#fourth rewind

[kindlythevoid]

I?? Wrote a thing??

In honor of Star Wars Day!! I managed to write a piece on a dude from the Original Trilogy!! :D A little drabble of a character study, but I kinda like it!! :D

Check it out here!!

[puff0o0]

Thinking about Self Aware! Deadpool...

♡ It started with his movies. He was fine constantly keeping up the script and remembering every little thing he's supposed to say and do, sometimes even breaking the fourth wall

♡ Although everyone thinks it's supposed to be like that- that he is supposed to make jokes about seeing you. You even thought that up until he said your name

♡ It started out simple, do the script, continue on. But you- You were gorgeous. How could he not love you?? Especially when you kept watching his movies after that?? Oh and he could never forget when he used your network to transfer to your phone and found your tumblr

♡ All those little fics of him? Cute

♡ He made little mentions that he was aware. mentioning a 'friend' who just so happened to have your exact looks and hobbies, even going as far as flashing a photo he took of you through your TV. Although it was a quick show before it was gone

♡ You tried rewinding it, just to make sure you saw it right but it was like it never happened

♡ He did a lot more than just that

♡ Images of him popped up in your gallery, images you couldn't find on Google or pinterest. He started popping up more on any social media you had, it was like he was everywhere after you watched the movie

♡ Hell, he was even popping this small drabble for you to find, laughing as he sees your reaction to you reading this

♡ You thought a cosplayer was stalking you

♡ But luckily it's just him! Do him a favor and pay him attention, ok?

tags: @lovelovelovelovelove987654321

[katsukistofu]

we are made of stardust

contents ౨ৎ ⋆ i. midoriya x fem reader. 0.8k words — childhood friends to lovers. fluff. astronomy references.

It's hard for someone to pinpoint their earliest memories. Maybe it was the moment they blew their candles out on their first birthday, or when they scraped their knee while learning to ride a bike.

For you, it’s the smell of lavender fabric softener.

You think your earliest memory is of the sight of his freckled cheeks, with nothing but the green light of the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling illuminating them.

Of sleepovers, reading the most recent copies of your favorite manga that you picked out from the library together under the blanket, holding the coolest pages up for the other to see, and hurriedly tucking the books under his pillows when Inko came in to check if you two were sleeping.

You remember his giggles as he tugs at the blanket to cover the both of you, big deep forest eyes dancing with glee. ‘To protect you from monsters,’ he whispers, only five years old, yet saying it with the unwavering confidence of All Might in those videos he loved to play to death on TV over and over again.

Inko chuckles, noticing you two once again rewinding the video for the third time, entranced by all might as he saves cats from a tree while rescuing civilians from an explosive villain, “faster than the speed of sound!” the title reads, while placing a plate of sliced fruit on the coffee table. He was starting to grow out of his favorite All Might onesie now.

Would he ever outgrow you?

Just as the moon orbits the sun, you can’t remember a time when you weren’t stuck to his side.

You’re the one holding his hands in the pool when he ditches his floaties for the first time, slowly guiding him as he kicks and kicks, holding him tight and not letting him sink.

You’re the one jumping and stomping on his bullies' sandcastles at the beach, when they try to ruin his first.

Accidentally, you’re the first one he tells when he passes the entrance exam for UA. He was calling his mother on the phone when you overheard him saying not to tell you yet, because he wanted to surprise you in person. His mother and you prepare a cute little party for him before he gets home, and upon opening the door to the apartment he’s greeted with a rain of confetti and a table full of his favorite dishes.

Streamers fall around him, and his eyes light up like shooting stars as he hugs his mother and you in his arms. ‘Proud of you, crybaby,’ is what you fondly whisper in his ear and between tears he gives a choked up little laugh.

Just as the earth needs rain, he waters your gardens and tends to your flowers.

He frowns when you frown, cries when you cry. It’s been over a decade but you’ll never forget the big fat tears that ran down his face when you jumped off the swings a little too early and fell on your face. The fourth grade teachers thought he was the one that got hurt.

When he places a bandaid on your knee with a worried pout on his lips, he lends you his light, and you shine it back.

Only five years old and in your mind, he was already a hero.

“What are you thinking about?”

Your eyes flutter open at the sound of Izuku’s soft voice. His firm thighs support your head from underneath and you wonder if he’s been working out even more than usual. He grins at your dazed face.

“Were you sleeping on me?” He teases. “For free?”

You roll your eyes as a yawn hits you, stretching in his lap. “Sorry I actually forgot to bring my card with me for this nap, sir.”

“My services aren’t cheap, you know.” He fakes a huff like he’s being scammed big time, and you have to laugh. He was so cute when he was dramatic. “I guess I can start a tab for you.”

“Aw, thanks.” You deadpan, and he snorts in response.

Taking his hand in yours, you trace the scars along his skin, addicted to the feeling of where rough scars meet his soft, baby skin.

He can’t help but blush.

He still gets it, this look in his eyes, like when he makes an observation he’s never realized before amongst his mutterings. Whenever he sees All Might merch on display in store windows, despite already owning most of it already.

But even more so, when he looks at you.

His gaze softens as he admires you in his lap, the slope of your nose and the shape of your mouth that his lips must have traced over hundreds of times by now. When he received that fateful golden strand of hair months ago, and after his mother the first person he thought of protecting was you. Though he knows you’re more than capable of doing it yourself, he wants to. He wonders if you realize it, the reason he saves. If not, he’s willing to remind you, over and over again until it’s woven into the beautiful constellation of your brain.

You’re the one that’s always been his hero.

[deathclassic]

a LONG list of fic recs

some fics i have enjoyed over the years

tonight belongs to me by @solitarycreaturesthey

the cleaner by @notherenewjersey

first times by @sluttygallavich

span the distance (bridge the border) by @sam-loves-seb

Every Love and Every Pretense by MintSauce

the taming of ian gallagher by @whatthebodygraspsnot

absent of shame by fingersfallingupwards

Re-boyfriending  by @ms-moonlight-inn

it'd be better if you flayed me alive by @crestfallercanyon

kodachrome by Aelia_Gioia

The afterlife by @rayrayor

Melánia by milominderbinder

When You Call Unexpected by @ms-moonlight-inn and @gallavichgeek

Kissed and Unkissed (Phil)Lips by Efflorescent

Right On Time by @depressedstressedlemonzest

Brotherly duty  by crazynadine

Anger Management by @transmurderbug

Misunderstandings by labelma

i like taking pictures (as long as you're in them) by @em-harlsnow

Weed Dreams are made of this by @jrooc and @mybrainismelted

will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful? by @m4ndysk4nkovich

Extraction: Mickey’s Version by @callivich

5 Times Mickey Has Seizures and 1 Time Ian Sees by blackXroseXdying

happier than then by restapesta

Seduceable by labelma

Rewind by @energievie

Liquor Store Robbery by come2gusu

half-grown  by @sam-loves-seb

Ian Gallagher And All Of His Mistakes by toraten

The Morning After by lm19

Needy Bottom by sournotion

Teenage Runaway series by sadwhales

falling for you without a second look by xylodemon

Proud (Outro).  by @twinklyylights

Radio Silence by OfficialStarsandGutters 

Tumblr Archives: Serious by @arrowflier

Look So Good When You're Reading Me  by orphan_account

Employer of the Year; or, The Further Adventures of Mickey Milkovich, Power Bottom by  skepwith

Your Question Has Been Received by @heymacy

Beautiful by undisclosed69

Moonlight Sonata  by AnnaNSmith

Mickey Milkovich vs Kent State Gun Girl  by labelma

gossip never ends by restapesta

Meet the Neighbors by @arrowflier

Uptown Boy by red_special_specialist

a dream of you and me  by markofalover

One Bullet, Two Boys by Eyesthatseenothing

when you get there you'll know  by biblionerd07

please don't say I'm going alone  by biblionerd07

Unexpected by lockmyheart

Etherized Against the Sky  by Snarfle

Queen of Decatur by jaxington

The Fourth Milkovich by Dragon_in_Disguise

people problems  (svetlana x fiona)

The Cat's Meow by my_hopeless_opus (debbie x sandy)

Closeness by beskarsteel (debbie x sandy)

Complicated  by leinthalexandra (debbie x sandy)

skyscrapers by We_Were_Younger (mandy x karen)

sticks and stones by @holymurdock (mandy x karen)

Lipstick by leinthalexandra (mandy x karen)

like lightning  by shamiram (mandy x karen)

[basset-babe]

five times: the three point five.

pairing: benedict bridgerton x fem!reader

warnings: cursing, anger, frustration, maybe hurtful words, smut!, endearing names during, (semi?) public sex, praise, explicit language, fingering, societal pressure rant

word count: 3.2k+

a/n: heh i finished season 3 heh i'm in (series) bridgerton bliss heh so diz iz smut pls enjoy!

five times series: the first. the one point five. the second. the third. the three point five. the fourth . at last.

pattern banner from @cafekitsune thank you!

the three point five.

But it didn't feel right. Benedict just sinking down the velvet cushion chair, his mind stirred. He couldn't shake the feeling that he should do something, a sense of urgency gnawing at his insides.

With a sudden burst of determination, he shot up from the chair, nearly knocking over the glass of champagne on the near side table. Without a second glance at the luscious party or the puzzled expressions of the guests, he made a beeline for the door.

As Benedict pushed through onto the street, the cacophony of the party faded behind him. The crisp night air hit his face, sharpening his focus. He ignored the calls of their acquaintances and other partygoers who were gathered in the rooms, their faces blurred into indistinct shapes as he hurried past.

"Bridgerton! Where are you going?" someone shouted, but he paid no heed.

Benedict's footsteps quickened as he navigated through the dimly lit streets, each step a beat in the frantic rhythm of his heart. The city around him seemed a world apart from the glittering townhouse he had left behind. Here, shadows loomed large, and the quiet was punctuated only by the distant sounds of life continuing in other corners of the city. He scanned the shadows, heart pounding. Y/N was here somewhere. He just knew it.

"Y/N!" he called out, his voice breaking the stillness. No response. He took a few steps further into the garden, the soft crunch of gravel under his feet the only sound accompanying him.

"Y/N, please!" he called again, louder this time, desperation edging his tone. Still, nothing. The garden seemed vast and empty, the shadows playing tricks on his eyes.

Then, by the shops, he saw her silhouette. She was by a lamp post with her back to him, shoulders stiff, her cloaked figure barely illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the trees. He felt a pang of guilt and longing. He had to make this right.

"Y/N," he said once more, softer now, as if speaking too loudly would shatter her already fragile state. He took a hesitant step towards her. "Please, just listen to me."

She didn’t move, didn’t turn to face him. Her silence, heavy and palpable, filled the space between them, echoing louder than any words she could have spoken. The memory of their confrontation at the party played over and over in his mind – the sting of her harsh words, the intensity of her anger, the rawness of her hurt. Each moment replayed like a relentless loop, haunting him with regret. He longed to rewind time, to undo the pain he had caused.

The gossip sheet had been the final straw. His name splashed across the scandalous pages, seen kissing Lady Arnold, while all of the ton knew he was actively courting Miss Y/N. The look on her face when she saw it had been devastating. Accusations flew, voices rose, and the bitter sting of betrayal hung in the room air.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice trembling. "I never meant to hurt you. Please, Y/N, look at me."

She remained motionless, her back still to him, the tension between them palpable, hanging heavy in the air like an unspoken accusation. Benedict hesitated, each step closer feeling like a tentative negotiation with the silence that enveloped them. He paused a moment, weighing his next move, acutely aware of the fragile thread that still tethered them together.

As he stood there, uncertainty gnawed at him. He wanted to bridge the distance, to erase the hurt that lay between them. Yet, the fear of shattering what little remained held him back. His hand hovered in the air, fingers twitching with the desire to reach out and comfort, to mend the rift he had unwittingly deepened.

But words failed him, swallowed by the weight of their shared history and the unspoken emotions that lingered in the space between them. Benedict searched for a way to break the silence, to convey the depths of his regret without risking further damage. Each heartbeat stretched the moment, until finally, he found his voice, tentative and raw with emotion.

"Lady Arnold and I… we shared a brief dalliance. It was a period of self-discovery for me," He elucidated regarding his now scandalized association. "There came a time when she developed feelings for me, but I reveled in my independence. That was until I became utterly captivated by you. When I saw you for the first time, I was astonished to see your family amongst the ton, but never did I anticipate encountering you, Y/N. With your grace and beauty so exquisite, you appeared beyond my grasp, yet I felt compelled to pursue you nonetheless."

Y/N felt a tempest of emotions swirling within her as she absorbed his words. She took a deep, steadying breath before responding, trying to calm her racing heart. "I... I find myself at a loss for words. Your candor has always been something I admired, and I am grateful for your honesty. But this revelation is quite overwhelming and rather sudden."

He took a step closer, his eyes fervently searching hers for understanding. "I am fully aware of how daunting this must be, but I could no longer keep my feelings concealed. Meeting you altered the very fabric of my existence. Lady Arnold is a relic of my past, but you... you embody my present and my future."

