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lokischocolatefountain · 8 months ago

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Denial || Men Like Me

Part 2 of the Men Like Me series. Part 1

Masterlist

Fandom: The Last of Us Pairing: Joel Miller x Virgin!Reader Rating: 18+ Warnings: girthy age gap, virgin!reader, eventual loss of virginity (not in this chapter), masturbation (male & female), cis fem reader, descriptions of reader's body, somewhat creepy!Joel, fetishization of youth, dom!Joel, Joel ignores you until he can't, slightly insecure reader, very insecure Joel, corruption kink, mild fem!dom, reader turns the tables a little, name calling, fetishization of virginity, face fucking (not the mouth, but cheek), kneeling, stripping, moneyshot, fingering, sexual discoveries. Word count: 10.4k Summary: After your steamy encounter, Joel ignores you out of guilt, leaving you feeling unworthy. But you make a discovery that makes you turn the tables on him. A/N: The reception that chapter 1 got gave me enough serotonin to keep me going, you guys. I hope everyone likes this chapter at least half as much if not as much as the first one. Even the half would give me a lot of joy. And do say hi in my inbox or my asks. I would loooove to talk about these two. As always, pleaaaaaase give me reblog and/or a comment to recharge my writing batteries. Most importantly, a big thanks to @tobuildahomeinthewoods because the smut part was from their idea in the last chapter's comments .

“Long day, huh?”

“What?” you asked, your brain taking a second too long to process the words. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah,” you said, going back to your glass of whiskey.

“I heard about the kids. They gotta be more careful,” Tommy said, looking to his brother for some kind of confirmation. Joel nodded hesitantly, his eyes looking everywhere but you as he traced the rim of his glass with his middle finger. So cavalier like he didn’t fuck you with that very finger. Asshole.

“Yeah, yeah. Climbing trees is not wise,” you agreed, willing yourself to look away from his brother. You didn’t want to get caught staring, or worse glaring. The chatter of the dinner crowd at the Tipsy Bison drowned into the sound of you tapping your fingers on the wood counter of the bar. You got up abruptly, the bar stool going down from the force of your actions. You bent over to pick it up, a hand moving to your chest instinctively to keep from flashing everyone. With no such protection for your ass, you could feel familiar eyes on them. Eyes that you’d become accustomed to having on you no matter the distance.

“You ok–” Tommy began, but you cut him off.

“You have a good one, Tommy,” you said, grabbing your bag from the bar counter and slinging it over your shoulder. “I gotta go. I’m really tired.”

Like the fool that you were, you picked your glass up and downed the rest of the whiskey, your throat rejecting the choice with a cough that had you spit out half of the burning liquor. Great. Now you’d have to wash your scrubs before going to bed so it didn’t stain. Fucking great.

There were some protests from the younger Miller brother, some words of concern. But you ignored him as you hurried out of the Tipsy Bison and into the night. At least one of the Millers had some manners. And it wasn’t the one that broke into your house and showed you what a clitoris was. It was fucking embarrassing that he was ignoring you after that. Even more embarrassing that you had to learn it from a random guy when you were the one poring over anatomy textbooks trying to become a doctor. You should know anatomy better than anyone else. Your mentor should’ve taught you. You’d learned how to conduct a safe childbirth. Even been allowed to close up the last c-section patient. But you didn’t fucking learn how the baby got in there.

Alright well, you did. But you hadn’t been told about some of the especially sensitive parts of the body that would be involved in the process.

You tossed your bag on your couch, got yourself some cookies that you traded for last week and climbed up the stairs to your bedroom. It wasn’t a nutritious dinner, but it filled your tummy. It came in handy when you didn’t want to spend time chopping vegetables and boiling pasta or whatever the hell you had to do to cook.

Your bedroom had become your prison in the last two weeks. You felt trapped, unable to see beyond it. How could you, when it ironically was right here that you found freedom?

Even as you did something as mundane as eating cookies on bed and spilled crumbs on your sheets like a child, the chair in front of your dressing table was in sight. From where you sat, you could see very clearly the scratch on the black paint that revealed the light wood underneath. Evidence of how you had to hold on to dear life as Joel worked your pussy expertly. Like he knew it as well as he knew the tools of his trade. Like weaving his fingers between your folds was as familiar to him as it was for you to weave through skin with your suture needle and thread.

You felt yourself dripping at the mere memory of his thick fingers pumping away inside you, unraveling the fibers of your being. The sight of him at the bar– his finger tracing the rim of the glass– it took you to the memory of that very finger teasing your pussy.

The pornographic magazines, the entertainment for men, no longer saw the light of day from their box under your bed. Pictures of nude women you wanted to model yourself after in order to be attractive to men no longer sufficed. All you strived for now was to be attractive to him. To be strung like a puppet in his hands while all he seemed to want was to get away from any place where you were.

You felt a pang in your chest as you recalled the first time you went to the house of worship after your time with Joel to find that he’d been replaced with the younger Miller. Tears stung in your eyes as you felt rejected by his absence. Like he no longer wanted to be in the same room as you, hammer nails into wood as you spoke to your fellow townspeople about their wellbeing. You told yourself it was just a temporary thing. That the brothers just liked to alternate shifts and he would return soon to fix the windows that shattered during a storm in the winter.

He never came.

You’d never experienced such rejection before. You’d never wanted before. To want was to risk rejection, to feel the pit in your stomach as you felt now. You never wanted to feel less than, undesirable, unwanted. So you pulled away from all the men you dated. If you could even call that dating. Maybe it was your own fault for thinking it would be easier with Joel. What did you think? That he would fold immediately because you showed off your legs and touched his arm and pushed your breasts out to present your femininity?

Naive, stupid girl.

“Been experiencing longer than you’ve been alive, Ma’am.”

Something twisted in your belly and you lied down, pulling your covers over you as though it would contain the shame coursing through you.

You probably looked silly to him, like a little girl playing adult. Like a kitten picking a fight with a lion. Less than half his age, just a fucking preschooler on outbreak day when he would’ve been a fully grown man. Maybe already beginning to gray, the skin by his eyes crinkled from the years he spent smiling at and wooing women. Why would he want a girl? He’d want a real woman. Someone like Tommy’s wife, perhaps. Someone he wouldn’t have to teach.

“Don’t know your own fucking body but you want a man?” his taunt rang cold in your ear, sending chills down your spine like he was still behind you, fingers buried deep inside the most intimate part of you. You pressed your thighs together, heat pooling between them as it always happened when you thought of what he did to you.

Shame didn’t deter you as you brought your fingers to your pussy, brushing one against your clit with curiosity. With fear. It felt so good, like its sole purpose went beyond the animal need to survive and propagate. You bypassed it to touch your weeping slit, more comfortable with what you were already used to for carnal pleasure.

Your own fingers had always been enough. Out in the wilderness when you needed to release pent up energy. After long days at the clinic and sharing notes with the other students. When you were tired to the point where you couldn’t sleep. Your fingers always took you to where you needed. You were always satisfied.

Not anymore.

You whined as the different angles you tried failed to work. The physical pleasure was the same. But not quite like how it felt with him. His hand was larger, his fingers longer and thicker. He showed you sports inside you that you’d never been able to touch yourself. Maybe this was what people meant when they said ignorance was bliss. Knowledge of pleasure you could have but couldn’t give yourself was torture.

As much as you resented Joel now, you couldn’t help but conjure images of him as you brought yourself closer to release. His deep brown eyes, his large hand that he wrapped around your throat, the way he carried you from your chair and deposited you on your bed. Like a human being weighed nothing to him. Like you were his toy that he could bury his fingers in, play with and set aside when he was done, when he was bored. Entertainment for Men came to your mind again and you cried like you never had at your own touch.

Your thighs trembled as you imagined yourself as one of those women in the magazines, but only for him. Entertainment for Joel. Splayed out on the center page for him to look at and fuck his hand to. You wouldn’t mind being tangible entertainment. Laid out on his bed, limbs arranged in an attractive manner for him, so he could access whatever part of your body he wanted to play with. To be bent to his will and fucked, to be used, given an affectionate pat on your pussy and put away when you’d outlasted his needs only to be given attention when he wanted to get off the next time.

You shook uncontrollably, your eyes squeezed shut and the world went blank as you reached your peak. You pulled your spare pillow to your chest, needing some physical comfort after experiencing such a high. You wished it were him instead of an inanimate object. That he would make you feel good and hold you and kiss you all over. That he would stay when you woke up the next day and do it all over again.

Once the haze of your orgasm cleared up, you cringed at the feelings it had brought out of you. How stupid… Wanting a man who broke in, fucked you with his fingers, and began ignoring you like you did something horrible to him. Fuck Joel Miller and fucking his stupid fucking face. As he said, there were other men in the town. Men who wouldn’t ignore you.

⌘

“How are the windows lookin’?”

“Fixed ‘em up in time for the cold winds. No thanks to you, fuckin’ asshole.”

“Sorry. Y’know I ain’t the church going type.” It wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t the church kind before Sarah died and he certainly wasn’t anymore. That the young aspiring doctor he fingered in her bedroom was the real reason behind him swapping work would remain his secret.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy grumbled, playing with the now cold fries on his plate. “It ain’t a church, by the way. Maria keeps correctin’ me. It’s the house of worship.”

Joel rolled his eyes at that. He got the reasoning behind it. The town had people who believed in different Gods and had different religions. Calling the place a Church would be as unfair as calling it a– whatever, he didn’t know any other kind of place for worship. But it still pissed him off when his little brother came to him and went on about something his wife said.

Go off and do whatever your wife tells you, motherfucker.

No matter how he tried, the snide voice in his head that hated Maria never went away. He never said anything to her or Tommy. Maria was decent to him too, unlike the time he first arrived with Ellie. She trusted him with Miles. Invited him and Ellie over to family dinners. But they kept their interactions to a minimum, as though there’d been a silent agreement that it was best they kept it civil so as to not sow discord in the family.

“Whatever. No point in worshiping, be it Jesus or whatever stuff they got goin’ these days.”

A shudder went down his spine, triggered by the talk of religion. As it became colder, Ellie had begun to revert to the empty shell of a child she was after the events in Colorado. There’d been grifters in the past hiding behind religion to cheat people out of their money, to damage children irreparably while preaching the word of God. The end of the fucking world somehow didn’t stop them from going on. Didn’t stop people from believing that an all-knowing, all-powerful guy in the sky was still watching and would protect them.

If what protected people was God, guns were God. And Molotov cocktails. Sharp rocks and shoelaces.

Ellie didn’t tell him much, but from what he could piece together, it was a religious group with one guy leading them. And they were fuckin’ cannibals. Sounded like a goddamn cult.

“It’s a nice place to meet people,” said Tommy, snapping him out of his descent into the void of the recent past.

Joel simply snorted and took a sip of his glass of water. He couldn’t handle his alcohol like he used to. Age and that he had been off his usual cocktail of oxy and whiskey for a long time now. He had to resort to having a lot of water to sober himself up after the occasional evening drinks with Tommy.

“What? It is! I go there, catch up with everyone in town. Usually people go there when they’re going through some shit. It makes them feel conscious if you visit their house. So I just run into ‘em at the Chu– house of worship– and I just talk to them about their lives ‘n see if there’s anything I can do for them.”

“Guess you’re right,” he said, slotting his thumbnail in the ridges on the bar counter absentmindedly, scraping off bits of the old softening wood.

He could go again. Only so many days he could ignore you. But the reminder of the shame coursing through his veins when he saw you this evening made him shake the thoughts off. There was no way he could be anywhere you were without shriveling up and dying of embarrassment.

You were so young.

Relatively unblemished by the world. A fuckin’ virgin. Never known the touch of a man and moaning his name as you touched yourself.

Nope, nope, nope. Shouldn't have gone there, he thought as he felt himself hardening in his pants. Shouldn’t his dick be non-functional by now? He was dangerously close to sixty and spent a good two decades without adequate nutrition. Shouldn’t that be enough to turn his dick limp forever?

“Come over tomorrow, then. We’re doin’ a little memorial thing in the back of the house of worship. That young doctor’s idea, actually. She put the idea forward at the last council meeting. Thinks it’ll help people to have something physical to remember their people by.”

Young, sweet, and so fucking thoughtful.

Not meant for men like him.

Yet he went the next day.

The topic of Sarah hung in the air around him and Tommy like a fog beyond which they couldn’t see. It sat heavy in his chest, the memory of his baby and worse, everything his shit brain had forgotten. He remembered that she gave him shit, mocked him over everything. But she didn’t have a voice in his head anymore. He could describe the sweetness of her voice, but it no longer sounded out in his mind. No matter how hard he tried.

Her favorite color was purple and she loved soccer. He couldn’t recall the name of her team. She loved reading. He didn’t remember her favorite author. She liked animated movies. He couldn’t remember a single one. Just the vague memory of her falling asleep on his lap as cartoon characters chirped away on tv. Even her face was beginning to blur. When he recalled her features, it was only through images of the last seconds of her life.

“We could just do alphabetical order. Simple.”

“Not really,” you said, scribbling lines on the paper. “We get new people in the town sometimes and we don’t want the names they add to stand out, away from the alphabetically ordered list. Might make them feel bad.”

“Yeah, you’re right. What about age?” Tommy suggested.

“Still the same problem. It would force newcomers to have their own separate list at the bottom.”

“How about a first come first serve system? We tell people when we’re taking names down for the memorial and they can come over, form a queue and give us the names they want included. That way, people can keep the names of the people they love in one spot on the memorial instead of having it scattered all over because of age or alphabetical order.”

