#he is SOOOOOOO everything to me (evidently.)

[seiwas]

sits next to u… i w a

hehe hehe scoots closer .

yes aali my love 😌 *cracks knuckles* what brings you here?

[placeinthisworld]

ttpdta review part one 🤠

let me preface this by stating that i am a swiftie first and person second in this situation. i have grown up with taylor and feel as if shes my big sister- yes i can make fun of her but if i see anyone else do it i will get fiercely protective. i do understand her music is not only art but also her form of therapy. that being said, throughout these nonsense notes i am constantly mentioning that taylor should go to therapy. i am aware of what she has said about therapy (and why she doesn’t go) but i would beg to differ with her…especially after this album release lol.

taylor is an extraordinary storyteller and song writer. i believe this album is full of evidence of that, but it also has some faults that prevent from being as good as i felt like it could have been. overall the album feels rushed.

i also feel like it’s important to recognize the elephant in the room. i know we probably all expected this to be a joe breakup album, so the fact that it turned out to be a “fuck you matty healy” album shook us all a little bit. i know matty had a controversial history, im not gonna sit here and defend him. i don’t know much about him other than what is forced against my will. i do however know that he struggles with mental health issues/ substance abuse/ addiction. i’m not gonna comment much about his personal issues, i don’t feel like that’s right and taylor’s constant references to drugs throughout ttpd definitely rubs me the wrong way. i should also mention i grew up with an active addict and do view things from that perspective, so i feel slightly triggered by the topic and my feelings about that may just be personal but i do mention that in my notes when it’s relevant.

lastly, i am not a music production girlie idk shit lol. i only know i am a aaron dessner stan so any song with his name im already biased towards and i am aware, if u don’t like that idk what to tell u lol. i just know what i feel like is “good” or “bad” but music is subjective🫶🏻

1. Fortnight:

Hate the functional alcoholic part. Like the beat, the chorus is catchy. One thing i love about a taylor swift song is that theres always a story and its always visual. I like the metaphor of the “good neighbors” of like having this teasing/ longing feeling for someone that you could have had a life with. “Your wife waters flowers/ i want to kill her + my husbands cheating/ i want to kill him” feeling like you were robbed of her life, feeling “all my mornings are mondays stuck in an endless february” reminiscing about the short period of time where you were together and convinced it would last forever (only for it to end before it even started). I do not listen to much post malone but i enjoyed his verse!! So many florida references we get it everything bad happens in florida.

i have not seen the video yet oooopsies

2. Ttpd:

i thought this was the opening of Hey Stephen (the remix) or something at first. gotta say i absolutely love the way she sings “you left your typewriter at my apartment/ straight from the tortured poets department” i enjoyed the vibe of this song, and lyrics up until the “you smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate (OKAY SOOOOOOO ME CODED NGL I LAUGHED at this point i could let this lyric slide- bit then she had to mention the charlie puth and golden retriever thing and ngl it almost ruins the song entirely for me. Tbh when i first listened to the leak i thought this was a fake AI song and that i was sending around a fake leak bc these lyrics started to get a little weird to me. ‘Sometimes i wonder if youre gonna screw this up with me/ but you told lucy you’d kill yourself if i ever leave” …………girl i am begging you to see a therapist (side note did anyone else have a friend in hs whos bf would say that shit a lot?? I remember straight up fighting with a friend who refused to break up w her bf bc he would threaten to end his own life is she did and he was like 16? If an adult is saying that same shit i would be Very concerned not gossiping about it???) “i chose this cyclone with you” my first reaction was: ride the cyclone the musical? Overall i liked the first half but you lost me at charlie puth (hes the one with eyebrow right? I think i get him and miles teller mixed up) (i dont know who either of these men are)

3. My boy only breaks his favorite things:

Okay tbh i thought this was gonna be one of my least favorites, but the total opposite happened. I think this is one of my top 5 favorites on this album. I do think that there is a difference between a poem and a song and that they are not always interchangeable. I feel like if this was edited into a poem it would be KILLER. The visuals, the the story, the vocabulary, the sadness in it. “Im queen of sandcastles he destroys/ There was danger in the heat of my touch/ once i fix me/ hes gonna miss me/ i felt more when we played pretend then with all the kens / cause he took me out of my box” i feel like ever since folklore, taylors been trying to push these big fancy words and sometimes it feels awkward and forced, but this is one of the rare songs that doesn't suffer from that.

