#by which i mean the two are tied together by the fact that so many people just dont give a shit about the safety of people ''below'' them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

abibliophobiaa · 1 year

Text

Summary: You’ve never been one for love. Especially after your last round with it. Halloween rolls around and in comes Eddie Munson. He’s only in town for a couple days, you’re looking for no strings, and chances are you’ll never see him again anyway.

Easy, right?

That is, until you end up with an unexpected party favor.

mini series masterlist

next chapter

——

warnings: alcohol; smut; unprotected p in v; unplanned pregnancy and associated symptoms; major miscommunication. eddie munson x afab!reader(7k words)

——

“You’ve been staring around for hours. No one is catching your eye? Not even slightly? You’re not doing brain surgery, you’re just trying to get your toes wet.”

You knew this. But the music had been too loud, the room too heated, your body tucked away against the bar as you sat beside your best friend, sipping on a watery margarita that the ice had long since dissolved into.

All around you people bobbed and swayed to ‘Monster Mash.’ Cliche by all means, and yet it felt fitting when you appraised the crowd once more and noted the mummy dancing with his zombified partner. Further out you caught a werewolf in a particularly compromising position with a vampire, and a group of clowns crowded together hosting what looked to be a meeting.

“What about that Westley guy?”

Right — the one everyone had been talking about all night. The man who had the nerve to dress up as the direct counterpart to your own costume. With a huff, you hiked your leg up, crossing one over the other against the stool. The red dress around you shifted and moved, fingers reaching to adjust the belt around your waist.

“I haven’t seen him.” You shrugged, taking another sip of your drink. “For all I know, he doesn’t exist.”

Micah glanced about the room once again, her makeshift halo wobbling on her head. Somewhere in the distance her boyfriend, Jeremiah, was invested in a deeply riveting conversation about football with some of his friends from college. All of which had dressed in their old football jerseys, dark lines drawn haphazardly under eyes, helmets covering heads. She lingered on him for a moment, and then glanced further over your shoulder, lips tugging upward into a devilish grin. Oddly fitting for the girl dressed as an angel.

“Actually, he’s right there.”

Gravity sent your heart tumbling into your gut. Silly, when you’d thought about it. Just because he’d worn a costume from one of your comfort movies didn’t mean he’d be anything special. Multiple pirates, doctors, and the occasional Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger had already attempted to rouse a conversation, only for it to fall flat. This could very well end up the same, and this night was lost to the turmoil of the inner workings of your mind, still reeling from the sting rumbling in your chest over the past few months.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

But it wasn't a joke when you swiveled around on your stool and faced him. Not at all. In a dimly lit bar, packed too tight with too many bodies bumping you to and fro even as you presently sat, you spotted him. Found the guy people had been mentioning all night as the other half of your ‘couple’s costume,’ saying you both looked amazing together, despite the fact none of them knew he was quite literally a stranger to you.

He sat at a lonesome table. Leaned on an elbow with a cheshire grin spread across the prettiest set of pink lips. His dark curly hair was tied behind his head, tucked into the mask that covered the upper half of his face. Even partially obscured like that, he was handsome, freezing you in place with those piercing brown eyes that were locked unwaveringly on your silhouette.

So he’d noticed you too. Inwardly, you were beaming. After two months of couch surfing and feeling sorry for yourself after a failed relationship wherein you’d walked on your partner of two years with someone who most definitely wasn’t you, you’d decided tonight was the night you’d get back out there. A night of fun, a night to meet someone new, to let loose a bit.

“What are you waiting for,” your friend Micah asked, shoving you forward with a hasty push. “He’s your Westley. If this isn’t some weird ass fate, I don’t know what is.”

Your Westley’s smile grew wider as you approached. Corners dragged upward to form that broad grin, bracketed by the sweetest set of dimples you’d ever seen on a man. Heart pounding a bit, you leaned up against the table, letting out a noncommittal huff. Puffed out a deep breath that caught his attention and had those chocolate brown eyes solely on you.

“Is this space taken?” you asked, and he dipped his head in greeting. “So you’re the guy everyone has been talking about all night.”

“Ah, yes,” he laughed, and you couldn’t help but to smile at the very sound. It’s a lovely, hearty sound. The kind of laugh that seemed dangerous, because you might like it too much. “And you’re the girlfriend I didn’t know I had.”

“You too, huh?”

“Yeah,” he echoed, taking a step closer. “Though it’s all very flattering. Prettiest Princess Buttercup here.” He dropped the lowest part into a whisper, “Definitely a compliment because, if I’m being honest, you’re way out of my league.”

Your cheeks burned with the compliment, feet fidgeting beneath you where you stood. He reached over and slid a chair beside his hip, patting the surface so you could hop on up and join him, a hand of his reaching out to steady you when you wobbled a bit. Another round of drinks were ordered and you learned quickly his name was Eddie and he’d been in town only for a couple weeks now. Had a few gigs in the city for the band he played in and would be off in another two days. Blew in and out like the storm that presently raged outside, wind howling, rain splashing against sidewalks, lightning painting the night sky in a shock of white before leaving it dark once more. He’d grown up in a small town, but realized he’d only ever had dreams that were too small for the walls he’d been raised in.

So he’d ended up on a short tour and would head off to California to start laying down tracks for the band’s first ever album. He sounded so hopeful and eager, so rejuvenated and excited about life, and it had you endeared to him. Drifting closer as the night went on and he asked you about your own life. Learned you grew up here in the city but craved something quieter, very much unlike him. You’d studied creative writing and English in college and wanted to write the stories people would one day know and love and shelve in their homes, but in the meantime you worked at a library. It wasn’t the most thrilling job, but it kept you abreast, and he regaled you with the endless fantasy titles he’d known and loved through the years.

It wasn’t long before the hours trickled on by and Micah approached the two of you with a sulking Jeremiah in tow. The latter of the two a little too inebriated based on the slight sway in his form and the hand Micah kept firmly planted around his forearm.

Her blue eyes flickered up at Eddie’s face, then drifted back to yours. “I’m taking this idiot home. He’s in time out —”

“Noooo,” he moaned, forehead pressing into the crook of his girlfriend’s neck.

“Are you coming back with me or…?” Micah’s eyes trailed back upward to Eddie once more, brows arched curiously.

Eddie looked at you and shrugged. “Up to you, Buttercup.”

“I’m gonna stay…actually.”

Micah nodded, giving you both one last glance over before tugging her boyfriend along behind her in the direction of the door. As she passed, she leaned up against the hollow of your ear and said loud enough over the music, “Be careful. Have fun. You’re beautiful and I love you and you deserve to enjoy yourself tonight, okay?”

Once they were gone your attention returned to the man swathed in black standing before you, shoulder bumping his. “It's too loud in here,” you shouted for emphasis, insides nearly rattling from the music booming from the speakers positioned about the room. “Is there somewhere we can go that’s a little more…”

“Private?” he asked, leaning down toward your ear. Chills skittered along your arms as his lips nearly brushed your skin there, gooseflesh pimpling in its wake. “I have a hotel room two blocks over. How do you feel about running?”

“Let’s go.” You grinned.

“As you wish.” He beamed, holding out a gloved hand for you to take.

Outside, the two of you huddled up beneath the small awning growing smaller by the second with the other patrons who had similar ideas of waiting for their rides and cabs or braving the fall storm head on and taking off into the soaked streets in their full Halloween costumes.

Laughter bubbled up from your lips as a particularly hard jolt against your back sent you tumbling into his form, a quick hand of his reaching out and curling low around your back. He tensed, eyes locked on yours, awaiting your response and you leaned further into him, relishing in the heat of his form.

Moments skittered by under the awning. His eyes roamed your form, dark and beautiful, ringed with those little crinkles that appeared in the corners whenever he smiled. He’d been smiling all night — at you, a thought that has little butterfly wings quivering low in your belly, and lower still at the suddenness of the desire ramping up in your bloodstream.

The glowing lights from the bar filter out onto the street. Flashed orange and red across Eddie’s features, painted him in vibrant color, highlighting the plushness of his lips, the curve of his jaw, the bump of his chin. Hesitant fingers reached up to brush at the curls tied behind his head, curled one of the ringlet strands around and around a fingertip, your forearm spreading over the space between his shoulders, around his neck until he pressed in closer to you. Those chocolate brown eyes flickered southward. Lingered on your lips briefly before traveling back up, asking that question without words. Your only answer was the upward tip of your mouth, leaning into the space, waiting to feel him warm against you.

Electricity danced in the moments shared between you. In the fingertips that pressed into his shoulder and gripped tight as his nose nudged at the space beside yours, your mouth tipping up closer to his. From here, you could smell the mint he’d tossed in his mouth on the way out, could feel the tremble of his breath against your sternum, feel the heat of it fanning over your lips.

But the kiss never came. Behind you, a group of friends pushed and shoved toward the front door, nearly sending you and Eddie into the sidewalk and out of the shelter provided by your awning. It dawned on you then, however begrudgingly, that maybe you should move, give others a space to wait for their vehicles, and start to head in the direction of his hotel room.

He seemed to agree, sliding his palm down your forearm to twine his fingers between yours. “Guess that’s our cue, huh?”

“Bet you’re glad you wore the equivalent of tights for pants today, huh?”

“Suppose it makes it easier for me to whisk you away in the night, now doesn’t it?” He barked out a laugh, and clutched your hand tighter, dragging you out onto the street and into the rain.

——

You were presently in the midst of what was officially the weirdest, most endearing hook up you’d ever had. Moments after rushing out into the busy city streets and getting absolutely drenched from head to toe, Eddie tugged you toward a grocery store, suggesting he had nothing back at the hotel. Had looked a little bashful about it, even when you reassured him it was fine and you’d manage without, though he wouldn’t hear any of it.

As a result, you trailed behind him, dress sopping wet and clinging to every inch of your body, helping gather some things you might need in between what you hoped would be an eventful afternoon. Water, snacks, and the like. He seemed so giddy with it, and you hated the way his dimple in his cheek had your heart and thighs clenching. You preferred only the latter of the two, and couldn’t afford yourself the emotional aspect that came along with the former.

Eventually you had both found yourselves in the frozen food aisle, his shoulder bumping yours, your fingers dancing in the spaces between the two of you, the anticipation of after burning brighter with every minute that passed.

“How do you think they know what…oh, I don’t know…Moose Tracks taste like?” Eddie asked, turning his head over his shoulder.

Fortunately for you, he’d removed his mask, revealing more of his features. Those curls that dangled along his brow line, the smattering of freckles along high cheekbones, the crinkled corners of his eyes whenever he smiled at you.

“What?” you asked, once more reminding yourself of just how differently this night was going than you’d originally anticipated.

“Like what makes a Moose Track a Moose Track?”

“I think it’s just a…mix of things that remind them of…you know what?” His eyes twinkled, and you shifted a little closer. It really sucked that he was cute — obnoxiously so. “I actually don’t know. But, I do think we have more than enough stuff here to feed an army. And I think the rain finally let up.”

“You want to head out?”

“I think we should,” you agreed, tugging him along behind you down the aisle, in search of the nearest check out line.

The walk to the hotel room reminded you both of what you’d intended for that evening. The curious glances you would catch him shooting your way, the way you’d do the same when he focused his attention ahead. It increased with every step closer to the looming building, the desire for closeness, to feel, to touch, to taste.

Burned brighter when he swiped his key card and you started shoving the things he’d brought inside of the mini fridge, before snatching two water bottles and placing them down on the bedside table. He whistled as you walked around the room, fingers snapping, one of his curls tucked against the fullness of his mouth.

“You know, we don’t have to do anything,” you reassured him, sensing the nervousness radiating from his form.

Those dark eyes settled on yours as you approached, palm coming up slowly to rest against his sternum, right where you could feel his heartbeat clanging against his ribs.

“It’s been a while,” he settled on, voice softer than it had been all evening, a tremorous quality catching your attention.

“We’ll go slow,” you promised, leaning up to finally, and happily, close the space between the two of you.

It felt like a long, shared exhale. The way he immediately knew which way to turn his head, how you liked for his calloused fingers to rest against your cheekbone, that you wanted to be as close as possible, pressed flush against his form. Your head swam as he turned you around and walked you backward until your backside thumped against the edge of the dresser positioned against the wall opposite the bed. Grunted as he reached a hand up the back of your neck and sought out that pesky zipper you wanted so badly pulled down.

