#clearly are trying to take advantage of me and very clearly demonstrate the fact that they will not be there in the way they should be

[boyobjectifier]

a relationship so terrible you end up questioning your entire sexuality and everything about yourself

[yyxgin]

the importance of being lee chan ;; lch

pairing. lee chan x fem! reader genre. theatre au, college au | fluff, comedy wc. 10k (10.271) warnings. swearing a/n. the fic follows the oscar wilde play "the importance of being earnest" and includes parts of the script. i took those from here! this is not my best work and it feels a bit rushed, but i struggled with this fic a lot so this is the best it's gonna get. i hope you still enjoy nonetheless :)

summary. in your university's adaptation of a famous oscar wilde play, you and lee chan struggle with a fatal part that is bound to ruin everything-- neither of you have mastered the art of a stage kiss.

“Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax,” Soonyoung proposes in a posh tone, one that makes everyone giggle under their breath as they watch from the rows of red seats that create the university theatre. Walking slowly across the whole stage, no stage props yet in sight, since it’s not the premiere day, the oldest student in the whole play gracefully says his lines in one of the last university plays he’ll ever get to act in.

“Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous,” Minjeong says, taking the role of Gwendolen, Soonyoung’s in-play love interest. 

“I do mean something else.”

“I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong,” Minjeong shrugs, full of confidence. The role suits her perfectly– there’s no wonder that the charming sophomore got to play the main character in this semester’s play. With her stage presence and the way she holds herself, there’s truly no one else more fit for the role.

“And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell’s temporary absence…”

“I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about,” upon hearing Minejong’s line, the little group of people sitting in the audience snicker, perhaps remembering the times where their own mothers went into their rooms without knocking on the door.

Soonyoung proposes his next lines with fake nervousness, scratching the back of his neck. “Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl… I have ever met since… I met you.”

“Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you,” Minjoeng says, the tone of voice mirroring the matter-of-fact atmosphere she’s trying to portray. Soonyoung, in the role of Jack, stares at her in amazement. “We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.”

“You really love me, Gwendolen?” Soonyoung holds a hand at his heart, acting in surprise, emotions running through the character’s body.

“Passionately!”

“Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.”

“My own Ernest!” Minjeong gasps, getting to the main point of the whole act and the play itself.

“But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?”

“But your name is Ernest,” Minejong says, stopping in her tracks at the left edge of the stage, looking at Soonyoung with undeniable confidence.

“Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me then?”

Minjeong shakes her head in mock disbelief, sighing as she delivers the next line. “Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.”

“Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care about the name of Ernest… I don’t think the name suits me at all,” Soonyoung mumbles, almost identical to the tone he uses when he messes up and tries to cover it up in front of the others.

“It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations,” Minejong sighs, eyes glimmering even in the singular light you’re allowed to use when you practise the play.

“Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.”

“Jack?...” Minjeong perks up, looking at Soonyoung. She takes a few seconds to continue, furrowing her brows as she acts lost in thought. “No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations… I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.” 

The way Oscar Wilde managed to predict the very present problem of the J names phenomenon a century before it arised is truly a miracle. No wonder the play feels timeless.

“Gwendolen, I must get christened at once—I mean we must get married at once. There is no time to be lost,” Soonyoung spits with urgency, even throwing his arms up to add more effect. 

“Married, Mr. Worthing?”

“Well… surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me,” Soonyoung says, the tone of voice known to be a well-trained theatre performance. Even if the senior hasn’t practised his lines yet, there’s something about his tone when he says them aloud for the first time that suggests that he was born to be on the stage.

“I adore you. But you haven’t proposed to me yet. Nothing has been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on.”

“Well… may I propose to you now?” he asks.

“I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly before-hand that I am fully determined to accept you.”

“Gwendolen!”

“Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me?”

“You know what I have got to say to you.”

“Yes, but you don’t say it.”

“Gwendolen, will you marry me?” Soonyoung finally asks, getting on his knees. 

“Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose,” Minjeong sighs, shaking her head.

“My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you,” Soonyoung dreamily explains, still kneeling on the ground.

“Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! They are quite, quite, blue. I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when there are other people present,” Minjeong dramily exclaims, her tone getting more and more exciting.

Shin Ryujin enters the stage, the hunch in her figure not yet endorsed by the costume of an old lady, making her quite funny to look at. 

“Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.”

“Mamma!” Minjeong exclaims, almost a little terrified.

“Aaand cut!” the loud voice of none other than Boo Seungkwan, the leader of the theatre club and the self-proclaimed director (although no one had enough courage to nominate somebody else), cuts through the small theatre, making the actors relax in their positions and turn Seungkwan’s way, awaiting his directions.

Sitting back in your little red seat, watching the director march up the scene, murmuring something under his breath to Ryujin, the newbie that just entered the club, you hear your friend Mingyu mutter something into your ear in the dark, making you turn your head to him.

“Huh?” you ask, not hearing his question through your dear director’s exclamations echoing through the space.

“I said this play reminds me of you,” he giggles under his breath, making you furrow your brows. 

Your childhood friend really can be confusing with his remarks sometimes. Not understanding his comment, you lean closer to him, not to break the sacred silence of the theatre, and also not to annoy any of the other actors sitting on various seats scattered all across the theatre, waiting for their turn to practice, and ask him for a clarification.

“What do you mean by that?”

“With the whole Ernest obsession,” he says, his white teeth sparkling under the dim light that is shining down on the stage.

“What?” you snap again, only furrowing your brows further, still not getting his point.

“Don’t you remember your Chan obsession?”

Finally getting what he means, all while cursing the boy for knowing you for so long and for having such a good memory, you roll your eyes with a sigh. “Mingyu-”

“When in middle school you watched that drama and got so obsessed with the main character Chan that when you-”

“Mingyu shut up-” you hurriedly try to stop him, just in case someone’s listening to you in the almost empty theatre. The man doesn’t listen to you, though, and keeps on rambling, the grin on his face only growing deeper as he realises the amount of embarrassment he’s making you feel by remembering memories of yourself.

“That when you met Lee Chan in middle school, you forced yourself to have a crush on him even though you didn’t even know anything about him in the first place?”

“Kim Mingyu I told you to shut the fuck up!” you yell out, not able to bear the ick you’re getting anymore and wanting to get it out of your system and never listen to a word about this incident ever again, because Mingyu is right– you didn’t know the poor boy. You just knew his name, and that surely was not a valid reason to be the object of your conversations during lunch break with your dear best friend now sitting on your side.

The eyes of everyone in the whole room turn to you, heat rising to your cheeks as you see Seungkwan gasp, his mouth already open to scream at you as loud as he can, because, well, the position of the director gives him the permission to do so any time he pleases, as long as you’re in the theatre.

“You shut the fuck up, Y/N!” he yells out, making the rest of the actors laugh out at his outburst, for it’s always fun to see their beloved director frustrated. “This is not your house, we’re trying to act here!”

Battling your laugh, because frankly speaking, the vein that rises on his forehead whenever he screams at someone in frustration is the best sight you could get after a long day of schoolwork, you hold your hand up in apology. “I’m sorry! Go on!”

Burrowing yourself deeper into the seat, kicking your friend in the shin as he just won’t stop laughing under his breath, you try to erase the memory of your silly crush on Lee Chan,

because, well… he’s sitting only a few rows under you, waiting for his turn to practice his next scene with you as his character’s lover.

“So, what exactly is the reason behind all of this?” Mingyu asks, sitting next to you in one of the red booths of the McDonald’s that’s the closest to your university building.

“Team building,” Seungkwan says, counting up all the people on his hands so he can order the exact amount of big cokes, furrowed brows and all, full of concentration.

“So why am I here, then?” Vernon, the tech guy asks. Chwe Vernon is one of the quieter kids in the theatre extracurricular– the one that never acts, but always takes care of all the lights and sound effects– but he’s one of the group nonetheless. His presence isn’t always noticed, but once he opens his mouth and truly says something, the likelihood of everyone losing their mind over how funny his remarks can be is higher than with anyone else in the group.

“I said team building, what’s not clicking?” Seungkwan mutters, obviously already done with the whole setting.

The director disappears with Chan– his right hand, as one would say– to the counter, ordering the never-ending list of Coca Cola and fries, ignoring all the other requests on various burgers and McFlurries, because, well, his memory is not that good and he really can’t be arsed with writing it down, while the whole group remains seated, conversating together about various topics. The girls catch up on the new gossip, and the boys, well… They do as well, because frankly speaking, they’re theatre kids as well. What else would they talk about?

And when the director comes back with his self-assigned secretary Lee Chan, holding two trays full of beverages, the chatter won’t die down even when the poor leader of the theatre team tries to calm everyone down with a loud clap of his hands.

“Will everyone shut up already?” Seungkwan hisses, finally making everyone remain silent for at least a few seconds as they try to battle the laughter trying to battle its way out of their lungs. 

“See, Seungkwan? This whole team building thing wasn’t even necessary, we have good chemistry even without it,” Mingyu teases from his seat next to you, making everyone giggle and hum in agreement, because, well, you’ve known each other for at least a while already. Most of you hang out regularly, divided into few groups or pairs of people, but sometimes, even those encounters overlap and you’re forced to hang out with the whole group as well. It’s not like you’re strangers, after all. 

“Trust me on this,” Seungkwan mutters, “there’s definitely some bond making we have to do, and I’m the director, I know.”

“Here he comes again with the director card,” Soonyoung mutters under his breath, making Minjeong laugh next to him, earning herself a sharp glare from the poor, bullied Seungkwan.

Distributing the drinks in between all the members of the extracurricular, Seungkwan manages to regain his composure and talk with his usual announcer-like voice again, leading the group and having everything under control. “So, the point of this team building is to get to know better the person you’ll have the most interactions with on the stage, so it doesn’t look awkward and out of place. That’s why I want you all to get to pair with the person you’re acting with the most, and then, we’ll proceed with the activity I prepared for today!” 

The almost kindergarten teacher-esque excitement in Seungkwan makes you giggle out loud before you realise the true intention of today’s hang-out. Because, well… as Lee Chan’s lover in the play, you are surely going to spend the most time on stage with him. Something inside of you is telling you that Seungkwan gathered everyone here because of you two, since you and Chan don’t know each other that well, which, admittedly, resulted in your last rehearsal looking awkward and out-of-place. You’re usually very professional, you see– you’ve acted with almost everyone in the room so far, and you never had any trouble with it, since the atmosphere in the theatre and in the rehearsals was always pleasing and welcoming; but with Chan, it’s different. You are all tense and nervous, palms sweaty and memory hazy with the next line. 

Absent-mindedly moving your place so you’re next to Chan, you’re now facing Soonyoung and Minjeong, the couple, and Ning and Ryujin, although not appearing on the stage together as often, being paired up together, since Soonyoung and Minjeong are getting priority as the main cast. Doing mental gymnastics on how to be less awkward around your crush from middle school, your train of thought is suddenly cut off by a whine coming from the middle of the U-shaped booth. 

“Why am I getting paired up with Vernon? He’s not even in the play!” Mingyu says, earning himself a snarky grin from Seungkwan, still standing at the top of the table.

“Because you’re playing the priest, Mingyu. Do better next time and you won’t have to do team building with the tech guy.”

Snickering at the comment, you take a sip from the coke in front of you, your hands anxiously holding the cup to ground yourself. Bumping your knee up and down in nerves, your eyes meet with Mingyu’s, a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows making you roll your eyes as you look over to Seungkwan, who’s now on the mission of explaining the next step.

“Now, you’re going to share at least three fun facts about yourself with the person you paired up with! And make them fun and random, I don’t want to see any boredom in here,” he says, clapping his hands together to set off the start of the game.

“Oh god,” you mutter under your breath, sighing heavily as you put your head into your hands on the table, already hating the whole encounter. You’re bad at this, you’re very, terribly bad at this; for you think there’s nothing fun about you or the miserable state your life is in at the moment, and you don’t find anything interesting enough to tell to someone you so deeply admired in middle school. Yes, you could tell Mingyu that the whole crush thing was fake and you just made it up because his name was identical to the character in the drama, but at the end of the day, you think that the name was only the spark that made your whole obsession with the said boy real. Again, you didn’t know him well– nor do you know him well now, but still; that didn’t stop the past you from liking him in the slightest.

“Got any fun facts you wanna share?” Chan perks up from beside you, making you turn your attention to him. He’s sitting next to you, back resting against the booth, a smile sitting on his lips that makes his eyes crinkle up and make him look boyish and adorable. 

Shrugging, you shake your head. “I’m not good with fun facts. Do you have any?”

“I sure do,” he says, nodding, making you laugh. There’s something about his whole careless aura that makes you feel all giddy inside– the way he always somehow looks like he’s acting, the adrenaline of being on the stage, being the centre of attention, never escaping the boy and leaving him looking as if he was excited to be here. 

“Go ahead,” you say, trying to make yourself relax as much as you can, resting your back against the booth as well, crossing your arms at your chest.

“So,” he starts off, “I am a big fan of Michael Jackson,” he says, looking you dead in the eye. Blinking a few times, you almost awaken your inner Seungkwan (because when you’re around him so much, his characteristics tend to rub off on you. You catch yourself yelling at Mingyu a little too much after you spend some time with the said director, and while you don’t think it’s healthy or fair, you’re not actively trying to stop this behaviour either), with how your consciousness is screaming at your companion that this is not a fun fact at all. 

“And…?” you ask, trying to find the fun behind the, very much boring fact.

“I’m… also really scared of Michael Jackson,” he completes, making you even more confused. Amazed, you furrow your brows, trying to make him explain further.

“You see, he’s cool, and I even wanted to be a singer because of him! But when I look at him, he creeps me the fuck out,” he says, over-exaggarating his every word, making you subtly widen the corners of your mouth into a grin, “I had sleep paralysis once, and all I saw at the foot of my bed was Michael Jackson, laughing with that creepy hee-hee laugh, I swear to god I almost peed my pants!”

Staring at him, completely silent, you suddenly break out into a hysterical laughter, imagining the poor boy laying in his bed, not able to move as his biggest idol and his biggest fear all in one is not letting him sleep or move. “Did that fear start with that incident?”

“No!” he laughs, his face totally serious, only making you laugh more. “That’s what made the whole thing even more terrifying!”

Not being able to stop your laughter, clinging to your stomach as it’s starting to hurt a little from how much you’re laughing, something sparks inside of your mind that only adds fuel to the fire that is your uncontrollable contractions. “You know what’s funny? Wanna know what my favourite animal is?”

“What is it?” he asks, calming down only a little as he asks you with widened eyes, trying to puzzle out why you’re suddenly mentioning this as a fun fact.

“A worm,” you say.

Now is his turn to blink at you in confusion mixed with concern, shaking his head. “I mean, that’s strange as it is, but I imagine there’s a punchline to this.”

“Yeah. Wanna know what my biggest fear is?” you say, sounding almost in agony from how the casual conversation is torturing you with uncontrollable laughter.

“What?”

“Worms.” you say, already feeling tears falling down your cheeks, seeing the boy absolutely lose his mind. Silently biting down on his lower lip, trying to battle the laughter that wants to come out of his chest, he snickers.

“That makes zero sense,” he whispers in despair.

“It does! One worm is adorable, but- but multiple! Multiple worms is fucking terrifying, dude!” you mourn out, stumbling over your words, as you hear Seungkwan cut your conversation off with a raised voice, noting that he doesn’t like the way it’s going right now.

“I see Chan and Y/N-ie successfully managed to complete their mission with telling fun facts, from how much fun they’re having, but for the love of god, the rest of us can’t even hear our thoughts right now-”

“Don’t ruin our conversation, thank you very much-”

“Okay then, we’ll see how your acting progresses after this team-building!” Seungkwan announces, looking you sharply in your eyes, noting that,  after all, this whole meeting was initiated by your poor acting when you were met with the eyes of Lee Chan in one of the confession scenes in the play.

And suddenly, the smile is wiped off your face as you remember the terror you face every time you read the script. 

You’re afraid that no amount of team building will be able to make you feel better about this.

It’s Tuesday, 4:21pm, exactly three weeks before the big premiere. You’ve been rehearsing the play every day, little scrapes and scenes all scattered along the way, being perfected with the help of Seungkwan. Yes, he might be bullied and teased, but his position is still respected. What he says goes, and if your acting isn’t good enough for him, it’s most likely just not good at all. You’ve been rehearsing your scenes with Ning, Soonyoung and Chan the whole month; since this time around, you only got two months to prepare for the premiere– knowing the dialogues by heart by now, remembering them word-by-word, the tone of voice and the way you’re supposed to act them out a muscle memory to you by now; until finally, it’s time to rehearse the parts you didn’t do so well on over and over again, until Seungkwan isn’t satisfied.

“Oh, I merely came back to water the roses. I thought you were with Uncle Jack,” you say, standing on the stage, seeing Chan enter the scene.

“He’s gone to order the dog-cart for me.”

“Oh, is he going to take you for a nice drive?” you ask, tone of voice so oblivious, fitting for the character of Cecily that you’re supposed to act. You pity the poor woman a little, for you feel like if she was born in this century, she wouldn’t survive a day without getting scammed by someone on the street.

“He’s going to send me away.”

“Then have we got to part?” you gasp, frowning.

“I am afraid so. It’s a very painful parting,” Chan proposes, coming close to you. The way he acts is so convincing, looking as natural as ever in his character. Sometimes, you wonder why he’s not in the main cast, but at the same time, you can’t really imagine him in the role of Jack. Algernon suits him much more, with his quick wit and a personality of a cunning fox shining through even when he’s supposed to be somebody else.

“It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable,” you say, despair written all over your features. This quote is almost the most memorable to you from the whole play, for it’s, frankly speaking, not only a rare occurance of smart words coming out of Cecily’s mouth, but also words you can relate to and frown upon in real life.

“I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection,” Chan, in the role of Algernon proposes, his voice sweet as honey and his eyes an honest pool of adoration.

Sometimes, it’s hard to piece out acting and reality when you’re around Chan. He always looks so in his element, even when he’s off-stage, that the words uttered out of his mouth make goosebumps appear all over your skin, the confession making you undoubtedly hot in your cheeks. In this moment, no matter how many times you rehearse it over and over again, you always have to remind yourself that it’s just acting. It’s not real.

Although your middle school self would desire for it to be the opposite way.

“I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary,” you say, going over to the table and beginning to write into a small, black-covered diary prepared close to you on stage-left.

“Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?” 

“Oh no,” you put your hand over it, trying to keep the contents a secret, “you see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don’t stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached ‘absolute perfection’. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.”

Somewhat taken aback, Chan takes a step back and clears his throat. “Ahem! Ahem!”

“Oh, don’t cough, Ernest! When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don’t know how to spell a cough!” you announce, hearing a snicker from the audience, although, not knowing who it came from, since the single light blinds you enough for you to not see.

“Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly…” Chan says with undoubted poeticness behind the script, tone of voice big, flying across the space.

“I don’t think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?” you say, still in the role of Cecily, enough to ruin the moment. 

“Cecily!”

“Good!” Seungkwan yells from under the stage, cutting you off. “Now, we’ll skip all the way to the end of the scene, since this looks neat. Starting from….” he mutters, flipping the script in his hands over, trying to find the exact moment he wants to see, “from ‘but was our engagement ever broken off?’!”

Getting to the position on the stage, a few steps to the right, kneeling. You clear your throat before you hear Chan repeat the same replica again, getting ready for the scene you fear so much.

“Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the entry if you like,” you say, showing the boy the diary. He looks at it with sparkling eyes, almost making you adore him twice as much as you ever did, before you propose with even more melodramaticness that’s so suited to the role of Cecily, “‘To-day I broke off my engagement with Ernest. I feel it is better to do so. The weather still continues charming.’”

“But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming,” Chan asks, concerned. 

“It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn’t been broken off at least once. But I forgave you before the week was out,” you say, matter-of-factly.

Chan comes closer to you, your heart speeding up in your chest with the knowledge of the next scene.  “What a perfect angel you are, Cecily.”

“You dear, romantic boy,” you say, seeing Chan get even closer to you.

See, no matter the amount of team building, trust, or deepening your friendship with the boy, the image of kissing him on stage scares you. And no, it’s not only because of the blunt incest of the original play that you all chose to ignore for the comedy of it all, it’s also mainly because Lee Chan still makes you nervous all around, and with the idea of everyone watching you kiss the boy you dreamt of in middle school– even though it’s just a fake, theatre kiss– scares you deeply. 

Leaning in a calculated way, so your head is shown towards the stage a little more, your lips not really seen to the crowd, you act out the kiss. The awkwardness of it all chases you down, making droplets of sweat appear on the top of your forehead, when Chan refuses to have eye contact with you, making the whole encounter more bearable, but also more nerve-wracking as well. And when you’re finally glad it’s over, leaning away from the one and only kiss in the whole play, satisfied with the outcome, all of the sudden, you hear an agitating, grating voice pierce through your eardrums.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this was absolutely terrible. I felt the awkwardness in my bones! You call yourselves professionals?” Seungkwan hisses, making you instantly roll your eyes– the natural response, really– as he enters the stage. “The kiss was so visibly fake and unnatural that it made me cringe from the depths of my bones!”

“Well, what else are we supposed to do!” Chan yells out, visibly offended as he stands up from his place.

“Learn how to act it more realistically! You can’t just act like this after the good performance you just did!” Seungkwan mutters, throwing his arms in the air.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, not being able to bite through the uncomfort and awkwardness it makes you feel, you shrug with despair. 

“Get off my stage. Mingyu! You’re next! And you two,” he says as you stumble down the stairs on the edge of the stage, “have some homework to do.”