4. Down bad:

meh. Chorus is catchy. I dont love the narrative “fuck it if i cant have him/ i might just it would make no difference” but i also have never once experienced that over a person before lmao……….taylor go to therapy. Nothing really stands out about this to me otherwise. No offense, but it sounds like a generic jack antonoff song lol. Like maybe if another artist released this, i would enjoy it more but idk i wouldnt expect it from taylor i guess. Just kinda feels boring to me sorry if u enjoy it <3

5. So long, london:

oh man were done with british men now for real for real. “ two graves one gun. I'll find someone” its over for joe and matty (but thats fine if all she has to say about joe is what i think she said on this album i am happy i think We Get It…) Aaron dessner i love u (remember when he reposted me on his ig ahh).”i kept calm and carried the weight of the rift/ pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away” + “I stopped trying to make him laugh/ stopped trying to drill the safe/ i didnt opt in to be our odd man out/ im pissed off you let me give you all of that youth for free” oof i FELT that one a LITTLE too hard. I think this is both a song about matty and joe- i think she had a life and an attachment to london just in general through both relationships, “im just mad as hell because i loved this place” and so reflecting back on how both are over and how all those plans with either are done. “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” OKAY kinda hate this phrase bc it feels like shes placing blame on whomever’s mental health/ depression, like as if they made the conscious decision to sacrifice the relationship solely. This very much feels like “how much sadness did you think i could take before i got bored???” overall top favorite songs bc it doesnt have too many cringey or odd lyrics and the production is 10/10 thank u aaron dessner ilysm king

6. But daddy i love him:

tbh when i got the leak this was the first song i listened to bc i thought it was gonna be the worst one and i wanted to get it over with (i was RIGHT until she dropped that second half……..) and i DIDNT have the lyrics obviously so i couldnt for the life of me figure out if she really said “im having his baby…..NO IM NOT!” until the VERY end of the song and bro…….the cringe. The cringe. The cringe. This is also when i started to question if this was real or if i was passing out a fake leak, lol. I dont understand how she could be saying this shit about matty. And like we all know it lol. “Sometimes growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all” …….but like does it??? I feel like thats kinda an oxymoron or something like i understand what shes trying to say and MOST of the time her metaphors and comparisons make sense to me but like this one doesnt. Growing up precocious means to grow up more advanced in maturity, how would that also mean not growing up at all? Is it just me getting stoned and overthinking things? “Ill tell you something about my good name/ its mine alone to disgrace” true that bestie ur doin a great job by being so politically quiet over the past couple of yeats after making a whole asss documentary about wanting to be on the right side of history. But I digress i am just one of those bitches performing soliloquies you'll never see. Overall this song is very weird and cringey imo and i wish it stayed in whatever vault it was sitting in lol.

7.Fresh out of the slammer: “In the shade of how he was feeling” -_- dont like this narrative already. I could honestly go on a rant about why i dont like this song but im going to spare for the sake of my sanity in this review of thirty one fucking songs but its along these lines “to the one who says im the girl of his american dreams” oh brother. otherwise i dont care for many of the lyrics, the chorus/ melody/vibe is mid i guess. It sounds like another jack song (i was right)

8. Florida!!!: “all my friends smell like weed or little babies” okay i know what she was trying to say but im SORRY you cant tell me she couldnt think of ANY other way to say her friends are either parents partiers lmao. Deserves jail for that but luckily the vibe and the chorus of the song are really catchy and florence’s voice is beautiful in it. “Well me and my ghost we had a hell of a time/ yes im haunted but im feeling just fine” CHILLS i loved it. I didnt think i would like this song but (maybe as much as i like no body, no crime which is meh) but no i lowkey love this song and think its really fun. Once again the drug references start to get heavy here in the album and like i mentioned i do get slightly triggered by drug mentions.

