#everything is melodramatic and the end of the world

[ibrokeeverything]

I'm sorry but how can you watch the end of the curse of the black pearl and not think that Elizabeth, Will, and Jack are poly???

"If all I have achieved here is that the hangman will earn two pairs of boots instead of one, so be it."

"It's right here, between you and Jack." "As is mine."

"So this is where your heart truly lies then?" "It is."

And Jack telling Elizabeth they never would have worked, all fond and apologetic, feeling awfully like compensation for and the masking of real emotion. And how he approaches Will with the same earnest quality before pulling back into the easy compliment toward his hat.

Like, excuse me? That is in love behavior if I've ever seen it

[cumironi]

i LOVE your works and i was wondering if you could write their ( toji, nanami, geto and gojo) reaction to you refusing to let them shower with the reader on purpose? if not that’s fine too! have a great dayyy.

SAVE THE WATER, SHOWER TOGETHER !’

you refuse to let your boyfriend join you in the shower, featuring. gojo, geto, nanami, toji, sukuna.

GOJO SATORU!’

as the warm steam curled through the bathroom, you were about to step into the shower when you caught movement from the corner of your eye. there, leaning casually against the doorframe, stood gojo with his arms crossed, a playful smirk tugging at his lips. his eyes sparkled with that usual mischievous glint, and you knew exactly what he was about to suggest before he even opened his mouth.

“soooo,” he began, his voice light and teasing, “need a little company in there? you know, someone to scrub your back?”

you sighed, not even glancing back as you adjusted the water temperature. “you know, you ask this every time,” you replied, your tone flat but laced with amusement. “and every time, the answer’s still the same.”

gojo pouted at your reply, moving into the bathroom and leaning against the wall near doorframe so that he blocked any escape. “oh, come on,” he whined, his bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated frown, “it’s not like i’ve ever been boring.” he stepped closer, his arms uncrossing as he reached out and tugged gently at your towel. “besides, showering alone is so lonely. i could make it much more… enjoyable.”

you turned to him, one eyebrow arching as you met his gaze. a smirk tugged at the corner of your lips as you crossed your own arms over your chest. “oh, babe, i don’t doubt that,“ you said, your tone teasing, eyes narrowing slightly. “i’m sure you'd make it very enjoyable.”

gojo’s grin widened, thinking he was getting somewhere, but before he could celebrate, you added with a playful roll of your eyes, “but you’d also waste a ton of water. and we both know you’re just going to end up making a mess.”

gojo’s grin faltered for a second, but it was quickly replaced with a mock-hurt expression. “oh, come on now,” he protested, placing his hand over his heart in a melodramatic gesture. “don’t insult me like that. i’m perfectly capable of controlling myself, thank you very much.”

he moved closer, his hands now resting on your hips, his fingers tracing lazy circles over your skin. “besides, do you really think i care about wasting water when i could have a nice, steamy shower with the most beautiful woman in the world?”

you shook your head, biting back a laugh as you placed your hands on his chest, gently pushing him away. despite the firm rejection, your eyes gleamed with mischief, a playful smile tugging at your lips. “no, babe. absolutely not.”

he gave you that charming smile, eyes twinkling, as if expecting you to give in any moment, but you raised a brow at him. “do i need to remind you what happened the last time we showered together?”

gojo blinked, his grin faltering again as you continued, “you broke my shampoo bottle, knocked over everything on the shelf, and somehow managed to flood half the bathroom.” you smirked, leaning closer, your voice dropping to a teasing whisper. “so, no. i’d rather not have a repeat of that.”

gojo let out a dramatic huff, his hands still resting on your hips, thumbs now tracing along your sides. he knew he was not winning this argument, but he always had to try. “hey, that was not my fault,” he protested, looking for all the world like a scolded puppy. “the shampoo bottle just... slipped. and the flood was a complete accident.”

he leaned in closer, his gaze sultry, as he tried once more to sway you. “how about i promise to be good this time? no mess, no accidents. just me, you, and a… very pleasurable shower.”

you laughed softly at his persistence, unable to hide your amusement, but you weren’t giving in that easily. you knew exactly what ‘pleasurable’ meant when it came to gojo, and you had no intention of letting him get his way. “and how many times have you promised that before?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

gojo chuckled sheepishly at your callout, his fingers still playing with the edge of your towel. “maybe a few times,” he admitted, a sly grin on his face. “but come on, you know I mean it this time. pinky promise.” he held up his pinky finger, wiggling it at you in a playful manner, as if sealing the deal.

you laughed again, shaking your head as you stepped forward, placing your hands firmly on his chest. “no,” you said, your voice playful but final. with gentle pressure, you started pushing him toward the door, slowly and playfully, until he was backed out of the bathroom.

gojo allowed himself to be pushed back out into the hallway, a hint of amusement in his eyes. he knew he was not going to win this time, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily.

“you’re missing out, you know,” he said, leaning against the doorframe as his eyes roamed over your figure, still covered by the towel. “a shower with me is a damn good time.”

you rolled your eyes, but a small smirk tugged at the corner of your lips. gojo’s relentless charm always had a way of getting to you, even when you were determined to be firm.

“oh, i’m well aware of how good a time a shower with you can be. but i value my sanity and a non-flooded bathroom more than that,” you mumble, leaning closer to give him a quick kiss.

GETO SUGURU!’

you casually draped your towel over your shoulder as you headed toward the bathroom, fully prepared for a peaceful shower. your mind was elsewhere, already focused on the warm water that awaited you, when you heard a sudden shuffle from the bed. geto, who had been lounging comfortably moments before, was now instantly on his feet, following closely behind with a wide grin on his face.

feeling his presence just a step behind, you furrowed your brows and glanced over your shoulder, catching his mischievous gaze. “why are you following me?” you asked, confused but already knowing the answer.

he shrugged casually, his grin never faltering. “wherever you go, i go,” he said, voice smooth and teasing. you raised an eyebrow, stopping just outside the bathroom door. “oh, really? and what do you plan on doing in there?”

he chuckled at your question, leaning against the wall next to the door. “oh, you know. i was thinking of lending you a hand in the shower,” he said, his eyes glimmering with mischief.

he moved closer to you, his body towering over yours as he placed a hand on the doorframe, effectively blocking any escape route. “after all, it’s my duty as your boyfriend to make sure you’re thoroughly cleaned,” he teased, his voice dripping with innuendo.

you raised an eyebrow at him, your lips curving into a teasing smile. “oh? extra service, huh?” you tilted your head, feigning thought for a moment. “well, i don’t think i paid for that today.”

geto’s smirk widened, clearly enjoying your playful resistance as he leaned even closer, still blocking the door. “don’t worry, babe. this one’s on the house,” he whispered, his tone dripping with flirtation. you chuckled, shaking your head as you lightly pushed against his chest. “tempting, but no thanks. i’ll manage just fine on my own.” you slid past him with a grin, slipping into the bathroom.

geto let out a mock pout as you slipped past him into the bathroom, his arms crossing over his chest. “aww, come on. you're no fun,” he called out, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

he leaned against bathroom doorframe, listening to the sound of the shower starting. he let out a small sigh, a smirk forming on his face as a mischievous idea came to him. he waited for a moment, counting the seconds in his head before he spoke up again. “you know, it’s dangerous to shower alone...”

you turned toward him, already knowing where this was going, a sly smile playing on your lips. “oh, is it?” you called out as you casually started stripping, tossing your clothes to the side without a second thought. “and what kind of danger are we talking about here? other than a perverted boyfriend lurking around?”

a soft laugh escaped his lips as you teasingly discarded your clothes, his eyes roaming over your exposed skin before meeting your gaze. “oh, you know. the kind of danger that comes with not having me there to protect you,” he replied, his voice dripping with mock seriousness.

he pushed himself away from the doorframe and started to saunter towards the bathroom, his footsteps slow and deliberate. “and we can’t have anything happening to my precious girlfriend now, can we?”

you met his gaze, smirking as you stepped into the shower, letting the warm water cascade over your bare skin. “i think i'm perfectly fine,” you said, your tone light and teasing. “pretty sure no one's gonna jump me while i’m in here.”

the water kissed your skin as you turned your back to him, enjoying the sensation of the steam filling the air. you could feel his eyes still on you, but you refused to let him win this round. “besides, the only danger i see around here is you,” you added with a playful glance over your shoulder.

he chuckled, the sound low and deep as he leaned against the tile wall, arms crossed over his chest. his eyes roamed over your wet, exposed body, appreciating the view before him. “oh, really?” he drawled, his tone dripping with challenge. “and why is that?”

he took a leisurely step closer to the shower, his eyes never leaving your back. “i seem to recall you liking the danger i come with,” he continued, his voice lowering to a seductive whisper.

you felt his gaze burning into your back, the heat of it nearly as warm as the water cascading over your skin. his words hung in the air, tempting and teasing, but you weren't about to let him have his way so easily.

without turning around, you whispered, “i think you should leave,” the playful edge in your voice is unmistakable.

with a soft chuckle, you slid the glass door shut between the two of you, the faint smirk on your lips not hidden from him. you heard him let out a mock sigh, but you knew he wasn’t going anywhere. “good luck with that,” you muttered under your breath, enjoying the feeling of having the upper hand for once.

when you slid the glass door shut, separating the two of you, geto let out an exaggerated sigh, feigning disappointment. “aww, come on,” he called, his hands landing on the glass as he pressed up against it.

he could see your silhouette through the misted glass, the sight of you naked in the shower only fueling his desire. he let out a low chuckle, a knowing smirk on his lips as he leaned against the shower door. “you really think a little glass door is going to keep me away?”

NANAMI KENTO!’

you were nestled comfortably against nanami’s chest, his arm wrapped around you as the soft glow of the movie flickered on the screen. the warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his breathing had lulled you into a sense of complete relaxation. but suddenly, you shifted, trying to pull away from his embrace.

“i’m gonna take a shower,” you murmured, starting to sit up. nanami’s arm instinctively tightened around you, his brow furrowing slightly as he glanced down at you. “right now?” he asked, his voice calm but tinged with mild confusion.

“mm-hmm,” you replied, a soft smile tugging at your lips. you wriggled a little, but his hold was firm, clearly not ready to let you go so easily.

he sighed, leaning his head back on the couch as if accepting defeat but keeping his arm loosely around you. “can i join?” he asked, his tone teasing but with a subtle hint of hope. you chuckled softly, glancing at the screen and then back at him. “noooo.”

he sighed softly in mock disappointment, his hand now resting on your hip, his touch both possessive and tender. “you’re being quite the tease, you know.” he teased. he slowly pulled you on top of him, his hands sliding down to your thighs to keep you in place on his lap.

his fingers absentmindedly traced circles on the bare skin of your thighs, his eyes never leaving your face as he continued his playful banter. “showering without me… what am i supposed to do while you’re gone?”

you shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly, your eyes flicking from the screen back to his face as you tried to stifle a grin. “i don’t know,” you said, a playful glint in your eyes, “watch a movie, maybe?”

he let out a dry chuckle, his lips curving into a half-smile as he arched an eyebrow at your cheeky response. “ah, yes, because that's exactly what I had in mind.” he replied, his voice dripping with sarcastic annoyance as he rolled his eyes dramatically.

he slid his hands up to your hips, his grip tightening ever so slightly as he pulled you closer, the heat from his body meeting yours through the thin fabric separating you.

nanami's dry chuckle softened into something more playful as his hands rested firmly on your hips, pulling you closer until your bodies were almost pressed together. his half-smile deepened as his gaze locked with yours, his eyes flickering with just a hint of mischief.

“you know,” he began, his voice smooth and steady, “being the gentleman that I am, it’s only right I join you in the shower. can’t have you slipping and falling without someone there to catch you.”

his tone was persistent, but there was a teasing edge to it, as if he already knew the answer but enjoyed the game of wearing you down. his hands slid gently up your waist, fingers grazing your skin as he added with a smirk, “besides, i’d hate to miss the opportunity to ensure you’re... properly taken care of.”

his words hung in the air, and though his expression remained calm and composed, there was no hiding the playful intent behind them. you raised an eyebrow at his words, your lips curving into a smirk as you playfully rolled your eyes. “properly taken care of?” you repeated, the sarcasm in your voice evident as you leaned in just slightly, your breath ghosting against his lips. “and here i thought you were just worried about me slipping.”

he chuckled again, the sound low and rich as he let his hands wander leisurely over the curves of your body, his touch both deliberate and tantalising, as if he was in no rush.

“you caught me,” he murmured, the corners of his lips curving into a half-smile, “i couldn’t possibly allow you to shower all alone. what kind of boyfriend would i be?” he paused for a moment, his fingers tracing a lazy path along your skin, “plus, i’m quite looking forward to helping you… soap up.”

you hummed softly, pretending to consider his words as your hands slowly slid across his chest, your touch featherlight. his muscles tensed slightly under your fingertips, but his half-smile never wavered.

“hmm,” you mused, drawing lazy circles on his chest, “as tempting as that sounds, i think i can handle ‘soaping-up’ just fine on my own.”

your voice was teasing, playful, but firm enough that nanami could tell you weren't about to let him have his way this time. your lips curled into a smirk as you leaned in just a bit closer, your breath warm against his neck. “besides,” you added in a whisper, “you wouldn’t want to get distracted from the movie now, would you?”

with that, you gently pushed away from him, stepping toward the bathroom, glancing back over your shoulder with a mischievous glint in vour eye.

he watched you with a mix of amusement and frustration as you slowly disentangled yourself from his lap. his gaze trailed over your form, taking in every curve and contour, as if trying to commit your figure to memory. his expression was a mixture of playfulness and annoyance, clearly not appreciating being denied.

he leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest as he let out a sigh of fake resignation. “oh, fine. go ahead and deprive me of the chance to witness your ‘soaping up’. i guess i’ll just have to sit here and suffer through the rest of the movie alone.”

