sick of feeling jealous than you were scared of being naked in front of everyone. Maybe this was a sign, you thought, that it was time to finally shed your goody-two-shoes skin and do something exciting for once, like all the other girls.
Today is your very first swim lesson, and, sadly, the road to overcoming your fear has proven longer than you optimistically first hoped. Over the past ten minutes, the President has only managed to get you to come as far as waist-deep in the pool. You’re starting to feel terribly guilty for being so slow at this. This is the most important man in the world. The young, fearless King Arthur of America. He stares out from the cover of every newspaper, keeping a protective eye on his subjects. He practically shines with power. Wherever he goes, a legion of men in suits march after him, whispering in his ear, tripping over themselves to keep up—and you’re taking up his precious time with this nonsense.
“You’re going into the deep end whether you like it or not,” the President tells you now with an encouraging pat on your butt underwater. The other girls always act like it’s nothing when he touches you all like this, and you understand that apparently it’s just the normal sort of thing bosses do to their young female employees, but with the President, it makes your heart spit fire every time.
You feel like an indignant child, looking up at him in your frumpy one-piece White-House-issue swimsuit that’s so big it sags around your hips and chest. Despite your nervousness, you still pray the swimsuit’s unflattering shape won’t make him change his mind about wanting you to skinny-dip.
“Yes,” you say to the President. “Alright.” You suddenly feel how wide your eyes are as you continue to look at him. You must look like a deer in headlights. You blink rapidly to try and relax your face. “Here I go. Just…don’t let go of me, okay?” You try your best to sound as offhand and casual as you possibly can while saying something like this.
The President’s grin twitches in that cute little contemplative way it always does before he says something teasing, but then he seems to notice the genuine fear in your eyes because his smile suddenly softens, and he lets his head fall slightly to the side as he looks down at you. “I won’t, sweetie,” he says. The hair on the back of your neck buzzes at this rare gentle side of him. Amazingly, you suddenly feel a tad less scared.
“Alright,” you say again. You take a deep breath. It’s time.
You brace your legs, steeling yourself to step forward. Come on, you idiot, you tell yourself. The President’s not going to let you drown, for heaven’s sake.
The President must feel you preparing to step out into the deep end because suddenly you feel his big hands slide around your hips, ready to keep you afloat, like he promised. At his touch, your stomach flips with a dizzying intensity that almost knocks you out of breath. The thought flashes through your mind, not for the first time, that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to accept lessons in such an anxiety-inducing task from such an anxiety-inducing man.
Paired with the stress you’ve already been feeling, your sudden arousal ignites a panicky burst of adrenaline in you, and before you know it, your legs have a jittery mind of their own and you can’t handle being this close to the President any longer—and you’re lunging out into the churning blue abyss.
For a crashing, water-logged moment, you’re pretty sure you’re starting to drown. You’re blinded by the white wave your body kicks up as you fall forward. An embarrassing gasp of horror leaves your mouth and you clamp your eyes shut. But just as your head is about to go under, you feel the strong hands on your hips stiffen, and you’re being lifted back up so that both your head and shoulders are above water.
“Woah there,” you faintly hear the President say. “You’re alright, Y/N, you’re alright.”
You open your eyes at his voice, and you realize with a disoriented jolt of surprise that everything is completely fine. You’re instinctively treading water now, just like the President taught you to, as he holds you at the waist like an instructor at a swim school. He’s so close to you that your arm brushes against his fuzzy chest hair. You feel yourself starting to blush, and you stare at the blue, nautical-themed wall in front of you, willing your face to cool down.
“Well, wouldja look at that, you’re in the deep end,” the President jokes from above you, “and you’re still alive to tell about it.”
You do your best to force out a laugh, but it comes out shaky and choked. “I suppose I am,” you say quickly then, to try and cover up how scared you still sound. It’s really not so bad now that you’re here, except for the fact that your heart is still clanging in your ears, and you suddenly notice that the shoulder straps of your ridiculous swimsuit seem to have fallen down slightly around your upper-arms.
Before you have time to fix it, you notice the President is adjusting his hold on you, and you forget about the straps completely. He moves to keep you afloat with just one solid arm around your waist and places his other hand flat against your stomach. You only have a moment or two to wonder why this change was necessary before your question is answered—the hand on your stomach slowly starts to slide downwards.
“Oh!” is all you manage to say. Your lower body floods with such powerful, gushing warmth that, for a horrifying moment, you think you’ve peed yourself.
“Oh?” the President teases. His voice still has that warm, reassuring, rumbling quality, as if he thinks this is the most natural thing in the world, as if this is what’s supposed to happen to a girl when she gets this close to a man. “This here is a crucial part of the lesson, Y/N,” he chuckles, as his long fingers start to rub up and down between your legs. Your stomach clenches in a spasm of pleasure. “Relax, sweetie,” the President tells you.
“But… Mr. President…” You trail off as, surprisingly, you find yourself doing as he told you. Your shoulders soften and your thighs loosen up to allow his hand more room. Yet you’re completely stunned by the President’s behavior, and frankly a little appalled. Yet your body doesn’t seem to care. The President must have some kind of magical, hormonal effect on women, you think. It would explain a lot. It’s the only way, frankly, to rationally explain why your body is so eagerly opening itself up. You wonder if this was the President’s plan all along, if this is why he wanted to get you into the deep end, so he could get you in a position where he could hold you still and touch you however he wanted.
You look up at him then for the first time since you flailed over into the deep end, hoping to meet his eyes and find more of that warm reassurance, but you’re disappointed to find that he’s not looking into your eyes, but down at something beneath your chin instead. Slowly, you tip your head down, following his gaze, and you notice, with a gasp, that the President is pulling your swimsuit straps the rest of the way down, exposing your entire upper body.
Immediately, you bring your hands up to fix the straps, but the President moves to rub one of your exposed breasts, barring your hands out of the way with his hairy forearm.
“It’s really quite cruel,” he says in your ear, in his dark, teasing way, “that you’ve been keeping all of this from me for so long.”
You’re completely frozen, except for your toes, which curl incessantly as he gives your breast a startlingly rough squeeze, and then pinches and pulls on the nipple. Then he takes his time rubbing his hand across your chest and does the same thing to your other breast. As he does, he re-adjusts his grip around your waist, hoisting you up a little higher out of the water and jostling you probably a little more aggressively than he needed to, purposefully causing your breasts to bounce. You tilt your head back against him, just in time to feel a barely-detectable groan of enjoyment shake his chest.
Suddenly, you hear the door at the far end of the pool room swish open. In a whiplash reversal of emotions, your body seizes with intense fright. What if it’s one of your male coworkers? What would they think if they saw you like this? Or worse—what if it’s the First Lady? Despite your fear, you try to look behind you to see who exactly it is that just walked in, but you can’t see a thing over the President’s towering shoulders. Frantically, you decide instead to pull your swimsuit back up—regardless of who it is, you certainly don’t want them seeing you half-naked—but when you look down, you see that the President is already pulling your neckline back into its proper position, with incredible calmness, as if he was simply putting his shoes on to head outside.
“Mr. President, sir,” says a man’s deep, no-nonsense voice behind you then. “You’re needed in the Situation Room.”
You recognize the voice—it’s just a Secret Service agent. You slump over with relief. The Secret Service are all well aware of the President’s many affairs and have been sworn to secrecy.
In response, the President sighs. “Alright,” he says to the agent. “I’ll be right there.” Then you hear the curt click of Secret Service footsteps, followed by the door opening and swishing shut once again. In the proceeding echo-y silence, you can’t help but wonder what exactly the Secret Service agent saw of you. Certainly, he could tell that the President had a woman with him—hopefully, though, the President’s body had shielded you enough that the man couldn’t see over him and identify who the woman was.
The President breaks the silence then. “Duty calls,” he says with a sigh. You feel him turn his head down to face you again, and you look up to meet his dancing aquamarine eyes. You smile and nod understandingly, feeling, after all you’ve just experienced, like you’ve just finished a marathon.
Gently, the President floats you back into the shallow end and sets you back on the pool floor. Then he slips his arm out from around you. Instantly, you feel very cold without him against you—goosebumps prickle up along your skin, and you wish, desperately, that you could ask him not to leave. You want to laugh at yourself.
As the President is backing towards the pool stairs, he says to you, “I expect to see you down here more regularly from now on, with the other secretaries.”
The reminder that you can have another chance to feel his body on yours—and his hungry hands all over you—causes your dying smile to flutter back to life. “Why, yes, Mr. President,” you say. “I’ll be there.”