9. Guilty as sin?:

okay taylor we get it you masterbate. Another strong jack song and it’s pretty similar to others on the album so nothing besides the sexual lyrics stand out.

10. Whos afraid of little old me?:

“if you wanted me dead you should have just said/ nothing makes me feel more alive” ooooooooooh i love that. I feel like a live or an acoustic version of this song would give me CHILLS. “Is it a wonder i broke / lets hear one more joke/ then we can all laugh until i cry” honestly so relatable, “i was tame, i was gentle til the circus life made me mean” oh :( that hurt bc it just reminds me of the vibe shift during midnights era/ eras tour where it *feels* like she started to pull back from being taylor swift and started to become Taylor Swift (™) and the way her fans/ media has treated her made her mean or cold or something and that just makes me feel sad. “Whos afraid of little old me? You caged me and then you called me crazy! I am what i am cause you trained me! SO. WHOS. AFRAID. OF ME? Again the narcotics line kinda makes me feel icky but thats bc i have that thing about drugs and just dont LOVE all the references to them. Like i know its not that serious but theres a reason why i dont seek out artists that typically talk or write about that stuff ya know so its weird. Overall i think the production is one of the most unique ones on this part of the album.

11. I can fix him (no really i can):

i hate it all around i think. I hate the narrative of “i can fix him!! I can handle a dangerous man!!! No really i can!!!” there is a reason why this song is barely 3 mins long lol it should have been cut but i think taylor wanted to Be Edgy. i dont care for the productions or the lyrics, its very forgetful imo.

12. Loml:

okay i really thought this was gonna be a joe song (rip) so i was thinking it was gonna be really deep and sad and like it IS but with the context of it being the pt 2 fling with matty it doesnt seem like it now. Anyone who thinks this is not about matty please look at the lyrics and be so serious “whos gonna stop us from waltzing back into reklndled flames/ if we know the steps anyway” I think matty just said too much shit to taylor during their fling and taylor WAS truly convinced this her invisible string and he promised her a lot that he couldnt upkeep and ghosted her and she took it SUPER hard, i mean two breakups in one year is a lot (me, whos never been through a single breakup once). I just dont understand how she feels like matty is the greatest loss of her life. One of my favorite tracks on the album, “our field of dreams engulfed in fire/ your arsons match your somber eyes” a LOT of these lyrics are actually really good imo. I think im the only one that didnt find the “mr. steal your girl and make her cry” line idk i thought it was actually kinda neat, the phrasing of it, kinda contradicts the title “love of my life” because he was never that serious or respectful of her and only use her from the beginning. This is another song that i think would make KILLER poem over song. Overall i think the piano is haunting and a live version of this will make me die, thank u again aaron dessner 10/10

13. I can do it with a broken heart:

ngl i thought this was the opening to mastermind for a hot second- also gave me a scare on whether or not this was a fake leak lol. Catchy ass chorus but very YOYOK. “Breaking down i hit the floor/ All the pieces of me shattered/ as the crowd was shouting “more!” ooffffffff seeeeee that is exactly WHAT i was afraid she was feeling durning the eras tour after the joe breakup/ matty situation and all these stupid twitter and tik tok swiffers were out here overanalyzing EVERYTHING and demanding rep tv like every other day. “Im so depressed i act like its my birthday” …….okay taylor. Like a lot of people have said, i think she interchanges “depressed” for “sad” a lot and the two are not the same. I think taylor wrote this song (but specifically the “i cry a lot time but i am so productive” and was like “yup this part is gonna go viral on tik tok,” initially i wrote “feels like taylor saw that depression barbie commercial in barbie 2023 and wrote a song based on that” lol which i still agree with. Overall the production of this screams midnights reject lol, very jack antonoff. Over time this song has grown on me a lot. Originally i didnt care for it but now its kind of a bop but i think its bc its so similar to YOYOK. “Try and come for my job” @taylorswift deadass you couldn’t think of anything else to say instead. cmon. I was mostly on board until that very last part, just seemed very cheesy lol like its not a big deal but i thought it delivered well without it.