TOJI FUSHIGURO!’

your head rested on toji’s broad chest, rising and falling with his steady breaths as the aftermath of your intimate moment lingered in the air. the room was thick with warmth, your bodies tangled beneath the covers, slick with sweat and the remnants of your passion.

you sighed softly, feeling the stickiness of your skin against his, a slight grimace tugging at your lips. “i need to take a shower,” you mumbled, half to yourself, your voice lazy and tired. “i hate feeling all sticky and clammy after... well, this. especially when i’m about to sleep.”

toji grunted in acknowledgment, his hand lazily running down your back. he didn’t say anything at first, just hummed as if he was contemplating letting you go. his grip on you tightened slightly, as if unwilling to let the warmth of your body leave his just yet. “a shower, huh?” he finally muttered, his voice gravelly and deep. “you sure you don’t wanna just sleep it off?”

you shook your head, chuckling softly. “no way. i’ll sleep better after. plus, you’re the one who’s all sweaty too,” you teased, your fingers tracing lazy patterns on his chest.

he let out a soft huff of laughter, his chest rumbling beneath you as he rolled his eyes playfully. “yeah, yeah, ’m sweaty too. but i don’t mind it as much as you do,” he teased back, his fingers tracing light patterns down your spine. “you’re the one who always complains about feeling sticky and clammy. you’re such a princess.”

he shifted slightly beneath you, as if debating whether to let you go or not. “lemme join you, doll.”

you let out a sarcastic chuckle, the sound soft but filled with playful mockery. “oh, you’re funny, baby,” you mused, lifting your head just enough to meet his gaze with an arched brow. “but no.”

you slid out of his hold slowly, feeling the cool air hit your skin as you sat up on his chest, straddling him. turning your head down slightly to glance at him, you added with a smirk, “besides, i can handle a shower on my own, tough guy. you can enjoy your sweaty self right here.”

toji's hands immediately found your hips, his grip firm as he chuckled at your cheeky rebuttal. “oh, you think you’re funny, huh?” he drawled, his eyes filled with amusement as he looked up at you. “you’re a tease, doll. you’ve got no idea what you do to me, do you?”

he lifted his hips up slightly, his body pressing up against you, his desire clear against your thighs. “you sure you don’t want me to join you, princess?”

you nodded slowly, a mischievous smirk playing on your lips as your fingers lightly traced the firm lines of his chest. “pretty sure,” you murmured, leaning down just a bit, your breath warm against his skin. “besides, i already know exactly what i do to you.”

your body, still bare, sat poised on his chest as you held his gaze with a teasing glint in your eyes. “but i’m still gonna shower alone,” you whispered, your hand pressing gently against his chest as if to keep him in place. “so, stay right here and be a good boy, yeah?” you added playfully, sliding off of him slowly, feeling his eyes on you as you stood up.

he watched you closely, his gaze filled with a mixture of desire and playful annoyance as you slid off him. he let out a huff of resignation, reluctantly obeying your command and staying right where he was.

“you’re a cruel little thing, doll,” he muttered, his body relaxing back into the bed as he watched you. “but fine. i’ll be a good boy and wait for you.” he let his eyes roam over your naked body unabashedly, a lazy smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“hurry back though,” he added, his eyes lingering on your curves as you started to move towards the bathroom. “don’t keep me waiting too long. the sheets are lonely without you, y’know.”

[mmso-notlikethat]

me thinking about drunk buck again? shocker

"You know my boyf—mm, no, my ex b’yfrienddd," Buck slurred, pointing vaguely at the man sitting beside him. The guy— some guy named Jake, or maybe Jade... something like that—just nodded like this was the most riveting conversation of his life. "Mmm yes, he is my ex now. Anyway, he was great! No, no, wait, he’s my ex, he’s awful, you see."

The dude hummed in agreement, his lips twitching upward as if he were trying not to laugh. "Seems like it," he said mildly.

Buck squinted not looking at him. "You—you don’t even know him. He’s... complicated. Like, the most annoying person on the planet but also... amazing." He let out a deep, melodramatic sigh and took another sip from his glass. "He does this thing, this... smirk thing, and it’s like—like he knows everything about me, and it drives me insane. Ugh."

"That does sound annoying," the man—Jake said, tilting his head in mock sympathy.

"Right?!" Buck exclaimed, slamming his glass down on the counter. "But then he’d do something stupidly nice like, I don’t know, make me breakfast when I didn’t even ask or fix my stupid shelf that broke because I’m bad at, uh, shelves. And suddenly, I’m like, 'Wow, maybe I’ll just marry this guy.' But noooooo. He had to go and—ugh—be right. About everything."

Jake didn’t say anything, just quirked an eyebrow as Buck kept rambling.

"And now he’s my ex. You heard that part, right? My ex!” Buck hiccuped, slapping his hand over his mouth. "Oops. Sorry. Excuse me."

"Forgiven," Jake said, his tone unreadable. He sipped his drink like this was just another Tuesday.

Buck frowned at him, his drunk brain scrambling for something clever to say. He failed. "You’re very chill, you know that? Like... annoyingly chill. You remind me of him. My ex. I don’t like it. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. Ughhh."

“Must’ve been quite the guy."

Buck sighed, the weight of the world settling onto his shoulders. "He was. He... he really was."

For a moment, neither of them said anything. The silence felt heavy, like it was trying to tell Buck something he couldn’t quite hear. Then he hiccuped again, breaking the spell.

"You’re cool, though," Buck muttered, waving his glass at the guy before tipping it back. "Not like him. But also... kinda like him. Weird."

Jake just smiled faintly, not saying a word.

Buck leaned heavily on the counter, staring at his empty glass like it was the source of all his problems. "You don’t get it. He’s the worst. Like... so smug. Always thinking he knows everything. And you know what? He doesn’t! He doesn’t know me! He doesn’t—hiccup—know what I want. No one does!" He jabbed his finger at the man beside him for emphasis.

Jake, still calm as ever, took a sip of his drink and nodded. "Sounds like a real piece of work."

Buck whipped his head around so fast he nearly fell off the stool. "Whoa, hey! You don’t get to say that," he snapped, his words slurring but his glare surprisingly sharp.

Jake raised an eyebrow, clearly unfazed. "Why not? You just said it."

"Yeah, but—" Buck flailed his hands dramatically, nearly knocking his glass off the counter. "I can say it. I dated him. You? You don’t even know him! You’re just some... some random guy!"

"Fair point," Jake said with a shrug, but there was the faintest twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

Buck narrowed his eyes, his very drunk brain working overtime to keep up. "He’s not that bad, okay? I mean, yeah, he’s annoying and bossy and—" He paused, gesturing vaguely as if the words were just out of reach. "And stubborn. But he’s also, like... thoughtful and—" His voice softened, almost wistful. "Kind. He cared. About me. About everyone. Even when he didn’t say it out loud."

Jake hummed, his tone unreadable. "Doesn’t sound so awful."

"Exactly!" Buck said, throwing his hands up. "That’s what I’m saying! He’s... ugh, he’s the worst best person I’ve ever met. And now he’s gone. And it’s my fault." His voice cracked at the end, and he quickly ducked his head, pretending to study the wood grain of the bar.

"Maybe it’s not your fault," Jake offered, his voice quieter now.

Buck laughed bitterly. "Oh, it is. I mean, I wanted him to stay. I asked him to stay. But he was all, like, 'You’re still figuring yourself out,' and 'I’m your first, not your last.' Like, what does that even mean?!"

Jake’s expression flickered—something Buck couldn’t quite name, not in his current state. "Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing."

"Yeah, well, it wasn’t!" Buck snapped, slamming his hand down on the counter. "It wasn’t the right thing for me. I didn’t want right, I wanted him. And now I’m here, talking to you, and he’s... I don’t even know where he is."

Jake didn’t respond right away, just sat there, his drink untouched. After a moment, he said, "Maybe he’s closer than you think."

Buck frowned, squinting like the words were a puzzle he couldn’t solve. But before he could ask what that was supposed to mean, another hiccup cut him off, and he groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"You’re weird," he mumbled through his fingers. "Why are you even listening to me?"

Jake chuckled softly, the sound warm and familiar in a way that tugged at something deep in Buck’s chest. "I guess I’m just a sucker for a good story."

"He is!" Buck said, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "He’s—ugh. He’s just this guy, you know? But not just a guy. He’s... he’s smart, and thoughtful, and really good at all the boring, practical stuff I suck at. Like, he can fix anything. He once rebuilt an engine in his garage for fun! Who does that?!" Buck paused, hiccupping before continuing. "And he has this way of looking at you like you’re the most important thing in the world, even when you’re being a complete idiot. Especially when you’re being a complete idiot. And then, just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he’ll say something so... so him—and it’s exactly what you needed to hear, even if you didn’t want to."

His voice cracked, and he dropped his gaze to his empty glass. "He made me feel like... like maybe I was worth sticking around for, you know? But then he left anyway. So what does that say about me?"

Buck groaned, dragging his hands down his face. "I don’t even know why I’m talking about him. He’s gone, and he probably doesn’t think about me at all anymore."

"Maybe he does," Jake said, his voice calm but carrying a weight Buck couldn’t quite process in his state.

Buck snorted, his head wobbling as he tried to look at Jake. "Nah. He’s too busy being perfect somewhere else. Fixing things, smirking at someone else, probably making them breakfast now." His voice cracked again, and he slumped forward, leaning heavily on the counter. "It’s not fair. I don’t want to miss him, but I do. All the time. Every damn day."

Jake stayed quiet for a moment, swirling the remnants of his drink. "Sounds like you really loved him."

Buck blinked blearily at Jake. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. Still do. But it doesn’t matter. He left."

"Maybe he thought you deserved better," Jake murmured, his tone so soft Buck almost missed it.

"Better?" Buck slurred, laughing bitterly. "There’s no better. He was better. He was it. And I messed it up."

Jake leaned back, his eyes studying Buck for a long moment. "Maybe he thought he was the one who messed it up."

Buck frowned at that, the words bouncing around in his drunken mind without fully landing. He opened his mouth to respond, but a yawn caught him off guard, and his head lolled forward slightly.

"Okay," Jake said, standing up and patting Buck’s shoulder. "Let’s get you home before you pass out here."

"I’m not—" Buck started to protest, but his words dissolved into another yawn. "Fine. Whatever. But only ’cause you’re so... so good at listening, Jake."

Jake chuckled, sliding Buck’s arm around his shoulders as he helped him off the stool. "Sure, that’s why."

The trip to the loft was a blur for Buck, his head bobbing as he mumbled fragments of sentences. "He used to—hiccup—used to cook pancakes on Sundays," he muttered as they walked. "Never liked syrup, though. Just butter. Who doesn’t like syrup?"

Jake made a noncommittal noise, holding Buck steady as they reached the loft.

When they reached the loft, Buck fumbled with his keys before Jake gently took them from him and unlocked the door. Inside, Buck stumbled forward, nearly tripping over his own feet.

"Whoa, easy there," Jake said, catching him with an arm around his waist. "We’re not done yet. Bed’s upstairs, right?"

Buck blinked at him, bleary-eyed, before nodding vaguely in the direction of the stairs. "Yeah... stairs. Stupid stairs. Who needs stairs anyway? I should just sleep right here." He sagged slightly, leaning heavily into Jake.

Jake sighed, adjusting Buck’s arm over his shoulders. "Come on, you’re almost there."

They moved toward the stairs, Buck dragging his feet and muttering incomprehensibly. Jake tightened his hold, practically lifting him as they climbed. "You’re heavier than you look, you know that?" Jake muttered under his breath.

"’M not heavy," Buck slurred, his head lolling against Jake’s shoulder. "You’re just... weak. Bet you’ve never carried someone out of a fire or... or something heroic like that."

Jake smirked faintly, his voice low and even. "You’d be surprised."

By the time they reached the top, Buck was practically draped over Jake, who maneuvered him carefully toward the bed. He eased Buck down onto the mattress, keeping a hand on his shoulder to steady him as Buck flopped back with a groan.

"Finally," Buck mumbled, eyes half-closed. "Hate those stairs. Hate... everything."

Jake crouched down to untie Buck’s shoes, his movements steady and practiced, as though this wasn’t the first time he’d done this. "Don’t worry, I’ve got it from here," he said softly.

Buck blinked down at him, his vision swimming. "You’re... nice," he mumbled. "Too nice. You don’t even... you don’t even know me." He hiccupped, his head lolling to one side. "I mean, you’re here, so you’re not that bad. But… you’re not him."

Jake’s hand stilled for a fraction of a second before he resumed tugging off Buck’s shoes.

"He’d probably—hiccup—he’d probably say I’m too much. Like I push too hard, or I don’t stop to think. But I just… I just try, you know? Maybe I try too much..." Buck’s voice cracked, and he let out a breathy laugh. "And now look. No one’s here."

Jake paused, his jaw tightening as he set the shoes neatly by the bed. He glanced up briefly, something flickering across his face, but Buck didn’t notice.

Jake’s hands moved to unbutton Buck’s jeans, and Buck let out a tired laugh. "I’m not... I’m not that kinda guy, Jake."

Jake snorted softly. "Relax. You’re safe."

He eased the jeans off and set them aside, then reached for Buck’s shirt. Buck swatted weakly at him but barely had the energy to protest. "You’re... too good at this. Bet you’re a pro at babysitting drunk idiots."

"Something like that," Jake murmured, pulling the blanket up and tucking it snugly around Buck’s shoulders. For a moment, his hand lingered on the edge of the blanket, his eyes scanning Buck’s face as if committing him to memory.

Buck stirred, his eyes fluttering half-open. "I miss him," he mumbled, his voice barely audible. His hand flailed clumsily for a second before it landed on Jake’s arm. "Tell him... I miss him."

Jake froze, his jaw tightening as he looked down at Buck. Then he covered Buck’s hand with his own, his thumb brushing against his knuckles for a brief moment. "I’ll tell him," he said softly, even though Buck was already slipping into sleep.

Jake placed a water bottle and some pills on the bedside table, his movements quiet and deliberate. He lingered there for a beat, his gaze heavy with something unspoken.

Leaning down, Jake brushed his fingers lightly through Buck’s curls, his voice low and warm as he whispered, "I don’t even look like a Jake, Evan."