“What do you think, Joel?” Tommy asked, making him fold his arms over his chest and sigh. He didn’t give a shit. But that wasn’t the most amicale thing to say when someone was trying to do an objectively good deed. Unlike the other people in this town, he didn’t deserve to add the names of his people to a memorial. He failed in protecting them. He didn’t deserve to mourn like he wasn’t the reason they went into early graves.

“Yeah, ‘s good. I agree.” He said, finding no faults with your proposal to order the names of the deceased by the order in which people gave it to ‘em. He didn’t know why he was being asked all this. It wasn’t like he was on the council like them. He was just takin’ measurements when he got dragged into this.

“How many names do you think we’ll get?” Tommy asked him in yet another attempt to get him involved.

Taking pity on his brother, he began a rough estimate of the number of names they’d get for the memorial and how much surface area they’d need for carving them in. “Six hundred people in town. Babies don’t have names to give. Kids wouldn’t have too many and if they had any, it would be on their parents’ list too. How many kids in this town?”

It was a fucking nightmare, sitting there at the table with you and doing calculations when all he wanted was to throw you over his shoulder and take you back to his place. Make you pose like you were posing in front of your mirror that day. Like women in those porno magazines he sneaked into his teenage bedroom and jerked off to. The fuck were you even thinking? Door left open, tits out, fingers in your cunt and his fucking name on your lips.

Did you notice him at your door and decided it would be a fun trick to play on an old man? Or did you always scream his name when you fucked yourself? When was the first time? Did you always come so prettily on your own fingers like you came on his? Being in the dark drove him crazy. But part of him felt that getting the answers would drive him absolutely fucking insane.

The thought alone was enough to make him feel uncomfortable in his pants. He adjusted himself on his seat and looked away from you, afraid that somehow you’d be able to tell that he was having improper thoughts about you when you were talking about honoring the dead. If thinking about you sexually in a church was bad, he was sure it was worse to think it when you were trying to help people memorialize their dead.

You had an air of innocence about you. The brightness of your eyes and the way you moved your hands about as you planned the details of this memorial and scribbled them out on your little notebook. He’d been attracted to that innocence from the very start. A rare thing to find out in the world. When even babies were born into violence and oppression, innocence was a luxury no one even thought to acquire.

A virgin, too.

His cock twitched in his pants. He gulped and looked around to check if anyone had caught his shameless response. Nope.

He was surprised you were a virgin. For all your innocence, you were also fucking beautiful. There were plenty of guys in town. Ladies too, if you liked that. Anyone would’ve snatched you up quick and made sure to show you a world of pleasure. It didn’t take him long knowing you to give in to temptation. It was fucking impossible that no man had worshipped with his head between your thighs. That no man who saw you in your pretty little dresses bent you over and filled you up with his cock.

You were beautiful. Even more so when you came on his fingers. Made all those pretty little sounds. The way you said his name… Nobody had said it like that in such a long time. Not even Tess.

It rang in his head whenever he found himself alone at home. Being in possession of your panties didn’t help matters. White cotton. Innocent. Covered in your dried up release. When he left that day, he made sure to suck on his fingers. Moaned like a fucking creep while going down your stairs. Eyes closed, he could still taste you on his tongue. After so many days. A little tangy with a hint of salt from your sweat and all woman.

It had been embarrassingly long since he felt like a man. He’d been father, brother, smuggler, and father again. But long since he was just man. Never someone desirable. Out there, sex was just for release. Purely biological. The end of the fucking world did not afford good hygiene. You fucked someone because they were the safest option. Not because you were attracted to them.

You, however… You had others in this town. You were here before him. Younger, smarter, with a body that worked perfectly fucking well. You could have anyone but it was his name you were moaning out in the privacy of your room.

He grunted as your voice crept back into his mind. The ‘Joel, please’, and the ‘Sir’.

He grabbed on to the railing as his thighs trembled, afraid he would have an embarrassing fall. His breaths grew quicker and his mind void of everything but you.

On your knees. On your back. On your front so he could fuck you from behind. Your hand around his cock. Your lips stretched out around him as you struggled with his size. Fistful of your hair as you begged for release. Please, Sir. Please, Joel. The heat of your tight velvety cunt. Tears blurring your wide eyed innocence as he stretched out your rear hole. He wanted to take you everywhere, leave you burning with him. Mark you so deep every man you let in after you would know who fucked you first.

It didn't take long. The mental images of you were far too effective. His last time was too long ago. He was too old to last. Too old to want you. Somehow the reminder only pushed him further along. Sticky white cum coated your panties, mixing your scent with his. The mirror showed him a reflection of himself. Old, gray, crow’s feet by his eyes. He dropped your panties in the hamper, the warmth of his own release on his hand and the shame on his face sobering him up quickly.

He wanted to teach you sin. But you had taught him more of it already than you would ever know.

⌘

“Cool jacket, dude!”

“Uh…thanks. I traded for it years ago” you said, digging your thumb nail between the teeth of the zipper. It didn’t fit perfectly, but it worked well on cold nights that weren’t cold enough to warrant a sweater. “Is Joel in? I need to talk to him about a building project.”

“Yeah,” said Ellie before pressing her lips into a thin line. “I mean, he was awake half an hour ago when I left, but he could be in dreamland by now. Cause he’s old.”

“Ah. Of course,” you said, smiling awkwardly at the girl. Joel’s kind of, sort of daughter. You were closer to her than Joel in age. You rolled the memorial plan tighter and tighter, your hands needing to be occupied with something as your mind reeled at the inappropriateness of your desires.

“I’ll make sure I don’t wake him up,” you said before leaving the girl to return to her group of friends.

He was old enough to be your father. It should disgust you, scare you. Maybe it would’ve if you’d had an actual father in your life. A point of reference to know how vile a man of that age would have to be to want a girl your age. You tried to force some disgust into your veins, hoping that would help in putting out the fire in you that threatened to consume you whole. But it was hard to convince yourself that this was wrong when he’d made you feel so good.

Your fingers had become inadequate overnight. If his fingers were so powerful over you… You shuddered to think what he could do for you with his penis. It had to feel better. The organ was made for it, unlike fingers.

You stopped outside his door and knocked without giving it a single thought. If you’d thought about it, you would’ve fled. It had already taken you hours to muster up the courage to make the walk to his house with the draft sketches for the memorial. You wouldn’t let your desperation ruin it.

He looked surprised to see you, mouth opening and closing as though he’d forgotten how to process language. His dark brown curls and the silver that decorated it sat messily atop his head. Like he’d run his fingers through it. An old t-shirt stretched over his chest and struggled against his arms. A pair of dark sweatpants sat on his hips, the drawstrings hanging in the front.

“Hey? Uh…what’s wrong?” he asked, bringing a hand up to his face and scratching his beard. Why was that hot? You had to be out of your fucking mind.

You cleared your throat and looked up into his eyes. “Does something have to be wrong?”

“You’ve never come here, so I thought…”

“I’m here about the memorial plans. I have a few designs I want to run by you,” you said, holding up the rolled up sheets of paper.

“Ah. That. Sure, uh come in,” he said, opening the door and stepping aside to allow you passage. You looked around his house, careful to seem disinterested so he didn’t have more reasons to think you were a stupid little girl pining after him just because he made you come once.

Shit. He probably already thought that.

“A virgin. Pretty young things like you ain’t for men like me.”

You swallowed at the reminder as he led you to the dining table and offered you a seat. You looked around while he cleared the table. Plates, tools, some worn out novels. So he was the messy sort. You didn’t know who you would be if you’d had the chance to just be. You didn’t know if you would leave things lying around like that if you’d had a normal start to life. Like Joel. Like the others who were old enough to remember life before the cordyceps.

The place didn’t scream Joel Miller. There were no personal artifacts decorating his living room. No framed art. No books. No throw pillows or even a blanket on the couch.

You knew what it was like to have nothing in your house. When you were still new to the town and it hadn’t hit you yet that you were allowed to have your own things. Collect stuff and not worry about having too many things to carry with you when you had to run. You didn’t own anything you couldn’t fit into your backpack. And you took that backpack everywhere when you managed to step outside your new house.

But over time, you’d decorated your house. People you helped out at the clinic often gave you things as a token of their gratitude. Kids drew pictures for you. A lady once gave you the art off her wall that the previous owner had put up. Tommy and Maria gave you a new sweater that she’d knit when she was pregnant. New yarn from new wool from the town’s sheep. The first time you ever got something truly new.

“No decorations, huh?”

“What?”

“You don’t have any decorations here,” you pointed out again and licked your lips nervously.

“Uh, yeah. Not really the priority. Have’ta trade wisely. Can’t be gettin’ pictures when ya need bread.”

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “But you don't have to trade for it, you know? You could put up something of what’s in the house already. Surely the previous owners left some stuff.”

“They did. Traded ‘em all for things we need. Fresh fruits, bullets, that kinda shit.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be framed art. You could cut up a nice picture from a magazine or something.”

Joel looked up from the plans, head tilted and an eyebrow raised. Shit! Of course he thought you were talking about your magazines with the naked women.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” you said, your voice coming out squeaky. Embarrassed, you cleared your throat and looked down at the plans.

“Let’s discuss the plans,” he said, his voice all gruff and his tone so stern.

“I-I- uh… May I use your restroom?” you asked, unable to look him in the eye after what you’d said. After how he’d reacted. You really didn’t mean it like that. But you could see why that would be hard to believe when the last time he saw you, you had a box full of those men’s entertainment magazines on your bed and one open in front of you as you touched yourself.

Touched yourself and moaned his name.

“Upstairs, second door to the left.”

You squeaked out a thanks before you bolted out of his dining room and made your way up the stairs. There were two bathrooms. One decorated with band posters and a poster of a girl with weirdly cut black hair sitting on a motorcycle. Had to be Ellie’s. The second door to the left was another bathroom. Joel’s, apparently. There was just one bar of soap, a toothbrush, and a pot of toothpaste. No shampoo bar. You pulled the toilet seat and lid down before taking a seat.

You let out a groan and planted your face in your hands. Why the hell did you have to go and make it awkward like it wasn’t already that way. After he made you come that day, he’d refused to be anywhere near you. You hoped it was just coincidence, but after over a week it became undeniable that he was avoiding you.

He probably thought you were going to catch feelings. A girl in one of the romance novels you read fell in love with a guy who took her virginity. And there was the time you overheard this guy talking about not wanting to sleep with a girl because she was a virgin. He was afraid she would catch feelings and get clingy.

Now here you were in his bathroom because you thought it was wise to make small talk and ended up insinuating he should put up dirty pictures on his wall. You could scream. But you wouldn’t. There was already enough awkwardness with him.

You could always jump out of the window and run off to your house. Never speak of this again. Pretend nothing happened if Joel tried to talk to you about it. But something told you that he wouldn’t. He would probably be happy if he never had to interact with you again. You had been acting desperate. He caught you touching yourself moaning his name, for fuck’s sake!

Your hands, permanently dry from all the times you scrubbed them clean for your patients, found some moisture from your salty tears. It was embarrassing, sitting in the bathroom of a guy who wanted nothing to do with you after you scared him off with your stupid little infatuation.

You were a grown woman. Still young, but too old to be acting like this. You should have some experience already. Not sniffling over a man more than twice your age. He was right. He had been a grown man with experience longer than you’d been alive. Of course he wanted nothing to do with you.

The window looked more and more attractive as the seconds passed. It had been a while since you did something like that. You didn’t need to jump out of buildings or trees anymore. You didn’t go on patrols like some residents. With no need to fight for your life and having all the food you could need to never go hungry even once, you’d become a little unfit. If you broke a bone jumping out of Joel’s bathroom window, there would be questions. And everyone would know. You’d have to avoid the whole town instead of just Joel.

You’d just have to face it. Even if facing it was doing as little as just bidding him goodbye and bolting out of his house without an explanation. You got off his toilet and pressed the flush just so he didn’t think you were weird. Like it fucking mattered. He already found you weird and desperate.

You washed your hands, letting the water wash away the tears on your hands before wiping your wet hands over your face in an attempt to remove traces of your crying.

You should’ve just left after that. Not looked around. Not snooped like a creep. You didn’t ever dig. You didn’t have to look too deep to catch it. But a sliver of white peeked out through the netted walls of the laundry hamper. A sliver of white cotton with a light blue stitch.

Without second thought, you dug into his dirty laundry. You came up with the white cotton fabric, going straight to the gusset where the blue thread stitched the fabric pieces together. The original stitch had given out and you sewed it back together just some time back. The blue thread was all that you had at the time.

As though the sight of your panties in Joel’s bathroom wasn’t jarring enough, next came the smell. Of you. Your cum. You felt practically hear your own heartbeats as you recalled how he’d cleaned you up with your own panties. You recalled that he stuffed the fabric in his pocket as you lied on your bed, pussy still pulsating from his handiwork, brain melted, and life changed forever.

You took another whiff of your panties, goosebumps raising the hairs on your body as you felt it. Your cum and something else. It was still damp.

Blood rushed back up to your face and you felt yourself getting tense.

This fucker. How dare he? You’d been embarrassed just a minute ago over your desires and he was doing this the whole time? Noticing you on the streets and running away for days. Running back to his home where he kept your fucking panties, apparently. Avoiding you for so long only to cum in your panties.

So he wanted you.

If not you, he at least wanted sex. Dirrty old man who liked attention from you, but you weren’t even disgusted. Just angry he was pretending to be better than that. He could’ve used any old rag, but he used your panties.

You brought your defiled panties back up and smelled them again. Strangely, it smelled something like bleach. Or you could be wrong. You’d never… You didn’t know what a man’s release was supposed to smell like. Was it different for each man or did they all smell the same?