As if he’d read your mind, the man in question gave the zipper a nice, hard tug and the fabric shifted and dropped around your shoulders, baring the similarly colored bra beneath. So maybe you’d gone shopping for your first foray back after your break up? Based on the darkened eyes honing in on the lacy fabric, you’d picked correctly.

“Such a shame,” he groaned against the curve of your collar bone, fingers pushing the dress down and onto the floor, “really liked that dress.”

“My turn,” you mused, fingers reaching forward to tug the tunic free from his obscenely tight pants.

He helped you with ease, arms lifting just enough to help pull it over his head, giggling as his endless mane of curls sprang free. Tattoos jumped to life before your eyes. The multiple on his arms and torso, some looking faded and older, likely done in someone’s house, and others freshly inked, leaving a tapestry of stories he’d likely tell you if you’d only had the time.

“Fuck it.” He reached down and cupped your jaw, bruising kiss after bruising kiss laid upon your mouth, your toes digging into the carpet below as pale fingers trailed down the center of your chest, and then lower still, pausing at the hem of your panties. “Can I touch you?”

You might burst into flames if he didn’t. “Please.”

“Never have to say please with me, Buttercup,” he said, fingers pushing past that lacy barrier until they met your flesh, knowing exactly what he’d find there. “Sweetheart…this all for me?”

“Don’t tease.”

A broken sigh spilled from your lips, fingers clutched tight around his forearm as those expert fingers dragged a slow circle around your clit before sliding back to your center, pushing in. Your head rolled back against the wall, heat blooming anew as he stepped closer into the circle of your thighs, watching the rapid rise and fall of your chest, enjoying the sounds made only for him, the slickness of your center practically pulling his fingers back in with every perfect thrust curled in that spot right where you needed him the most.

“Fuck, just like that, sweetheart,” he panted, mouth pressed tight to yours, grinning against your skin as you keened high and tight, creeping closer and closer to your edge.

And just when you’d thought you were about to explode into dozens of tiny stars like in the night sky above, Eddie stopped. You nearly cried out his name in your frustration, only to find him dropping down onto his knees in front of the dresser, capable hands tugging you closer to the edge, before he pushed the dainty fabric back to the side and swapped his fingers for his tongue.

One long stripe from center to clit was all you'd needed for the rubber band to snap. For the shaking to start, the chanting of his name like a mantra or a prayer to rouse the neighbors likely next door and alert everyone in the building to what magic Eddie had worked between your thighs.

“Not,” you gasped, leaning your head forward to rest against his heaving chest, “fair.”

“What’s not fair, sweetheart?”

“Too good at that.” Another rasped breath pooled from your lips, quieted by the sound of your lips pressing to his chest. Hazy eyes lifted to his face, a satisfied exhale slowing the rise and fall of your chest. “Get on the bed.”

“What do you —”

“On the bed,” you repeated, grinning wickedly as he backed up just enough so his kneecaps hit the mattress. “I want to look at you.”

And god, what a sight he was. Once you’d finally managed to tug his pants down, revealing the boxers beneath, you were rewarded with the fullness of Eddie Munson in the flesh. The narrow waist, the smattering of hair you kissed along his abdomen, the curve of his chest, the freckles along his chest and shoulders. Traced along the tattoos on his chest, the sides of his ribs, the one on his upper thigh, before dragging upward to slide over the increasingly — and massively impressive — hardened cock peeking out from the waistband of his boxers.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he blew the words out on a shaky exhale as you squeezed a little tighter, gauging what he liked.

Your grin grew as you wiggled the remnants of his clothing off his hip and cupped the weight of him in your palm. Perfect. He was absolutely perfect, and you wanted so badly to show him just how much you thought so, sliding down further onto the edge of the bed, tongue dragging a long line up the underside, along that prominent vein that had him bucking upward off the bed.

“Can I, Eddie?”

He watched through hooded lashes as your eyes zeroed in on his leaking tip, thumb sliding over the pre-cum there, before gliding your palm in a slow downward motion around him. He nodded, breath nearly cutting off completely as you finally, and blessedly, welcomed him into your mouth, immediately knowing nothing would compare to this moment and this girl.

Ruined. You’d ruined him for others, your pretty smile around his cock driving him too swiftly to a precipice he didn’t want to see the end of. Not yet. “Wait, wait, wait. Fuck. Your mouth is perfect, sweetheart. But — mmm — I need you.”

He pulled you upward with a gentle hand on the back of your neck, rolling you over beneath him, tongue marking a path along your chest, the peaks of your nipples, the delicate skin of your abdomen. With each pass of his lips over your flesh, you sank deeper into the mattress, knee bent, foot digging into the space above his hip, drawing him close enough that you could feel his glistening, wet hardness brushing your abdomen.

“Someone’s impatient,” you teased, moaning as his finger circled your wet entrance. “Want you inside me.”

“Patience, Buttercup,” he practically purred, reaching over into the bedside table to find…nothing. “No. Oh shit. We didn’t get condoms. I’m such an idiot, I —”

“Shit,” you whimpered, jolting upright and nearly smashing your skull into his as he double checked the inside of the drawer. “What about your suitcase? Wallet?”

“I told you I don’t exactly do this often.”

Those dark brows knitted together on his forehead, fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. You remembered then the fortunate and recent development of starting birth control after Micah suggested she could never live without it, and suddenly you wanted nothing more than to clasp your hands together and thank the heavens for the little pills you had back home in your friend’s bathroom.

“I’m on the pill,” you told him, swallowing the nervousness that grew with every beat of your heart. “And I’ve been tested recently. I’m clean.”

Maybe it was stupid. Maybe you should have known better.

“I’ve been tested since my last time too. I’m good,” he said, unmistakable desperation filling his voice.

“I don’t want to stop,” you whispered as he rolled onto his back.

“Me neither,” he agreed as you clambered over his lap and bracketed his hips with a thigh on either side.

Lured with the wonderful bliss that was Eddie Munson’s lips warm and plus against yours, you gripped him in hand and slowly lowered yourself down onto him, completely bare. There was something so raw about the moment. About the shuddered breath you both released, the way his hands cupped your hips as he pushed in deeper than you ever thought possible, his voice a broken mix of ‘that’s a good girl,’ ‘taking me so well,’ ‘look so good full of my cock,’ as you move over him.

You wanted to hate that you end up doing something between fucking and making love. For something so casual, it feels almost too intimate, the way you collided together like two pieces fitted together of a puzzle that had only been missing those parts.

And it wasn’t gentle, his fingers clutched in your flesh, feet planted on the bed as he eventually pounded up into you — but it was also somehow tender. A complicated mess, just like the shattered pieces of your heart as he groaned one last time and urged you to come with him, pulling you closer in his arms. His fingers circled your clit until you cried his name and clenched down around him, whimpering at the warmth of him spilling inside.

As you both drifted back to reality, he maneuvered around the bed and washed himself from between your thighs. Cooed when you winced at the cold contact, dropping a kiss against your forehead and telling you that it had started storming again. He could either call you a cab or you could stay the night, he’d suggested. You hadn’t anticipated spending the night with him, but after he dug around for the ice cream and M&Ms you got from the supermarket, you found you couldn’t say no to him.

Especially when he turned on the television and, funnily enough, The Princess Bride was on. Fate, or something more, seemed to laugh in your face. Gleeful as you sprawled out beneath the covers naked as the day you were born beside the man who you quickly learned enjoyed handfuls of popcorn mixed with his sweet chocolate treats.

It didn’t take long before he’d grown hard again, the lights dimmed and the food forgotten, your soft sighs and pleasured peals filling the room as he pushed in and watched as your eyes rolled back and back arched prettily for him.

And later, after you were both satiated and satisfied, you fell asleep to the sounds of Inigo Montoya’s famous speech, and the gentle inhales and exhales of the man sprawled out beneath you.

——

Daylight streamed in through the olive curtains positioned against the wall across from you. You hadn’t noticed them last night. Hadn’t noted the wooden walls, the pale ceiling above, nor the cream bedspread across your hips. Hadn’t noticed a lot of things, it seemed, other than the man who dozed behind you, tattooed arm slung low around your waist, keeping you in close.

Fallen asleep — you’d both fallen asleep watching The Princess Bride, much to your grunted amusement as you shifted up and into a sitting position. Eddie’s arm thumped onto the bed, leaving a wrinkled mess around his sinewy forearm. Sparing a glance over your shoulder, you took in the curve of his jaw. The way he looked more boyish than his nearly thirty years, lips parted in a sleepy breathing pattern, curls strewn all about his face. A smile graced your lips, fingers of yours rolling over the curve of his back, the heft of his shoulder, the breadth of his bicep.

Part of you craved curling back up beside him. Wanted to feel his mouth roving over yours, across your skin, between your thighs once more. Would probably dream about the way his face had scrunched up in pleasure before he came apart beneath you last night for weeks to come. But your eyes noticed the time ticking on the far wall, alerting you that work started in two hours. Some weekend reading activity for the children in your town you’d volunteered to work weekend hours for; hindsight, as they say, was twenty-twenty.

“She’s running away in the night,” he grumbled beside you, mouth rolling over to press into the pillow you had slept soundly on for a shocking eight hours, letting out a loud yawn. You couldn’t recall the last time you’d done so. That curly head of hair lifted, too-long strands falling into his gaze as he pinched one eye shut and glanced toward the giant bedroom window. “Or…morning, I guess?”

“I have work,” you said, reaching over to snatch your underwear from off the floor.

He watched with rapt attention as you whirled around and clasped your bra into place, cheeks burning despite the fact he’d seen every inch of you merely hours ago. The man propped himself up onto one elbow, your eyes catching the bat tattoos on his arm as his fingers reached over to curl around your hip, dragging you back down into bed.

Soon enough it was loud giggles, his fingers dancing along your sides, noisy kisses against your own. But it didn’t take long before you were reduced to breathy sighs. His fingers against the span of your hips, his chest pressing yours into the mattress. Lips over yours, against your cheek, the curve of your throat, the hollow between your breasts, the valley of your abdomen. He stopped with a nip along your hip bone, tongue laving over the sensitive skin there.

“Do you have to go?” he groaned against your stomach, placing a final kiss there before crawling back up your body and cradling the back of your head with one hand, his body weight perched on the other elbow, face hovering over your own. Pretty, he was so damn pretty and you wished you could hate him for it.

“I guess I have a few minutes,” you suggested coyly.

And it was all Eddie needed before he had you beneath him once more singing a tune he knew he’d never forget.

You dressed in silence after. He pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a thin sweater while you glanced at the wrinkled heap of your dress from the night before. It hadn’t dawned on you the complications of getting your feet wet on Halloween — at least, not until now.

“I can’t walk back to Micah’s in that,” you groaned, pointing to the messy ball of fabric on the floor.

“Wait — I have an idea!”

Eddie rummaged around a box in the far corner of the room and tossed a tee shirt your way. Across the front was ‘Corroded Coffin’ in a messy font that reminded you of how your brain often felt after one too many cups of coffee in the morning.

“Your band?” you asked, turning the shirt around to show him.

“Yeah.” He nodded, white teeth flashing with his smile. “You know, you could see us some time.”

You quickly slipped the dress over your head and let the skirt ruffle messily along the floor, then moved to roll up the billowy sleeves to your shoulders.

“I can’t say that I’ll be in California any time soon,” you told him, pulling the tee over your head next and draping it over the belt. Like this, it looked more like an oddly fitted skirt and a top. You already decided that was much better than a Halloween costume, so it would do until you got home and could change.

He nodded rapidly, like he knew that, but hadn’t realized that you’d be coasts apart in only a couple of days.

“Well…” he trailed off, searching around the bedside table for a moment.

Once he procured a pencil and a piece of paper, he scribbled down a string of numbers you immediately knew were the hope for something more from a boy with kind eyes, a beautiful smile, and a heart of gold. Your chest ached. If only you’d met him two years ago, at a better time, in a place where you were more open to whatever this could not be.

“My number — for the place I’ll be staying at for the next couple months,” he explained, tucking it into the exposed circle of your palm, closing your fist within his fingers. “Maybe, I don’t know…we can talk?”

“I can do talking,” you conceded, already hating the fact you knew you wouldn’t be utilizing the number.