Buck stirred slightly, a faint furrow in his brow, but his eyes stayed closed. Jake Tommy pulled back, hesitating for just a moment before slipping out, leaving the loft in silence.

Part2

[astrow1zar6]

Sun + Moon Hot takes- part 3

Sag sun Aries moon: this combo seems loud asf lol. No seriously though you definitely are one of the loudest people in the room normally. This gives big class clown energy. This gives those kids in class that always did the most to make everyone laugh and sometimes it’d work well but other times it can be obnoxious. Also if not balanced with any earth placements I can see these people being extremely impulsive and immature you tend to jump into things fast and get burned along the lines. But because of your impulsive nature you have a lot of fun stories to tell others and also tend to have a lot more fun than most in general because of how spontaneous you are. This is a combo that is always doing something wild. Usually big extroverts that love meeting new people and seeing new places. Doesn’t like to be in one place too long. Lives life in the fast lane. They usually live life in a very rockstar kinda way (drugs, sex, rock and roll) vibe. Which is something I admire a lot on how they make life look so fun. Usually go by the motto “I’d rather die young than live a long boring life”.

Libra Sun Virgo moon: giving princess energy. I can imagine these people to be very feminine (even the men). These are probably the most well kept people when it comes to hygiene. They usually always look put together and are normally really pretty people. This puts a more introverted twist to the regular social lite Libra sun energy. Usually big perfectionists and can get anxiety when they don’t look their best or are giving the best impressions on others. These people’s anxiety can be CRIPPLING. Your anxiety is your Achilles heel. You tend to worry about anything & everything. Your anxiousness can make you come off as almost “too perfect “ to others. You may come off as the type of person that people get shocked that you fart kinda thing lol. Although you prefer to come off this way it’s okay to be imperfect sometimes. You should learn to find more humor in flaws instead of taking them like it’s the end of the world. People will still like you even if you aren’t perfect 🫶🏽

Aquarius sun Leo moon: this combo is so cool to me. The people I’ve met with this combo are one of the funniest people ever. I’m usually not a fan of Leo moons but with an Aquarius sun I feel it balances the melodramatic attitude of Leo making them more cool like. They are really creative and usually can make a lot of $$ with anything social media related (highly recommended to get into YouTube, tik tok, podcasts) these people are so entertaining so normally they can get a big following. However many can have a difficult time forming relationships because they are very demanding and distant at times. Probably the most authentic person you’ve ever met. Their authenticity and rebellious streak is usually their golden ticket into getting such big followings and being so popular. These people are the definition of “idgaf” it’s so admirable.

Leo sun Capricorn moon: probably one of the most serious Leo combinations. I notice this combo is more anxious to shine than normal Leo suns. These people can surprisingly get embarrassed pretty easily. DO NOT clown these people or pick on them jokingly they will really crash out lmao. They hate when their character is diminished in any type of way. This gives big CEO energy, these people were the bosses of their family and friend groups. When they are immature this energy can cause a lot of issues in their relationships because of how bossy they can be. They can get carried away with controlling what people do and how they act which can be overwhelming for others. Allow others to be themselves you don’t have to control everything I know you like things to be a certain way but the world doesn’t go when you go. These people usually make really good managers and bosses. Are able to control any organization or business they have flawlessly with little effort.

Gemini sun Leo moon: I apologize in advance to anyone with this combo but this gives ANNOYING😭 I can tell these were those bad ass kids growing up with the silver caps in their mouths (iykyk 🤣). Theres a very child like energy to this combo that can either come off as very sweet and refreshing or these people are little devils lmao. This gives Micheal Scott energy from the office. I can see these people being so fun in non serious activities such as partying and drinking and karaoke night but things like working with them can be like babysitting. This is probably the employee that pisses you off all the time but is lit asf to bring out to do fun stuff. I can imagine these people to be really good humored as well, could’ve also been a class clown or hung around a popular crowd. Usually is pretty loud about their opinions and can have a very dramatic flair with the way they talk. Usually are very animated which can be very entertaining to those around them. This people can make great entertainers and talk show hosts. Are AMAZING story tellers even if you can tell if some of what they say is exaggerated it’s still so interesting to hear.

Pisces sun Sag moon: this is a very interesting combo, both Jupiter ruled but with such opposite energies. This gives a light heartedness to the normally deep spiritual neptunian. These people also have a crazy good intuition. This can make some pretty intelligent people (Albert Einstein has this combo) their mind tends to be very theoretical, spiritual and philosophical. However with all this mutable energy it can be hard for them to organize their thoughts properly you have a tendency to drift from reality when things get too much. Definitely a big picture person over details, too much details can stress you out a lot. If you learn how to implement all your fresh ideas you can earn a lot of $$ in your lifetime ! I’ve also seen it can be very difficult for these people to process their emotions. Neptune has a tendency of blurring emotions along with the sags tendency to avoid them it can cause them to act irrationally at times. When their feelings aren’t in check they can completely fuck themselves over with little consciousness of them doing it. When under pressure they can be really impulsive and naive. Can have a very out of the box sense of humor as well.

Taurus sun Scorpio Moon: talk about stubborn. No seriously it’ll take the hands of god himself to make these people move or change ways. They don’t budge until they want to (which usually takes awhile or never happens) they usually take a really long time to trust someone but once they do you’re theirs for life. They can be really possessive of the people they love and can struggle with jealousy if their person is close to others (even family at times if they are really insecure). They tend to come off as very chill and laid back but they’re usually hiding a strong intensity behind that down to earth personality. They have a tendency of suffocating those around them because of their fear of abandonment. I see people with this combo have a big thing with abandonment. They tend to fall for people that feel like home and allow them to be comfortable being themselves (cuz they struggle with this normally). Overall though very loyal and sensual people they will go to the moon and back for you if they love you.

Pisces sun Aquarius moon: these people are the real life ETs of the zodiac sun moon combos. Really though they vibe at such a different wavelength than the rest of the world. One word use to describe these people are “Woke”. Its was estimated that Jesus Christ actually had this sun/moon combination. (Surprise for all the people that thought Jesus was born in December). They have this deep inner desire usually to help humanity in some way, usually by using spiritual means. These people can excel in pursuits like reiki healing, crystal work, yoga/meditation instructor, music therapist, priest ect. Works good with healing the subconscious of others. Growing up however they could’ve been outcasted a lot for being “weird” or “off putting”. This rejection allowed them to grow such a strong wisdom when it comes to human nature. When they grow to be confident in their unique natures they are really able to heal themselves and those around them.

Pisces sun Pisces moon: one word DELUSIONAL😭 these people are never really in the now they are elsewhere in their minds floating off you can just see it in their face lol. This isn’t the most ambitious of combos and can usually sabotage a lot of good career opportunities by procrastinating and escaping their responsibilities. If not balanced with any earth placements you should learn techniques on grounding! If not you can neglect a lot of your responsibilities. Breath work practice and meditation usually help these people (anything spiritual really). Because of their imaginative tendencies they can be amazing artists and musicians (they especially love music). Big romantics at heart and is main goal in life is to find their soulmate, can sabotage their goals for love a lot. Usually ends up attracting toxic people sadly but this is usually a muse for their art.

i apologize for taking so long to make a part three. I did not forget your requests 🫶🏽♥️

[poppadom0912]

🥐 jay halstead fic where reader is kim's or sylvie's younger sister and she meets jay at kim or sylvie birthday party at molly's and takes liking to jay and her sister notices it and makes it her mission to get them together

maybe with some playful cheeky teasing from jay before he makes a move 🤭

A/N: Thank you so much for ordering. I ended up writing much more than I intended and I kinda struggled to put in some teasing but I hope it's okay. Please enjoy!!

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

You were a little tipsy.

Work had been horrible. Today had probably been a record-breaking day in the labour and delivery ward but somehow, all of your patients had faced an ailment and some babies also struggled. You and your team were confident in your abilities but there was still the unease of what could happen overnight.

But today was your sisters birthday and nothing was going to get in your way of celebrating and making tonight all about her.

All the people important to her were in the firehouse and so tonight would be a big celebration with everyone and you’d take her out later in the week.

She hadn’t paid for any of her drinks, the one rule you had placed because obviously, its her birthday.

As the night progressed, Sylvie got more and more drunk but she deserved to have fun. And as the night went on, Molly’s got more and more busy as all the first responders started piling in after their shifts.

You recognised a few of the doctors and nurses from the ED and you heard Matt greeting a few men who you remember being part of ‘Intelligence.’

At one point, you found yourself talking with April and Maggie before you heard Sylvie calling for you across the bar.

Adhering to her calls, you made your way towards your sister who had the giddiest smile on her face, cheeks rosy and hair still somehow perfectly intact.

“Hey hey hey, can you pleeeassse get me some rosé?” She asked nicely, the most innocent expression on her face.

“Sure!” You nodded, feigning agreement as you turned to Hermann. “Can we have some water please. I think we’re done now Hermann.”

You pretended not to hear Sylvie’s ‘cries’ in despair, melodramatically acting as if it was the worst thing in the world you had inflicted on her.

You only received a sound of acknowledgement from Hermann who was swamped in orders.

“Oh hey, happy birthday Sylvie.” A sudden presence at your side appeared out of literal nowhere, smiling at your sister who was slowly getting out of it.

“Aww, thank you so much Jay- Omg Jay this is my sister Y/N, she works at Med.”

You turned to look at this ‘Jay’ and-

Oh wow- what a handsome looking specimen.

“Hi-“

“His brother is Will, they’re brothers Y/N.” Sylvie stressed, as if that idea was unbelievable.

“Oh, hey I’m Y/N. I think Will’s mentioned you a few times, you’re the accident-prone brother right?”

Jay chuckled, rolling his eyes at your words but there was no harm behind it. “Yeah, he’s exaggerating but yep, that’s me, nice to meet you. Sylvie’s mentioned you a few times as well.”

You were not expecting that. When on earth did Sylvie ever have the time to have full on conversations with a detective?

“All nice things I hope.”

“Don’t worry.” Jay assured you, his eyes not leaving yours even as he spoke of your sister. “She’s only said the best things and anyone related to Sylvie is definitely going to be an angel.”

You were speechless. A man who was technically still a stranger was being the nicest any stranger could be. You couldn’t help but feel heat rush up to your cheeks.

You giggled, trying to ignore your reddening cheeks. “That’s so sweet, thank you so much.”

This back-and-forth exchange only continued and the water you ordered went forgotten. Unbeknownst to both of you, Sylvie who was still sat next to you, was watching all of this unfold and despite her drunkenness, she took everything you-related very seriously.

And by the looks of it, she was about to play matchmaker again.

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

You were visiting Sylvie at the firehouse on one of your days off. Everything had been normal, Sylvie was being her usual self until the firehouse received some visitors.

You recognised the three detectives walking into the firehouse, one of which increased your intrigue.

Sylvie didn’t miss your straying eyes as the passed by the bunk rooms.

Sylvie gasped in her usual dramatic style, scaring you to bits.

“Oh my gosh Sylvie!” You slapped her on the arm, shoving her face away when she kept coming towards you. “Sylvie you weirdo!”

“Y/N!” She shook you, probably jostling your brain while she was at it.

“You have a crush~” She said in song, the most stupidest smile on her face.

“You’re such a child.” You tutted, slapping her again on the shoulder. “Stop it you weird child.”

So she listened and stopped… for now at least.

Her smile remained stuck on her face and the blush remained on your cheeks.

Oh, this was getting good. Sylvie knew exactly what to do.

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

Sylvie just so happened to be at Med then next time you saw Jay.

You were taking a break and went outside the emergency department where they had a really expensive coffee cart when you bumped into Jay.

Apparently, he had just finished interviewing a suspect who just had an accident, he caught up with his brother and was now waiting for his partner to finish up inside.

That left the two of you outside alone.

He kept you company in the line and when you went to pay for your coffee, his hand equipped with his card came flying out of nowhere, paying for your coffee.

The audacity of this man.

“Ah- excuse me.” You scoffed, almost frozen in shock as he took the coffee when you didn’t move, gently ushering you away so the line could keep moving. He hand on your waist totally didn’t do anything to you.

Jay hummed, raising an eyebrow with that smirk on his face, imploring you to try it.

You wanted to smack that stupid smirk off his face for good. This silly man had such a grip of the butterflies in your stomach just with his facial expressions.

You were speechless. You had no words to say to him so instead, you went to go grab the coffee cup out of his hand when he took a sip, eye contact maintained the entire time and gave it to you with a smug smile on his face as that single sip of coffee from your cup had fulfilled him.

You failed to pick up your jaw. You simply took a sip from the coffee that was yours.

Sylvie also failed to pick up her jaw from the ground, stood frozen several feet away from you two.

Maybe she didn’t have to intervene after all.  

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

Sylvie had one goal to achieve today and it wasn’t for this party to be perfect. No, Sylvie was going to get you and Jay to finally make a proper move and get you guys to start dating.

She was sick and tired of the endless flirting that went nowhere and she couldn’t look at your lovesick face whenever Jay was in your vicinity.

All would be fixed today, on your birthday.

Sylvie wanted to go all out because you were her sister and an amazing party with friends is the least you deserved. So yes, she still wanted this party to be perfect, but that was on the side for the meantime.

Sylvie had this all planned out so meticulously that even Matt side eyed her warily.

She claimed that she was too busy setting everything up at her apartment and needed someone to go pick you up. It ‘just so happened’ that she invited Jay and incidentally told him to come earlier than when the party was actually meant to start.

She was the perfect actor, gasping in near horror when she saw the time in the living room where she was surrounded by unfinished wrapped presents and decorations that were half done.

It was so easy to get Jay to do exactly what she wanted and deep down, Sylvie knew that he would’ve done so without her even asking.

Just like that, Jay was on his way to pick you up and Sylvie could drop the act and get down to business.

Fast forward two hours later and the party is in full swing. You had been thoroughly surprised and you happiness continued increasing as Sylvie did more and more as the evening unfolded.

Your cheeks were hurting from how much you were laughing and Sylvie couldn’t help but keep an eye on Jay who hadn’t looked away from you for more than a few seconds.