Wetness pooled in your panties as you imagined him touching himself. Large rough hand wrapped around himself. Did he think of you when he did it? Think of you naked in your bedroom and taking his fingers? What did his penis look like? What would it feel like? Soft? Rough? You’d wondered about having one inside you, but never about a particular man’s anatomy. But this was Joel. Joel was the only one who’d gotten this far in your head.

He couldn’t deny it to you anymore. If nothing else, you could at least call him out for ignoring you when he was wiping his ejaculate off with your stolen panties.

“Joel!” you called out before your fears could talk you out of confronting him. Unsure if he would’ve heard you, you opened the bathroom door and yelled his name out again. “Joel!”

“What?”

“Come up here!”

“What happened?”

“Just come here.”

You heard him sigh, the sound followed by the typical grunts and groans he made when standing up. Fuckin’ old man, ruining your life. Ruining your self-confidence. Ruining your fucking panties. His heavy footsteps thudded against the stairs as he climbed up, the sound getting louder as he got closer to the bathroom.

“Why were you screaming my name like y–” he stopped mid scold, frozen in place by the door as he saw what you had in your hand. He opened and closed his mouth, as though attempting to explain but deciding otherwise. He licked his lips and scratched the back of his neck, his eyes looking everywhere but at you.

“Do you not have rags, Joel?” you taunted, taking a step towards him and enjoying seeing him step back. You felt powerful, moving a large man with just your voice. It was very unlike how he made you feel all the days he ignored you. Weak, insignificant, undesirable.

“You weren’t meant to– Fuck, I’m sorry!”

“Which part are you apologizing for? For breaking into my house and touching me? For ignoring me ever since? For stealing my underwear? Or for doing whatever you did with it?”

You moved him out of the bathroom, making him walk backwards in the hallway you hoped led to his bedroom. Even if it didn’t, you’d be fine. You’d exact revenge in any place you can. As long as you got to make him feel the way he made you feel. Pleasure. Shame. Want.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I never should’ve—”

You took your last step towards him, finally trapping him against a wall. You stood close enough to place your hand on his chest. You licked your lips, the rock hard muscles beneath your touch storing itself away in your mind for later use.

“Imagine what would happen if I told someone? You sister-in-law, perhaps… She hates you, doesn’t she?” You smirked, though you were screaming on the inside. You didn’t know where you got all this courage from. You didn’t know you had it in you to threaten a man as imposing as Joel.

He turned pale, his hands up against the wall in surrender. If you’d asked him, he wouldn’t tell you the truth that it was to keep himself from touching you. “Please don’t tell anyone. I won’t do this again, I swear.”

“Maybe I want you to do this again…”

“You don’t. Trust me.”

“Shh!” You said, placing your index finger on his lips. Pink, perfectly shaped, and so damn kissable. “Don’t tell me what I want. You ignored me ever since you walked into my house without my permission and shoved your fingers inside me. I was walking around town believing I wasn’t good enough for big old Joel Miller. What did you say? That you’ve been experiencing longer than I’ve been alive?”

You raised an eyebrow at him when he didn’t answer. Then he nodded reluctantly.

“Why were you coming in my panties then if I didn't measure up? ”

“I won’t do it ag—” he groaned when you grabbed his cock through his pants. He let out a low grunt and his Adam’s Apple bobbed in his neck as he swallowed. You replaced your index finger with your thumb, tracing his trembling lips as you lazily stroked his cock with your other thumb.

He filled your whole hand and there was still more. It took everything in you to not moan at the sheer size of him. To not grind your belly against it to feel it against you. You didn’t know how big it was supposed to be, but the romance novels you read always described the big ones as more desirable.

“I don’t want to hear excuses. I asked why. Why did you steal my panties, Joel Miller?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you come on it? Don’t fucking lie to me cause I can fucking smell you on it.”

“I did. I jerked off with it.” You had to choke back a moan at that. No, you had to be strong. Show him you could take the upper hand just like he did with you. You weren’t a little girl with a crush. You were a woman and you could have this effect on a grown man. You refused to be discounted with a pat on your pussy no matter how much you wanted him to touch you like that again.

“Mmm. And that’s enough to get you going. Just a pair of my panties.”

“Mhmm.”

“Show me how you did it.”

“What?” He asked, eyebrow raised.

“Show. Me. How you did it.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, his hand coming up to stroke the base of his neck. “Wh-What?”

You felt your heart thud against your ribs and if you didn’t know from experience and your textbooks, you’d have been afraid that he could hear it. You’d never done anything so daring. You were the timid girl when it came to this stuff. That the thought even occurred to you was a testament to how much you desired Joel. Not just to sleep with any guy, but to have Joel. Without a word, you reached under the skirt of your dress and tugged your panties down.

He inhaled sharply as you bent down and came back up with your panties. Undyed white fabric, a little green ribbon in the shape of a bow stitched to the front, gusset a light gray from your wetness.

“Show me. I want to see what you were doing in your bathroom with my panties after ignoring me everyday,” you said, taking his hand and forcing the fabric into it. His hand curled around it and you found yourself feeling lighter. You didn't know how long you could keep up the brave front if he continued to have no response.

“Take your clothes off.”

It was like something changed the moment you gave him the garment. His eyes were on you, his gaze unrelenting. He took a step ahead and you stepped backward. His lips curled up in a smirk. It seemed playtime was over… Like a lion letting the cubs play at predation before taking over to show how hunting was really done.

You didn’t know if you were ready for that… Sure it was nothing he’d never seen before, but it was different. The last time, you didn’t do it with the intention to have him see you. He just happened to see you bare and you didn’t cover up when you realized.

“I don’t have a box full of dirty magazines. I need to see somethin’,” he said, his eyes going down your frame like they had every right to be there. “Or you could leave these,” he said, holding your panties up in front of your eyes, “and run back home. What d’ya say?”

You swallowed, your hands shaking as you reached behind to find the zipper of your dress. You weren’t going to run off. Not when you’d been desperate for so long to do something, anything with him. Cold air kissed your back as you pulled the zipper down and the hairs on your body stood up in full attention. You pushed the sleeves off your shoulder and shimmied out of the dress, standing in just your dress in front of him.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. He looked you up and down. He tilted his head as he looked you up and down. He radiated superiority, putting you in some kind of a daze. “Your bra too. Show me your tits.”

The crudeness had more wetness pooling between your legs. You nodded wordlessly, afraid that pathetic whimpers would be the only sound you’d make under his gaze. You reached behind and felt around for the clasp of your bra. With his eyes piercing into you, you failed to find it quickly like you usually did. Your mouth dried up, your tongue sticking to the roof.

He made no effort to help. A mocking smile assumed its place on his lips as he watched you struggle in front of him.

When you finally managed your task and stood fully naked, he stood up straight. His tongue darted out and licked his lips. You felt like a piece of meat placed in front of a starving man. Just seconds ago, you were telling yourself you didn’t need his approval, that this would just be revenge. But as he evaluated your body, your pussy wept with the need for your body to be nothing but what he liked.

“Room’s that way.” He nodded in the direction of the room. You turned around and took small steps, your shoulders curling inward and your head bowed in submission. Every inch of your skin burned with the strength of his gaze.

“Kneel.”

You placed your knee on his bed, ready to climb up.

“On the floor.”

One knee still on his white sheets, you turned around to look at him. He was so large. Imposing. The kind of figure you would follow without question. So, you did.

“You look pretty on your knees.”

He took a few steps towards you, stopping when the distance had your neck straightening to look up at him. Large, powerful, imposing. Another step and you were face-to-face with his crotch. His bulge was right there.

“Go on, take it out. Since you wanted it so bad.”

Joel didn’t think you would do it. You looked even smaller kneeling at his feet. Meek little thing. He didn’t at all expect you to taunt him the way you did. Especially after you threatened to tell on him to Maria. He fully expected you to start crying. Guess he really underestimated you. Virgin didn’t necessarily mean innocent.

Yet you folded as soon as he took the reins. He saw the change in you right when he told you to take your clothes off. When your eyes went from determined to defeated. All that spunk evaporated to reveal the little girl underneath. He liked it like that. Made him feel like a real man. Not that there was any scarcity of masculinity in his life of taking out clickers and defending this town. But somethin’ about a beautiful woman accepting his authority did the trick faster than every other display of masculinity.

Your hands fiddled with his belt, trembling as you tried to take it off. He stopped you with a hand on your wrist. “Just undo the zip.”

No way he was going to get naked in front of a pretty little twenty something. It wasn’t anything great to look at even before he began a life of violence and traversing the wilderness. Sure he was well built from all the hard physical labor and constant fight for survival. It’d left several unappealing scars on his person. Time had done a number on him too. Especially his pudgy belly. It didn’t help that food flowed free in Jackson, fattening him up a little.

Thankfully, you listened. You looked up, as though you expected him to complete the task for him. He challenged you with a look. Wanna be a big girl so bad, act like one.

You reached inside his pants and took his cock out. Your lips parted and he heard you inhale through your mouth. His cock hung in front of him, hard from your teasing. He had to give it to you, you were daring for a meek little thing. No one in town would believe him if he told them all that you’d done. And he suspected he didn’t even know the half of it.

“Not too late to back out, you know?” he said, wrapping his hand around himself. It took everything in him to give you an out. As much as he wanted to grab your face, force your mouth open and make you gag around him, he was man enough to let you know you didn’t have to do anything. Young girl probably bit more than you could swallow. And seeing his cock and your mouth so close by showed that he was definitely nothing you could swallow.

“I’m not backing out.”

“First time seeing one?”

“Of course not. I work at the clinic. You think I haven’t seen a penis?”

“No anatomical terms. I ain’t your patient. Go on, touch my cock.”

You reached up for him, but he stepped back, delighting himself in the disappointment on your face. “Come on, you want a man so bad, work for it.”

You moved to stand up. “Did I say you could stand up?”

“No.”

“Then get back on your fucking knees.”

You dropped to your knees and he groaned in satisfaction. The euphoria of wielding power over someone rushed through his veins. And he wanted more. It was the same sick satisfaction he got when he beat men to death. When he broke bones and dressed animals he hunted in the wild. “Good girl. You’re going to listen to what I say. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Fuck! That fucking word again.

“Come on, come get it. Hands and knees. Crawl to me.”

He beckoned you forward with one hand, his other still on his cock. You bent over and god fucking damnit, you were a vision. You were an eager girl and he could see what you could become in the right hands. His hands. The things he could show you… Introduce you to your own body. Bring you pain and pleasure that were indistinguishable.

Your tits hung from your chest, swaying as you crawled towards him. Feverish, bright eyes followed him as he continued to refuse what you wanted. Too fucking late. He warned you. Told you men like him weren’t for pretty little things like you. But you didn’t fucking want to listen. Now you’d have to deal with the consequences. Maybe you’d stay away then.

“Please, Sir,” you whined so prettily he almost gave in.

“What are you begging for?”

“You. Y-your penis.”

“My cock,” he corrected. “Say it.”

“Your cock, Sir.”

“Good girl. C’mere,” he said, giving you a nod to come closer. You crawled to him and when he didn’t back away, sat up on your knees. He placed his hand on the back of your neck and gripped your hair, making you hiss. Holding you in place, he brought his cock to your face. You looked up at it, your eyes widening and your mouth slackening. You brought your hand up and touched his tip with just your thumb. The rest of your hand followed, wrapping around him. He gasped silently as you stroked his slit with your thumb, making him leak precum on you.

“Did…? Did you?”

“No. Gotta do more ‘n that to make me come. That’s precum.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t think you knew what precum was. Probably not the focus of your education here. Not the most important thing when townsfolk came in injured after patrols or suffering from a fever that was life threatening without the medicines of the past.

He pressed his cock against your cheek. The sight presented a visual of how you’d struggle if you took him in your mouth. He’d have you choking on him before you even took half. He twitched against your face at the mere thought. You were the picture of innocence, even with his cock on your face. Even with the stunt you pulled before he put you back in your place.

“Think I’ll just do this. Fuck your pretty face.”

You whimpered, spurring him on. He wanted to force himself inside you, punish your mouth for having the gall to speak to him the way you did. Make you cry from how full of him you were. Give you a sore throat so when you spoke to him again, you’d remember to speak with respect. But you wouldn’t be able to handle it. So he’d settle for defiling your sweet features, hold his cock against your cheek and rut like the animal he was.

“I ain’t gonna lay you out on my bed and take you nice and slow. I’m just gonna use you. ‘s what men like me do.”

He pulled away, giving you another opportunity to rethink this. “You can put your fucking clothes on and leave if you don’t like it.”

To his surprise, you stayed put on your knees. You shook your head before reaching up and rubbing your cheek against his cock. You let out a soft moan, eyes closed and your thighs pressed together tight. “No, no. I like it.”

“Fuckin’ slut,” he said, his hand back in your hair. He tugged at it and took his cock in his other hand. He tapped your lips with his tip, smearing the precum that leaked out of him. “You like an older man using your face like it’s a pussy?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He snorted, amused. “Never met a virgin slut before. Getting your face fucked before your pussy. Bet you’re wet from this.”

There was the sweet little whimper from you again. He wanted to hear more of it. Trap you underneath him and make you weep and cry and whimper as he split you in half.

“Let me see. Touch your pussy, show me your slick.”

You obeyed, spread your knees and touched yourself. Your hand glistened under the light of his bedroom, your wetness stretching between your fingers in strings. “Goddamn, would you look at that…” he said in a low rumble. “Rub it on my cock.”