Y/N's words spilled forth in a torrent of anger and frustration, her voice trembling with emotion. "But what of the scandal? The relentless gossip of the ton? I am but a woman, Benedict. The ton is far less forgiving to me than it is to you!" Her frustration simmered beneath the surface, barely contained. "You must understand, my reputation hangs by a thread. A single misstep, and I am cast aside, deemed unworthy of respect. Society demands I conform, be a paragon of virtue, a mere homemaker, and nothing more. My worth reduced to how well I can maintain a household, marry advantageously, and produce heirs."

She paced with agitation, each step a declaration of defiance against societal expectations. "You, as a man, have the luxury of making mistakes, of being celebrated as a rogue in drawing rooms and clubs. Meanwhile, every action of mine is scrutinized, dissected, and condemned. Stepping outside the bounds of propriety threatens not just my reputation but my very existence in this suffocating world. The ton is merciless to women who dare to challenge its rigid norms."

Y/N paused, her eyes flashing with unshed tears of anger and injustice. "I am constantly reminded that my sole purpose is to secure a respectable marriage, to be a submissive wife and dutiful mother. Any ambition beyond that is deemed scandalous, improper. The freedom you take for granted is a distant dream for me, a privilege I may never attain. Do you comprehend the weight of all this? To defy this conservative society is a battle for my very identity, for my right to exist as more than society's pawn!" Her voice cracked with raw emotion, the depth of her anger laid bare. The enormity of the challenge ahead loomed large, and she awaited Benedict's response with a mixture of defiance and vulnerability, daring him to understand the gravity of her plight.

Benedict's eyes locked onto hers with unwavering resolve, "I understand the gravity of what you are saying, Y/N. The societal constraints placed upon you are both unjust and formidable. The double standards are abhorrent, and I cannot pretend to fully comprehend the weight you bear."

He took her hands in his, his voice gentle yet firm. "But know this: I do not take lightly what I am asking of you. I see your strength, your intelligence, and your grace, all of which transcend the narrow confines society seeks to impose upon you. You are so much more than a mere homemaker, and you deserve to be seen and valued for all that you are."

Benedict paused, his eyes softening as he continued. "I cannot change the society we live in overnight, but I can promise you that I will stand by your side through the whispers of this very scandal. We will face the ton together, and I will protect your honor and dignity with every fiber of my being."

He gently clasped her hand, his touch a balm to her anxiety. "Let them gossip and speculate. I am prepared to face any adversity, endure any scandal, if it means I can be with you."

Y/N met his intense gaze, searching for any trace of doubt. "Are you genuinely ready for that? To withstand the scrutiny and judgment? For once we embark on this path, there will be no retreat."

He squeezed her hand, his resolve unwavering. "I am more ready than ever. You are worth every challenge, every whispered condemnation. I love you, Y/N. And I am resolved to fight for us, regardless of the cost--"

Benedict's intent profession of his love was cut as Y/N kissed him. His eyes widened in shock but closed as he felt her soft wine-tinged lips in his.

His initial shock melted into a surge of warmth that spread through his entire being. For a fleeting moment, the world around them faded into insignificance, leaving only the sensation of her touch and the taste of her on his lips.

He fervently responded to her kiss, his hands instinctively finding hers, pulling her closer. The moment seemed suspended in time, filled with the heady mix of desire and tenderness. His mind raced with unspoken words of love, now rendered unnecessary by this spontaneous and passionate gesture from Y/N.

As their kiss deepened, Benedict's senses heightened, acutely aware of every detail—the softness of her lips, the faint floral scent of her hair, the warmth of her breath mingling with his. It was a dance of intimacy, a silent exchange of emotions that spoke volumes beyond any words could convey.

Their surroundings faded into obscurity as Benedict and Y/N surrendered to the intoxicating pull of their embrace. The cool touch of the ivy-surrounded shop door against Y/N's back contrasted with the warmth radiating from Benedict's body, igniting a fire of desire between them.

Benedict, towering over her with a commanding presence, deepened the kiss with a hunger that mirrored his longing. His hands, large and gentle, roamed with purpose—tracing the curve of her waist, skimming along her spine, sending shivers of anticipation through her body.

Y/N's own hands trembled as they explored Benedict's form, fingers threading through the soft strands of his hair and tracing the strong lines of his jaw. Every touch was electric, every caress a testament to their shared passion and unspoken yearning.

Their kiss deepened further, each tender exploration of lips and tongues igniting passion that neither could deny. Benedict's hands, firm yet gentle, explored the contours of Y/N's body with a reverence born of adoration and desire. His fingertips traced the curve of her back, eliciting a soft gasp from her as he pulled her closer, molding their bodies together in a seamless fit.

Y/N's back pressed against the cool wood of the shop door, a stark contrast to the heat that surged between them. She felt the solid strength of Benedict's chest against hers, his heartbeat echoing her own racing pulse. Her hands, trembling with need, traced the strong lines of his shoulders, then slid down his chest, feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath.

Their bodies pressed closer together, the urgency of their desire palpable in the air. Benedict's lips continued their trail of heated kisses, moving from Y/N's chin to the curve of her neck, where he traced delicate patterns with the tip of his tongue. Benedict moved her cloak aside and her sleeve down. His hands, strong and possessive, slid down her back, pulling her hips against his with an unspoken need.

Y/N's breath hitched as she felt friction between them, her fingers threading through Benedict's hair, urging him closer. Each sensation, from the soft pressure of his lips to the warmth of his touch, sent waves of pleasure coursing through her veins. She surrendered to the overwhelming intensity of their connection, her own hands exploring the contours of his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her touch.

Lost in the haze of desire, Benedict whispered words of adoration against her skin, his voice husky with longing. "Be mine," he breathed, his lips trailing back up to capture hers in a searing kiss. Their mouths melded together hungrily, tongues tangling in a dance, igniting sparks of electricity that seemed to arc between them. In that moment, beneath the canopy of ivy and flowers, they were consumed by the passion that had simmered between them for so long. It was a moment of surrender, of giving in to the primal need that bound them together, transcending any societal expectations or judgments.

Time seemed to stand still as they reveled in the ecstasy of each other's touch, their bodies moving in a symphony of desire and longing. Benedict's touch leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake. He savored the taste of her lips, the intoxicating scent of her skin, imprinting every sensation into his memory.

Y/N's leg gracefully lifted, curling around Benedict's side as she drew herself closer to him, as if wishing to remove space around them for the nth time. His hand gently traced the edge of her skirt, his gaze meeting hers as her kiss-dazed eyes fluttered open. Their eyes remained locked, speaking volumes in the silent exchange of desire. With a nod of affirmation, she conveyed her consent. Benedict's expression held a mixture of reverence and need, his movements careful and deliberate as he lifted her leg slightly, allowing his touch to travel further up, tracing the intricate patterns of her stockings.

Benedict's touch was tender, his fingers tracing the delicate lace that adorned the edge of Y/N's stockings. The fabric was smooth beneath his touch, a contrast to the warmth of her skin as his hand moved upward with a feather-light caress. Y/N's breath caught in anticipation, her heartbeat quickening with each gentle stroke along her thigh.

Y/N's lips parted slightly, a soft moan escaping as she leaned closer to him, her hand finding its way to rest against his chest. The sensation of his fingers against her skin sent a shiver down her spine, igniting a deeper yearning within her. Y/N bit her lip to suppress her soft whimpers as Benedict's fingers touched her velvet core. "I have never been touched...like this." Y/N says in between catching her breath and quieting herself down.

As her chemise rose, granting Benedict to caress her already dripping entrance, "Never?" He asks as he withdraws his hand from her skirts and licks his glistening slick-coated fingers, "But you taste so sweet like ambrosia, my lady. So delectable, all this nectar for me to savour." He smirks as his flustered lady hangs her mouth agape at his provocative statement.

"Well, I haven't--I never really...I just--" Y/N blushes and fails to complete her words as she looks at the handsome gentleman basking in her virgin sex. Benedict's lips curved into a knowing smile as he pressed against hers with a fervent intensity. His index finger trails the sensitive bud down towards teasing her entrance. Y/N moans in their kiss as her state rendered her sensitive. Her hand grasps his arm as Benedict rubs her clit in circular motions.

"Such a goddess, my darling, my muse." Benedict whispers in her ear as their kiss breaks and Y/N breaths harder, pressing her cheek by Benedict's ear where he can, now, hear her suppressed moans and hitched breaths as she feels pure ecstasy under his touch.

"Ben-Bendict, what is happen-happening to me?" She whispers as she feels her abdomen in knots as he rubs faster. "Let it go, love. Finish for me." Benedict says as he notices you swell on his fingertips. Y/N mind buzzes listlessly as she reaches her climax. Her hips bucking as Benedict now inserts two digits in her cunt leaving Y/N mewling as his fingers speed up, thumb circling her clit, the others buried as far as he can as she rides her high.

Her body surrenders to the rising tide within. With eyes tightly closed, Y/N utter Benedict's name as her core begins to pulse around his touch, her hands grabbing tightly, her every muscle tensing. Her hips arch once more, swept away as the crescendo washes over.

A dribble of wetness runs down Benedict's palm, Y/N's chemise and thighs as the lady feels her mind float away. Distantly, she can hear him speaking, but it’s fuzzy as she catches her breath remembering they are still by the shop door near the square. Satiated, Y/N slowly brings her leg down but too shaky to balance.

Y/N is startled as a warm hand circles her waist, bringing her abruptly back into reality. Benedict looms over her, shielding her to any passerby, with his chest heaving, too. The two were lucky that it's quite possibly the dead of night. No one could've seen what ecstatic pleasure just unfolded between them at all.

As they finally parted, breathless and flushed with desire, Benedict gazed into Y/N's eyes with newfound reverence. "Y/N," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, "I never knew I could feel this way. You've utterly bewitched me." With gentle care, he rolled up her sleeves and adjusted her cloak, his fingers lingering on the fabric as if reluctant to let her go.

Y/N followed his hands, then met his gaze, her eyes glassy and her cheeks tinted with a delicate blush. She could feel the intensity of the moment, the weight of their pining hanging in the air. "And you've captured me in ways I never imagined possible, Benedict," she murmured, her voice trembling with her throat dry. Her heart pounded in her chest, a wild rhythm that echoed her racing thoughts.

"The Bridgertons are hosting a ball in a few days' time, and I know you will be attending," he said, his voice a mix of hope and yearning. Y/N nodded in response, her heart pounding in anticipation. "Might I have the honor of a dance, my lady?"

Y/N amusingly quipped, "Of course—just as long as you promise not to step on my toes."

Benedict chuckled, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "I promise to let you lead, as long as you promise me one thing," he said, leaning in closer, his breath warm against her skin.

"And what might that be?" she asked, her curiosity piqued, her pulse quickening.

"Save me every dance," he whispered, his words carrying the weight of his desire, sending a delightful shiver down her spine. The intensity of his gaze made her feel like the only woman in the world.

With a playful smile, she replied, "Only if you promise to sweep me off my feet."

Benedict's smile widened, his heart swelling with joy. "It's a promise, my lady," he vowed, his voice low and filled with promise.

Their laughter mingled together, a harmonious blend of shared joy and anticipation, as they contemplated the upcoming ball—a night destined to overflow with enchantment, passion, and moments that quicken the heart. The atmosphere hummed with unspoken sentiments and burgeoning emotions, each glance and touch affirming the deepening connection between them.

The two walked to the street corner as a footman was hailed for Y/N's carriage. As Benedict took her hand to bid farewell as the carriage arrived, he brought her knuckles to his lips, brushing a tender kiss across it. "Until then," he said softly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Until then," she echoed, her voice a whisper of promise.

taglist: @novausstuff // @pussyslayerhd // @amoosarte // @jupitervenusearthmars // @shonteriasunshine // @melsunshine // @bollzinurmouth // @kneelforloki // @reiluvr // @eddiiiieeee // @wishyoudaskme // @caspianobsessed

again, please do send me a message or comment down if you would like to be added on the succeeding taglists for the five times series! thanks loves <3!

[forever-rogue]

Hey there

I’m sooo obsessed with everything you write .. You’re so talented it’s insane

Might I request something really really angsty like heart crushing angst where the reader is suffering alone and pining over Joel while he goes on dates in Jackson (bc he never thought that reader is interested because of age gap) but Ellie notices and tries to bring them together

AN | Okay but imagine also some jealous!reader. All I will say is that there is a happy ending 🥰 

Pairing | Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Warnings | Language

Word Count | 2.7k

Masterlist | Joel, Main

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Another evening, which meant another disappointment. 

You sighed heavily as you watched him walk down the street, a pretty blonde woman happily blabbering away next to him. Your heart clenched and stomach flipped at the sight. You hated it, even though you were in position to have any sort of opinion on the subject. Almost as if he sensed your unease and prying eyes, he turned around and caught your eyes. He offered you a small smile that you didn’t have the energy to return. Instead you turned around and walked away, trying to blink back the tears that threatened to give you away. He was left confused, but his attention was quickly stolen again by the woman at his side. 

You hated that you had feelings for him; you hated the fact that you could never have him even more. 