This was perfect.

During dinner, she sneakily got you to sit down besides where Jay was already sat. You had been so distracted talking to her that you didn’t even notice her physically pushing you towards that specific chair.

Sylvie also purposefully put your favourite dish the further away from you so that when you inevitably noticed its presence, you would have to ask if someone could serve you and the first person to take your plate was easily going to be Jay, Sylvie had no doubt about it.

And she was proved correct as said man wasted no time in serving you the perfect portion size.

Your giddiness was practically palpable at this rate.

The rest of the night went equally as smoothly. As everyone was leaving, tidying ensued and Jay was still here.

Everything was still going according to plan.

Elbowing Matt, ignoring his grunt at the sudden motion, Sylvie stood up straight from loading the dishwasher. “We’re all done in here so we’re going to get going.”

Before you could say anything, she went on, “I know I said I’d sleepover but Matt had this thing really early in the morning and he needs my help.”

Matt was caught very off guard, he spluttered as he realised what was happening and didn’t want to be blamed for preventing the two sisters from being together.

Sylvie elbowed him even harder this time, her smile tightening. “I promise, next time I’m staying and we’re doing brunch.”

Your disappointment was quickly eased at her suggestion and in less than five minutes, Sylvie was ushering a very confused Matt out the door, leaving you and Jay alone.

“Love you so much Y/N! Have a good night you two!” Sylvie waved at you two, closing the door behind her with a content smile on her face, sighing in satisfaction and fulfilment.

“Sylvie-“

“Shhh.” She shushed him, her finger at his lips. “Let’s get you home Matt. I’ve got everything under control, trust me.”

Sylvie had no doubt about it. She went to sleep the happiest she had been in a long time.

When she got up the next morning to your text messages with some very unkind words, calling her some very nice names, her smile widened.

Plan to get Jay and Y/N together was officially successful.

[solid-white]

10 recommendations of TF2 fan content for those looking for more like me:

Emesis Blue: this one is an obvious one, I don't need to explain it since everyone and their grandma knows it by now.

Capture The Intelligence: a tf2 horror fangame centered around Spy capturing the Intelligence. Yup. That's it. That's the game. It's a pretty fun game and I recommend it to anyone wanting a quick past time.

Anomaly: it's a tf2 analogue horror based around an anomaly in a players world. The mystery is intriguing and the scares are SO effective. There were also moments that made me go "NO WAY!" in surprise.

Endless Rust: THIS ONE. It's not underrated if you look at the amount of views it has. But it's SO good. I recommend both parts. It's about Engineer and Sniper trying to live in a world taken over by robots. I won't spoil much but watch it!

The Art Of Justice: I was gobsmacked at just how little views this one had. Especially because of how long ago it came out. PLEASE watch it. It's about Sniper and Scout teaming up to break into the red base. The animation is EASILY comparable to "The End Of The Line" and "Emesis Blue"

Magnificent Nine: I had no clue what was happening during the second half, but it deserves a mention for the Medicspy. Those men were GAY.

Assault On 2Fort: part 2 is in the making but this one is great! Scout is a female in this one but it doesn't put much attention or emphasis on that and the animation is just so detailed that I kept rewinding. THEY EVEN RELOAD THE GUN PROPERLY!!!

Winglet: Just everything Winglet makes I recommend. I drool over the animation and story telling whenever they upload something new.

Bad Sniper and Bad day: Bad day is a sequel to Bad Sniper, it's a bit corny but I recommend it to Sniper lovers. It's about Sniper being bad at sniping and the other Sniper taking it upon himself to teach him to be a good Sniper. It's a very typical story but it's charming.

Kith And Kin: Taboo mention since some people find fics cringe, but I REALLY recommend this one. The mystery and twists are so jaw dropping and I got so tense reading some scenes. There are parts that are melodramatic but everything else outweighs those moments.

If you have any recommendations, go ahead and share them and I'll put them in my next list

[susansontag]

my guide to lesbian anime both canonic and subtextual

(won’t include every lesbian anime ever, this is a personal list)

the canonic-gay section:

revolutionary girl utena

nothing before or since has ever done it like this. trigger warnings for everything imaginable. loads of homosexuals in this one. gender commentary, fairytale allusions, a lot of kids who are having a hard time growing up and moving beyond their pasts. sword lesbians.

flip flappers

the problematic favourite, in that there’s at least one uncomfortable sexualised shot each episode (roughly speaking; some have none and one has even more, unfortunately), so be warned. but at its heart flipflap is about repressed cocona going on adventures with outgoing and expressive papika, and their exploration of various fantastical lands/inner worlds of people they meet. hugely inventive and pretty, and a core thread is cocona discovering she’s gay.

aoi hana (‘sweet blue flowers’)

the comfort lesbian show, with not a romantic relationship at its heart, but a friendship between two childhood friends who meet again, both of whom are gay (though only one realises this during the show’s run, as it’s based on a manga). one of them dates an upperclassman at her school, and there’s various gay and bi side characters. it’s just very wholesome, lovingly animated, sweet and sometimes painful stuff.

bloom into you

I controversially do not care that much for bloom into you, but as the best, high-production, non-skeevy yuri show in years - that is based on a manga by a woman - it’s worth mentioning. late-bloomer girl dreams of romance, though has never felt it, and finds affinity with a girl who similarly is disinclined to date. that is, until said girl says she fancies her. genuinely moving exploration of developing gay identity at times, only downside is my personal disinterest in the black haired girl. some weird ��heightened’ moments that feel inauthentic and titillating do arise, but it’s very few - to the point where some would disagree with me on my reading of it, I’d imagine.

sailor moon

the bits which the lesbians are in, etc. it’s a classic. I haven’t watched all of it myself because I don’t care much nor do I have nostalgia for sailor moon, but it’s one of the most notable examples of a butch/masc lesbian in anime, so that’s nice.

o maidens in your savage season

nerdy teenage girls who are part of a literature club make it their quest to discover sex and dating, in various ways (unfortunately, not all of them dealt with well… teacher/student foolery that is fortunately abandoned before it gets worse but is nonetheless handled with mixed results, imo). mostly though it’s hilarious, sweet, silly, and there’s a gay girl in it, but I won’t spoil which one. adults predating on children is also handled much, much better in another of the show’s storylines, and I do appreciate it for trying to tackle that difficult subject matter.

oniisama e (‘dear brother’)

an oldie, based off a shoujo manga by one of the greatest (riyoko ikeda). there’s a central relationship to root for (better articulated in the manga), but it’s mostly just what if we were messy depressed lesbians at an all-girls school and we were also melodramatic and mean as hell.

revue starlight

what if we were at an all-girls dramatic arts school and engaged in utena-like duels to become the top performer? main implicitly gay couple with canonic side gay couples. it’s quite cute. also worth watching if you like takarazuka in any way (prestigious all-female japanese theatre troupe), because the main conceit of the school is very much based on that idea.

the gay-themes section:

sound! euphonium (season one)

in which director naoko yamada’s awesome legacy of writing lesbians and then saying “who’s to say though, ha ha” continued (she did it already with a side character in tamako market). this one is known as the gaybait to end all gaybait, but hear me out: the first, and best, season, is not only a fantastic self-contained story with many great characters and plot points, but it’s main character is undoubtedly lesbian-coded and even has a love interest you can argue about. frankly I think she’s gay-coded throughout the whole show (even when she dates a guy for two minutes), but this feels very “I wanted to focus on this compelling relationship between two female characters but the adaptation’s success meant we had to revert back to the source material in later seasons”. what we got from this is perhaps my favourite lesbian anime of all-time, following utena.

a place further than the universe

this show is about four girls who join an expedition to antarctica, and what if I told you they’re all great, believable dorky teenage characters, and they exist in a well-written and thematically satisfying show… and there’s nice lesbian implication between one of our adult female protagonists and her old (deceased; not a spoiler) friend who was the main teen girl’s mother. there’s some sad here, obviously.

puella magi madoka magica

the well-known, much beloved deconstruction of the magical girl genre is also pretty gay, as it happens (so gay in fact it started a trend of gay-coded pink+black magical girls). it’s not a particular favourite of mine, but it’s visually one of the most notable anime productions ever, so it’s well worth seeing just for that.

NANA

the 2000s manga+show about the two twenty-year-olds who meet on a train and discover they’re both called nana is also pretty gay! to the point where there are heated fandom debates about nana komatsu’s (pink one) possibly being a lesbian. they both have many relationships with guys, but it’s their bond that forms the heart of the show, and the bisexuality (or, who knows, homosexuality) of the leads is pretty undeniable. to the point where you’ll get blasted on the nana subreddit if you try and suggest otherwise.

the wild-card section:

keep your hands off eizouken!

this is a show about three oddball girls who start a club to create anime, but have to pose as the film club instead for various reasons. it’s not even subtextually gay, I just personally think that all three of the leads are gay and the whole thing feels like a very female-centred creative endeavour. hugely fun watch, and very high production values. you wouldn’t regret seeing it.

skip & loafer

these two you see here are side characters. this show is actually about mitsumi, the greatest female protagonist of this kind of shoujo-esque slice of life show, who moves from the countryside to tokyo for high school. here she meets many a misfit, including the pretty blonde and the nerd girl who have undeniable chemistry and form one of the most popular pairings in the show. it’s just a good time.

chihayafuru

I’d get in trouble for this, because the primary romance factor in the show is a famed heterosexual love triangle with chihaya at its centre and her two male childhood friends at the side. but go with me on this. chihaya is oblivious to romance and feminine socialisation, she is obsessed with a card game and with her equally dorky dark-haired rival… she’s anime’s greatest autistic lesbian lead. and you get more than what you pay for, because the two boys I mentioned? a lot of gay stuff going on there too.

the big-screen-cinematic section:

the adolescence of utena

revolutionary girl returns in the sequel of a lifetime, slightly older (sixteen, say) and gayer than ever, to escape this place with the love of her life. cue the impromptu dance sequence (with stars and rose petals)!

liz and the blue bird

the naoko yamada directed gay cinematic universe continues with a gorgeous film starring two of the side characters from sound! euphonium’s second season (not necessary to watch beforehand). that means it has plausible deniability whilst being so crazily gay it’s almost some kind of joke. this is a highly detailed, laser-focused character study of two girls in their high school band club and their ever more strained relationship. yamada never misses.

the summer

this is korean! it’s about two girls who meet at school and start dating in secret, what happens as they grow up and move to seoul, and how their relationship changes and strains when met with the conservatism of contemporary korean society. it was sweet and like aoi hana above for japanese girls, felt pretty frank to the experiences I’d imagine young korean lesbians might have.

puella magi madoka magica: rebellion

if you’re a fan of the show, you probably don’t talk about this movie. sure, it’s a visual feat, sure, it’s insanely entertaining, but it’s also frustrating and upsetting and potentially undermines the neatness of the original as a perfectly-crafted story. BUT. kyouko/sayaka becomes all but canon in it, and everything else aside, that’s all that really matters. but you should definitely watch the show beforehand.

[kyupidos]

04/8/24’s delivery 🏹✉️ twisted wonderland

rather melodramatic aren’t you?ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ,ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ ;; summary. ‘so it seems, you’ve finally found your way back home.’

characters. first years : ace trappola , deuce spade , jack howl, epel felmier , sebek zigvolt ( separate ) ;; romantic ( implied ) angst . 🖇️ tags. reader is gender neutral ( you/your ), reader is yuu, angst with romance sprinkled in i s’pose ( can still be friendship seen,, i think.. ), blah blah angst

📡 _a/n. mmmm, been listening to tv girl a lot more like i used to, ended up coming up w this. still not the best w angst but we stay rollin ( also, cigarettes out the window >> )

a. trappola

— he was always the one who kept everyone’s mind off the topic of you going home—making the mood lighter so no one would be upset again, especially you. but ace can’t deny how distraught he is, when it comes the time for you to finally, finally go. he’s happy for you, never doubt for a fact that he is. but there’s that one part of him that never wants to let you go. you’ve been friends all this time, haven’t you? then again, this school year with him has always been more of an experience for you, hm.. like an emotional rollercoaster until you make it home, and things will go back to normal, to your usual.

— he knew that much, that one day you would say your final farewells and that he would have to turn his back and go on with his life, the rest of his school year, without you by his side. without a magicless prefect who turned his world upside down, without a magicless prefect to spend his time with, without a magicless prefect whom he held ever so dear to his heart. maybe your time spent with him was just a waiting game before you could return to your norm. but his time spent with you made his heart full, as if you were everything he wanted and more.

— but he can let go, can’t he? not like he’s making lighthearted jokes here and there, about what it’d be like if you were to stick around, even if for a little while longer. he eventually holds his pinky out to you, in a moment of bitter weakness ( to him and him only ), that if the chance ever comes to fruition that it’s not a one way trip, you’ll return to night raven and stay friends, stay together with him. and it becomes a promise, pinky sworn and all. he tells himself he can swallow his bitter tears and see you off, yet he leaves deep, ragged breaths in his wake when you hug him tightly and tell him you’ll miss him, no matter how the circumstances may end up.

— you should know at least that much, left to digest it as you go back home, that he’ll miss you too—and though he may leave this out, unless he’s caught in a moment of weakness truth, you’ll always be on his mind.

d. spade

— deuce always felt such a pain in his heart whenever he comes to the recollection ( sometimes random, but then comes the times you’re forced to remind him you may not be there forever ), that you’re doomed to leave him behind as you return, to your family, to your friends of before. his hopes for you to see his graduate, to stay together being each other’s best friends, to just stay by each other’s side, he’d accept just being in your proximity. how he loved, and will never stop loving your words of kindness, words that’ll never leave the back of his mind, words he’ll never let go.

— how many times you’ve affirmed and reaffirmed your friendship and fondness toward him with those words, he can’t recall. or maybe he does; he’ll keep those memories with him until the ends of times, and whatever voice messages you may have sent him when you finally got your phone will be treasured and stored forever. oh, but how he’d like to not need that in the first place. how will he go on, without your kind words ringing delightfully in his ears? he’d never be able to bring himself to forget your voice, even if he can’t hear it in the present, he’ll hold it dearly as he looks to the past.