14. The smallest man who ever lived:

(aaron thank u for saving me and this entire album) “they just ghosted you/ now you know what it feels like” OUCH. “i dont even want you back i just want you to know/ if rusting my sparkling was the goal/ and i dont miss what we had but can someone give/ a message to the smallest man who ever lived” oh this was somber af. I am obsessed with the phrasing of the chorus. I also LOVE taylors deeper voice its def giving me the same feelings MTR gave me from folklore, that made me CRY and this was very similar. This is another classic taylor song that i could EASILY write like a ten page essay about if someone put a gun to my head. I know that its about a *romantic* relationship, but it feels general enough to be able to relate to anyone who is close to someone with an addiction or struggles with substances. A lot of addicts dont understand the impact of their addiction or their behaviors that they display while struggling. To meeeeee, this feels very much like “you were self centered and betrayed my trust, was any of this true? Real? Am i paranoid or is this that deep?” “it wasnt sexy once it wasnt forbidden” has me thinking lots of things. I think that describes taylors “type”if that makes sense? Like i said i would need to literally break this song down line by line like its ridiculous i have too many thoughts about this song i have listened to it on repeat six times by the time im typing this. “In public showed me off/ then sank in stoned oblivion” FUCK. “you treat her like an also-ran” honestly i have never heard of that phrase/word thank u dr. swift. “Were you sent by someone who wanted me DEAD/ did you sleep with a GUN underneath OUR BED/ were you writing a BOOK?/ were you a sleeper cell SPY? IN 5O YEARS WILL THIS BE ALL DECLASSIFIED?/ AND YOU’LL CONFESS WHY YOU DID IT!/ AND ILL SAY GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” tears were formed besties. Also love the gracie abrams reference. “And you deserve prison but you wont get time” i feel like is very metaphorical like you DESERVE to be punished for what you did to me but you won’t admit to the guilt, you wont admit your wrongdoings, you wont admit that i would have done anything for you and you have no problem replacing me. “You said normal girls were boring/ but you were gone by the morning” first of all red flag girlie, nonetheless heartbreaking. “And in plain sight you hid/ but you are what you did” i say this with all the love in my heart, someone take taylor swift to a really good really private therapist. I could say more but i think i need to move on because i am now on my eighth cyle of listening to this song.

15. The alchemy:

already kinda hate it. “What if i told you im back/ the hospital was a drag/ worst sleep i ever had” do you think taylor swift has ever been admitted to a real hospital in this context. Feels very out of place and like i said earlier i dont love the psych ward visuals/ references she keeps inserting in this album. “He jokes its heroin but this time with an e” thanks! I fucking hate that line so much. Feels very icky, not funny. I get what shes going for but it falls so flat for me. The football references (yall know my opinion on meathead!!!!!!!! I will not engage!!!) are fucking dumb. Production is kinda lame and uninterested. Will only listen to this song if by force and will not repeat it ive head enough lets move on.

i have Lots Of Thoughts. i don’t think anyone cares about what i have to say though so i don’t think i’ll bother posting the rest lol but i did do a lot of work so ill post just a bit to make myself feel better.

[fancyfade]

Mister Miracle #9

Ok there is sooooooo much going on in this comic I love it.

Anyway, general thoughts as I was collecting these panels.

Big Barda is a protector, or views herself as such, even when she still conceptualizes herself as loyal to Darkseid (which she does for a time even after leaving and starting in the Mister Miracle series)

The theme of Apokolips and Granny Goodness's orphanage as a machine designed to crush people and turn them into weapons and tools for Darkseid.

Because of this, if you have aspirations outside of Darkseid, or can imagine another way, you are a threat that must be eliminated. Darkseid and anti-life are so linked because in Darkseid's universe, his is the only will that matters.

Ok, so general start of the comic. We see Scott in his training days as a trooper in Granny Goodness's orphanage. He meets Himon, a New God who is taking him to some secret underground place to learn about Motherboxes.

Points so far: Himon does not actually believe Scott is nothing but a weapon, but this is the rhetoric Scott deals with his whole life. He's just putting into words (and antagonistically, rather than 'oh its good b/c Darkseid) what is the truth of how scott's world functions.

Also, even though Scott follows Himon, we he does make a show of verbally saying he's better than everyone else who's here, Himon's rhetoric is bad, etc... this doesn't last long.