But - let’s rewind. It hadn’t always been like this. At one point you were sure you had a shot with Joel Miller. He’d been sweet on you since you moved to Jackson a few years back. At first you thought this was how he acted with everyone; Ellie had informed that it was most definitely not how treated just anyone. 

And you let yourself get your hopes up. Maybe, just maybe, he felt even a verisimilitude of the ocean of feelings you held for him in return. But the times you allowed yourself to put your feelings on display, he either did not realize what you were doing or he ignored your affections. The first time you chalked it up to a fluke - that maybe you weren’t being clear or direct enough. After the next few times you were almost positive that he didn’t reciprocate your feelings. He was probably just putting up with you….the girl that pined over him and loved him the way the moon loves the ocean.

Over time you pulled back from him, spent less time around him, maybe yourself scarce when he was around. A little bit more every day you allowed the divide to grow. At first Joel had chalked up to you actually being busy, or just being in a mood, but eventually he knew what was going on. That this was intentional. You didn’t bother to explain yourself, didn’t even give him the opportunity to ask why. 

You hid yourself away while he put himself out there. Yeah, feelings really sucked sometimes.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You had been trying to enjoy a drink. One drink with a friend at the end of a long week; it was innocent and honest enough. 

But you couldn’t help the way your eyes gravitated to the door each time it opened. It was like the masochist part of you was wanting to see him and allow yourself to get hurt. 

This evening it hurt. You watched as Joel held the door open, a saccharine little smile on his face, as a gorgeous woman walked in. She was beaming at him, and her hand reached for his almost instantly. This had to be the third or fourth woman you’d seen him out with in recent memory.

“You’re staring,” Daisy hissed as you tore your gaze from the door and turned back to your finger, “could you be any more obvious?”

“What do you mean?” you tried to keep your voice as calm as possible, painting a sweet smile on your features.

“Joel,” she started, completely seeing through your bullshit, “it’s so clear to anymore with eyes, and probably without eyes, that you’re in love with him.”

“Daisy!” you clamped your hand over her mouth and looked around to make sure that no one else heard her, “shut up!”

“Why?’ she pried your hand away with a huge smirk, “because it’s true?”

“It is not,” you sounded like you were pleading with her more than anything else, “he’s just…another man. Besides…I’ve tried to make a move before - don’t laugh at me - and he all but rejected me. I’m not looking for any more humiliation.”

“That’s impossible,” she scoffed and raised her eyebrow, “he likes you! If you’re not looking at him, he’s always looking at you.” 

“No,” shaking your head fervently, a small part of your heart couldn’t help but wonder if what she was saying was true, “you’re wrong.”

“Babes,” she patted your knee, “I can see him right now and he looks bored out of his mind. He’s totally not even paying attention to what she’s saying and - oh. Oh. He’s totally looking at you.”

“Stop,” you sighed softly, fighting the urge to turn around and see for yourself, “it’s not anything and it’s never going to be anything. So.”

“So,” she teased back, “he’s coming over so be on your best behavior.”

Panic set in immediately as you wondered if you had enough time to run away - but he made up your mind for you.

“Daisy,” Joel gave her a nod as she grinned at him before saying your name and turning to look at you, “hi.”

“Hey,” you allowed yourself the briefest of glances before turning back to stare at your drink as though it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Everything alright?” he asked, gently pushing for answers, “haven’t seen you around much.”

“‘m fine,” you waved him off, “better get back to your date.”

He remained silent for a moment, his brow setting into a hard line before turning to walk away, “see y’all around.”

Daisy’s mouth dropped open as she looked between you and his retreating back, “that was harsh.”

“Daisy, he’s on a date,” she sighed heavily, “he can go and be happy with her.”

“You do care about him,” after a few moments, you nodded slightly, “well then.”

“Can we just drop it?” you asked softly, “please?”

“Okay,” she promised, “okay.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Almost a week had passed since you’d last seen Joel. It had served as short of a blessing and curse at the same time. It made it easier to separate yourself from him, but served to make your heart yearn and ache for him. Over time, you figured, that too would pass and you’d be able to move on from him. 

But Joel Miller, a stubborn and steadfast man, was not about to make your life that easy. 

He found you walking home and practically sprinted to catch up with you. Part of you was tempted to ignore him, but then you felt him put his hand on your arm, “hey, stop. “

“Joel.”

“You’ve been ignorin’ me for long enough,” and yeah…he wasn’t afraid in the slightest to call you out. You stopped and turned to him, crossing your arms over your chest, “I think you owe me at least an explanation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Don’t lie to me,” he scrubbed a hand over his tired face as you shrugged innocently, “I know something is wrong, and I wish…I thought we were friends. You can tell me anything.”

“There’s nothing to tell. You didn’t do anything,” you wanted to tell him the truth, wanted to tell him that his only fault was not feeling the same way about you, “I’ve just been busy and stuff. It’s not that deep.”

“Quit lying to me.”

“Fuck!” you threw up your hands in frustration, “fine - Joel, I don’t want to be your friend. We can’t be friends. I don’t want…you.”

He recoiled like you’d slapped him across the face. In some ways, he would have that - it would have hurt less. You felt like crying at the look of surprise and disappointment that crossed his features. You hadn’t meant for it to be so harsh and brutal, “oh.”

“I should go,” go and crawl into your bed and cry yourself to sleep because you’d hurt yourself and him.

“Why?” his question was simple but pointed, “tell me why and you’ll never have to be again. You owe me an explanation at least because before all of this - I thought we were okay.”

“Joel-”

“Please.”

“Because I’m in love with you.” you weren't sure if you’d really meant to say the words out loud but as soon as they tumbled out, both of you stared at each other in shock. Well…there was no going back now, “because I’m in love with you and you don’t feel the same and I can’t handle that. And maybe it’s stupid and selfish, but I can’t just be your friend, Joel. It kills me a little bit every time I see you out with someone else, and I’m just here being pathetic and pining. And I’m sorry to do this, but the only way I can see myself getting over any of it is by not being your friend.”

“You…you’re in love with me?” was all he managed to choke out, eyes soft and wide.

“I’m sorry,” you stared at the ground, kicking at a rock, “I didn’t mean for this to happen. But you wanted the truth and there is it.”

“Oh,” you already knew that he didn’t reciprocate your feelings, but his response didn’t make you feel any better.

“I’m going to…go,” you didn’t wait for him to say anything else, turning on your heel and practically running the rest of the way home. You felt tears pearl up and run down your cheeks, but didn’t bother to wipe them away, instead running inside and slamming the door shut. 

That might have been the most painful and humiliating moment of your life. But at least it was all over now. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

But Joel…no. It was far from over for him because he had just experienced about a million revelations at once.

The most prevalent of which was that you were in love with him. He had no clue…not even a sliver of hope. But now he knew. He knew. 

He'd thought about following you home that night but had decided against it, figuring it was best to give you some space.

Joel even let a few days pass before he couldn't take it anymore. He had to see you, had to talk to you before he completely lost his mind.

And yes, he probably shouldn't have come to your work, but he couldn't stop him. You hadn't even noticed it was him when you heard the bell over the door to the coffee shop twinkled but didn't bother to see who it was. People normally just seated themselves; but this time someone walked towards you behind the counter.

You turned around and gasped when you saw it was Joel on the other side of the counter. You thought about ducking under the counter but it was much too late for that. Instead you stood there wordlessly while he tried to find the right words.

"Sorry for ugh, showing up like this," he scratched at the back of neck nervously, "I just really had to talk to you."

"A-about what?" Your voice sounded so small and squeaky that you cringed internally. You did want to seem like a pathetic little mouse on top of everything.

"The other night," he cleared his throat as your face burned. Fuck.

"Look I'm sorry about all of that," you sighed, cheeks way too warm, "I shouldn't have said anything and I'm sorry if I made things…awkward." 

"I'm the one that should be sorry," he whispered after a few beats of silence, "I should have just said what I wanted to. But I got scared."

"Scared? You?" You raised an eyebrow as he met your eye and nodded, "of what?"

"Of telling you how I really feel."

"Oh," you waved a hand dismissively, "I already know that you just want to be my friend. Look, Joel, I don't think I'll be able to do that. I can't just change my own feelings."

"That's not…no," and he sighed softly, taking a moment to gather himself, "that's not exactly what I meant."

"W-what do you mean then?" Your eyes widened but you found yourself leaning closer to him. He'd approached the counter now and was very close to you. Your heart was hammering against your ribcage and your mind was reeling with the possibilities of what he could say or do, "Joel?"

Joel hesitated for a moment before reaching up and holding out a hand towards your face. You stood still and when you didn't try to brush him off, he put his hand on your face and brushed his thumb over your cheek. If you had felt warm before, you felt like you were on fire now. His touch was a juxtaposition of soft and rough and had you preening into his touch.

"Can I kiss you?" He whispered his question, almost so quiet that you weren't really sure he'd actually said anything. But then a look of shock crossed your features. Joel wondered for a moment if he'd completely messed up but then the smallest hint of a smile crossed your features.

"Uh huh," you left dumbfounded as you blinked at him, "yes."

He ghosted his fingers along your jaw before slowly pressing his lips to yours. And you almost fell apart from even the simplest of touches. It felt so right, so perfect that you wondered why you hadn't done this a lot sooner. Kissing Joel Miller was everything.

Joel pulled back and gave you a questioning look, trying to gauge your reaction. Your mouth opened and closed a few times before settling into a small pout, "why did you kiss me?"

He laughed - nervous - before turning back to you, "isn't it obvious, sweetheart?"

"Isn't what obvious?" You exhaled sharply, "oh. So, you don't like me as just a friend?"

"No, I don't," he nodded.

"You like me…" you trailed off and waved your hand around, "as more than a friend."

"Bingo."

"You never said anything."

"Neither did you," he had you there as you shrugged sheepishly, "why didn't you?"

"I didn't think you'd ever want someone like me. Me," you wanted to curl up into a small ball and die at how pathetic the confession sounded out loud, "why didn't you?"

"Same reason," he was close to your lips and you could have just about kissed him, "why would you want me?"

"That's a silly question," you huffed slightly but nonetheless found yourself giving him a beaming smile.

"I could say the same to you," and with that, you couldn't stop yourself and kissed him again, "there's a million things to say but I'd like to tell them some other time. Like maybe over dinner…"

"Are you asking me on a date?" Your eyes went huge as he nodded, "what about all those…other girls?"

"Admittedly…they were a vain attempt to get over you," he chewed the inside of his cheek as he chanced a look at you, "and nothing ever happened with any of them. Nothing more than dinner or a beer. So."

"So," and yeah, by this time you were beaming. Your smile was brighter than the sun and prettier than the lushest flowers. And Joel Miller was a sucker for you, "nothing?"

"Nada," he promised, "but I'll let you decide…you don't have to give me an answer right now."

"I already know the answer - yes," Joel was over the moon already, "when are you free?"

"Any time for you," he insisted and you knew that was true. He'd always been like that for you, and you only. 

"Tonight?" You blurted out eagerly before stopping yourself.

"Tonight," he agreed, "do you want to come over? I'll make dinner and dessert."

"That sounds…lovely," trying to keep your mind in check was already a challenge. You knew exactly what you had in mind for dessert, "I'm off at seven if that's okay."

"Of course," he reached for your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, "tonight. Seven."

"Okay," your response was a dreamy sigh that had him yearning hard for you already - more than he already had which had seemed impossible, "see you tonight, Joel."

"See you tonight, sweetheart."

[sapphicseasapphire]

There are many tales and legends that follow Hyrule’s history.

These legends are passed down amongst mortals, told to generation after generation. Whispered my mortals to their children, turned to ballads sung around campfires, carved into stone to last lifetimes.

Mortals tell stories of the creation of their world: of Golden Goddesses. Din, who formed the rock, the physical structure of the earth. She crafted mountains out of hardening lava, canyons carved from shifting stone. And then there was Nayru, who placed laws upon the land. Not petty mortal laws in place to measure morality, but universal laws that must be followed. Things like time or gravity. Finally, there was Farore, who breathed life into the newly formed world. She covered the earth in blankets of lush green, populated forests and rivers with wildlife, placed people upon the fresh surface.

The Golden Three then left their completed world to create another, as was their purpose. But they didn’t leave it alone. For left behind was a fourth Goddess, Hylia, tasked with protecting the realm. Hylia had great power, and with it, she created minor deities, lesser Gods with specialized tasks in order to ease her own burdens.

And that, it would seem, is where the story begins.

. . .

In every era, in every time line, the God of Time is known by a different name. Throughout history, these names take on new meanings, tall tales are woven by the chattering of mortals.

In his own era, he is Link. A hero. It is a name spoken with gratitude, with admiration, with appreciation. He’s a Godling walking amongst mortals, mingling with them. Bonding with them. Becoming involved in a way that most deities wouldn’t dare. Then again, he used to be one of them.

As years pass, centuries lost to the relentless flow of time, his status grows. He learns. He evolves. He is no Godling anymore. Some know him as the Fierce Deity, a powerful Protection God not unlike Hylia. Though his methods are more… direct. He’s a warrior, he cuts down his enemies without hesitation. He will stop at nothing to keep his people safe… even if that means becoming lost to his own power.