— he could never go against your wishes to return home, though. he knows for a fact it’s all you’ve wanted, and he’ll never say he wouldn’t want the same for himself if he were ever in your situation—he couldn’t even imagine that much, he always commended your strength to get as far as you’ve gotten now. but he finds himself asking you, if you’ll ever forget him. reaffirm him once more with your words; tell him that you won’t for as long as you live. that you’ve treasured the times you’ve spent together.

— because, let it be clear, he’ll treasure those times just as much as you, he’ll treasure them forever, and when forever ends, he’ll treasure them more.

j. howl

— he recalls all those times he shyly managed to bring himself to do little things for you, wake you up in class when you felt tired, remind you to straighten out your uniform, anything to silently tell you he respects and cherishes his friendship with you. jack recalls the times you returned the favor, watering his cacti with him, and thanking him for everything he does. just smiling at him makes him happy. but he accepts, with a heavier than he expected heart, that these times will become nothing one day. a day that’s come and approaches now.

— he’d like to send you off easily, but “easily” will never belong in the end. maybe when your friendship first bloomed he could huff and pout about how you were barely friends, and he just “couldn’t let the bad things happening around you go down the way they were”. but if he didn’t admit how much of a likening he took to the time he’s spent with you, he could never live with himself. still, he knows he’ll have to see your smile only once more before never seeing it again, anyway. he finds it difficult, actually, trying to remember how he spent his time when you weren’t there, a time before you. when in the early mornings you weren’t there to greet him, no matter the mood amongst you.

— but in his heart stays all the things you’ve done for each other, and all the things he still wishes he could do, but he knows time will never stop for that. even so, he’ll praise you for your hard work, everything you’ve done that’s gotten you so far as to return to your loved ones. there’s a part that gnaws at him though, that he’ll have to get used to a routine that doesn’t involve you. it was so often, how you’d greet him and he’d greet you, sometimes you’d eat lunch together and on a good day, maybe you’d join him on a run, even if it did end with you laying against the wall because of how exhausted you were. and he’d scold you, telling you not to overexert yourself.

— at least he’s certain you’ll take care of yourself back home, since he asked carefully about your health and you reassured him. still a shame, though, that he could never introduce you to his family.

e. felmier

— he gifted you a nicely carved apple, once. epel figured you may like it, at least he hoped you would. he’s long since found you cool, someone he saw as the confident, ever so diligent prefect to be admired. but eight’s a crowd; it’ll always be back to seven in the end. you were as beautiful as the apples he’d carve while you were on his mind during evenings, glistening in the sunset, their shine never dulling as they design came to be the longer epel worked. in a sense you were like that—except you’d built yourself up from the ground, keeping yourself strong to bear through the troubles of your time at night raven. and epel’d been your supporter as long as you’d known and been a friend of him.

— and now you bear the fruits of your success, and he’s thankful that he’d managed to bring himself to a smile at the good news that you’d managed to finally find your way back to your own world, the world you belonged to. not the world you’ve only spent a school year in. he’d never bite into a bitter apple on accident, far too acidic with a metallic aftertaste; but it feels like he did, as he thinks of how many apples will have rotten, that one singular apple you ate right before leaving, that you forgot to throw out and left on your old bedside table.

— allow him to hold onto your hands gently, as he whispers to you that he’d like, if ever even possible, for you to return, maybe one day. he’s barely paying attention to that bitter taste, a dry gulp as he tries not to make his upset audible to you, leaving his tears silent. he lets you dry those tears, not even caring that it should be himself doing it, he’ll let himself be taken care of you again just once. he wonders what the apples of your world taste like. you’ve talked about the differences between your worlds before, and how nice your world seems from what you tell, so vastly different compared to his, and he commends you for your commitment to returning. he’d want to return to his own world under your circumstances, too.

— so he clenches onto the hem of his shirt, feeling as though he might give in to his impulsive thoughts if not, his growing desire to never let you go, run up to you and hug you ever so tightly to spend eternity with you.

s. zigvolt

— you’ve always seemed to find a way to make things refreshing. sebek’s read ever so many books in night raven’s library, it’s one of his more favored hobbies after all. and ever since your friendship grew he always seemed to search for your thoughts and opinions more. he doesn’t truly understand, how a human, a magicless one at that, from another world like you managed to find your way by his side. maybe that’s just because you were doomed to leave it. humans were always trouble, right? to think you’d leave this type of stain on him. no, no—he could never blame you. as it goes, right person, wrong time. . . and place.

— he grew to be fond of your commentary, your view of things. there would always be aspects of the two of you respectively that clashed, and yet even so here you were. actually, he thinks about your informal first meeting. how he rolled his eyes indifferent to your figure, considering you just another clumsy human who he knew would stumble about. sure there may have been times you had two left feet, but you sure proved him wrong didn’t you, hm? the title of the ramshackle prefect becoming renowned, a prefect who could never be replaced or mimicked, not you, never you.

— once upon a time, you invited him over to ramshackle to read a book together, one he’d apparently not yet to have read. the evening was lovelier than he’d yet expected, having fun sharing your thoughts together and making light conversation between pages. the evenings to nights feel so much lonelier without you. in literature, it hangs in the silence of its realm, alone as some think it. he once respected it as a nice metaphor within the books he’s read—yet now he seems to sympathize with the moon, its solitude compared to others which had more moons to surround it.

— maybe some day “once upon a time” will turn into “and they lived happy ever after”, and those words will belong to him. and then, he can share them with you.

[les-gnossiennes-fantomatiques]

An Unorthodox Fic Recommendation

Hey, everyone.

So I’d been wanting to write this post for a while, but I’d had a hard time finding the words to articulate my exact feelings for a good long while now. But in the spirit of the holidays, goodwill towards all, and so on and so forth, I’ve somehow managed to catch my breath.

I dipped pretty suddenly from fandom earlier this year for multiple reasons, most of which fell under the umbrella of a very real and very unfortunate truth: I was sick. Stupid sick. And fandom, while obviously not the only thing contributing to this by a long mile, was not conducive to me getting better.

My drinking, you see, had gotten bad in a way that is honestly humbling to think about now; it was at levels that were both physically and mentally dangerous and unsustainable. Moreover, it was beginning to affect the people I love most in this world. And, unfortunately, pounding back a glass, a bottle, two bottles of wine, hey maybe I can run to the gas station for a few mini bottles of whiskey to end the night went hand-in-hand with writing and my fandom experience in general.

I won’t go into the details of my actual rock bottom, besides that it hit in March of this year and that I’m grateful it was relatively minor compared to many of the stories I’ve heard in my recovery journey. But suffice to say, I checked into rehab and everything had to go on the back burner from that point on. I’m lucky that I had the unwavering love and support of my husband, my family, my work, and my friends (including a bunch of people I’ve met through this fandom specifically--put a pin in that) to start down that path, because all the same, it has often been a very lonely, very dark, and very isolating place to be. But so is addiction.

So here I am, hours and hours of group counseling, enough EMDR therapy to relive every childhood trauma in the book, countless tweakings of my meds, endless bottles of Coke Zero later, and I’m almost ten months sober.

And I find myself asking now what?

One of the biggest challenges in early sobriety, you learn quickly, is redefining fun for yourself in a world without your substance of choice, without the very thing that feeds your ego and silences your self-criticisms, without what feels like the only thing propelling you from one bleak day to the next. And for a long time, I worried that fandom had stopped being fun. That the joy of writing had been permanently ruined by the associations I’d made with drinking and negative related experiences.

But, back to my fandom friends. I worried so much they would lose interest in me as a person--that I’d become too boring or depressing or unfun in this next leg of life to want to stick around. I’ve found the opposite to be true--from the countless yapping sessions up and down 8th Avenue and booze-free hangouts, to the endless DMs of advice and memes, to the long heart-to-hearts over pots of tea, to… watching whatever the fuck is going on in the David Staller version and having a good long laugh. I didn’t expect this coming into 2024--I don’t know what I expected, honestly, besides maybe the hospital and divorce papers and more loneliness--and leaving this year behind me knowing I’ve got that means the world to me.

So all this is to say, one of the other things that helped me pull through this challenging period of life has been, surprisingly enough, fan fiction.

Particularly Battered Dove by BattyDings.

Modern AUs are always really hard to pull off, at least to me, in a way that feels satisfying. (This is why I am a coward and don’t write them lol.) More often than not, there’s a tendency for the story to get caught up in retrofitting the more melodramatic, antiquated elements (I say this with love) into a world where they can’t really exist with a straight face, and often at the cost of the characterizations and plot. The best modern AUs, for me, lean into the framework of what is there thematically: the ideas of loneliness, manipulation, dependency (themselves all negative aspects of addiction) balanced against the possibility of redemption, love, and making amends.

And in Battered Dove, BattyDings has rather brilliantly transposed these things into the context of substance abuse and addiction. If Phantom is a story about two lonely broken people getting caught up in a shared passion that brings out the best and worst in each other (particularly Erik lol), then Battered Dove sees our dynamic duo thrown together by a mutual past in drugs and hopefully redeemed by the music they make together.

It’s often a hard and unflinching read, and one that in other hands could easily come off as crass or edgelord-y. But in Batty’s hands, Battered Dove is a thoughtful, sensitive, tender unraveling of the Erik and Christine dynamic that keeps me coming back: that is, the only way they can “get well” is by going through something that is arguably more painful and terrifying than the present reality they live in: giving up what they think they love most.

I’ve read this story multiple times over the years and was always tremendously moved by the simple but powerful interpretation laid out in this fic; in pre-contemplation, when I’d be crawling into bed drunk every night and wondering if this was how I was going to die, bits and pieces of it would come to me. Me in bed, on the verge of blacking out, thinking about Phantom of the Opera fan fiction, wondering if I could do better (nah, no, I couldn’t. Not me.) Rereading Battered Dove for the first time after starting rehab and getting well into this journey was all the more astounding.

Phantom of the Opera, for me, is not the story of a monster who brutalizes women and we’re somehow supposed to feel bad or glean some larger, cynical message about the world from it; for me, it is a story of bittersweet hope--a slow, sad hope that the ones we love and that the ones we’ve hurt will feel peace and sunshine, without the guaranteed promise or reward we will feel it for ourselves. But that, in our selfless kindnesses born out of real love and care for others, we can at least begin to see a better version of ourselves staring back at us--no matter how broken, how lonely, how downright used and ugly we feel.

To me, that is recovery. That is what the last ten months have been. There is no guarantee who I will be in a year--what wrongs I will right, what truths I will uncover, or even if I'll have managed to maintained my sobriety (though I feel hopeful). I am promised nothing but the day in front of me and the little, powerful joy I get in doing right by the universe with each passing hour.

And Battered Dove captures that perfectly. Can’t recommend that enough.

Thank you for being a friend and source of light through this hard time, @battydings. Pls accept this humble doodle and biggest thank you for writing such a wonderful, heartfelt story.

[snzluv3r]

i feel like the worst person in the world for this thought, but i am SO excited for it to get cold enough for my neighbor’s flowers to die…and i think these self obs from today help me explain exactly why.

cw for descriptions of allergic sneezing + mess

i feel horrible for wishing death on this little old man’s plants, but his garden is full of an entire rainbow of multiple different flowers that have made me sneeze every single day i’ve walked passed them since april.

even on the good days when i manage to hold back an immediate sneezing fit, they still make my eyes water and my nose run, forcing me to try (and fail, almost always fail) to balance sniffling back the mess and trying not to sneeze long enough to make it inside my own place, which is not only a race against the clock but a race against nature itself imo.

i felt especially silly and embarrassing today as i fought against what felt like two different seasons of allergic affliction. it was as if my melodramatic nose couldn’t pick just one allergen to contend with, let alone to publicly humiliate me with—so, even as friday brought with it a merciful conclusion to a long work week of fall allergies, i ended up breathless and sneezy once more, my nose caught off guard after passing by these brightly colored remnants of spring and summer. the comforting, crisp chill and damp smell in the air of the incoming autumn had almost made me forget about the flowers and their threat to my already sensitive nose, until their bright colors caught my eye, in stark contrast with the grey evening sky.

i tried so hard not to inhale until i was past the stretch of flower-garden-allergy-torture, but somehow i forgot that sniffling is a form of inhaling, and the strong, floral scented air managed to hit me even through the double-layered protection of my mask and my existing mild congestion. i don’t think i even got to fully sniffle before my eyes were filling with allergic tears and my breath was hitching, the tickle too deep in my nose to hold back.

like all my allergic sneezes, especially the ones that start when my nose is already drippy and sniffly and dramatically irritated, these were bound to be wet, and there was no time to even pull down my mask, let alone scramble for my travel pack of tissues. in a panic i tried to stifle, which only made everything so much worse and only actually worked for about three poorly stifled sneezes before the first desperate, unrestrained sneeze ripped through me. obviously it didn’t have far to go, given the mask still hugging my face and caging my mouth and nose, but there was no way i was taking off the mask now. the damage was done, and i couldn’t risk the embarrassment of anyone seeing me like this.

not when the more i sneezed, the more mess i could feel run down my chin, completely coating the lower half of my face and inside of my mask. feeling the spray of each sneeze against my mask only made my embarrassment about yet another public sneezing fit worse, my ears and cheeks reddening even more than my nose. i tried stifling again but realized it was pointless, resigning myself to walking as fast as i could while remaining upright as my body snapped forward with harsh, uncontrollable allergic sneezes. my only solace was the slight muffle the (now drenched) mask provided, keeping my head down and towards my chest as i sneezed and shuffled my feet clumsily along the sidewalk. i only ended up having to stop my awkward, sneezy speed-walking once in the remaining two blocks home, for a rogue rapid fit that came so fast, all i could do was stop in my tracks to sneeze over and over again into my mask, my chin tucked into my chest as i instinctively held my elbow up as if to cover the fit despite the mask.