Your hand trembled slightly and you stared at him with a blank look in your eyes. He guided your hand to his cock, withdrawing his hand when he’d brought you close enough so you could decide whether you wanted to follow his command. You touched your slickened hand to his cock, covering him in the evidence that you wanted this. Wanted him. You reached between your legs and brought more of yourself, eyes soft yet glazed with lust as you smeared yourself all over his length.

“Ask me for it.”

“Please,” you whined.

“Please, what?”

“P-please fuck my face. Sir.”

He returned his cock to your cheek, your wetness lubricating your face. Hand cradling his cock, he began to thrust. It wasnt much different from fucking his own fist. It was just skin. Not the tight velvety wetness of a pussy or a throat that would gag with his thickness. But your face was softer than his gun callused hands. Even better was your pretty face, looking up at him so adoringly… So full of desire.

He didn’t have to let his imagination do the trick now. Not when you were right in front of him, lending yourself for his use. And no imagination, no memory did justice to you. Your body. Scarred, but beautiful. Tits that filled his large hands, clean and styled hair, a belly that showed you were well fed. He wanted to lay you out on his bed and consume you. Take your tits in his mouth, grab handfuls of your ass, spread your cunt lips and lodge himself inside you. Give it to you hard so your thigh jiggled and you felt them ache as they rubbed against each other when you walked around in your pretty little dresses.

But as depraved as he was, he knew he shouldn’t be the first to take you. He’d have you just this once. Store your image in his head to get off with for as long as his dick worked. You acted all brave, but he couldn’t shake off that you were still inexperienced. The first time was meant to be good. The world was no longer normal, but you could have normality within the insular walls of Jackson.

Even this was wrong. Using you like this instead of making sweet love to you. But he hadn’t been that man in a long time. He was selfish and cruel. If there was no town, no community where everyone knew everyone and you still threw yourself at him, he would’ve taken you in all your holes with no hesitation. Ruined you, kept you until your body wasn’t of use and tossed you aside. But being in this semi-normal place had gotten its claws into him. Softened him up.

He grew closer to the edge embarrassingly quickly, the haze of carnal pleasure beginning to muffle the voices screaming in his head to let you go. He only barely noticed that you were touching yourself. Enjoying this treatment of you. That spurred him on. There was no stopping now.

You let out soft moans, your eyes never once leaving him. He struggled to get himself to focus. To check for any signs you didn’t want this. But all he saw was you on the precipice of pleasure. The world disappeared. His house, Jackson, the darkness that lay beyond. It was all him now. He felt lighter, like he would float out through the window and everything he’d ever been through would disappear. Every ounce of goodness quietened down, the last shreds of his morality discarded with your dress. He grunted and moaned your name as he kept fucking you. Your features morphed into nothingness. No longer a face, no longer a human woman. All he knew was the ache in his body, the tightness that begged to be released.

He slapped a hand against the wall as his thighs stiffened and every muscle in the vicinity of his cock tightened. He took himself back in his hand and stroked himself over your face. Once, twice, and thr– mid stroke, he growled and spilled on your face, coating your innocent features in sticky white cum. You flinched as the first stream hit, screwing your eyes shut. He wanted to make you look, see how he could defile you, show you that he wasn’t for you. Force you to confront what you’d allowed into your life so you’d run and never look back.

But all he could do was keep stroking as he came down from his high. It was unlike anything he’d had in the recent past. Not his imagination, not just his hand. A real human woman who wasn’t just a convenience. One who sought him out, stripped for him, and let him use her face like a toy.

He took a minute to collect his breath and let his senses return to him. His cock hung semi-hard outta his jeans, like it could go again if he willed it. Like it wasn’t almost six decades old. But he wasn’t too surprised. He could go again for the utterly debauched girl in front of him. Innocence eclipsed by milky white ropes of his cum. Without thinking twice, he grabbed your hair and pulled at it. You yelped, but let him pull you up from the ground and drag you to the other side of the room.

He stopped you in front of his mirror, and slapped your hand off your pussy before replacing it with his. “Look at yourself. I fucking told you,” he said, forcing two thick fingers inside your cunt. You sucked him in with little resistance, your cunt leaking enough for him to force a third finger inside you. You gasped and tried to wriggle away, but he wasn’t having it. He was a fucking monster, but he would never leave a woman unsatisfied. Especially a young thing who’d never had anyone else before.

He wrapped his free hand around your throat, his half hard cock begging him to go again when he felt the vibrations of your moans. “I warned you,” he whispered into your ear. “Fuckin’ warned you. Told you how starved I was. And you still taunted me. Look at you now!”

“Please… Please, Joel! Sir, please…”

“Fuckin’ slut. Maybe you ain’t really a virgin.”

“I am, I am, I promise. I wa–” you cut yourself off with a gasp as he pressed his thumb on your clit.

“What was that?”

You made some incoherent noises, too far gone to form words. Yet you managed to thrust onto his fingers and roll your hips like a real natural.

“Joel…”

“I know, pretty girl… I know,” he cooed, the softness in his voice contradicting how he’d used you just minutes prior. Contradicting the cum on your pretty little face.

“You gonna come for me? Give me another one after you came so sweetly on my fingers that day?”

There were no answers from you. Not even an acknowledgement that you heard him. Just whines and moans as you let him support your entire weight. Your head lolled back on his shoulder and your eyes rolled back into your skull as he fucked you stupid with just his fingers. Oh the things he could do with his cock… Reach deeper, take the virginity you’d held on to for so long. If he ever had you, he would never let go. He was too selfish a man to willingly lose a girl so precious after taking her cunt.

You gripped him like a vice, so tight he couldn't pry his fingers out. Something that vaguely sounded like his name spilled from your lips as you crumpled in his arms. Your pussy pulsated around you as he held you against him, unwilling to remove himself from you so quickly.

He withdrew your panties from his pocket– the fresh pair you took off in his fucking hallways like it was no big deal. He wiped your face with it the same way he cleaned up your cunt that day. Instead of tucking it in his pocket, he forced it into your hand.

“Put it on. Your fucking dress, too. Hope you learned you fucking lesson.”

As you put it on and scampered away naked into his hallways, he hoped it would be enough to scare you away. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he would always crave you like an addict craving a drink.

⌘

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linkspooky · 4 months ago

Text

PITY VS. EMPATHY

Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 265 quickly surpassed Gojo's death chapter as my favorite chapter in the entire manga. It's a high point in both Yuji's character development and the Sukuna fight, a notion most of the fandom agrees with. That being said, it's once again time for me to take a stance contrary to most of the fandom opinion. I was going to make this post two weeks ago but I'm glad I waited, because this week's chapter helps me illustrate my point in the contrasting way Yuji treats Sukuna and Megumi.

As you can probably tell by the title, my hot take of the week is that what Yuji is showing Sukuna isn't true empathy. It's not atn attempt to understand Sukuna's worldview, but rather condescending pity from a place looking down on Sukuna, which is why it infuriates him so much. This is illustrated in Yuji's atual actions this chapter, which is to go at great length to show memories from his past to make Sukuna understand HIM and not the other way around.

Whereas, what Yuji shows Megumi is compassion, because he's not telling Megumi what to feel or imposing his own views on him but rather accepting the fact that Megumi might be suffering too much to keep living on.

I'll explain more under the cut:

Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy

Yuji is, not as far along in his character development as he might seem. I don't want to undervalue his growth, this chapter shows definite progress, and I understand why it would seem that this is the completion of his arc of being a cog in society because he straight up says people don't need roles, and it seems like the manga is quickly coming to a close.

However, sometimes characters words don't exactly match their actions. Sometimes characters aren't self aware. People often call characters multi-layered and complex, but what does that mean exactly? For me, a mutli-layered character is the embodiment of "people are never what they appear to be."

A story has multiple layers when you're not supposed to take everything the author says at face value. Every time you read a story, whether you are aware of it or not you engage in some level of personal interpretation. You're not supposed to automatically accept everything the author feeds you without question. Therefore characters are not exactly what they are stated to be, and good character writing allows room for interpretation for what is going on in a character's head beneath the surface.

In a jungian sense this would be the ice berg model of consciousness. There's the persona, or the ego, which is what the person presents to the world and the people around them. Their own-self conceived image. Then there's the part of the ice berg that submerged, which accounts for all of their internal mechanisms and facets of their personality they aren't aware of. This could range from anything to like, how trauma can affect people's actions without them realizing it, things they are in denial of and don't want to admit to themselves or just like someone who's bossy but not self-aware about that trait until someone else points it out for them.

Everyone's have that friend who you try to call them out on their bad behavior, but no matter how hard you try they just won't admit it. That alone illustrates there's a difference between self-perception, how we view ourselves, behavior - how we actually interact with the world, and pther people's perception of us. Somewhere in between these multiple points of view there exists a vague outline of a person, and personality, whatever "personality" means exactly.

To step away from Jung, in a character writing sense this means a good character's motivations, personality, and actions can be viewed from multiple angles. There is conflict between how Yuji views himself, his actual actions in the story, how other characters might view him, and how he's framed in the story. The first two, Yuji's self-assigned roles, and what his actual actions amount to is a conflict that's run over the entire story.

It starts from chapter three, where Yuji's answer for why he wants to become a sorcerer is that he wants to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish, and Yaga immediately says "Is that what you really believe, or are you just using your grandfather as an excuse?" The story shows us Yaga was right to point out the discord between Yuji's stated motivation and his actual desires because Yuji changes his answer.

This stated motivation, "To do something that only I can do", or have a role as another way of putting it is Yuji's central motivation for most of the manga. Of course as I said people have multiple layers, so he can also have multiple motivations. Yuji's desire to have a good death, him wanting to be surrounded by people when he dies, his belief that fulfilling his role as a sorcerer will save other people from curses, all of these things are equally true but that one desire to have a role to play in the grand scheme of things is at the center of it.

The role Yuji has chosen is to kill curses so people can have more natural deaths, and also to stop more victims of curses from piling up. He's also resolved from the start to die with Sukuna in his body, to also spare victims of curses Sukuna might attract, and also kill Sukuna for good.

Even these stated motions are challenged right away, and then again continually through the comic.

I'm not going to go over Yuji's entire arc here, but the fact that Yuji is someone constantly interrogated for his motivations and even punished in story for his altruism is a constant pattern in his character arc.

It extends deeper than just the fact that Yuji is a selfless person in a world where selfish people like Mei Mei, and Sukuna get ahead while people like Nanami die young. A world where it is in your best interest to stick out your neck for others.

For me a lot of the harsh consequences Yuji's conflict in the story also centers around the fact that he can never live up to the role that he has assigned himself. Not only is Yuji mistaken in his perception of himself, but the fandom in general is as well, because most people tend to take Yuji's stated desire to guide people to good deaths and save them at face value.

For example, people were excited to point out the Guanyin symbolism directly referenced this chapter, and also the significance of the seal for Yuji's domain.

There is much speculation, but it seems certain that this hand sign is an invocation of Ksitigarbha, a revered bodhisattva in East Asian Buddhism. Ksitigarbha is also known as Jizo Bodhisattva in Japan. His name can be translated as Earth Womb, Earth Matrix, and Earth Store. These translations evoke the image of a vessel, which seems relevant to Yuji's role as Sukuna's vessel.

While I agree the symbolism is well suited for Yuji's goals, someone who wished to guide people to a more peaceful death, and also the way Yuji opposes Sukuna right now determined to kill him who lingers in this world as a parasite for a thousand years finally back to the cycle of reincarnation. It even alligns with his desire to try and make Sukuna understand the value in one individual's life by showing him his memories. In that way Yuji is fitting the role of someone guiding others to enlightenment.

However, Yuji is not a bodhivista in the end. He is a normal teenage boy. In fact this is the crux of Yuji's character to me, he is a good kid, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. If anything this is what this chapter goes to great length to demonstrate, that Yuji despite being a science experiment to create the perfect vessel for Sukuna for Kenjaku's 1,000 year plan, had a normal childhood. All of the things Yuji says in this chapter are for the most parts the musing of a normal kid his age.

This isn't me criticizing Yuji. I'm just trying to state the message I believe Gege is getting across in this chapter. It's similiar to the conclusion Yuji himself comes to, the conclusion that the value in life lies in the memories you make on a day to day basis, even if you're not living a life full of adventure.

Yuji's conflict is that he pursues the role of a bodhisvatta, and he holds himself to the standard too of someone who exists to be a sorcerer because by doing his job as a sorcerer people will get saved as a result. However, Yuji as a person will always fall short of this ideal, because ideals by the nature of them being IDEAL and therefore not compatible with reality.

To use an example for another media, it doesn't matter how hard Shirou Emiya strives to save others, or how selfless he tries to be, he will always fall short because the ideal of saving absolutely everyone is impossible. However, in most versions of Fate's story Shirou absolutely refuses to compromise on this and in the future, Shirou will continue to strive towards the ideal of saving everyone until his inability to achieve that ideal and the number of people he's failed to save eventually breaks him.

So Yuji may genuinely hold onto an unbreakable ideal, but is his inability to let go of that ideal necessarily a good thing? His ideal might break but what about Yuji as a person? Yuji will in the end always fall short of that ideal because of his humanity, especially since Yuji is the most human character in the story and practically the only one with a normal background.

There's also as I stated above Yuji might not be aware himself of the ways he falls short of his ideal, because he has a flawed self perception. Yuji is getting closer with his revelation in this chapter of looking at reality instead of trying to have a role like a character in the story, but that doesn't mean he's finished (since the story's not finished) or he's become a fully realized character.

One of my favorite quotes from my favorite Yuji video helps describe the point I'm getting at with Yuji's lack of self awareness and the way he sometimes falls short of the savior he sees himself as.