Glaring at the director, you only resolve to a sigh. “Ay ay, captain!”

Sitting at the floor in one of the rooms at the back of the theatre– the room that gets used for costumes, leaving you in the mess of various fabric and scrapped ideas– looking at the face of your best friend sitting in front of you on the spare armchair, you realise that this probably wasn’t the best idea.

Lee Chan is sitting next to you, picking at the skin of his cuticles, and you suddenly feel like two children that got scolded and sent to the principal’s office for breaking the rules and running through the hallway. The embarrassment and nervousness in you only makes you sweat– which, in fault, makes you even more nervous and hesitant– when a cough is sent your way by Kim Mingyu, a sign to finally do or say anything that would make the whole situation way less weird.

“Okay, so…” you mutter out, “shall we start?” 

Chan’s eyes shoot up towards you, licking his lips as he nods and furrows his brows. “I mean, sure…”

Not moving an inch, staying in your position, the room suddenly goes still and you feel like someone just stopped the video that is currently premiering your life in a live stream right in front of your eyes. It’s like your brain shut off for a second, too overwhelmed with emotion that it lagged mid-movement, when Mingyu kicks your outstretched leg and yelps out in frustration. 

“Come on! Do anything, I don’t have the whole day,” he huffs out, rolling his eyes at you two.

“I don’t know how to start!” you yell out, finally speaking the truth now, followed by a nervous laughter that is imitated by the boy sitting next to you, as if to make the whole situation less awkward.

“You two called me here to watch you fake kiss, so do that! I didn’t sign up to sit around in silence, I have better things to do,” Mingyu scowls, making you kick his leg.

“Yeah? Like what?” you bite back, watching him with stern eyes. 

“I… I could-”

“Exactly,” you promptly say, pouting out your lower lip as you crack your knuckles and turn your body towards Chan, “now, back to what we’re here for…”

“Do you want to start it with the replica or do we just… go straight to it?” Chan asks, making you shrug.

“I think we can just go for it,” you suggest, “we know the whole script by heart by now, it’s the kiss part that’s making us struggle.”

“Okay, so,” Chan moves a little further back, glancing behind him so he doesn’t move too far back and collide with the stationary that’s situated in the corner of the room, “we’re… in this kind of position… aren’t we?” 

Nodding, you feel your heart speeding up with the incoming motion, noticing Chan already leaning towards you. You don’t have much time to prepare yourself for the next step, so when it happens, you naturally move away a little as he leans in, and Mingyu yells out in frustration.

“What was that supposed to be? I thought you were supposed to act like you’re kissing, why’d you move away?!”

“Shut up,” you grunt, feeling heat rising in your cheeks, “I just got surprised.”

“Okay, again!” Mingyu yells out, taking advantage of the position of a director that usually falls on Seungkwan. 

Breathing in and out heavily, you move to your original position, letting Chan lead the scene, as he would in the original script anyway. Standing still, the boy leans forward to you, until your faces are only a few centimetres away from each other, your eyes wide open and staring into his. Biting down on your lower lip, trying to surpass the nervous laughter, you already hear Mingyu’s orders from behind.

“Maybe come a little closer to each other? You seem to be too far away from the back.”

Doing as you’re told, your faces inch towards each other a little more, so much your noses almost touch, you stay still in your position. 

“Can you lean your head to the side a bit? So it looks more natural! You look like statues right now,” Mingyu chirps, letting you two to move your heads to the side at the same time, making you snicker at the automatic response.

Moving away so you can try again, you get closer to each other and you let Chan lean a little to the right, inching closer. Your noses brush against each other, making droplets of sweat appear all over your lower back, your palms now a bottomless pool of liquid from how nerve-wrecking the whole situation is. Something in the back of your head is screaming at you to either cross the distance between you two or to move away completely, yet, you can’t do either, stuck in the situation that is admittedly, making you a little light-headed.

You wonder if you’d feel this way with anyone else. Thinking of sitting around like this with Soonyoung, your lips almost touching, you almost giggle; you don’t think it would be awkward to have a kissing scene with the skilled senior. The same goes for Mingyu– the awkwardness is just not there, the only thing left is a playful aura that leaves you feeling comfortable and safe. 

But with Lee Chan in the position of your love interest, you feel yourself getting weak in your knees and hesitant in all your actions. This is not a replica you can repeat all over and over again alone in your room until you get it right. This is a kissing scene you have to rehearse with the person; an intimate, although fake, situation that leaves you breathless just by seeing him in front of you from so up-close, leaving you to count his eyelashes and roam your eyes all over his face, studying him to the last detail.

You don’t dare to give a name to these feelings. You’d feel like you’re in middle school again.

“Okay, good! I like this one,” Mingyu says, “now, try it again, from the top!”

Letting out the breath you were unknowingly holding in, leaning away from the male, you try to relax your shoulders and make yourself less tense. Awaiting his next move, you see him wipe his hands on his pants, a gesture that makes you relax the tiniest bit, since it means he’s just as nervous as you are about the whole encounter. Watching him take a big breath in and out, he slowly inches towards you again, his face growing closer and closer.

Getting lost in his eyes, the situation almost feels too real. He looks so gentle, so pretty, and as your orbs wander down to his lips– although a little chapped– he seems too inviting to let go. Giving in, you close your eyes, a natural reflex before a kiss, awaiting his lips on yours.

“Yo, why did you close your eyes!” Chan yells out in surprise, laughing at your face. 

Too embarrassed to say anything, you just put your hands into your hair, ready to tug at it in frustration as you swing your body back and let yourself lay on the ground of the costume room, grunting.

“You know what? I can’t do this. I don’t care if Seungkwan chases me down a street with a chainsaw because the whole thing looked too awkward to his critical eyes, I am just not doing this anymore!”

Letting your best friend monitor your fake kiss with the boy you used to have a crush on (while unknowingly feeling just the same around him as when you were just twelve) truly wasn’t the best idea after all.

“Everyone, to your places! I don’t want anyone still on the toilet while they’re supposed to be on stage! Ready, set, action!” Seungkwan announces in panic. It’s the last day before the premiere happens– which means it’s time for a costume rehearsal. You’re going to do the whole play, with all stage decorations, lighting and costumes, in the same exact order as the script; just like you would on the actual premiere, just this time, there is no audience.

You only had two months to prepare this time, but you don’t doubt that everyone’s ready. Soonyoung, the main lead, is a professional, after all. Minjeong is a born talent, Chan is a natural– cunning and charming; Ryujin and Ning have enough experience for the roles they were given, Mingyu, although a little messy at times, is perfect for his role of the priest, and you… you are almost 99.9% sure you’ve got down everything except from the cursed kiss scene.

Couldn’t Seungkwan just scratch it from the original script? Wouldn’t it be better if there was no kiss at all? Is it really necessary?

No matter how hard you tried, no matter how many times you and Chan met up in the back rooms with Mingyu, trying to make the kiss look natural; no matter how many times you and Chan hanged out together in the McDonald’s right after, getting food and getting closer, there is still something that’s keeping you from doing it perfectly.

You almost stumble over your words after, or you don’t lean in too close– afraid of falling hard for the boy if you did– or you simply just freeze in your spot, looking stern and awkward. Your only luck is that Seungkwan hasn’t wanted to rehearse the scene since the last time, so he still hasn’t seen the devastating state your acting is in every time you try this specific part out.

You’re 100% sure you’d be kicked out of the play if he saw it. You don’t really know who else he’d cast, since the theatre extracurricular is not the most popular one, but you’re sure he’d find a way. He might as well do that, you know– you’ll save yourself the torture.

Standing in the back, hidden behind the red curtain, Mingyu approaches you and watches the scene. Soonyoung and Minjeong are currently playing their roles of Jack and Gwendolen, the main characters, as they meet for the first time. They look natural, making you notice that this is exactly how you imagined it when you read the script, their acting hitting all the right points you wanted to experience when seeing the play come to life. 

“You know, Y/N, in my whole life, I’ve never seen you swoon over a man this much,” Mingyu whispers into your ear, making you furrow your brows at him in confusion.

“What? I’m not into Soonyoung,” you mumble, quiet enough to not be heard by Seungkwan in the audience, or anyone else waiting in the back for their time to shine in the last rehearsal.

“I don’t know if you’re really that dumb or if it’s all just acting,” Mingyu mutters under his breath, his offensive remarks not even making you bat an eye anymore, since gentle bullying is one of your main ways of showing affection to each other.

“I mean, I’m a pretty good actor…” you snicker, making Mingyu roll his eyes at you, smirking.

“Yeah,” he nods, “but you’re doing pretty badly in The importance of being Lee Chan, your latest play,” he teases you. Now is your time to roll your eyes at him and act innocent, maybe even a bit oblivious to his remark. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you whisper silently, a matter-of-fact tone in your voice, not meeting eyes with your best friend.

Clicking his tongue, Mingyu only shakes his head at you. “Even the blind can see how you’re head over heels for him again,” he notes, “are you going to ask him out this time around?”

“No, Mingyu,” you huff, “I’m not.”

“Why? You can finally come full circle and fulfil your Chan obsession from middle school-”

“Seriously, Mingyu,” you start, voice full of irony, “I need you to shut the fuck up.”

Snickering at your reply– presumably because he’s right about his assumptions– Mingyu doesn’t speak any further about the topic. You would be stupid to think that he wouldn’t notice. You’ve known each other for so long now that it would be pretty much impossible for him to not notice– he knows you like the palm of his hand. It’s only comfortable to act stupid and like you don’t know what he’s talking about. 

It’s your turn in no time, after Soonyoung and Minjeong are done with their replicas with no issue, with a few appearances of Ryujin and Ning in the side roles. When it’s your time to shine, everything goes smoothly.

You act your scenes as Cecily with no problem. The replicas are engraved into your brain, the gestures and expressions rehearsed to the point of no coming back, your interactions with Chan on stage looking natural and smooth. It’s easier to concentrate on the script when he’s not so close to you, but even with the growing proximity of your bodies, you manage to keep your cool.

All up until the kiss scene arises, of course.

As soon as you hear the words: “What a perfect angel you are, Cecily,” uttered out of Lee Chan’s perfectly-shaped lips, your heart speeds up and you’re suddenly weak in your knees again, feeling like a hopeless teenager. 

Maybe you should just quit right here and now. 

But it’s too late to pull out of your role now, a day before the premiere. So, instead, you continue with the script, just like rehearsed. “You dear, romantic boy,” you say, already noticing Chan getting closer to you as he crouches on the ground next to you.

It’s time for the kiss; his figure leans into you, his head only a little to the right, noses almost touching as your breath hitches in your throat. The kiss is supposed to be short and sweet, and after a few seconds, it’s your turn to pull away and continue on, fully immersed in your role of Cecily. Pulling your fingers through his hair, just like you were told to do in the script, you smile at him as you stand up and speak to him again.

“I hope your hair curls naturally, does it?” you ask.

“Yes, darling,” Chan– Algernon replies, nodding, “with a little help from others.”

Relaxing your shoulders, glad the torture is finally over and the kiss scene is behind you, you’re surprised to be able to continue with no loud comments from the director himself, cursing you for acting so strangely and unrealistically. It almost hits you with a wave of uncontrollable euphoria, thinking you finally did it; but when you glance into the audience and meet eyes with Boo Seungkwan, his expression looks like he was just forced to drink a full jar of pickle juice.

You don’t need him to scream at you in agony again. You know you did badly even without his comments.

Doing your makeup in the back room, illuminated by the ugly yellow lights stacked around the mirror of the stationary, much like in Hollywood movies, your heart is beating loudly against your ribcage. Smearing lip gloss over your lips, you catch notice of Ning sitting next to you on one of the small folding chairs, visibly hyperventilating.

“So many people came!” she yelps out. “I saw a glimpse when I was passing to the back rooms and I think the whole theatre is full! This has never happened before!”

“I’m pretty sure Soonyoung told all his other mates to come, since it’s his last play,” Mingyu mumbles from the sofa situated in the very middle of the room, already in his costume and ready for the premiere.

“That means Choi Seungcheol is here?” Ryujin gasps, turning around on the little stool in front of the second stationary, drawing wrinkles onto her face. 

“Most likely,” Mingyu nods, “I saw Yoon Jeonghan in the back row, he’s probably somewhere there with him.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Ryujin cries, throwing the little makeup brush onto the table. “Choi Seungcheol is here and I have to look like a fucking grandma!”

Snickering from beside her, Minjeong adds more blush to her cheeks– courtesy of the main role– earning herself a nudge to her ribs from her frowning friend. “You’re only laughing ‘cause you’re hot as fuck! Imagine how I feel!”

Rolling your eyes at the girls, you screw the applicator of the lip gloss back on, done with your makeup. Your blush is a little more dramatic than usual, but it’s important to over-exaggerate both your makeup and your expressions when you’re on stage, so they’re seen even by the audience sitting in the very back row. Standing up from the folding chair, you take your designated place next to Mingyu on the dusty, old sofa and fold your arms on your chest, careful not to crease your costume– a light orange dress with ruffled sleeves that goes up to your knees; a modest look for the dearest Cecily.

The door opens, and in walks the other main star of the whole evening. Lee Chan bashfully closes the door behind him as he feels the eyes of everyone on him– presumably because of the mess that’s going on at the top of his head.

“Why does your hair look like Shin ramen?” Ning asks, grinning to herself as the boy slungs himself across the dressing room, sighing.

“Look, I was told to sleep with hair curlers in, because, quoting, ‘Algernon is supposed to have luscious, curly hair’, but then I took them out and now I look like an idiot,” he mutters, scowling as he passes by his own reflection in one of the mirrors, making the whole room burst out in laughter.

“Come here, you dummy,” you snicker, watching as he walks over to you. Holding out your hand, you notice him leaning down so you can do something about it as you run your fingers through the tight curls, making them more loose and presentable in front of the audience.

As soon as you’re done and Chan is happy with the way he looks in the mirror, he looks at you as if you were a magician, mouth agape in surprise. 

“You have to brush them out a little, you know,” you explain, making the boy’s eyes light up like lightbulbs as he nods in understatement.

“Oh so that’s how it works!” he gasps.

Looking at the boy in front of you, you almost squeak out in adoration. He looks extra adorable with his hair in loose waves, and the simple outfit– a tan, linen button-down tucked into simple black pants makes his figure look insanely attractive. His lips are a little glossy and there’s a glint of excitement in his eyes– presumably from the adrenaline from the incoming play. There’s just something about him that makes your heart and soul scream his name.

You’ve never felt this way about anyone else. That’s the importance of Lee Chan in your life, I guess.

“Everyone!” Seungkwan claps his hands together as he enters the dressing room, followed by Soonyoung already dressed in his costume, stage-ready. “We’re starting in 5 minutes! 5 minutes, I repeat. Hope you’re all ready, get to your places!” 

His voice resonates through the small space, his body already turning around to escape the room, before he quite literally turns on his heel and looks at everyone again. “Break a leg, everyone! I know you’ll do great. Don’t be nervous and have fun!” This is one of the rare times when Seungkwan’s caring and enthusiastic side comes out– you think he’s just sappy because the end of an era is coming to an end. You almost pout and run to hug him, when he snaps into his usual state and turns around to look at everyone once again, for the last time. “But don’t you dare anyone fuck it up. I’ll kill you if you do.”

The whole room goes into a frantic furry. Even the calmest ones get more and more nervous, the adrenaline finally kicking in everyone’s blood system. Pacing around, gathering the last props, checking themselves out in the mirror for the last time, the dressing room empties itself out as the lights go out on the stage, signalling the beginning of the play. Standing around backstage, hidden by the curtains, a couple of nervous bodies swing from side to side in a nervous manner, awaiting their moment to step on the stage and act.

Glancing out of the curtain, you notice the theatre full– just like Ning mentioned. It’s a surprise, because usually, there’s a few rows empty, and some places in between the seats are vacant. You guess Soonyoung really bribed his friends and classmates to come. Something about the full audience makes you desire to do well. 

It’s like you have to prove yourself in front of everyone. All attention will be on you, over a hundred hungry eyes watching your every move on the stage. You can’t fuck it up– you’d be too embarrassed to go on with your life if you did.

Suddenly, there’s a light shining down in the middle of the stage, Chan and Renjun– the boy they casted to play Lane at the last minute– walk out and begin the first act.

Only a few moments pass before Soonyoung enters in his role of Jack, as the two of them converse and start the main plot line. Watching the scene unfold in front of your eyes, as if you haven’t read the script a thousand times before and haven’t seen the rehearsals for two months straight, you enjoy every second of one of the most famous plays by Oscar Wilde in your extracurricular’s take.

The scenes unfold right in front of your very eyes, the characters on the stage switch around, letting you enter and act out your own replicas, accompanied by Ning in the role of Miss Prism. You can’t say you feel as if you were one with your character, but you definitely had fun with acting it. It’s not every day you get such a peculiar vocabulary and such a dainty character to play, after all.

Escaping the stage for a moment, feeling out of breath, you find yourself standing backstage with Chan by your side, the mortal scene coming to you both. Looking over at him, seeing the curve of his nose and the edge of his jaw, noticing the way his hair falls into his face and the gentle hint of a smile playing with his lips, your mind operates on autopilot as you are reminded with Seungkwan’s warning in the dressing room– you must not fuck this up.

“Chan?” 

“Hm?” 

“Kiss me for real this time,” you say, seeing the boy snap his head towards you, confusion written all over his face.

“What?”

“In the next scene. Kiss me for real,” you mumble, listening to the last replica uttered out of Soonyoung’s mouth, making you and Chan hurriedly enter the stage, not leaving him any time to ask you any further questions about your sudden request.

Maybe you were being selfish. Maybe you just wanted to look good on stage, maybe you just really wanted to do well. Or maybe…. Maybe you just selfishly wanted a reason to kiss him for real this time. The endless temptation and tension you felt when your faces were so close was slowly driving you insane, and this was your last opportunity to do something about it before you and Chan lose contact again after the premiere. 

You wanted to kiss him at least once.

The second act is long before the actual kiss happens, and you’re able to kick it out of your mind for the time being. Flowing through the replicas with ease and some good old-fashioned theatrical dramaticness, you enjoy yourself before the moment finally comes again. 

This time, you’ll make it believable. Boo Seungkwan can count on that.

“What a perfect angel you are, Cecily.”

The cue was told. It makes your heart speed up again, much like every single time, the nerves pooling in the palms of your hands.

“You dear, romantic boy,” you reply. Chan gets closer to you, leaning in. You can see him hesitate, you almost hear your own words resonating through his head over and over again, so loud that everyone in the whole room can hear, before he looks at your lips for a mere second, copying his previous act.

Just as you two rehearsed, his head leans a bit to the right, his palm holds the apple of your cheek, his nose nudges yours, before he takes the next step and solidifies the realisticness of the scene with a real kiss, pressing his lips against yours, your lipgloss mixing with the lipbalm you saw him put on in the dressing room before you left.

The kiss is short, just like the script said it should be, but it’s long enough for you to take in every single detail. The way his lips moved against yours with gentleness, almost a tender-like moment making you forget about your surroundings for a minute. You closed your eyes again this time; yet, he didn’t make fun of you like he did when Mingyu was around. He tasted of minty toothpaste and the green tea candy you keep in a bowl in the dressing room. Your knees go weak again– but now, it happened rightfully.

When he pulls away and his hand slowly regresses from your cheek, you find it in you to push through the scene, running your fingers through his hair much like you did a few minutes ago in the back.

“I hope your hair curls naturally, does it?” you ask.

“Yes, darling,” he replies, an undeniable hue of pink reaching the tips of his ears in a noticable, yet subtle blush, “with a little help from others.”

The rest of the play comes by like a flash, the script written in a way where there is no time for you to get bored while watching the actors do their job. Before you notice it, the very last part of the whole play happens, and you’re all standing on the stage, presenting the ending of your Oscar Wilde adaptation.

“Lætitia!” Mingyu yells out, embracing Ning- Miss Prism in a hug.

“Frederick! At last!” she enthusiastically replies, beaming in the reflectors.

“Cecily!” Now is Chan’s turn to embrace you, his arms around you holding you closer than before, his grip stronger than in the last rehearsal. You feel the ending of the play right in front of you, happy to be over with everything so you can take off your makeup and run with everyone to McDonald’s to celebrate.

“Gwendolen! At last!” Soonyoung cheers, embracing Minjeong in the perfect role of Gwendolen.

“My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality,” Ryujin talks to Soonyoung- Jack, as the whole play comes full circle and finishes off with the name of the play.

“On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”

And as the curtain falls and the audience starts cheering, it’s your time to run out, beaming in the brightest light of the reflectors that blind you, bowing until there’s no one else clapping in the whole theatre. Turning to all sides, noticing Chan and Minjeong both clasping your hands with theirs as you bow, the adrenaline doesn’t seem to wear off. The grin on your face is starting to hurt a little when Soonyoung’s friends cheer the loudest in the whole theatre, making you shake your head in disbelief at the precious friendship they have.

Running backstage after the ruckus is over, someone gets a hold of your hand again, making you turn around to see Lee Chan basking in full glory, smiling at you with a nervous smile.

“This is for you,” he says, offering you a bouquet of flowers, “I’m not really sure who it was for, but someone threw it on the stage so I… stole it…” he mumbles, nervously scratching the back of his neck, making you grin.

“Thank you,” you say, smelling the tall mix of magnolia flowers, admiring the vibrancy of the colours complementing in the bouquet. 

“And I was thinking if you… if you wanted to go out with me?” he suggests. 