It was better this way; he was better off this way.

You both parted with a kiss in the doorway. With his arms looped low around your waist in a way that felt too familiar. A way that suffocated, heart twisting at the soft smile that graced his pretty mouth when he wished you a good shift and you wished him a safe flight.

The walk home was all inward grins that flowed on your face until it hurt. Waves to random strangers passing on the street, curious gazes from onlookers at the billowing sleeves you kept shoving up into your tee shirt as you passed. Memories of the night before flashed in your mind. Of his fingers tugging the zipper on the dress, tossing your underwear alongside his on the floor, mouth on yours, hands learning the contours of your body, the way he fitted perfectly inside you.

Another time, another place, another day maybe.

And that day was not today.

Micah was sprawled across the kitchen island when you entered. You shut the door as quietly as possible behind you, only to find she’d already been awake anyway. A cup of likely long gone cold coffee rested beside her along with a bottle of painkillers, her forehead pressed against the cool tile, nursing what you imagined had to be the headache from hell.

“You’re home late,” she grumbled, pushing her head up into her hands. Blonde hair spilled around her forearms, face covered behind her palms. “I’m assuming you had a good time. Which will at least make one of us. Jere passed out as soon as we got home and snored all night.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” you apologized, stepping further into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator immediately for some water. “I…we had fun.”

“I’m going to need you to spill, because he was cute even with the mask. Don’t think I didn’t notice,” she mused, suddenly healed of her headache, what with the way she looked at you like she’d received the best news of her life.

“I accomplished exactly what I wanted to. I got my toes wet.” You shrugged, lathering some butter onto a freshly toasted bagel.

“You like him,” she screeched, making her own self wince at the sheer volume of it.

You did. You do. But those feelings would fade. Your resolve had already hardened because he wanted romance and flowers and you needed no strings. He deserved that much — he deserved so much.

“We had sex, that’s all. And he’s leaving for California in a few days. I’m never going to see him again. So it doesn’t really matter, now does it?”

——

It hadn’t felt real. For days, you’d doubted every symptom. Every inkling that might have alluded to your present condition.

First, it had been the realization that your period was late. Not even the one or two days you would have pushed aside as a result of stress, the extra hours you’d taken up at work to try and save a little money here and there for a new apartment, or your severe lack of sleep. Then, the nauseousness started. In waves, most days, and definitely not only in the mornings like you’d been led to believe your whole life. Your chest ached next; a fullness that felt unlike your normal, monthly symptoms. Chalked it up to your oncoming period. The same period by that point was nearly two weeks delayed. There was also the fact that no matter how much you slept, you’d still felt like it wasn’t enough. Found yourself dozing off at work, yawning standing in the line for groceries, losing focus while out with friends.

There was also the fact statistics were on your side. You’d done all the right things and were on birth control at the time. So it couldn’t be…that, right? Statistically improbable, unlikely, unwarranted. At least, that was what you had chosen to reassure yourself with, quieting the shouting in your skull that suggested otherwise.

It wasn’t until you were sprawled out against that obnoxiously crinkly white paper in the doctor’s office a little over a month after Halloween that you’d even allowed the thought to enter your mind. It also happened to be the first moment you wondered if you were about to have the entirety of your life changed by a night with a boy in too tight pants you’d definitely not thought about even once since you’d spent the night with him. And you most definitely didn’t picture his dark pupils expanding in the night as you rolled over him, his palms gripping your hips, your hands on his chest, heads thrown back in shared ecstasy.

No.

Not at all.

Six weeks, they told you, with sympathetic looks and uncertain smiles as you exhaled shakily and stared up at the ceiling to stop the room from spinning out of control around you. Six weeks pregnant and undoubtedly so, based on the rapid thrum of the baby’s heartbeat on the screen before you. Strong, they’d said. Perfectly healthy for someone at this point in your pregnancy. They printed pictures up for you of the tiny gummy bear with arms and you held it in trembling hands as they began to speak. Words strung together to form sentences you’d barely understood. Options for next steps, vitamins to take, habits to stop, foods to eat and foods to avoid, how much caffeine to drink, how much weight you could lift and what activities you should start to limit—your head spun with it and continued the whole quiet walk home back to Micah’s place she shared with her boyfriend, Jeremiah.

She welcomed you with open arms as you entered their apartment with a pamphlet on pregnancy in one hand and your pocketbook in the other, whimpered cries of not knowing what to do soaking through her knitted sweater. She’d accepted it without hesitation, just as she always did and would. Held you close to her chest — and hissed at Jeremiah to leave when he’d eventually poked his head in — as you processed the emotions swirling like an endless kaleidoscope in your mind.

And later, when your tears had dried and she’d plopped a freshly opened box of ice cream in your lap and demanded you eat, she asked, “Please just…tell me it’s absolutely Westley’s and not Paul’s.”

“Six weeks,” you sighed, watching her shoulders relax. There was no mistaking who the baby’s father was, and at least that brought you some comfort, “Definitely Westley’s.”

Though you weren’t sure if that made it any better.

“I just want you to know it’s going to be okay,” Micah reassured you, reaching over to rub at your forearm. But did she really know that? How could she? Because to you, it felt like the earth had fallen out of orbit, spinning dizzily now with no signs of stopping any time soon. “I know we don’t have the most space right now, but the couch turns into a futon. It’s yours until you find something otherwise, you know that.”

Telling Eddie his world was (potentially) about to change happened two weeks later. You needed some time to process, is what you’d told yourself was the reason why you’d delayed. After hours of debating, you decided to keep it, and knew that there was always the chance Eddie didn’t want kids — always the chance he’d want to pretend it never happened and that he didn’t want to be a part of its life. Regardless of what he chose, you’d set your mind on being a mother, and you’d do it alone if you had to. But he at least deserved to know; deserved the option of choosing them, even if all you’d had was a night fueled by lust, because you weren’t interested in anything more than that.

Fear had clamped your mouth shut, preventing you from forming those two words for fourteen days. Just two simple words that would have opened the dam to let in the floodgates for the conversation that needed to happen.

Eddie, I’m pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

You’d rehearsed it all afternoon, pacing a certifiable hole in the ground from how rapidly you’d moved. Had even stood in front of your friends and had them listen to it until you felt confident enough to do it for real. Gripped Micah’s hand tight as you swiped the man’s number from your pocketbook and dialed. It rang once, then twice, and you worried he wouldn’t answer or you’d caught him at a bad time when the line exploded with sound. Voices. Dozens of voices spilled through the other line, and music along with it.

You winced. “Uhm, Eddie? Is this the right number?”

A long pause extended, drowned out by guitar strings and drum beats. “Uh — uh, yeah. This is him.”

He sounded gruffer than you remembered — voice tinged with a smokier quality that seemed almost unfamiliar to you now. Not that you’d spoken much that night. Maybe he’d caught something, maybe he was sick. Maybe it was merely the weeks that had grown on since you’d seen him, and he'd become another person in the crowd already — someone you knew if only for a night. Heart pounding, you gripped Micah’s hand tighter and wound the phone wire around a pointed fingertip.

“Hi…I’m sorry I’m only calling now. Busy, you know?” A lie, because you’d never intended to call. It had been one night; that was all it was ever meant to be. “It’s the…girl from the party. The Buttercup to your Westley costume on Halloween.”

He chuckled in reply, and you wondered if maybe he was shy. He’d been looser the night you met — louder. Boisterous and passionate. Carefree and fun. But you wondered briefly if that was the glass of whiskey he’d drunk before you slipped away to his hotel room hearing him now. But you remembered that next morning, too; his splendid affection, the kissing, the exuberance of his persona, the way he’d made you fall apart around him again.

It seemed…strange now. Cut off, cold even.

“I’m…pregnant. I just —” You swallowed the knot of fear forming in the back of your throat and continued, “I just thought you should know…because it’s yours.”

There was another prolonged pause.

Nervousness welled up in your throat the longer it continued. Joined that roiling nausea that had become your friend and foe these weeks. Swallowing thickly, your fingers pressed over the span of your abdomen, over the knitted sweater and skin protecting your tiny secret — still not visible to others yet, but wholly your own all the same. You’d already decided you would love them fiercely enough for the both of you if he didn’t want anything to do with it, just so they’d never feel like they were missing out.

Then, after what felt like decades, he asked, “Who is this again?”

You repeated your name, nervousness rattling your bones, fingers trembling in Micah’s. Micah mouthed out ‘Breathe,’ even though you were doing anything but.

The line went dead, and your heart along with it.

——

let me know what you think! 🩷

#lunaloveseddie #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfiction

920 notes · View notes

owlespresso · 4 months

Text

dogged pursuit. dr veritas ratio. pt 1 of ? summary: you've been appointed as the bodyguard of one doctor veritas ratio after a failed attempt on his life. he's easy to get along with, so long as you learn when to plug your ears and focus on his washboard abs. tags. suggestive content, reader insert is a bit of a freak

—

The planet of Orchestron-IIV is a classic vacationing spot. Though it’s covered by floodplains and forests, the real attractions are its coasts and its tropical islands—a region lovingly named Sene Verde. White sand beaches stare out into the glistening waters, where the capital city sits beneath the waves. You’re sure the underwater city is a sight to see.

Pity that your client’s itinerary doesn’t include a visit to it. Instead, you’re stranded in an IPC-sponsored villa, a three-story home with three bedrooms and a pool which is ridiculously large for being right next to the ocean. Veritas, Intelligensia Guild prodigy, notorious bastard, and smoking hot piece of ass, prefers it much to the beach. He lounges next to it or inside of it, stretched underneath umbrellas or beneath the cool chlorinated waters.

You don’t really get all the complaints going around about him. He’s pretty easy to work under, as long as you follow his every command. Which, as a bodyguard, is not very many. He’s pretty capable of handling himself. He made that much painfully clear from the moment you first met. You recall, fondly, the fit he pitched after he learned you’d be shadowing him through this entire trip.

You don’t remember the specifics of what he said. Just a lot of belly-aching. You were too busy staring at his arms to really care—and that slutty little cut out on the side of his outfit. And really, what business does a scholar have wearing something so revealing? Surely, his students must be beside themselves at how distracting it is. He’d nearly wrung your neck when you posed the question, only half in jest.

Throughout the past two weeks, you’ve come to understand him better, you think. He comes from a planet where nudity isn’t that big of a deal. He wants people to know more things, and thinks it should be free for people to gain said knowledge. In the long hours you spend together, idling between his various meetings, he tries to teach you. At first, it begins with complex theorems and equations you never had any hope of solving. Then, surprisingly, he adjusted his ravings to be gentler on your poor, uneducated brain.

As big the stick up his ass is, he sticks to his principles. He always makes time to talk to you, to explain the vast mysteries of the universe in terms that you mostly understand.

“I don’t really get the wind,” you say, dropping unceremoniously onto the beach chair beside him, stretched beneath the shade of another wide umbrella. You rest your cheek on your forearm, look him up and down through half-lidded eyes. He’s wearing satin robes today. They’re milk white, with golden embroidery, little patterns stretched across the sash tied around his waist. They reach only his mid-thigh and drape over only half of his torso. The rippling muscle of his chest and taut abdomen are bare for you to admire, his nipple pebbled atop the bountiful curve of his pec.

He looks like you’ve just spat in his coffee, eyeing you exasperatedly over the tops of his sunglasses. “You don’t get the wind?”

“Like… where it comes from,” you drawl, absentmindedly dragging a finger over the course material of the chair. “I didn’t go to any fancy school growin’ up, so…”

This is your favorite game.

He purses his lips and narrows his eyes, as if contemplating if engaging with you is worth it or not. In the end, he falls prey to his own, most fervent desires: the urge to dispense knowledge and the cloying need to make his intellect known.

“Well, the basic principles would have been taught in a rather elementary course,” Veritas says, matter-of-fact, in a way that means he isn’t intentionally looking to demean you. “Wind forms due to differences in pressure within a given planet’s atmosphere. The amount of it—or whether it happens at all varies from planet to planet.” he begins—and you linger in the sound of voice rather than the words themselves. You already know the basics of what you’ve asked. You just like to hear him talk.

Because once he gets to talking, he can hardly ever stop.