By assigning himself the role as heroes, and the other characters as victims to be saved Yuji sort of condescends to the people he endeavors to save. I describe this as condescending because this way he doesn't see the people he saves as fully fleshed out human beings who are separate individuals from himself.

Yuji is alligned with Higuruma of all people, someone who shares Yuji's savior complex and becomes disillusioned because the people he decided of his own free will to protect as a defense attorney are not perfect victims.

Someone who becomes disillusioned when looking at flaws in other people, and also cannot deal with his own guilt when he too, becomes like the crimminals he once defended after becoming a murderer.

In fact Yuji sees himself in Higuruma's inability to live with his guilt, and only being able to see himself atoning with his death. Yet, despite Yuji seeing himself Yuji also seems uneasy with Higuruma being unable to see one other way forward in life.

Also, remember that Higuruma is a defense attorney. The whole point is he's supposed to defend crimminals even if he knows they did the crime and try to get them off their sentence and win the trial. Therefore at this moment Higuruma has failed to live up to his ideal.

There's another character Yuji is paralleled to constantly, who also shares Yuji's symbolism of being associated with a divine, and benevolent figure.

Geto's ears, his dressing as a monk in a Gojo-gesa, this official art all connect Geto to be Budha and yet it's quite obvious that Geto has failed entirely to live up to his role as the budha.

There's so much symbolism aligning Geto as a divine figure bringing salvation to others, and this corresponds to his original ideal as a sorcerer who belived that sorcerers had an obligation to use their powers to protect others, because in a just society the strong protect the weak.

Geto is an outsider who wasn't born into the Jujutsu World who entered in with an attitude different from most sorcerers by trying to become a sorcerer for altruistic reasons. However, Geto, like Higuruma grows disillusioned when he's confronted with the fact that the people he wants to save are flawed.

However, Geto's ideal was mistaken to begin with because much like Yuji, by distinctly separating people into the weak and the strong, he's separating them into two categories where the former is inherently inferior to the latter. Other people existed to be saved by Geto. He couldn't cope with the fact that the people he wanted to save were people and not victims.

So we finally circle back to chapter 265 where Yuji is attempting to relate to Sukuna and see some humanity in him... or is he?

Yuji shares the same flaw of both Geto, and Higuruma where he sees the people he wants to save as existing in a separate category than himself. So, is what Yuji is offering Sukuna understanding and an attempt to emotionally reach out to him, or is he attempting to show Sukuna the mercy of a conqueror.

Even if Yuji wins the battle and spares Sukuna's life in the end, it won't be Yuji's compassion or empathy that won him the fight. If Yuji wins against Sukuna it's simply because he's stronger. Yuji only feels confident trying to offer Sukuna in the first place because this time he's finally confident he's stronger. It's mercy, offered at a threat with the same time. Yuji, like Geto, is still separating people in categories of strong and weak, he's just showing mercy to someone he now considers weaker than him which is why Sukuna reacted the way he did.

As I said above, Sukuna begins by just assuming that Yuji had just let go of his anger, and was now trying to reach out to him on some other way. He calls him weak for being unable to keep hating his worst enemy, because in Sukuna's world view Yuji should keep hating him and wanting to defeat him with all his strength to the end. Sukuna mistakenly believes for a moment that Yuji is the kind of person who, cannot sustain his anger even towards his worst enemy.

It's when he realizes that Yuji is just showing him simple pity that he snaps. Yuji doesn't care for understanding Sukuna's worldview or seeing the humanity in him, in the same chapter he says he can't forgive people who act like lives are worthless.

To Yuji's credit he admits he doesn't really know which side of the fight is truly human, or whether or not he's right, he admits it's his own personal belief. A lot of Yuji's wisdom this chapter, I'd argue, comes from admitting the things he does not know, and acknowledging that there's no objective truth or "meaning" to the world. However, he still separates people into "good guys, and bad guys".

Yuji isn't actually that interested in considering the perspective of those he considers the "bad guys" he just still had a faint hope that he could somehow convince Sukuna to see worth in his life by sharing memories, therefore convince Sukuna that an individual's life can have value.

He doesn't want to understand what Sukuna thinks, he wanted to change the way Sukuna thought so it was more like himself. Yuji doesn't ask Sukuna any real questions about himself while exploring his memories. Kind of ironic, because for some reason Sukuna of all people was patiently listening and even engaging Yuji in conversation while he went through the most mundane memories of his childhood.

Irony on top of irony, Yuji's worldview does resemble Sukuna's in some ways. They're supposed to mirror each other after all, Yuji is literally the son of his identical twin brother reincarnated. First and foremost Yuji's offer of mercy isn't really breaking away from Sukuna's ultimate ideal of "Might Makes Right." Yuji isn't seeking some other way of settling this besides fighting Sukuna, he's going to make Sukuna submit because he's stronger.

Maybe there was no hypothetical "third way" for Yuji to put down Sukuna other than fist fighting him into submission. There probably wasn't, Sukuna's pretty up front what he's about, and what he's about is being the strongest and nothing more. He lives and dies by violence, a Sukuna who isn't the strongest is nothing more than a corpse so can that person be reached? However, I just wanted to point out that Yuji wasn't interest in solving this in any way other than a fist fight to begin with. As opposed to say, the way that Takaba handled Kenjaku taking a third route by making Kenjaku feel entertained for the first time in 1,000 years.

In the middle of that fight Takaba even APOLOGIZES to Kenjaku, for saying that it doens't matter if he doesn't understand his audience and he fails to make 1% of them laugh as long as the other 99% of them are laughing and states it's his duty to make everyone laugh otherwise he's failed as a comedian.

Yet, another reason why this is the greatest fight in the manga. Yuta even remarks in the end that Takaba isn't someone who can kill people. Not only does his cursed technique negate most damage to him by turning it into cartoonish antics, but Takaba's comedy is also all about understanding his audience and trying to get his audience to understand him because his comedy began when he clowned around as a kid when he was lonely. All of this to say we've been shown more points of view than just "Might makes Right" and there are characters who've resolved conflicts in other ways. Kenjaku is also, probably as monstrous as Sukuna, and yet Takaba engaged him right from the start by asking him about his motivations and if there was some other way he'd be happy than the merger.

You could argue that maybe Sukuna can't be understood. Characters in the story certainly try to and all they amount to doing is projecting their own ideas onto Sukuna. Yorozu projects her obsession with love onto Sukuna and we get the idea that Sukuna must somehow be lonely at the top, but in the end Gege subverts this expectation by showing us that Sukuna was never lonely, rather characters like Kashimo and Gojo projected their feelings of unresolved loneliness onto him. They are strong, and he is strong, ergo he must feel the same crushing loneliness as them. Gojo himself demosntrates not understanding Sukuna as he expresses regret in the afterlife that he was unable to make Sukuna go all out and that he related to that guy's loneliness only for Sukuna's response to be a very gratified "You cleared my skies."

Sukuna: Others love us for our strength, and we respond to that love.

The twist of that is Kashimo and by extension the audience assume that Sukuna must not understand love, and therefore he's lonely. However, Sukuna all along had his own definition of love, that people express their love and admiration for him by trying to fight him and he receives their love by facing them at his full strength and giving them the chance to prove themselves. Sukuna's habit of toying with his opponents is an extension of this he wants to see them realize their full potential in their fights with him. Sukuna does understand love, he just REJECTS our understanding of love. Sukuna does not think in the way that we do, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have things he values, or is devoid of positive traits. Respect for his opponents, honoring strength, these are all values they're just not Yuji's values.

As stated above, the irony of all this is that Yuji does buy into "Might makes Right" to an extent. To reiterate, following Geto's "the strong exist to protect the weak" still divides people into two categories strong and weak and implies the weak are helpless. A benevolent might makes right, as you might say. Yuji wants to show compassion to the weak, but he also loathes weakness, he loathes himself for being weak.

"There still may be lots of people who are weak like you."

Higuruma even points out the flaw in his mindset, well if you loathe yourself for being weak, then what about other people who are weak do you loathe them too? I think it's no coincidence that Yuji is paralleled not one, but two (Geto, Higuruma) people who tried to use their strength in benevolent ways only to start out loathing the people they were trying to help. I'm not saying that Yuji secretly hates weak people, but his mindset of black and white, weak and strong, a mindset that can't accept the greys of reality is a dangerous mindset to have and Yuji has the potential to become like those two.

However, these parallels exist for us the audience to see just how close Yuji was to repeating the cycle, because it makes it that much more meaningful when Yuji grows in ways that Geto and Higuruma doesn't to move one step forward towards breaking that cycle instead.

Yuji is someone who experiences the same loneliness as Sukuna and Gojo for being the strongest, though to a lesser extent because he wasn't born into the realm of sorcerers. At the start of the manga we're introduced to Yuji a kid who despite being someone friendly to everyone he meets and incredibly social, has a friend group consisting of two friends. Two friends who hang out with him because they need a third member for their occult club. Yuji for the whole manga excluding one exception really only knows how to form relationships based on someone else needing him.

Noritoshi Kamo: Itadori why did you become a Jujutsu Sorcerer? Itadori Yuji: It just sort of happened. i'm a loner. I wanna help a lot of people so when I die I'll be surrounded by people.

Yuji has also appeared in flashbacks in early culling game as someone who doesn't really understand, or even take notice of weak people. Yuji in Amai Rin's flashback is beating up bullies, a heroic notion, but from the perspective of somone spineless like Amai who was just going along with the bullies so he himself wouldn't be bullied because he didn't have the strength to stand up with them, and wasn't born with the body of an MMA fighter at fifteen, Yuji looks scary.

The reason why reducing people to labels like strong and weak is reductive is that humans are complex and contradictory creatures. Let's take Amai Rin for example, an incredibly minor character. In the real world, Amai Rin would be someone as equally complex as Gojo Satoru. Amai Rin a middle school bully would have just as many layers to his personality, inconsistencies, contradictory behavior, different sides of himself as Gojo Satoru himself.

Humans are complex in the first place because we can't see inside their heads, we can only see inside our own heads and know that we're complex and sometimes say things we don't mean, behave differently depending on the situation, do things we're not proud of, but we also usually don't perceive others the same way because we are not inside their heads like our own. Amai Rin is just as complex and multifaceted a human being as Gojo Satoru, he is a person with his own memories and life experiences that shape him, but from Gojo's worldview Amai Rin is a minor character. By reducing him into someone weak, Gojo doesn't care to try understanding him.

So Yuji for the longest time does not try to see the humanity in weak people (except for his big moment with Junpei) he just sees them as people to be saved. Which is why his real moment of progress to me comes the next chapter, with the way he shows empathy to Megumi.

Yuji begins when speaking to Megumi by relating his frustration with his grandfather for not wanting to go through chemo and accepting his own death in old age. Yuji is now mature enough to understand that just because his young body is tough enough to endure chemo, doesn't mean an old man's body can withstand that pain. When he was young Yuji had a very immature viewset of "Well, I can endure it, so why can't they?"

Yuji then compares the situation with his grandfather to Megumi. Yuji wanted his grandfather to keep living, so he couldn't understand why he wouldn't even try the chemo. Yuji wants Megumi to keep living, but he now understand why Megumi wants to give up. Yuji' fe elings of wanting Megumi to live are not more important than Megumi's own feelings of despair and wanting to escape pain.

Yuji is no longer imposing his feelings onto Megumi. Yuji is respecting Megumi's feelings, because in the end he can't FORCE Megumi to live. It has to be Megumi's choice whether he wants to live or not.

Yuji is no longer pushing Megumi away, or acting protective of him, while disregarding his feelings. He has gone from "as long as I'm around you'll suffer" to "I'll be lonely without you." Yuji doesn't ASK Megumi to live even though he wants to, because he knows he can't tell Megumi to keep on living. What Yuji does is just an honest expression of his own feelings. He's sharing his own feelings after listening to Megumi's ideal life with Tsumiki and Yuji, because that's what empathy is, an exchange, a conversation.

People often jokingly use the term "yap sessh" on Twitter, but yeah that's the different between a conversation and a "yap sessh" in the former you actually care what the other person has to say, in a latter it's only about expressing your own opinion.

That's why this panel, is such a perfect contrast with this panel.

One is Yuji offering Megumi a choice. The other is Gojo taking Megumi's choices away by giving him the false choice of "go to the Zen'in Clan and be a sorcerer and your sister will be abused, or come with me and be a sorcerer." Gojo railroaded Megumi into being a sorcerer and never let him decide for himself if he wanted a normal life. Gojo didn't see Megumi as his own person either, he, just like the Zen'in Clan just saw Megumi as the holder of the Ten Shadows Technique.

This is entirely different to Yuji who respects Megumi's feelings. Yuji expresses that he'll be lonely without Megumi, but that's just laying the cards on the table. In the end Yuji leaves what happens next entirely in Megumi's hands. Yuji cannot tell Megumi to live, even though he wants him to live so badly, he cannot tell Megumi to just get stronger and keep on trucking because he's not Megumi, he's not experiencing Megumi's pain right now.

Yuji does not tell Megumi to live and therefore becomes the first person in Megumi's entire life to give him a choice. This choice is the most important choice of all, a choice we make every day of our lives. The choice of whether we want to keep on living in this world.

Hopefully, Megumi chooses yes.

#jjk meta #megumi fushiguro #yuji itadori #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #geto suguru #higuruma hiromi #itafushi #jjk spoilers #jjk 266 #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 266

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silver-tangent · 1 year ago

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You know… the bait and switch of Scott Pilgrim takes off was needed.