His proposition almost makes you choke on your own spit, heat rising to your cheeks again, a nervous smile mirroring your lips as you mutter out an almost incoherent response. “We’re… we’re going to McDonald’s now with everyone, so.. I don’t…”

“I meant like… after. Some other day,” he explains, making you mentally facepalm at the way you replied, embarrassing yourself in the process. 

“Oh,” you nod, “well… Yeah. Sure. I’d like that.”

“Okay, sweet!” he grins, giving you a quick side-hug with one arm, before he runs further backstage, presumably to get his makeup off and change so the whole group can go to a make-shift afterparty at the nearest McDonald’s. 

Standing there, still, shocked by the way things turned out, you meet eyes with Mingyu that suggestively wiggles his eyebrows at you as he passes you by, seemingly to say that he saw the kiss from where he was standing and that you two will talk about it as soon as you’re able to. Smiling to yourself, feeling a little pathetic from how giddy you are on the inside, you wonder if the boy himself realises the importance of Lee Chan in your life.

You won’t admit it to him just yet, but you did just give him your first kiss, after all. 

The play and before the scene she tells him kiss me for real this time and he hesitates and she does it and he invites her out after

[seiyasabi]

Yamaguchi’s Awakening

(Here’s a Yandere Yamaguchi Tadashi x Female Reader story :PP I know you only mentioned a Mommy fic, but I kinda added a lil more ‘spice’ to that lol, so I hope that’s okay! If not, feel free to message me! Also, he’s known the stutter, so I made it a bit prevalent in the story. Sorry if that’s annoying.

TW: !Noncon/dubcon!, Mommy kink!, !You are p mean lol, Painslut Yama!, Masochist Yama!, You physically fight him but he loves it, practically wrestles you to the floor!, thigh fucking, creampie!, Calls himself baby boy but alternates that w ‘pig slut!’, etc.. 

Please proceed with caution!) 

You woke up to Tadashi’s moans, eyes practically popping open in both terror and confusion. You’d taken a nap whilst waiting for him to come home from work, but you hadn’t expected to wake up to such a lewd sound. 

Pushing yourself up with shaky arms, your slip’s thin straps slide off of your moisturised shoulders, causing more of your cleavage to show in the skimpy garment. Tired eyes land on the green haired man’s slumped form, his long, lean body practically falling off of a plush chair on the other side of the room. His large hand is fisting his cock at an alarming pace, while his hips stutter upwards to meet his ministrations. 

“What the hell are you doing?” You frown in mild annoyance, scoffing in disgust. Is he really getting off to your sleeping form? 

“Mu-Mommy!” His face is pulled into the perfect Ahegao expression, tongue lolling out stupidly, as drool drips down his chin. Beads of sweat intermix with his perfectly scattered freckles, and if it weren’t for the fact that Tsukishima helped him kidnap you, you most likely would have found it arousing, “Puh-Please pu-punish me! I-I’m such a-a bad boy!” 

Screwing your face up in disgust, you practically spit venom at him, “Oh my God, you’re fucking disgusting. How dare you-” 

With a loud whine, he cums. His liquidy release coats his chest in large streaks, partially splashing himself in the face with his own spunk. The liquid creates a large puddle on the floor, demonstrating just how much semen he’s stored in his purple tinged balls. The sight before you has left you absolutely speechless, as Tadashi keens and whines for you to punish him. 

“Please, please, Mommy! I-I need you to-” 

“What the actual fuck did I just witness?” Your eyes never leave the puddle on your room’s wood look tile, “Oh my God, you’re such a disgusting pervert.”

At your words, the freckled man practically throws his naked body onto your lap, “Yu-you chose me! That means that you love me, right? A-and if Mommy loves me, she should punish me for being bad! Please hit me!” His previously softened cock is now standing back at attention, humping at your exposed legs. 

One of your perfectly manicured hands (thanks to Yamaguchi’s hard work) shoves his head off of your stomach, “Get the fuck off of me! Clearly, I chose wrong, because you’re just a slobbering pig!” Tears bead his large eyes, but the tall man doesn’t back down. He continues to try to rut against you, causing your shoves to become more violent, until you effectively shove him off of your bed. He lands on the hard ground with a ‘smack,’ as he moans on impact. 

“Ye-yes! Hi-hit me mu-more! I de-deserve it, your baby bu-boy deserves it!” He tries once more to crawl his way onto you, but you react far quicker than him. You use the ball of your foot to push him away by the forehead, dropping him back onto the cold floor. 

“Stay the fuck away from me! I knew I should’ve liked your asshole for a best friend, at least he wouldn’t be such a fucking weirdo!” You push yourself off of your bed, trying to escape to the bathroom, but it’s to no avail. Tadashi, in some sort of lucidity, drags you to the ground with him. His lean form tries to trap you to the floor, but your thrashing limbs and harsh elbows keep him from getting too close, “Stop it! Let go of me-”

“Du-don’t say you want someone else! Your precious piggy will do anything you want! Let your baby boy make his Mommy feel good!” You end up on your back, allowing your hands to worm their way between the two of you, and create a small distance. Taking full advantage of that, you get a single hand up by your face, which gives you the perfect opportunity to slap the dogshit out of the feral man. 

He moans breathily, as if he’s savouring the feeling of your harsh touches, “You’re fucking pathetic, Yamaguchi. No one would willingly choose you, which is why you lied and manipulated me!” You smack him multiple more times, his freckled, drooly cheeks quickly becoming bright red. You force your knees against his toned stomach, kneeing him uncomfortably in the ribs, which he just pushed more of his weight on. 

“Yes! Yes! Tell me more of the things you hate about me! Your harsh words are almost enough to make me cum!” Screwing up your face in absolute fury, you punch him in the throat, whilst simultaneously kicking him in the cock, causing him to cum immediately with a small scream, “Mu-Mommy, your piggy is cumming!” His hot, watery cum lands on your slip clad body, making you want to vomit. So, in a last ditch effort, you shove him off whilst he’s still recovering from a second intense orgasm. 

Scrambling to your feet, you make a break for the bathroom door, only to be dragged down to the floor by a firm grip on your ankle. Tadashi’s hot, wet body slots itself on top of yours, effectively pinning you down. Although he may be quite slim, his sheer size is enough to weigh you down. 

“Get off of me! You’re fucking sick!” He pants next to your ear, practically trying to mount you like a dog. His chest is firmly against your back, pushing down your lower half. His knees spread yours apart, allowing him to slot himself between your legs. 

You try to hit him, but because he’s behind you, your hits don’t land very hard. Both of his hands fumble whilst he tries to push your panties down, causing you to thrash even more than before. Growing tired of your ministrations, he rips the garment from your pussy. 

“Stop it! Yamaguchi, get off of me! Don’t do this to me!” Tears drip down your face in thick rivulets, as you sob in pure fury, “I-I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never forgive a pathetic fuck like you! I should have never become your friend- you don’t deserve any!” He lightly moans at your words, not quite listening to what you have to say, but enjoying your harsh tone. 

“Ye-yes, Mommy! Threaten me! I love how you belittle me so well!” He then tries to force his long cock inside of you, but is unsuccessful. You’d just barely moved your thighs together in time, blocking him from breaching your unprepared walls. But, that doesn’t seem to faze him, as he starts to hump your sweat slickened thighs, “Oh-oh my God, your thighs feel so good, Mommy! Your piggy slut loves them!” His eyes are practically rolling to the back of his head, as multiple squirts of precum escape his cock, slicking your pussy opening inadvertently. 

You throw your elbows at his head again, but he just lets them hit him, relishing your harsh blows. If anything, your attempted hits trigger him to hump you even faster. Which, in turn, unfortunately, causes him to accidentally hook his cockhead on your cunny opening, and force his prick inside of you. Your mouth gapes in both shock and pain, as you let out a shrill scream. He slams a sweaty hand over your mouth, fortunately minding your nose, letting you breathe through it. His entire body is convulsing, as he sits inside of you, relishing your twitching walls around his cock. 

“Mu-Mommy’s piggy lu-loves Mommy’s pu-pussy!” In quick, sudden movements, he bucks his hips into yours, his breeder balls slapping against your clit with every thrust. Your pants and light moans are muffled behind his hand, as you continue to cry and try to get free. Your thrashing does nothing but seat you further on his long cock, allowing him to hit your g-spot with every movement. Your pussy gushes at his ministrations, as you fall limp, “Fu-fuck, Mommy! Mommy, I-I’m gunna cum!” 

Your slack mouth tries to deny him, but your eyes practically roll up into your skull as you cum suddenly, spraying girl cum on his cock and on the floor below your chest, practically covering your entire torso. Feeling your orgasm milking his cock, Yamaguchi cums quickly after you, filling you to the brim with his watery, overabundant cum. It was like he was trying to fill every crevice inside of you with his milk, relishing how well you take him. You practically collapse to the ground, no longer having the strength to hold yourself off of the now slick wood look tile. This, in turn, causes his still cumming cock to fall out of you, spraying your ass and thighs with his seed. 

Yamaguchi strokes himself, trying to wring out as much cum as possibly on your crumpled, fucked out form. He looks down at you with an innocent grin, before smooching you kindly on the face, “Thank you, Mommy, your baby boy feels sooo much better, now that I’ve filled your pretty cunny! Do you want a bath?” 

You say nothing, seemingly still in shock at what just transpired. Yams coos at you, trying to gain your attention, but when you don’t respond, he takes it upon himself to clean you up. 

“It’s okay, sometimes when Tsukki would experiment with me, I’d be too sore to move, too! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re all pretty and clean after a long, hot bath.” 

With wobbly legs, the tall man stalks off to the bathroom, not batting an eye at your weird silence. 

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[babyybitchhh]

Law x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 6,653

Warnings: sexual roleplay, sex work, excessive/rough breast play, vaginal sex, creampie, set in Wano but honestly I just took advantage of that unknown period when they first arrived, chubby reader

A/N: It's okay, Law doesn't need to use condoms. He's a doctor. : )

♥♥♥♥

“Well, how do I look?”

Head coming up, Law glances over from his spot on the tatami and ire immediately flashes through stormy gray eyes. But you pretend not to notice as you turn in the doorway, letting him see the back of your kimono with its neatly tied bow and the flowing long sleeves that had delighted you when you’d first glimpsed the style of dress in this country.

Truth be told, you were really quite pleased with yourself.

Particularly after Kinemon had assured you it was a lovely choice for the role you were to take in Wano; that of a maid servant working at the finest brothel in the capital where you were sure to overhear plenty of hush hush information the others might not likewise be privy to. The place was frequented by big wig politicians, powerful samurai and members of the ruling Kurozumi faction, according to him, which meant you would be playing an integral part in the plan going forward.

You were glad for it, eager to be of some use in the coming battle to overthrow the shogunate since such an opportunity very rarely presented itself to non combatants like you.

But when you turn back around, beaming expectantly only to find Law glaring across the room, your shoulders quickly droop in defeat. “What? You don’t like it?”

Rather than directly answering the question, he scoffs and looks away. “You’re supposed to be blending in with the people of this country, not standing out like a sore thumb.”

You guffaw, glancing down at yourself. “What do you mean? Everyone’s wearing clothes like this!”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Try as you might, you just couldn’t figure out what he was finding issue with here. The rich silk print wrapped around your body was understated, not nearly as intricate or attention grabbing as those of the oiran you would soon be waiting on, but that didn’t make it any less elegant. In fact, you’d thought for sure he would like it for just that reason.

The monochrome base with its bursts of color in the form of vibrant, blooming red and pink chrysanthemums had struck you as something he would appreciate for its simple yet undeniable beauty. He’d picked out his own clothes in similar fashion, going with a basic black and white kimono and a relatively plain yet stylish jittoko to wear over top so you weren’t really sure what made your outfit any different.

They were practically one and the same - and you tell him as much when you step across the room, fully prepared to fight him on this.

But as soon as you're close enough, Law reaches out to snag your wrist and he yanks you down on the floor with him. You draw a sharp breath as your knees hit the woven mat, quickly jerking your attention up only to choke on whatever you were going to say when he crowds into your space with that steely eyed frown he was known for.

“W - what?”

“It’s not the same.” He intones, low and unamused. “I’m going to be playing a traveling monk with my face covered. You’ll be working in the red light district. There’s a world of difference here.”

You start to ask him to elaborate, because you just weren’t seeing it, but stop yourself short when the answer abruptly clicks into place.

Oh.

So it was like that.

“Could it be … you’re feeling a little possessive, maybe?”

Law barks out a quick laugh, making your cheeks warm. “And why would that be?”

“I don’t know!” You blurt, embarrassed. “Even if you’re not serious about this - about us, I just thought you might be getting sort of ... jealous, thinking about other men looking at me that way. I guess.”

“You’re not mine to feel possessive about, sweetheart. You know that.”

Too well, in fact; you think as you turn your face away to hide the hurt you were sure he’d find staring back at him.

He's quick to reach out and grab under your chin though, manually turning you back around. “Don’t pout. You volunteered for this job.”

“I just wanted to be useful …”

“You are useful.” He murmurs, the pitch of his voice dropping an octave, intentionally or not, to send static racing down your spine. “Don’t you worry about that. I have a solution that I think will satisfy both of us, though.”

“O - oh?”

Without missing a beat, Law snakes his arm behind him, grabs the tengai sitting at his knee and brings it forward so he can unceremoniously plop it down on top of your head. You squawk, hands flying up to grab the hat which basically amounted to little more than a straw basket and, therefore, should have been easy to remove. But the hand he still had resting on top of the damned thing kept it firmly in place no matter how you pushed at it and you outright seethe when you catch the slightly muffled sound of his smug, snickering laughter.

“Law, you ass! Stop!”

He hadn’t even had the decency to put it on the right way! The slats were facing out at the back of your skull and you couldn’t see anything except warm light bleeding in through the woven textiles.

“But if you wear this,” he tells you in a sobered yet no less amused tone. “I won’t have to worry about horny old perverts looking at you too much.”

“I swear I’m gonna’ - -“ You stammer to a halt, suddenly realizing what he’d said. “So you are jealous that other men might look at me!”

“Mm. Jealous isn’t the word I would use, personally.”

“Oh, then what hell would - -“

You cut yourself off with a flustered gasp when his unoccupied hand abruptly winds around your waist and finds the bow Kinemon had tirelessly struggled to fasten your obi in. He tugs at it, gently at first, and then more forcefully when it doesn’t give. With a click of his tongue, so close to your basketed head that you couldn’t miss it, Law adjusts his grip and feels around for the weak point in the knot. Once located, his long, dexterous fingers make quick work of loosening it with a soft slither of silk that makes you shudder for him and lean into the heat of his body.

The amount of sway he held over you just wasn’t fair.

“Do we really have to do this … with the hat on?”

Obi successfully undone, he starts to unwind it from around your waist one slow loop at a time.

“If I have it my way,” he says quietly. “This is the closest you’ll ever get to having anonymous sex. So the answer is, yes.”

The implication of what he was saying had you running hot, and not just in arousal. “I won’t sleep with any of the men at the brothel, you know.” You tell him tersely.

“I’m sure you won’t, but just in case you ever wonder what it would be like …”

His hand finds your shoulder as soon as the ridiculously long band of fabric is pooled between both of your laps; gentle but commanding in the way he pushes you down to lay out on the floor. You comply, though not without a soft whimper at the uniquely strange pitter patter in your suddenly tight chest.

It’s not that you didn’t understand what he was doing here.

Giving you a taste of what it would be like on the off chance hearing the girlish moans in the next room over ever sparked your interest, so you’d think back on this moment and remember how good he was at fucking you into a blissed out stupor. As if you could ever forget.

But, still, it seemed he wanted you to go into this with that knowledge fresh in your mind. And if it was the thrill of anonymity you wanted, he was clearly happy to oblige in that too. The fact he cared about something so silly, enough to remind you with a hands on demonstration, warmed you from the inside out in a way that little else ever had. He may not have admitted it in quite so many words, but this was possessive behavior if you’d ever seen it.

Admittedly pleased by this turn of events, you lay back with your arms splayed across the tatami mats and feel him move close to hover over you. Bracing a hand on the floor, he begins to carefully part the layers of your kimono with the other, one at a time, while you stare up at the inside of his tengai. You badly wanted to reach up and slip it off your head, or at least spin it around the right way so you could glimpse him through the slats, but you choose to refrain. If not because you were sure he’d just find a way to secure it until he was finished making his point then certainly because you were curious to see how far he would take this.

Law clearly felt something more towards you than just baser lust and general irritation, and that excited you almost as much as his hands on you did.

“To answer your earlier question,” he drawls, gently nudging you back into the here and now. “You look good in these clothes. Almost frustratingly so, actually.”

You gulp down the butterflies dancing in your throat and try your hardest not to smile, even though he couldn’t see it either way. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t have said it otherwise, silly girl.” His long fingers finally find the nagajuban, the last flimsy barrier separating you from him, and Law noises a brief sound of anticipation as he descends upon it.

A sedate shudder ripples down your spine while he makes casual work of spreading the robe open around you, your nipples immediately puckering when the cool air hits them. It makes you twitch and arch for him, squirming fitfully on your impromptu bed of silk; but he doesn’t stop long enough to pay it any mind and you have to bite back a groan when he somewhat callously palms your breasts with broad hands.

He isn’t as soft with you as he usually is. Not quite so preoccupied with prioritizing your pleasure over his own, and the almost greedy way he kneads at your chest serves its purpose in making you feel like a properly casual encounter. Something to vent his frustrations and nothing more.

You’d like to say it was off putting and that you didn’t like being handled so indifferently, but that would have been a bold faced lie. You were rapidly growing hot under his attention - tipping your head back inside the tengai to mewl out a whine when he bends down and eagerly seals his mouth around one stiff nipple without any of the slow buildup you were accustomed to. You were entirely at his mercy like this, in this particular role, and Law’s affinity for your breasts quickly makes itself known in the form of rough, enthusiastic sucking and nibbling that was perhaps just a little too sharply applied for it to be pleasurable.

But it wasn’t for you that he was doing this, so he takes his time indulgently suckling at the teat in his mouth until you finally whimper and twist underneath him. He comes up at the noise, leaving the tip of your breast feeling sore and unbearably coiled in the scant space that separates the shallow rise and fall of your chest from his. The tight bud gives a muted throb in the aftermath, the ache of it just edging your peripheral, and he chuckles when you squeeze doughy thighs together, rubbing them.

“Oh? You like that, do you?”

You can practically hear the roguish smirk in his tone, and your face goes hot behind the woven barrier. He knew your body well enough to recognize a sound of genuine pleasure from one of tender pain, but you don’t get the chance to correct him before the rough pad of his finger abruptly swipes over the swell of your breast. Sure and steady, it follows the natural curve of it right up to the straining nipple in the center which he delivers a sharp flick to, making you twitch and whine. The heat pooling in your gut seemed to suggest it wasn’t entirely disagreeable but you weren’t used to such indelicate treatment, not from him, and you positively writhe when he palms the weight of it in his hand again.

“My, what a sensitive little minx I’ve invited into my bed. I can already tell you’re going to be worth every penny.”

Understanding immediately dawns and you bite down on your lower lip to keep quiet as he switches his attention to the opposite tit, pinching the meat of it firmly enough to make pliable flesh spill out between his fingers. You shudder at the way he guides the puckered tip to his mouth with a sense of slow, savory anticipation, warm breath wafting against your skin moments before his lips close around it. Issuing a hazy groan, you curl your hands into the fabric laid out underneath you and arch, pushing your chest up to meet him halfway. If it was a sweetly compliant mistress of the night he expected you to play, then that was what you were going to give him.

“Mmm, you’re good at this, mister.” You murmur softly, still embarrassed to be saying it even with your resolve, and he snorts.

“Yeah? Don’t try to flatter me, sweetheart, I’m sure you say that to all the John’s.”

He goes up then and sits back on his knees, both arms stretched out across your body to cup and fondle the weight of your breasts with that same intense focus as before. A puff of air stutters out of you when he slowly drags the blunt of his thumbs over stiff points, making your pussy clench with a sympathetic flutter. Everything felt somehow that much more intense without the use of your sight and it takes every ounce of willpower you possess not to reach up and grab ahold of his bony wrists when he finally pinches one tightly coiled bud between two of his fingers.

“Nggh, w - … wait!” You mewl, your breath coming quicker when even something as simple as that makes your gut twist hard enough to leave you aching for him.

Chidingly tutting at you, Law makes a casual show of teasing your swollen nipple to straining attention while his other hand kneads the opposite breast like a happy feline earnestly fluffing it’s favorite pillow. That is to say, rather aggressively.

“Sorry, but you don’t get to tell a paying customer what to do. That’s part of the deal,” he informs you politely enough, but the reprimand itself as well as the pressure on your tit still makes you wince. “You’re mine for the night, so we’re going to do whatever it is I want. That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it?”

“... yes.”

“Good girl.” He breathes out, palming both of your tits now to squeeze them. “Stay nice and sweet for me, and I just might leave you a handsome tip when I’m done. How’s that sound, hm?”

You give your head a stilted nod before recalling that he probably couldn’t see it. “I … I’d like that very much, mister.”

“Then you had better make sure you behave yourself. I won’t give you anything extra if I don’t think you deserve it. You need to earn it. Do you understand?”

“Mm, yes … yes, I understand.”

“Good to hear.”

Giving the swell of your tits a bitingly rough pinch, Law slowly drags his palms down so that rough calluses scrape over your sensitized nipples. You can’t quite stop from crying out when the two buds give meaty little jostles in the wake of his hands, so puffy and engorged now that they felt achingly tender to the touch. He seems satisfied by the lack of protest though, and he pauses long enough to give them both another taunting tweak before trailing lower, sharp fingertips dancing across your stomach.