Sometimes, he isn’t good at it. He’s abrasive. He agitates the IPC’s clients. You can see it in the taut pull of their shoulders, the way their lips twitch to fight their oncoming frowns. He’s too direct. He doesn’t mouth off, per say, but there’s something in his demeanor that lets them know he thinks they’re not as intelligent. It’s all tight handshakes and tight smiles in the end, but when he’s at last alone with you, shrugged off the heavy mantle of mandatory pleasantries, he fumes.

Midday has lapsed into early evening. Blue burgeons and encroaches on all the sun had once touched. The shadows grow long and the temperatures at last begin to dip, though remain balmy as you tread up the sandbar. A series of wooden staircases zigzag up the slope, leading up to your villa’s street. You trail after him as he talks—rants, really.

“They reached that conclusion based on a survey done by a prospective Genius Society member—one who doesn’t even specialize in the field!” he says with an exasperated sigh, kicking up grains of soft white sand. “He likely hasn’t even set foot upon Orchestron-IIV. How are we supposed to trust the word of a man who hasn’t even directly interacted with its native population?”

“Good point. I guess you can’t,” you agree, nodding factually. The stairs creak underfoot as you reach them, beginning the small climb up the bar. You don’t really remember the fine points of the argument—some prospective IPC investment in an underdeveloped, neighboring planet, one plagued by mysterious weather phenomena and potentially combative native populations.

“They should have consulted Aventurine before dragging me all the way out here for consultation. He would have known better than to trust such a half-baked proposition, and with such little data to back it up!” he repeated, as if in disbelief, before looking at you sharply. “Do not tell him I said that. This conversation stays between us, and us alone.”

“I like it when we keep secrets together,” you sigh dreamily, skipping up the last few steps with a flourish. The sunbleached wood creaks beneath your leather boots. He tosses you an eyeroll over his shoulder.

“I’m serious,” he fixes you with a fiercely scrutinizing look. “If he is to receive any of my praise, it will come from me, and me alone. And when I deign to give it.”

The relationship your charge has with one Aventurine should, in all respects, be of little to no interest to you. Yet, you are still human. You fall prey to petty curiosity as easily as any other. The good doctor would no doubt pitch another fit were you to pry now, so you simply guess it’s a power thing between the two of them. You don’t know Aventurine well enough to think otherwise.

“You seem awfully close to that guy,” you remark instead, testing the waters.

“We’re business partners. Nothing more, nothing less. When the IPC is in need of my expertise, it is he who they reach out through and he who I collaborate with most often,” Ratio informs you, crisp and unfeeling, like he didn’t just say something incredibly odd and potentially possessive about the individual in question.

“Mm,” you hum in assent, pretending all of that is normal. “Well, keep on your toes around him.” You reach the top of your ascent, tailing him onto the quiet streets. Most of the avenue’s occupants are likely still on the beach or further in town, enjoying the resort city’s nightlife.

Veritas looks at you, then, something sharp in his eyes. “And why would you say that?”

You tilt your head to the side as you regard him, coming into step beside him. He slows down his strides, eyes suddenly flinty, countenance withdrawn into something deliberating, defensive.

“He’s high up in the IPC, isn’t he? I wouldn’t trust any of those Stonehearts further than I can throw ‘em,” you say with a small shrug.

“And yet, here you are on their behest.” Veritas says.

“Awh, you caught me,” you give him a roguish smile, lifting your hands in a gesture of surrender. “But answer me this: does anyone really trust their employer? I’m not gonna bite the hand that feeds, but I’m not gonna love on it, either.”

“I see,” he says with a small sigh, and that strange steeliness vanishes. The taut line of his shoulders loosens and his eyes shut for a long moment.

“It helps that I like you, too. You’re real easy to work with,”

He gives you an incredibly skeptical look. “Am I?”

“Yeah. Why so surprised?” you give him a toothy grin. Even he knows how insufferable of a reputation he has. “You get fussy sometimes, but it’s not a big deal. And I like hearing you talk, so it’s not a big deal.”

“I am not ‘fussy’. I have standards befitting someone of my intellect and station,” he says, looking down his nose at you. He pauses beneath one of the street lamps as it flickers on, yellow light glimmering on all the gold bobbles attached to his ridiculous outfit. He opens his mouth to speak again, to give you another tongue-lashing, but he must realize by now that you like those, so he shakes his head and sighs instead, like you’re the difficult one. “Forget about it. I have better things to do than dawdle around with you.”

He’s still pissy from that meeting, earlier, you observe passively. Your gaze lingers on his back as he speed walks away from you, broad muscle rolling beneath taut, pale skin. Your mouth waters. You follow him.

#dr ratio/reader #dr ratio x reader #hungering for hsr #series dogged pursuit

188 notes · View notes

sodasa-was-taken · 7 months

Text

Why Suletta and Miorine's story is a romance: A Mobile Suite Gundam: The Witch from Mercury story structure analysis by Sodasa

So, I recently watched The Witch from Mercury, and I felt compelled to write an analysis of the show's use of the story structure of romances. I'm a hobbyist in the history of trends in genre fiction with a particular interest in romances. I thought it would be fun to use my area of expertise to talk about how the budding relationship between Miorine and Suletta is intertwined with the story of G-Witch.

Something particular about the romance genre is that, unlike other genres of fiction, it's mostly defined by its story structure. This means that just because a story is about two people getting together does not automatically make it a romance in the same way having magic in a story qualifies it as a fantasy. The flip side of this is that while you can't have a fantasy without fantastical elements, a romance can be put in any setting. As long as the story hits the required plot beats, it's still a romance. This makes Romance simultaneously one of the strictest and most versatile genres, as the plot can be anything as long as it ties into the main characters' developing relationship. Use this structure in a story about financial politics and mechs, and you get a story like The Witch from Mercury.

I think the show uses this structure very effectively. In my opinion, a great romance should, first and foremost, be an exploration of the part of the human condition where previous bad experiences make us reject intimacy. The romance story structure is designed to have the characters come face-to-face with their inner demons by giving them a reason to overcome them. Something that's a lot harder to pull off outside of romances, as not many things in life require us to overcome some of our deepest insecurities instead of just pushing them down.

G-Witch is a great show to use as an example of what makes a romance a romance as it follows the story structure almost to a tee, but it's also not the kind of story that most people usually think of when picturing a romance. I also believe that seeing the show through the lens of the romance structure leads to some juicy character psychoanalysis for Suletta and Miorine. I'll go over all the plot beats of a romance and explain how they apply to G-Witch and, if applicable, why I think you don't see those plot beats outside of romances. The names of the plot beats are taken from "Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels" by Gwen Hayes, which is also my primary source, along with my own extensive experience with the romance genre.

I hope someone gets something out of this. I have seen some excellent analyses and theories for this show, but they have been on things I don't know much about myself. Since the only part of story analysis I excel at is the structure of romances, I thought I'd lend my own area of expertise. I want to clarify that while I might sound matter-of-fact, this is just my opinion. I'm by no means saying that you have to think that G-Witch is a romance. I'm just arguing for why I personally consider it to be one.

#mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury #g witch #the witch from mercury #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #sulemio #suletta x miorine #honestly I had too much fun making this #I can't write an analytical essay to safe my life #but I'll write a 7500+ words media analysis just to justify calling a mecha show a romance

281 notes · View notes

prncessjaeger · 5 months

Text

ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀིྀི

“c’monnnn you can’t miss work for 3 hours? besides any other day when we’re home we’re doing…other things around this time!” you held your pink bag decorated with hand tied bows, hair tied neatly in your signature ballerina bun and adorned in pink colored high priced athletic wear, “no baby i can’t…i have an important meeting in like 30 minutes and then a very important phone call afterwards and-”

you sighed, cutting him off and rolled your eyes, walking away from him mumbling, “you always put your work before me,” and grabbed your keys, “hey, we can go out to dinner afterwards if you’d like?”

“hard pass. see you later, love you.” you left your home feeling defeated, hoping one day your husband would finally attend to one of your ballet performances and get this! you received the lead role and even that couldn’t interest him into one of your shows. so, you tried listening to spirit lifting music to get your mood ready and pumped until you reached then venue, preparing yourself for the first night.

”oh goodie! you’re dressed, are you ready? i saw a cute someone walk in here with white lilies and tulips!” your brow furrowed at the stage director’s words, “who? definitenlyyyy not my husband he’s busy with work-“ you were cut off with a sound of claps and lights dimmming down,

“it’s time! places everyone!”

જ⁀➴₊⊹ 🎀

when the last act was finished, you and your castmates bowed together receiving many flowers thrown on the stage. you went back to grab your things from the green room, noticing the other girls belongings disappear from the vanities and sighed, wondering if you should’ve taken up the dinner idea with your husband.

your husband, who scared the absolute shit out as he sat in your vanity chair and smirks at you, “what in the world are you-” he puts his finger on your lip? shush-ing you quickly, “hi my love! beautiful show you out in out there? absolutely beautiful.” he rose up and hugged your shocked figure, “what’re you-…how did you-?”

“ehh pulled a few strings, rescheduled some other things .” he shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world, “but you said…?”

“that i couldn’t come? yeah i genuinely could not have came, but that doesn’t mean i wouldn’t have came either, c’mon this is your first lead role and you’d think i would’ve missed it? crazy.” he leaned down and peck your plump lips that were pouted, twice and handing you two sets of gorgeous white flowers, “tulips and lilies, your faves unless you changed them in the span of 4 hours hm?”

“n-no, i didn’t- these are beautiful baby! but, are you sure I looked beautiful onstage?” your eyes sparkle from your subtle glitter eye makeup, warming up your husbands heart, “yes, stunning even… in fact,” his hands removed your bag and belongings from your shoulders, sitting them down neatly on the floor and wrapped his arm around your waist and his hand cupped your jaw.

he stared at you lovingly, engulfing you into a passionate kiss and held you tenderly in your arms. your lips moved perfectly against his as his thumb caressed your cheek. he then kissed your exposed neck so soft to the point that it tickled which caused cute giggles to leave your mouth, “what’s funny?”

“nothing-hehehe, nothing baby look how about we go to that dinner you recommended earlier?” you could see his face fall, “you said no earlier or wait- it was actually, “hard pass” so i canceled it.” he mocked you then flinched when your hand raised to hit him, “fine…takeout?”

“takeout it is.”

278 notes · View notes

hypnoticmoth · 1 month

Text

Some ramblings about the version of Vox I draw/write for my AUs, stories (and RP). It's a mixture of headcanons/canon/AU, putting it under a read more so you can skip if that ain't your cup of tea ~

I HC him as transmasc if you couldn't tell yet with some of my art ~ When he arrived in Hell, though, he didn't yet identify as male (lived in life as a woman). He dressed masculine because he thought it would be easier for him to achieve stuff. And he just eventually realized he felt more comfortable with that identity.

His body is an awful amalgamate of artificial and organic fused together. He bleeds both blood and coolant and other mechanical fluids if injured.

His head isn't a part of his body that can regenerate. The TV he uses starts off as a normal one, but once he connects to it, its properties change. Like the rest of his body it gets invaded by organic material. The screen is a solid surface but can disperse when he opens his mouth (which is another can of worms

His vision is tied to the type of TV he uses as a head. Black and white TV means black and white vision, grainy and desaturated colors screen means the same for his vision, ect

Changing his head is not a pleasant experience in the slightest.

His bent antenna is self inflicted after Valentino got his own antenna burnt in an Extermination saving his ass. He felt guilty Val got permanently injured and did this so mothman wouldn't feel alone and bad (he did feel bad)

This injury is what brought his glitches/seizures whenever he gets too emotional.

Vark is a gift from Valentino to Vox (and was trained as a service dog in case Vox glitches out when Val isn't there)

He didn't call himself Vox for his first few years in Hell. His name only came about later.

His very first Extermination happened only two weeks after he arrived in Hell. Man had no idea what the fuck was going on and after his screen got smashed in the chaos, played dead for the remaining how many hours left of it.

Valentino was a prominent name in Pentagram, and Vox saw his chance to ally himself with someone powerful. He was the one to seek out the other.