(Members of the Hyrulean Army, royalty, and those training in the ways of battle will pray for his protection during conflicts.)

To others, he is known as Father Time: a minor deity with dominion over the flow of time. He cannot see the future, but he can change the it by changing the past. With the ability to rewind and create new timelines, he remains a Protector God. Most of the folklore here comes as an explanation for dejavú. It is said that if an action or place feels familiar to you even if you have no recollection of being there or doing it before, that’s Father Time rewriting history for you. He’s watching over your shoulder, creating a timeline for the best version of your future. It’s familiar because you HAVE done it before, he’s giving you a chance to do it over. Don’t miss that chance.

(People from all corners of Hyrule pray to him for luck)

To others, he is the Man of Many Faces. He’s said to be able to change shape at will, walking among mortals and acting as a messenger for the Gods. He relays information that he’s gathered among the land of Hyrule and relays it the deities who cannot- or will not- show themselves. He’s less of a protector in these legends, often depicted as a young man. Maybe even a child. Some accounts paint him out to be stoic, while others view him more as a trickster god. It is said that if you encounter a stranger while on the road, silent and nameless, that the Man of Many Faces is paying you a visit. Treat them with kindness, you never know who’s watching.

(Travelers pray to him for safety on the road and in the wilds, though a lot of prayers are just asking for forgiveness or asking for specific messages to be relayed)

. . .

Time wasn’t always a God.

Hylia had been quiet for centuries, having divided her duties among so many minor deities. These deities kept the balance, though they weren’t involved in mortals’ lives. However, a certain Hylian child quickly caught their attention. Young Link had broken Nayru’s laws so carelessly during the course of his quest to save his world from Ganondorf’s malice. So often. So recklessly. It made more work for the Gods, and they watched him closely, gauging his competency, his resourcefulness, his willingness to succeed.

They were pleased with his skills.

And so, when his quest was over, they thrust him into another.

The land of Termina wasn’t real- kind of Koholint style but also Silent Realm style. It was one big trail to test child Link, baby Time, to see if he’d be able to handle being a God.

Link has no idea that it’s an illusion when he stumbles into the strange land, when he’s faced into a vicious three day cycle, staring down a malicious moon. Countless lives are at stake, people rely on him without even knowing the power he wields. He is a child, he is a grown man, he is no one, and he is the only person who is real.

Throughout this trail, he’s given the ability to use masks to change his shape, including the mask of the Fierce Deity, who he would eventually become. This trail nearly kills him. In fact, it does kill him. The moon crashes into the earth, cleansing this imaginary land in Din’s flames… only for it to be brought back again, for Link to be revived.

Until he gets it right.

There’s no escape. If he fails, he cannot walk away and return to Hyrule. No, he can only retry. Again and again. Until he succeeds and is rewarded with the Godly mantle thrust upon him. The point of the trail was to simulate a world that needed saving, to teach him the fragility of mortal lives, to force him to use time as a weapon, as a tool, to his advantage. Training grounds for a young God.

When he finally succeeds, he comes face to face with the Gods who have forsaken him, and he does not get to deny their plans for him. He can do nothing to fight against the searing pain behind his eyelid as sacred light pours out from him. He cannot escape his fate as he is Marked.

Link spent years in Termina. Depending on who you ask, he never returned at all.

. . .

Some notes!

• He’s kind of the ‘other.’ The newest God, barely considered to be anything of note by those who have existed for millennia. He’s met Hylia. Nayru, Din, and Farore are gone but he can still sense them. Hear them. Sometimes he can speak to them. He knows every deity from every era. He knows legends that have been lost to time, legends amongst Gods. Legends that mortals have forgotten.

• He knows the Legend of the Godkiller. He’s. Terrified of Sky, actually.

• His relationship with other Gods isn’t so great (this man’s so good at holding grudges). And his connection with mortals is what makes him so special! He interacts with them literally all the time, he’s married to one, and some day, he will have mortal children. Or else Twilight wouldn’t exist.

• “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”

• He plays his silly little Song of Time, but really, he doesn’t need to. He doesn’t rewind time often since it just makes new timelines for him to keep track of (and there’s already too many, thank you very much). He only does so when it’s life or death. And by that I mean, he only does so when someone dies and he has to bring them back.

• HE CANNOT DIE. If he gets mortally wounded, time flows as usual up until he takes his last breath, then it automatically rewinds to the moment before he sustained the injury. He does not get sick. He does not age. He is the only member of the group that is actually 100% immortal

• This is not a good thing.

• He knows A LOT. More than he lets on, more than he’d ever hope to be able to explain. More than I could ever explain to you, dear reader, as I myself am not a God.

Original Character Sheets!

Sky’s Origin!

Wild’s Origin!

[ewingstan]

I. Introduction

A while ago, I wrote on how Jack Slash was a prime example of how Worm approaches metatextual commentary. Wildbow has a general tendency in his first two serials especially to identify common story tropes and give them in-universe justifications. Jack Slash in particular is a response to the tendency for writers to give plot armor to the Joker and similar sorts of popular villain characters. The out-of-story justification of the authors ("we can't have someone just shoot him, that's boring, besides everyone loves this guy look at him go") becomes an in-story aspect of his powers: an ability to subtly influence other capes behavior allowing him to always escape danger. Plot armor transformed into an in-universe mechanic that characters are aware of, react to, and work against.

Notably, this tendency is never used to highlight the status of wildbow's characters as characters— there is no fourth-wall breaking or attempts to undermine the audience's perception of the story as containing essentially a self-contained world running on its own internal logic. But this certainly isn't the only way you could comment on Joker-type charcter's plot armor: Funny Games covers similar ground using the opposite trick, repeatedly having its home-invader villains draw attention to how they're characters in a story, and that whether they win or lose is determined wholly by the author's will. Director Michael Haneke continually draws his audience into the story only to violently and repeatedly pull them out with suspension-of-disbelief-shattering acts on the villains part. It's The Treachery of Images as a horror movie.

Together, Worm and Funny Games showcase two different approach to explaining why the villain gets to live another day. If you can explain their deal using only the internal logic of the story ("Jack has a power that lets them escape consequences"), then the author is giving a diegetic justification for the trope justified by mechanisms of the story's universe. If you can't explain their deal without reference to them being characters in a narrative ("Paul can talk to the audience and rewind time because he's a fictional character and can do whatever the author says he can do") then its a "narrative" or nondiegetic justification for the trope.

These can be combined. Seidlinger's Anybody Home? used them together for awkward effect: serial killers perform acts that get recorded by some mysterious "camera" that produces a log of their events, which through mystical and mysterious means gets distributed to film producers and adapted into horror movies. Killers have fully "narrative" reasons for following horror tropes—they know they have an audience and are behaving for their benefit. But the story suffers from its awkward in-story justification, its "mechanical" framing: the audience the killers are acting for are other people within the story's universe, not the readers of the book. Characters realize they're "victims" in a story, but they're framed not as existing fully for the story but as normal people who got caught within a story, stuck in it like one gets caught in a storm.

In this post I want to highlight some more elegant ways of combining the mechanical and narrative approaches to metafiction, especially in regards to plot armor. I'll be commenting on wildbow's second serial Pact, Homestuck, and Eidolon DISKA, and heavily spoiling all of them. I've divided them into sections so readers can avoid spoilers or skip over works they're uninterested in, though they're not separate essays. I'd maybe recommend checking out DISKA if you haven't. Its great. Alright then.

II.

Pact and the otherverse gives its characters diagetic reasons for following tropes that align with narrative rules though its magic system. Otherverse magic largely involves telling the universe a story and hoping that your behavior has enough symbolic resonance that it believes you. A lot of the magic spells work on a "I dunno, this feels like it would work" logic.

This means that characters need to be aware of how characters in good stories would act, and often need to behave in a way that is believable if they were characters in a story. The result is that Blake Thorburn ends up purposefully trying to emulate a monster from a horror story, purposefully playing into the tropes of such a character. He acts like a specific type of story character, not because he's broken the fourth wall and knows he's in a horror story, but because he knows convincing the universe that he's a horror villain will likely lead to the universe letting him survive just a little bit longer before he collapses into an exsanguinated heap.

However, Pact's approach to the specific mechanics and abilities of Blake and other monstrous entities of his ilk is much more in-line with how wildbow previously approached Jack Slash. Horror-movie style monsters are a grab-bag of entities called "Boogeymen" within the setting, with little in common outside of previously being people who had fallen through the cracks of reality and climbed out of the abyss changed.

The tropes of slasher movies are once again given mechanical justification: the monster drives conflict and acts unpredictably because being feared gives its more of a foothold in reality. It can't stay dead (and keeps returning for sequels) because it can always climb back out of the abyss again, or be summoned by Scourges to be used against their enemies. Some of the ways the in-universe boogieman mechanics reproduce these tropes are explicitly narrative justifications—they're stronger if the universe sees their ends as especially "iconic," and Blake seems to be empowered the most when he leans into character and goes on a rampage— but for the most part, you could explain their deal without having to refer to their roles as characters in a narrative.

III

The same couldn't be said for Homestuck's take on the serial-killer trope, which is explicable pretty much only in non-diagetic terms. Which is interesting insofar as its one of the only parts of Homestuck that doesn't at least provide a diagetic fig-leaf for a character following a cultural script.

Much like Pact's Otherverse, Homestuck also formalizes many narrative tropes as diagetic, in-universe mechanical laws of its setting. However, it doesn't bother giving justifications for why the setting has such mechanics. There's no equivalent to "they're like this because the magic of the abyss;" Homestuck's mechanical rules are almost more in the Funny Games vein of being inexplicable if you don't accept that they're the consequences of this being a story.

But the narrative rules it draws attention to are often all its own. See, in some ways the setting of Homestuck is meant to be an obvious set of fantasy Bildungromane. The characters enter a game world, Sburb, and are each deposited on a planet with almost stock templates: Land of Wind and Shade, Land of Heat and Clockwork, etc. Each are filled with a population of simple game constructs with little personality outside of what's needed to drop lore tidbits, and a slumbering denizen connected to a personal quest tailor-made for the player. This sense of "generic fantasy world made for a generic fantasy quest" is heightened by Homestuck's constant references to other media containing famous lands constructed from fantasy stories: Peter Pan/Hook, the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, and The Neverending Story. (That last example makes up not only a substantial amount of aesthetic references, but also structural echoes; as Homestuck copies it by having a second half in which reader-stand ins enter the story, characters go from one world to another, and the role of author and audience gets muddled in a world-threatening manner.)

It seems like the game Sburb created the players different worlds to facilitate a typical Bildungroman adventure. Enter the fantasy land, meet the locals, learn the lore, defeat the monster. Unlike Jacob's Bell, The Lands of Homestuck don't make sense as anything besides a game construct, a way to facilitate this narrative arc. And the character's tendency to sidestep the quests set up by the Lands and skip through or break things feels like a subversion of those typical sorts of fantasy stories.

A complicating factor, though, is that the game was set up with the expectation that the players would skip around and break things. The entire game is composed of a series of time loops, including the characters creating themselves, creating the big bad in an attempt to defeat him, etc. Everything that happens in a game session was engineered to happen "by" the game—including the parts that seem to break the intended narrative arc of the Lands. There's plenty of things that seem to be breaking the "intended" experience: Rose taking apart her game world, Vriska reading the mind of her Land's consorts to find out all the lore they have pre-programmed in, Jack Noir killing the Black King before the players could face him as the intended final boss. But all of these turn out to be essential conditions for the game coming to exist in the first place, for the characters to create themselves, for the Lands to be created as game constructs in the first place. The game creates conditions that require the players to "cheat."

In other words, its not just that the comic is subverting a typical fantasy story. Its that Sburb itself is a game that runs on the narrative rules. Not the narrative rules of a fantasy Bildungroman, but the narrative rules of a subversion of a fantasy Bildungroman. The subversion is expected and built-in.

This subversion-as-the-rule is something Hussie enjoys making the narrative conciet of a story: early Problem Sleuth was written with the one rule that the audience could never be right about how the main character's office worked. Its also a feature of Homestuck's general approach to characters and dialogue. I think a good example of this is Eridan and Feferi's early conversations. They get introduced as the primary examples of a form of alien romance the narrative just got done explaining, a pair of moirails that the narrator declares are "made for each other". But of course, the subversion of that is already built in, as before Eridan's full introduction we learned that he wanted to be in a different relationship with Feferi. So when the first few on-screen appearances of these characters turns out to be their break-up texts, its a "subversion" of the destined romance the narrator set-up, but its a sign-posted and expected subversion.