The next panels purpose will not be obvious until later, but we see another addition: Auralie. She is training to be a female furie, but obviously resists it.

Auralie's general theme is inner beauty (aside: Which is also how Barda conceptualizes scott (link)), she doesn't want to fight. We'll see later why this is a threat to the existing order of things on Apokolips, but meanwhile: Introduction to Big Barda.

Big Barda when we first see her is already a Lieutenant with the Female Furies and in command. Barda works according to Apokolips's underlying systems. We've seen this earlier in the comic (link) when she objects to being called a traitor, even though she swears to tear down Apokolips (and everything that killed Scott) because she's the 'purest, most superior product' ever turned out by granny (again -- the apokoliptan dehumanization is evident). she operates, even as she protects others, according to the rule of the the strong for her own personal conduct - the female furies follow her even when she leads them against Darkseid, because she's the strongest. She has all this rage she has turned into a weapon, she just directs it at the "wrong" person.

But anyway back to Issue #9

So Barda shows up in Himon's scene:

Barda and the female furies track Auralie down to Himon's workshop. Auralie is clearly violating the rules -- and we do have the idea that Barda intends to punish her for this ("Beat some brains into her"). At the same time, it's clearly something Barda doesn't want any higher-ups to know about. She threatens everyone involved, especially Scott (who she knows is a another soldier in Darkseid's army). To me, it's clear Barda is trying to keep Auralie out of greater trouble, but while still following the rule lined up with Darkseid's world. She can only protect Auralie by making her strong, by making sure she toes the party line, because if Auralie has her own dreams or is weak, she'll be a threat to the existing order of things and she won't survive. Lending credence to this: a scene later where the others in Himon's workshop have been rounded up and killed, and Willik interrogates Scott and Barda.

Here Barda is clearly distraught by Auralie's death and says that she (and the other female furies) were trying to protect Auralie. the tools they were working with were such that the only way they could do that was by trying to make her more of an ideal female furie, even though they couldn't. and if we take barda at her word earlier (which I don't know why we shouldn't) it is abusive -- the female furies are presumably going to punish auralie for her conduct and hurt her (and later we see implications that she 'should' be resistant to pain according to the training), just not as much as they fear granny goodness or the other authorities, or at least won't kill her. the world that they live in is one where you can't really protect someone, just hurt them less. at least until Barda is no longer trying to get someone to survive apokolips, and instead tries to help them survive their esacpe from apokolips:

So why are Auralie and Scott and Himon so threatening to the order that exists on Apokolips? Auralie's just making pretty images, Himon's teaching kids how to make mother boxes.

Because Darkseid's power is built on absolute control. It's built on a machine that turns people into weapons, and if they want to act like people, if they have their own dreams, they aren't working as they should in the machine.

Darkseid's one of the most powerful people in this section of the universe, but a lot of the underlying structure for that power relies on absolute control. that's why he wants the anti-life equation. he wants his own will to be the only one in the universe.

In some of the last panels of the comic, we parallel some of the first. Scott, in his aero-troop training, is stuck in a machine designed to break down the person and turn them into a weapon. Darkseid says this - scott will have power (so much as darkseid allows it) provided he destroys scott free - himself. his dreams, his desire to function outside of apokolips and to imagine something more, are a threat to darkseid, and if it were possible for everyone on apokolips to act like this - if they weren't violently beaten down or killed for trying -- darkseid's power would disappear. that's why darkseid needs the anti-life equation -- his system does not work with free will, and no matter how many people he kills, he's never able to stamp it out

[sukirichi]

OH MY GODDDDDD CANON OMIYN KISS OMIYN KISS OMIYN KISSS, WE DID IN LIKE HALF A YEAR WHAT IRIS COULDNT DO IN FIVE YEARS IR WHATEVER 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ she can keep suna - or well… not suna :v

that chapter was insane tho, i hope iris develops a pregnancy ick to vanilla and projectile vomits every time she enters the room. i also know that rintarou’s little act is gonna bite his ass sooooooo hard, like brother pls you’ve never made a single good decision in your life and i know his ass can’t stand iris rn so 😗😗😗 i think no matter how in love yn was before this, it’s not gonna matter anymore, cuz there’s genuinely only so much someone can take before they mentally just cannot handle the heartbreak and disappointment anymore, going forward i think rintarou and yn are gonna work as a team to fight back against the queen, but they’ll never be lovers again me thinks.