When he allied with Valentino, he was on good terms with Alastor. The two had disagreements about the place of technology in Hell and how it could be used to further their control over the masses, but they got along. Vox had decided to do his thing on the side to prove Alastor he was right. His idea was that once he'd proven his point, Alastor would come to him to stay allied (it didn't happen shkshksh)

The beginning of Val and Vox's partnership (as in business) was rocky. Vox was very reserved and Val was temperamental, leading the two to often have angry matches. It wasn't helped by the fact Val also made physical advances towards him but Vox "ignored" them because he felt insecure about being a trans man (and thought Val would think lesser of him)

Val and Vox started their relationship because Val caught Vox watching him on camera like the little freak he is.

Vox was the one to recruit Velvette. Valentino didn't like her at first, feeling jealous as the Vees were just him and Vox for the longest time (and he wanted Vox's attention on him and him only)

Velvette isn't in a relationship with the other two. They're friends/have familial like bonds. She's, however, in a relationship with Verosika (i saw art of these two and my heart is forever changed) There's a lot more but i don't feel like boring everyone who wanted to read this already hskjsgkjsg, maybe i'll expand on some points another time. Don't be afraid to trade ideas, i'm always happy to discuss o7

#hazbin hotel #hazbin vox #hazbin hotel headcanon #not art

88 notes · View notes

aspoonofsugar · 1 month

Text

Netflix Decameron: Love's Got Long Claws

I have watched Netflix Decameron together with @hamliet and I loved it a lot! I did not have high expectations, but the series was fun, entertaining and had a very strong thematic heart. So strong, in fact, that it is wonderful to explore!

So, here comes this meta, which shares a very similar thesis to hamliet's own analysis: Netflix Decameron is a story about love.

IN THE NAME OF LOVE (AND CLASSISM)

The Netflix series is loosely inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron, a masterpiece of Italian literature. It is a collection of 100 short stories, told by 3 noble boys and 7 noble girls during the time of the pestilence in Florence (1348). The group runs away from the city and finds a refuge in the countryside. There they spend ten days (aka decameron) telling each other stories on different topics. The main theme is how the group keeps society alive through their shared rules, even in a time of suffering and chaos. The 100 short stories (the real focus of the work) showcase a world that is getting lost through the pandemic. They also bring to the table many other themes, like religion and love.

Netflix takes this premise and explores the same themes in a different way. Specifically, it imagines new plots and adventures for the members of the group, who are named after some of the original protagonists, but are given new characterizations.

To be precise:

Licisca, Tindaro, Stratilia, Misia and Sirisco are called after the nobles' servants. Here, they all become protagonists.

Filomena, Neifile, Panfilo, Pampinea and Dioneo are called after five of the protagonists of Boccaccio's Decameron.

Two things are interesting about this.

First of all, in the series, like in the original, we have 10 protagonists. However, the original has all the group made of nobles. The series instead chooses to have 5 nobles and 5 servants, so that it can tackle the theme of classism.

Secondly, the names of the 10 protagonists of the Decameron are all meaningful. They describe the characters' personality and the kind of stories they are gonna tell. Well, all the (noble) names the series chooses to keep do the same:

Pampinea means "flourishing" - that is a comical inversion as Pampinea is old and fears her age will ruin her chances to get married

Neifile means "new lover" - that fits with Neifile being sexually inexperienced and repressed

Dioneo means dissolute - this ties with the character's love for sex and edonism

Filomena means "lover of songs" or "the one who is loved"

Panfilo means "lover of all"

Isn't there an interesting pattern? All the names tie one way or another with love. That is perfect for a story whose main topic is, in fact, love. Not only that, but especially Filomena and Panfilo's names turn out to be pretty meaningful for the thematic role of the two characters (we'll see it through this analysis).

In synthesis, the series explores love and classism. Let's see how.

LOVE HAS MORE THAN ONE DIMENSION

Love has many dimensions. There is romantic love, platonic love, familial love and even toxic love. The series explores all these different relationships. In particular, it focuses on five bonds:

Licisca and Filomena's sisterhood

Neifile and Panfilo's sexless marriage

Pampinea and Misia's toxic relationship

Tindaro's unrequired love for Stratilia

Filomena and Misia's romantic love

The first three are platonic and they get consistent spotlight throughout the series. The last two are romantic and they develop in the second part of the story. I would say the first three are the key dynamics, but the other two are relevant, as well. Let's go deeper.

FILOMENA AND LICISCA: FAMILIAL LOVE

Filomena: What's the point in having family if you can't have their unconditional love?

Filomena and Licisca are master and servant, but they also share a strong bond of sisterhood, which is later revealed to be not only spiritual, but biological, as well. Licisca, thus, is Filomena's father daughter, hence they are half-sisters. The problem is that this bond of mutual love is made complicated by their different social classes. This is shown in their introduction:

Filomena: But you and I could've snuck off together to, I don't know, hug goats, or whatever they do in the countryside. Or at night, if I couldn't sleep, you'd have told me stories in the kitchen. Or rubbed my feet.

Filomena clearly enjoys Licisca's company to the point she can't imagine a happy future without her. In a sense, she thinks of herself and Licisca as a unit, always together. However, she is also self-centered and shows Licisca no appreciation nor consideration for her suffering.

Things start changing after Licisca accidentally pushes Filomena off a bridge. This results in a chain of events that ends with the two sisters exchanging roles. Now Licisca is the master and Filomena is the servant. This experience helps Filomena reflect on herself, so that she can become less selfish:

Filomena: I'm terrible, but... I'm getting better, aren't I? And I'm your sister. Okay, okay, I know that didn't use to mean anything, but it does now. Just... give me a chance.

Specifically, she starts being more honest with Licisca. She revelas Licisca's origin and that their father forced her to hide it. She also confesses that she lied to Licisca about their father's death, so that they could leave Florence and save themselves. Licisca doesn't take these revelations well and lashes out at Filomena:

Licisca: I have had, in my whole life, two days away from you. The day when I pushed you off a bridge, and the next day when I came here, and... and boys liked me, and I did what I wanted, and everybody treated me like a human being. And then, there you are at the door, dragging me back into servitude. I should not have pushed you off that bridge. I should have cut off your fucking head.

Licisca wants to free herself not only from servitude, but from all bonds:

Licisca: When the sun breaks, I'm gonna walk away from the bonds of it all. I'm going at all this alone. Independence is the greatest luxury. I'm gonna take it all for myself. Doesn't that sound divine?

But she is called out on this mentality:

Tindaro: The most divine thing in the world is having someone worth loving.

In the end, Licisca realizes she still loves Filomena and saves her. The two sisters survive and start a new chapter together, as equals and family. Their last interaction seals their newfound love and conveys the main theme:

Licisca: I love you, in spite of myself. Filomena: I love you more, in spite of nothing.

A love, which is mutual and unconditional. A love that withstands the person's flaws. A love that lets nothing, not even the world, get in the way.

NEIFILE AND PANFILO: SPIRITUAL LOVE

Neifile: Don't you love me as I am? Panfilo: Of course I love you. You're my partner... and my friend... and my wife.

Panfilo and Neifile share unconditional love. They love each other, as they are. Neifile loves Panfilo, even if he is a homosexual and a liar. Panfilo loves Neifile, despite her oddities that often put her in trouble. They are life partners, but they are so platonically. For both the sexual dimension is important. Neifile's repressed sexual desire consumes her and makes her suffer. Panfilo finds outlets to his sexuality through different lovers. However, they find in each other something that makes their marriage worth it. They do not regret it:

Neifile: I bet you could have had him. I think he enjoys men. Panfilo: You could have had my brother too, if you'd wanted. Neifile: Guidotto was a little skinny for me, but I would have wanted. Panfilo: So, what shall we do today? Neifile: I just want to talk... about everything.

Theirs is a spiritual love, which is the purest and most beautiful in the series. They complement each other:

Neifile is heart, as she has a fervent faith and a pure and childlike approach to things

Panfilo is mind, as he is smart, deceitful and good at navigating society and at coming up with plans

Neifile shares her heart and sense of wonder with Panfilo, while Panfilo takes care of Neifile. As the story progresses, though, their complementarity grows deeper. This ties with their religious motif:

Neifile: I'm testing God. If he really has not abandoned me, he will not let me perish in a well. He will rescue me somehow, and that will be a sign. Panfilo: Darling... What if I'm the sign? Neifile: Come on, you're not the sign. You're my husband and you love me. Of course you would try to save me. That wouldn't prove anything.

Neifile falls into a well and wants God to save her to prove his love for her. That is why, she refuses Panfilo's help. Panfilo, however, ends up paying Dioneo to save her. He rescues her, but he also tricks her.

This lie kickstarts Neifile's crisis of faith, which is mirrored in her relationship with her husband getting strained. It all culminates in a fight with Panfilo and in Neifile choosing to spend the night with Ruggiero. In this way, Neifile is finally able to satiate her sexual desires, but she also ends up falling ill with the plague. Before her death, she reconciles with Panfilo and shares with him her newfound faith:

Panfilo: Well, I guess I never really believed in God. Neifile: I've not always been entirely sure of the fellow myself. Panfilo: Really? Neifile: I never found the answers, exactly. I tried so hard. I searched everywhere. But I've come to believe that finding the answers was never really the point. I got to ask the questions with you by my side.

Neifile reaches the conclusion that God lives in the people she loves and that love her back. So, it turns out the love of God Neifile has been looking for is nothing, but Panfilo's love. Panfilo is indeed the sign. His love for Neifile is an extension of God's love.

Panfilo: Father, I know I said I wasn't sure about you... but I will take any mercy you can bestow. Any meager crumb. I can't... bear this grief... this anger... this guilt. Help me. Neifile, help me.

Panfilo isn't sure God exists, but when Neifile dies, he prays. His prayer starts with him speaking with God and it ends with him asking Neifile for help. The meaning is clear. Neifile is Panfilo's true faith. She is his link to the spiritual and to the best version of himself:

Panfilo: I think I'm some sharp mind. Clever. But I'm not, I'm nothing. I'm nothing without you. Neifile: My Panfilo, you are as clever as you think. You see with eyes so clear. Trust them. Trust yourself.

Panfilo's arc is about discarding the mask he wears to fit into society and to find his real self:

Andreoli: Whatever you desired before, whoever you were, I'd wager that it doesn't much matter anymore. I've seen 1000 doorsteps, watched high-born women carry children to unmarked graves, peasants sieging whole castles. If the pestilence has shown us anything, it's that we're to choose the parts of ourselves we wish to keep and the parts we wish to throw away.

He must give up his lies and his illusions to face the truth of life:

Panfilo: I lied to her at the end and she could tell. And we had just promised no more lies. And it made her so scared. And she went so scared. Andreoli: What do you want me to tell ya? Panfilo: The truth. Andreoli: Panfilo, it's awful and you will never recover. Panfilo: This is awful and I'll never recover. Yes. Yes. That's the truth of it.

And in the end, the part of himself Panfilo doesn't want to discard, the truest truth about life turns out to be his love for Neifile.

Neifile and Panfilo start the series loving each other, but also living in lies. They end it by realizing their love for each other is the only truth they need.

PAMPINEA AND MISIA: SUFFOCATING LOVE

Pampinea: Misia, the way you love me... you... you love me no matter what I do. That's the greatest gift I've ever known.

Pampinea and Misia are another example of unconditional love. It is just that theirs is negative. That is not only because it is not mutual, but also because one side takes advantage of the other:

Filomena: Misia! This woman cares only about herself and how you can advance her interests. When you fail in any way, she pretends you have fallen out of her heart. Then she smiles and allows you to, just this once, earn your way back in. And for a while she's gleeful. And you're gleeful because she's gleeful. But she is only gleeful because she knows her system works.

Pampinea is Misia's master and she uses Misia as a weapon to further her interests. Her abuse starts with Pampinea ignoring Misia's grief for her lover Parmena and it culminates in her weaponizing this grief to manipulate Misia into killing a person.

As a result of this constant mistreatment, Misia ends up growing more and more desperate to free herself until this desire turns into a refusal to help Pampinea and an attempt to switch sides. And yet, Pampinea is so rooted in Misia's mind that she falters:

Filomena: She is so deep in your brain. You will never stop loving her, will you?

And finds herself with no other option, but to kill Pampinea to free herself:

Pampinea: I will never let you go as long as I live. Misia: I've come to know that that's the truest truth.

Misia starts her arc by smuggling her ill girlfriend by using a barrell. She ends it, but putting Pampinea into a barrell and burning her alive. She buries two loves, so that she can start anew.