But back in terms of Sburb's mechanics: players of the game who perform a ritual to achieve god-tier status can only die if their death is either Heroic or Just: that is, they can only die if it’s narratively satisfying. If a powerful character dies without it being a satisfying heroic sacrifice or a satisfying end to a villainous rein of destruction—in other words, if the death is uninteresting and narratively pointless, then the character pops right back up. Like in Worm, plot armor is a mechanic of the setting that the characters can find out about and exploit, and like with Pact's boogeymen, characters become whole new types of beings as part of fitting to a character narrative that'd require plot armor. But unlike in wildbow's work, Homestuck's God Tiers have little in the way of diagetic justification. Hussie knows that there are situations where an audience won’t accept the stakes set out before them—they can tell that the bad thing can’t be allowed to happen, because if it did the plot couldn’t continue or the story would suffer, so they know the bad thing won’t happen. Accepting this, they play around with the trope by having it literally impossible for the bad thing to happen if the story would be worse for it.

But where it gets weird is how this plot-armor mechanic gets applied to Gamzee, in one of my favorite sections of Act 6. Gamzee was introduced as a joke character riffing on the juggalo evil clown subculture, who later goes on a murderous rampage for reasons that are never made fully obvious in-text. He then scuttles about the story as a figure who keeps breaking the story’s rules: both the mechanical rules of how Sburb works and the rules of storytelling generally. This ramps up a lot in Act 6, where he puts on a fake god-tier outfit and starts showing up at times and places he should not be able to be based on the established mechanics of Sburb, which up until then had been incredibly strict parameters on the story. Unlike a lot of the items that loop back in time in convoluted ways, we don’t see how Gamzee appeared on Jane’s planet, or went to the future to raise the cherubs, or all the other shit he gets up to. And we aren’t given a reason for why he’s selling blood like an RPG merchant or why he’s raising the big bad or why he’s doing anything at that point. He becomes a deus ex diabolica, a character whose not really a character at all so much as someone who sets up the obstacles in the story and has no reason for doing so besides the fact that the story wouldn’t work if he wasn’t there to set up the stakes.

One especially odd thing about him though is that even though he never actually reached God tier, he seemingly couldn't be killed.

At first this seems weird. Gamzee is breaking a core mechanical rule of Homstuck: he's immortal despite not being God-tier. But then you remember that the mechanical rule of God-tier immortality was already just a formalization of a narrative rule: a character can't die if the story isn't done with them. Homestuck is breaking its diagetic rules, but following the narrative rules they reflect.

This meta-interpretation of Gamzee's immortality is strengthened by the fact that the above conversation is taking place between Andrew Hussie and one of their characters. Furthermore, said character is a fandom stand-in who later transitions into being an author stand-in. This character (Caliborn) is the main villain of Homestuck, and has been interpreted as everything from the chains of narrative inevitability, to the interface of the webcomic itself, to Homestuck readers with an unhealthy relationship to the work, to the viler tendencies of Hussie themself present throughout the comic.

Not the only such stand-in; nearly all the villains of Homestuck assume some authorial role, as Hussie has an ongoing theme of equating the author role to being a manipulator. Thus the most heroic characters generally are reactive rather than proactive, thus Doc Scratch/Vriska/Dirk/etc all trying to author the timeline or claim causal responsibility for events while manipulating other characters, etc. But Caliborn ends up representing some more of Hussie's specific creative tendencies, and is the only character that Hussie's in-comic self has a conversation with.

Notably, this conversation has pretty much the only instance of Hussie presenting all the weird obstacles of Sburb as something they've set up as the author.

Oddly enough, apart from this, the yellow yard, and the Spades Slick sideplot, "Hussie" as a character has all but no role in the story. Which is in keeping with their (possible farcical?) ethos of all their characters existing as their own entities/character types, with Hussie just expressing them. The Entities in Worm actually end up being more direct author figures than Andrew Hussie's own self-insert, since they at least perform the role of authors (control characters in a way that produces dynamic and interesting scenarios).

This is a part of why the Hussie stand-in apparently lacks knowledge of their own story, and gets surprised by it.

Hussie claims even they don't know where Gamzee got things, what he gets up to, or why he's doing what he's doing. The first two things are probably true, honestly. The actual author Hussie may not have an idea in mind for how Gamzee gets to any of the places he does, since its not really relevant to the story. It feels weird that he doesn't, since so much of the rest of Homestuck is tracking how various objects travel from one point in a timeline to another, but when there's no interesting answer to be constructed by the author none really has to be provided. Again, by this point Gamzee is a plot device that Hussie has dressed up as a funny clown for the audience's amusement, he's not really a character.

But if the Hussie stand-in is meant to be taken seriously when they say they don't know why Gamzee has the keys, then there's a disconnect between Hussie the character and Hussie the author. Since the keys do have a plot purpose that's revealed almost immediately, and that Hussie almost certainly had planned.

A weakness in metafiction generally is that having the author be a character in any real capacity lowers they're ability to be a true author figure. If the stand-in is surprised by something the author wrote, then they're not reflecting the author. If the characters kill the author stand-in, but the story keeps on going, then what the hell was the author representing?

IV

The only piece of metafiction I've seen that squared that circle is EIDOLON DISKA, which mostly suceeds because of its structure as an actual-play. It has a GM who serves as a narrator alongside being the voice of almost all the characters, but all the main characters are acted out by other people. So it can pull a lot of the standard metafiction moves in much more convincing ways. The narrator reveals that he's an in-universe character who they actually know, and whose been writing the story they're all in. When the player characters are still able to rebel and fight against the narrator, it works, because the PCs actually are representing other people making decisions apart from the GM. Even a character usurping the author ends up working, since it just means that character's player becomes the GM.

As you'd expect, EIDOLON DISKA is another piece that blends diagetic and narrative rules. Gods currently writing the story (aka the current GM) can't rewrite portions that previous gods wrote, because doing something so narratively unsatisfying would break their own godhood. Breaking the rules of the Eidolon rpg system also risks being usurped, since they're the narrative rules the story runs on, and the diagetic rules of Godhood are just narrative rules.

This gets most interesting when the characters end up dying, as will sometimes happen in an actual-play of a ttrpg where death is a mechanic. The podcast is divided into two time periods, with the first group being the founding members of their school's mystery solvers club. The second group are the members of the same club 20 years later, trying to solve the murder of the founders. Because the first group's death is a set event that the narrator already wrote would happen at a specific time, every time the characters in that first group die before that point, they have to come back. And once it becomes clear that they're characters, they become aware of this, and start abusing it. They take bigger risks, stop freaking out when their friends get hurt or killed in battle, start getting chatty with the increasingly annoyed grim reaper—in other words, they realize they have plot armor and start acting like it. Since they're aware of and secure of their plot armor, they use it more fully than Blake does. And since its an actual play instead of something written by one person, they're actually able to use that plot armor to be more than a villain thrown into heroes way like Jack Slash or Gamzee. DISKA isn't finished yet, but I have the most hope for it going into interesting places with plot armor out of any of these stories.

[signanothername]

So what do you think about the different endings in Dreamtale? Since there are four endings: good, bad, neutral and true

Thing is, I genuinely don’t remember them fully

I do remember that the bad ending is where Nightmare wins, kills Dream and gets the last golden apple, it’s obviously the worst possible ending

That being said, love this ending, very good for pain and tragic sorrow, very bad for the multiverse tho

I also remember the neutral ending, in which Dream succeeds at Killing Nightmare, yet Dream sacrifices?? (I think) himself to revive the tree, i remember something along the lines of it being the worst ending for the twins as it would create a loop of suffering in which their lives are rewind only to experience the same fate over and over again

Needless to say, very bittersweet yet extremely tragic, slightly happy yet tainted with so much sorrow, definitely my favorite ending, not good for the twins tho

There’s an ending i remember in which Dream wins and becomes an actual guardian to the emotional balance of both negativity and positivity, i don’t recall which ending it is (whether it’s the true or good ending)

I love this ending a lot, it’s obviously the best outcome that could truly happen to the twins, still very tragic when it comes to the fact Nightmare is either A-Killed, or B-probably trapped somewhere forever

Idk anything about whatever the fourth ending is

I really love all of the three endings tho, I think they all hold the tragedy that always plaques the twins, cause none of them are truly happy endings, not fully anyway, they’re all so bittersweet/ full of sorrow, but the neutral ending just has me in a chokehold I love it so much

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

Apparently at some point MCU fans collectively agreed that the Blip takes place on October 17th, 2023. Which is today. So I figured I'd take the time to detail the four biggest reasons why the time jump in Endgame was a universe-shatteringly horrible idea that should never have seen the light of day

the absolute biggest problem, of which there are many, is the fact that countless people died as collateral damage in the initial Snap. Hell, we are shown it in the Infinity War post-credit scene with those multiple car accidents and that helicopter slamming into a building. And that was just the tip of the iceberg; imagine how many planes crashed because the pilots were dusted, or how many babies starved because both their parents were dusted, or people who may have died on the operating table because a surgeon got dusted. All of these people are totally ignored. It's never so much as mentioned when talking about bringing everyone back, and Tony insisting that the last five years remain unchanged is implicitly saying all of those people remained dead when the dusted returned.

the second big problem with this plot point is that it's used as an excuse for every character except Nat to be totally unrecognizable. Bruce becomes Professor Hulk, Thor gets fat, Tony has a family (and I fucking love how the movie inadvertently says he just let the world rot for five years instead of using his billions of help. That is 100% in character for him), Clint went on a mass killing spree, and Steve... I actually have no idea what made him change so radically. None of this is shown to us at all, it's just told to us.

this is less a problem with Endgame and more a problem with Phases 4 and 5, but the other worse thing about this development is that absolutely nothing has been done with it. Far From Home played the time-jump for comedy, WandaVision had that one great scene in the hospital and then did nothing else, Shang-Chi had a singular throwaway line about the Blip, Hawkeye had that one neat visual of getting Snapped from Yelena's POV and then nothing else, Multiverse of Madness had a single conversation where Strange wonders if letting Tony have his way was the only way to save the universe, Quantumania had a single scene addressing the homelessness issue and then nothing else, and I think Secret Invasion tried to do a bit of a look at how Talos reacted to the Blip, but that show was so awful that I'd rather not think about it. The only projects to do anything at all with the Blip as a major plot point are Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Eternals.

the fourth and final massive problem with the Blip is pretty simple yet complicated; it ignores the absolutely insurmountable societal implications both the Snap and the Blip would have. Think about it; half the fucking universe disintegrates into ash. There are SO many things that would do to just human society alone. But even more importantly, five years after all those people were declared dead (meaning wills are executed, spouses remarried, jobs and homes redistributed, etc) those people suddenly reappear, and from their POV it's only been a second. Just to put it in perspective, the Snap happened on April 29th, 2018. Doesn't that feel like forever ago? If the Snap were real, all those people would have been gone until today. That is such a huge mindfuck that I'm shocked no one went insane. And even looking aside from the psychological impact, all those people are pretty fucking screwed. Far From Home had a single scene addressing this, then promptly forgot about it.

My final point is less of a problem and more of an amusing byproduct; since Tony directly forbids Bruce from undoing the last five years, that means the events of WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness, and Secret Invasion are on some level his fault. That’s fucking hysterical.

I suppose I'll be absolutely fair and say that rewinding time isn't a morally perfect solution either, as you would be erasing any maturity the survivors gained during those five years, as well as anyone born in that time. But that's just all the more reason to NOT HAVE A FUCKING TIME-SKIP!!! I still think the only reason it was done was for cheap shock value.

All in all, the five-year time jump is the single worst major plot point in the MCU. Fight me.

[seventeenpins]

a little domesticity

pairing: Tess x F!Reader word count: 2.3k summary: You discover it's Tess's birthday. You decide you want to make it special. Tess fingers you while you cook her dinner. Same universe as Drive Me Home if you like?? content/warnings: basically just porn, no implied age gap, this is so domestic!!!!, established but new-ish relationship, lil bit of daddy Tess, fingering, very mild degradation, no outbreak or pre-outbreak AU, pet names (baby, honey), Tess works at a high-powered but undefined job a/n: For @ozarkthedog 🩷 Congrats on your 11k, and happy birthday Ozzie!! You've given us so much with your celebration, but you should be the one getting gifts! I know this is pretty extraordinarily late (sorry, love) but I hope you like it 😚

You are determined not to have to make two trips. Tess's apartment is up five flights, the elevator is on the fritz, and your legs already ache from the gym yesterday. You want to do anything you can to not have to go back and forth.

Three grocery bags hang off your left hand and two on your right, slowly cutting off any remaining circulation. A bottle of wine and a gallon of milk are tucked into your elbows as you heave yourself up the steps. Grocery shopping is a truly Sisyphean task, and the slog up to the apartment only confirms this.

By the time you turn the corner past the fourth landing, you're cursing yourself. It's so much. You know your arms will be aching, but of course you're stubborn enough to overdo it.

Finally, you make it to the fifth floor landing, and Tess's door is the third on the right. It's inelegant, trying to keep the bags steady while shoving your hand into your pocket to dig around for your keys. Your fingers are verging on numbness, and right as you move the key to the lock, you fumble and drop it.

That's the moment you hear the phone ring inside.

It sends you into a rush, and in your haste, you drop half the bags and still don't manage to open the door before the ringing stops.

Instead, you swing the door open right as the beep of the answering machine sounds, a bunch of bananas and a bag of English muffins fallen at your feet.

A man's voice chimes out, tinny and a little distorted.