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taglist:
@evie-gets-bitches
@kennediva
@secretwonderlandcheesecake
@melancholicstation
@southernpopprincess
@maudesgf
@neverellaxx11
@astro-vibes-bro
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fictionfixations · 2 days ago
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I FINALLY FINISHED CANTO 8 OHHH MY GOD
IM CAUGHT UP
ohhhhhhhh my god
ALSO NO MAINTENANCE LETS GOOOOOOOOO i dont know what i wouldve done after doing this fight and then it being during maintenance because not in a million years do i want to redo that fight again
technically its not that hard i know what to do i actually read shit but oh man
also i know on like previous posts i was like im gonna wait for walpurgis night and get dawn office sinclair
ha
i kept getting knocked down to my backup units so i actually needed sinclair to.. not be level 12 (hes the last backup but oh my god does it make a difference)
so i got cinq sinclair and used like the immediately uptie to 4 thing and immediately level to 50 thing, i also threadspinned his ego from the battlepass which was GOOD because oh my god
i swear the egos from the battlepass carried me
like fluid sac carried me too (i cant believe faust survived the entire fight for once holy shit, also i cant believe the remaining units had the attacks to be able to keep fueling fluid sac??? I thought id have to wait a day so i could use sapling of light abilities again but NOPE)
but oh my god did it do big damage
it was in the hundreds man goddamn
also used the fact that hong lu cant die unless all other allies are dead even though him dying loses the battle (after you get like the happiness thing) to my advantage by using his battlepass ego because oh man big damage and oh whats this a free heal instead of immediately dying after? lets goooo
not to understate sinclair's ego either because it was GREAT hell yeah
also that all my units are decently leveled (except meursault ive been using a support id, sorry man but pursuance ego and chain of others are also really helping and i dont have his pursuance ego, so its not worth it to level him right now when im not even using the id i have)
lowest is 44 but the rest are around 50-55 so that was good
also actually uptied outis, feel like i underestimated her all this time because she did good, i just didnt have a need to before because she was always in backup and was more used as additional targets so my stronger units could get damage in
her skill three animation was pretty (warp outis)
also dont remember what it was but both heishou pack si ids have this one attack where they like i think sheathe their weapon and then have an eye glint and i keep thinking theyre gonna attack again but they dont 💀
also??? i think don quixote (t corp) did something with time/clock?? there was like a status effect id never seen before (or maybe i just never noticed idk its very easy for me not to notice things right in front of me) where so the enemy wouldnt take damage because all that damage would get stored and then by like the end of the turn or something like that it would all hit at once
THIS
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ive just. never noticed.
anyway thoughts on canto 8 (may get very personal ngl)
loved it
hong lu was already up there in my favorites along with yi sang but man did this make me love him more
just.. the thought that like well yeah shit can seem meaningless and futile when its all gonna end someday, but as long as youre still with us stuffs gonna keep happening. yeah we might part ways one day, but the end is also the beginning. where eventually youll move on but youll also experience new things.
for as long as you walk this world, the world will continue spinning, it will continue moving regardless of whether you feel like theres a meaning, and like well
yeah you could isolate yourself and it could feel ilke nothings happening at all, that everything pointless, but the people around you will still do things, things will still keep happening, and
okay i feel like im butchering this but you know what i mean okay
ive had very nihilistic views before, especially because at one point i just... didnt like living, it was just full of suffering and i hated it and i was so so tired and things that shouldve been important just lost meaning to me because yknow, whats the point? if we're all gonna die today, why do we live? if i intend to not live this long, then whats the point of doing stuff for the benefit of my future self?
but life kept moving on around me, and i eventually tired of putting myself into this cycle of self-hatred because it was just so draining
so i kept moving on. kept living day by day. and well i cant really say theres a meaning to life, a meaning to my life that i want to strive for, to live for, not really
but i got interested in things, as fleeting as they would be, and despite how they would eventually end. i got myself attached to stories and games, as tragic as those stories may be and as sad as i may be when it finally reaches its end, i live the next day to continue experiencing these stories, and to get enjoyment out of it
i used to feel so miserable all the time, but now i find myself laughing so much more, smiling so much more
god i got so sidetracked but i relate to hong lu a lot. man am i glad i started playing this game man..
when i first started i immediately latched onto yi sang as a favorite (maybe because he was one of my first 3 stars haha) and i loved his canto, i loved the meaning, that yeah the mirror can show multiple possibilities, but the mirror is also a reflection of yourself, so these possibilities? theyre yours. these wings you wish you had so badly? if theyre on me, then theyre on you too. its like 3 am forgive me for butchering trying to explain this but god did i love it. i like re-listening to the limbus company mili songs and ill sing along and fly my wings.. 'please die little dreams' i just start sobbing it keeps making me emotional man
hong lu? i can attribute it to partially because when i started reindeer hong lu was on the banner and he looked cool, i liked his personality, and it grew from there as i progressed through the story but he'd never been as high up there as yi sang. until now.
also his announcer brings up a lot of stuff that makes me kinda sad, he does bring up emotions like ah so this is what wrath feels like, like he'll bring up the same emotions he brought up in the last fight (happiness, joy, wrath, sorrow..), and also other things in relation to the sinners that hit me in the feels man
maybe not in the same way as don quixote's 'i was blessed with a family of twelve' because oh man if i wasnt sobbing already during that part i wouldve burst into tears, but it still made me very emotional
also the the dante being like 'you know how i know this? because im talking about myself here' GREAT LINE oh my god
also actually WE LOVE JIA QIU IN THIS HOUSEHOLD, im sure im not the only one who was like shut up jia huan during that moment but very very appreciated, the 'not forming opinions on him based on what others say' i cant remember the exact quote, continuing to push hong lu to not be appeasing, to not just say what others want to hear, and not to say something that could work but does not count as something he believes in and is again just another way to appease of okay you want an actual answer but then is kind of a nothing burger
i love that jia qiu continued pushing until he got what hong lu really believed in, what he really thought, even if it mightve been something he wouldnt have necessarily agreed with, or something that others would consider childish and naive, got hong lu to say something hes held so close to his heart, accepted it but which had also given him the confidence to more speak his mind, to speak more confidently and elaborate on what he meant, and so his answer of 'kindness' wasnt something kind of like well. short. i dont know how to describe it.
yes hoping for others to be kind is probably a tough ask, especially considering where they live, but the sinners are proof that people can be kind to each other and help lift each other up when moments are tough.
one person cant do all that heavy lifting, but as long as there are people reaching out a hand and well embracing each other even if its just one person, then thats still something, thats still a bond that'll make the world lighter, thatll give them the ability to move forward and the strength to tackle on more heavier problems
i mean im clearly biased since its hong lus answer but MAN
and so jia qiu also telling him that like he cant keep drifting like a cloud, that to achieve this he cant keep watching things silently without doing anything, he cant keep acting the way he has that was forced onto him to deal with the trauma he faced, and does have to be there, does have to act, just like how his younger self used to be
its
its validating that his younger self wasnt wrong for wanting to help people, for wanting to act even if he couldnt save everyone, even if everyone around him kept telling him that he should just 'sit still and look pretty'
god man
theres so much stuff i could say
also holy shit this post is getting long oh my god
im gonna end this here man
but fuck man canto 8...
to be perfectly honest i dont remember a lot from canto 1 and 2 but i remember liking it and thats why i kept playing (gonna have to reread them cause man i do try to pay attention when first starting a game but its also like i dont know what is going on which really impacts my ability to remember this stuff)
canto 3 i loved, it made me like sinclair more even if the ending felt sort of incomplete because it wasnt sinclair who in the end killed kromer
the chicken intervallo was hella funny and made me like more of the other sinners outside of just the ones whod already gotten a focus and the ones who were my favorites
canto 4 was beautiful (and also forced me to actually understand a little better wtf im doing in fights)
canto 5 made me feel a lot of things, it made me think a lot? unsure if im saying that right but trying not to repeat myself on what ive said for other cantos so there. like... it was getting manipulated, knowing youre getting manipulated but still kind of falling for it anyway because okay what can you do, but then getting out of it by doing something that person didnt expect. it was hatred obsession a desire for revenge that twisted from instead of being a tale of someone taking revenge that'll likely only leave them hollow in the end, to no longer let ahab control her basically. it was a big middle finger
canto 6 was... tragic. all these thoughts of how its gonna go and all of them were wrong. mostly. im sure its meant to be like in the same headspace as heathcliff. like oh yeah we're gonna get him all dressed up and meet cathy and then shes dead. shes already gone. before i started i listened to a bunch of the limbus company mili songs and would cautiously look at the comment section to tell which sinner and which canto it was probably for so i knew this was about heathcliff and a cathy. and i thought that oh he and cathy are fighting and shes like 'you have to let me go heathcliff' but it wasnt really that? it was.. just so sad that maybe they couldve had something, maybe, if they'd spoken more, if they'd been more honest- its all what ifs. and then all the cathys were deleted. makes me wonder if that one where heathcliff and cathy were happy together, if that heathcliff's catherine also got lost, or if 'every cathy' applied to every cathy with a bad ending + our heathcliff's catherine. i wonder. and i wonder too how heathcliff could even get catherine back, if in the end its all futile because shes dead she cant come back, but i would also like to hope that somehow, he'll find her. with a better understanding of her than ever, that their hearts are united and not letting any dark thoughts cloud his mind and make him unable to see whats in front of him. i hope.
canto 7. god i love canto 7. this is getting way too long so i dont want to elaborate too much now but sancho being like didnt you always tell me to stop dreaming (i forgot the quote, my minds stuck on 'the dream ending'), and like well yeah, waves hand at power of friendship which i feel doesnt fully encapsulate what really happened there but im summarizing. and like just. it was beautiful, and sad. her repeating his introduction while he mightve already died but shes saying it anyway and telling him and and that she was blessed with a family of twelve and and... and i dont have the words to describe it man im gonna cry thinking about it again
canto 8 though. might just be my favorite. theyve all made me feel things, but canto 8 is one i can find myself really relating with and thus find the message ever more powerful and ever more beautiful.
haha i said i was gonna end it and then i kept yapping so um whoops
but man do i love this game.
also forgor to look at this but the singular ex i missed 💀 (i already converted my enkephalin into modules already so whoops)
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also oh my god i took so long writing this the announcement for the latter half of the roadmap livestream happened LMAO (LETS GO walpurgis hopefully 🙏 i may not need dawn office sinclair anymore but man i wanna see what i get)
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dreamwatch · 3 days ago
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Written for the @corrodedcoffinfest Somewhere Over The Rainbow event.