“You have the perfect body for this, you know.” He says, almost casually offhand. “Soft in all the right places and so very inviting. The kind of body anyone could lose themselves in, if given the chance. I’m sure you’re quite popular.”

“Mm’ not …”

Scoffing quietly, he splays his hands wide across your stomach and rubs the soft pudge there before dragging them around to squeeze at plushy lovehandles that seem to mold into his palms. You whimper at the avid attention to your body, even though you really should have been used to it by now, but he doesn’t say anything to scold you for it like some men otherwise might have. Law was more inclined to showing rather than telling, after all, and he responds instead by bringing his hands forward so he can press your thighs open for him to settle between.

“You know I don’t buy that, sweetheart. How could anyone with a working cock pass up the chance to have a pretty little pussy like this all to themselves, huh? You look like you’d just suck me right in.”

His spindly fingers dip into the space between your legs and find plump, velvety lips, slowly pressing in and spreading them apart so he can get a good, long look at you. Choking at the sensation, your thighs tense and flex as if to close him out but you stop yourself from acting on the urge with a tiny, faltering mewl. Your face is on fire behind his hat while you make do with twisting on the floor instead - your hands balling into tight little fists with layers of kimono clenched in them as you try to decide if you should happily offer him your cunt or tell him to stop. It was a surprisingly hard choice to make when he had you so vulnerably exposed like this.

“M - mister … please, you’re embarrassing me!”

“Am I now?” He chuckles faintly, making you flush even hotter. “We’ll just have to fix that then, won’t we?”

Your breath catches in your throat when you feel Law sit back on his haunches again, those long fingers of his still keeping you spread open for him. Trying to brace for what was coming next quickly proves to be an effort in futility when he crowds his other hand in with the first and presses down on your clit with expert precision, rubbing smooth little circles into it. A startled sound of pleasure erupts out of you even as your body goes ramrod stiff, the sensitive nub giving a receptive throb under featherlight pressure which prompts you to angle your hips up in search of more.

He laughs in response to the needy display, unhurriedly adjusting the position of his hand so he can flick at your clit with a slow, steady back and forth of his finger until you finally twitch and writhe, just as he wanted.

“Hmph. Pretty girl. You look good when you squirm for me like that, but I’m sure you’ll look even better when you’re squirming on my cock here in a minute.”

You let out a frazzled, sucker punched sound and twist on the floor, making your heavy tits bounce and jiggle with the jerky motion. “Please … I want it!”

“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“N - ngh … I want - want your cock …”

Humming faintly, Law picks up the pace of his finger, battering your clit from both sides, and you almost come up off the floor with a strangled, gasping wheeze. “I didn’t quite catch that, I’m afraid. Would you like to try again?”

“Your cock! I want your cock, La - - haah, m - mister! Please put it in …”

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific. Do you want it in your mouth? Or perhaps your ass …”

You shake your head so wildly that the tengai slips up just enough for you to feel a rush of fresh air assaulting the lower half of your face, but you hardly think anything of it in your quickly mounting desperation. You didn’t need to see - you needed to feel him inside you, stretching your guts to capacity.

“No, no please, mister, not there! I want it in my pussy! Please stick it in my pussy and fuck me stupid with your cock! I p - promise I’ll be good!”

At that Law sucks in a sharp, heated breath, letting it back out in a rumbling low groan as his finger drops away from your clit to swipe through the copious slick oozing out of you, testing your wetness.

“Ooh, what a damn good girl you are. You’ll have me coming back for more, if you’re not careful. Would you like that? Do you want to share my bed again?”

“Yuh - yes! I want you to fuck me lots and lots …”

A mildly flustered sigh slips out of him, sending a brief touch of ghostly fingertips across your inflamed skin to make you tremble and shake, still so sensitive even now. “How could I ever say ‘no’ to that, huh? You’ll gladly be the ruin of me at this rate …”

He leans all the way back then, big hands retreating from your body with a deliberate sense of action. You’re left flushed and sprawled out on the floor, dizzily blinking through the needy haze that’s come over your punch drunk mind when you catch the sound of rustling fabric directly in front of you. You think to tip your head down, peering along the length of your nose, and a certain amount of surprise washes over you when you realize you can see something other than just the inside of the basket.

Past the shallow rise and fall of your chest and the soft swell of your stomach, you catch a glimpse of him moving between your bent and splayed legs. He was already naked, his borrowed kimono shrugged off and discarded; sizable cock jutting proudly into the space between you two and leaking a glistening bead of precum. You still couldn’t see Law’s face when the rim of the woven hat was taking up a good majority of your line of sight - just up to about the midway point of his waist - but that only seemed to heighten the feigned sense of anonymity in this situation.

Choking down a much needed gulp of air, you watch as if in a trance while he finishes getting himself situated and reaches out to hook his hands under your knees. Spreading them further apart and then folding them towards your chest allows him to shuffle even closer and settle the fronts of his thighs against your upturned ass, tilting your pelvis up at him in the process. He lets one leg settle beside his narrow hip so he can snake a hand into the now scant space between you two where he gives himself a few savory pumps before guiding the glans to your waiting cunt.

“L - Law!” You gasp, close to delirious at the feverish scene unfolding right in front of you.

“Hmm? Am I not ‘mister’ anymore?” He teases, slowly drawing the head of his cock up and down your slit to coat it in sticky arousal, the soft nudge against your clit on every steady stroke making your hips twitch in anticipation. “I kind of liked the sound of it, to be honest with you. Maybe I should have you call me that more often.”

In a daze, you reach down as if to grab for him but stop yourself short at the last second when you abruptly recall your assigned role here. Fingers twisting in frustration, you ball them up into fists against your lower stomach only to blush red hot at the way he chuckles, faintly laughing at you. You have to fight to keep your eyes open when you want nothing more than to screw them shut, embarrassed, and a quiet whine rises in the back of your throat as you watch Law purposefully guide himself to your entrance. He applies just enough pressure for you to feel the blunt head pressing into you, barely, but not enough to sink in yet, and your toes excitedly curl in the air, eager for the sear of penetration.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He murmurs, drawing your attention away from what’s going on between your legs. “You don’t have to hold back. I doubt you’ll be able to keep it up, anyway.”

You don’t need to be told twice, and you quickly snag your fingers around his wrists as he latches on to your other leg again, digging his fingers into pillowy soft flesh to keep them spread. Noticeably holding the air in his lungs now, Law leans his weight into you and the glans slowly breaches the first ring of muscle with an intoxicatingly delicious rush of friction that has you instantly shaking for him.

He pushes in deeper and deeper, ever so slowly, making sure you feel each individual inch that penetrates you at that tortuously staggered pace. Your eyes start to roll back before he’s even fully seated inside you, and you eventually let out some sort of desperate, wounded animal noise when he finally slides home a small eternity later.

He lets out the breath he’d been holding in a stuttering rush and it seems to rattle through his narrow chest while he takes his time grinding the sharp planes of his pelvis into the plushy give of yours. The coarse but neat thatch of curls at the base of him scratches and tickles, leaving a burning trail in their wake as you gratefully jut your cunt up into the pressure, plaintively asking for more. He felt so good inside you. He always felt so good.

“Nngh … please, Law! Please make me cum on - on your cock, please … I’ve been good …”

“You have.” He agrees, at last angling his hips back until you fear he would slip right out only to push inside again at that same frustratingly slow pace. “You’re a good girl, when you want to be. You know I’ll always reward you for a job well done, don’t you?”

You offer a quick nod, breathless, as you try to crane your neck up to get a better look at where his cock was sedately gliding in and out of you, but it only makes the tengai slide back down into place. Realizing you were once again without sight, you screw your eyes shut and groan bitterly as you toss your head back.

“T - that’s why I wanted to be useful for you …!”

Feeling him hunch over you, and rather suddenly at that, you tense when the slight change in position increases the pressure of him inside your guts. Your mouth warbles open as if to groan but nothing comes out, and genuine surprise rapidly floods the forefront of your mind when he grabs the top of the hat and pulls it off, making you blink owlishly in the suddenly bright room.

“I figured as much when you volunteered for a role as risky as it is potentially invaluable. You’re not a fighter, so it was fairly obvious you had a motive.” Fixing you with a sly smirk, he tosses the tengai aside and settles more squarely on his knees. Picking up the force behind his thrusts, now perfectly angled to drive into your upper wall and attack the tightly clustered nerves on the other side, Law clutches at you all the more fervently until you’re positive you’ll find bruises in the morning. “But I trust you … I know you’ll do a good job, sweetheart. You always do.”

Letting out a series of whimpering groans, you push up on your elbows so you can flick your attention between his glistening wet cock as it drives into you and his handsomely pinched face. “Then w - aah - what was all that b - before … you ass?”

He offers you a tersely clipped laugh. “Just a bit of fun, mostly.”

“Such a … nngh, such a jerk …”

Chuckling under his breath, Law lets up his hold on your legs in favor of sliding broad palms across your stomach, calluses scraping, to get a good grip on plushy hips. You respond with a low groan as you struggle upright so you can get your hands under you and push up, slanting your pelvis down to meet his leisurely thrusts tit for tat. The hushed sound of skin meeting skin picks up in the old room, otherwise silent besides the soft moans and faltering breaths coming from the two of you.

It was unexpectedly nice, given the circumstances.

“Yes, right t - there … haah, so good, you feel so good, Law. God, don’t stop …”

“You know I won’t,” he rumbles, possessively squeezing your sides in a pinching tight grip so he can guide you into a more energetic bouncing motion that has your heavy tits bouncing for him. “But I meant what I said earlier … any man would be a fool to pass up a night with you. I’m sure you’ll be quite popular in the brothel.”

You shake your head, sucking in a faltering gasp. “I don’t c - care … I only want you …”

“How reassuring …”

A shaky groan puffs out of him and the sound races straight to your cunt, making you clench around the stiff cock relentlessly carving out a space within you. Your subconscious reaction only seems to make him dig up into your sweet spot all the more insistently and, seething, you close your eyes, dropping your chin to your chest. You could feel the coil inside you slowly tightening just that little bit more each time he slid up inside you, making your toes curl while you struggled just to keep up with the pace he wanted.

Your legs and arms were quickly growing tired though and, with a soft, whining plea, you lift one of your hands to reach for him. Law catches on quick as usual, immediately letting go of your hips so he can curl one arm under your armpit and across your shoulder blades. With very little effort on his part, he hauls you up against him and locks the other arm behind your back so he can hold you in his lap.

“You like it better this way, sweetheart?” He murmurs, bracing his scruffy chin on the center of your chest with his head tilted back to look up at you.

“Ahh - mm, mhm!”

Clinging to his broad shoulders, you adjust the positioning of your feet and bounce on his cock a little more smoothly now. He seemed to hit even deeper than before, knocking something inside of you that made every inch of your body feel like it was on fire. You could hardly breathe through it, sucking in one haggard gasp after another while you continued to work yourself over until you felt near delirious with the need to cum.

You weren’t quite there yet though and you curl yourself around him, tucking your face into the crook of his shoulder so you can inhale the smell of him into your contracting lungs. Pinewood and ozone, the faintest note of antiseptic. You could even make out a faint trace of the dark, heady cologne he hardly ever bothered to put on. It was indescribably intoxicating, and you couldn’t take much more of it.

“Wanna’ cum …” you mewl against his collarbone, feeling like you were moments away from drooling all down the front of him. Your mind was a cotton stuffed mess.

Turning his head, Law presses his mouth to your hair and gently kisses you. “Are you starting to get tired?”

“Yuh - yeah …”

He tsks at that, the sound warm and comforting in your ear.

You suddenly choke on a sharp inhale when he tightens his arms around you without so much as missing a beat, hauling you up even closer to him and prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist with a light jostle. Crossing your ankles behind his back, you hang on for dear life as he somewhat awkwardly goes up on his knees, adjusts the grip he has on you - all without dislodging himself from your pulpy cunt - and then pivots his hips forward to test the angle.

The action rocks you in his arms, increasing the pressure on the downward slide when your soft ass paps against the fronts of his thighs. It knocks the air right out of you and you jolt, lifting your face from his shoulder so you can keen in frazzled, almost hysterical pleasure. You sounded like something wild and mindless.

“Is that better?” He whispers, his tone much too smug for him not to already know the answer.

Law doesn’t even give you a chance to respond before he does it again though, more forcefully this time, and you practically shriek in wordless delight. The momentum of his gravity assisted thrusts builds into the next, and then the next until he was fucking into you at such an enthusiastic pace that you couldn’t even begin to keep up with it.

Your mind completely blank now, you let your mouth hang open in doped out bliss while you freely moan and squeal in pleasure; the sticky wet squelching between your bodies and the sharp smack of skin on skin serving as an all too appropriate backdrop for the sounds you were making. The coil inside you was quickly reaching its breaking point and all you could do anymore was clutch at him, digging your nails into his back while he relentlessly slammed into you.

His straining grunts, so hot and heavy in your ear, had you vibrating like a wound up ball of static electricity and you hung there on the precipice for a horribly long beat, silently praying for the pin to drop. You weren’t sure how much more your aching cunt could take at this level of intensity - and then, so abruptly it almost startles you, he turns his head so he can shove his mouth against your neck and kiss you again.

It was, embarrassingly enough, the abrasive burn of his chin scruff that finally shoves you over the edge.

Toes curling to the point of genuine discomfort, you jerk in his hold so violently that it nearly tips the both of you over onto the ground. Law is quick to steady himself though and he crushes you against the front of him with a rumbling groan while your cunt spasms and tries to strangle his cock in a chokehold. You were far too caught up in the wild, full bodied tremors that were wracking through you to complain about the creaking ache in your ribs from where he was holding on to you so tight, but you also didn’t really care.

You were floating somewhere far above the physical realm, your flesh and blood body little more than an afterthought at that point.

Finally, you come back to earth with a strangled, heaving gasp, hands scrabbling against Law’s sweaty back as you writhe in his arms like you were something feral and untamed. He wasn’t about to let you go anywhere just yet though, and he rocks forward on his knees so that your back hits the rumpled layers of your kimono again. Keeping his arms locked around your quaking frame, he settles close enough to rest the fronts of his thighs on the backs of yours and pin them to the floor underneath him.

The vigorous pounding that follows seems to drag out your soul shattering orgasm to the point of real discomfort and it very nearly sends you spiraling into another. Your legs were flexing in the air, jerking with each powerful thrust of his narrow hips, but he was chasing his own high now and he couldn’t be bothered to stop long enough to pay attention to your desperate bleating. For a brief moment in time, he was a man well and truly possessed.

“Oooh, fuck, you get so tight when you cum, sweetheart, hng - haahn, your pussy’s so good to me, you know that? I’m gonna’ fill you up, baby, you ready? It’s coming …”

You jerk your head in a disoriented nod and Law drops his face to your shoulder, his slender frame shaking uncontrollably with the intensity of his fast approaching release. The obscenely loud, sticky wet squelching that noises between the two of you only seems to highlight the rough, primal quality of the seething grunts and groans that slip through his clenched teeth, rattling around inside your otherwise empty skull. You were starting to ache, in earnest this time, and reflexive tears sting at the corners of your eyes while you fervently cling to him, brokenly moaning at each desperate stroke of his cock.

For better or worse, it only takes a few minutes of this brutal pace to have Law’s hips stuttering and losing their rhythm, his thrusts gradually turning sloppy and uneven before grinding to a complete stop. Heaving, he puts the whole weight of his body into it and slams himself inside the mess he’s made of your cunt, mercilessly rocking you back against the floor once, twice, three times. On the fourth plunge, he suddenly freezes on top of you, lurching with the loss of momentum, and a powerful shudder races down his spine while he sensitively twitches and paints your guts white.

You let out a flustered groan at the sensation, delighting in the way the warmth of his release settles and spreads through you, coating your palpitating walls in creamy discharge. It was enough to send a fresh wave of tremors racing up your legs and the two of you groan in near perfect unison as you both go limp, struggling to catch your breath.

He recovers somewhat quicker than you do, eventually pushing his weight up and slipping out from between your legs so he can tiredly roll over onto his side next to you. You’re still panting when he turns you to face him, gently drawing you up against his shallowly contracting chest so you can nuzzle your nose into the thin patch of hair there. You could still smell him, a faint comfort, through the faint musk and various bodily fluids now sticking to your skin, and you were content to enjoy it for just a little bit longer.

His hand slides around to rub across your back while you both work at coming the rest of the way down from your peaks, a true feat after that unexpectedly intense session, and he lets you press in close until it was hard to tell where one of you stopped and the other began. If asked prior to this, you wouldn’t have thought you’d be all that into role playing in the bedroom but, somehow, it was actually kind of fun with him.

Law did often seem to have that effect on you.

“Hey,” he says at last, bringing his hand up and around to gently brush the hair back from your temple. “You hungry?”

Still thrumming, you give yourself a moment to think about that. “Mm, I could eat.” You murmur even as you contentedly snuggle somehow even deeper into Law’s chest, getting comfortable.

He gives an amused snort and drags his rough palm down along your side, delivering a sharp pinch to the meat of your ass to make you jolt.

“Come on, let’s go see what kind of food we can get in Wano. I’m sure we’ll find something good, or at least something edible.” Pausing, he dips his face close and presses his mouth to the top of your head, speaking into your hair. “And when we get back maybe I’ll eat you next.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Tedious Joys - Chapter 6 -

- Ao3 link -

The jade pendant Lan Qiren had worked so hard on had not stopped burning painfully hot since what he now knew was the day Jiwei had been shattered. It retroactively made perfect sense why his music could do nothing to calm the flames no matter how soothing; the pendant was so hot as to be dangerous even to him, a cultivator in his prime – even if not the most martially inclined – and in all honesty he had not dared to wear it since that day.

Despite this, he hung it on his belt before leaving the Cloud Recesses, ignoring the discomfort.

If Lao Nie did not recognize his sons, which he prized more than the stars in the sky, more than his own life, he would not recognize Lan Qiren no matter how good friends they were. Lan Qiren knew better than to flatter himself in that way. He was confident in Lao Nie’s affection, in his trust and even his love; he had never once doubted that when given a choice, Lao Nie would pick him over Wen Ruohan every time, no matter how often the latter shared Lao Nie’s bed – but Lao Nie was not himself right now, incapable of making rational decisions.

Lao Nie had raised his own hand against those he loved, something he would in the normal course of events never do. Lan Qiren would likely share the same fate as Nie Mingjue, only with even less power to defend himself – he had only music and wise words and inferior swordsmanship on his side, and of those, only his music had even half a chance of stopping a maddened charge.

He would need every advantage he could get, and the jade pendant, he hoped, would provide one.

Lan Qiren left the Cloud Recesses with his guqin over his back, his sword beneath his feet, and the jade pendant burning into his thigh, Nie Mingjue at his side. He hoped that Lao Nie might be able to draw some comfort from the jade pendant, which had been tuned to Jiwei’s frequency; he hoped that he could calm Lao Nie’s wrecked mind with his playing the way he had once sought to calm Jiwei’s rage.

And if neither of those worked…there was still his sword.

To the best of his ability, he would not allow Nie Mingjue to be harmed.

Lao Nie would have agreed, if he could.

When they arrived at the Unclean Realm, both Lan Qiren and Nie Mingjue were exhausted from their trip; even with regular breaks, it was not an easy journey to make by sword, much less twice over, with several days or even a week or more of travel being more customary. Lan Qiren had insisted that they rest for a few shichen in a town just outside of the borders of the Qinghe Nie sect to recover even more of their strength, and tellingly Nie Mingjue had not disagreed.

The Unclean Realm towered over them both as they approached, and to Lan Qiren’s eyes it somehow seemed more intimidating and imposing than that familiar, beloved place usually was – it was as if the tragedy within its walls had tainted it, giving it a more sinister aura than usual.

The guards of the Nie sect were unhappy to see Lan Qiren, as he’d suspected they would be, but they could not override Nie Mingjue, who ordered them to let Lan Qiren enter. A Nie disciple, older even than Lan Qiren but with exhaustion and fear written into every line of him, met them by the entrance, telling them that the Sect Leader was in his study – and that he was asking for them, or at least for Nie Mingjue.

“How is he?” Nie Mingjue asked, and glanced sidelong at Lan Qiren, explaining, “There are times when it is worse, times when it is better and he’s almost himself…”

“Forgive this humble one,” the disciple said, sounding tired. “The Sect Leader’s state is not good. He believes himself to be surrounded by enemies, besieged and betrayed. He believes we have taken you away from him purposefully, Nie-gongzi, and he fears for your well-being.”

Nie Mingjue’s face crumpled. “And when he sees me, he’ll think I’m one of the ones hurting him.”

“It is not your fault,” Lan Qiren told him in an undertone as they walked towards to the study. “He’s been infected with the saber spirit’s rage, becoming unbalanced – not just unbalanced, but unable to find himself. Just like a saber, he sees everything around him as a target, and seeks their destruction.”

Nie Mingjue’s head dropped in a nod. “Baxia’s just the same. She longs to eradicate evil, but her definition of evil is – wider than it should be.”

“We are all made of good and evil,” Lan Qiren agreed. “Right now, Lao Nie can only see the evil, not the good. That’s why he can’t recognize you. He loves you too much.”

Nie Mingjue nodded again and stopped in front of the study, taking a deep breath. Even through its soundproofed doors, they could hear the faint echoes of Lao Nie’s voice, bellowing out demands and threats, calling for Nie Mingjue, calling for Jiwei – my saber, my saber, where is my saber? – and Lan Qiren flinched briefly before recovering himself.

“Go,” he said, and Nie Mingjue opened the door and let them both step in.