The choice of fire as the cause of Pampinea's death isn't by chance. As a matter of fact early on Sirisco tries to burn Pampinea by accusing her of witchcraft. This happens after Pampinea accuses Stratilia of the same thing. Well, Sirisco fails, but Misia succeeds, reiterating that Pampinea's final demise is a consequence of the woman's inability to love.

Her bond with Misia is, in fact, a foil to:

Licisca and Filomena's bond

Tindaro and Dioneo's bond

In all three relationships, the servant has to put up with their master's tantrums, until they explode and try to kill them. Still, Licisca and Filomena eventually work things out and start anew. Dioneo and Tindaro do not, as Dioneo dies. However, Tindaro forgives his servant and properly grieves him. They do reconcile in death. Pampinea and Misia never reconcile. Not only that, but Misia is the only servant that successfully kills her master.

That is because Pampinea is loveless:

Ruggiero: All you crave is love. But you've nevet gotten it, and you'll never get it.

She is loveless, not because she can't find love, but because she doesn't give it nor understand it. She is in fact given love multiple times:

Misia is loyal and loves her deeply (platonic love)

Sirisco is attracted to her and falls for her (romantic love)

Still, Pampinea mistreats and pushes both away because she pursues an idealized love that doesn't exist:

Pampinea: Misia! Leonardo is my one true love. He's the only thing that matters to me. I thought you might understand that, since you had to leave that girl behind. Misia: Her name was Parmena. Pampinea: Oh, Misia. I understand your pain now. That must indeed be what's clouding your judgement. Now, don't show your face to me until you've found the Misia that I need.

She falls for an imaginary husband, who loves her perfectly. Still, love isn't perfect. It is complicated, contradictory and has claws. You can't experience it, if you do not accept imperfection. You can't experience it, if you yourself do not love selflessly.

TINDARO AND STRATILIA: UNREQUITED LOVE

Tindaro is a foil to Pampinea, in how they are both men-children, who want love, but they are so insufferable they find themselves alone. Specifically, Tindaro is a third son who inherited a fortune after his siblings' death. So, he finds himself surrounded by flatterers he despises. At the same time, he is a hypochondriac buffoon who alienates everyone with his arrogance and stupidity. Still, Tindaro gets called out:

Stratilia: Your life is unfair? You've never wanted for anything excepts the affections of anyone, any person, since spending time with you is exhausting and boring all at once. Being near you is hell. No wonder Dioneo poisoned you.

Licisca: You loved her well, but you loved her wrong.

Both Stratilia and Licisca point out his flaws and he starts improving. This growth shows in his devotion to Stratilia, the character, who manages to heal him both physically and pshychologically:

She is the one who realizes Dioneo has been poisoning him and the one who gives him real medicine for once

She is the one Tindaro falls for and through her love for her he realizes his own privilege and becomes more selfless

Tindaro starts the story as a coward, forever scared for his own health. A loser, who wishes glory, but has no skill nor bravery to gain it. He ends the series by fighting despite a severe wound to protect Stratilia and her son Jacopo. By doing so he becomes the best version of himself.

His ending is in stark contrast with Pampinea's one. He dies as an adult protecting a child. She dies as a child, with Misia singing her a lullabye. The main difference between them, however, is rooted in their different takes on love. Pampinea wants love without loving. Tindaro instead accepts to love without being loved back:

Tindaro: You don't love me. Your love is not required by my love. I know that you have been given little and had much taken away. Is that true? I only ask that you let me give you what I can, what I have. It isn't much now, but do me the honor.

Tindaro's love for Stratilia is one-sided, but his love doesn't really require Stratilia's. It is perfect as it is because it lets Tindaro grow and experience life to its fullest.

FILOMENA AND MISIA: ROMANTIC LOVE

Filomena is another important foil to Pampinea. She is a selfish noble woman, who deep down resents societal rules that force her into an unhappy marriage in exchange for her safety. She is also lonely and craving for love:

Filomena: I meet an eligible noble, he buys me a castle, I'm never alone again.

But she is so self-centered she doesn't notice the love Licisca offers her:

Licisca: Me! You had me! We were friends until our twelfth year, when for some unknown reason, you cut off my hair in the third feast of Michaelmas.

Still, she is able to see and to appreciate the bond she forges with Misia:

Filomena: I have a real friend there. Misia. My one friend that I finally made. My very first friend.

Thanks to this bond, she is able to reflect on her privilege:

Filomena: When the pestilence ends, you can come and live with me in Firenze.

Misia: As your servant? Filomena: As my... friend. I don't think I wans servants anymore.

And herself:

Filomena: Yes, Misia, yes! I know this (the way Paminea manipulates Misia) because I am this! (Looking at Licisca) Or I was this.

Through her relationship with Misia, Filomena is saved and saves:

She initially wants Pampinea's help to reclaim her identity and gain the love of Ruggiero, a family member. She believes the people she belongs to are the nobles, but she is soon let down. Pampinea ignores her and Ruggiero almost kills her. She is saved only thanks to Misia's plead and Licisca admitting the truth about her identity. Misia is her true friend and Licisca is her true family.

She symbolically helps Misia, another version of Licisca, and saves her from Pampinea, a darkest version of herself.

Despite this progress, Filomena still misses what love is really about:

Filomena: Licisca hates me. You should hate Pampinea. Why don't you hate Pampinea?

She believes Licisca hates her and thinks Misia can escape years of toxic love easily. She has a simplistic vision of how relationships work and is called out by both Misia and Licisca:

Misia: You've spent about a month as a servant and you think you are so changed. Yet, no. You only see one side of a person at a time. No history baked in. Love has more than one dimension. Love has long claws. But I guess that you wouldn't understand anything about that, would you?

Licisca: I'd like to see you love anyone that isn't you.

As a result, she finds herself alone and scared. Loveless. Until Licisca comes and saves her:

Filomena: Licisca, you saved me again. Licisca: Yeah, you dumb bitch. Love's got long claws.

She repeats Misia's words. Love got long claws and it isn't as easily broken. Immediately after, Misia appears and confirms to Filomena she has finally fred herself. She is choosing Filomena over Pampinea.

Thanks to Misia, Filomena manages to relate to Licisca and works to repair their bond. Thanks to Licisca, Filomena understands Misia better and finally realizes what love is about. As a result, Filomena becomes the only survivor, who gets both familial (Licisca) and romantic (Misia) love. A perfect ending for a character, whose name means "the one who is loved". By the end she is truly beloved.

RUGGIERO: CHAOS AND FREEDOM

Love is the primary theme of the series, whereas classism is its secondary theme. The characters have to free themselves from classism and social rules, if they want to grow. That is why the character of Ruggiero appears. He embodies both chaos and freedom. He is violent and a brute. However, he also brings to light the characters' flaws:

Ruggiero: Oh, what a fascinating little assemblage this is. Liars, impostors, poisoners, flatterers. A gang of miscreants hiding out in my cousin's house in his absence.

Moreover, in his short screentime, he changes everything. He destroys all the barriers, transforms everyone's dynamics and brings both death and freedom. In a sense, he is the perfect embodyment of the pestilence itself. Something that destroys. Something that brings the chance for a new beginning.

Because of him:

Filomena and Licisca reveal their identities and the sisters are forced to work on their bond

Panfilo's family being ruined comes out

Leonardo's death comes to light

Tindaro is laughed at and ends up looking for some comfort in Stratilia, which kickstarts his arc

Neifile is fred from her sexual desires and is finally able to satisfy them

Dioneo dies marking the first casualty among the main characters

Most importantly, Ruggiero conveys this idea:

Ruggiero: My fate is the same as yours, which is the same as Stecchi's and Bruno's, Lorenzo's, all my friends, all my enemies.

He highlights how death can come for anybody, servant or noble alike. So, one should try to live their life to the fullest. The two characters that are challenged the most by this revelation are Pampinea and Panfilo.

Both go to Villa Santa to escape reality:

Pampinea: Let us make a rule, shall we? We are here to eat and drink and move into a bright new future. We shall have no more of this pestilence talk. It does not suit our time here.

Panfilo: We've all suffered great loss at the hands of the pestilence, but that is why we deserve this respite in an idyllic safe heaven. We're on holiday! Remember?

They live in lies. Pampinea finds comfort in her imaginary version of Eduardo, while Panfilo hides his sexuality from Neifile and his economical condition from the other guests. Both are scheming and try to obtain the villa by making use of societal rules. Pampinea stages a fake marriage. Panfilo tries to dethrone her by calling Ruggiero. Except that the world around them is changing. They can't rely on the same philosophy from the past. That is why their rivalry to ingratiate themselves to Ruggiero and claim the villa isn't solved by them offering him money. It is solved through a test.

Ruggiero forces both to face the truth about themselves.

He tells Pampinea point-blank everyone hates her. Not because of her age, nor her body, but because of her personality:

Ruggiero: Look at how everyone in the villa despises you. And I'm sure much was the same in Firenze. Every man that met you saw instantly what a slim-hipped, clenching little shrew you are and ran.

He forces Panfilo to address his problems with Neifile:

Ruggiero: You know I had sex with her, right? Does that not bother you?

After being told the truth, Pampinea spirals. She has the chance to show love for the only person who selflessly cares about her, that is Misia. Initially, she appears to do so, by finally showing empathy for Parmena's death. However, it turns out it is all a scheme to manipulate Misia into killing Ruggiero for her.

When Panfilo is forced to express his true feelings to Neifile, he manages to convey how much he cares for her. This impresses Ruggiero, who accepts to give the couple the villa. After this, Panfilo promises Neifile never to lie again. He fails, but he still learns the importance of truth and makes a step towards who he wants to be.

Pampinea fails to grow and stays attached to her schemes and to material goods. That is why by the end she finds herself alone and forced to eat her own jewels.

Panfilo grows and lets go of material attachmens. That is why by the end he finds comfort in comraderie and dies as a hero.

SIRISCO AND STRATILIA: SOCIAL CLIMBING

After Ruggiero comes to the villa, the equilibrium shatters and new power dynamics have the chance to impose themselves. Among these, there are two attempts of social climbing:

Sirisco chooses to lead a group of peasants to the villa, so that they can all find food and rule the villa together, as a community.

Stratilia decides to claim the ownership of the villa, as her son Jacopo is the only heir of Eduardo. In this way, she wants to give her son a better future.

Both Sirisco and Stratilia start with noble intentions, but they quickly spiral into parodies of the despotic Pampinea.

Sirisco is so focused on his idea to give humble people power, that he fails to notice his comrades do not really want it. All the countrymen want is some food, so that they can survive. They are not interested in noble games, nor into killing Pampinea nor into owning a villa. However, Sirisco keeps ordering them around and becomes just as controlling and obessive as his ex-lover.

Stratilia is tired of being mistreated and wants justice for her and Jacopo. However, things have changed and her authority in the villa amounts to nothing in the face of the mercenaries' violence. So, all she can do is really steal some of Pampinea's clothes and loosely imitate her mannerisms.

The message is clear. By the end of the story any social obligation is hopelessly destroyed. So, all that's left are love-made bonds. Because love ties. Love has long claws.

LICISCA AND PANFILO: LOVE IS A BURDEN

Licisca and Panfilo have parallels and inverted arcs, which are highlighted by comparing the first episode with the last one.

In the first episode, Licisca kills Cardinal Agnolo and tells Panfilo they are all going to die, so she will do as she pleases:

Licisca: You know we're all gonna die, right? I assure you we are, and sooner than you think. So I appreciate your concern, but I'm gonna do what I like in the time I have left.

In the last episode, Panfilo kills Eric in a similar way and tells Licisca she should do as she wants:

Panfilo: You wanna leave this place, right? Free yourself of her. Go be a lady. Or a whore. Or a street clown. Or anybody you want. In the end, love is burden.

Their behaviors are the result of grief:

Filomena: You act with such freedom, detached from earth. Aren't you afraid of death? Licisca: Ever since Eduardo died, I'm not afraid. I loved him, but as such, was bound to him. And when he was gone, so were the bindings. And now, it's... I feel like I can see... the other side of everything. The stillness and the peace in death. And this side... this is hell. And if I left this side, what would I even be leaving behind?

Licisca: Is this grief? Panfilo: Either freedom or insanity. Either way, it is something profoundly felt by me. We're about to die. Makes you want to lean your chin in for that final punch. Licisca: Do you wanna die? Panfilo: Don't you wanna be free? What's here for you anyway?