Look Up at the Storm
Prompt: Red | Song: Welly Boots by The Amazing Devil | Word Count: 2287 | Rating: T | CW: implied/referenced child neglect | POV: Eddie | Relationships: Eddie & Al Munson, Eddie & Wayne Munson | Angst, emotional hurt and a little bit of comfort, flashbacks, Good Uncle Wayne, Eddie needs a hug, S01 setting, Al loves his son he's just not a great father
Thanks to @kikidoesfanfic for sending me this song! 💗
Eddie struggles with his red rain boots. Daddy takes care of it though, tickles Eddie’s feet while he’s getting his thick socks on, because the boots are still too big for him and they help fill the gaps, Daddy says, and he knows the best way to get Eddie’s feet in without getting his jeans all wriggled up his leg the way he hates. And they splash and splash in the rain and Eddie screams with laughter and Mommy sits in her window laughing at the pair of them. Eddie has a rain coat, a blue one with little white dogs, and the hood keeps slipping off. It’s getting too small but it’s okay, Daddy says, they’ll get him a new one soon, go all the way to Fort Wayne to go and look, and Eddie asks if Mommy can come and Daddy brushes Eddie’s wet curls out of his face and says “Maybe next time.”
But there isn’t a next time.
Eddie sits in first period history, his knee bouncing and bouncing, his wallet chain and the desk rattling slightly behind the beat. Mrs Click throws him pointed looks over her glasses until she eventually outright tells him to stop it. So he does for a minute or so, but then his mind slowly drifts and so does his knee.
When the class goes quiet, everyone with their heads in their books, he can hear the tick tick tick of the grey clock on the wall over the scratching of pencils; he knows the minutes are counting down but he watches the clock all the same. The court hearing is at nine thirty, and Wayne says the lawyer thinks it will be over in half an hour or so. So he’s spent all morning in classes keeping an eye on the clock, watching the hands creep painfully toward ten, and then trying to work out when Wayne might get home after the long drive from Indy. He has coins for the payphone ready, burning a hole in his pocket.
When the lunch bell rings he’s out of the door before anyone else has even got out of their seats.
The payphone is free and he lets out a relieved breath as he pulls the coins from his pocket and drops them into the slot. His fingers tap out a shaky rhythm on the side of the phone. He lets it ring until he’s cut off because no one picks up.
Wayne’s not home. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. Wayne warned him to be prepared, and he is, or at least he was trying to be. But the last time he had spoken to his dad he’d told Eddie that the lawyer had said there was a shot he could just get time served, or maybe six months if the judge was a dick.
“It’ll be alright, Eddie, you’ll see? Have faith in your old man.”
Eddie wanted to, he always tried to, but it just got harder the older he got.
Wayne, he was the realist of the two Munson brothers.
“I know what he’s telling you,” he’d said to Eddie after a visit, “because he’s telling me too. But this isn’t like last time. You need to be prepared for this one, okay?”
And Eddie had scoffed and spat like a camel all night if Wayne so much looked at him. Al wasn’t a saint, Eddie’s not stupid, but sometimes when Wayne talks about his dad it’s like he doesn’t even like him. Like he can’t even stand his only brother. His dad made mistakes but he was looking after Eddie on his own, and Eddie remembers acting up after his mom died, he knows he was an asshole even if he didn’t mean to be, and his dad could have left him with his mom’s family, they offered enough times. And sometimes it was nice having the place to himself for the night, being able to bring his friends over, getting to stay up late even on school nights. Dad always left him money, he never went without. And if worse came to worst, well Uncle Wayne was a few minutes away.
Worse came to worst when he was eleven and he went to live with Wayne for six months. Worse came to worst again when he was fourteen and he went to live with Wayne for a year.
After he got out, Dad came to see him, and he said he’d probably have to stay in Indy on account of seeing his parole officer and then he just never came home. But he called from time to time, and he’d ask Eddie about his grades, told Eddie he was proud of him because no Munson had graduated high school before and Eddie was going to be the first. And he told him how he could be anything he wanted, he could go anywhere he liked, and Al would be right there with him, just not at the moment, because he’s getting things set up for them both, and he wants him to have a nice home and to give him all the things he had missed out on when he was growing up.
But he’s still growing up and the only thing he’s missing out on is his dad.
He doesn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria, instead he sits on the wall nearest the payphone staring the thing down and glaring at anyone who dares to come near it. He’s not hungry, just picks at a bag of potato chips he brought from home, but he throws them in the trash because his stomach is swooping and turning on a constant churn and he knows he’ll be sick if he eats anymore.
The bell rings and he tries the phone once more before going back to class.
The phone rings three times before Wayne picks up.
“Hello?”
His gut tightens.
“Hey, it’s me,” he says, and he hopes he sounds casual, hopes that the rising anxiety stretching him taught isn’t making it’s way down the phone line. “How did it go?”
There’s a long moment, a stretch where time seems all pulled-out like dough, until eventually Wayne sighs, one of those big ones, weary and tired and Eddie’s stomach drops again but this time it doesn’t come back up.
“Ed…,” and the way Wayne says his name is so sad and weighted that Eddie has his answer.
He hears laughter coming from a classroom, and he drops his head forward onto the payphone, folding in on himself. He clears his throat because he wants to sound strong for Wayne.
“How long?”
He says it like a man, but he feels like a boy.
His dad always says he’s proud of him, would that make him prouder?
“Why don’t you come on home, I’ll call the principal—“
“How long?” he asks again, firmer this time.
Another deep, loaded sigh comes from the end of the line.
“Fifteen years.”
Eddie’s brain whites out after that.
That’s not right. That can’t be right.
He thinks he can hear Wayne say something about appeals, about an early release for good behaviour maybe, but his brain keeps skipping on fifteen years, fifteen years. Fifteen fucking years.
“— be there in ten minutes? Eddie? Did you hear me, son?”
It’s painfully soft: son. Eddie’s not his son though. He wants to scream it but none of this is Wayne’s fault.
“Uh…” He swallows hard, he’s not going to cry, not here, not at fucking Hawkins High. “ I have a… I have an English test. This afternoon.”
There’s no way Wayne doesn’t hear the shakiness in his voice, the way he can’t catch a full breath, but he doesn’t mention it and Eddie’s grateful for that.
“Alright. But come straight home after, okay? We’ll talk properly then.”
What is there to talk about?
He’s late for class, and Mr Mundy makes a remark he doesn’t hear before giving him a tardy slip. He just takes it from his fingers without comment, and wanders the hallways in a daze.
He takes his test, because his dad said he was going to be the first Munson to get a high school diploma, and he promised Wayne he’d keep going, even after his grades slipped when his dad got arrested.
He reads the questions, and then reads them again but his head is full of ants and his dad is going to prison for fifteen years. Al will be pushing sixty and Eddie will be thirty two and Mrs O'Donnell taps him on the shoulder softly and asks him if everything is okay, because class is over and everyone’s left but him. He nods wordlessly and hands her his empty test sheet.
The hallways are full of kids making study plans for the evening, or talking about their dates, and they’re all laughing because their dads aren’t going to prison.
Steve Harrington has his arm around some snooty sophomore girl and that Byers weirdo is putting up more posters for his missing brother and at least they’ll know Al couldn’t have done it because he was in jail. At least Hopper can’t pick him up for that one, fat fucking pig that he is.
He doesn’t want to go home but he doesn’t want to see his friends either so he gets in his van and drives around town, and he stops for cigarettes but they won’t accept his fake ID today so no beer, more's the pity.
He drives and he smokes and he drives and the shadows get longer and the sun dips lower and he finds himself at the park. He takes his cigarettes and a can of warm root-beer with him and he plants his ass on a swing.
His dad lied.
But Eddie knew that, didn’t he?
This was Al’s third conviction and he got off light before on account of having a kid at home and no mother in the picture, but everyone’s luck runs out eventually.
And it was there in the tone, there in the words, when Eddie cares to notice.
“I know you’re strong enough to this on your own now.”
He takes a deep drag from his cigarette as he lazily pushes himself backwards and forwards on a swing he outgrew years ago.
Al was supposed to be here, he was supposed to see him graduate, was supposed to be here to take him for his first legal beer, he was supposed to see him be a success, to fall in love, to have kids. He doesn’t want to do this on his own, he wants his fucking dad.
He doesn’t care that he’s nearly eighteen, doesn’t care that he’s nearly a man, doesn’t care that he’s too old to cry about it.
He just wants his dad.
Rain spits from the sky and a pair of little girls squeal as their parents pull them back to the safety of their car.
Eddie’s eyes burn.
“Eddie?”
If he looks up he’ll cry so instead he stares at Wayne’s boots, splattered with mud. He’s supposed to be at work and shame smacks Eddie square in the chest because he won’t have slept today, and having to chase after Eddie’s useless ass wouldn’t have helped.
Wayne sits on the swing beside him and reaches across to squeeze Eddie’s hand. He’d have yanked it away yesterday, he’ll yank it away tomorrow, but today he lets him do it.
Course fingers sweep his wet bangs off his face and the warm touch of his Uncle's hand is the final straw and he hopes Wayne will just think it’s rain streaming down his cheeks because he’s nearly eighteen and he doesn’t do this anymore.
“He lied,” he chokes out. Wayne nods in reply.
“He didn’t want to worry you. He loves you, Eddie. He’s so proud of you—”
“Don’t!”
“I’m proud of you, too.”
The rain eases, but the tears don’t.
The chain of the swing clinks as Wayne stands.
“Come on,” he says holding his hand out, “Let’s go home.”
Uncle Wayne helps him pull his red rain boots on. He’s rougher than Daddy, doesn’t know the right way to stop his jeans from getting caught up his legs the way he hates. They’re getting tight for him now and one of them has a split in the side but Uncle Wayne taped it up and he said it’ll last till they can get some new ones over in Fort Wayne.
Daddy leaves him here sometimes since they said goodbye to Mommy. Eddie doesn’t know why.