Lao Nie was standing by the window, his hands clenched into fists, his knuckles bloody from having beaten his fists against the walls in his rage. His back was straight and his shoulders broad, as always, but there was a strange purposelessness to the way his head turned from side to side as if he were trying to hear something just out of range.

He turned to look at them. His hair wasn’t arranged properly, oily as if he hadn’t washed it for a while; his eyes were red and bloodshot, his skin flushed and ruddy, raised veins on his forehead, making him look as if he were on the verge of exploding.

“What do you want?” he spat.

“You called for me, A-die,” Nie Mingjue said, taking a step into the room and then another as Lan Qiren watched. “It’s me – it’s me, it’s Mingjue. A-Jue, I’m A-Jue –”

Lan Qiren never saw Lao Nie move.

One moment he was all the way across the room, the next moment he was standing right in front of Nie Mingjue. There was the resounding echo of a slap: Lao Nie had backhanded Nie Mingjue, knocking him to the floor. “Don’t lie to me,” he snarled, his reddened eyes blank and unseeing. “If you’re my A-Jue, why haven’t you done what I asked, like a filial son should? Bring me my saber! Bring me my Jiwei!”

“A-die – please – she’s gone, Jiwei is gone –”

Lao Nie raised his hand again, clearly ready to strike again, already pulling his leg back to kick at the young man cowering at his feet, a red mark already staining Nie Mingjue’s cheek where the heavy blow from before had fallen – Lan Qiren hadn’t been in the Unclean Realm for enough time to burn a stick of incense, hadn’t even had a chance to say anything, and things had already gotten to this point.

Wait, the doctors had said to Nie Mingjue when he’d asked them what could be done about his father’s illness. Wait. How terrible would Nie Mingjue’s life have become if he had listened to them?

“Lao Nie,” he said, stepping into the room and already reaching for his guqin. “Don’t hit him.”

Lao Nie turned to him, a heavy scowl on his face, and Lan Qiren braced himself for that same speed, that same casual viciousness that Lao Nie had before used only on his real enemies.

But unexpectedly - Lao Nie did not attack.

He didn’t move at all, in fact; he just stared at Lan Qiren, his frown fading into something like confusion.

“Jiwei?” he asked, a glimmer of recognition in his voice.

Lan Qiren’s hands were on his guqin strings, a spell at the ready, but he paused at Lao Nie’s words.

Very cautiously, he shifted the guqin to the side to free up one hand, which he lowered to the jade pendant that hung at his waist. “Yes,” he said encouragingly. “It’s Jiwei’s pendant. You remember? I made it for you, to drain off some of her anger. It’s yours. I brought it to you.”

Lao Nie took a stumbling step forward, and then another, his lost eyes brightening in happiness. Lan Qiren gritted his teeth and tolerated the pain of the fiercely burning pendant, taking it into his palm and holding it out to Lao Nie as an offering.

But it wasn’t the pendant that Lao Nie reached out for, but Lan Qiren himself.

His broad hands fell upon Lan Qiren’s shoulders, and then slid up to cradle his face, his thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones in an unfamiliar gesture that made Lan Qiren shiver despite himself.

“Jiwei,” Lao Nie said, sounding pleased. “Jiwei, where were you? I missed you.”

Lan Qiren swallowed. “Lao Nie…”

“You look so different,” Lao Nie said, undeterred by Lan Qiren’s barely-said protest – undeterred, in fact, by the fact that Lan Qiren was a human being, not a saber spirit.

His hands were warm against Lan Qiren’s face.

“Lao Nie,” Lan Qiren said, very slowly, and after a moment Lao Nie responded, no longer surveying him with his eyes but meeting his gaze. “I am Lan Qiren, your friend.”

“My friend,” Lao Nie agreed, and smiled. It was his old familiar smile, confident and carefree. “Jiwei.”

“No, not Jiwei. Jiwei…Jiwei shattered, Lao Nie. Your saber shattered.”

“Yes,” Lao Nie said, very unexpectedly, and Nie Mingjue, who had gotten up and was cautiously creeping closer, looked at him with hope shining in his eyes. “Yes, I know.”

“You know your saber was shattered?” Lan Qiren said, testing, and Lao Nie nodded. “Do you know why?”

Lao Nie tilted his head to the side.

“It was Wen Ruohan,” Nie Mingjue said. “I think – when he patted it? He did something, I’m sure of it.”

Lao Nie considered this statement, his eyes half-lidded in thought; he looked for a moment very much like he had before, putting aside the state of his hair and clothing. “I think you’re right,” he said after a while. “A-Han was very angry at me, at the start, and then at the end he was still angry, but also pleased with himself in that way that he gets. You know what I mean: when he’s done something vile, something everyone would condemn him for, and he knows no one will be able to do anything about it – the way he’s both pleased with the demonstration of his power and disgusted in himself, and he has to bury the latter in the former to make himself feel better.”

You know what he’s like, why do you like him? Lan Qiren thought to himself but did not say, but Nie Mingjue wasn’t so tactful and asked the same thing, virtually verbatim, outright.

“Grown-ups are complicated, A-Jue,” Lao Nie told him, and Nie Mingjue’s knees gave out at once. He tumbled down to the floor once again, landing on his ass with a thud, and stared up at his father with tears already spilling down his cheeks.

“A-die?” he whispered. “A-die, you know me?”

Lao Nie frowned, not understanding his son’s reaction, and pulled away to turn to look at him – but the moment his hands left Lan Qiren’s skin, the look in his eyes changed, the clarity disappearing and the rage returning. His brow furrowed in confusion and offense, and Lan Qiren thought about how it must appear to him: his beloved son was there only a moment ago, and then he turned and there was a stranger there instead, taking his place. It was no wonder that Lao Nie lashed out so fiercely, no wonder that his anger burned hottest against those he loved the most.

Lan Qiren stepped forward and put his own hand on Lao Nie’s shoulder, and when that didn’t seem to help, his face, instinctively following his teacher’s habits and grabbing him by the ear like a disobedient student in need of some shaking.

“Lao Nie, calm yourself,” he ordered, ignoring the lack of calm in his own heart.

Amazingly, miraculously, Lao Nie did. The red even started to fade a little out of his eyes – they were still bloodshot, still covered in a thin red film, but he no longer looked as though he were on the verge of crying blood. The ruddiness in his face faded as well, the blood summoned up by his rage starting to recirculate throughout his body as it should, and hopefully no longer on the verge of giving him an aneurysm.

Progress, Lan Qiren thought.

“What’s going on?” Lao Nie asked, alert and aware, if confused. “Why is my study such a mess? A-Jue, why are you crying? What happened to you – A-Jue, look at you, you look terrible! Who hurt you? Who dared touch you?”

Nie Mingjue was crying too hard to speak now, shaking his head, refusing to speak.

“You tell me, then,” Lao Nie said, turning his face, belligerent again but so much more normally so, to look at Lan Qiren. “Tell me what happened!”

“It’s complicated,” Lan Qiren temporized, although he stepped forward to press his entire palm against Lao Nie’s cheek, eventually sliding it down to rest at the back of his neck instead, the still too-hot pendant trapped between his palm and Lao Nie’s flesh. He didn’t dare break the contact again, not after last time. “It will take time to explain…”

“I didn’t ask for excuses,” Lao Nie said, exasperated, impatient as always, and the sheer familiarity and nostalgia stuck in Lan Qiren’s throat, choking him. “I asked for an answer, Jiwei, and I expect one.”

The pleasant feeling froze at once, like having swallowed something the wrong way and getting it caught halfway down, stuck in his chest like a weight pressing down.

Not progress.

Or, rather – a very specific type of progress, in which Lao Nie was no longer on imminent verge of death from further qi deviations, in which he was no longer raving mad, rabid and attacking all those around him, but in which he also, apparently, believed that Lan Qiren was…his saber.

This was problematic for any number of reasons.

The first, of course, being that Lan Qiren was not, in fact, Jiwei. He was human, not a saber spirit; he was made of flesh, not metal. He wasn’t even the same gender, insofar as sabers considered themselves to have gender – both Lao Nie and Nie Mingjue affirmatively described their sabers using feminine terms, but quibbled whenever Lan Qiren attempted to describe them as women, claiming that their sabers were sabers, not humans, and therefore difficult to fit into the usual categorization.

At any rate, Lao Nie, at least, did not appear to be noticing any discrepancy.

However, that led them to the second major problem, which was that Lan Qiren and Lao Nie did not have the same relationship between them as Lao Nie had with his saber. The former were friends, however close; the latter were literally intertwined at the level of the soul, human master and spiritual weapon, co-dependent on each other in ways words could not even begin to describe. Even now, only standing next to each other, Lan Qiren could feel Lao Nie’s spiritual energy knocking against his palm, trying to enter his body to begin cultivating with him –

His ears suddenly felt like they were burning red.

What was perfectly appropriate, normal and even expected, between a cultivator and his spiritual weapon was not appropriate between two people, except perhaps dao companions who had agreed to share their lives and bodies with each other. It was entirely reasonable for Lao Nie to initiate such intimate contact – that was how spiritual weapons worked, through the cultivation of a blade or instrument through shared qi – and yet at the same time, because Lan Qiren was most definitely not a weapon, it became an offer for dual cultivation instead.

Right in front of Nie Mingjue.

Lan Qiren very firmly rejected the offer and Lao Nie laughed a little under his breath, an indulgent sound, and casually reached over to wrap his hand around Lan Qiren’s waist, pulling him closer – as if he thought Lan Qiren were merely playing hard-to-get, being prickly and inexplicitly unreasonable. As if a little bit of coaxing would be enough to get him to let down his guard, open up and let him in –

Lan Qiren coughed, abruptly very glad that he had not allowed either of his nephews to join in this trip. Or Nie Huaisang, for that matter, who despite his young age already had an over-active interest in other people’s personal lives.

That, he supposed, led them to the third problem: Lan Qiren was not nearly as easily mobile as a saber, could not be carried at Lao Nie’s belt nor kept with him at all times, and yet ceasing physical contact was clearly a bad idea. Perhaps once he had had some time to calm down…?

Nie Mingjue was looking between them with some concern as well. “A-die,” he said. “That’s Teacher Lan. Do you remember Teacher Lan?”

“Of course,” Lao Nie said, reaching out idly with his free hand as if to swat Nie Mingjue lightly on the head, an affectionate gesture that he forestalled immediately when he remembered that his son was injured. “What nonsense are you talking about? I’ve known Qiren since before I met your mother.”

“Good. That’s…good. I’m glad you remember him. You were sick for a little while, A-die; it made you confused.” Nie Mingjue paused briefly. “Can you tell me who’s that standing next to you?”

Lao Nie frowned at him. “Are you sure you’re not the one confused, A-Jue? Are you telling me you don’t recognize Jiwei?”

Nie Mingjue looked helplessly at Lan Qiren, who looked just as helplessly back.

He had absolutely no idea what to do about this – no notion of what the next step would be.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the decision was taken out of his hands when Lao Nie looked down at himself and, with an abrupt scowl, appeared to realize the state of himself. “What a mess,” he said, disgusted. “A-Jue, have someone run me a bath. I’ll wash and head to bed for the night, but I want an answer from you as to what happened first thing tomorrow morning, do you understand me?”

Nie Mingjue’s eyes went very wide and traveled very slowly over to rest on Lan Qiren, who set aside his guqin and used that hand, once free, to pinch the bridge of his nose and try to summon patience, careful not to disturb the hand that still rested on the back of Lao Nie’s neck, the pendant still burning in his palm.

“It’s fine,” he said shortly. It was not fine, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do at the moment except continue to indulge Lao Nie’s delusion – his state was so much improved from what it was just a little while before that he couldn’t bear to even try anything that would return him to it at the moment, and he could tell from Nie Mingjue’s constant glances to his hand that he felt the same. “We’ve been night-hunting together before.”

They’d bathed together before – mostly in rivers and lakes and hot springs, not bathtubs – and they’d slept in the same bed before, when that was the only thing that was available at the local inn.

This was nothing more than that.

It’d be fine.

Nie Mingjue did not look convinced, looked in fact on the verge of protesting, but Lao Nie was already looking at him with a growing scowl – he disliked being disobeyed, even though he tolerated it more from Nie Mingjue than from others – and he had no choice but to run off to do his father’s bidding.

The second he was out of the room, Lao Nie reached over and caught Lan Qiren’s free hand, bringing it up to his face, pressing his lips against Lan Qiren’s palm.

“Jiwei, have I displeased you in some manner?” he asked, very earnestly, as Lan Qiren stared at him. “Tell me what’s the matter, darling.”

[watery-melon-baller]

I think that, overall, only four good things came out of Danny Phantom season three:

1) Frostbite. I like that he can serve as another ghostly mentor figure to Danny, even if he is coming pretty late in the game, and he adds some decent worldbuilding.

2) Danny’s ice powers and ice core. There area lot of fun things to be done with these, especially in fanon, but even in the show they can make fights more interesting and dynamic. It’s a new element to play around with without it being too overly obtrusive. It does come a little out of nowhere, and just adds to Danny being absolutely OP, but I can look past that and see it as a net positive.

3) The episode Forever Phantom. This and the episode I’m going to discuss in point four are the only two episodes I feel truly hold up and are genuinely good in this season. There are some others that can be fun to watch, but they’re overall pretty mediocre. That’s not to mention the fair share of flops that just completely missed the mark. Forever Phantom works because it pulls its focus back in to grounded problems. A lot of season three has the issue of being all action, no breaks; the writers try to up the stakes, but it doesn’t work because there’s nothing to tie it back, and therefore it has little meaning. It’s just spectacle. What Forever Phantom does is give us a conflict with stakes that are much lower, but at the same time have a very pointed effect on Danny’s life. That’s able to keep viewers invested. The tone, also, just works a bit better for me than a lot of other season three episodes; some of the humor really works. Finally, we get Amorpho. He’s a very interesting antagonist; his morally gray motivations and general presence make him interesting to watch, and his direct goal to screw with people (and Danny specifically) brings up some good situations.

4) The episode D-Stabilized. This one holds up, and even excels, in a different way than Forever Phantom. Forever Phantom was an excellent example of how this show does a low-stakes, humor-driven episode. D-Stabilized shows off the potential for more plot-driven dramatic storytelling. One thing of the episode’s major strengths is its use of the characters. It was a good decision to take Valerie, Danny, and Danielle as a focus. They in particular did a good job with Danielle; while she definitely didn’t get enough screen time in the overall series to be fully realized as a character, this episode was a good step in the right direction, making use of the limited time they had. Through the focus the episode puts on her, the writers do a good job of fleshing her out into more of her own character (seperate from Danny), but keeping her familiar as well. As for Valerie, she was criminally underutilized in season 3. Nevertheless, her inclusion in the episode definitely improved it. She’s one of Danny Phantom’s strongest characters. To be perfectly honest, she’s probably a more developed and realized character than Tucker or Sam, despite the fact that the latter two are part of the core cast. She has a level of depth those two simply don’t have, with more thought-out motivations and traits that make her more belivable and three-dimensional. As such, D-Stablized took advantage of her strong character and arc to further it, staying true to her motivations and personality. And, critically, the characters are in character. This was an issue that season three had a lot more than the previous seasons of the show. D-Stabilized being able to succeed in this was critical to making it a good episode. Another thing D-Stablized handles well is its narrative. As I mentioned earlier, it gives us a strong and continuity-driven plot which helps to push many of the series’ ongoing points. It continues the thread begun by Kindred Spirits, bringing back Danielle and Vlad’s cloning plan. This is a compelling choice, as for much of season three Vlad has been exaggerated and his motivations twisted out of proportion. His previous motivations, to get rid of Jack and take his family, and more than that his critical trait of wanting love above all but not realizing that one needs to give back to get it, has been largely dropped in favor of a more generic set. His main goals are now shown to be world domination, power, and wealth, which makes little sense for his character. But that is beside the point; to bring us back on topic, the choice to bring back Vlad’s cloning plot demonstrates that he still does hold the desires he was shown to have previously: he wants a ‘perfect son’. It brings his character more in line with earlier seasons, bringing back that more compelling scenario. Another thread it continues is Valerie’s arc. I touched on this briefly earlier when I discussed characters, but to go into more depth, this episode gives us excellent insight into her life and motivations, wholly building off of what we already know about her. It fits in with what we’ve learned, but the events of the episode’s narrative also push Valerie into growing. It makes excellent use of her established anti-hero tendancies, showing how despite her prejudices she still has morals, and it trying to good even if it is somewhat misguided with regards to Danny and her unwavering hatred of ghosts. Especially considering how we’ve seen virtually nothing of her over season 3, the inclusion of Valerie and ties to her storyline certainly helped this episode exceed the rest. The action was dramatic, the development was logical and satisfying, and the characters and interactions are well handled and compelling. This is not even to mention the episode’s ending, where Valerie figures out about Vlad. This was clearly setting up more, but the arc got cut off before it could reach its completion. It is a real shame that we didn’t get a conclusion to this storyline, as it would have been really interesting to see how Valerie would handle the shift to her worldview, and how that could affect Danny and Amity Park.

[thisdreamplace]

ashamed to say the 3D reflects our true inner reality, yes? my ENTIRE family has turned against me, after some atrocious conflicts in which they all ganged up on me nd judged me, name-calling, very hurtful things too, provoked me. i been dealing with some serious mental uh 'issues' on my own nd when this happend i was already on the verge of a breakdown nd the good news is while the conflict happened i kept telling myself theyre only reflecting me u can get thru it etc. Later i looked at the hard facts nd realised some of the hurtful things they said were my deep secret feelings abt myself. BUT my question is why the HELL cant they talk to me like normal people? confronting one person vs whole family, why?! i felt so small nd like an object, nd not a single person defended me. am i not a part of the family?

Part 2 is simply its been a week and theyve still been cold towards me as if I yelled AT THEM ABT THEIR PAINFUL 'tRuThS' in front of EVERYONE LMAOOO. At first if i was around we'd have dinner together while they'd all talk to each other like best friends aka sickeningly overly friendly while completely IGNORING me while i sat there. i could tolerate it. I WAS PISSED AT THEM TOO Now its too painful. They're having dinner without telling me, yesterday didnt leave enough food for me knowing i hadnt eaten, serve tea/snacks without my portion. i honestly feel so unspeakably trigered nd sad. worst is these things r reminding me of deep school memories when id feel excluded like this by other kids at parties or class activities nd its like im back there. anyway im glad i controled myself a bit nd didnt counter with horrid things abt them to THEM yet they think they can say the same to me. im so hurt rn i cant even tell u lol i was okay the whole week but now its too much,, ive been crying the whole day

thing is, ik this seems like 'im a victim oh noooo they ganged up on meee'. Nope its more like how do i change myself to change them?! u could say why not talk to them how they made u feel, except whenever ive defended myself in the past regarding hurtful things they/anyone in family did, the siblings/parents would say irritating things like: "oh so YOU'RE the one hurt? Oh thats right, its because YOU'RE right! yes, yes, you're always right. Forgive me for saying anything against the perfect person u are." Or one of them says: "You?! I hurt YOU? What about me? You don't care about me! So you think what ur doing is okay?" or "no, who do YOU think u are to tell ME what to do?" it just goes in circles like this! i dont deserve to hurt myself or do smth to myself even if they dont give a damn, even if years of silent suffering of the 'mEntAL pRoBlEms' (which my lovely parents have already told me is my fault years ago, hence why I NEVER show it to them, unless im crying too much then lol they just mock me, but idc abt THAT bcoz now ik i hav a right to let out my emotions)). i mean this is worse rjan usual. its kinda insane nd when guests come they start talking to me as if nothing's wrong then when they leave, they ignore me!

this whole twisted dynamics, feelijf left out nd helpless is ig some crazy assumptin from childhood of being alone nd unable to defend myself. plus when they argye with anyone, they become overly self-righteous nd over the years its clear they can only scream, blame the scapegoat and never talk abt serious matter like normal ppl. And yes, in the past when i bring this up, they like to reply with stuff like: "no YOU'RE the one who doesnt talk to US bla bla" like, when i do u just shut me down? have belittled my mental 'issues', mocked me when im at my worst, stabbed me with cruel silent treatments nd thinking its alright "bcoz of self-righteousness blegh". Or maybe i think its okay for them to punish me? or whatev? Like law says u get what u r. if these ~~~ keep doing this to me, im doubly ashamed to say this means im the one at fault?! i let this monster assunptin grow nd now idk what to do. the worst thing imo is how i failed to tell them,even if they ignored me in the past, how i feel when anything like this or a conflict happens nd none of them stand up for me, or at least are neutral to me. bcoz now if i do, they say nope, u dont care what we do, YOUR the shameless one :! so yeah they hav the advantage of 'numbwrs' while im too afraid to stand up for myself lol. btw they never apologize nd i suspect they expect ME to apologize to TYEM bcoz everything's already ruined bcoz of 'me'..... i give up on them, i really do, but my heart hurts. Either i harden my heart, nd save up to move out, OR i try to change my self or whatev assumptins i have. But how do i do that? i try afirming: "my familys so nice to me, im respected by them" but it feels so fake tears literally enter my eyes lol

firstly i want to say, thank you for coming here to vent and being open about your feelings. it’s so important sometimes to just let it all out, without holding back. so that way you can move forward more bravely, to create the life you truly want to experience. that being said, i am going to be completely honest with you here in hopes that perhaps it may inspire you and you will be ready to do what is needed for the life you truly want to experience.