that’s okay tho, cuz omi exists and he’s hot and he loves us and the rings mean nothing anymore!!! like genuinely, yn needs to realise morality and ethics are tossed aside when both parties essentially agree on a partner swap 😭 kissing a married man doesn’t matter when his wife is carrying YOUR HUSBANDS BABY LIKEEEE??? stand up yn…. babygirl you’re better than this…. omi’s a good man….. 😔😔😔 it’s time to move on from rinta, he wouldn’t milk a cow for you like omi would 😔

but i do understand, rintarou’s manipulation is harder to shake since despite his words, he genuinely was in love with her and his actions reflected that. it’s hard to rationalise that you need to leave and put yourself first, when the man you vowed to love for eternity through thick and thin and better or worse is like…. a total walking “woe is me” pity party. rintarou’s fatal flaw is that he believes he’s smart, but he’s honestly the most naive character in the story - and we can see him slowly learning, but he’s constantly on the offence when he should really be defence. the queen is good at attacking because she’s got years of experience on how to pick and choose her battles and fight (metaphorically) quick and aggressively, rintarou doesn’t have that.

anyways, banger chapter suki, i’m gonna reread it for the omiyn moments again, need to hear that man whimpering atp 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

(also you don’t have to answer my long ass multi chapter analysis ask if it’s overwhelming, i know it’s like a massive chunk of text, so it would also clog up the dash 😭)

- shhh anon

(ask sent before ch18)

HELL YEAH we managed to do what iris couldn’t in five years lmao 😭 GASP. not you calling him not suna LMFAO. you’re so right though, it’d be nearly impossible for them to work out as lovers after everything that happened between them but it is very likely they will team up together when they have a mutual enemy!

he wouldn’t milk a cow for you like omi would AGDKQLPQ honestly tho omi would do ANYTHING for us! he’s a good man, savannah 😭 and oh god yes that’s like the whole point of rintaro’s character and why he’s so hard to like but also difficult to completely turn away from. i read in some psychology books before that when actions are paired with sweet words, there’s a bigger chance that it leaves quite an impact and right now, rin is half half like he is genuinely in love now but just not... doing and saying the right things so it makes you wonder that like!! what could he be hiding!! why can’t he just be genuine!! and yes so correct, he IS the most naive character in the story like even atsumu has more guts and brains than him bcos we literally saw him pull shady shit just to keep his image good 😭 yes he SHOULD be on the defence ugh i love that, this is why he was never gonna win against the queen because the queen is experienced and knows and controls EVERYTHING in the kingdom. the only reason iris was ever able to one-up the queen is because her mother gave her evidence that the queen was the one who wanted the king gone 😭 also shhh anon thank you SO MUCH for always taking the time to send me your thoughts and theories, i appreciate you so much!! 💓🌷💫

[jewishrizahawkeye]

hello fellow members of the tortured poets department.

id like to continue entering into evidence analysis from previous days i missed. next is the albatross.

previous day's here:

standard tracks: masterpost

anthology tracks: the black dog, imgonnagetyouback

this. is. one. of. my. all. time. favorite. taylor. songs. ever!!!!

as i said in the previous days post about this album being more about her six year relationship ending and her relationship to fame+how the media will react, this song is most clear cut a metaphor for taylor’s fame and herself.

the albatross is an omen for sailors that means if you see one deaths on the horizon. which is just a tall tale, but taylor weaves that superstition into her reputation and how that affects her relationship.

the song is full of references to past albums and songs that very clearly make it obvious what she is talking about. “wise men once said ‘wild winds are death to a candle’”/“loves a fragile little thing it can burn out” and “jackles raise there hackles/you couldn’t conceive it”/“but there’s robbers to the east, clowns to the west” and “and you were sleeping soundly when they dragged you from your bed/and i tried to warn you about them”/“could’ve spent forever with your hands in my pocket/picture of your face in an invisible locket/you said there was nothing in the world that could stop it/i had a bad feeling” and so on to very point clear cut say that taylor is a bad omen and her former partner recieved countless warnings, superstitions, from others but ignored them and was surprised when it ended with him drowning only for taylor to sweep in and “save him” by taking him far away from the noise and looking like a savior rather than the harbinger of doom she is.