Uncle Wayne lives in a trailer and Eddie hates it because when it rains the forest looks creepy, and the windows rattle and the lights flash. Sometimes when it’s bad it sounds like a monster trying to get in.
He walks into the rain with his taped up boots pinching his toes but he doesn’t feel much like splashing today.
Big hands grab him and scoop him up into the sky.
“Look up at the storm, Eddie.”
He throws his arms around Uncle Wayne’s neck and follows the line of his hand pointed up into the sky. The sky is big, and some of it’s angry and grey, the clouds round and black and he tightens his arms around Uncle Wayne’s neck as a clap of thunder roars. But Wayne shakes him a little and when he opens his eyes he sees the blue peaking through the clouds and the fattest rainbow he’s ever seen. Colours like jewels hanging in the air.
Uncle Wayne kisses his wet cheek, and Eddie squeezes him tight, and they sit on the porch together and wait for the storm to pass.
****
It's 4am and I am sleep deprived but I think I got most of the typos and nonsense sentences. and if I didn't, well sucks to be me I guess!
@the-unforgivenn I got it finished! 💗
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sophi-aah · 1 day ago
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do you have any current favorite fics??
Oh man -- Im afraid this will turn into a fav author post pretty quick lol, bc all my fav fics come from relatively the same people
And my thoughts are not really coherent lol, theres a reason I draw rather than write, I might just keysmash my way through this one!
btw, the order of this is not the ranking, I just can't choose the ultimate one to save my life
ok actually lets get to it:
August by @cordeliaandthecocoapuffs [CordeliaRose on Ao3] and August (will's version) is cannon in my heart and many others', I have reread this fic more times than I can count, I have all of the chapters downloaded on my phone, Cordelia is one truly good writer and her comedic timing is impeccable it made me laugh so much, shes got such a good grasp on the characters and their dynamics, its so silly one chapter and angsty the next, I have a crocheted sun plush that I named sol the sun plushie [fic reference] , almost all my headcannons come from this masterpiece -- I could yap forever I love this fic and Cordelia's other solangelo pics are also strongly recommended, [ESPECIALLY i'm put in awe (of something so flawed and free) archeologist Nico and trauma surgeon will!!!!!! and Sex Education Percy Jason and Nico!!] I just love everything lol [ur gonna hear me say that ALOT]
Will Solace and the Socialites of Olympus University by @sarcasmandships. No words. just hearts and exclamation marks. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<3333333333333333 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No but seriously Stella's writing is so fucking beautiful her use of metaphors and similes and poetic shit is absolutely phenomenal. And the angst. OH THE ANGST. and the fluff for someone apperantly new to writting fluff and silly stuff [according to her authors notes] is just mwuah GOLDEN!!!!!!! The character arcs and the topic of class difference also deserves a mention bc OMG STELLA HOW. and sarcasmandship's other fics like the Silence Between Heartbeats and her other oneshots like Hauntings and Wantings[living for the silliy victrian ghosts-], All the Bruises I Don't Mind Bearing[fluff at it's diabetes-inducing fluffiest], and If You Didn’t Want Me to Ruin Myself Over You, Maybe Don’t Write Me Into Every Lyric and Leave Out the Ending [enemies to lovers sexual tension ahhhhh my shit MY SHIT] also deserve a mention bc they are all just SO BEAUTIFUL.
A lot of my fav fics comes from @wordsofasarcast, their fic Ice Blue, Trippin' Over You was the first solangelo and pjo fic I've ever read, I was only on the Titans Curse at that point but Sarc STILL managed to get to my heart despite me having no idea who half of the characters are. Their fic Dolce Dissonance is one of my absolute favorites, I'm a sucker for popster/famous AUs and enimies to lovers and emotional rollercoasters and this fic has ALL THREE. Attached the whole way, broke my heart, put it back together, broke it again, and so on! [CHAPTER 44 MY LOVE] Their oneshot I Will Try to Stay On My Side of the Couch is also an absaloute banger it pulled my heart out stomped on it and placed it back in at the end [oh the unrequited love was so beutiful]. paper hearts (we're burning matches) is one of the fluffy ones and Please Hold is so fucking funny and it's so wonderful ALL OF THEIR FICS.
Wings by @the-sunniest-angels chopped me up, put me in a blender, chucked me across the room, stabbed me multiple times more, beat me to even more of a pulp, flushed me down the toilet, stomped on me and chopped me up some more in the BEST. FUCKING. WAY. POSSIBLE. THE PLOT IS DELICIOUS. THE ANGST IS TOURTUROUS. THE EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER BEING LIKE ONE OF THOSE DEADLY ONES WITH LIKE G-10 FORCE. Sunny also owes me plenty of tissues and the fic playlist hits HARD. Sunny's other fics are all fantasy AUs and THEY ALSO HIT HARD. Sunny's worldbuilding skills are fucking godly and you should also def check out their fics!!
Hold On to the Memories (They Will Hold Onto You) by @grumpylia explores the background characters and makes them and camp half blood seem so much more interesting! with the main series you dont really get to see how the background characters are doing but with this it really gets the stress of the war and the chaos and friendship of chb! Each chapter is a RIDE and the character developments are so well crafted! This was the height of my Tratie phase and I still treasure it today. It is on hatius tho but the 9 chapters we have are ABSALOUTLY AMAZING.
Binary Stars by @onetiny-inkdropuniverse. Can you tell I really like emotional rollercoasters??? Inkdrop is such an amazing writer and her chapters are also really poetic. It starts as a 3 days in infirmary fic and a few mental breakdowns later we're here almost re-writting ToA. The cute moments are to be cherished and the angst is, as usual, to be expected. [Chapter 98 helped me ace my piano recital just by how sad it made me so I projected it all onto Chopin lol.] Also Inkdrop's MAKEOUT SCENES. SHE IS BLESSED BY SOME GOD OF KISSING I SWEAR I COULD READ HER MAKEOUT SCENES ALL DAY.
another one of my fav authors are @mediumgayitalian [queencontrarian (negativefouriq) on Ao3]. Their writing style is so unique and their fics are all also my absolute favs!
I'm SURE there are more but for now ive ran out of steam, its the middle of the night so ima sleep now. hope u enjoyed my yapping!
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ilikekidsshows · 24 hours ago
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Something that really annoys me about Adrien salters is them going on and on about Adrien being irresponsible and messing up and how that means he doesn't "deserve" to get more responsibility, or know shit or even that he should have had his miraculous taken away.
Like, I'll grant that that if you look at how Adrien is written canonically and compares him to an objective standard of what makes a good hero that he wouldn't pass. But then Marinette wouldn't either. She would fail way worse than him and that's even before all thr bullshit she pulled in s4-s6.
Yet Maribug gets all the praise, the power, knowledge and authority. She's described as the greatest ladybug ever. While Adrien, her supposedly "equal partner" get shafted and thrown to the sidelines and mistreated, often by Maribug herself!
Neither of them, as written by canon, really make for good heroes compared to other heroes in other media (in large part because the writing barely lets them learn and grow). But saying that Adrien specifically doesn't deserve to be a hero while acting like Marinette is perfectly fine and there's no issue with how she failed upwards into so much power and responsibility is so insane and clearly biased.
Also, hot take but Adrien was perfetly justified in his actions in Syren. He wasn't "throwing a tantrum while people were drowning". He was trying to force answers about what the hell was going on from the only person he could while there was literally nothing he could do to stop the akuma. They already tried to fight the akuma and failed! Ladybug fucked off for someplace he had no clue about, for reasons he wasn't told (other than she's going to get help). He'd been waiting for a while now while she went to talk to master Fu, talk to him and have Fu get back to him. As far as he knew (going off previous precedent) Ladybug would show up with a new fish heroes with some kind of underwater powers who would defeat the akuma single handedly.
If he wasn't threatening Plagg with quitting (and I tend to believe it was more a threat to try and get Plagg to talk rather than a true attempt to quit considering that's literally how he used it as) then he still couldn't do anything to help the drowning people. He couldn't even prepare something and use the time effectively while Ladybug was gone because he knew fuck all about when she would be back and what help would she bring which was the problem he was trying to fix.
---
If Miraculous was an actual teen hero show that followed the structure of a teen hero show, Adrien would be a fine hero. The point of teen heroes is that they start off not fully grasping the responsibility they have and then grow into it with time. Frankly, looking at the examples of irresponsibility on Adrien’s track record, it’s nothing out of the ordinary or anything career-breaking. Hell, the stuff Marinette has done mostly includes stuff done by other superheroes.
The difference is how they react when they’re proven to have done something irresponsible. Adrien, every single time, takes responsibility for his own actions and makes amends. The whole doormat hypeman act he has going on in season 6 is specifically because he’s taken responsibility for the supposed crime of not supporting Ladybug enough. As for him giving up his Miraculous and “threatening to quit”, I will die on the hill that every time he gave up his Miraculous, it was done with good reason and in the most secure way he could while still following the secret identity rule that he knows is strictly enforced with him.
Marinette will self-flagellate and therefore accept responsibility on paper, but she doesn’t make amends. She doesn’t do anything differently with the people she’s failed even after admitting she’s failed them. She shouldn’t have lied to Cat Noir, gonna lie to him some more. She shouldn't stalk Adrien, gonna stalk any girl he talks to. Should treat Adrien as a person, gonna deny him the right to protect his free will and gaslight him about his dad. Marinette might say she accepts responsibility, but she keeps doing the same things to the same people, sometimes she does worse.
In comparison to Marinette, Adrien is a true hero. Almost anyone else who takes up a Miraculous to help others is more of a hero than Marinette. No one but Marinette needs to be told they’re the bestest, most specialest Miraculous holder to ever exist before they stop pouting at the idea of there being other holders before them. No other character is that petulant and insecure about the very idea of someone else holding the same powers as Marinette was in ‘The Pharaoh’.