“BUT my question is why the HELL cant they talk to me like normal people?” -> “i felt so small nd like an object, nd not a single person defended me. am i not a part of the family?” here is your question, and here is your answer. i think that being completely honest when venting your feelings can actually be so helpful, because if you read back what you have said, you will be able to clearly find the patterns that are creating your personal hell. FEELING IS THE SECRET. ASSUMPTIONS HARDEN INTO FACT. the true way you feel, becomes your experience. Feelings/assumptions/beliefs come first, and the experiences come second to confirm them. That’s all that’s happening here.

i am glad that you were able to keep your reactions to a minimum! that's wonderful and as many of us know, it can sometimes be hard to do in such hurtful circumstances. but you managed to do it, this shows just a small glimpse of the power you truly hold within. although emotionally you may feel out of control, there is still the choice to choose better for yourself which you demonstrated through your reaction to them. good for you!

the truth is, you acknowledge the victim mindset to seem like you’re not engulfed in it, but no, you’re still very clearly engulfed in it. as i have said before, you can’t be a VICTOR and feel bad about it. feeling bad about taking responsibility, about everyone is you pushed out, about any of these types of concepts automatically shows a victim mindset. talking to them won’t do anything, because there are no second causes. you could talk to them nicely, you could be the nicest person in the world. but you can’t pretend your way out of your inner world. your inner world is the one and only cause of your experiences. until you change the story you tell yourself, they will stay the same. this is a hard pill to swallow sometimes. and it can feel heavily, because it’s ultimately only you’re choice. they can’t change until you do. the heaviness of the situation may make it seem impossible to turn around, but that’s just an illusion. your emotional attachment to the situation makes it seem so real and hard to change, but no. that’s just an illusion too. however, it’s ultimately your choice. Do you want to take responsibility for your life, or do you want to keep being tossed around like your lost at sea, victim to the merciless angry waves? Because we always have a choice. No one chooses your inner world, you do. No one can go into your mind and decide things for you, that’s only your job.

you can harden your heart, but who would be the one who suffers more? It won’t be your family, i can assure you. it’ll only be you. by doing that, you keep that old story alive and therefore you keep experiencing it. you keep those stories alive that are desperately showing themselves to you, saying “LET US GO.” but you remain identified with those painful stories, so you grip onto them tight. you keep on thinking of possible reasons for their behavior, but you could just read your entire ask back to yourself and you’ll see every reason. your reactions, your beliefs about them, your emotional pain. its your refusal to let those things go, and focus on what you truly want that keeps you in this state and keeps them in this state. sure it’s painful to face the responsibility at first, but it’s not a blame game. thinking its about blame is just a misunderstanding of the teachings. it’s not about they’re so perfect and you’re so not, so you have to change your ways. it’s about this is how life works here. this is about... you can ONLY ever experience self. whatever is going on within, will be reflected in your outer world. it’s about how they can’t change, UNTIL YOU DO. so instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you have to decide to give yourself the gift of a wonderful life because you have that power too. you stop deciding they can be in control of your experience, and you decide your experience yourself.

to change your assumptions, stop trying to affirm over them and actually face what’s keeping you from believing in your desires. yeah, it’s going to be painful and uncomfortable. but you need to face the pain that you’re running away from, so that it can finally be released. you have to realize, it only stayed true because you believed it to be true. and if you are to live a life free from that story, and experience a more desirable story, then you must let the pain go. give yourself love and grace as you work through it, and know that there is a more beautiful side of life that awaits for you to accept it in.

No One To Change But Self

There is Nothing to Forgive

How to Sit with Your Triggers

give yourself the time you need, it's not race. the love that you wish to experience exists, allow it in. 💖

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

first of all i want to say i absolutely love i'm looking thorugh you and i'm excited for the next chapter. now on an unrelated note i want to ask have you seen sarah z's new video on fanfiction? if you have, what do you think?

Hi anon, thank you so much!!! My exams are starting in 10 days and in 5 days I'll be seeing my sister for the first time in one and a half years, so I'm gonna really try to find space to finish up Chapter 8 very soon (perhaps today [not including editing time, but everything currently written has been gone through once already]) so that I can justifiably step away from it again to focus on my exams and spending time with her, before returning to it. (which probably won't be before September)

I hadn't seen it and haven't watched any of her videos in a while, but I did upon seeing this ask. (I find her long-winded and generally she doesn't say much I haven't thought of myself; watched it on double speed lmao)

I agree with her on most points, I think. Fanfic is clearly art, I think that's honestly a stupid thing to even debate about. Also, it's first and foremost a medium with intrinsic qualities that can be either used to the story's advantage or disadvantage.

While there's value in original fiction having to rise up to the challenge of building characters and setting from scratch, a narrative meant to be understood with foreknowledge of "canon" can actually inherently tell a different type of story. Like, it's kind of one of the points I'm trying to make with I'm Looking Through You; demonstrating how the story both parallels and diverges from what actually happened, which would be difficult to do in a satisfying and engaging way if I had to establish the first "timeline" within the story as well, if that makes sense.

That being said, I think Beatles RPF (the kind that doesn't take place in AUs) is sort of interesting in that respect: if you're writing fic for a book series or a movie franchise or what have you, in most cases you can expect the reader to have come across the entire canon (say with the exception of monster franchises like Discworld or the Star Wars EU). But in the case of a story based on a real history, which draws from many books and accounts as well as pictures and film, it's kind of difficult for me as an author to suss out what I can reasonably expect my readers to be aware of. Usually, when I tie in some recollection of a real event (example off the top of my head: I mention Paul getting Dot Rhone pregnant in chapter 3) I try to formulate it in a way that if someone wasn't previously privy to that particular fact it would still be understandable to the extent it's relevant to the story. The only thing I in general assume to be known is their discography. So in a way, the concept of fanfic not requiring any skills in establishing anything isn't quite accurate. I'm also kind of a big show don't tell truther, so I kind of think if you follow that principle perfectly (not saying I do btw, it's pretty difficult) with your characters, you're more or less doing the same thing whether the characters are known to the audience already or not.

I think the main thing about fanfic and the perceived poor quality of it is due to, as mentioned in the video, there being zero barriers of entry but also to the fact that constructive criticism is just not really welcome on fanfic sharing platforms. For better or for worse, in 90% of the cases, people are only gonna comment on a fic to praise it. I think that's fine in the sense that most people aren't aspiring professional writers, but it doesn't make for the best environment to improve and grow as a writer more than simply practicing the art would help anyways. If you're lucky, someone will specify the reasons they enjoy the story, but just like we can't expect everyone to write perfectly, we can even less expect all readers to spend half an hour writing a carefully worded review. I kind of wish there was a setting on ao3 where you could mark a fic as "open to criticism", so people who are just writing for themselves can just keep doing their thing unbothered, but people interested in honing their craft could get more nuanced feedback than "OHHHH MY GOOOOOD I LOVE THIS".

The kind of funny thing for me is that all original fiction I've written or attempted to write up until now was very much based around my own personal experiences, so writing from the perspective of men in the 60s who had insanely different lives from mine actually really forced me out of my comfort zone in a way? And the work I put into the historical research is considerable, so I just think that really doesn't match up with what fanfic-haters imagine the genre to be?

Of course, a bunch of stories do match up with antis' expectations of it, but alas that's not fanfiction as a medium's fault and there's nothing inherently wrong with stories written with their main purpose being escapism. I mostly think people should be aware that that's what they're consuming and if that's the only thing they consume, they might be missing out on more challenging ideas.

[tomorrowsdrama]

Of course, as if performing a surgery to remove cancerous tissue with limited tools during the Edo period wasn’t difficult enough, they had to throw in some disgruntled vassals trying to cause trouble and get back at Nokaze for disgracing their lord.  Because she had cancer?  It doesn’t make much sense but we don’t really need it to.  It’s obviously a plot device to create extra tension.  But I don’t care because it gave us this scene which demonstrates why I love Saki so much:

Saki is such a badass and so brave and the best thing is, she is not some super warrior lady.  She does not know how to fight.  In fact, just a few months ago, she was like any other young lady of a noble family whose daily life consisted of taking care of the home and preparing to be someone’s wife.  But here she is, putting her life on the line and facing off with this group of armed men who are clearly trying to pick a fight, to keep them from entering the operation room.  And this is after she left her engagement ceremony and gave up a very favorable match to run barefoot to the clinic so that she could assist Dr. Jin.  Gah, this is one of my favorite things - noble/genteel women who are strong-willed and fight back in their own way despite not knowing how to fight or being particularly powerful/physically strong. Oh and the only reason why her threat is effective at keeping them away is because she’s a noble lady and if word got out that she died because of these men, that would harm their lord’s reputation. She knew that her only bargaining chip was her status and she used it to her advantage.

The operation is successful and afterwards Dr. Jin goes to find his photo with his fiance to see how his actions might have affected the future (since any time his actions change the future, the photo changes as well).  However, the photo disappeared completely and Dr. Jin interprets that to mean that the future that he knew no longer exists. And this next scene between him and Saki fed my shipper soul:

Then Saki says that she’ll be waiting to the side to let Dr. Jin have a moment alone, the same thing she did in an earlier episode when he was despairing about how he feels like everything he does during this time period is pointless because fate/history will just revert everything back to how they should be.  But this time !!

I ship it, I can’t help it.  Even though it’s probably doomed from the start because I assume he eventually goes back to the future.  Jin is one of those rare dramas where there are multiple love lines but I don’t mind it at all.  I love Saki and Nokaze as characters on their own but I also love their storylines with Dr. Jin.  From a narrative standpoint, Jin/Nokaze and Jin/Saki both work individually for me.  The drama is only 11 episodes, roughly 45 minutes each, so we’re not working with a lot of room to flesh out the story/characters.  But amazingly, I think the drama does a pretty good job of showing the audience why both women would fall for him in a relatively short time and making us care for both instead of getting annoyed that there’s a “love triangle”.  It helps that Saki and Nokaze don’t get super jealous of each other and there’s no crazy secondary girl antics.  Although, I guess in this drama’s case, Miki’s the main girl and they’re both kind of secondary girls?

[logically-asexual]

I want to give you your grin

i made this for @loceitweek2021 Day 2: Crook/Aftermath

summary:

After Thomas chose to go to the wedding, Janus has a lot of work for his plans to work out, and that includes getting Logic on his side. Logan currently is constantly being left out. He is trying too hard (and failing) to make himself fit in with the others, so he will try anything to feel useful.

Janus decides to take advantage of this (and Logan's denied feelings for him) to get away with his scheme, but what neither of them expect is actually falling for each other in the process.

warnings: emotional manipulation, Logan is very insecure. let me know if i should add more.

Read on AO3

Chapter 3 (last)

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words: 2424

Janus was very satisfied with the progress he had made with Logan, and how the pieces of his plan were falling together. He had everything under control, and now that Thomas was driving back home from the wedding, he was ready for the final act. Something in him felt guilty about pushing Logic away and impersonating him again, but it was indispensable to his plan. Besides, it wasn’t him who was going to shut Logic down, he was just going to wait for an opportunity when the others did.

Janus couldn’t tell whether Logan’s recent support of him was causing the others to embrace Deceit or to reject Logan even more, but, frankly, he didn’t care. It wasn’t his problem, he just had one goal in mind and it was taking advantage of Thomas’ mood today to finally make him listen to reason. If that came with the little side-effect of Logan coming to him later for comfort, well that was just another advantage. It was always amusing to see the stuck-up teacher all emotionally troubled.

“What the f***, everybody?”

That was Thomas. It was showtime.

During the discussion, everything went as he expected. Logan was even showing up with the written support-facts quite often (if Janus had been the one to hint something to spark that idea, for Logan to show up instead of staying out of it, no one had to know). Having spent his time a little closer to Logan in the past weeks also helped Janus improve his impression of him.

He had been ready, and it was all perfect until he pulled Logan with his crook, because he definitely wasn’t prepared for what would happen afterwards.

✩ ✩ ✩

Logan didn’t fully process what happened when Patton pressed the “SKIP” button next to him, not until he felt his back collide with someone, and the pressure on his neck was relieved. It took a minute for him to be able to catch his breath, and to be able to focus on anything other than the pain of the bruise that was surely forming. Once he did, he almost stumbled backwards again, but a steady hand on his shoulder and the chest of the other Side behind him helped him recover his balance.

Still coughing lightly, Logan turned around to see Deceit, who seemed slightly concerned for a moment, before relaxing to a smug expression. The space he was in was pitch black, but with just enough light to illuminate him and Deceit, who was now proudly standing with a tall curve-shaped staff in his hand.

“Logan, darling, how are you doing?”

Logan rolled his eyes at the patronizing tone, and decided to simply turn around and walk away, looking for an exit. However, he was immediately stopped by Deceit’s crook (now on his shoulder), and once again pulled backwards to him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Deceit’s low voice whispered in his ear.

“Back to work. In case you couldn’t tell, I was in the middle of something.” He pulled himself out of the other’s hold and faced him again, with arms crossed.

“Oh, right, because Patton and Roman are clearly thrilled to take your additions into account, as demonstrated by what just happened before you were brought here.”

“That doesn’t matter, I have to keep trying.”

“You don’t “have” to do anything. Why don’t you-”

“I don’t want to hear your suggestions. I just have to find-” Logan wouldn’t fall for Deceit’s games that easily.

“Find what?”

“Nothing, none of your business. Just let me go and get my work done.”

“You’re going to keep silently displaying information that no one wants to read?”

“No, I-”

“Or are you going to start talking without invitation for them to cut you off again?”

“No, there’s-”

“Or are you going to stay quiet until Patton calls you in and then go against your own values to say something that the others want to hear?” There was that displeased glare again that Logan just couldn’t bear.

“Look, there has to be an answer. I must find the way. I am Logic, I know there is a solution and if I don’t find it through conscientious strategizing at least I will through elimination of everything else that didn’t work!”

Logan moved to escape once again, but Deceit rapidly grabbed him by his arms and slammed him to a nearby wall, previously invisible in the darkness of the room. His hands moved to hold Logan’s shoulders, and another pair pinned his wrists to either side of his body. Logan struggled desperately against him, but to no avail.

“Logan, look at me.”

Logan looked up, but the tears that were building up for his distress made the image unclear.

“You’ll find your place, and how your role fits, but you have to just wait and let it happen.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I am not-”

“You are! I know it’s not true, and I know I’ve been in denial all this time, okay? I know it’s hopeless to think I can make myself useful again, and that I really am out of options. I have tried everything; to protest and to comply, to support them and to hold back, to have opinions and to state only facts from Thomas’ memories, to agree with them and... to agree with you, even.” He looked downwards at the gloved hands keeping him stuck, and continued quietly. “It all goes wrong, eventually. The problem is me.”

A fifth hand came to his chin, lifting his face to meet Janus’ gaze.

“Listen,” Janus was choosing his words carefully, “Thomas is changing, because he has to. Of course that will affect all of us, and it will be messy.”

Logan knew that. “But that means I have to-”

“Ah ah ah. As he finds himself again, you will find your own role. But you have to give him time, give him the chance to find the right place for you... hopefully on my team,” he added with a wink. After a pause, he went on, with a deadly serious tone Logan had never heard from him. “This is a change you can’t control, but it’ll pass. I’ll make sure of that.”

He moved the hand previously on his chin to the side, his thumb brushing against Logan’s cheek. Logan leaned into the soft sensation, feeling exposed but understood, in a way he hadn’t felt in years. At that moment he realized how close the two of them were, and how from this distance he could make out hints of yellow swirling in both of Deceit’s irises. Deceit’s eyes seemed to be studying his own just as meticulously while he slowly moved closer.

Janus was running out of time, and he had already missed a part of the conversation with Patton. He really couldn’t miss this opportunity and ruin everything he had planned. But there was something about the way Logan’s teary eyes were staring up at him, wide open and shaken, but so full of trust, that captivated him. So he leaned forward and kissed him without thinking twice.

The kiss wasn’t strong or passionate, Deceit only pressed their mouths together and lingered there. To Logan, it was perfect. Even with the softness of it, he felt almost overwhelmed, but closed his eyes and relaxed into it, and let the warm sensation wash over him for a moment. It quieted his mind in the only satisfying way he could imagine.

Deceit slowly pulled away, and studied his eyes for an instant. Before Logan could even take a breath in, he was gone. He just... disappeared. Logan tried to follow after him, before realizing that both his wrists were tied to the wall behind him.

He attempted to make the bounds disappear but nothing happened, so he tried to physically pull them off, which turned out fruitless, as well. He groaned in frustration. This was part of Deceit’s powers, after all. He could keep any Side hidden or silenced for however long he wanted. Logan just had to wait until whatever Deceit had planned was done or until he was distracted enough to let the effect wear out.

Logan thought that, unlike Roman, he would be immune to it, but the traitorous snake got away with using and taking advantage of his feelings, too.

... What feelings, anyway? What did Logan even feel for Deceit to make him act like this?

He groaned again. Of all the things that could have happened to him, he was left alone with his thoughts for an undetermined amount of time, to confront attraction and other sickening emotions he was apparently feeling but wasn’t previously aware of? Why couldn’t Deceit have left him with the Duke? The torture would have been less painful.

He leaned against the wall, ready to begin figuring things out, and noticed Deceit took his tie with him, too. He was clever, Logan couldn’t lie about that.

✩ ✩ ✩

Despite the unprecedented distraction, Janus carried on with his scheme, disguising as Logan successfully. He had been somewhat worried, because Logan is a lot more than just referencing studies and taking things literally, but lately it was all he showed to the others, so it wasn’t surprising that that was all he needed for the impression.

If everything went well, Patton would finally admit that he was wrong, and allow Thomas to relax, then Deceit could leave them all alone for a while and he wouldn’t have to face Logan.

Except it did not go well.

First, Logan showed up when he was about to reach a breakthrough with Thomas. Janus assumed it would ruin everything, since Logan would call him out for his tricks and derail the conversation, and it was embarrassing to see him either way. To his surprise, however, not only did Logan dodge the topic of what had happened between them, but he also interjected with an argument in Deceit’s favor. Well, kind of. Janus didn’t care about how “altruistic” Thomas could be, but the idea gave strength to Deceit’s proposal of self care, while being balanced enough for Thomas to approve of.

So that was awkward, but ultimately satisfactory.

After that, everything seemed to be going smoothly, up until Roman’s little dramatic episode. And yeah, Janus probably deserved it, but it was still annoying. Whatever, Thomas listened to him in the end and it’s not like he expected Roman, of all Sides, to respect him or his name. Patton or anyone else could deal with the petty Prince later. Once Thomas acknowledged that Janus was right and that he would take time for himself with less guilt and more often, his job was done, and the emotional turmoil left behind was an issue for the emotional Sides to resolve. He had more important matters to attend to.

That was, until Logan showed up unannounced in his room later that night.

Logan didn’t really know what he was doing when he went to Deceit after everyone had calmed down, but he was overthinking and that just wouldn’t be healthy. He had to take action to let out all those thoughts impending his focus.

“So... Janus?”

Janus didn’t look up from the snake he was feeding. “Wrong number, and we’re currently out of service, try again never. Thank you.”

“This is a presencial conversation, I’m not talking on the phon-”

“What did you come here for?”

Logan looked down, fidgeting with his tie. “I... I guess I never thanked you.”

That made Janus glance up. “Thank me?”

“I didn’t want to recognize it, but I have been forcing myself to fit into something that I am not. You are right,-“ Janus would never get tired of hearing that- “we’re all changing, and although I do like it when I can predict how things will happen, for this situation I will have to be patient, and wait until Thomas can make sense of himself, and then make sense of me.” Logan stepped closer to the other Side. “Realizing this lifted a figurative weight off my shoulders that I didn’t know I was carrying. So thank you.”

“So, you’re no longer going to be an exasperating people-pleaser?”

“No,” he chuckled, “you already showed me how distressing taking that to an extreme can be.” Yes, that was definitely what Janus was trying to do, to teach Logan a lesson and totally not to manipulate him to get away with his plans, of course not.

They both stood quietly for a minute, searching for something else to say.

“I guess if you can do it, I have to thank you, too.” Janus, finally said. “For helping me earlier.”

“Ah. I wasn’t trying to help you, really. But I do agree with you, and after having some time to think,” Logan paused for a moment to look accusingly at Janus, who smiled awkwardly, “I remembered reading about effective altruism, and I genuinely thought it was the best choice.”

Maybe Janus underestimated Logan, but he did know he was more valuable than what the others credited him for. “I think so, too.”

Janus still hoped that Logan would be on his side more often, now that they knew it worked well for them, but he couldn’t deny that the concept of Logan confidently debating him was exciting. So far, seeing Logan follow his lead was the best feeling in the world, but perhaps it could be pushed to second place by Logic finally speaking his own mind.

Logan lowered his gaze to the snake in the tank next to them. It was bright yellow, and impressively big. He made a mental note to inquire about it another day, before looking back up when he felt Janus rest a hand on his shoulder.

“We are a good team.”

Logan could tell he was being sincere this time, and smiled up at him, his eyes again open and affectionate. He could let bitterness and anger take over him for how Deceit abandoned him tied up earlier, but if he was already going to be disturbed by strong emotions, it might as well be enjoyable ones. Besides, he had just come to terms with a crush, something he would have never pictured himself doing, so he couldn’t let it go to waste.

Logan reached out to hold Janus’ free hand, and leaned in to kiss him quickly.

Things were far from getting back in order, and there was a lot left to figure out, but at that moment, both of them knew that right here, next to each other, they fit in perfectly.