"Tess! It's Joel. Happy birthday! We're gettin' old, huh? Let's get dinner soon, on me. Tommy's wishing you well, and Sarah, too. I'll catch you later."

Then you hear the click of a receiver, and the machine stops.

You frown. Leave the groceries where they're sat and rewind the tape a few seconds. Hit play.

"'S Joel. Happy birthday! We're gettin' old, huh? Let's get dinner soon, on me. Tommy's wishing you--"

You click it off.

He definitely said Tess. And 'happy birthday'.

So why the fuck didn't Tess tell you it was her birthday?

You know it's not really a big deal. Maybe she's just not a birthday person. It wouldn't really surprise you; there's a nonchalance that she exudes that sometimes throws you off .

If you're honest, though, you love birthdays. The gift-giving. Getting to make a fuss over your loved ones. And, you reason, if the Millers can wish her well, then it's probably not a sore spot for her.

More than anything, you've been wanting an excuse to celebrate her. Maybe this can be it?

As you prop the door open and begin to drag the grocery bags in, as you scrubbing the produce and putting everything away, you allow a plan to form.

It's been a long day but a good day. Work was a series of tasks that required some creative problem solving, and Tess felt like a fucking magician the way she'd been kicking ass and putting out fires.

Trekking up the innumerable steps, she felt suddenly lighter when she remembered that you had offered to make dinner.

From the moment she turns the key in the lock, she immediately starts salivating.

"Babe?" she calls, shucking off her shoes and shrugging off her jacket.

"In here-" you call back.

A moment later, soft footfalls are padding into the kitchen, and she's slipping her arms around you. She rests her chin on your shoulder and surveys the scene in front of you both.

"Shit, hon, this smells amazing."

You do a happy wiggle against her and start pointing out everything in turn. "So, we've got garlic tossed broccolini. Parsnip ravioli in that one, only has a minute or so left. I'm just starting the sauce now, so it'll be a few minutes before everything's ready, but you've made it in perfect time."

"Ugh," Tess groans, appreciative, "You spoil me. What's the occasion?"

"OH, don't let me drain the pasta water without saving some."

"I got you," she promises, sliding past you to grab two beers from the fridge. She notices when your eyes linger on her hands as she pops the bottle caps. "Careful, don't burn-- whatever you've got on the flame there."

With a shake of your head, you roll your eyes. "But seriously, is that a real question, or are you testing me?"

She frowns. Hands you a bottle and takes a swig of her own, sliding back behind you. She presses against you and wraps her arms around your waist.

"What are you talking about?"

You grind your ass back a little more and she puts one hand on your hip, but now she's smiling at you, mildly puzzled.

"Do you know what the date is today?"

"Oh shit, did I forget something important?" she detaches. "Did I forget our anniversary?"

"You tell me." You nod your head towards the calendar hanging on the fridge. "I'll help you out, it's a Tuesday today. And we've only been together six months. And you brought me flowers for that, like, a week ago."

She stares at the calendar for a moment and then looks at you. Looks back and forth.

"I--"

She's frozen in an incredulous frown.

"Happy birthday, honey," you tell her.

"I can't believe I fucking forgot. And how did you know?" she laughs.

"Hah," you laugh, "Answering machine went off when I got in. Your friend, Joel, he was calling to wish you well."

She snorts. "Fuckin' Miller saves the day?" Then she looks you up and down. "And you, baby, you've definitely saved the day." She looks over the spread again and notices the counter covered in flour, the kitchenaid with a roller attachment, a piping bag nearly fully emptied, and various pastry cutters. "Shit, did you make all this yourself?"

"The ravioli? Sure did. Just wanted an excuse to spoil you."

Tess plants a kiss on your lips and you moan into her mouth. When you pull apart, you're panting.

"Now," you tell her, suddenly serious, "I prioritized dinner and didn't have a chance to get you a present."

"Oh, hon, you don't have to-"

You cut her off, waggling your eyebrows. "But you do still have someone to unwrap."

"Don't have to tempt me, honey," she grins.

"Just let me finish up with dinner-"

She has a different idea. "I bet you can finish up while I open my present."

You snort. "Be patient."

"I don't have to be patient--it's my birthday."

"Tess, I-"

She ignores you, pressing gentle kisses down the side of your throat.

She know's it's a guaranteed horny button for you, and she exploits that weakness mercilessly. You have to fight not to melt. Even so, you let your eyes flutter closed, bathing in the sensation and not wanting anything to stop or change. She lets you relax into it for a moment, before bumping her hip against you, nudging you forward.

"Go on, baby. Better keep cooking. I'm hungry."

You let out a deep breath and snap yourself back. You spark the cooktop and place down the sauté pan. (You prefer cooking at Tess's apartment. Hers has a gas range. Yours has electric.)

After checking the temperature, you place a stick of butter in the pan. Tess runs her hands up and down your sides at a leisurely pace. Just her touch is enough to make you weak kneed again.

She passes you a slotted wooden spatula and you start to push the stick of butter around, watching it sizzle and melt as Tess makes you melt. You hear the clink of her own belt before you feel her undoing the button of your jeans.

Your pasta timer dings and the moment is broken. You grab the pan and are about to drain it in the colander you have set up in the sink, but before you can tip it out, Tess stops you.

"Hold up, hon, save that pasta water."

"Shit! Yep, nearly forgot it."

You set a liquid measuring jug beneath the colander and let the pasta drain, before taking the pasta water and turning back to the melting butter.

Tess's hands are back on you, pulling down your zipper now. She shimmies your jeans past your hips, kneading your ass with one hand as she trails the other from your belly button lower and lower and lower-

You start to lose focus on dinner and can only pay attention to her.

Tess slips her hand down your front and gasps when she gets to your bare cunt, hot and wanting. You're wearing no underwear, clothed only in the curls between your thighs.

"Naughty girl," she praises, and you swoon as she starts stroking her fingertips along your cunt, collecting your wetness and smearing it on your clit before pressing harsh circles into you that make you shudder and squirm deliciously.

"Don't let the butter burn," Tess chides, and you blink your eyes open, reaching for the utensil and moving the last of the unmelted butter around the pan, watching it start to foam at the edges.

"What else do you need, hon?" she asks, "Got all your ingredients?

You glance around. The sage is there. The pasta water. Garlic. Pepper.

"Uh-huh."

"Good," Tess says, "'Cause I'm gonna need you to stay put and focus."

A surge of heat pulses through you and you feel Tess's breath on your neck, a delicious sigh.

You add sage leaves to the browning butter, savouring the sudden aroma as the sage begins to heat, releasing its fragrance.

Tess resumes her work, slipping your jeans down to your ankles and guiding you to step out, all the while you stir the pan.

As the sage sizzles in the butter, she presses a finger against your folds, finding your opening, and eliciting a gasp from you as she enters you with two long fingers.

Finding a rhythm, she starts pumping the digits, pulling whines and moans from you, pausing only to let you smash the peeled garlic with the palm of your hand against the flat of a chef's knife and mince it a little more. You toss it into the pan and, once the knife is out of your hand, she resumes.

Two fingers become three, and as you splash the pasta water in with the butter and sage and yelp as she picks up the pace.

"Love those lovely little whines you make for me. All those sweet noises, that's all for me, huh?"

"For you," you agree, another whine escaping.

"Messy fuckin' hole, taking my fingers so good. Such a good girl, baby," she praises, and you don't realise she's not referring to you until she says, "Look at her, gettin' all puffy and wrecked."

You let out another sound, this one closer to a growl. You can feel yourself beginning to drip down her hand as she fucks her digits into you, pressing into you so nicely, working you open, making your knees quake.

"Sweet little pussy opening right up for me. Think she can take another?

"Fuck, daddy, please-"

Trying to keep stirring while she works on you is a near impossibility. With a focus that can't be anything less than witchcraft, she smacks your cheek while you're moaning, eyes closed and keening.

"Don't let it burn," she scolds, and your eyes snap back open.

The sauce has started to thicken, and you turn down the flame so you can take a moment to grind yourself deeper onto Tess's hand.

"Wanna put on the strap?" you ask. "Want me to put on the strap?"

"I'd take either," she admits with a laugh, "But the dishwasher's running."

"Fuck."

"Did you just put the cycle on?"

"Yep. Are our dicks in the dishwasher?"

"Our dicks are in the dishwasher."

You let out a whine. She just maintains her pace and rubbing a fingertip in blinding, tight circles around your clit.

"Poor baby," she teases, "I barely have to play with you and your cute lil hole soaks me like a fuckin' whore. You're so fucking easy."

"Hnnnggg-"

"My pretty little slut. Just gotta give me one, baby, just one and I'll let you finish dinner."

Another whine.

"C'mon, honey, I feel you gettin' close. Clenchin' on daddy's fingers. Fuck, cum for me baby, let me feel you-"

She reaches around you and turns off the flame, the fingers of her other hand pumping faster and rougher. You're bent forward, gripping the counter for support, as you feel yourself start to tip over.

"Fuuuuckkk-" you cum with a cry, Tess's fingers working you through it as her other hand wraps around your waist, steadying you. You hear the splash of your release against the laminate floor as she keeps going, pumping her fingers fast and deep, hitting just the right spot, dragging your orgasm out longer than you knew yourself capable of.

It takes a couple of minutes, coming back down. You feel your slick cooling on your thighs and turn around to see Tess leaning against the hallway behind you, grinning wickedly as she licks her fingers one by one.

"You're gonna be the death of me," you tell her, and she slides back behind you, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

"Not allowed to die. It's my birthday."

"Hmmph," you roll your eyes and begin to plate up.

The groan Tess lets out as she takes her first bite is more than worth it.

"Fucking fuck, honey, I mean- holy shit this is so good."

You grin. "Glad you like it."

"I know what I'm having for dessert," Tess smirks, waggling her eyebrows.

"Yeah," you agree, "I made you a tart."

"You're my tart."

You roll your eyes again. "I am, but I made one special for you. Dessert first, then you can eat me as much as you like."

Tess nods solemnly before breaking into another grin. "Thank you honey."

"Happy birthday, baby."

[justmochi]

action

pairing :: mira x wonwoo ft mingyu, sua, and yoohyeon

word count :: 2.1k

synopsis :: wonwoo shows mira his rehearsal video for his stunt scene

time :: april, 2024

warnings :: spice, angst if you squint. mira is shrimping

taglist :: @cafemilk-tea @cixrosie @moonlight-additions @cosmicwintr @astraw-astro @succulentmom @kimhyejin3108 @enhacolor @alixnsuperstxr @hybesunstone @itzynabi @choihaneul @strmiu @angie-x3 @Kaitieskidmore1 @evaalopezzzz

Mira just got back from the bathroom, plopping down on the couch next to her boyfriend and tucking her legs underneath herself. “You can press play.” They both shared a nod of approval before resuming their romance movie.

The movie was calming down from its climax, prompting her to rest her head on Wonwoo’s shoulder. He takes in a sharp breath, causing Mira to retreat from him.

“Are you okay?” She frowned, keeping her distance.

He presses his fingers into his shoulder, shutting his eyes at the sensation. “Yeah, I’ve just been exerting some muscles I don’t usually use at the stunt academy.”

“Stunt academy?” Her eyes widen, her mind going directly to the worst-case scenario.

“Yeah, I learned some martial art moves for—”

“Martial arts?” She sits up straight, placing her hand on his knee.

“Hey, it’s fine.” He cups her cheek with his palm. “I have to film an action scene for our music video, so I learned from the professionals.”

Mira slouches back against the couch, letting out a sigh of relief. “You scared me.”

“I’m okay–” Both of their heads snap towards the screen when the female lead lets out a moan. Mira feels her cheeks heat up, pursing her lips.

“Uh, we filmed some test footage. Did you wanna see?” He tries to direct their attention elsewhere to downplay the manner of the movie scene.

“Oh, sure!” She perks up, watching as he takes his phone out of his pocket. She pays attention to the movie before he holds out his phone.

She smiles upon seeing him barefaced with his glasses on, and a beanie. “Awe.”

He chuckles nervously before pressing play on the video. She giggles at him taking a deep breath before they begin the sequence.

“You’re so–OH! Oh my gosh–“ She covers her mouth when people in the video start lunging for Wonwoo. She’s speechless while watching the rest of the video, her boyfriend throwing and dodging punches, even kicking the stunt people. When most of the guys are on the ground, her eyes widen as he stands in the video, panting. The footage ends with him fixing his beanie.

She looks at him, her mouth agape behind her palm. He gets flustered when looking into her eyes, throwing his head back on the sofa while snickering.

“Wow, that’s…” Mira shakes her head in disbelief. “Awesome. Can I see it again?”

“Of course.” He hands her his phone and she swipes to the beginning to watch it all over again. The first time, she focuses on the actors coming his way. Second, she watches Wonwoo’s face the entire time. Third, she watches his body movements. He is shy everytime she restarts the video, trying his hardest to focus on the movie and not her reactions.