Scott Pilgrim was meant to be a subversion of tropes, and it got picked up by a bunch of nice guys, myself included at one point, who turned it into their anthem.

The original comic was about Everyman Scott Pilgrim having to win a woman by fighting her evil exes, and on the surface that’s what it was. Between the fanbase and the movie, that’s as shallow as anyone goes…

Except that Scott didn’t win her by defeating her evil exes. Scott was troubled and problematic. In the end he wasn’t abusive but he was neglectful and took Ramona for granted to the point that her abusive and manipulative ex managed to convince her to go back to him… mostly out of fear of what would happen to dumb, hapless, Scott.

Scott was an exceptional fighter in his videogame world… he beat like… one of the seven. The rest of the time he was saved by complete dumb luck, by his friends, and by Ramona.

The entire point was slowly realizing how silly the situation was, and how he wasn’t a white knight… he was set up to be a white knight only to knock that idea down and have Ramona and friends help him.

They learned, they grew, they were both toxic and broken people for different reasons, Scott through ignorance and a lack of experience and Ramona through trauma and abusive relationships…

And in the comic… they don’t exactly break up but she ghosts him. Horribly… and he ends up fighting Gideon anyway, and rescuing her… by gaining the Power of Understanding. That’s right, not self-respect. Understanding…

And the last page they decide to try again, but we don’t know what that means… everyone moves on to a better place in their lives, a lot of them move on from Scott and Ramona romantically… and Scott and Ramona get to just… see where this goes…

and that’s a sweet note to end on. Two people who didn’t know how to be healthy partners growing up, and timidly trying it all over, with no confirmation of how it works.

Movie? Movie came out before book 6, audiences didn’t like the ending where Scott chases after Ramona (differently from the books like he literally chases after her) so Scott earns the power of self respect, and gets back with Knives…

And intended or not, it just sets up this idea that Ramona was the bad guy. Ramona, the abuse victim, was friend-zoning Scott; the nice guy…

And for a decade, the fandom has kinda devolved into that mentality; Scott Pilgrim is the savior of the nice guys. Ramona is the unobtainable girl. Knives is the victim…

O’Malley’s original point, that relationships are hard and trauma is hard, and nobody can do it alone… lost.

To the point that we are so deep in this nice guy culture that making a sequel disguised as a reboot (will not spoil more) was necessary. He had to make the point more obvious, that the story was always about Ramona working through her relationship trauma… Scott was the house husband. He was always meant to be.

Everyone I see complaining about the twist… does not get the point of the comics… and I’ve been bitching about the movie for more than a decade so I’m sorry… it’s not a *bad* movie… but it’s clear most of the fanbase only watched the movie. And it’s clear most of the people complaining are Gideon in denial… no… Future Scott in denial… which is in fact the point.

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim takes off #scott pilgrim vs the universe #scott pilgrim vs the world

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shibaraki · 11 months ago

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❄︎ ─ END OF YEAR REC REPORT: THE READER INSERT EDITION

hi lovelies!! as the year is coming to an end I wanted to work with my followers to compile a rec list of fics that have stuck with us as one massive thank you to all of the writers in our corner of tumblr/AO3. below you will find x reader fics from multiple different fandoms, and everything is in alphabetical order. I am grateful to all of you for the amazing work you do, and to those who participated!

extra note: I read through and tried my best to make sure everything is appropriately tagged (reader type and blushes included) but do let me know if anything needs amending—or if you are on this list and wish to be taken off it. happy reading and happy new year! (and thank you to @namodawrites for helping with the banners ily)

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT ─ ❄︎

fics: 100 fandoms: 23 total word count: 💀

an observer of longing by shibaraki [ONESHOT] [18K] #: afab reader - childhood best friends to lovers - romantic and sexual tension - mutual pining - casual physical affection - love confession - eventual sexual content

Could Hajime really return your feelings? Tooru certainly thinks so. And Issei, and Takahiro. Seemingly everyone that has been within twenty feet of you.

I wanna be yours by gabseyoo [ONESHOT] [5.9K] #: fem reader - recreational drug use - stoner suna rintaro - friends to lovers - shotgunning - smut - face riding - unprotected sex - sex under the influence

Your usual smoking date with your best friend takes an unexpected turn after a certain song starts playing.

in orbit by neonghxst [MULTI-CHAP] [27K] #: fem reader - slow burn - fluff - angst - enemies to friends to lovers - childhood friends - breaking up/making up

You tend to have a habit of coming and going, life sending you away at odd intervals and guiding you back into his path without warning. Akin to two planets caught in each other’s orbits, you pushed and pulled in a never-ending cycle. But if there was one thing Atsumu was certain of, it was that you would always find your way back to him (and this time, he’s determined to make you stay).

lover be good to me by suguwu [MULTI-CHAP] [30K] #: fem reader - soulmate au - slow burn - hurt/comfort - partner death (not kita shinsuke)

You meet Kita Shinsuke on a rainy summer day, with a sea of hydrangeas swirling at your feet. You know him instantly, as only a soulmate can. He seems like a good man. Like a good soulmate. But it's your wedding day.

miya atsumu and the chronic lovesick disease by fushisagi [ONESHOT] [12.6K] #: gender neutral reader - university au - fluff - friends to lovers - denial of feelings - mutual pining

The question comes to him one autumn night, surrounded by his friends and the chilly november breeze, asked by, who he assumes to be, just another nobody looking for money: what is it that you desire most, boy? the psychic asks, her saccharine smile forgotten when he looks into the crystal ball and all he ends up seeing is you. Alternatively: Miya Atsumu is not in love. what the hell? who would ever suggest something like that?

monster by satendou [SERIES: ONGOING] [13K] #: fem reader - unprotected sex - creampie - vaginal fingering - mentions of bullying - insecurities - described as blushing

You like horror movies, Tendou likes horror movies, what could go wrong?

storm chaser by amjustagirl [MULTI-CHAP] [163K] #: fem reader - post canon - domestic fluff - friends to lovers - romance - marriage - parenthood - angst

Living life with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm.

the burden of being by sashimiyas [ONESHOT] [22K] #: fem reader - angst - fluff - amnesia - pro volleyball player osamu - unhealthy coping mechanisms

There was an Osamu who loved you once. Who loved Onigiri Miya so much he spent most of his waking hours there, supported loyally by the members of Hyogo Ward. A fire changes that and he and his twin brother adopt their old high school motto: we don’t need the memories. Now they’re gone and memories are all you have. So as an homage to the man you love, you reopen his restaurant back up for him.

the inbetween by oh-katsuki [ONESHOT] [25K] #: fem reader - manga spoilers - childhood friends to lovers - slow burn - angst - sexual content

You and Tendou have been best friends since before you can remember. You share everything with each other and over the years have fallen into a friendship with clear boundaries but intimate values. When you start to notice Tendou growing more distant, you begin to worry that he’s keeping more secrets than you thought.

there are reasons why a body stays in motion by gardenofnoah [ONESHOT] [4.7K] #: afab reader - strangers to lovers - fluff - eventual sexual content

You work too hard—kita knows it the second he meets you. He’s not expecting you to take him up on his offer. You don’t either, until you end up on his farm.

the blood of the witch is not ours by demxnscous [ONESHOT] [11K] #: afab reader - vampire miya osamu - strangers to friends to lovers - modern setting with a hidden supernatural world - blood and injury - eventual sexual content

The door opens. Osamu whines pitifully, a shallow breath that scarcely pulls at the lacerations along his body, blood of his own and of another creature matts his fur to his ribs, along his spine, and he lifts his head. “Oh, fuck.” From the threshold, your eyes widen, a stranger to the fox you find.

to: tokyo, love hyogo by akimind [ONESHOT] [15K] #: fem reader - described as blushing - reunions - angst - fluff - exes to lovers

Your mind wasn’t tricking you when it caught sight of this name from across the street you rarely frequent; it remains the same name even as you stand directly below now and reread that sign again. Onigiri Miya. …I’ll meet you in Hyogo. The same echo. The same memory.

roommate osamu kiss by shibaraki [DRABBLE] [0.6K] #: gender neutral reader - pre relationship - fluff - roommate miya osamu - sleepy kiss

Osamu likes to think that unlike Atsumu, he has some semblance of control over his impulses. it’s a fine art. When you softly touch his waist as you squeeze past, or dig your feet under his thigh on the couch, or lean into his side as you share the small bathroom, he can will his body still and maintain the equilibrium you’ve crafted together. But this morning he is frayed at the seams.

venus by saetyrn [ONESHOT] [15K] #: cisfem reader - mutual pining - alcohol consumption - friends to lovers - eventual sexual content - reader is inexperienced

After returning to Japan from studying abroad in California, Hajime’s found that his desire for you has only grown stronger in his year away. He hopes you feel the same, and see him as he sees you. What he doesn’t expect is for it all to go tits up when you ask him--your trusted friend--for help with losing your virginity.

wet haired kuroo by mrs-kurooo [DRABBLE] [0.8K] #: gender neutral reader - pre relationship - romantic tension

His hair lies flat, unlike the usual unruly, gravity-defying mess of black that sits on his head. It’s still a little damp, slowly drying in the warmth of your apartment, a lone droplet of water dripping from the ends and landing on his towel. It hangs in his eyes a little, more so than usual and the urge to run your fingers through it overwhelms you - it just looks so soft.

a duke's son and a baron's daughter by katsukikitten [ONESHOT] [14K] #: fem reader - victorian era au - arranged marriage - pining - slow burn - suggestive content - lord bakugo katsuki - lord todoroki shouto

The room ebbs in the low light of flickering candles, people gather in clusters like lost geese as they honk their gossip at one another causing you to sigh. It would be another long night of mental games as your cold eyes fail to warm from the eccentric sights. Silk dresses, long gloves, shimmering gems, and endless drink and food. Yet you hated how little power you had over your choice of being here or not.

a light that never comes by mighty-mighty-man [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [430K] #: fem reader - enemies to friends to lovers - reader is an ex villain - worldbuilding - polotics - drama - eventual romance

After your life is saved by a quirkless middle-schooler, you find yourself roped back into the world of Heroism you've spent years trying to escape. Your mentor convinces you to take a job at U.A. that will bring you perilously close to your former best friend, Toshinori Yagi, who you have been avoiding since you mysteriously dropped out of high school in your third year. Being a Hero never gets any easier. And high school never ends.

all the times i told you by gardenofnoah [SERIES] [8K+] #: afab reader - estbalished relationship - fluff - intimacy - hurt/comfort - eventual sexual content

A sweet little multi-parter about being so in love it makes you sick, featuring Katsuki.

a withered rose by potionpeddlerpatchy [ONESHOT] [18K] #: fem reader - mythical au - reader is a nymph - god of sleep shinsou hitoshi - sexual content - dubious consent - somnophilia - manipulation

In the center of all the strange but wonderful opulence sat a giant glass orb propped so beautifully atop of a pillar, woven so intricately like vines, of tourmaline. You couldn’t help but approach it, the alluring purple aura seemed to call out to you, reaching your delicate hand before you, nothing else crossed your mind that your desire to touch the orb's smooth surface. “You’re a bold little one, aren’t you?” Hitoshi spoke, chuckling deeply as he took in your startled form.

a world away by invie [MULTI-CHAP] [26K] #: fem reader - slow burn - timeskips - pro hero bakugo katsuki - parallel universes - dimension travel - feelings realisation - first meetings - fluff - angst - love confessions

He met you at 16 and hasn't known peace since then.

casual by ghostbeam [ONESHOT] [4K] #: fem reader - no quirk au - friends with benefits - friends to lovers - sexual content - todoroki family feels

“My mom wants to meet you.” It’s a sentence uttered as Touya pulls the T-shirt he’d discarded earlier (while he was pushing you toward your bed and sucking your tongue into his mouth) over his head. It comes as a shock, lying in your bed completely bare, still struggling to catch your breath. It shouldn’t make you feel excited in the way that it does, not when Touya has been more than clear about the nature of the relationship between the two of you. Nothing serious. No commitment.

cruise universe by bfbkg [SERIES] #: fem reader - cruise au - pro hero bakugo - developing relationship - strangers to lovers - fluff - alcohol consumption - eventual sexual content

Your cruise holiday with your friends has got some pretty views, your favourite being the grumpy pretty blonde.

deceiving the duke by andypantsx3 [MULTI-CHAP] [30K] #: fem reader - regency au - class differences - romance - identity porn - eventual sexual content

When Camie Utsushimi elopes on the eve of her society debut, scandal threatens to destroy the family’s prospects. It’s up to you, a maid, to impersonate Camie throughout the Season, long enough that her elder sister can make a match. The only trouble? Lord Shouto Todoroki is also intent on making a match—and that match, quite impossibly, appears to involve you.

fill my little world by shibaraki [ONESHOT] [20K] #: afab reader - no quirk au - single dad aizawa shouta - nanny reader - falling in love - eventual sexual content

You are employed by Aizawa Shouta to nanny for his vulnerable adoptive daughter Eri while he’s at work. As time passes you find yourself equally smitten with them both, longing for a more permanent place in their family.

heart of the ocean by secondhand_trash [TWOSHOT] [13K] #: fem reader - pirate au - inspired by princess bride - romance - pirate todoroki touya - angst with a happy ending - sexual content

You had met many sailors in your life growing up by the sea, but there was only one like him.

higher than the mountain, deeper than the sea by itoshisoup [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [50K+] #: fem reader - psychological drama - childhood friends to lovers - stockholm syndrome - hurt/comfort - noncon elements

Touya watches you stare feebly out the window, your fingers curled around those useless flowers he bought, and he finally understands why his pathetic excuse of a father could never find the words to apologize to his mother.