[mc-critical]

I really don’t understand the amount of people who apparently dislike Mihrimah for not giving Rüstem a chance/not having Rüstem grow on her. I don’t know entirely how I feel about Mihrimah as a character but I feel like if you were to dislike her that’d be a silly reason. It was a opportunistic marriage, one she never wanted and to a man she never loved. Not to mention he was also borderline pedophilic (when he said to her on her wedding night that he had been “waiting for this moment for years” when she was 17..okay) and then coercing her into consumating the marriage through the threat of suicide. Sure, the circumstances of Rüstem’s life were sad, but I don’t understand how that entails him being *entitled* to Mihrimah’s love or affection. And if anything I found Rüstem to be misogynistic and possibly even abusive, which likely made marriage to him all the worse. Mihrimah’s definitely not perfect or above criticism, but that doesn’t mean she owed any man love, sex or affection, royal borne woman or not.

I don't understand them, either. Because this is the last thing Mihrimah should be disliked for.

Rüstem is a very odious character with minimal redeeming qualities. His supposed love for Mihrimah is established disturbingly early on and while that may have fled over the audience's heads (it sure did fly over my head when I first watched the show!) because their marriage is a historical fact and as such, is automatically considered the normal course of things - the questionable pedophilic implications are definitely there and send off the alarming signs of utterly problematic behavior. Sure, he's done his duty by saving her after she fell off a horse and (little!) Mihrimah thanked him for it, but it is clearly seen in his eyes by the second episode he's on-screen that there's something more and something baffling when the girl is so young. And it only escalated from there.

Obviously, most of his fanbase ignores or flat out misses this aspect of his character, but I also find people that think that his attitude to Mihrimah is the only bad thing about Rüstem when I find most of his negative traits to be present outside of Mihrimah, but with her witnessing them. I feel the connection to Iskender Çelebi and the way he bacame the stable-man of the castle are his most important character establishing moments: they shine a light into his sneakiness and ability to play dirty, but also reveal his immediate prejudice against Ibrahim. The ambition, similar to Hürrem's, but not for the same reasons, is set up from the get-go. He's seemingly following Iskender, just like he comes to seemigly follow Hürrem, but he always forges his own path for his own gain. His alleged "loyalty" is the thing that Rüstem usually gets the most credit for, but while he begins to look like Hürrem's loyal companion that shall fulfill her every order, this whole facade is deconstructed and ultimately, totally broken apart in S04. His character establishing moments recontextualize all the decisions he makes in that season and show the true nature of his ambition: he followed Hürrem when she prevailed over everyone, he followed her when she seemingly gave him the world and all the desired power and when she and the one she wanted for the throne were put into a disadvantaged position and Selim got the upper hand, he ran straight for the opportunity, despite of him making an oath in front of the Quran not to do that. He turns out to be simply an opportunist hyena who works only for his own gain. Nothing more. Just like he saw the opportunity to get rid of the stable-man before him in the past, now he sees the opportunity to be on the winning side again with Selim. He doesn't care who is he in front of and who he promised what, as long as they're of no use to him, he bails. His "loyalty" immediately disappears from his positive traits, because it turns out he never had it in the first place. People praise him for his loyalty for Mihrimah, but that "loyalty" also lasted so long - when he found out that she wouldn't ever come to love him, he began to bang with Gracia Mendez, in conjunction with the betrayal of what Hürrem stood up for. Now, tell me, how can Mihrimah love such a guy? That was one of the only reasons she tolerated him and when even that was lost, how can she still keep her ties with him?

[His backstory is sad indeed, but the only thing it does is put his actions into perspective, not justify them or make him likeable somehow. Especially when what that "character lore dump" specifically explains is his refusal to tell Nigar where her daughter is - the backstory makes that action logical for his character, but it's still framed as nothing short of spiteful. That said, he still does have some soft sides and the arc with his brother is where I found him the most sympathetic - this is the time Rüstem actually showed vulnerability without false alarms or disguise and his brother was probably the only thing that was precious to him and stayed precious after all these years, consistently throughout his screentime. What helps even more, is the brother's role as a moral compass and the last bridge between the past/his loyalties and the future/the victories he would achieve through opportunism. That was the last gasp of what was left of his possible humanity and after his brother was killed, he let it go almost instantly, because... well, after he willingly chose his own life in the saray, he might as well continue to live it, right? Him saving a boy in S03 without any hesitation whatsoever, was also respectable. But these demonstrations of a softer side of his being are also taking place outside of Mihrimah, but with her not witnessing them altogether. And they do little in changing the general impression of Rüstem's character and his relationship with Mihrimah.]

We have to keep in mind that Mihrimah's whole S03 arc was finding purpose in her life and finding true love. She had many love stories throughout the series with different people, different personalities and different motives to try to make it work with them. No matter what they've went through together and despite of them all having the same outcomes due to different outside (and inside) factors, there is a reason she fell for these people in the first place. Okay, while for Bali Bey it was a bizarre, puppy, immature, childish love, for Taşlicalı something truly genuine began to flourish with all the glances, poems, dedication (Mahidevran succeeded to break them up, but it's not to be denied that Taşlicalı was very hard to convince and he was still thinking of her afterwards) and sweet words. She got a call for a new adventure with him. Bali Bey, on the other hand, was adored by her mostly for his handsomeness, I feel, but even when he tore all her dreams apart, he showed tact and respect. What I mean to say is, if Rüstem has qualities that are "worthy of Mihrimah", wouldn't she see them? Wouldn't she see all these virtues? Because all she sees before the marriage are his words that she will marry him, that she will be his and that's it. The best she sees of him is his good manners when he asks her whether she wants something or stuff, but he could do that with everyone else, knowing his post, and the previous implications make even that alone head scratching. Why would she want a man like that? I agree with all your points. Are you, people, denying Mihrimah her feelings? She realized the potential advantages of this marriage and agreed to do it regardless, why does she have to come to love him when he truly gives her no real reasons to, even before she married him?

I believe Rüstem cares about Mihrimah, albeit in his own distorted, toxic way, but in reality, he didn't do her any good. His relationship with Mihrimah revels in manipulation and facades for her to keep, because she has to "protect" her brothers. Rüstem never actually took account of her own feelings or opinions on matters, especially when what she proposed wasn't an opportunistic enough option for him to afford. Their interactions are mostly focused on the survival of the game and the actions that have to be taken to achieve that. He often puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on her, which while given because of the system they live in, hurt more than it helped. Their relationship was never allowed to flourish in a healthy manner and Mihrimah could never be truly herself in it, not even for a moment. The castle she lived in, her home, was merely full of tension every day, not a source of comfort. His stoic, serious cunning contrasts with her own spirit. Not to mention that it always seemed he considered his marriage to Mihrimah as a price, a goal he had finally achieved and I doubt that she wasn't aware of it to some extent. The root of the marriage is only political opportunism and no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot force a person to love someone they're with only out of sheer necessity, only for a purpose for "the greater good". Rüstem never did anything to earn Mihrimah's love and she shouldn't be hated for not loving him. This is what MC Rüstem is as a character, whether we like it or not, and he isn't a healthy person for Mihrimah. If she couldn't warm up to him when she fully got to know him in their alone time, that means something is missing. That means he just isn't for her and. that's. OKAY.

But there may be reasons why some people could dislike Mihrimah because of it. I offer my experience with cases I've encountered in forums: these people are usually very invested in Hürrem's character to the point they view everything she does as excusable, at the least, so of course they would want to justify Hürrem marrying Mihrimah to Rüstem. But plainly selfish political gain is no justification and that may leave cracks in their view of Hürrem and it all may disturb them to a great amount. That's why they channel this ire on Mihrimah and perhaps demand for her to warm up to Rüstem, so they get the justification Hürrem supposedly deserves, especially paralleled with Valide and Mahidevran's previous attempt to marry Aybige and Mustafa, who.. surprise, surprise (but not really), didn't love each other. There's another facet to this, with people seeing or wanting to see Mihri only as "her mother's daughter" and not wanting to marry, not loving Rüstem destroys that picture, because there's a "crack in the system", she doesn't listen to her mother, who obviously knows better and that could be disappointing or demotivating, given the expectations she has set when she defended her in E84. Or maybe they dislike Mihrimah for not loving Rüstem, because they do find something in him. They love "bad boys" and genuinely don't know why Mihrimah doesn't, either and that could make them see her as an annoyance. Or maybe they just anticipate more juicy scenes between her and Rüstem because of the probable chemistry between the two actors and if they watch it only for the spectacle (believe me, such people really exist!), they may insist that Mihrimah is only spoiled and ruined everything for them. Or maybe, again, people may find this insulting to the historical facts or whatnot and if Mihrimah didn't not stand him, this "mess" of writing could be fixed a little. The writers have ruined her character along with the history, according to them. It's absurd, I know and I don't get it, either, but the reasons are there, as far as I'm concerned. That still doesn't take away from the fact that this is the weirdest accusation you could throw at Mihrimah, with how Rüstem himself is.

You're right that Mihrimah has many other, vastly more offputting traits that she could be disliked for. Little Mihrimah is very brash and spoiled and entitled, to the point she gave her own mother a run for her money. That was gone when she grew up, but it would be understandable if some didn't actually believe the change, especially when she shows this side of hers again every now and then. She could be perceptive, but could also be prone to influence at the same time, sometimes to an annoying degree. There have been times where she has let her own bias lead her and that clouded her judgement in several occasions. She came to idealize her mother too much sometimes, as well. She was terribly insistent on her infatuation with Bali Bey and letting go of it took her very long. She didn't want to listen much to the enemies of her own mother. Her huge love for Bayezid prevented her from viewing Selim as objectively. She could be vengeful. She could be bossy. She couldn't fully face someone calling her out on her mistakes. (the confrontation with Selim in E139) She became so engrained to her castle life that when she was offered a way out, she didn't follow it. All these are very interesting character flaws for me, but I get why they might be a dealbreaker. But disliking or hating her for not loving Rüstem? Heck, hating her for her contribution to Mustafa's death alone is more valid than that! Disliking her for all these flaws piling up together is perfectly reasonable. But for this? It's strange.

[uchihasakurawrites]

A Lesson in Practicality (1)

Rating: T for language & depictions of violence

Summary: It takes a near-death experience in Yukigakure for Sakura to realize that Sasuke has her back in more ways than one.

Word Count: 3,154

A/N: This idea was going to be a short drabble, but the storyline ended up going in a direction that I didn’t initially plan for. There will be a Part Two (of 2). Part One has more implied SasuSaku - Sasuke will play a much more significant role in the next part! There’s a very high chance that this is going to be a prequel for the longer SasuSaku fic I’m currently working on. 

Let me know what you think, please!! Thank you to everyone who has left feedback on my work thus far~ 

Cross-posted on AO3 and Fanfiction

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Sakura had heard enough stories from her fellow kunoichi about birthday gifts from their boyfriends to know that Sasuke’s definition of a gift was unique, to say the least.

Sai’s most recent gift to Ino was simple - a modest bouquet of flowers, carefully cultivated to convey a special message, a basket of cherry tomatoes from his personal garden, and a painting of the two of them on what Ino later told Sakura was their engagement day. Naruto once took Hinata on a two-week getaway to the hot spring resorts of Yugakure for her first birthday after they became official (though Hinata later let it slip that Naruto hadn’t informed Hiashi of their vacation and was subsequently banned from the Hyuuga compound for the foreseeable future). Chouji hosted a surprise birthday party for Karui just a few months after she migrated to Konoha, complete with her closest friends from Kumogakure and a home-cooked buffet. Even Shikamaru had stepped up his game with a private couple’s cooking class at Amaguriama, knowing that Temari would punt him to Suna if he showed up with just the personalized shogi piece he had originally planned on giving to her.

Temari had still barely let him escape, fully aware that Shikamaru had organized the class in hopes of never having to go out of his way to buy her favorite sweets again if she could just make them herself. Watching him burn three batches of roasted chestnuts was enough of a gift in itself.

Sasuke hadn’t been in the village for any of Sakura’s birthdays since before his defection back in their genin days. Even then, she couldn’t remember him going out of his way to give her a gift beyond grumbling out a low “Happy Birthday” if team training happened to coincide with her birthday.

To say that Sakura was shocked when she awoke to the tap tap tap of a messenger bird at her window before dawn on her nineteenth birthday was an understatement. Her grumbles at being awakened at such an hour on a day Ino had explicitly banned Sakura from working stopped the second she recognized the bird as Sasuke’s hawk. After fumbling with the latch on her window for a moment - she swore that the hawk gave her some serious side-eye when it took her three tries to get the latch to unstick - she held out her wrist for the bird. It left in the next breath, right after Sakura untied the scroll it was carrying. Sakura frowned at the hawk’s manners as she hadn’t even gotten to send a reply but realized she shouldn’t expect much. Of course Sasuke’s summons would take on his taciturn attitude.

The note tied to the scroll was simple: A last resort.

Huffing a laugh at the note, which was so very Sasuke, Sakura made quick work of the scroll’s seal. She immediately recognized the script as a summoning scroll, though she couldn’t parse out exactly what the summons was. Most likely one of Sasuke’s if he had sent it to her - a hawk or a snake. She sincerely hoped for the former.

Her first Chunin exams had effectively wrecked snakes for her.

Sakura resealed the scroll with a small smile. She had learned what she was getting into quite quickly when she first realized her love for Sasuke ran deeper than a surface-level crush. Any relationship she had with him wouldn’t be normal, be it romantic or platonic. Sasuke’s definition of a relationship was understandably different than most others; she had to learn how to read into the small gestures and unspoken words he left between them - the forehead pokes, the thank you’s, and the occasional mumbled annoying. There would be no typical gifts, no grand romantic gestures, and she was okay with that.

She had hardly expected a congratulatory note for her birthday, let alone a physical gift. Sure, a summoning scroll might not be the most conventional gift, but Sakura figured the practicality of it summed up Sasuke’s approach to relationships perfectly: securing the safety of those closest to him. This particular gesture meant she was at least somewhere on his (very short) list of valuable people in his life.  

So when she tucked the scroll away, she did so with a smile, knowing that the added weight next to her medical supplies was a comfort that Sasuke had her back no matter where he was.

                                                 *   *   *   *   *

Sakura discovered that sentiment was far more literal than she had initially thought as she fled the scene of an assassination mission gone wrong in Yukigakure. Eliminating the target - a noble displaced by the war who sought to sow seeds of discontent against the ruling family - was fairly straightforward. A quick henge, a few unconscious guards, and a convenient chakra-induced heart attack left no trace to Konoha or the royal family.

The bounty hunters on her tail were decidedly less straightforward.

Since the end of the war, Sakura’s field mission count had dropped drastically. With Tsunade out of the village, rebuilding and strengthening Konoha’s medical system fell squarely on her shoulders. Ino’s support with the Children’s Mental Health Clinic left some room in her schedule for diplomatic medical missions to neighboring villages as a show of goodwill after the Allied Shinobi Forces dissolved, but she was rarely included in combat units. Kakashi had only assigned her to this solo mission as a favor to Koyuki since she was already familiar with Sakura from her genin days. Relations between Konoha and Iwagakure had been steady enough after the war, but Kakashi couldn’t risk instability in a country so close to Iwa.

While Sakura had kept up with her combat skills as well as she could through spars and periodic demonstrations at the Academy, she could feel the rust in her reaction times as she adjusted her own fighting style to the unfamiliar terrain. Snow meant additional chakra expenditure to maintain body temperature and keep her feet planted firmly on the ground; it took her the first few moments of the pursuit just to adjust her fighting style so that she wouldn’t go skidding across ice when she followed through on her punches.

It was the split second of hesitation between her noticing the first hunter rapidly approaching from behind and actually lunging to the left to avoid his attack that cost her a kunai to the thigh. The wound was deep, but Sakura was less concerned about the fact that she could clearly see the muscle fibers in her leg and more concerned about neutralizing the unknown poison that was trying to spread from it. Sewing the skin together enough to stop the bleeding was second nature; it was maintaining a chakra net around the wound to contain the poison that required a bit more focus.

Based on both their speed and specialized jutsu, Sakura guessed the hunters were at least jounin-level. Ten to twelve  total based on a quick extension of her sensory jutsu. Had this been a different situation, Sakura would have been flattered that someone thought she was dangerous enough to send so many high-level shinobi to ambush her. She made a quick mental note to thank Karin for training her in a variant of the Kagura Shingan jutsu.

Running forever wasn’t an option, especially at the pace she was being forced to keep. She needed to start picking these guys off - she figured she had faced far worse odds and won.

Sakura slid to a stop and waited precisely six seconds for about half of the hunters to catch up before she drove her fist into the ground. Unsteady ground and low visibility from the snow she had loosened caught the two closest hunters off guard, and she pressed her advantage to neatly slice their jugulars open with chakra scalpels. She took note of their appearance, standard shinobi gear in shades of white and grey and curiously blank hitai-ates linked around both of their necks, and paused just long enough to snatch one of the headbands for later inspection. She tucked it into her medical pouch before rounding to face the next wave of hunters.

Most of the remaining nin were smart enough to keep their distance; they must have done enough research on her to know that engaging her in close-combat was the fastest way to lose. The nin fell into a loose semicircle formation around her, half close enough for mid-range attacks and half further back. If they were Iwa or Yuki missing nin, she could expect mostly Water and Earth-style jutsu - the same affinities she had, but probably much more practiced.

Keeping a firm hold on her Kagura Shingan to track her opponents, Sakura quickly formed the seals for Suiton: Kiri Shikaku she had picked up during a brief stay in Kiri and saw an immediate improvement in her vision. She caught four hunters in her visual range and charged forward, hoping to close the distance between them fast enough for her to get a clean hit. All four flew through the same familiar sequence of hand signs she had seen from Iwa nin during the war, and a solid rock wall about ten feet high erupted in her path.

Not deterred in the slightest by the barrier, Sakura augmented her speed with chakra and drove a fist into the wall. The rock gave more resistance to her wrist than normal, so she quickly adjusted the chakra concentration in her knuckles to absorb the additional force. The hunters, she guessed, had infused their chakra into the wall in hopes that the reinforcement would injure her wrist or at least slow her down.

Sakura smirked as her fist drove clean through the wall and followed her punch up with a roundhouse to shatter it. Their chakra control was good if they could spread it so finely across the surface of the wall - but hers was better.

She darted towards the closest target and delivered a punch to his gut that snapped his spine clean in half. His partner appeared at her side in the next breath, driving his katana towards her neck and forcing her to drop to her knees to dodge. Sakura swept her leg underneath the nin’s feet, ignoring the stinging sensation of the snow on her skin as she followed the nin’s dodge up with a well-aimed kunai. The weapon landed squarely in the back of his dominant hand and forced him to change grips on his katana.

A small part of Sakura’s mind was immediately suspicious when the two other nin closest to them chose to charge her head-on instead of retreating. Perhaps she had given them too much credit if they were reckless enough to rush into a taijutsu battle with her just because she had taken a few of them out.

It made more sense when chains of water shot out from the ground to bind her ankles and wrists firmly to the ground - the work of the long-range nins’ combined Suiton: Suikusari no Jutsu. They must have been watching for an opening to slow her down long enough for the mid-range hunters to close in on her and deliver a killing blow.

The chains were sturdier than any suiton she had faced in the past, no doubt due to the number of hunters who were focused on restraining her. Sakura channeled a burst of pure chakra to the surface of the skin on her wrists, ankles, and torso; anywhere the chains touched, she honed in on. She could either drive her chakra into the chains, slow down the water molecules in them so that they turned to ice, and shatter them, or push her chakra directly outwards to free herself long enough to move away from the chains.

The first option would have been a more permanent solution, but the breath of a hunter nin on her neck forced Sakura into the second. With a shannaro! Sakura willfully tore her body out of the chains, redirected the chakra to her feet, and used the closest nin’s chest as a platform to fling herself over the chains and out of reach. She shoved one foot into the woman’s chest and used the other to bat a kunai with an explosive tag away from them both.

What Sakura didn’t account for was the nin she had planted her foot on reacting quickly enough to snag her ankle and drag her to the ground with her. She used the momentum of her fall to slide further away from the chains and twisted her ankle to free herself. Ice-covered rocks sliced at her forearms and stomach, but she drove her fingers into the ground to lever herself forward.

Crippling pain radiated from her ankle as soon as she was free, drawing a hoarse cry from her throat. She hadn’t seen a weapon in the nin’s hand, and there was no open wound. A second wave of searing pain nearly brought Sakura to her knees yet again, and she reached out for her medical chakra to send to inspect the area as she narrowly vaulted over a windmill shuriken -

Only to find that summoning her chakra felt like pulling a viscous liquid through a fine sieve. The chakra that had been isolating the poison around her wounds only stayed in place from sheer force of will. She spared a quick glance at her ankle, eyes widening at the black seal branded onto her skin.

Fuinjutsu.

Sakura didn’t recognize the seal and didn’t have time to inspect it further. Water chains exploded from the ground beneath her just as four hunters lunged at her from each direction. She jumped into the air, twisting to narrowly avoid a series of kunai. A loose shuriken lodged into her calf. Sakura immediately recognized the signs of poison digging into her system; she also recognized with a growing trepidation that it took far more of her concentration than she could spare to dredge up the medical chakra necessary to isolate it.

Whatever seal the hunters had placed on her was blocking her chakra flow, but not in a way she had experienced before. Training with Shizune’s poisons and Hinata’s tenketsu blocks hadn’t prepared her for this. Her chakra wasn’t completely inaccessible, but it was as though a fine mesh had settled over each of her chakra points. It was as though the hunters hoped she would continue trying to mold her chakra, exhausting herself enough in the process that they could take her out.

Her dread grew when she reached out for her Byakugo only to feel the same fine mesh blocking her access. She could still feel the mass of chakra settled behind her forehead, but she doubted she could summon enough of it fast enough to make a significant difference in this fight.