Both Licisca and Panfilo have lost their family and feel at the same time free and desperate. They are not binded anymore, but this also means they have no reason to truly live. That is why they help each other find some meaning again.

Panfilo acts as a dark mirror to Licisca. By talking with him, she confronts the part of herself, who wishes to burn everything and die. She realizes that isn't the right path and that she still has family in Filomena. So, she chooses to save her with Panfilo's help:

Licisca: I'm going to save her. Panfilo: I understand.

Licisca inspires Panfilo to take one final stand, by pointing out what they should all fight for:

Licisca: Besides, you know, each other... what is actually worth fighting for here?

Panfilo has embraced nihilism, but Licisca's words and the view of so many people loving each other and wanting to live lead him to choose his love for Neifile one last time:

Panfilo: Darling... I need your help. I can't seem to die without you.

Both Licisca and Panfilo choose bonds and lover over freedom and nichilism. It is just that Licisca does so by living, whereas Panfilo does so by dying.

PANFILO, THE ONE WHO LOVES ALL

Panfilo's final sacrifice is the conclusion to his and Neifile's arc, his final celebration of his wife and a beautiful exploration of the theme of love in its selfless and purest form. It is the perfect final for the climax and it is prepared since episode one. As a matter of fact the first episode foreshadows the last one. There a small group of criminals guided by a disgraced cardinal invades the villa. Here an army of mercenary led by a corrupted cult assaults the protagonists. There, Cardinal Agnolo brings the pestilence in and is welcomed by fear and eventually killed by Licisca. Here, Neifile's buttered body is used by Panfilo as a weapon to let the others escape.

More importantly, Cardinal Agnolo sets up Neifile's role in the finale:

Cardinal Agnolo: After the horrors I have seen, I now know the truth. God, he has abandoned us. Neifile, you were always such a pure child. A holy child.

Cardinal Agnolo's speech is important for two reasons:

After witnessing the horrors of the pestilence he loses his faith and gives in to violence and criminality. He embodies the idea God has abandoned humanity.

He calls Neifile a holy child.

Well, in the end Neifile is a holy child, in the sense she is symbolic of Christian love. She dies, but through her death she saves the others. As a matter of fact Panfilo uses her body against the members of the fake cult. Neifile's death brings life. Once again, this happens thanks to her and Panfilo's strong bond, which confirms itself as symbolic of God's love for humanity.

Neifile has a crisis of faith like Agnolo and even dies full of doubts and fear. However, she never gives up love and what she can't accomplish alone, Panfilo does for her. She dreams of witnessing a miracle. Well, she eventually becomes the miracle as she is the only reason a bunch of innocents survive. Panfilo's love for her is so strong that not only he chooses to die with her, but he gives her death meaning in a final celebration of her life.

Panfilo himself is able to save everybody else because of his strong feelings for Neifile, which opened his eyes to the truth:

Andreoli: She is dead. And your loss does not make you unique. We have all suffered. I have delivered the message of death a hundred times. And I am, but one handsome messanger.

Panfilo's loss is terrible, but it does not make him unique. He is told so by Andreoli and is shown so when everyone gathers together to grieve Neifile. Panfilo shares his feelings of pain and loss and is met with empathy and understanding. Neifile is the channel through whom everyone can grieve their loved ones. Because everyone suffered and because Neifile herself embodies love. Through this moment Panfilo is shown that everyone is the same, both in death and in life. This is why in the end he chooses to make one final big gesture, so that everyone can survive. In this way, he makes one final act of selfless pure love. Not only towards Neifile, but towards all of humanity. That is why Panfilo's name means "the one who loves all".

AN INVERSED DECAMERON

Boccaccio's Decameron has a group of nobles telling each other short stories in a country villa. Netflix Decameron has that same group of nobles try to escape in a fantasy world and being forced to confront reality. By the end, the nobles all die (with the exception of Filomena) and the story ends with a group of servants telling each other short stories in a cave. Not only that, but each character embodies a different kind of love:

Sirisca and Filomena (sisterhood)

Stratilia and Jacopo (parent and child)

Filomena and Misia (romantic)

Sirisco (community)

These characters start the story having nothing and they end it having freedom and each other. And somehow that is the only thing that matters.

#decameron netflix #panfilo #neifile #licisca #filomena #pampinea #misia #tindaro #stratilia #sirisco #my meta

74 notes · View notes

cl-0v3r · 2 months

Text

Okay this is gonna be super rushed and probably have alot of mistakes but I need this out of my system so it will most likely be like half a shitpost !!!

When i think of Jinx and Mel at a flat level, i assume that they are very different from eachother, there is no personal connection between the two at all, they don't even know eachother and they both have very different roles in the show, not to mention the difference in demeanor and character as well.

But Arcane, a show full of parallels, always knows how to connect each of its characters to one another somehow, I find it amazing that you can find so many similarities despite their vast differences even if it was the most subtle thing ever, its like the tiniest bits of detail SCREAM at you.

One of my favorite (and most obvious) things about Mel and Jinx is the fact that they speak of their past THROUGH THEIR ART, I don't think I really need to go ahead and dissect this to the last atom since it's already very clear what their drawings mean to them and to the story, but they prefer to cope with their trauma by painting/making things that remind them of the past or has a relation to it, there is ALWAYS a piece (or pieces) of art about something that continues to HAUNT them to this day, for Jinx its "doodles" of the hallucinations of Mylo, Claggor & Vi who are almost everywhere she is, as for Mel its the bloody necklace thats hung above her head and over her bed alongside the painting of the immortal bastion to remind her about "home".

Whats even crazier is the fact that their art is also tied to the people who cast them out from their family, Powder before this was always called a Jinx ESPECIALLY by Mylo and she was considered weak and unable to handle things like the others, leading her to change and become somebody new after they left, sound a little familiar? Because Mel was also considered weak, sentimental, too soft to be a Medarda E S P E C I A L L Y by Ambessa at a young age, and what happened after? Gone. Afterwards, they find themselves in a new place where people "look up to them" or they're seen as someone with higher importance.

And I've spoken a bit about the visual similarities in an earlier post, but we gotta appreciate their attitudes towards their "parental" figures, I don't know why but its funny to see how much sass they throw at them, its what inspired this post actually. Maybe its just the satisfaction of seeing my two least favorite characters get the same honest reaction I have by my favorite characters 😭

They're both tired of their shit and its the best thing to ever exist.

Let's not forget how they both got genuinely angry at them as well? Jinx snatching Silcos injection from his hands and being pissed at him for lying to her about everyone being dead, while Mel slapped the goblet out of Ambessas hand, upset that she played with Jayce unrightfully so.

The color and design differences is a beautiful parallel too, Jinx is often surrounded by cold or dark colors like Blue, Green, black with a hint of purple and pink and dressed like her personality, while Mel is more light & Warm-toned with yellow/gold, red, white and a wee bit of black which is all matching to her Elegance. This is just a general parallel between characters of Zaun and Piltover overall, but its always very appealing when you compare them together.

And finally, its them completely letting go of their past selves and starting out new literally by the last episode after struggling with who they are the whole time, Powder was officially gone by the end of the season, and Mel was no longer Medarda. Jinx is just Jinx, Mel is just Mel, and they are both going to do things their own way and that was shown with how Mel took off her ring and painted over the Immortal Bastion with gold , and how Jinx launched her rocket towards the council with her own art on it too.

Its funny to think that thats the only physical connection they could possibly have and that its related to their character arcs, its related to them making a new big decision, it has a strong relation to their art, and a strong relation to them saying goodbye to their family.

Hope this made sense !!!!!!!! I honestly just want them to like idk hug or something and go to loo loo land and paint together or whatever in a different universe and cope with their shared trauma together no fuss no muss. Fanfic writers where did you go y'all are missing out on this super mega awesome cool older&younger sister / mother-daughter duo.

#mel medarda #mel arcane #arcane #jinx arcane #jinx #parallels #ambessa medarda #arcane silco #silco and jinx #Mel and ambessa

71 notes · View notes

lestappenforever · 8 months

Note

So, I’m like a realist, right? Sure, yes, I ship people from time to time but I know it’s just for funsies. So, I saw a lestappen edit last week and was like “hey cute guys, what’s up with these two? I better check it out.” and have fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole it seems. So I’m back in the real world now, where Max is in a long term relationship and Charles has a girlfriend, and am wondering: how does one explain Max’s behaviour? Does he just have a friend-crush on Charles? Has he always wanted to be friends with him since they were young and it was just hard since they’ve been rivals for so long? Does he envy him maybe since his father wasn’t a pos and he still turned into a great driver? Is it a “it’s lonely at the top” kind of situation, where he’s never been able to make many friends his own age? (I’ve seen Charles with a bunch of friends outside of racing, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Max with any, but that could be on me.) I mean, a blind person could see that Max takes every opportunity to talk to him or be close to him and he knows stuff about him I’d personally be too embarrassed to admit (like getting his “stupid” quote exactly right or knowing about the twitch thing with his girlfriend forgetting her keys, etc.). I guess I’m looking for the actual non-shippy explanation for this behaviour cause it fascinates me. What are your two cents on this?

Hi anon, and welcome to the world of Lestappen! We're happy to have you. ❤️

I will preface this by saying that shipping is solely for fun, and I don't actually believe Max and Charles are in a secret relationship or anything of the sort. The majority of Lestappen shippers on Tumblr are on the same page about this, with some exceptions, but there are exceptions to anything. And a big part of shipping is speculating, being delusional about them, and overanalyzing things.

Now, in terms of a non-shipping explanation as to why these two behave the way they do around each other, I think it's a combination of all the reasons you've already listed. And the thing about Max and Charles is that they have known each other for so many years. They have been in each other's orbit, in one way or another, for the majority of their lives, and there is no denying that they have seen each other as one of — if not the — biggest rival they've had since they were children. Despite the fact that a lot of the current drivers on the grid have raced each other at some point before F1, there doesn’t seem to be any of them that have the same sort of rivalry that Max and Charles have, which goes so far back. And that kind of bond is one that I believe sticks with you forever.

Now this is not a delusional take at all, as this quote by Armando Filini, manager of the Maranello Kart, the first team for which Leclerc raced, proves: “They were always fighting. It didn't matter if they were competing in a tie or in a final, if it was raining or if the track was dry. Once we were in Genk, Belgium, in the first free practice, and they went on track. Charles and Max met, began to push each other and almost hit each other, with the risk of being left out. Jos Verstappen and I were glued to the fence to look at them and he turned around and said to me: 'These two will fight forever. They will fight even in F1′. A prophecy”.

Even though Max and Charles obviously haven’t been best friends for the majority of the time they've known each other, and they've only started building what appears to be a genuine friendship in the last few years, they share a connection that has been evident to people around them since they were little.

Max's comment from last season where he said that he wasn't surprised both him and Charles were sitting in that press conference together because he always thought that if he made it into F1, Charles would too, is just another testament to how tied together they actually are. And Charles' fond recollections of their karting days in the past season shows that it's a mutual thing: that Charles feels that same bond with Max that Max feels with him. And I think this is the whole baseline for why they've never been able to be normal about or around each other: because they go so far back and their lives are so intertwined that I honestly don't think either of them is fully capable of treating the other as just any other colleague or friend, because they don't see each other that way. They're something more, and by that I don't mean they're secretly in love with each other — they just have this bond that goes beyond normal friendship, forged through years of rivalry, envy, conflict, mutual growth and respect, and eventual friendship.

I have a childhood friend sort of like that: obviously not with the rivalry and drama that comes with the surroundings in which Max and Charles met and grew up, but someone that I share a bond with that I don't share with any of my other friends, old or new, and it's honestly my most treasured friendship because it has helped shape me as a person in a profound sort of way. He's not my closest friend and not the friend I talk to the most since we live on different sides of the country and our paths haven’t crossed much in the past few years, as is often the case when you grow up and become an independent adult. But when I do talk to him and hang out with him, it kind of feels like coming home. And to me, it seems like Max and Charles share that same type of bond.

This is just my personal take as I obviously don't know Max or Charles, and this is all based off of watching their interactions and watching their relationship develop over the past few years, as well as deepdiving into their history in the past. But this is the explanation that makes sense to me.