the song is similar to who’s afraid of little old me? where is full of metaphors and references but me sitting here explaining it all is so fucking redundant and only necessary if i’m doing it for a grade. but even though it’s very straight forward it still clearly has a lot of meaning to both taylor and her audience. taylor has discussed numerously how she doesn’t see herself as a person and her turning her reputation into a superstition says a lot about how she views herself and the media. that the words people say that are false are brought to life by idea because others give it power which in turn destroys everything. because an albatross isn’t actually bad, it’s literally just a bird. but when wise men say to beware an albatross or you’ll die and then someone dies die after you see one, your gonna think your boo boo the fucking fool and listen to the wise men instead of examine the area. which is what her partner was, he refused to listen to the words of “wise men” and when the words they spoke had power because of them, taylor came in and saved them by slowing the destruction down to give them more time.

i’m being redundant again but yall get it right? like it’s just sooooooo rich with metaphors i go crazy!

[sophia-sol]

MDZS/CQL fic recs for the month!

within these walls, by Shadaras

- cql/mdzs. this is a remix of another fic but you don't need to read the original to follow this one, as it follows a character who gets less focus in the original

- about wen qing and her interactions over the years with jin guangyao, in an au where she's imprisoned by him and helping him, after surviving leaving the burial mounds

- a great look at wen qing and her choices, and what she is and isn't able to do to affect things, and what she's willing to help with

- 2k words in length

Bird on the Wire, by villainousfriend (katzenfabrik)

- mdzs space au about nie huaisang and his years-long project in avenging his da-ge

- a repeated theme throughout the fic is nhs visiting and talking to back-ups that had been taken of nmj's personality before death, and the way that this makes literal how HAUNTED nhs is by his brother's absence is just sooooooo good

- the worldbuilding is great, the things that are changed from canon due to this different context are great, the anguish and monofocus of nhs are great

- I AM ALL EMOTIONS ;_;

- 8k words in length

mutual aid, by verity

- mdzs wangxian modern-with-cultivation au where lwj is a trans man and wwx is a trans woman

- and ahhhh it just makes me so emotional about how GREAT wangxian are!!!

- wonderfully integrated characters/plot into a world they inhabit where friends and work and weird tastes in books are part of their lives, and also, lwj and wwx find each other and are immediately obsessed with each other, finding something in each other that allow them to best be themselves

- so many very funny details also, at the same time that it's many feelings

- 10k words in length

how Yao Yongzheng traveled back in time to save everyone, by ShippersList

- mdzs/cql time travel au fic where Sect Leader Yao travels back in time at the point of his death, and intends to Make Changes For The Better

- a funny and fun look at how things happen, with and without his intervention!

- 6k words in length

lotus blossoms out of season, by Kieron_ODuibhir

- mdzs/cql canon divergence au, where instead of mxy sacrificing himself to resurrect wwx, jc sacrifices himself to resurrect jyl

- jyl and wn and mxy eat soup together about it

- and jyl grapples with how she feels about everything that happened. and what she's going to do next

- and like. DANG I love it!!!

- 5k words in length

the mountain, by verity

- mdzs songxuexiao t4t4t modern au where they're grad students in china

- I had the pleasure of getting to see this fic as it came together, and the thought and care verity puts into their writing is always so evident in their beautifully written and beautifully constructed stories!

- from song lan's pov as he watches creepy stalker xue yang entwine herself into his bff (and object of pining) xiao xingchen's life

- sl DOESN'T trust xy, he DOES find it super hot to put her in her place and have sex with her, he DOES struggle to be fully vulnerable with xxc despite everything she is to him

- the vibes are so good, I love how real and present each character and their complex emotions about each other are, and I love the way the theme of the weather runs through the whole fic holding things together

- highly recommend!