Sakura had a sinking feeling that this seal, which she hadn’t even come across in the Uzumaki fuinjutsu scrolls Naruto had lent to her, was designed specifically to hinder ninja with her level of chakra control and reserves. It didn’t matter how much control she had if it took her six times as long to drag her chakra to a specific point. Keeping the poison in her system at bay occupied enough of her attention at the moment. Evading the seemingly endless water chains that followed her and the four nins on her tail only added to her exhaustion.

One of the hunters managed to land a kick squarely on her side, cracking at least two ribs. Sakura took another blow to her back, and she twisted to catch the nin’s ankle. She snapped it cleanly in two, baring her teeth as she drove a kunai into the kunoichi’s neck before she could finish the seals for an Earth-style jutsu.

She managed to keep with this rhythm long enough to incapacitate another two nin but knew that she was reaching her limit. She took a half dozen more hits from the closest hunters and a particularly nasty cut from a katana before she pulled back, focused on her seal, and pushed. Black lines twisted down her face and startled the hunters long enough for her to shunt what chakra she could get ahold of to the soles of her boots. The force of the chakra from her seal was enough to push what little she needed through.

Sakura took off at a sprint, running as far and as fast as she could in the opposite direction of the hunters who immediately followed suit. Knowing her options were limited, Sakura scrambled behind the first large boulder she could find and snapped the highest level genjutsu she could manage over the surrounding area. Her jaw clenched to choke off a scream at the fire that lanced through her chakra network as she forced her chakra into the jutsu.

Her chakra control, it seemed, was not better than whichever nin had developed this seal.

She quickly surveyed her condition - several lacerations, at least two cracked ribs, and more poison in her system than she could afford to isolate at once - and realized that the seal on her ankle was not only making it more difficult to mold chakra but also draining it. Sakura immediately withdrew her own chakra, slamming her Yin seal down before the hunter’s seal could touch her reserves. Without her Byakugo, Sakura figured she barely had enough chakra to maintain her genjutsu and keep the poison around her major wounds locked in place. Healing herself would do nothing but leave her drained and vulnerable when the hunter nins eventually found her.

Her genjutsu skills had improved drastically under Kurenai’s tutelage, but the hunter nins would eventually figure out what she had done and double back to find her. They knew as well as she did that she wasn’t in a condition to flee very far.

Without hesitation, Sakura withdrew the summoning scroll Sasuke had given her from a pouch at her hip and snapped it open. She didn’t have enough chakra to summon enough of Katsuyu to be useful, and Sakura would be long dead before reinforcements came even if she did ask Katsuyu to send a message to Konoha.

As much as she hated snakes, Sakura desperately hoped for Aoda as she drew a bloodied thumb across the parchment (though the rational part of her brain noted she probably didn’t have the chakra to handle that level of summons either). She blanched at the strain the summons put on her chakra network and wondered belatedly if she had overestimated how much of what little chakra she had left she could actually direct towards the summons. Slamming her eyes shut with a choked cry, Sakura visualized grabbing onto the thin trails of chakra that creaked through her veins and pulled.

If she’d had the energy for it, Sakura is certain she would have screamed when it was neither a hawk nor a snake that appeared before her - but rather, Sasuke Uchiha himself.

[blockgamepirate]

So what are your thoughts on the Syndicate? I'm personally psyched for Techno to do some anarchist things other than "blow shit up," though his goals still seem very destruction-based. I'm also nervous about the potential for Dream to somehow use this to his advantage. ( - quicksandblock)

I’m sure the plot will SOMEHOW end up ruining things no matter what. :p They need their conflict, after all. For the audience retention. Hopefully it’ll be an interesting kind of conflict, though. I feel like the betrayal thing is kind of overplayed at this point but there’s plenty of other stuff that could happen. Possibly with Dream, like you said. And this also allows Techno’s character to be more proactive rather than reactive.

But yeah I’m genuinely excited, this is actually starting to sound a lot more like the kind of anarchism that I’d recognise. I liked the retirement arc fine because it was nice and chill, but honestly this is much better because they’re actively doing shit. And not gonna lie, I wasn’t a huge fan of the pacifism thing, it was just jumping right to the other extreme from all-violence to... not even just non-violence but in fact not doing anything at all really? Like all he did was talk to Lannan and Vik for a bit and hang out with Phil. It really was just retirement. Fair enough for his character, even if it was a bit sudden, I mean everybody has burnouts and needs to take breaks or even to retire from the movement entirely and that’s 100% valid, but it’s not really any better for achieving liberation, you know.

I mean I liked that he was putting more thought into the ideology and demonstrating some of it by just chilling out with the villagers and whatnot, but that’s not the anarchist content I signed up for :p (I don’t even really mean violence necessarily but some action of some sort. My favourite bits were him sneaking into L’Manberg.)

And then he kinda jumped right back to all-violence with the revenge arc. Not entirely, I mean there were the posters, there were attempts to recruit Tommy which involved some actually reasonable arguments in my opinion, there was some effort put into maintaining the anarchist thing at least nominally, but overall the goal was just to destroy L’Manberg and cause massive amounts of destruction. Which is honestly just not the best tactic for overthrowing the government, it’s really not. I mean it WORKED but I still think it was mostly incidental, since the country was already falling apart from the inside. Obviously it helped that the whole thing blew up, but without the internal conflicts, it would have just been rebuilt again and all he would have accomplished would have been revenge and cementing his own reputation as a violent monster. I realise that the revenge part was intentional and probably wouldn’t have been as satisfying if it didn’t involve all that destruction, but ideologically and tactically? Not great. Which Techno’s character himself seems to be conscious of to be fair!

I’m hoping the Syndicate is going to be more of a reasonable midpoint? It sounds like it so far. It’s a revolutionary secret society so clearly they’re committed to getting results and it’s very likely that there will be some violence or at least hostility involved, because usually governments don’t just go away by asking nicely, it’s just not a goal that you should expect to achieve through peaceful means. But at the same time there seems to be more of a focus on the ideals and recruitment, actually convincing people. And just the fact that they’re creating an actual anarchist group is just very nice. I like it, it’s actual anarchist organising! And honestly, the underground resistance thing is one of my favourite tropes, that’s what really sold me on Dream SMP in the first place; the Pogtopia arc. It wasn’t perfect but I was hooked anyway. And Phil and Techno’s friendship just makes it so much better already, as does the fact that the Syndicate is actually open and clear about its own goals and aiming to recruit people who agree with those goals. And the fact that it’s actually anarchist makes it automatically better, obviously.

Also, as much as I’m amused by Techno’s awkward attempt at recruiting Niki, that’s just so relatable. These things never really go smoothly. And I’ve been there, trying to get something started with very little personal experience and massive social anxiety issues lol. (I mean I haven’t tried starting an actual revolutionary society, overthrowing an actual government is a bit too stressful for me and it’s not really an opportune moment for it right now where I live, but I may or may not have been involved in some direct action kind of stuff. Definitely nothing illegal, of course...) But like, the thing you really need to have a handle on is proper security culture so you don’t get everybody in trouble, other than that it’s okay to fuck up some things or just be awkward. And I’d say Techno is probably paranoid enough for the security culture bit, I think we can check that one off.

And I mean the talk with Niki didn’t even go that badly, probably. I still need to go check her side, I was watching her up until Techno went live but I didn’t get her reaction afterwards.

I feel like Techno is still a bit hazy on the theory but he has the spirit? I guess? And I mean to me that counts more than being super well read but only using it to whine about other people doing anarchism wrong. Not that there aren’t some warranted criticisms re: Techno’s character... Mostly I’m hoping he’ll chill with the torture and kidnapping and stabbing random bystanders? Might be too much to ask, he really seems to like buillying people, but I’m hoping. He could bully Eret, they’re a king after all. Eret’s schedule is just kind of unfortunate I guess. Doesn’t line up well with Techno’s streams. Or if Techno figures out that Sam is the prison warden, that’s also a valid target. Prison guards are definitely enemies of freedom, it’s literally in their job description. Plus Sam stole his horses and tried to kill him that one time.

Then again landlords are definitely enemies of anarchists too and apparently Techno is a landlord to Ranboo now so hmmmmm...

TL;DR: I really like the direction Techno’s new arc is going, I think aside from the random encounters with gods and mystical portals it’s a much more realistic representation of anarchists and anarchism (not that anarchism is mutually exclusive with mystical portals or anything but... ykwim), and it’s a promising start for a new storyline plotwise too.

[hellsbellschime]

idk if you already have one (if you do link pls), but could you do a meta on how dany and sansa compre as rulers?

Well shit, honestly I know my inner Sansa stan is going to come out here and it’s going to sound like I hate Dany. However the fact that I love Dany as a character doesn’t negate the fact that she was an absolutely terrible leader, and I feel like the fact that every time she was in a situation (typically one of her own making) that was too difficult to handle her reaction was to essentially toss up her hands and say “soz guys this isn’t working out, DEUCES” is pretty irrefutable proof that she was just an absolutely awful queen. 

This might seem minor in the grand scheme of things, but one of the earliest learning experiences for both Sansa and Dany I think represents how they learn and behave towards everything going forward. For Sansa, the riot is a huge turning point for her. She’s already been abused and mistreated on a level she’s never experienced before, but she genuinely can’t understand why some men she’s never met before wanted to rape her and likely kill her. The lesson that she learns here seems to be that, regardless of the fact that in the moment Sansa is completely powerless, as a member of the ruling class she has more power over the common people than they will ever have over their own lives and that they’ll ever have over anyone else, and so when those rulers don’t have a good handle on ruling and if they’re ignorant of the experiences of those below them, then they will inevitably suffer and often times die. But it of course is extremely telling that Sansa’s reaction to Shae’s explanation is that she would have given them bread if they had it, and it’s an interesting contrast to Dany.

I think Dany’s kind of defining moment as a leader is with Mirri Maz Duur. Although these incidents aren’t really that similar on paper, the life lesson to be learned behind them is, but Dany and Sansa take entirely different things from it. Unlike Sansa in the riots, Dany is actually almost completely directly responsible for the suffering of Mirri Maz Duur. No, she wasn’t the one doing the raping, but the Lhazareen are being pillaged, killed, and sold into slavery to fund Dany’s conquering of Westeros. Mirri seems to do what she can to hurt Dany, and obviously Dany burns her alive in return. But Dany’s perception of herself, her righteousness, and her ability to do whatever she wants as queen seems to be cemented here. Mirri actually gives Dany a much more clear and understandable explanation of why she did what she did, but Dany’s internal reaction to it seems to be that the suffering of the Lhazareen were an unforeseen and unintended consequence, and that it’s only the fact that she didn’t intend for it to happen that matters. Instead of trying to understand what other people are going through or coming from, Dany essentially decides the opposite, that everyone should understand where she’s coming from and that she has good intentions, so anyone who acts out against her regardless of their reason is deserving of her wrath. 

Another defining element of their leadership styles seems to be “I am the blood of the dragon” vs. “the lone wolf dies but the pack survives”. In a broader sense, the whole blood of the dragon obsession represents the absolutely insane level of Targaryen exceptionalism that the Targaryens believe, honestly Dany probably even more than the rest of them. The Targaryens literally think they’re gods among men, and the fact that Dany became the mother of dragons only cemented that idea in her mind. So then, she considers anything below godly exaltation to be blatant disrespect. Ironically, she hates ruling, but she wants everyone in the world to acknowledge her as their ruler because she sees literally everyone else as her inferior, and she cares much more about symbols like the title of queen or the Iron Throne than she does about anything else. Dany is willing to completely destabilize the world and to let anyone suffer so long as they call her queen while they do it, and she has shown time and again that anyone who doesn’t respect her position as ruler or acknowledge her claim to the throne will die. She’s completely injudicious when it comes to who she kills because literally all that matters is how they feel about her. FFS, “ending slavery” was a huge focal point of her storyline and she indiscriminately killed slavers who weren’t of use to her, but almost her entire army is made up of the Dothraki who were a key component of the slavery economy in Essos. In a weird way she has always demonstrated her “I know what is good” mentality in the sense that she literally just judges whether or not someone is good or bad based on whether or not they defer to her and call her queen.

And it would be disingenuous to say that Sansa doesn’t care about titles or rank, clearly that is something that has always been a priority to her and was especially when she was younger, however her perception of power and how it works is very interesting. She actually has an unfair advantage here because she has “role models” for kingship and queenship in people like Joffrey and Cersei. Especially with Joffrey, she obviously learned that being called king or queen says nothing about how much power you actually have, and having that title says nothing about whether or not people defer to you or whether or not you truly rule them. And more importantly, Sansa’s arc with Jon as the King in the North and even when Bran came home demonstrates that she understands what a necessity stability is, and that she’ll prioritize stability over her own superiority. Like Dany, Sansa actually has a pretty strong claim to the Northern throne, she could have very easily pressed that claim when Jon was named King in the North, and that claim is something she likely would have won. She also immediately tried to put Bran in the position of Lord of Winterfell even though in name that would have weakened her own political position, because she understands that destabilizing the North would be dangerous, would cause people to suffer, and because she truly understands that changing her title and having people call her something different would have zero effect on the actual power that she had within the country.

It’s kind of weird to say it, but Dany was almost at a disadvantage because she had no real experience learning how politics worked or how to rule or lead. Drogo was arguably the only real ruler she ever saw, but he didn’t really rule. Just like Dany ultimately wound up doing, he went to certain places, yielded whatever benefit he could find from it, and left. She never got to see why people like Joffrey and Cersei failed as leaders, or why people like Ned and Robb failed as leaders, and because she is the only person in the world with WMDs she’s never had to learn how to do anything through any other means besides overt force. And I mean, killing everyone who opposes you is certainly a way to gain power, but it’s clearly not effective leadership. 

And on the other hand, Sansa has literally never been able to do anything alone. She’s always been a helpless girl who had to rely on the people around her, which has given her a lot of very good and clear life lessons on the fact that not only do rulers have to cooperate with others in order to succeed, but cooperating with the right people is as important as learning to work with others in general. Also a hugely important distinction here between her and Dany is that while Dany believes that the only moral choice for a leader is her and that anyone who chooses her as a leader is inherently moral, Sansa learns the opposite. She understands that a lot of the people who try to connect with her or earn her favor may be ill intentioned, and that it’s extremely important to distinguish between who is on her team for the right reasons or wrong ones. She also cannot bulldoze her way through problems so she has to actually solve them, and she understands that she can solve them much more effectively if she has other people around her to work with. If she needs food, she can’t just fly on a dragon somewhere and take it. If she needs men, she can’t just find a city and kill all of the leaders and tell everyone there that she’s their queen now. And that makes her job infinitely more difficult than Dany’s, but it also makes her position of power far stronger in the long run. 

That’s not to say that Dany isn’t someone who has good ideas or good intentions, honestly when it comes to the status quo in Planetos it’s safe to say that it should be challenged, and although Sansa values stability over change that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the best course of action for a better world. But Dany’s problem when it comes to her big ideas is that she won’t put in the work to execute them properly. She doesn’t like the work of ruling and if we’re being real, she doesn’t have to put in the work because her dragons and her army the size of a city can do it for her or silence any dissent or opposition. And that is what makes her enormously dangerous. She looks at it as her right instead of her duty, and instead of ever trying to convince anyone of her competence she takes it as a personal insult if everyone she meets doesn’t immediately fall all over themselves to do her bidding. But of course why wouldn’t she, and why would a god ever have to prove themselves to mortals?

Sansa and Dany are meant to be foils for a lot of reasons, but one of the most intriguing to me is the fact that Sansa comes from a family of people who are just as super special as the Targaryens, but she’s not super special (I think it’s extremely likely that she is a warg, but when you compare her experience to that of Bran, Jon, or Arya, obviously she seems like the ordinary one in a family of superstars), and more importantly she was never raised with the idea that she was super special. Yes, she was an extremely highborn lady, but Ned Stark didn’t raise any of his children to believe that they were the chosen Kings of Winter who had ruled the North for thousands of years and done magical things that no ordinary human could ever dream of (and that difference always stands out to me so much, because frankly the Starks have even more reason to believe that they’re super special snowflakes than the Targaryens do, but they don’t), and that attitude obviously carries over into her leadership. She doesn’t look at being queen as her birthright because it quite literally is not, but she understands that it is first and foremost a duty and responsibility instead of an entitlement, and that shines through in the fact that she diligently does all of the scut work that the position requires. 

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

The Face Shrine Theme: An Analysis of Link's Awakening

Link’s Awakening is a pretty damn good game. I’ve finished the Switch remake twice now. When I play a video game, especially when it’s Zelda, I like to absorb as much media and conversation surrounding it as possible. When I do that, sometimes I piece together one person’s ideas with another’s, and now we have some new analysis. I've got some things to say about the Face Shrine's theme.

Part 1: The Music

To start, I’m going to paraphrase parts of JalopesTL’s YouTube video “The Strangest Song in Link’s Awakening.” This is by no means a complete summary of the video and you should definitely check it out. The Gameboy’s sound chip only had four channels: three that could carry a tune, and one that created “noise” for percussion or sound effects.

The composers for Link’s Awakening used three techniques to create a dreamlike sonic landscape that took advantage of the limited technology: 1) using one or two channels to add a delay/reverb/echo to the primary melody, 2) Using sparse arrangements that freed up those extra channels, and 3) manipulating the volume of certain elements of the music. The track that Jalopes uses to demonstrate all three techniques being used effectively is none other than the theme of Level 6: The Face Shrine.

The Face Shrine theme is one melody carried on one channel and delayed on the other two. What’s more, the volume of the song is constantly changing. It might gradually get louder, and louder, then drop down to the quietest possible in the very next measure. When the song is at its loudest, the delay is barely perceptible. When the song is at its quietest, the delay is very apparent.

The effect of these three techniques makes the song feel unnerving and contemplative. You’re constantly on edge. It refuses to let you find a comfortable pattern to settle into. And I am so glad that I found this video because it really explains why this track is, as Jalopes describes it, “one of the most powerful chiptunes I’ve ever heard.” The composers of the Switch remake understood this, which we can see by the fact that the new Face Shrine theme includes the original chiptune.

Part 2: The Response

This one track is only made more impactful by its placement in the story of Link's Awakening. I can only say so much that hasn’t already been said, so I’m going to let some YouTube commenters speak for me. I found all of these on videos of the Face Shrine theme, original and remake. I have made a few minor edits for clarity, but they are mostly intact. When you read these insightful and emotional comments, keep in the back of your mind the things that the composers did to make this song elicit those emotions.

Love the complete tone shift this game takes. You get a feeling something is off once you beat the Catfish Maw boss then you go to the southern shrine and learn the truth and the haunting feeling lingers over you throughout the next dungeon and the rest of the game. The last dungeons and part of this adventure are very unique. Only almost matched by the feeling of Majora's mask that feeling of inevitability. Nothing matters. This song perfectly encapsulates it.

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“I like how the volume of the song alternates between being quiet and distant, and loud and inescapable. Really completes the disorientating, sad atmosphere of the whole shrine.”

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I love how it goes louder and deafening when breaking the solemn notes as if putting you it that “please shut up!/go away!” The mindset Link is probably in due to the intrusive thoughts of the reality he’s facing.

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This theme really puts the feeling behind the realization that by waking the Wind Fish, you are sentencing the world of Koholint Island to vanish without a trace. And the world knows, and is trying its hardest to stop you.

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You feel gloomy. Scared. Lost. You’ve just learned that you are in a fake world. A dream. Is it really? Was the stone lying? You feel the same baffled, gloomy feeling, as you enter the next dungeon, not even realizing how long it took to get here. The game even throws you with an almost useless item to keep the excitement and happiness away. And you get hit with this masterpiece of a song. The same sad feeling you felt before, and wonder if all of your journeys, friends, kids, and creatures you have met along the way were all for nothing.

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Reading most people's interpretations in this song, I heard it a bit differently... I heard it as Link finally learning that it's all a dream, but this world, the people who live in it and keep their schedules, the shop keeper, the crane game owner, the rapids attendant, the family of 6, the animals, Madam MeowMeow, the fisherman, the mermaid, the shy grandfather, the sweeping grandmother, Tarin, Dampe, Marin, everyone... Link has to destroy it all. Despite everyone liking Link, he has to be their destroyer. And for the hero who defeated Ganon and brought back all who were trapped in the Dark World... This is something tragic he has to come to terms with. The hero must betray those he wanted to protect, those that care about him, and their entire world.

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Forget what you know about the game after beating it. Think of what Link must have felt at this moment. Enemies have started telling you that your efforts will ruin everything. Your guiding owl is growing less emotionally supportive and more direct about leading you on to complete your quest. You just got done having a heart-to-heart with a pure maiden who wants nothing more than to go around the world singing her songs for anyone and everyone. She just barely got done braving the island's newfound, monstrous dangers just to help you out. You've freshly learned that, if you complete this quest, you will remove her and her whole island from existence. And now you're taking your first step into the next dungeon on the way to make it happen. Yeah, this theme is fitting.

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Incredibly powerful. Especially knowing that this dungeon in particular has the moment of desperation in conversation with the boss. It just feels so sad and haunting and beautiful. Was holding back tears the entire time I played it.

I’ll leave you with one more comment. This one was on a video for the remade song. I saved this for last because every comment before was a reflection by someone who is clearly emotionally mature enough to understand the story of Link's Awakening. They had the ability to connect the music and the feelings they got from it with the story in a way that deepened their understanding of the text. Here's something a bit different.

So I'm going through this with my son. He’s five. Normally he’s engaged. "Dad, go left. Dad, get that treasure. Dad, let me see the map." But after a couple minutes, he’s quiet. Not a peep. I think maybe he’s tired or just not paying attention. After about ten minutes I ask, "You okay bud?" His response: "Yeah, I just want to hear the pretty song."