It perfectly encapsulates how the writers feel about their protagonist. They’re so insecure, they have to make all the characters tell the audience that Marinette is the best, they have to keep diminishing the roles of cool characters to lessen there being any competition, and they can’t stand the idea of an episode prioritizing someone other than Marinette. Amphibia made an episode where Anne and Sprig were a throwaway gag about how they weren’t in the episode and it still felt so much like an Amphibia episode that I hadn’t even thought about how the main characters hadn’t shown up until then. The one time Miraculous tried something like that, it was a special flip episode of what other characters were doing during ‘Truth’. They made a huge deal about this being an Adrien-focused episode and, frankly, they didn’t really have him do anything interesting in it, showcasing their lack of interest in Adrien’s character (or any character other than Marinette and their precious prequel cast).
Also, this reminds me of the one thing everyone rags on and on about whenever the topic of solo heroing comes up is how Marinette has the Miraculous Ladybug healing ability, like that somehow grants Marinette inherent aptitude to heroics, and how Adrien should be Mister Bug if he was to become a solo hero. But here’s the real kicker: Marinette is the only superhero whose series I’ve watched or read who needs a magical cure-all to save the day from their own collateral damage. Like, her superpowers literally include the ability to dodge consequences for her choices. Marinette is only focused on winning, so of course she needs a superpower to make the collateral damage go away.
Meanwhile, Adrien has the literal power of destruction and is still so calculating and controlled in what he destroys in order to get the edge against an enemy. He’s the one concerned for the well-being of victims outside of merely saving the day. He argues in favor of defending Chloé, when Marinette actively abandons her to whatever Illustrator wants to do to her. He questions if there could be a morally right reason to use the wish, before deciding that "no". He’s the one who says that Bob Roth suffering no consequences for continuously screwing people over with his power and prestige is wrong, even as he also agrees that they still have to protect him from the consequences of his actions (note that the Akumas after him don’t want to harm him and always have mostly harmless powers unless you’re Bob Roth). Chloé has survived being humiliated by the Akumas she caused before is all I’m saying (but I’ll add that this show’s apologia of rich CEOs started early). The point is that Adrien actually gives consideration to what his moral duties as a hero are and what kind of hero he wants to be, Marinette does whatever she wants that’s easiest for her and then magics the damage away.
Adrien is a leagues better hero than Marinette is. I’d even go far as to say that Adrien is a good hero, period, he’s just stuck in a series where that doesn’t mean anything.
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aliza-sophie · 3 days ago
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Still her home court
hiii
this is my first published story!
i know its not fantastic but bare with meee!
anyways feel free to ask for a part 2! :)
wordcount: 2.4k
Setting: Elize and Paiges shared apartment in Dallas
Warnings: not really anything just a little fluff
This is no hate to any of the Wings players. this is just for fun:)
(its in Elizes POV) Enjoy:3
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I heard the front door before I saw her.
Not slammed, but definitely not gentle — the kind of frustrated “I’m barely holding it together” sound that I’d come to recognize over the last few months.
Paige had been home for all of fifteen seconds, and already the room felt heavier.
I stayed curled on the couch, pretending to read but really just waiting for her to drop her bag and exhale the way she always did after practice. And then I saw her. Dallas Wings hoodie soaked at the collar. Shoulders tight, jaw locked. Hair still pulled back, sweat-damp and frizzy at the edges.
She looked… worn.
“Hey, babe,” I offered gently, setting my book down. “How was practice?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just kept walking, slow and zombie-like, until she dropped onto the other end of the couch and let her head fall into her hands.
That was my answer.
“They don’t listen,” she muttered, voice muffled by her palms. “I’m talking on defense, calling switches, rotating, and they’re just… lost. Still.”
I shifted closer, pulling my knees up under me so I could face her. “Rough day?”
She let out a bitter laugh — short, sharp. “Every day’s a rough day lately. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I feel like I’m trying to glue a broken vase with chapstick.”
That made me smile, even if she didn’t mean it to be funny. “That’s a new one.”
She lifted her head slightly, eyes glassy and frustrated. “Elize, I’m not used to this. I went from UConn — where everything clicked, where we moved as one — to this... chaos. There’s no rhythm. No identity. The vets are checked out, and the rookies are lost. And I’m stuck in the middle.”
My heart tugged at the sight of her — this woman who used to radiate confidence, who used to float out of games like her feet barely touched the floor. Now she looked like she was dragging bricks behind her.
I scooted closer and reached for her hand, curling my fingers around hers. She didn’t pull away. Her thumb brushed mine absently, but her eyes were fixed on the dark TV screen like it might have answers.
“They made me run point all practice,” she said after a moment. “Not even letting me work off-ball. I can’t run the offense and score if no one knows where to be. It’s like babysitting. Except the babies are six-foot athletes who don’t talk.”
I laughed — just enough to soften the edge of it — and leaned in to kiss her temple. “You ever think maybe they don’t know what to do because they’re looking to you?”
She didn’t respond, but her jaw clenched. I knew that face. She didn’t want to be anyone’s savior. Not again.
“You came into this league with all the hype in the world, Paige. Number one pick, college legend, face of the future. That’s a lot to carry.”
She looked at me then, really looked — like the mask dropped for just a second.
“I don’t care about the hype,” she whispered. “I just wanted to play basketball. The way I love it. The way it used to feel.”
I tightened my hold on her hand. “Then come back to that. Not for the team. Not for the fans. For you.”
She leaned her head back on the couch, letting her eyes close. “I miss loving it.”
I let the silence stretch between us for a beat, then gently stood and tugged at her arm. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Bedroom. Now.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re being weirdly bossy.”
“Trust me.” I tugged again. “You need this.”
Reluctantly, she stood, stretching her arms up with a soft groan. She followed me down the short hall to our room, where I pulled her hoodie off and tossed it into the laundry basket. Her sports bra underneath clung to her like a second skin, soaked with effort and frustration.
“Sit,” I said, patting the edge of the bed.
She did, watching me cautiously, like she was waiting for me to make some grand speech.
Instead, I dropped to my knees in front of her, placed both hands on her thighs, and rested my head against her knee.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Just breathing. Quiet. Intimacy without pressure.
After a while, she ran a hand through my hair. “You always do this.”
I looked up at her. “Do what?”
“Catch me. When I’m falling apart. Like it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I said. “But you’re not falling apart. You’re carrying more than you should. Let me carry some, too.”
Her eyes softened. She reached down and tugged me up onto the bed with her, wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my neck. We lay there for a while, her weight half on top of me, her breath slowly steadying.
“I love you,” she murmured, voice muffled against my collarbone.
“I love you more,” I replied, running a hand up and down her back. “Even when you’re sweaty and grumpy.”
She chuckled, and it warmed my chest.
“I just didn’t think it’d be like this,” she said. “Pro ball. I thought I’d be lighting it up. Making ESPN every week.”
“You will,” I said, kissing the side of her head. “But even if you don’t, I’ll still be here. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
She looked up at me, her blue eyes soft now. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know who I am without winning.”
I cupped her face in my hands. “You’re Paige. The girl who smiles mid-crossover. The girl who plays like the court is hers, not because someone gave it to her — but because she claimed it. You’re still that girl. Even when the scoreboard says otherwise.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. Just leaned in and kissed me — slow, deep, the kind of kiss that says thank you and I need you and please don’t stop all at once.
And I didn’t stop.
I kissed her until the world outside our bedroom didn’t exist. Until she forgot about broken systems and missed rotations. Until all that mattered was the quiet rhythm of our bodies pressed together and the breath we shared between kisses.
Later, when she lay with her head on my chest, one leg tangled over mine and her fingers drawing lazy circles on my hip, she whispered:
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You won’t have to find out,” I said, stroking her back.
She sighed. “Think I should keep pushing? Keep trying to fix it?”
I smiled. “I think the game needs you. Even like this. Maybe especially like this.”
There was a long pause.
Then she said, “You’re my home court now, you know that?”
I felt my throat tighten, but I didn’t cry. Just smiled into her hair and held her a little tighter.
“I know,” I whispered. “And I’ll always be here. Win or lose.”
And in that quiet, messy, beautiful moment — Paige Bueckers wasn’t a star, a rookie, or a savior.
She was just mine.
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puhpandas · 6 months ago
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emotional 3 star fam + m.x.e.s arc where after they steal them they learn more about them and find out that they're a lot more sentient than they thought an antivirus from the late 70s would be and that m.x.e.s was built for one purpose to fight against the mimic, but it hasnt been able to fulfill that purpose in a long time after being left to rot all alone in that factory. 3 star took them to use them to be the mimics warden and everything already so theyre able to help m.x.e.s feel fulfilled again by it realizing its purpose again, and updating them so their outdated programming is new and shiny and the cobwebs are dusted off :)
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claitea · 10 months ago
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wait oh my god the new anni lillie is just a palette swap of the old one? this actually sucks why did they do that
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nataliedecorsair · 7 months ago
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I wanted to give you some of Pticenoga's Borderlands AU backstory, how she was raised by Shade and before starting her shenanigans with Vaughn.
Plus a bonus comic about how she decided to set up a meeting for Vaughn and Shade, but didn't tell Vaughn who is supposed to be there x) Mostly because Vaughn has met Shade before in his macabre World of Curiosities museum and thought that Shade is too weird for him. Well, that's the kind of person that would raise a feral harpy siren, gotta deal with it!