I'll make this feel like home by missmeinyourbones [ONESHOT] [6K] #: afab reader - angst - canon compliant - hurt/comfort - dabi centric - todoroki family reveal - sexual content

Touya was eight years old when his youngest brother was born—the same age realized that his house no longer felt like home.

incendiary by andypantsx3 [MULTI-CHAP] [30K] #: fem reader - enemies to lovers - quirkless discrimination - reader is a college student - romance- eventual sexual content

When you accidentally go viral in defense of quirkless people, an extremist group puts a target on your back. Pro hero Dynamight is the last person you want watching it.

in the dark of morning, you promise me the sun by kirketeer [MULTI-CHAP] [78K] #: fem reader - major character death - slow burn - grief and mourning - angst with a happy ending - eventual sexual content

When Denki, your long-term boyfriend, is stabbed by a villain on his way home from work, left to bleed out on the sidewalk only a mile from your apartment, you find yourself adrift. Strangely enough, it's Bakugou that helps with what comes after.

kingdom of ashes by shibaraki [TWOSHOT] [11K] #: fem reader - historical royalty au - prince todoroki touya - arranged marriage - sexual content - fluff - angst - hopeful ending

When you are suddenly uprooted from your life to enter an arranged marriage with Prince Touya you are unprepared for how greatly he defies your expectations, nor for how quickly you fall for him.

lights will guide you home by a11eya [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [22K] #: gender neutral reader - soulmate au - trope inversion/subversion - slow burn - getting together - falling in love - eventual sexual content

Soul-lights aren’t as common in this day and age as they were in the past, before quirks, but they’re common enough that people do still find their soulmates. At thirteen, you meet Bakugou Katsuki, and he lights up for you in orange and gold. You tell him he's your soulmate. He sneers and tells you that you aren't his. He makes your adolescence miserable until you part ways. You meet again as adults, late at night, in a grocery store, over a pile of bok choy. He apologizes for how he treated you when you were children. (In which you have a choice—to reject Bakugou's apology, reject him, or to let him show you the man he's become, to learn with him what it means to love and forgive.)

one for the rules by alkhale [ONESHOT] [9K] #: fem reader - actor au - soulmates and identifying marks - romance - actor kita shinsuke - implied sexual content - reader described with long hair

“(Y/n)-san,” Kita whispers, low, just for you. Your eyes flicker nervously up to meet his, heart beating so wildly in your chest you feel like you’ll explode. Any minute now. There’ll be nothing left for him but little bits of nonsense. “I know I have no right to stop you… but please, if you’d be willing to wait, just a bit…” Kita pulls both your hands together now, away from both your shared marks. He holds them in both of his and he gazes at you the entire time, a man truly from another era, from a lost era of things so hopeless romantic and earnest you feel like there’s nothing you can do in the very face of it. Kita brings your hands up and he presses a kiss to your knuckles, peering up at you, eyes like honey, voice soft and warm and everywhere around you. “Would you give me the chance to show you my worth?” Kita asks. Ah, that’s it. Your heart really can’t take anymore.

passing peonies by dira333 [MULTI-CHAP] [34K] #: fem reader - recovery - mental health issues - returning to society - healing todoroki family - reader described to have a ponytail - angst

When the war ended, Midoriya Izuku had proven one thing: That Villains did not need to be killed to be defeated. That you could make friends from enemies. Touya Todoroki, formerly known as Dabi, had been one of those taken into the rehabilitation program. After one year of intense physical and psychological therapy, he's got the chance to prove himself. To prove that he can be a part of this world.

something just like this by ofmermaidstories [MULTI-CHAP] [200K] #: fem reader - strangers to lovers - pro hero deku - manga artist reader - eventual sexual content

It probably says a lot about you that your first thought on meeting Deku, international Symbol of Peace, isn't something like "Oh, wow," or, "Oh he's so nice," but is, instead, the un-Plus Ultra thought of, "I definitely would’ve bullied him, in high school." At least until those muscles came in.

the cardinal rule by coopigeoncoo [ONESHOT] [9K] #: gender neutral reader - romantic comedy - bird puns - blood and injury

A story where Hawks learns that while humans might be awed by his flying skills, the bird population is decidedly less impressed.

the widening sky by ofmermaidstories [MULTI-CHAP] [37K] #: fem reader - merpeople au - merman bakugo katsuki - canon typical violence - grief and mourning - eventual sexual content - bittersweet ending

You don’t believe your Grandmother’s stories about mermaids — until you meet one.

triptych by narumi-gens [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [20K] #: fem reader - yandere chisaki kai - psychological abuse - angst - codependency - imprisonment - canon typical violence - sexual content

Your life is nothing more than a triptych, a work of art in three parts with each panel depicting a distinct period — a beginning, a middle, an end. And in the triptych that is your life, the central figure has always been Chisaki Kai.

when to cradle, when to pry by therealvalkyrie [ONESHOT] [1.3K] #: fem reader - established relationship - depresson and panic attacks - reader has low self esteem - hurt/comfort

As he re-learns the joys of loving you, Katsuki also learns how to help you back on your own feet when you need it. OR An "in the aftermath" look at the relationship in 'you feel love in the sodium'

11:49pm by shotorus [DRABBLE] [0.4K] #: gender neutral reader - fluff and intimacy

Gojo is larger than life, but you make him feel small.

all that is solid by grilledtandoorismoke [SERIES] [38K] #: fem reader - arranged marriage - curse user reader - described as blushing - hurt/comfort - domestic fluff - angst - canon typical violence

Coming from a family of curse users and the first person in three hundred years to have your clan's inherited technique, political machinations force you to attend Jujutsu Tech while having to agree to an arranged marriage to Gojo Satoru.

am I (25F) the asshole for fucking my boyfriend's older brother (28M) by rinhaler [ONESHOT] [10K] #: fem reader - sexual content - dom/sub dynamics - older brother ryomen sukuna - sex under the influence - cheating - daddy kink

I know it sounds bad but we got high and he's hot!!

blood and pearls by vennilavee [SERIES: ONGOING] [10K] #: fem reader - trueform sukuna - developing relationship - canon typical violence - cannibalism - eventual sexual content

A lonely water nymph washes up to the shores of an enchanted lake with dreams of the sun and the stars. Little do you know, that this enchanted lake belongs to the king of curses himself, Ryomen Sukuna.

candied hearts by mrs-kurooo [ONESHOT] [10k] #: fem reader - no curse au - hurt/comfort - fluff - third party infidelity - sexual content - body worship - size difference - pull out method

Gojo is a nuisance. What more is there to say.

cor unum by vampyrsm [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [130K] #: fem reader - trueform sukuna - slow burn - period typical sexism - body horror - cannibalism - blood and violence - eventual sexual content

A tale of how the Shogun's daughter ends up in the maw of one of the most fierce curse users to ever exist.

godmaker by firein-thesky [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [50K] #: fem reader - arranged marriage - angst - unhealthy relationships - parental abuse - canon typical violence - hurt/comfort - slow burn - eventual sexual content

And the form leans down, closer, as their voice drops to a murmur, all honey and thorns, the promise of something far greater than you. A storm to come. The future that you will bear upon the slant of your shoulders. And when they speak, you know they’ve cursed you; “I will teach you how to make a God.”

hey lonely stranger (won't you meet my eye?) by stellamancer [ONESHOT] [6.4K] #: fem reader - speed dating - unresolved romantic tension - jealous gojo satoru - allusions to canon typical violence

You attend a match-making event and who else should be there but the last person you want to see: Satoru Gojo.

how to be a dog by prettyboykatsuki [TWOSHOT] [37K] #: fem reader - yandere gojo satoru - manipulation and coercion - stalking - graphic depictions of violence - rape/non-con - forced intimacy - sexual content

"Of course you must learn to love, to love always and love entirely and to be wounded by nothing so much as the violence of your own love." - ANDREW KANE, HOW TO BE A DOG. With six eyes to see, it becomes clear. You are being watched.

intrinsic warmth by thatdesklamp [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [150K] #: fem reader - slow burn - childhood friends - mutual pining - angst - canon typical violence

You meet Satoru on 7th September, 1996. Some time later, you realise you love him.

let your hand become a blade so i may take it by seravphs [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [10K] #: princess reader - knight gojo satoru - royal au - forbidden love - period typical misogyny - childhood friends to enemies to lovers

Knights are bound by duty and honor, but Gojo is more devoted to his princess than he ever was to his oaths.

limerence by shibaraki [ONESHOT] [4K] #: gender neutral reader - friends to lovers - pining - masturbation - sexual tension

The little intimacies you shared together were a fix of Gojo's.

lucky by izvmimi [ONESHOT] [3.5K] #: fem reader - crack - plot heavy with a little porn - todo aoi's otaku behaviour

You meet someone desperate to win a competition.

men are so quick to blame the gods by awearywritersworld [SERIES] [16K+] #: fem reader - enemies to lovers - developing relationship - angst - fluff - canon typical violence - not canon compliant - jealousy

Your boyfriend is a heavy sleeper, leaving you to form an unlikely relationship with the curse occupying his body during the late hours of the night.

playing pretend by itadorey [ONESHOT] [5.4K] #: gender neutral reader - fake dating - friends to lovers - slice of life and humour

Gojo lies to Shoko in order to win a bet and you're dragged along for the ride.

🔒 polluted by heich0e [ONESHOT] [11K] #: fem reader - university au - sexual content - recreational drug use - sex under the influence - gangbang - double penetration - dubcon

"Weed doesn't make her annoying," Sukuna drawls, tossing the basketball up again, only this time away from him—you watch as it curves gracefully in the air, swishing through the little net Geto and Gojo have affixed to the back of their dorm room door. "She's always annoying." [...] Sukuna's smirk turns into something even sharper, a smile unfurling slow and wicked across his face. "Weed doesn't make her annoying--it makes her into a whore."

seat taker by coconutdays [ONESHOT] [10K] #: fem reader - university au - biker geto suguru - sexual tension - fluff - strangers to lovers - eventual sexual content

You have a crush on the smartest and sexiest guy in your lit class who happens to ride a motorcycle with spooky season around the corner. what ever might happen?

still melting? by arminsumi [ONESHOT] [1.4K] #: fem reader - best friend geto suguru - romantic and sexual tension - flirting

Practicing putting eyeliner on your best friend, while sat in his lap. He can't help but take this chance to flirt with you. Of course, a certain someone interrupts your moment right at the end

sunset by princess-okkotsu [ONESHOT] [5.6K] #: princess reader - knight zen'in maki - reader implied shorter than maki - royal au - period typical attitudes - sexual content

You’re a princess, though the last of several siblings, set to never wear the crown of your kingdom. The last to marry, you're suddenly betrothed after your father waged your hand in marriage in some game of bow and arrow. Though you and your knight, Maki, have been content with bottling up your affections for one another, this sudden betrothal has you both wishing for something you know you can't have.

they were just friends by wanderwithme [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [65K] #: fem reader - fireman fushiguro toji - slow burn - roommates - character death - eventual romance - described as blushing

It’s 4:24 p.m. and the love of your life is cheating on you.

turn me like a beast / hold you to the floor by gardenofnoah [ONESHOT] [6.5K] #: princess reader - strangers to unfortunate lovers - hunter nanami kento - the fall of a dynasty - major character death - reincarnation - bittersweet ending

The world is at its end, and an unlikely pair finds solace in each other. To love is an animal thing.

wormwood by linkcities [ONESHOT] [25K] #: fem reader - angst with a happy ending - canon compliant - childhood friends to lovers - mutual pining - codependency - new beginnings

Absence festers in the presence of little yellow wormwood flowers, and you come to learn about how it goes hand in hand with lingering bitterness when you meet Gojo Satoru. or, As the young God’s only friend, you are punctured with the burden of his companionship, regardless if you deem yourself unworthy of it.