by the time i got into my apartment i had sneezed probably 35 times into my mask and the mess trapped inside was clinging awkwardly to my ever flaring nostrils, making the still unsatisfied itch even more unbearable. it felt almost like purposeful torture, as if the sensation of the mask’s now cool, damp fabric against the existing need to sneeze had become someone who was lightly tickling my nose with a feather, playfully torturing my glistening nostrils as they twitched. my nose was so unbelievably itchy and impossible to ignore in those last few steps to my apartment that i couldn’t help but try to rub my nose against my chest as i fumbled with my keys to unlock the front door. it didn’t even register with me that i was doing it until i had the door open and realized how ineffective of a handsfree nose rubbing method that had been, my desperate attempt at relief only bothering my nose more.

i didn’t even get the door all the way closed behind me before i was sneezing again, my walk up the stairs made difficult by more sudden rapid-fire sneezes, but i was determined to make it all the way home before i lost complete control. even though i was virtually alone, i still had no intention of taking off the mask until i was truly alone and behind a closed, preferably locked door—the thought of anyone seeing how much of a mess i was behind the mask was unbearable, somehow even more embarrassing than all the actual public sneezing itself. it couldn’t have taken me more than seconds to unlock my apartment door, the final destination and end to this nightmare, but it felt agonizingly long as i sneezed in rapid sets of 3s that felt like they echoed up and down the stairs. literally all i could think about was ripping the mask off, finally freeing my nose of the sort of self-inducing allergic torture chamber my mask had become and burying my mouth and nose into about a dozen tissues at once to have the fit of my life (or at least this week 🤣),

i truly applaud this man for not only keeping these flowers alive but THRIVING to the point they’re still pollinating, even as the temperatures drop and leaves fall in the same backyard, but i can’t deny that i daydream about the day i don’t have to try to hold my breath as i walk down that block…

so yeah, i guess in the nicest and gentlest way possible, i can’t wait for this man’s flowers to die (or be moved to some nice imaginary greenhouse in a land far away)

[deluwoo]

★ movies — lee heeseung x f!reader

pairing ▸ lee heeseung x f!reader genre ▸ fluff, slight suggestive(?) warnings ▸ light profanity (word bitching mentioned once), [ lmk if there's any more ! :3 ] wc ▸ 546

yuno's notes ▸ i can finally get more stuff done after exams woohoo !!

the soft sounds of the dialogue and faint light from the television fill the room as your boyfriend's firm arm pulls you in closer, letting out a content sigh and keeping his gaze on the illuminated screen. for the past few hours, you'd been having a cute little at-home movie marathon date with him, cuddled up with the thick blanket draped over you both as you lay in bed together.

currently, you're watching some cliche romcom that heeseung "hated" doing, reasoning that romcoms are boring and corny; he ended up sitting through it and a few more romcoms because, sweetly, he loves you and would sit through anything just to be with you.

although he continued to make snarky remarks at cringy scenes, you found it adorable how he so easily got heated up over a drawn out kiss scene or an unreasonable choice a character makes. he actually seemed to be enjoying himself despite his constant bitching and sarcastic comments; you could even swear you had caught him grinning widely at one of the "cringy" scenes. 

"just kiss already, damn it! they obviously like each other, what are they waiting for?" he exclaims, his eyebrows furrowing in his frustration.

"calm down, babe. we still have half an hour left," he groans and looks down at you with a worn expression, as if begging you to do something to magically make the couple in the film get together faster.

you laugh at how worked up he's gotten again and lean into his chest, going back to watching the movie as he calms down enough to pull you back in and stay quiet, for now.

as yet another melodramatic kiss scene shows on screen, he looks down at you, grumbling and leaning down against you. the space between the two of your faces is almost nonexistent.

"mm, baby, these movies are so cheesy and overdramatic.. we should show them how it's really done," he suggests in a hushed voice, closing the gap and connecting your lips with his in a soft but lasting kiss. 

it was nothing too intense, but the way he ever so gently caressed the side of your face and his soft lips on yours kept it lingering and made you long for more even after your lips parted from each other.

everything else became background noise and your surroundings faded to black; it felt like you two were the only two people in the universe at this moment and you could almost hear a romantic song in the background. it felt like a movie, except it was so much better because it was you and your lover. your lover who you treasured and adored more than anything in the world.

"my precious girl," he mumbles at a volume only for you to hear. he tucks a strand of hair straying away behind your ear and smiles at you lovingly with a look of genuine affection and endearment. “i love you so much, you know that, right?”

he never failed to bring a stupid smile on your face and turn your cheeks red in the blink of an eye. you look at him fondly and plant another enduring kiss on his lips, forgetting about the movie altogether. 

screw the movie; this was much better.

reblog for + 0.0000000001% to date heeseung <33 ©yuno © DELUWOO – 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞.

[tritoch]

wild to me to see posts like "wow everything in the tempest is named after shakespeare...emet you melodramatic bitch you sure loved theater". because the prospero-emet thing gets played up so hard in the english script and you can carry it so far!

like prospero is an asshole magician who, after being deposed by his brother as duke of milan, settles himself and his daughter on a remote island, enslaves the local spirits using his magic, and bitterly plots to reclaim his past glories. he rules through violence and deceit, and only survives and is reconciled when his plots reach their fruition and his brother is taken to his remote island and plots ensue and everyone decides he was totally right all along and they were huge dicks to him and they're sooooo sorry and he gets to go back and be duke again wow! and it's okay because he's like "i was only doing mean magic to get my rightful spot back and now i'm giving it up because magic is evil. :)"

the tempest is what emet wants his life to be. prospero is not a villain in the text of the tempest. he is barely treated as antagonistic by the text and framing of the play itself. all his abuses, his neglect and control of his daughter, his enslavement of caliban and ariel (local spirits/monsters/people of the island), his deception and plots against his brother, his abuse of magical powers (not awesome, from the pov of the contemporary audience), all that ultimately gets swept aside in the rightness of his return to milan and the warm feeling of the world being set to rights. prospero can't undo the years he spent on the island but they are ultimately a blip in his life before he returns to the rightful state of affairs. his abuse and enslavement of caliban, easily the worst thing he does in the play, is totally set aside when caliban goes "wow now i see how truly benevolent my master is. i love him and see the ways of christian good and i'm so, so appreciative he chose not to kill or beat me even though he totally could have and would have been in the right. he's so just and intelligent." everyone loves and forgives him and they all agree both his management of the island and his ultimate return are so good and so wise and so right.

emet comparing himself to the tempest (or being compared to it, depending on how you want to read the diegetic status of the place names) is absolute wishcasting. it is an attempt to manifest the happy ending he will never, ever get because his sins cannot and would not be forgiven in the way he wants. he wants to imagine himself as the righteous returned duke whose crimes, including the enslavement, abuse, and exploitation of those he saw as his rightful inferiors, were totally worth it, i promise. and if emet is prospero, the warrior of light is his caliban.

[im-not-corrupted]

Very well! XD Since four has been done how about...12

Now, that I can do!

----

Waking up to his lover's face is something Hob Gadling wouldn't trade the world for, truly.

It's mid-afternoon when he does. The afternoon sun bathes the room in gold through a sliver in the curtains. He hadn't closed them properly the night before, but they were...otherwise occupied, in his defence. And his lover, Morpheus, still sleeps soundly beside him.

He's cute while he sleeps. He'd deny any comment about being cute instantly, of course—he prefers Hob to call him pretty or gorgeous, and Hob is more than happy to pile those compliments high. They are true, after all, and he believes his lover should know just how highly Hob thinks of him, even after twenty years of being in a relationship, and six hundred odd years of acquaintanceship before that.

The compliments never get old, not really. Morpheus preens every time Hob says something and feeds his still-intact arrogance and pride—he never really needed to be Endless for either of those things, not really. Hob loves that about him. Loves the slightly arrogant tilt to his chin, how regally he holds himself even if there isn't a crown upon his head anymore. (If he's telling the truth, he loves everything about Morpheus. There's not a single thing about him that Hob dislikes. They've had their moments, of course. Their frustrations. But they work through it, always, even when Morpheus is half convinced their spats are the end of the world, melodramatic bastard that he is. (Hob loves that, too.))

Cute, though, is the one that pops into his mind now as he gazes at his dozing lover. His hair is a worse mess than usual, a proper bird's nest, haloing his head where it rests on his pillow. He looks relaxed, in a way he rarely ever does during his waking hours. Even without the burden of Endlessness upon his shoulders, there is still a lot in his head.

It is easier now. He has had twenty years of being human to adjust to all of its messiness. Morpheus has told him, in the quiet of night—A time of confession, he'd mused at one point, and Hob does agree that there's something about the darkness of night time that makes being seen a little bit easier—that he aches less, these days. It is still there, and he has episodes where it aches so much more than usual, but they are easier to deal with.

Hob is glad for that. Glad his lover didn't take the easier way out. He thinks about it, sometimes, about how close he came to losing him—the thought catches him in its grasp, sometimes. Brings tears to his eyes. He does not like to imagine a world without his dearest friend.

He is glad that he never had to face that, not really. Instead, he gets this—soft, golden-lit mornings on Valentine's day, in which his lover continues to sleep and Hob gets to bask in the glory of having a love like this.

He does have plans for today, and he already woke up later than he would've liked. It is that thought that leads him to brush his lips against Morpheus's cheekbone in a gentle kiss, murmuring his name softly.

His lover doesn't sleep all that deeply. He dreams sometimes. There used to be nightmares, earlier on, that woke him in the middle of the night. He still has them sometimes, but they are rare. Occasional.

It's easy to wake him. He only needs to say his lover's name a little bit louder than he did the first time before Morpheus begins to stir slightly, and Hob smiles down at him with a soft, "Good morning, love."

Morpheus blinks up at him blearily. It takes him a moment to catch his bearings, but when he does, a smile splits across his face. It's soft, loving, and Hob loves the sight like he loves that of the rising sun at dawn. "Hello, lover," he murmurs, his voice raspy, still clinging onto sleep with some degree of determination. And then he blinks, seeming to recall something, before he moves to cup Hob's face with the palm of his hand. The band of his wedding wing is cold against Hob's skin. "And. Happy Valentine's Day, if I recall correctly."

"You do," Hob replies. He turns his head slightly, presses a kiss to the inside of Morpheus's wrist. "Happy Valentine's Day to you too, my love."

Immortality is great, truly.

Hob has never regretted a moment of it, not really. There have been moments, of course—the 1600s weren't great for him, and immortality didn't quite seem worth it when he spent practically every day for eighty years tired, hungry and so terribly cold. It never got bad enough for him to consider giving up—Hob didn't know what would be bad enough to make him consider that, not really—but despair was a familiar companion those years, and it was hard to find a reason to continue waking up every morning.

It got easier, just as it always does. If immortality taught Hob Gadling one thing, it would be this: there is very little in this world that lasts forever, and bad times aren't on that list. There is too much time for everything to remain the same in a world that is ever-changing, and no amount of bad times will make that any different.

Still, there are some downfalls to immortality. These downfalls will never be enough to make him ask for death. If he can live through the 1600s and come out of that with hope, then he knows he will only ever want to live.

One of those downfalls is the lack of constancy. Hob Gadling is immortal, but the rest of the world around him...is not. The rest of the world around him has a life span that lasts however many decades, and at the end of that, Hob still lives.

He does not regret that he does, but God's wounds, it does hurt. It is terribly lonely, sometimes, to be the only person left after everything. Friendships, relationships—they can't last, and it aches.

There is one constancy, though. Morpheus. He has been there since 1389. In the grand scheme of things, that is practically the beginning of his rather long life, and though they only saw each other once every hundred years, it was enough. More than enough, really.

He could never get tired of this. Of loving Morpheus, of getting to be with him. Even after celebrating so many Valentine's days with this man, he thinks he still wouldn't get tired of it.

"I assume you have plans for today, my love," Morpheus prompts.

"Mhm, I do." Despite his words, though, he allows himself to lay back down next to his lover, to pull him close. "But we can lay here a little longer. I'd like to hold you for a bit."

His lover nuzzles closer, letting out a soft, pleased noise. "I wouldn't dare complain about that," he agrees.

Hob places a gentle kiss upon his forehead. Yes, he will never tire of this, no matter how many times they get to do this during their immortal lives.

[alexhatessupermarketcola]

My Alex Rider related playlists

ft. some highlight songs from each to somewhat demonstrate the vibe that totally weren't very hard to pick lol

Alex Rider | Scorpia

My only one carefully curated in order - follows the plot of Scorpia loosely from the perspective of Alex - book and show inspired. Angsty and melodramatic

Ft. Death of an Optimist by grandson, Nothing and Everything by Red, The Kill by Thirty Seconds To Mars

Devil: Yassen and Alex

Inspired by The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea by pongnosis. Alex and Yassen centric. Pretty angsty too ft. some badassery

Ft. Exit Music (For A Film) by Radiohead, Dance With The Devil by Breaking Benjamin, Kill or Be Killed by Muse

never too young to die | Alex Rider

My general Alex Rider playlist based around Alex - ft. badass, angst, fun, some show songs and just anything that I think fits tbh

Ft. All These Things I've Done by The Killers, Alive or Only Burning by Blind Channel, Young And Menace by Fall Out Boy

Yasha

My Yassen playlist - focused a lot on his past and arc. Angst and such things with a bit of badassery

Ft. What Happened To You by Black Honey, And The World Was Gone by Snow Ghosts, Love and a Smoking Gun by Des Rocs

Yassen | Two Sides of the Same Coin | Alex

Brand new, as in picking highlight songs for this made me cave 😆 Songs that fit both Yassen and Alex and their canon arcs. There's angst, of course.

Ft. Used To The Darkness by Des Rocs, Beautiful Crime by Tamer

Y+J

My Yassen and John playlist. Anything that I feel fits their unusual dynamic. From Yassen's perspective generally. Yay more angst 😆

Ft. Skeleton Key by Flower Face, Affection by Amber Run, Panic Attack by Halsey (show special for baby!Yassen lol)

Tom and Alex

My tomlex playlist. Equal parts fluff and angst. The playlists are getting shorter now.