When she was very young, nothing bothered her much as she was just a wild baby exploring the world x) And Shade was a good father figure to her. However, as she grew older, she realized that she doesn't really "fit in": yeah, Pandora is a crazy planet, but not every person there is crazy. There are plenty of "regular folk" like Shade or other people from their town - and many others. And she was frequently called a monster, a mutant and many other things by the regular kids and even adults. She was wild though, could bite them or fight with them in a pretty feral manner, and, even though she protected herself, it didn't help the situation much. She wasn't crazy enough (and too small) to fit in with the psychos or bandits, was "too human" for actual monsters living on Pandora, and for a long time she had no idea she was a Siren, as even for Sirens she looked too different. Only when she hit her teens, she was able to confirm that she is one, started using her powers, and in her human form she could see the full extension of the glowing pattern she had on her skin. She still, however, didn't know why she wasn't born "normal", and there were no older Sirens around.
At some point, she decided to become independent and live on her own. Her "wild" upbringing was helping that a lot, and she felt fine being away from people. She'd still visit Shade frequently, of course, and at some point she'd even met Zer0 and could hang out with him for some time. As Zer0 is a mystery himself, they had some common ground between them (though constantly listening to his haiku were exhausting xD). Sadly, Vault Hunters attract attention, not always positive, and that was the reason why she got spotted by a big bandit gang (could be the beginning of Vallory's gang, but before she took over). And local scientists like Tannis already declared that there may be some connection between Sirens and the Vaults. And they noticed that she's a Siren, but also pretty young (and dumb). After the first Vault on Pandora was opened, there was plenty of weird and valuable stuff around, but it wasn't so easy to get it when you're just regular bandits. And when Eridians, the aliens that are guarding the Vault, are everywhere. The Sirens like Lilith were too strong for them, and hiring a Vault Hunter is expensive, so they decided to wriggle into her favor and use her to gain access to the area. She didn't know she was dealing with bandits first, she naively thought it's a rare case of nice fellows just wanting to be friends and such, plus the Vault could have answers about her origin, and the new "friends" confirmed it.
At some point, she realized she was being used, and got into a fight with the bandits - and lost, as there were too many of them, and she had too little experience, and they knew about Shade. She got kidnapped and told that she'd do everything they told her to do, or they'd kill Shade, so she had to obey. She helped them to fight the way to the Vault and get some of the riches, and during the process she felt that she really does have a connection with Eridians - they boosted her powers and helped her to get free, and kill every presenting member of the gang. She was worried about Shade though, so she left immediately to find him before the remaining members found out what happened and could harm him. But she was too late - the water source in their town of Oasis was poisoned, and every single person there died. Except Shade though - he lasted longer, but dehydration made him insane, and he turned corpses into the stuffed dummies he could talk to (though she didn't have much of a problem with this part). As she was gone for at least several months, he didn't believe she's real, and she had to adapt to the new reality.
She never got back to the Vault after that as she felt it was a source of more trouble than anything good (in her view, the price was too much for a bunch of physical stuff).
That lasted for years, and became a bit easier as her powers, enhanced by the Eridians, wasn't only serving the destruction,  but could eventually "heal" some part of Shade's mind, so the moments of clarity became more frequent (she didn't know it's the reason, though). And you still need money, whether you like it or not, so, when Shade decided to use his World of Curiosities as a spot of illegal deals and smuggling, she didn't resist, but would watch over him in the shadows in case something goes wrong.
Eventually, she calmed down and just embraced herself. And, after some time, she met Vaughn, whose personal struggles she could sense right away, as she had to experience "being different" herself.
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ambrosiagourmet · 1 year ago
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Every time I revisit chapter 86 and the events right after the group talks Marcille down, I'm always struck by this bit here:
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In particular, how similar it is to this:
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The Winged Lion ate the same desire in both of them, more or less (I'm sure there are some nuances in both flavor and intent, but they are clearly similar things here). The Lion basically used this technique to kill Thistle, and for Marcille it was... not insignificant, but something she and her friends overcame without even fully realizing it was an obstacle.
I feel like this is another small piece of the story that shows how important support and love are - in navigating mental illness, in dealing with abuse or addiction, or in working through any other similar struggle that can be read into the Lion and his eating of desires.
It almost feels like Marcille was able to borrow the desires of her friends. She loves them and she trusts them, so even when she didn't have a desire to free herself from the Lion, the care they had for her well being still mattered to her.
It's the same thing later, with her hair.
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She isn't able to notice the way her messy hair is making things harder, let alone do anything about it. But when Chilchuck points it out and then braids it back for her...
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It's better. She likes it, things are easier now. Even though it isn't a desire she can feel for herself, it's not something that doesn't effect her. And because her friends care - because they know her well enough to notice the difference - she is given the chance to have a preference and to ask for their help.
We can obviously see some parallel ideas here with Mithrun and Kabru as well, but I'd also like to point out that Thistle gets this grace, too. Thistle, who had no one to help him up once he lost his will to resist, or to encourage him to find new desires once the Lion ate them all.
Thistle says he doesn't need anything, anymore...
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But he is given an apology anyways.
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It is not a kindness he desires. It is not a kindness he is able to ask for.
But it is a kindness that helps. It is a kindness that matters.
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severepink · 1 year ago
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Observing Adam
Where I go way too deep into something that probably isn't that deep. It's long, it's long as hell.
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Okay, so you'd think with how Adam talks he's just a typical misogynist, right?
This man worships pussy. So much so, he's named a whole ass angel, one of his best, Vagina. You'd say that he objectifies them and thinks of them as being lesser, but I don't think that's the whole story. In fact, I think he might be the original simp.
All of these exorcists so far have been women. All of them. He refers to them as ladies or bitches interchangeably, he sees them as being completely capable of absolutely decimating leagues of some of the most vile beings who have ever existed, and they have, to the point it was only after thousands of years that there's been a risk to this hierarchy.
He's a self-centered, egotistical, loud-mouthed, arrogant asshole, no doubt about it, but I'm beginning to suspect something now.
If Adam and Lilith were created from the same dust, if they were created as equals, I am more than willing to bet... Lilith is also a self-centered, egotistical, arrogant asshole. But, she's likely far more intelligent, composed, and duplicitous.
Lilith was allowed to refuse Adam and leave of her own free will and garnered her own independence. A new wife was created for Adam, she was replaced. My guess, is she thought Adam wouldn't be able to live without her, to come back and find herself replaced entirely, she was enraged.
I believe both Adam and Lilith were both incredibly dominant individuals who fought over ideas, thoughts, and ultimately in the bedroom as well, if we take into account the creationist stories.
I'm willing to bet she likely manipulated Lucifer into twisting humanity against its original concept. What if Lucifer's intention truly was to just spark something within Eve, like independence and thought and creation, but it was Lilith's poison within the fruit that tainted her, then subsequently Adam, with sin.
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Lilith thrived in hell, while Lucifer's dreams of creation were dashed. She didn't suffer as he did, instead the power of her voice grew with hell. Her voice grew so powerful that heaven found it to be a threat, her actions instigated the beginning of exterminations.
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Charlie said that when she was a little girl, she didn't know Lucifer at all. I don't think this was because of Lucifer, he's seen here, picking her up, inviting her to share in his thoughts and dreams, showing her something wonderful. Something she could see within herself.
Charlie says that it's this moment that sparked her will to fight for her dreams. Which is strange, because at the very beginning of the story, Charlie says it was her mother's dream that was passed down to her.
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Lilith took Charlie away. In this scene, Lucifer wasn't done showing Charlie his thoughts and dreams, he's still yearning to show his daughter these things at this point.
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Lucifer loves his daughter. He loves Charlie so, so, so much. So why wasn't he allowed to build a relationship with his daughter for the longest time? He was waiting for the opportunity to get to know her, but with how much he adores her why didn't he do it sooner? He didn't comment on 'It took you a while-' he just said he missed her smile. They don't want to be pulled apart, again.
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Now, we know Vivziepop has said that Lucifer and Lilith love each other, but Lilith 'wears the pants' in the relationship. We see all of the pictures all over the walls of a supposedly happy family. I don't think the relationship was as loving as originally portrayed and Lilith is a woman who desires control above all else. She likely tried to mitigate what influence Lucifer had over their daughter when she thought his angelic thoughts and behaviors became more than what she approved of.
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Lets take it back to Adam and Lute for a moment. Again, Adam is a loud mouthed idiot, he's a jerk. The moment he realizes there are demons in heaven, he's ready to go on the attack. It's only because of Lute that he didn't end up doing something absolutely idiotic.
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I gotta say, Lute and Adam's relationship is an absolutely fascinating one. He's a disrespectful dick head in how he talks, but how he acts is a different story. He allows Lute to man-handle him. He does listen to her, even if he's a whiny bitch about it.
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Look at him, this is the face of a man listening, a dumb one, but a dude listening all the same. He doesn't manhandle her back, he doesn't even pull away until she lets go of his collar. Of all the shit he complained about, between being grabbed and being told what to do, his biggest complaint is that she's telling him to shush.
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We know that Adam is the one who suggested the exterminations to begin with, so Sera says, and this was because of the power that Lilith was amassing. To him, Lilith is a threat. Even when he was willing to move on, to go to another wife when Lilith didn't want him or want to submit to him (fair babe, he's a bit of an idiot), she came back with an angel and proceeded to manipulate his new wife Eve. This is the supposed progenitor of man-kind, the original dick (hilariously enough), the reason civilization even exists at all. He and Eve had to fight for their lives after being tempted with the fruit. They had immortality, they had no ideas of shame, they were supposedly 'innocent' creatures before Lilith and Lucifer came along. He and Eve had to fight tooth and nail to survive after being cast from Eden. I think it shows in how willing and ready he is to take lead and do what he believes needs to be done, now out of a need for entertainment rather than a need to defend or protect. But, he still stopped to listen to Lute's advice. In the mythological story of Adam and Eve, Adam is the one who has to tell Eve that god said don't eat the fruit. Eve never heard god speak to her, so she was vulnerable to the snake's manipulations. She will now die because she ate it, and because she did not want Adam to take another wife, convinced him to eat it unknowingly. Funnily enough, Adam tried to explain to god that 'she lied to me and gave me the fruit' and in this actual mythology, Adam was punished for listening to his wife. Even without mentioning Lilith in the original mythology, Eve didn't want Adam to take another wife, so when we consider it within the context of Hazbin Hotel, it may be likely that's how it went down. Eve knew of Lilith, knew that she could be replaced, and decided that she would take Adam with her.