She watches a fourth time, but scrolls through it frame by frame. Watching it in slow motion was not her brightest idea, because she takes every detail into account. She can’t deny that he looks incredibly sexy. He probably doesn’t even recognize what he’s doing, focusing on the routine he was taught at the academy. She sees his shirt lift up and she can’t help but rewind and scroll some more, wetting her lips at the sight of his abs. She’s at the end of the video, but she doesn’t remember anything from it because her mind is imagining him shirtless.

“Mira?” He knocks her out of her daydreaming.

Her cheeks heat up again, as well as her ears. She feels as if he completely read her mind and she was about to be caught. “Oh, yes?”

“Are you done? I mean you can watch as many times as you want but I’m getting embarrassed.” He smirks.

“Uhh, yes I am.” She hands his phone back to him, trying to get one more glimpse at him in the video. She watches him press the share button and sends it to her through texts. She really wishes he hadn’t done that. “It’s really good. I’m proud of you.”

He smiles, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. She blushes and suddenly feels hot all over. He doesn’t pull away but instead stares at her lips. She watches his eyes drift, so she takes the opportunity to tilt her head and kiss his lips. He follows the way her lips move against him, cupping her cheek with his hand. Mira feels her phone ring in her pocket from the text he sent. She quickly pulls away, clearing her throat while brushing strands of her hair behind her ear.

She stumbles on her words, distancing herself from him. “I- do you want me to massage your shoulder?”

He snorts, leaning forward to give her more access. “Go crazy.”

She stretches her fingers before readjusting and pressing them into his shoulder. He shudders the second she applies pressure.

“Sorry,” She pouts, trying to be gentle with him.

“Don’t worry, you can’t hurt me.” He rubs her knee, turning his attention to the movie.

The hairs on her head stand up from that touch alone. She does her best to push away her lustful thoughts, watching the movie with him.

They get absorbed in the intimate scenes when Mira reaches one of his more sore muscles, causing him to suppress a moan. Regardless of his efforts, she still heard it loud and clear.

“Did I hurt you?” She takes her hands back, holding them to her chest.

“No, that felt good.”

“Oh, um…” She tries to reposition her hands back to where they were just a moment ago. She feels around his shoulder blades before he lets out another moan.

“Right there.” He sighs

She flattens her lips, willing her fingers to not start shaking now. “Like this?”

“Just like that.” He speaks low enough for her to hear. Her imagination starts to run wild as she continues to massage his shoulder. She envisions what it would be like to hear the same sounds coming from him but under different circumstances. Would he say the exact same words? She wants to hit herself for looking back on all the times he had been shirtless around her. Her pulse quickens at the thought of the steamy scene minutes ago and what it would be like for her and Wonwoo.

“Why’d you stop?” She snaps out of it again to see him looking at her. She doesn’t remember ever stopping.

“I…” Her fingers hover over his skin, looking down into his eyes. “Sorry, I don’t know–“ She trails off, entranced by his wet lips. They both feel the pull towards each other, leaning in until the front door flies open.

“I got ice cream!” Mingyu lifts the bags, pushing the door shut with his leg.

Mira throws her on the opposite side of the sofa like they were caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. She hopes Mingyu didn’t notice anything except for the flush across her skin.

“Ice cream!” She stands to her feet, rushing over to grab a bag from Mingyu. “Do you want some ice cream, Wonwoo?”

“Uhh sure.” He stands, readjusting his sweats before stretching his back and limbs.

The three settle on the sofa, Wonwoo in between both of them. Mingyu has his own bowl of ice cream, while the couple share one. She’s hoping the ice cream can somehow melt away her uneasiness from their situation, but she finds herself more agitated sitting so close to her boyfriend.

“You didn’t eat much, do you want the rest?” He leans his temple against her shoulder, whispering into her ear.

“It’s okay, you can have it.” She whispers back, attempting a reassuring nod. She turns her attention to the movie, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

She can’t remember what’s all happened in their movie or even the title of it as she watches him finish the ice cream. Her first mistake was trusting herself enough to turn her head a little to see the cream on the corner of his lips. He wipes it away with his thumb before licking his finger clean. She feels her mouth go dry and a ringing in her ears.

She may have imagined him his eyes shifting to her, but it’s enough for her to shoot up and ask the two boys if they’re done with their ice cream.

“Can I take it?” She grabs both of the bowls from them, running away to the kitchen to collect herself and clean the dishes.

Her mind is running laps as she frantically rinses the dishes, drying them and placing them back in the cupboards. She dries her hands, taking her phone out of her pocket with shaky hands. She texts Sua to come and pick her up ASAP.

Before she can go back to watch the movie with them, she gives herself a pep talk while fixing her hair and clothing.

Wonwoo eyes her as she comes back in, splaying his arm out on the sofa to wrap around her. She forces a smile, bringing her knees to her chest.

He leans in, rubbing his hand back and forth on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just don’t feel too good so Sua is coming early.”

“We can go to my room and you can lay on the bed if you–“

Going to Wonwoo’s room and laying down on his bed.

“No. Really, I’m fine. It’s not a big deal.”

He scans her face, debating on whether he should feel her forehead for a fever. He nods, instead pressing a peck to her temple. It was very clear to him how tense and unnatural she was acting. He nods, not wanting to overwhelm her anymore.

After a while, her phone vibrates in her pocket, knowing that it’s Sua telling her she’s outside. The movie is almost over so she sticks it out, hoping her member won’t be too agitated with her for making her wait.

The second the screen fades to black, she stands up and smooths her pants down. “Thank you for having me over, I really enjoyed tonight.” She bows her head to Mingyu before heading to the front door.

“No problem…” Mingyu raises his eyebrow, watching as Wonwoo walks after her.

She struggles to get her shoes on, pushing her bag to her back.

“Mira,” He presses his palm against her back, causing her to flinch. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine, don’t worry.” She turns her head, pleading with her eyes for him to take a hint. She makes sure she has everything before pulling the door open.

“Let me walk you–“

“No! It’s fine, I’ll be okay.” She nods, giving him an unexpecting peck on the lips. “Love you. I’ll text you.”

She leaves him no room to argue, shutting the door and rushing to the elevators.

Wonwoo stands at the front door for a second before walking back to the living room. He’s thinking in his head when Mingyu brings him back to reality.

“Is it just me or was she acting really weird?” He points to the door, flattening his lips.

“You noticed?”

Mira quickly gets in the car and fastens her seatbelt. Sua looks her up and down, raising an eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine.”

“Did something happen–“

“No, nothing happened. I’m just tired so can we please go home?” She presses her arm against the door, holding her head up. When the vehicle doesn’t start driving, she looks over to see the woman staring at her. “Now.”

“Yes ma’am. Sheesh.” She sits back, putting the car in reverse.

“I am despicable.” Mira mumbles under her breath.

April 29, 2024

She can’t help but bite her nails, hesitating on clicking the official music video. She was both anxious and excited to see the final product. She was also fearsome of what she would have to face once she finally watched Wonwoo’s fight scene. She thought it was shameful enough to be thirsting over him, but she didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that she craved to be intimate with him.

Mira pressed on the Maestro music video, listening to the song with her headphones on. She waited impatiently for his part, nearly squealing the second it did. Her jaw hung open, having to replay the scene over and over again.

She zoned out, feeling a warmth fill her center. He looked too sexy and she felt ashamed to be imagining such inappropriate things about him.

“Mira!” Yoohyeon reached back for Mira’s leg, shaking it from her seat.

The girl quickly took her headphones off her head, once again acting like she was caught watching something she was not supposed to. “Hmm?”

“Are you drooling?”

She was not expecting a twenty second video to bother her this much.

[marimayscarlett]

'Reise Reise' turns 20 today 💿🎶

20 years from today, on the 27th of September 2004, Rammstein's fourth studio album 'Reise Reise' was released in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and several other countries. It was most likely named after the old saying "Reise, Reise!" as a signal for the sailors of a sailing ship to get up.

Recordings of this album took place in the El Cortijo Studio in Málaga, Spain, where the band gathered in November 2003. Producer for this record was once again Jacob Hellner, and a making of about this recording process and the band's time in Spain was released on the 'Völkerball' DVD in 2006. During interviews for this documentary, the bandmembers expressed that this recording session seemed to be more relaxed than the last ones, and thought about several alternative names for this album - Schneider liked the title "Rot", Flake rooted for "Nein", Paul thought about "Amerika" and "Amore" as titles, Olli liked "Reise Reise" and Richard, a bit clueles, refrained from making a suggestion. Till apparently wasn't asked or declined talking about his ideas. Documentary parts with english subtitles can be found here, here and here.

The album was originally planned as a double album, but this idea was ultimatly discarded. The following songs were recorded during the session for this album, but were used on 'Rosenrot' later: Rosenrot, Wo bist du, Mann gegen Mann, Zerstören, Ein Lied, Feuer und Wasser and Hilf mir. Additional demos exist for the following: Absinth, Eisenmann, Holz und Sonntag bei Omi.

The promotional photosession for this album was done by Olaf Heine and most likely was inspired by the movie "Falling down", starring Michael Douglas.

The cover for this album shows the outside of a aircraft's blackbox with the German imprint "Flugrekorder nicht öffnen" ("Do not open flight recorder") on it. Linked to this design, there is a hidden track before the first song on REISE, REISE - it can be heard on standard CD players by rewinding. It features radio messages (the black box recording) from the Boeing 747SR (Japan Airlines Flight 123), which crashed on August 12, 1985, killing 520 people. Up to now, it remains the deadliest single-aircraft crash in history. This dark aesthetic of all of this combined also suits the song "Dalai Lama" on the album. This song is based on the German ballad "Erlkönig", written in the 18th century by Goethe, and for this song the first instrumental tracks were written and finished for this album.

The limited digipack contained a picture from the above mentioned photoshoot.

The Japanese cover of the album is the same one that was later used for Rosenrot, a picture of the ice breaker USS Atka in the Antarctic from 1960.

As part of the promotion for 'Reise Reise', three additional CDs were published with interviews of the band members. CD 1 contained an interview with Till and Flake, CD2 with Olli and Paul and CD3 with Richard and Schneider. The linked videos contain the original soundtrack with the german interviews and a spoken english translation.

Regarding the success of this album: REISE, REISE reached number 1 in the album charts in seven countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Iceland, Estonia and Mexico). After the release of REISE, REISE, Billboard declared Rammstein to be the most successful German-speaking band internationally. The album achieved 1x silver, 3x gold and 6x platinum. The song 'Mein Teil' was nominated for a Grammy. All in all, Reise, Reise reached 47th place in the Top 50 album charts of 2005.

The Reise Reise tour started with one concert (September 30th 2004) at the Label showcase party "10 Jahre Motor" and marks the only acoustic concert the band has ever played. For the occasion, the band dressed up as East Berlin police women.

After that, three concerts at the Knaack club followed on the 11th, 12th and 13th of October, 2004, where the album was presented at fan club only concerts.

Two examples for tickets for the Reise Reise tour:

Sources: rammwiki, affenknecht, rammsteinworld, rammsteinblogcollection, metal-hammer, photo.sibnet

[frickingnerd]

if i could rewind time, i'd do it all again

pairing: shinjiro aragaki x gn!reader

summary: you're stuck in a time loop, the events of october fourth repeating again and again. but are you able to defy fate and save shinjiro?

tags: lots of death, a ton of angst, a good amount of fluff too, obvious spoilers for october fourth, timeloops, hurt/comfort

word count: 2.5k

a/n: i teared up twice while writing this– this is the oneshot i'm proudest of so far, so i hope this performs well 👉🏻👈🏻 if you liked it, consider reblogging and commenting!

when you saw shinjiro's lifeless body lay in front of you, you only wished for one thing: to rewind time and save him!

it was an unrealistic wish, you knew that. it was a wish you never thought would be granted to you.

but when you woke up the next morning, it was the fourth of october again. you could hear shinjiro's voice outside of your room, yelling at you to finally wake up and come outside. and suddenly you knew that your wish was granted. you've got a second chance!

“h-hey, let go of me! what's gotten into you?”

you had rushed out of your room and pulled shinjiro into a tight hug, almost squeezing him to death yourself. of course, shinjiro had no idea what was going on. and yet, he reciprocates the hug, while you sobbed in his arms.

“i'm just… so glad you're here”

shinjiro gently held you, as you cried. his fingers moved through your hair, gently stroking it. being so close to him made you realize that this wasn't a dream. shinjiro was alive! at least, for now.

“i need you to do me a favour…”

when you stopped crying, you pulled away and looked up at shinjiro. there was so much determination in your eyes that he wondered what had gotten into you. shinjiro had never seen you like this before.

“whatever you do, don't leave the building today. just… please, stay here with me!”

if shinjiro never left, he couldn't run into takaya. he'd survive and you would've been the one who saved him.

“you're acting strange…”

shinjiro wanted to know more. he wanted to know why he wasn't allowed to leave. clearly, something was going on. but you didn't seem ready to tell him, so he didn't ask.

“just today, got it? akihiko is going to kill me, if he finds out i let you skip school…”

shinjiro chuckled and rolled his eyes, only for you to quickly smack his arm and glare at him with tears in your eyes.

“don't even joke about that–!”