风月 | wind, moon by itoshisoup [ONESHOT] [7.5K] #: gender neutral reader - established relationship - fluff - romance

In which you drag Dan Heng halfway across the universe for a candied fruit skewer, and he gets a taste of the life that was once denied to him.

christmas countdown by suguwu [ONESHOT] [16K] #: gender neutral reader - hallmark au - holiday fluff - age gap - romance

Your company is taking on a new project and desperately wants the backing and expertise of retired CEO Jing Yuan. Dispatched out into the countryside to bring him on board, you find it won't be as easy as you think. Jing Yuan strikes a bargain with you: spend the upcoming days with him, until Christmas Eve, and he'll tell you exactly what it will take for him to come back if you don't figure it out yourself. Let the Christmas countdown begin.

nexus by ddarker-dreams [MULTI-CHAP] [51K] #: fem reader - yandere blade - codependency - eventual sexual content - dark comedy - space politics

You belong to a specialized group — the Arbiters — who are capable of influencing others' perceptions. Your clients hail from all corners of the universe to see their wildest fantasies come true. By establishing a link with them, they can experience a dreamscape of their choosing, more convincing than the latest developments in augmented reality. You have received many unique requests throughout the years. After the Stellaron Hunter's swordsman saves you from an early demise, you offer him the chance to experience any phantasia of his choosing. It is then that you're posed with a trying challenge: "Show me what it's like to die."

scrap metal by lorelune [TWOSHOT] [5K] #: gender neutral reader - captive reader - injury - use of a muzzle - non consensual touching - yandere blade - force feeding

Per Elio's newest script, the Stellaron Hunters take in a stray.

love like no other by nanamimizz [ONESHOT] [2.6K] #: fem reader - sexual content - established relationship - open communication

Al Haitham is man solemnly thought he would never find love, so when he has that and more the night turns...physical.

you didn't teach me how to forget you by haitaniapologist [TWOSHOT] [15K] #: ragnvindr fem reader - described as blushing - fluff - lovesick childe - possessiveness

You never thought you would find the boy who haunted your childhood in a trip to Liyue.

arranged marriages and well-kept secrets by dearayato [ONESHOT] [1.7K] #: gender neutral reader - established relationship - talk of marriage - proposals

Ayato props himself on his elbows, a smug smile adorning his face, “Don’t worry love, the only person I see in my future is you.”

for you are the world by lorelune [MULTI-CHAP] [29K] #: fem reader - childhood friends to lovers - post trauma - fluff - hurt/comfort - chronic injuries - sexual content - protective diluc

You return to Mondstadt after many years away, sick, with an feeling that's all-too familiar and unwelcome.

bury me by deskaisers [ONESHOT] [8.8K] #: fem reader - described as blushing - stepcest - step brother oliver aiku - virginity - corruption kink - unprotected sex

Your father's new relationship was rather unexpected, but there was no way in hell you could have predicted everything else that came with it.

everything's better when you're honest by prettyboykatsuki [ONESHOT] [11K] #: fem reader - friends to lovers - professional athlete isagi yoichi - reader is sexually experienced - sexual content

you notice early on that isagi is always holding back something. the deeper into your relationship you go, the more you wish he'd let loose.

to my first love by by-moonflower [TWOSHOT][17.3K] #: fem reader - high school au to married au - non-linear narrative - exploring girlhood - fluff - angst - romance - suggestive - described as blushing

When you agreed to date itoshi sae in mid-October of 1993, you never imagined he'd be your first love—whose presence would continue to linger in your life, hauntingly, even if a year, two, or ten came to pass.

finding peace in the spontaneous wild (that is you) by tired-biscuit [ONESHOT] [26K] #: fem reader - university au - modern supernatural elements - friends to lovers - werewolf kiba - mutual pining - eventual sexual content

You run into Kiba at the grocery store, around two weeks after returning home from college.

🔒 tacenda by namodawrites [MULTI-CHAP] [100K] #: gender neutral reader - mutual pining - slow burn - childhood friends to lovers - canon typical violence - rivalry

Somewhere along the way trying to prove Neji wrong about fate and destiny, you fall in love.

den of wolves by kuramakakashi [MULTICHAP] [37K] #: senju reader - descriptions of gore - uchiha centric - canon typical violence - worldbuilding

Peace in our time – it was the dream your cousin had championed since childhood, and it was the foundation for all of his efforts to bring the constant warring between clans to a permanent end. And it was why he sent you into the den of wolves with only one order: Save Izuna Uchiha.

🔒 birds of a feather by namodawrites [ONESHOT] [18K] #: gender neutral reader - touchstarved - possessive behaviour - comfort/angst - canon typical violence

Knives rediscovers his humanity while recovering. You fight hard not to lose yours.

bittersweet by heich0e [ONESHOT [6K] #: afab reader - domestic fluff - sharing a bed - gentle sex - sweet soggy vash

Something shuffles in the dark. Papa left you a gun, too. Even taught you how to shoot it. Mama hated that. She hated how good you were at it even more. She used to say that shooting was gonna be your husband’s job someday, and that even in a world this wicked Papa was teaching you things you didn’t need to know. But now Mama’s gone. And Papa’s gone. And the world is still wicked. And you’ve got no husband, but you have a gun you know how to shoot.

and I know it’s hard enough to love me (but I woke up in a safe house) by seoafin [ONESHOT] [4K] #: fem reader - sharing a bed - tending to wounds - fluff - blood and injury

“My husband and I would like a room. We’re on our honeymoon”. “In this shithole of a town?” The innkeeper asks with a raised eyebrow, looking from you to Vash, who only lets out a sheepish chuckle as he scratches the back of his head. Despite his sluggish breaths, his slow blinking gaze, and the red slowly staining his shirt.

solar lunacy by bamsara [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [225K] #: gender neutral reader - slow burn - fluff and angst - developing relationships - blood and injury - posessive behaviour

You weren’t a technician, you weren’t a security guard, you weren’t a daycare assistant. You’re just an employee. Staff. The ‘jack-of-all-trades’ employee with mediocre at best skills and specialty in none, tasked with doing miscellaneous jobs that robots couldn’t do and human staff couldn’t care to. The job is unpredictable, but it pays good and it’s relatively easy. Except for the part where all the animatronics are more sentient than you thought, and you’re roped into a mystery surrounding the Daycare Attendants, who are bit too curious about you for your liking. You don’t think this was in your employee contact.

cryptid sightings by naffeclipse [MULTICHAP] [250K] #: gender neutral reader - cryptid au - reader is a cryptid hunter - horror - blood and violence - sleep terrors - non-sexual intimacy - posessive behaviour

Perhaps this would scare a person, being all alone in the woods in the dark, but not you. You’re too intertwined with the paranormal and inexplicable. It’s in your blood. That doesn’t mean your heart won’t pound with terror when you face something with fangs and hungry eyes for flesh, but you don’t run away, and that’s what matters most. You will face the monsters.

celestial sundown by pillowspace [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [80K] #: gender neutral reader - god au - historical fantasy - slow burn - blood and injury - developing relationships - dimension travel

You are a peasant living in the middle of the woods, Sun is the god of day you brought back home with you, and Moon is the god of night tucked away in the Celestial Realm.

method acting by seeingivy [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [168K] #: fem reader - celebrity au - actor eren jaeger - enemies to friends to lovers - slow burn - miscommunication - eventual fluff - social media elements

Method acting is a very powerful skill. Using your own personal, physical, and emotional self and pouring it into the character on the screen makes for a powerful performance. Except when it's you and Eren - you're not sure where the acting starts, and real life begins.

public relations by crybaby-ink [ONESHOT] [12K] #: afab reader - office romance - boss/employee relationship - power dynamics - drama - politics - sexual content

Even though Zeke has had a little crush on you for a while now, he’s mostly okay with things in the office staying exactly the way they are. Mostly.

vestal virgin by bokutosdove [ONESHOT] [6K] #: fem reader - modern au - sexual content - loss of virginity - jean kirstein has a corruption kink - protected sex - implied dom/sub dynamic

A virgin consecrated and vowed to chastity; a chaste woman.

wild card by wellitcouldbeworse3 [MULTI-CHAP] [215K] #: fem reader - hunger games au - tribute levi ackerman - blood and violence - slow burn - psychological torture - character death - reader is proficient at archery - described as blushing

When you're selected to be the tribute representing District 12 in the 121st annual Hunger Games, you're pretty sure you're screwed. But, somehow, there's two things working in your favor. One: you're not half bad with a bow and arrow. Two: the male tribute from District 2 seems to have his eye on you...

❄︎ DEMON SLAYER

something blue by extrav1rgin [ONESHOT] [11K] #: fem reader - described as blushing - arranged marriage - angst with a happy ending - hurt/comfort - not canon compliant

Turning away you trace your way back through the route Giyuu had taken you down before. As you walk nearly silently you keep your ears out for the sound of another human. You find a note stuck to the door when you make your way toward it. If it was there before you must’ve missed it. ‘Gone on a mission, will be back.’ And you suppose that’s that.

❄︎ HELL'S PARADISE

safe for one more night with you by nagumoan [ONESHOT] [3.3K] #: fem reader - established relationship - domestic fluff - humour - sexual content

You get to share one last night with your husband Shion before his work will steal him from the warmth of your embrace with the first rays of the sun in the morning.

❄︎ BUNGO STRAY DOGS

pharos by auraxins [ONESHOT] [14K] #: afab reader - mer au - eldritch mer chuuya - strangers to lovers - island survival - blood and injury - eventual sexual content - unprotected sex

“Who are you?” you call. “What business have you here?” “You don't know?” barks the man, incredulousness in his tone. “You summoned me here.” “I fixed the lighthouse,” you correct. “I did not summon anything.”

❄︎ TOKYO REVENGERS

from his mind to hers by embossross [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [102K] #: fem reader - dark content - patient x doctor relationship - sexual content - stalking - cheating

Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.

❄︎ ONE PIECE

breathe me in by standfucker [ONESHOT] [7.4K] #: fem reader - inappropriate use of devil fruit powers - described as blushing - rough unprotected sex - creampie and breeding

As a woman in the Marines, the path to Read Admiral has been rough, but Smoker's been there for you since the beginning.

❄︎ BALDUR'S GATE

through the gates of horn and oak by sensoo [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [116K] #: fem reader - graphic depictions of violence - sexual content - fluff - F/M/M threesomes - spoilers marked by chapter

Each of them needs something different, but under the surface it's really the same thing. The burden of leadership is isolating and it is so difficult to carry on alone. Zevlor is trying to navigate through the shattered pieces of his life. Halsin is haunted by regrets and the tasks left unfinished. And you can't stop meddling in everyone else's affairs, even as you swear up and down that you're just trying to survive. Living is more than survival, but both are getting increasingly more difficult.

the five senses by nanamimizz [SERIES] [9K] #: fem cleric reader - non-sexual intimacy - angst - hurt/comfort - developing relationship - exploring trauma

A five part mini-series with everyone's favorite high elf vampire focusing on non-sexual intimacy and the budding relationship you foster with the guarded rouge.

❄︎ TWISTED WONDERLAND

uniform by giratinazero [ONESHOT] [2.4K] #: fem reader - non-sexual intimacy - undressing

With one gloved hand he reached up, threading his delicate fingers through a loop in the heart-shaped collar to drag you down to his height. Riddle slowly, purposely ran his eyes up and down the length of your body— you could feel the frustration that simmered just under the surface, like a teapot left on the heat and about to burst with steam.

❄︎ MORTAL KOMBAT

inescapable by dynamites [ONESHOT] [7K] #: gender neutral reader - light angst - crossing timelines - pining

From half across the somber battlefield, someone keeps glancing your way.

❄︎ BLEACH

cherry coloured funk by grinmjows [ONESHOT] [8.7K] #: fem reader - described to have dark hair and pale skin - explicit incest - sexual content

You usually find the moonlit nights strangely empty, for when you call your brother's name through them, he never answers.

desperate measures by ghost-party [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [27K] #: fem reader - modern au - transactional relationship - sugar daddy - age difference - dom/sub dynamic - sexual content - violence

After you’ve been laid off from your job, your friend Rangiku recommends a very specific kind of dating app — one where rich, lonely men seek younger partners to spoil. Reluctantly, you decide to give it a try. You tell yourself it’s a one-time thing, and that you have no plans on becoming dependent on anyone, let alone falling for them. But Sosuke Aizen makes you rethink everything…

❄︎ IDOLISH 7

in the eyes of the tide by namodawrites [ONESHOT] [15K] #: gender neutral reader - merman au - secret identity - angst - hurt/comfort

Oogami Banri is a calm, unassuming man. His first and second impressions of you had been undignified to say the least: encountering you passed out on a bench outside of a little shop, sheltered beneath its slanted tiled awning; assisting you to escape a cave during high tide, too afraid of the strange shapes you’d seen in the water to make the short journey alone.

❄︎ GOD OF WAR

and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face by vampireloverz [ONESHOT] [8.8K] #: fem reader - pre-canon - size difference - sexual content - unprotected sex - canon-typical violence - described with body hair - reader is lifted by character

You hum to yourself, curious about what business he has in the woods, maybe it has something to do with whatever mysterious thing he has wrapped in foreign fabric. Through the days, you find yourself thinking of him. This warrior, this man, so elusive he feels almost like a ghost. You find yourself earnestly looking forward to the next time you come across each other.

❄︎ DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

kinktober: monsterfucking by mintmatcha [TWOSHOT][5K] #: cisfem reader - original character romance - racism in a fantasy setting - sexual content - monsterfucking

After months of adventuring with your party, you can't help but be curious about a certain dragonborne...

❄︎ THE HUNGER GAMES

the death of an actor by uzurimisery [MULTI-CHAP: ONGOING] [36K] #: fem reader - fake dating - misogyny - reader is dr. gaul's daughter - sexual content - unhealthy dynamics

Y/N Gaul the Capitol's unregulated daughter of Dr. Gaul. Argumentative, independent, and hindrance to Coriolanus Snow's life plans.He can't stand you, you’re impossible for him to read. When your mother concocts a hairbrained plan to better set up her protege you’re caught in the crossfire and forced to play the part of Snow’s lover. Now if only the lines of what's an act and what was real wouldn’t get so blurry.

❄︎ DC UNIVERSE

callipygian by onesmartcookie78, pennydragons [MULTI-CHAP: ONGONG] [70K] #: original female character - described as blushing - canon typical violence - enemies to friends to lovers - secret identity - batfamily drama

"She knows that ass. In fact, she'd spent the whole day staring at pictures of it. So she is absolutely, 100% certain that ass belongs to Dick Grayson. Now, if Dick Grayson wants to run across the rooftops dressed in spandex, that's his prerogative. The problem is, he's not just Dick Grayson. No. Dick Grayson is Nightwing. And she has questions." She hadn't been trying to figure out who he was. In fact, she was trying to uncover the identity of the Red Hood. But now that she knows, she can't go back.

let me just add there are an infinite amount of other amazing fics that will not have made this rec list purely due to the time constraints, submission limit and lack of reach, etc. your fic is valuable and loved whether it made the cut or not—please do remember that!!!!!!

#m.navi #hq x reader #bnha x reader #jjk x reader #hsr x reader #bllk x reader #trigun x reader #x reader fic #x reader fic rec #fic

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