I believe that Adam does and did rely on the women in his life to help him with direction. I think Adam knows he can be an idiot and is willing to listen, even if he doesn't agree with what he's hearing. He did listen to Charlie in the beginning, he just didn't believe in her, like everyone else and he, out of anyone there, probably had the most reason not to. Cain and Abel were his and Eve's sons, his own child became the first murderer. Out of jealousy, the same kind of jealousy that no doubt has caused Lilith to act how she did. Adam isn't going to have empathy for sinners. His family, his legacy, were filled with the original sinners. He probably had to kill his son Cain in hell during the first exterminations. What do you think he would have had to feel, if it came to be a fact that sinners could be redeemed? That maybe his son, could've been redeemed? Or any of his progeny for that matter? How did it feel when his sons, his progeny, weren't given the same mercy as the Hellborn that Lucifer managed to keep protected through some deal with the angels or god? Not to mention that Charlie could've been his daughter. Charlie is the product of the people who completely and totally destroyed the paradise he'd been born into. She's the daughter who is protected and immune from the slaughter while all of his sons and daughters are judged and killed. I believe, even though he was a dickish prankster to Charlie, he was surprisingly patient and even somewhat amicable, willing to even ask her how her weekend was like he was just trying to get to know her.
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Adam could just see all of the angels under his employ as being disposable. He doesn't have to name them, or think about them in any individual fashion. But, he knows Vaggie, recognized her instantly. Thought she was badass. Lute's the one who saw her, tore her wings off, and walked away. I'm surprised they even let her live, because this just goes against everything they're doing. They're an army and they saw one of their own showing empathy to the enemy.
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Look at this dumb ass. He's being a shit-head, a dick, a bastard. But, he admires Vaggie's ability to pull Charlie, congratulates her, this dude isn't even judging her for being a lesbian. I don't think it's because he objectifies women, this dude loves women, he just does. He respects fellow vagina lovers. I don't think he respects liars in the slightest though. He's being underhanded, he's trying to be manipulative (he's not very good at it). I think he's brutally open and honest about everything and that's probably one of the reasons he's such a bastard anyways, because sometimes you just need to shut-up and he's not good at that.
I don't think he respects Sera for that either, he's more than willing to let others know what the hell he's doing, but under Sera's lead, he can't be open about it. I don't think it's his jam to act this way, it's why he sucks so bad at it and I think that's why Lilith is so antithetical to him. I also think that's why he's possibly even being manipulated.
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It's kind of crazy that Adam is the only one who tries to come up with what allows someone to get into heaven. So here's his list: 1. Act Selfless: Maybe at one point he was! He had to have been, to be one of the progenitors of mankind, he would have had to work, sacrifice, and give to his wife and children for them all to survive. Eve would have had to do the same, no doubt. He may not seem selfless, due to his raunchy behavior, but he's served heaven since he's been there. He's served humanity in some kind of facet. 2. Don't Steal: Considering the only other humans are his spawn, he likely had to try and get them to not steal from one another for them all to have an equal opportunity of survival. He and Eve likely both knew they would need to work together to survive.
3. Stick it to the man: This, however, is interesting. Who is 'The Man' he speaks of? God? The only other people over him or were equal to him were women. He speaks like a rocker, and I think in this case he's using the term 'The Man' in a gender neutral way. I think he allowed some amount of Authority to Lilith when they were supposed to be seen as equals, it comes so naturally to him as a character when it comes to the other women he's been interacting with. I think she is the 'man' that he's been sticking it to- Pun somewhat intended. ((This third one may also simply be a tongue in cheek reference to when Alex Brightman played Dewey in School of Rock on Broadway! Thank you to the user who brought this to my attention!))
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Adam is a bit of a hypocrite, isn't he? He likes to fuck, he's made that abundantly clear. Full of lust you could say. It was his original purpose after all, and he is judging Angel Dust for something he probably would've done himself at one point or has considered doing (maybe not the having sex with men part). Angel Dust does all of these things, Adam doesn't even deny it. He even looks nervous. He's angry, but doesn't deny that Angel has done those things. He doesn't explain it away or try to lie or move the goal posts, he's just asking what is an actually very valid question.
Why isn't Angel Dust there if he can do things equal to what Adam himself hasn't done? Serenity continues that line of thought. It isn't until Charlie is realizing no one knows what it takes to get into heaven.
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Adam is more than willing to let Lute take the lead here, he's willing to give her the stage to clap back, he's giving her back-up antics. By all means, they could be pushing and fighting one another, there could easily be body language expressing something other than their general comfort around one another. They aren't fighting for a spotlight like you'd expect Adam to try and do considering his egotistical attitude.
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Adam fucking sucks at keeping his mouth shut and he sucks at lying. He nearly blew the secret out of the bag once, this time, Sera is the only one who tries to stop him and to be honest? Lute looks a bit too thrilled at it. He knows he fucked up, but he doesn't think it's a big deal that anyone would know. For fucks sake, they've already condemned souls, his progeny, to suffer. What's the big deal if he kills them?
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I have to re-iterate what's happening here. Charlie is proud she caused this chaos, that she caused these angels to fight amongst themselves, even if in this case it's a good thing. But, this is like history repeating itself to Adam, the reflection of his ex-wife, entering his domain, causing strife among his people, being happy about it.
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And the venom he expresses when it comes to the 'liar' portion, god Alex Brightman destroyed when he got to this portion specifically. There is some vehement disgust in his tone when he says liar.
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Adam isn't a good person now. But, I think he used to be a good person. By all means, Adam himself could've been the first murderer when his wife made her mistake. He, at one point in time, had to have been good enough to foster civilization itself with Eve. Both good and bad. Adam's original purpose was to be fruitful and multiply. Ordained by god (or maybe just angels) himself, divine power directed and created him to fuck. He didn't chase his ex-wife down, he was given a new one, Lilith was allowed to leave. When he left things alone, when he tried to move on, his ex-wife and a scorned angel destroyed the paradise he was in with Eve. He had to struggle and toil, he had to feel shame in his own body. He had to find out his first born son was the first murderer. His second son killed. We don't know if this is going to be canon in the story, a lot has changed, and if Adam is the first soul who reached heaven, then what did happen to Abel? Was Abel considered a sinner? Or did Cain kill Abel after Adam had passed? Either way, he had to witness his children kill, he had to watch his descendants behave in a range from saints and monsters. He's seen genocides, he's seen famine, war. Adam is desensitized to the plights of his descendants. Maybe he even saw it as a duty to cleanse the universe of their existence at one point, because they were his responsibility.
At the end of this episode, he is properly scolded by Sera and does seem ashamed of himself. He isn't huffy, he is reminded that he should be ashamed of acting that way.
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I love Lute's enthusiasm, she's absolutely brutal when talking about Vaggie and with how she handled Vaggie. I think it's funny that Lute is so brutal she's even made Adam uncomfortable. It's cute that he's made uncomfortable by the excitement and all he does is tell Lute, the premier hype woman over here, to chill. She's so proud of herself too, look at her.
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He fully expects these exorcist bad bitches to go in there and fuck shit up. But, you know it's hilarious that he's throwing horns? This dude, this angel. First human soul in heaven, loving rock n' roll, the devil's music, and throwing motherfucking horns. It's poetic really. I think we can probably assume where things are going.
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Now, this is the first point we've seen Adam being a real piece of shit to Lute. I don't think Adam likes it when people think he's too dumb to notice something, especially something so damn obvious. This is such a drastic moment of vitriolic, uncontrolled anger directed towards Lute. Adam knows he isn't the brightest tool in the shed. He likely knows he's obtuse and misses shit. It's why he sucks at lying, he knows he's not smart. That is why I think he's afforded women opportunities to direct him without fighting back against their advice and their choices. I'm sure Lilith made it obvious how dumb she thinks Adam is. I'm wondering if this might be where their ground breaking fight might've come from. Who's to say he didn't allow Lilith to take the lead, or listen to her like he's done with Lute here and now? Perhaps to an even greater point? He listened to Eve and ate from the fruit of knowledge and he was punished for it. Being seen as so dumb he can't formulate a simple fact is a sore spot for him.
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Adam is incredibly powerful. It took a bit out of him to exercise that power, probably because he's out of practice just like Lucifer said. At one point, he probably wasn't so sloppy and weak willed. He's gotten lazy. Sloth like.
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I think it got real personal here. How viscerally and personally he attacked Charlie. No one but Charlie truly thought sinners could be redeemed, or that they were even worth it. Not even one of the original sinners. Maybe he never considered the possibility, maybe what happened really did make him see the world as black and white to cope with that happened to him, his wife, his children. Charlie's desire to fight this idea would destroy the foundation for all of his coping through the years. He stopped seeing them as family, even though he's grandiose about his founding role in humanity. Does that itch the guilt that may lurk under the surface?
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I don't think Adam thought much of Charlie at all. I don't think he had any intention of coming to kill her in the beginning, despite seeing her, despite who her parents were. But, I think with the constant push, with how eager she was to disrupt the pre-conceived idea of order, it reminded Adam and reflected her parents so much, he was eager to kill her for revenge against them. I think this electrical interference on the mask is a direct reflection of sin. Namely, wrath, in this moment.