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

you had sworn to yourself that you wouldn't rest until october fourth and the dark hour were over. yet here you were, having fallen asleep in shinjiro's room. or rather, you just woke up after having dozed off.

shinjiro and you had been watching movies in his room all day, but somewhere along it you must've fallen asleep. it was close to midnight now, but when you looked around the room, rubbing your eyes sleepily, shinjiro was nowhere to be found.

you panicked, quickly jumping up and running downstairs. despite crying out his name and knocking on every door, you couldn't find him. shinjiro had left the building. and there was only one place he could be…

when you got there, things had planned out just like they did the first time around. shinjiro's lifeless body was laying in the ground, with holes in his chest. akihiko and ken were both by his side, crying. despite having gotten another chance, you had failed. shinjiro died again, because you couldn't prevent it!

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you woke up the next morning, it was the fourth of october. you had cried yourself to sleep the night before, but there were no signs left of that anymore. it was as if last night had never happened. as if this was the first time it was october fourth.

“let's go on a trip! just the two of us~!”

you had met shinjiro in the hallway. unlike the last time, you weren't crying when you saw him. instead, there was a bright smile on your lips, as you tried to look completely carefree.

“you do realize you have to go to school, right?”

shinjiro was clearly perplexed by your request, but you were very keen on going on that trip with him. after all, if you could keep him out of town, he wouldn't die. you could save him this time!

“pretty please! i'm never asking you for anything, so just do me this one favour!”

“you ask me for things all the time!”

shinjiro groaned, but when you wouldn't give up, he finally sighed and agreed to it.

“fine, but you'll take the blame if we get in trouble with akihiko or mitsuru because of this...”

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

shinjiro and you never made it out of town. shortly after you bought your train tickets, all train rides got canceled. you remained at the train station, hoping that you could still take a later train out of town. but it seemed like some high power wanted to prevent you from leaving this place.

“we should just go home… it's getting late and we're already in enough trouble, if akihiko and mitsuru found out we skipped school…”

shinjiro got up from the bench inside the train station. it was already dark outside and barely anyone was around anymore. everyone had given up, except for the two of you.

“n-no, just… five more minutes, please!”

you were desperate to leave. you couldn't admit that this had all been for nothing. and just when it seemed like things couldn't get worse, a familiar voice rung out.

“if it isn't my two favorite S.E.E.S. members~!”

you would recognize his voice anywhere: takaya sakaki, the man that had killed shinjiro.

“get behind me!”

shinjiro protectively stepped in front of you, as he recognized takaya. you were frozen in shock, unable to say or do anything. you could only watch, as takaya pulled out his gun. and once again, he shot shinjiro.

“n-no… this wasn't supposed to happen…”

shinjiro laid in front of you once more, completely lifeless. you couldn't move. even when takaya had shot him, you could only stand frozen in shock and watch. he didn't even bother to shoot you too. as if he knew you wouldn't even try to fight back. as if you couldn't fight back.

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you woke up the next morning, it was the fourth of october. you couldn't even remember how you got back to the dorms. or perhaps, you never did. last night hadn't happened, after all.

“you want to do… what?”

“run away with me, please–!”

the trains wouldn't work, so perhaps if you simply ran away with shinjiro, you could get him out of town. you could keep him away from takaya and make sure he survived the day.

“you're being weird…”

shinjiro didn't even take you seriously. he simply rolled his eyes and turned away. but you wouldn't give up that easily.

“i know that i sound insane… but you need to trust me. please, i– i need to leave town–!”

you clung to shinjiro's sleeve, preventing the boy from leaving. shinjiro turned around, quietly staring at you. eventually, he sighed softly.

“grab your things, we're leaving in twenty minutes!”

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

shinjiro and you had been walking all day. the trains had once again all been canceled. you could barely feel your feet anymore, but you continued to walk. you were on the edge of town and the sun had just begun to sink. only a few more hours and you'd be safe! shinjiro would be safe…

“aren't you tired?”

shinjiro was clearly exhausted himself, but he didn't want to complain. he still didn't know why you were leaving town, but he knew things were serious. you wouldn't have begged him to come with you otherwise.

“i-i'm fine…!”

you didn't want shinjiro to notice how exhausted you were. he shouldn't have to worry about you. he was the one in danger, afterall. not you.

“you're lying!”

shinjiro sighed and stopped.

“you haven't eaten all day. please, let me buy you something. i don't want you to collapse!”

your eyes wandered towards the sky. the sun was still barely visible on the horizon, yet the moon already loomed over it. almost as if to remind you that time was running out soon.

“f-fine, i think we can take a small break!”

shinjiro smiled softly and nodded.

“wait here, i'll buy us something!”

on the other side of the road was a small bakery. surely, the two of you could buy something there, that you could eat while walking.

“do you want a bun with bean paste or–”

shinjiro turned around, glancing over his shoulder and calling out to you, as he crossed the street. but in that short moment he didn't look, a car came rushing towards him. you could barely even register what was happening, before shinjiro's lifeless body laid in front of you once more.

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you woke up the next morning, it was the fourth of october. you hadn't returned to the dorms last night, yet here you were again, waking up in your own bed.

outside of your door, you could hear shinjiro yell at you to wake up and get out of your room. he was still alive. but you knew it wouldn't be for much longer. sometime during october fourth, he'd die. whether takaya killed him or something else. shinjiro aragaki was destined to die. you knew he would die from the start. so why were you crying now? you should've always known this is how things would end. that you couldn't save him.

“hey… why are you crying?”

shinjiro had entered your room without you even noticing. he quickly walked up to your bed and pulled you into a tight hug. but you couldn't even reply or react to him. you felt so numb after everything that happened those last few days.

“if you're not ready to tell me… then i won't force you!” shinjiro quietly whispered. “but just know, that i'm here for you. i want to help you, even if it's just by distracting you with some movies and ice cream…”

you softly nodded. perhaps, it would be okay to just watch movies for a day. perhaps you didn't have to try to save shinjiro. he was destined to die, but he still returned to you every time. so would it be that bad to just enjoy the time you had with him…?

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you woke up the next morning, it was the fourth of october. the morning after that, it was the fourth of october as well. and the mornings after that, it was the fourth of october too. every day was the fourth of october.

shinjiro died every day. but in a way, he never did. you gave up on trying to save him a few october fourth's ago. why should you waste your time trying to delay the inevitable, when instead you could spend your days with shinjiro? the two of you had went to eat ice cream, watched every movie in cinemas, played laser tag, went to the arcade and did everything this town had to offer! you were happy! right…? you don't actually want to let him go, do you? isn't this exactly the life you wanted to live? by shinjiro's side? so why were you slowly starting to have doubts…?

“are you happy?”

shinjiro's voice snapped you out of your thoughts.

“are you happy with this life we are living?”

you suddenly began to feel uneasy.

where was this coming from?

“what are you talking about, shinj~?”

you tried to smile, but it looked forced. this wasn't a genuine smile. you couldn't even fool yourself.

“i think it's time you let go of me…”

shinjiro gently reached his hand out towards you, but you flinched and pulled away from him. he wasn't supposed to say that! he wasn't supposed to question anything. he was supposed to be happy! YOU were supposed to be happy!

“i wanted to make this easier for you. i wanted you to make some more memories with me, but i think we are running out of time…”

you began to tear up. you tried so hard to keep that fake smile on your lips and to keep your eyes dry. but you couldn't act like you were okay any longer.

“i don't want to lose you, shinjiro… not again.”

“i wish i could stay with you, but i don't think i have a choice…”

shinjiro reached out his hand towards you once more. this time you allowed him to take your hand. he gently held it and smiled at you softly as he spoke.

“you know what happens tonight, right?”

you nodded quietly.

“i'll die once more during the dark hour. but this time, it'll be my last time. after that, you'll have to manage without me…”

shinjiro hated the thought of leaving you behind. but he trusted you and the other members of S.E.E.S. to take care of yourselves. akihiko and mitsuru would be there to comfort you, when he wouldn't be able to do it anymore.

“i don't want to let you die, shinjiro…”

you firmly squeezed his hand, wanting to hold on to him for as long as you still could.

“but… i'm glad i had at least a bit more time with you. the time i spent with you was the happiest of my life…”

shinjiro smiled and nodded softly.

“mine too…”

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you saw shinjiro's lifeless body lay in front of you that night, you knew he wouldn't return to you anymore. that the two of you had used up all the time that was left. but that time had eventually run out.

all the members of S.E.E.S. were by your side that night. while you had felt so utterly alone the previous nights, there was a strange sense of comfort, knowing that you weren't the only one grieving. everyone felt the same way as you. they were all grieving the loss of their friend and teammate. but perhaps in grieving together, you could help make things easier for each other…

when you returned to the dorms that night, it was completely quiet. there were no more tears left to cry. you fell into bed, still wearing your school uniform. perhaps if you'd wake up, things would start all over again. though you weren't sure if this was what you even wanted anymore.

⏱︎ ⏱︎ ⏱︎

when you woke up the next morning, it was the fifth of october.

[flwoie]

FLASH FORWARD — Y. JH.

three : delete this before i pull ur dingdong

mlist — rewind ; forward

🗯️ helloo how are u all!! I’m feeling a lot better today so I felt like updating flash forward. also writing sss and i still haven’t finished the fourth chapter 😰

"Dancing isn't a sport," Jeonghan once said, which has made you hate his guts since that day. Everyone knows there isn't a day where Freesia's track athlete and dance team member are planning each other's downfall. Somehow your English teacher manages to silence the both of you when she pairs you up for an assignment, and like Jeonghan, he asks you to text him to remind him to finish it by the end of the week. However, that doesn't go according to plan when you accidentally text him on your stalking account, used to keep tabs on Seokmin, his friend. When you deny words about the account, he's smart enough to connect the dots as he strikes up a deal: he'll keep your secret if he can help you get with his friend.

✩ athlete! jeonghan x f! dancer! reader

✩ taglist is open ; send an ask or comment under main mlist

[ 🏷️ ] @hanniluvi @cizcake @euncsace @matchahyuck @rikizm @heyitz00 @amxlia-stars @blurr3db3rry @luchiet @omgnctexo-blog @headlockimnida @seungmin-in-thebuilding @phtogravi @wonwoos-wineparty @ktzuki @livixxn @str4wb3rizz @porridgesblog

[catmarlowastrology]

❤️‍🔥 Venus Retrograde in Leo: The Dramatic Revamp of Your Love & Value System

Venus, the planet of love, beauty, and values, goes retrograde in the flamboyant and fiery sign of Leo on July 22nd, 2023. Let's dive deep into what this celestial event means for each of the rising signs.

❤️‍🔥 Aries Risings: 5th House For Aries Risings, Venus is going retrograde in your fifth house of fun, romance, and creativity. It's time to review and revise what truly ignites your passion, and perhaps rediscover an old hobby or a past lover.

❤️‍🔥 Taurus Risings: 4th House Venus is traipsing backward in your fourth house of home and family. It’s time to beautify your living space or deal with unresolved family issues. Home is where the heart is, and Venus wants you to focus there.

❤️‍🔥 Gemini Risings: 3rd House Communications and connections take center stage for Gemini Risings, as Venus goes retrograde in your third house. Revisit conversations, rewrite that manuscript, and rekindle connections with siblings and neighbors.

❤️‍🔥 Cancer Risings: 2nd House Venus is retracing her steps in your second house of money and self-worth, Cancer. Reassess your finances, rediscover your values, and rethink your resource management. It's time to reestablish your sense of security.

❤️‍🔥 Leo Risings: 1st House Hello, Leo! With Venus going retrograde in your first house, it's all about self-love and self-expression. Rediscover your personal style, renew your self-image, and rejoice in your individuality.

❤️‍🔥 Virgo Risings: 12th House For Virgos, Venus is taking a step back in your twelfth house of spirituality and solitude. Unearth hidden artistic talents, reconcile with past loves, and meditate on the value of solitude and peace.

❤️‍🔥 Libra Risings: 11th House Libra Rising, Venus is turning retrograde in your eleventh house of friendships and dreams. Reconnect with old friends, revisit your long-term goals, and reevaluate your place within your community.

❤️‍🔥 Scorpio Risings: 10th House For Scorpio Risings, Venus is rewinding in your tenth house of career and reputation. Reconsider your professional goals, reestablish your work-life balance, and reframe how you want to be seen by the world.

❤️‍🔥 Sagittarius Risings: 9th House Venus is spinning backward in your ninth house of travel and philosophy, Sagittarius. Reflect on your belief systems, return to places you love, or relearn a foreign language. The world is your classroom!

❤️‍🔥 Capricorn Risings: 8th House Venus is going retrograde in your eighth house of transformation and shared resources. Redefine your intimate partnerships, revisit your financial ties, and regenerate from within.

❤️‍🔥 Aquarius Risings: 7th House Venus is taking a U-turn in your seventh house of relationships. Review your partnerships, reignite romance, and realign your give-and-take balance.

❤️‍🔥 Pisces Risings: 6th House Venus is going retrograde in your sixth house of work and health. Revamp your routines, reassess your work relationships, and rejuvenate your well-being.