#Asks #Anon asks #Lestappen asks #Lestappen dynamics anons #Lestappen

151 notes · View notes

ambermotta · 10 months

Text

Cleansing Basics – Crash Course

What is cleansing? When should I do it? How do I do it?

These are some of the questions I'll be tackling today. I hope this post will be useful to those who are not quite familiar with how to cleanse and why it's important for any witch or pagan practice!

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

Long post based on my experience and research. Meant to be informative. I don't claim to know the absolute truth.

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

What is cleansing?

Cleansing is clearing away energy from someone, something or somewhere.

When should I cleanse?

Whenever you need to clear away energy.

Personal opinion: you should cleanse yourself and your house at least weekly.

It is generally recommended that you periodically cleanse magical items and cleanse before and after any type of magical/ spiritual work. Cleansing before contacting deities (even if it's just prayer) is also considered "standard protocol" in some cultures, like in Hellenic paganism and Shintoism.

From my personal experience I do feel I can connect better with spiritual beings when I cleanse beforehand, but I believe my emotional state has a bigger influence on the matter. Cleansing generally calms me down too so –

Why should I cleanse?

The number one reason you'll see cleansing everywhere is because it is a way to help get rid of excess negative energy.

I'm not going to say you can clear away all of it because as living humans, we are constantly emanating energy and a lot of times it is "negative" energy. Which is okay, it's part of being alive. Plus, there are other factors that come into play.

However, cleansing often can help you stay in touch with spirituality and ease your mind since you'll be getting rid of excess (and oftentimes unwated) energy.

Cleansing also comes into play when you want to clear away any other kind of energy, for example, when you get a new magical tool (such as a tarot deck) or finish a magical working. You don't necessarily want the energy that was on that object or that spell sticking to you all day, you know?

How to prepare for cleansing?

First of all, gather your stuff. Gather everything you need and try to avoid interruptions.

I personally recommend you always do a physical cleaning up of whatever you are going to cleanse. Tidy up your house, take a shower, and clean your magical items (if possible).

Dirt and clutter feel bad, and it can distract the mind. Starting your cleansing in the physical plane can definitely make it more powerful in the astral too.

How do I cleanse?

Most cultures/religions/spiritual practices have their own way of doing things (ex: hellenic pagans have khernips), so first of all, do your research! And respect the fact that some things are out of your reach.

There are A LOT of techniques you can use to cleanse that are not particularly tied to a single culture and that can be done in many different ways. I'll quickly go through some of them, but it is by no means an extensive list.

Cleansing with the 4 elements:

Earth: I've mainly seen this in two ways, which are sending energy to the earth (something like grounding) and burrying objects.

Fire: commonly used together with air in smoke cleansing. There's also energy work that pulls energy and sends it towards the fire for cleansing (either a candle, a bonfire, or a visualization flame)

Water: mostly used for cleansing yourself or objects. It can be through herb baths and showers, rain/sea/river water, salt water, or sacred waters. For cleansing spaces, there are things such as water spray bottles and floor washes (though I've only seen this one being used in hoodoo). Careful with objects, some may not be resistant to water.

Air: generally the most common for cleansing spaces or people. Usually achieved by lighting up incense or herbs with cleansing properties and using the smoke to cleanse.

Sidenote: burning a herbs ≠ from smudging. Smudging is a native american practice that is closed to their people. Don't smudge, don't call some herb-burning smudging. It's not the same thing. Stick with what's appropriate for your culture.

Sun and moon: using sunlight or moonlight to cleanse (and often charge) yourself or objects. Always make sure what you are cleansing can actually be left in the sun and handle weather.

Crystals: Some crystals have cleansing properties, usually back ones (onyx, obsidian, black tourmaline), smoky quartz, and selenite, to name a few. Keep in mind that they usually need to be cleansed periodically, too.

Sound: Praying, chanting, singing, music, and using bells or drums are some ways you can use sound to cleanse.

Visualization: There are many techniques used for cleansing this way. While it can be effective, it is definitely not for everyone as a lot of people will find that using tools is easier and more consistent. Visualization requires some practice and a lot of focus.

What to do after cleansing?

That depends on your objective.

If you are cleansing a space, such as your home, and you want to keep it "clean" for longer, you can cast a protection spell.

If you are cleansing yourself or an object, you may want to do a Charging of some sort. When you cleanse, you are getting something out, which opens up space for the new, so you can use this as an opportunity to "fill in" with another type of energy.

Conclusion

Cleansing is very versatile and unique to each practice. There are a lot of things you can do that are fairly neutral, but in general, cleansing always has the same purpose and is done in a similar fashion.

Knowing what your tradition (if you have one) usually does to cleanse objects, people, and places can be very enriching, so do your research!

Thank you for reading!

252 notes · View notes

gavisuntiedboot · 1 year

Note

Whenever you have the time could you write about Gavi with a gf that is a bit reserved and touch starved, her love language is physical touch but she doesn't initiate it with Gavi because her ex always told her she is clingy and annoying so she's insecure about it, so Gavi tries to show her it's okay by always cuddling her, or touching her in any way. And then over time she starts to initiate the cuddling/touching and Gavi is so proud and happy because she finally feels comfortable with him

Your writing is amazing btw, I've decided to wait for you to finish Just Pretend completely to continue reading it because whenever I finish the last chapter you post I get so sad because the next one isn't out yet and I can't live in the agony of not knowing what happens next

Pls hold my hand

"Princess, why do you have a sweatshirt that says ‘clingy’ on it?”

You looked over to Gavi, who plopped himself down on the couch next to you, grabbing the remote to cue the Netflix show the two of you had been watching for the last several weeks, eager to finally watch another episode, as the two of you held your shared series’ to a sacred standard. With only two episodes left of the latest “Drive to Survive”, you didn’t want to delay the experience with too much conversation.

"Just and inside joke between me and my friends.” You said, avoiding eye contact and focusing on the bag of m&m’s in front of you.

“Your friends think you’re clingy?” He asked, turning to face you as his hoodie slipped from his head, messy brown locks on full display. One of the things you adored about Pablo was how much he was always trying to protect you and look out for you. You weren’t really be confrontational, and this lead to some mistreatment and being pushed over at times by those close to you. Well, you used to. Since you and Pablo started dating about 8 months ago, he had been there to defend you against people who wanted to take advantage, and often was the voice reminding you to stick up for yourself.

“No no, it’s not them. It’s … something to do with my ex boyfriend. Do you still want to know?”

Gavi tensed at this. Despite you never saying anything explicitly negative about your boyfriend, all the stories Gavi heard made him hate the man with a burning passion. He had slowly but surely messed you up in so many ways, and now as Pablo worked to slowly unravel the knots tightened around your heart, he couldn’t help but curse the man that tied them to begin with.

“Yeah. You can tell me.”

You shifted in your seat, rather uncomfortable with the topic, but not wanting to lie to your boyfriend.

“Well, remember that little love languages quiz I made you do? Well I did mine like years ago, and I got physical touch. Which makes sense right because that’s one of yours and we seem to be getting along pretty well.” Gavi giggled at this, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and causing you to tense.

“Well, my last boyfriend wasn’t super into like… touching? Fuck that sounds sexual. I mean he didn’t really like being touched or cuddling or all that couple stuff. Didn’t like holding hands either. And like this one time, he was watching something on his computer and I was feeling bold or whatever and tried to sit on his lap — he hated that though. He liked pushed me onto the floor and told me to stop being clingy.” You forced out a laugh, trying to lighten the mood and soften the look of horror that had occupied Gavi’s face.

“That was actually why I broke up with him. Anyways I didn’t hug any of my friends for a month after that, and when they finally confronted me and I told them why, they got this made me for me. See, look at the sleeve,” you said, stretching out your arm to show him the ‘pls hold my hand’ embroidered on the sleeve. “So now whenever I’m in my clingy sweatshirt, my friends give me a ton of hugs and stuff. It’s funny. I think.” You say, winching slightly by the fact that Pablo’s eyebrows are still pushed together in anger.

He muttered his grievances about your boyfriend while cuddling closer to you, pulling you into his chest. Your cheeks warmed as they were pressed against Gavi’s beating heart. Despite the long time you had been dating Pablo, you still were shy when it came to initiating any sort of affection. You were too scared of annoying him and pushing him further away. So you remained shy and reserved, only responding to the touches he initiated.

“Give me your hand, silly. Never been with a girl who came with instructions before. Maybe I should get you a pair of panties that say-“ his sentence abruptly ended with a pillow to the face. You giggled, trying to pull away from his grasp, but he just pulled you closer, wrapping both arms around you now.

“Oh no no princesa. You’re not going anywhere. Now hush and make mean comments about Verstappen with me.”

Over the next few weeks, Pablo had made an active effort to make you more comfortable with being physical with him. Whenever the two of you were out, he held your hand or had you two link arms. He hugged you and kissed you on the cheek or forehead, asking, “you don’t want to give me a kiss back, Amor?” Puppy dog eyes and adorable pout on display, you coyly returned the peck to his jutted out lip. He smiled widely, teeth almost blinding you. He returned with an attack, kissing you across both cheeks, and ending with a searing kiss to the lips.

His favorite time was when you two watched shows together. He would always pull you in close, cuddling with you next to him on the couch. He would lean close and whisper his comments about the show into your ear, making your skin erupt in goosebumps as his breath famed over. He would press kisses into your temples, breathing in the sweet smell of your hair, and reminding you how much he loved being around you.

“You’re so warm amor - my personal furnace. I love it.”

“Your skin is so soft, feels so nice.”

“I wish I never had to get up from beside you.”

After three weeks of hand holding, kisses, and encouragement, you finally found the confidence to approach Gavi to heal your touch starvation. You put on your clingy hoodie again, laying out snacks on the coffee table and firing up her Netflix.

“Princesa I’m here! Where are you?”

Running to the door, you wrapped both arms around Gavi’s neck, pulling him into you and greeting him with a firm kiss. As he recovered from the unexpected greeting, you informed him that you would be in the living room pulling up a new series. He followed closely after kicking off his shoes, and peeling off his Barca jacket, picking up the hoodie you had laid out for him.

“Did you change shampoos? Used to be peach and now it’s strawberry.”

“How could you tell?” You asked, grabbing some drinks as Pablo got comfy on the couch. He crossed his arms across his chest, legs spread and back slumped.

“My clothes smell different around the shoulders. That’s usually where your wet hair sits.” He looked over at you, watching your eyes go wide. “Amor, you know I love you, stop being surprised when I actually act like it. Now what are we watching?”

Taking a deep breath, you walked back over. You grabbed the remote, pressing play.

“The new season of Black Mirror is out and I’m dying to see it. Heard this one is creepier than normal.” As you explained, you walked over to Gavi. Before he could move to make space for you on the sofa, you draped yourself over his lap. Your legs were to his side, back pressed to his chest. Your arms wrapped around his torso, and you laid your head on his shoulder. ‘Deep breaths it’s okay he’s not going to push you off.’

Pablo was stunned for a moment, so much so that he remained motionless. Once the shock wore off and he felt your slight tremble, he brought his muscled arms around you, pulling you tightly against him, soft lips pressing to your pulse point and freeing a soft gasp from your throat. He rested his head atop yours, the pressure and warmth comforting and familiar.

“Look at you being bold cariño. If I knew it would get you to sit in my lap we would’ve done this months ago.” You giggled softly in response, turning to face him. You rested your forehead against his, gazing deeply into the deep brown pools of his eyes. Leaning in, his lips eagerly met yours, refusing to release you. When you finally pulled away, you resumed your comfortable position in Pablo’s embrace. “I’m so proud of you, princesa.” The two of you fell into s comfortable silence, enjoying the show, squeezing each other tighter whenever things got intense.

“Can I get a matching clingy hoodie for whenever I want cuddles?” Pablo asked, smiling at you from above.

“I don’t think so, Pablito. You would never take it off.”

~~~

Guys I have the worst headacheeeeee but yay I posted!

#gavisuntiedboot #pablo gavi x reader #pablo gavi #pablo gavi imagine #gavi x reader #gavi x you #fc barca #gavi imagine #pablo gavi x reader fluff #pablo gavi x y/n #gavi x yn #gavi #gavi fluff #pablo gavi fluff #gavi fic #pablo gavi fanfic #pablo gavi fanfiction #gavi fanfic

560 notes · View notes