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Now, this. THIS. Is something that made me want to write this whole fucking essay. Is Lucifer implying that he not only gave Eve the Fruit from the tree of knowledge, but FUCKED HER TOO? Homies, I'm sorry but holy shit. That is some hydrating tea. I'd be pretty pissed too, fucked over twice by women who were supposed to be literal soul mates, who you were made for, who were made for you?
I knew he would have a goatee, I could almost hear it. I gotta say, I'm a sucker for how he looks. I think he's hot. He is a bastard, but so are a lot of the hot dudes in this show. It's just a theme.
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This exact series of lines prompted so many of the thoughts that I had about Adam and why he thinks or acts the way he does. At one point, Adam did have to work himself to the bone and learn to survive from scratch alongside Eve. He isn't entirely without cause to not think that he deserves some respect or recognition from his descendants.
But, that doesn't give him the right to act like god himself. It's... well... Blasphemous. Isn't it? One of the worst sins is to think yourself to be worthy of worship, as if you're a god.
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This is the moment that gave me empathy for them both. You could probably see the kind of loving person Adam could have been at one point with how he looks at Lute, even as he's laying there, dying. He's not crying like a bitch, just looking at Lute softly. Lute screaming for him, screaming his name. They cared for each other deeply.
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And this... and this.... and this. WHAT DEAL DID YOU MAKE, LILITH? Did you make it with Sera? Did you make it with Adam? Did you make it with Lute? Did you really just want a little 'vacay' away from the hell you helped create? Left her husband, depressed and lonely. Left her daughter without any care or guidance. Maybe Alastor was sent in her place, perhaps? Seven years since he was seen after all, but why wouldn't he show up sooner if Lilith did care? Did she make a deal with Lute and Adam? Did she let Adam smash it so she could stay in heaven? Did Lute let her stay in exchange for getting Adam out of a position of power? Or was it maybe Sera who commissioned Lilith with a deal? Either way, I'm in full belief that it wasn't Adam's idea to move the extermination day up. I think he's a patsy, a scapegoat. I think Lute may have been manipulated, potentially, into manipulating Adam into this position. Was it even really Adam who came up with the idea to do the exterminations? Or was he the one who simply decided to fight originally because he was told heaven was at risk due to Lilith's rising power? The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions. I think it could be any number of these. Either way, Lute certainly does think she had authority over Lilith. Is it Lute just having hubris? Or is Lilith truly bound, just like Alastor, Husk, and Angel Dust?
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Of course, now that we know a soul can be redeemed... and we certainly know that angels can fall. I don't think this will be the last we see of Adam.
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little-miss-dilf-lover · 20 days ago
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Ok so i saw a tweet that made me feral, so here i am with a request
It was based on a still from Thunderbolts* with Bucky in the kitchen wearing the tank top, the person said he looked like a dad waiting for the baby bottles to sterilise,,,, so true
I was thinking about #that bucky joining reader in the kitchen after dinner and doing it for the first time after having their baby 😵‍💫
so sorry it’s taken me way longer to get to than planned. thanks for requesting 💌
EIGHT WEEKS. 18+
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bucky barnes x fem!reader
wc. 1407 warnings. 18+ only! quickie in the kitchen, pinv (but not much smut, my apologies. ive written so much porn lately i fear my brain may explode) mdni
⎯ ☆ ⎯
For the last near eight weeks, shitty diapers, vomit and fatigue had been all you and Bucky had known. The excessively late nights and nipple pain all being traced back to the sweet, beautiful tyrant of a daughter that you recently welcomed into the world.
And while you were both worse for wear and stretched incredibly thin with the new change of dynamics in the household, you wouldn’t have it any other way — motherhood a great look on you and fatherhood just as good a look on your lover. 
Like anything, it all took some getting used to: the stress, running on minimal sleep, intense blinding irritation, but it was all made easier with the great support system you call a husband. All of his attention and time being divided between his two girls. And with time, you began to feel like your old self again.
By now, it was late and it was like you were each too tired to sleep, each of you barely functioning as you work through the household jobs. 
Bucky’s at the kitchen counter, his time split between bottle sterilisation and the dishes, while you’re at the sofa’s, organising and piling the excessive amounts of baby grows and other laundry. Each of you doing jobs to lighten the giant load.
You stack the clean laundry in the basket and set it on your hip, using your free hand to drag the laundry hamper with you as you walk. You set it in your shared bedroom and meet Bucky back in the kitchen.
You stand beside him and rest your head on his shoulder, eyes closing as if to soak up the calm quiet. He presses a kiss to your temple and lays the side of his head atop yours, giving you a moment of attention while he focuses on the tasks at hand: carefully attaching bottles with lids so as not to contaminate the sterile vessel.
You wrap your arm around his back, snuggling into his side as you watch him. Whoever would have thought that the hands that were made for death and destruction could now be preparing bottles for your baby in a few rooms over. 
“Good news about the doctors today, huh?” 
He pauses and lifts his head from yours. So you turn and see his expression confused, brows furrowing.
“What news?” he asks, utterly perplexed.
“I texted you this morning,” you match his befuddled tone and reach into your robe pocket for your phone. “The doctor gave me the all clear. I told you about it as soon as I found out…” you mindlessly reiterate, eyes then beginning to narrow as you look at your screen. “Oh my god,” you whisper, and shake your head. “I never send it.”
“Is it bad news?” he questions, eyes softening slightly as they meet yours.
“God no, well… depends how you look at it,” you smile and turn your phone, showing him the screen.
He stills as he reads your unsent text, brows continuing to furrow. “What is that? Is that an eggplant?”
“Yep,” you nod.
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why is it there?”
“It’s supposed to be sexy,” you playfully frown.
“Sexy?”
“Yeah,” you nod, pointing to the emoji beside the eggplant one. “See, the peach.”
“I don’t understand,” his head shakes, eyes flickering between you and your phone.
You inhale and close your eyes. “Okay, alright,” you focus on him. “I saw my doctor today, and she gave me the all clear…” you pause, watching the connections slowly being made in his tired blue eyes.
“So we can have sex?”
“So we can have sex,” you repeat, mirroring his tone and expression. 
Part of you questioned whether you should wait until the weekend, wait until you’ve dropped your daughter off with your family. It had been a long time since you’ve been properly fulfilled by your husband, everything but full penetrative sex to suffice during your weeks of healing. 
So this was quite the confliction.
You give it a moment's thought and meet his eyes again.  “Are you tired?” you ask.
“Are you?” he deflects and returns the question, wanting to hear what you have to say before he answers for himself.
“I mean…” you shrug your shoulders. “Yeah, very. But… a quickie can’t hurt, right?”
“Who doesn’t love a quickie?” 
“Exactly,” you smile and turn so your back is against the counter. You lift yourself up onto it, sitting on the edge with your feet dangling down.
He moves to stand between your knees and settles his hands beside yours. “And then this weekend…” he pauses and itches forward, lips ghosting yours briefly. “I can take you up to the lake…” he presses a slow lengthy kiss to your lips.
“Yeah…” you wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him again. “What else?”
He pretends to give it some thought but the plan was already extensively created in his head. “I can make us some dinner,” he begins to list and reaches for the bow of your robe, tugging on it gently. “We can go for a walk around the woods, maybe collect some firewood. Sit on the deck and watch the sun go down.”
You drop your hands from around his neck and move to the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, fingers mindlessly slipping into the top. You reach down the front and begin palming over his cock, eyes focused on his as you listen.
“Mhm-hm,” you prompt, eager to hear more.
“Well,” he pauses and reaches into the elastic of your underwear. “We can sit in the cabin, maybe have some wine by the fire…” he starts, voice drawing to a whisper, speech halting when he leans in to kiss you again. But he doesn’t continue on with his plan. Instead he grows quiet, quite like he was wanting to reserve the more intimate moments for a surprise. 
And so he slips your underwear down your thighs, the lifting of your ass from the counter aiding the removal. He watches the fabric drag across your skin, the material grazing flesh until it gets caught between your knees. You feel the resistance and lift a knee, letting the underwear fall from one leg and down the length of the other.
The hand you had tucked down the front of his boxers moves back up to the waistband, fingers resuming their prior finnicking into the elastic. You drop your hand from around his neck and join the one at the top of his pyjama bottoms — both of them hastily yanking on the fabric. 
Bucky helps, moving his hands from your underwear to his own. He gives both garments a heavy tug, each catching around the swell of his thighs — revealing just enough of himself as required.
He spits into his palm and smears it messily over his dick. You both watch the lewd display between you, eyes transfixed on the slight twitching of him, cock growing hard under his touch. 
Guiding himself closer he smacks his head against your cunt. The little slaps an attempt to speeden up his erection. 
He holds himself within his left, metal hand and spits once again into the palm of his other, only this time he smears it over your pussy — a makeshift lube saving you both a trip to the bedroom. 
Lining up with you, he teases at your entrance briefly, quite like he was refamiliarising you with the contact of his cock and himself with your cunt once again. He sinks into you slowly and both of your faces contort, the feeling of sheer, unadulterated, lustrous bliss growing with each passing inch.
Your arms wrap around him as if you’re in dire need of his touch, your hands squeezing tightly around his bank. And with the close contact, his forehead falls to press against yours, bodies close as you both delve into the bliss of what got you your daughter in the first place. 
Although this brief, fatigued session was about to reopen a massive can of worms for your sex life, it was clear that this time it may have to be cut short — the long awaited sensations could not quite be replicated by one to the other meant things tonight were bound to end prematurely. 
And so this little session might just have to serve as an appetiser, a taster for the weekend to come when you both finally get around to rekindling things properly in the bedroom.
⎯ ☆ ⎯
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