Ft. OK by Black Honey, If You Wanna by The Vaccines, Cut the Cord by Black Honey

John Rider, Hunter

Possibly joint shortest. I started this because of two songs I heard. May grow one day.

Ft. Bambi by Tokyo Police Club, Portrait I by The Howl & The Hum

Kyralex

Fluff and angst. Songs that fit them. I never used to ship but after s3 they grew on me, evidenced by this playlist 🥺

Ft. Red Brake Lights by SAINT PHNX, Ride by Amber Run

Kyra Vaschenko-Chao

Possibly the shortest. Need to spend some time on this one because there's a lot I could probably add. Started with two Marina songs that were contenders for a Kyra fanvid I did back in 2020. It's pretty s1 rn.

Ft. Rootless by MARINA, What You Want by Evanescence

laukyra

A relic from 2020 - a Kyra and Laura ship playlist. I wrote a oneshot about them too. This one's actually long but niche so it got demoted down here. Probably best summarised as gay songs and Kyra angst - note to self: add Good Luck Babe 😆

Ft. Darling by Skott, Angela by Flower Face

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0VYfa4E2DF35MRCfsSGshJ?si=BXrsX7F6QzKFtoKgFQjLQQ&pi=3xbJChkiSh-wE

(ran out of proper links because I accidentally made an 11th playlist whilst making this list oops) (so hopefully that laukyra one can be copy pasted lol)

Okay, phew, the end. Please rec any good AR playlists you know/made!!

[wordsandrobots]

So I've never seen anyone badmouth Gaelio as often as you, besides the ones that rightfully complain that he shouldn't have come back. Not that I wholly disagree, but what are your reasons?

Oh, anon. No, no, no. No, you have to understand, I *adore* Gaelio. He's perfect, vengeance arc and all. He is my absolute favourite chew toy. I wouldn't have spent so long writing fanfic focused on what happens to him, mentally speaking, post-canon if I didn't love the obnoxious lavender-tousled prick to death.

Gaelio Bauduin is a man fucked over by his social position, a sweet kid scarred by having been born into an aristocracy, who nevertheless retains enough of a moral compass to change for the better. He learns. He grows. He cares for those closest to him with an earnestness that belies his snobbish, flippant attitude. He genuinely, uncomplicatedly commits to justice and loyalty in ways his upbringing ought by rights to have beaten out of him.

He is additionally the single biggest reason the story ends as badly as it does, on account of being the most hideously self-absorbed dipstick on the face of the solar system.

(Second most hideously self-absorbed, we do have to factor in Iok.)

In another story, Gaelio's gradual dawning realisation that the attitudes he was taught are bullshit would be a process of redemption. His experiences with Ein, his compassion towards Carta, his vitriolic semi-mentor/semi-friend relationship with Julieta, his apology to Mikazuki -- these are the markers of someone learning to be a better person. In another story, he'd be learning to be a hero.

But in this story, his slow personal journey isn't what's important. What matters is how it interacts with a world too cynical to run on heroic narratives. Elion uses him as a political wedge. Tekkadan do not give a rat's arse about what he thinks. McGillis allows no room for an epiphany concerning their friendship until it is far, far too late. In imagining the scales had fallen from his eyes, he railroaded himself into the biggest screw-up of his life.

It's not completely his fault. As I said, he's used and rejected by others, and McGillis did have a damn good go at murdering him. But if he had been slightly more open-minded, slightly more willing to put his money where his mouth was when it came to his disapproval of Gjallarhorn's actions, and slightly less prone to making everything about his feelings -- well maybe he wouldn't have ended a broken, wistful shell of his former self, voluntarily disabling himself and regretting everything he didn't understand.

It's *beautiful*. Seriously. The tenor of your question leads me to believe I should restate my opinion that Iron-Blooded Orphans is a near-perfectly executed tragedy. When I say Gaelio is 'Always Wrong (TM)', I mean that is the part he plays in the tale. The man who makes every possible mistake he could in the course of getting exactly what he thought he wanted. It's a narrative role and he is a fantastic way of filling it because unlike Iok (who exists entirely as a hate-sink), Gaelio *does* have redeeming characteristics. He's loyal and principled. Passionate and determined. Able to adjust his world-view based on his experiences. Ultimately capable of swallowing his pride and admitting he was wrong.

And it doesn't matter one single jot. Things still end in flames, not just in spite of his attempts to do right by those he accidentally doomed but because of those actions.

Also he's a melodramatic brat who canonically used to flirt using Norse mythology, repeatedly injured people on his own side by mistake, got his arse handed to him by children (again, repeatedly), adopted the most on-theme moniker he could while wearing a doofy mask for months on end, and spent Season 1 with a crush on the world's least-hinged cop-brained class-traitor. I denigrate his character in precise proportion to which it is presented as lamentable.

Anyway, to lay off the verbosity for a minute, please also understand that if my opinion on a character is negative in the sense of 'I think the writers fucked this up', I'm unlikely to spend much time creatively cussing them out. For instance, to pick another Gundam example, I don't enjoy Shinn from SEED:Destiny. I get what the writing is going for with him and I think it's a neat plot concept, but I find the actual result grating. It's the same for a lot of the cast. Overall, I just don't rate that show very highly. So I don't talk about it, and I don't expend effort to dig into narrative roles, how characters come across, what that means for other parts of the story, etc. To put it bluntly, it's not worth my time, especially when there are people who *do* like SEED and don't need me raining on their parade.

But I enjoy watching Gaelio and that's exactly why I bad-mouth him. It's more than a passing joke; it's part and parcel of what I love about how Gaelio is implemented, that he's that much of an aristocratic nitwit, and that even when he's making moves towards the broadly 'good' end of the moral spectrum, he's still got a deeply hierarchical attitude. This is a man who, in the middle of quite understandably wanting to get back at somebody who tried to assassinate him, reflects on enjoying being in the heat of battle again after having just beaten-up/killed a bunch of workers trying to break free of colonial rule. There is a *lot* you can dig into about what (and who) Gaelio sees as important and how his attitudes are a perpetual work-in-progress, constrained both by his assumptions and by the alliances he has to make in order to pursue his revenge.

It's well executed, as I said, and I happen to find it extremely compelling. Certainly more so than if he hadn't been resurrected because the show-runners liked his voice actor's performance.

[a-world-with0ut-dr34ms]

Ghost x City Girl Reader

You expected Ghost to leave you before the morning; he usually does. However, you're surprised to see him rush to your aid after being woken up by violent night terrors. A sweet and unexpected moment between you, that only ends as quickly as it began.

Tags: Romance, Drama, slight Hurt/Comfort, slight Angst, Intimacy, Fluff that turns sour, Mask-Kissing, Arguing, Swearing, Enemies to Lovers, FWB, Jealousy, Toxic Relationships, "Couples", Arguing, Swearing, A Little Melodramatic, I'm aiming for something more real though, Reader is somewhat bratty and immature, Ghost is bad at communicating his feelings, Damaged people not knowing how to talk to each other and let their walls down, reader has night terrors, I wanted representation!

WC: 4.5k~

Author's Note: I'm back from Vegas! I was on a drunken bender on Fremont St. partying with my brother for his birthday this week (I talked to a lot of interesting people too 😏). This chapter might be a little different, I don't know? I'm not gonna lie, after this chapter, the tone is about to take a shift. Please enjoy~

Also, thank you so much @argella1300 for helping me out when I asked. Your insight was greatly appreciated and it really meant a lot! 💞

Masterlist

It came in the dim shade of dusk, tucked in by shadows of your hall -- the abnormally tall silhouette of a man. Stalking you. Haunting you.

He looms at the brink of your hallway, expressionless, unmoving, and yet somehow inching forward all at once. With each step he closes between you and himself, an encroaching darkness fills the room behind him within the blink of an eye.

Who was he? It's a question you've had since adolescence. The answers never felt as true as his unsettling existence.

The world around you is silent, fogged as though you were being held underwater, your mind racing at an incoherent speed. The only sounds you hear are that of your own screaming. You knew what was happening; your body and mind had just been unable to control it.

Night terrors.

You've never told anyone about them before; you've never felt any need to. It's not exactly a hot topic of discussion, nor something you could even put forth any real value into if asked; you can't explain something you don't understand.

They haven't been anything beyond a waking three-minute inconvenience. An on-and-off occurrence throughout your life. But once it happens, there'd be no avoiding it.

They send your body into a mindless, cold panic, the only emotion coursing through your veins being the unknown fear that first woke you. Your arms thrash frantically as you scream, your body feeling as though it were being grabbed by a million hands...

Don't touch me, your mind cries out. Don't touch me. Don't touch me...

...Until you've felt the one, very real hand touch your shoulder, taking with it the darkness you'd thought had all but swallowed you whole and replacing it with the waking world around you.

The morning returns, as do the rest of its unpleasant realities.

"Hey." That deep and raspy Manchester voice is the first sound you finally register, and for once in your life, it couldn't have sounded any sweeter. "Hey," Ghost says again, placing both hands gently over your shoulders to wake you. "Everything's OK. You're in your living room."

Your chest heaves shallow breaths when sitting up on your couch, taking in your surroundings. That's right, you're still in your living room. You'd almost forgotten you'd passed out on your couch last night, now catching the breaking dawn which pooled through your windows.

It always takes you a moment to regather yourself after it happens, having to make sense of what had been real versus some strange in-between with you and your REM state. In those moments, everything felt real, and fake all at once.

Even the shattering and reforming of reality around you could not take your mind from Ghost's hand, which remained wrapped protectively over your arm, fingers trembling with the hesitancy of his own actions.

"Are you alright?" His dark eyes look your face up and down, taking in every twinge your lips made and how your eyes seemed to look in every direction but his own, still glossed over and dazed from sleep. "You just started screamin' out of nowhere."

Once his words run through your head a few more times, you realize that you'd made a scene right in front of the one person you hadn't wanted to know this about you, a new detail he no doubt did not expect from you at all.

Ghost has known you to be many things -- seductive, witty, cold, distant, and near every other synonym in between. He's heard your voice moan in pleasure more times enough to recognize it within a crowd; he's heard you hurl enough insults his way to send even the hardest of soldiers home crying and insecure.

Never has he heard you scream like this before, with such fear and strife. In fact, he can't think of a single time you've ever been so frightened around him. To see a glimpse of that had been more unsettling than he wished to let on.

He'd only woken up a few minutes shy of you, having slipped away to fix himself up and reset his balaclava. His lips had still felt stained by your kiss from last night, the skin on his face tingling off the memory of your touch alone.

Nearly two months he's spent with you in this odd, little fling and he's never actually kissed you like he had last night before. Never for so long. Never so deeply. He wouldn't allowed himself to. Kissing just for the sake of it always felt like a step beyond casual, as much as he often craved your lips on his most exhausting days.

Ghost must have stared at himself in the mirror longer than he should have, just chasing that feeling again, making himself sick with it. He debated on leaving before you woke, though he'd keep that to himself, having heard your screaming once he'd rounded the corner. In which case, Ghost ran to your aid without question.

His first thought had been that you were in danger; perhaps someone had broken in, or worse, you'd been hurt. You might get on the man's nerves, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't care about your well-being at least somewhat. He never wished any harm to you, and he damn sure wouldn't let anything happen to you if he can help it.

The archway between your hall and you had felt as foreign and distant as space itself, however. When Ghost found you on your couch, your arms writhing, and wide eyes locked on him with confusion and terror, he had frozen in place.

For a split second, he thought that fear had been caused by the sheer sight of him. And then, the strangest thing had happened -- it tore him to pieces being given a glimpse of a reality he didn't know he feared most of all. One where the sight of him brought you complete anguish.

Your screaming didn't stop when he approached you, nor had it stopped when he knelt beside you, saying your name and asking what was wrong, only falling on deaf ears.

Nothing had stopped your screaming, nor these emotions that ripped at him, until his hand had touched your shoulder, and you both felt the sensation of one another.

Your features calmed, your gaze softening at the sight of him, now having been pulled from that sudden trance. In a matter of seconds, you'd just barely managed to get your breathing to a more manageable pace, your heart not drumming so loudly in your ears. You played his words in your head, again and again, until you've slowly regained composure. Everything's fine. Everything's fine.

Had you noticed he had this effect on you? Ghost imagines you'll only carry on as though it were just another thing; the kindest of gestures are often the hardest to notice in the moment, and you never did like to dwell. It only took years' worth of tragedies for Ghost to be able to recognize them himself. Though every now and then, it isn't something he can catch either. He only wishes this hadn't been one of those times.

Embarrassment and shame flood within you like a crashing wave, though you mask it in an annoyed groan, turning your body away from Ghost in hopes he'd take the hint and give you some space. You always hated when this happened around others, most of all around the men you slept with. Slowly, you prepared yourself for your usual dose of reactions.

"I'm fine," you say. "I just... I'm fine." You rub your hands over your face in defeat, before sinking your head into them with a low groan.

There had been reasons you didn't sleep over or have others do the same often, this being one of them. You didn't need to have another guy slowly ghost you because you scared him awake at 2am in a frantic panic; the best way to avoid it would be to not put yourself in the situation at all, right?

But what happened last night hadn't been like any of your normal nights with Ghost. Last night had been something... not quite the same. There had to be some reason you haven't sent him home yet otherwise. You wondered if it had been the same reason why he hadn't gone home yet either.

"Fuckin' hell," Ghost sighs. "You might've woken the neighbors with that one."

"It's nothin' they're not used to," you say casually, though the second you do, you wish you hadn't been so cavalier about it. You hadn't meant to invite him into your world like this.

However, no one had been more understanding of these sorts of troubles than he; Ghost knew what a pain it could be feeling as though you needed to explain emotions you had no control over. So he wouldn't ask you what that was about, or why you think it may have happened. He didn't need to know anything beyond the fact that you were OK.

"Well," Ghost sits down beside you on the couch with a dramatic "oomph", huffing to himself with a certain contentment to it. "I've been there."

"I'm sure you have," you groan. You couldn't help being sly with him, even now. It came out of you impulsively, knowing he'd always reward you with some form of attention you both could get something out of. Something you both let sit at the back of your minds all day.

You stretch your arms over your head feline-like, your body now finally feeling as though you'd slept in your living room instead of your bed. Your shoulder ached dully, your back already popping at each stretch you made with your body. The wonderful joys of aging.

"That's one way to get the blood pumpin' in the mornin', yeah?" Ghost jokes, he always did feel a little humor could lighten any mood. "You never scream like that with me."

"Perhaps you should do a better job then," you tease.

"Don’t tempt me, love."

Love. He doesn't call you that often. Only in your most intimate of moments. You hadn't felt your face smiling, but you knew you were.

You looked so innocently up at him after without even thinking. "Tempt you, Manchester?" You give the man a rather tired but still lurid look, bumping his shoulder playfully with your own. "Perish the thought," you say. "As if it's that hard to do."

"Oh, fuck off." Ghost sighs, and you can practically feel the man smiling beneath his mask. A smile that felt as warm as a heater come after a snowstorm.

Wind chimes clung lightly outside your window, the finches gathered at your bird feeder chirping blissfully. You both laugh lightly to yourselves, your arms faintly brushing at every small exhale from your noses. And you both sat there even after the laughter, simply looking off ahead of yourselves, with eyes still heavy from waking.

It had felt suddenly a tremendous task to look over at Ghost. Once you've worked up the courage, you catch him gazing out your window aimlessly, peacefully, his body settled into your couch as though he'd been with you the day you bought the thing.

And then he looks down at you. Maybe he felt you staring, but you never noticed how brown his eyes are, or how deep they could look in a dimly lit room. Similarly, he's never noticed how animated your own eyes are, always moving and observing some small, unknown detail. It made his skin crawl delightfully. Ghost would have thought that feeling to be a bad thing, and yet it had been quite the opposite.

Why don't we ever do this? You asked him that last night, and though he'd answered you, it hadn't been the entire truth.

A sudden burst of energy springs from you, pulling you from your seat and inviting yourself onto Ghost's lap, who leans back and lets you do so without question. Your legs settle over his boulderous thighs, humming lightly as he rests his hands back against your hips, sighing pleasantly to himself and looking back up at you.

Ghost did his best not to squirm around too much with you on top of him. It hadn't been the worst thing you two have done together. However, it wasn't common for things to feel so... easy. He could stay like this all morning if you let him.

Something tells him you felt the same way; you don't usually take this long to start getting to the point of things physically.

"What is it?" he asks.

"I'm surprised you're still here."

You watch your comment bring him to a short pause and find yourself now at the edge of your seat, arms resting gently over his shoulders and not being used to this sudden anticipation towards his answer.

Ghost had thought about being completely honest with you, admitting that he'd been equally surprised. That's when he woke up and saw you still sleeping on the couch next to him, it had been the hardest thing to even excuse himself to the restroom.

Your arms had been entangled around him, cuddled against his large shoulder like a giant pillow. You slept soundly beside him, peacefully, having felt so at ease with letting your guard down, all things considered. An innocent sight too far and few between bitter exchanges.

He's never slept over after before, nor has he ever held you in his arms like this. Yet, it had felt like the most sensible thing to do now, something as natural as breathing or blinking.

He found himself just watching you sleep for a while, still. In the early morning light that crept through your living room window, he sees all these details to you he's never had the chance to; you are beautiful. Truly. And he hadn't meant it in ways that were superficial or lustful. Genuinely, he really did find you a stunning woman. He's always found you so, even behind the toxicity.

Seeing you next to him had made him happy, and all at once, it hurt him the same, knowing this time would always be finite. You'd bore of him soon enough, only to call him later as another passing thought. Maybe one of these days, he'll gather the strength to stop answering.

Even now, with you over him like this, it's odd. He doesn't want to get up, and yet he does. He wants to pull you in closer, and he wants to leave. He can feel himself breathing, yet the sight and touch of you made the air catch in his lungs each time he went to inhale.

Maybe he could just blame that on the smoking.

"Good thing I was 'ere, yeah?" he finally quips.

"Right," you lean forward, letting your nose brush the tip of his just faintly enough for him to long for its sensation beneath his mask. You watch the blond of his lashes flutter innocently, with eyes wrapped up in you even more than they had been last night. "My knight in shining armor. You won't hear me complaining."

"That's a first," he teases.

"Fuck you."

Your kiss is what truly wakes him that morning, your lips sculpting the shape of his mouth through his mask and gently planting slow, light pecks. His arms hug around you warmly, with strong fingers gently grazing their way up your back. He always did like these rare occasions where you'd treat him softly; he liked to think it had been a side of you that only he had seen. Even as he knew it wasn't true.

You continue to kiss him for a little while, the man's hands only remaining comfortably at your back to keep you over him. Ghost wasn't sure how much more he could take of you wiggling about on his lap before he gave you what you were clearly looking for. But it wasn't until you started reaching for his mask that he felt a sudden bolt of lightning strike him.

Both his hands shoot up to grab yours, large fingers hooping across your wrist like cuffs, keeping you just out of reach from the brim of his mask. His sudden hesitancy makes you smirk, and already does he know that you're about to push his buttons.

"Aw," you tease, purposefully rocking your hips into him. It makes you giggle when he huffs to himself. "Feeling shy?"

"Not shy," Ghost says. "Just..." Vulnerable. Anxious. Wary. Careful. "...You know how it is."

"Aww," you start to pout mockingly. "Is that honor only reserved for the special girls in your circle?" you ask. "Or just the ones you don't fuck?"

"For the ones actually interested in sticking around," he says. "Instead of just being some fling."

You can't help but scoff, and Ghost can't help but tense up afterward, already preparing himself for an outburst. You certainly were good for them, and Ghost hadn't wanted to kid himself here either; this would all end soon enough.

It wouldn't be long now... and he knows he should pull away before that day comes. He's lost enough people in his life to recognize not to get close to something that won't last long enough to really matter. So he won't hold back his words with you. You can't have your cake and eat it too, he thought.

But some small, sad part of himself wanted you to fight his words, however harsh that storm would be, just like you always do.

Your shoulders slouch and your eyes drift off somewhere into the room. You couldn't make it more obvious that what he said had stung, in ways you hadn't even known you'd been capable of feeling towards him.

A fling. A piece of meat. That's how you liked to present yourself -- it's how you've viewed others too -- most of the time. So you can't get mad if that's how he sees it.

Yet every time that truth is brought to attention, it can't help but make your gut twist up in knots. As if some delusional part of you felt you could continue to sleep with Ghost and see other men as well without him caring.

You've been in a losing battle with Ghost since you first slept together. You knew on that night that any real formalities between you two were forever gone; you'd already spoiled so many of the first joys of being with someone, and it often left this feeling of things being too late to change. What you have now will probably always be what it is. So why can't you enjoy it for that while you still can? Why must he complicate things?

"I just wanted to kiss you," you admit.

It's the honest truth. You dreamed about his lips; his kiss had felt that good. You never expected him to have left such an effect on you, yet you've woken up, and the want to taste him has not subsided.

Ghost takes his eyes from you, dark orbs lowering to your lips as though to telepathically share the same thoughts as you.

"I..."

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!

Your eyes turn to the thunderous rumbling of your cell phone against your hardwood coffee table. A phone call.

Ghost looked back at you, expecting you to sit up and answer it. You merely turn back to him, letting it buzz until the call finally drops. You could always call them back.

As you've opened your mouth to speak, however, the phone begins to buzz again. Another phone call. It's this time that you've decided to sit up and see who it is; you freeze once you read the caller ID. Shit!

"Who is it?" Ghost regrets asking the second his voice lets the words rumble out.

"It's uh..." You stumble on your words, purposefully being coy, knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

"Your boyfriend?" Ghost answers for you, and your silence after speaks volumes.

Your boyfriend. Mr. Sweet and Super Understanding himself. This supposed "doomed" second relationship that has been nothing but highs since you've known him, if anything you told Ghost last night had been true. It figures he would call you so early this morning, you two had seemed close after all.

And like the strike of a match, his entire demeanor runs from cold to ticked off. Ghost can do nothing more than laugh to himself, shaking his head as though you'd just pulled the rug from underneath him and blown the ceiling off the roof of your prior delusions.

After all, you got exactly what you wanted here from him. He fixed your car, fucked you after, and now you get to send him on his merry way while you spend some real time with someone else.

Grumbling to himself, almost without him even knowing, he mutters, "I don't know what else I fucking expected-"

"He's not-" You struggle to find the right words to say, feeling as though every sentence spoken made a true difference between Ghost walking out of your life for good or not. The thought made you start to panic all of a sudden. "I'm not with him like that. You know this already."

You're right; he does know this. You haven't lied about a single thing since he drove over to jump your car. "Besides," you start to argue. "Why does it matter anyway? Why do you care? It's not like you want to be with me. You won't even let me look at you! You've said it yourself; I'm just some "slag" you sometimes like to fuck. Why the fuck do you care if I'm seeing someone who doesn't think that way about me?"

Because he hadn't felt that way about you. Not anymore. Not ever.

Never has he met a woman able to push his buttons so effectively, in ways all too familiar to his childhood. But at the same time, this woman, this human who unknowingly held so much power over him without even being aware, you equally found the littlest of ways to creep into his mind and bring him a bittersweet peace he had not felt since his youth.

But if he said that to you would you listen? Would you even understand? You've never been a woman to be tied down. He's known this. Who was he to think he'd be the difference when what you say is true. He has not been kind to you, not until it was too late, and now you've one foot out. How could he blame you for that?

And yet Ghost stands up, a bubble now having been burst. "As though you're so innocent," his voice raises, emotions finally starting to tip. He matches your hostile energy, his dark eyes glaring down at you, a mirror of wounded gazes. "How many times have I been here for you, only for you to cast me aside like an old toy you can just play with when you're bored? All I've ever been to you is an easy out; you've never cared what I've thought-"

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!

Ghost's eyes shoot down to your phone ringing in your hand, and you swear you've never seen him more upset.

A passing fear of him stepping over and snatching your phone from your hand passes over you, and your entire body language subliminally shifts in response. You instinctively take a step back from him, lightly turning your body to keep your phone from his reach. You'll be damned if he thinks he can try that.

He notices this small action, and a part of himself felt akin to his father, recognizing that fear in your eyes from his mother, even as you hide it behind a biting glare. That feeling alone could have done him in for good.

Though Ghost wanted nothing more than to answer that call and tell that other man to fuck off already, he had more self-composure and respect than that, along with his own moral obligations.

Still, it didn't take long for the conversation to take a turn, and from that point, it had been as though everything this morning had been but a slow build-up to an inevitable argument between you two. It always did come naturally.

It started out antagonistic from the jump. You questioned and belittled his sudden emotional flare-up, criticizing every one of his reactions and ignoring the obvious signs that you really needed to back off and just let him go. Or it would be better to say you didn't care for it.

To be frank, you didn't understand his frustrations. If other men had been such a problem, why does he keep coming back? What is it that he keeps seeking here?

Ghost hadn't been interested in spending his whole morning arguing with you, and physically feeling a grave be dug for the remains of your tarnished relationship. He moves around you and begins gathering his things, needing the air now more than ever.

"Hold up-" you approach him, throwing any caution or personal space out the window, as you've stopped a few steps shy of him. "Where are you going?"

"Back home." Ghost starts to put his boots on, the frustration he controlled in his voice being taken out by the aggression he used to tie his laces. "It's time I've made myself scarce."

"You're just gonna run off now? Just like that? I didn't take you for such a pussy, Manchester-"

"Don't push me, Spice," Ghost warns you. "I mean it."

"Or what? You'll leave?" you taunt. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want to."

"And that's the problem," Ghost says, standing up on his two feet and towering over you. "All you ever do is what you want. You never care how your actions affect others or what someone might think of them."

"What do you want from me, Simon?" You finally ask him, voice starting to rise, your chest puffing up aggressively. You'd curse him for getting you so emotionally riled up this morning.

What do you want from me? What do you want? A simple question that had been impossible to answer, because answering it would mean being honest with himself about what's happened with him here. It would mean being vulnerable.

"Stop calling me," Ghost says. "Stop seeing me. Stop being with me. We should never have done this in the first fucking place... This has to stop."

No longer did he wish to feel this way, to feel as though the worst parts of himself came at a constant full display with you. No longer did he want to feel himself slowly start to care for you, knowing that at any moment you could be gone. He's not sure he could handle something like that again.

Your mouth opens, and then it closes, and then you frown. Ghost thought you wouldn't say anything to him. He thought you might even cry. But no, you never were one to just leave things at that. You always had to say the last thing in an argument, and you never minced words.

"Then fucking go already," you say. "Get out. You won't have to worry about me calling you ever again."

Ghost didn't say anything after that, though he had looked at you for a little while longer. If you hadn't known him as well as you think you did, you'd say his brown eyes looked rather sad.

He moves away from you, making his way to your front door and unlocking it. He makes sure not to look back as you see him out. The man wouldn't be able to stomach the sight.

He remained on the other side of the door after you'd slammed it, feeling the wind hit his back and the sharp silence that it brought with it. Ghost then cocks his head back and closes his eyes, sighing in defeat. He felt the warm, morning air hit the little parts of his skin left bare for the air to kiss, and as though his mood couldn't drop any lower, he remembered he still had to go to work with you this morning.

Part Seven Coming Soon. Stay Tuned~

Since I'm trying to explore toxic relationships, I wanted to delve into the complexities a little (while not being so on the nose about it). They have their ups and they have their downs; they blend and happen all at once and take each other's places at every positive or negative interaction. You can have genuine moments of care and empathy with people you simultaneously butt heads and take issue with I feel; nothing is ever just black and white. I'm rambling and probably not making a lot of sense.

But, now that Ghost and the Reader are in the pits, they've gotta look within themselves and fix their shit if it's meant to be. I want to write them in a way where it's clear if they could just sit and figure out what it was they wanted from each other, then this could be something real if they let it. However, life waits for no one, and they're about to be in for a doozy. The mission i have planned for them is gonna be 👺👺👺

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