- 12k words in length

[beecreeper]

Briar Playlist Deepdive

Woe be upon you I wrote 1500 words yelling around music that makes me feel things

Rambling under the cut and also gonna reblog with a part two because of the audio limit

Starting with this because this is THE song that made me start compiling a playlist for her. THE Briar song of all time for me. Particularly her peak cult days. The “I want a life that will give me purpose” and “Don’t crack through my facade” lines delivered in with all the arrogant greedy rock star vibes hit especially good.

This one is very very much Briar’s pre-cult backstory. Honestly if I were to ever put the effort into a full animatic, this would be high on the list because I can see it SO WELL. The chorus “All the kids cried out ‘please stop you’re scaring me’, I can’t help this awful energy, god damn right you *should* be scared of me” is just sooooooo 🥺. I also love love love the lines “I’ve grown familiar with villains that live in my head, they beg me to write them so they'll never die when I'm dead” as alluding to Bhaal sending her the urges to continue his own power and legacy.

This one I added really early in playlist building literally just because mushrooms. BUT there are some good in character moments to chew on ESPECIALLY the ending bit which is very much a vibe for Briar just after she murders her druid circle and decides AHAHA FUCK IT NO MORE FEELINGS EVER AGAIN.

This one is less about *specific* lyrics because the verses are kinda just vague ominous occult sounding stuff but OOH MAN THE VIBES ARE OFF THE CHARTS. If you want a song that captures of the vibes of a fantasy murder cult this is it.

This one is also pretty self evident I think, especially as the plot with Gortash progresses and her motivations shift just a *bit* from “I’m gonna murder everyone” to “I’m gonna take over the world and *then* murder everyone”. I like that “I'm gonna run this nothing town” makes me think of the city of Baldur’s Gate specifically. The “Bite my tongue, bide my time” line at the very beginning also reminds me of how she’s holding back her urge and *not* murdering Gortash until he’s done being useful to her. (This could also fit well into her post-tadpole vibes also. Biding her time in Act 1, actively planning to take the brain in Act 3).

I mean. Honestly explaining myself almost feels silly. It’s RIGHT THERE. This song is definitely a mutual one with Gortash, with both of them feeling this towards each other. A particular line that hits especially good is “Smells like something I’ve forgotten, curled up died and now it’s rotten” because a) yaaaaay rot imagery and b) alludes to Briar having deliberately killed that part of herself that tries to care about people.

Another one that honestly speaks for itself and a strong contender for a possible animatic because YAY CULT LEADER BUDDIES. I also particularly like this cover because I loooove the sort of wicked relish these ladies sing with and the more sultry of the two singers is one of my headcanon voices for Briar. Favorite lines include “If they say that I’m a god, that’s what I am” (so much so that I drew a piece for it) and also “If we don’t comply [...] I could see us being sacrificed or stuffed” (which I imagine Briar saying with a huge grin on her face at the idea).

This is one that I like to sort of fill in the nuance and contrast between Briar’s view and Gortash’s. “A coronation, a beheading, From the funeral to the wedding. Do you think they care where the crown goes?” is VERY much a bhaalist talking to a banite, you know?

[adeehayag]

too far / a self para (pt. 3)

triggers: murder, death

July 22, 2023 (almost midnight)

Why is it that when Maya died -- I'm really not sorry about it -- but it was my birthday the next day and I went to Medusa to celebrate that, I had people look at me strangely for doing that, but bodies have been dropping left and right recently, and if you're not in a celebratory mood tonight at this engagement party, you're in the wrong?

People suck, I thought, as I made my way to the open bar. And everyone here will pay.

My brain grew tired of planning after Toby, and I figured it just wasn't for me. That was more Jake's area of expertise anyway and besides, it's so much more fun to just wing it because not only will the future dead person be surprised, so will I! A fun, little surprise for me, like a treat.

I want to have a lot of treats tonight, I thought as I took a sip from my drink. The only plan I have for tonight that's set in stone is that I'll convince people I'm well on the way to being drunk as the night goes on, when I'll be anything but, to make people think that I could never be responsible for any of the murders that will be happening tonight.

I had a list of people I want to kill: Jieun and her friends but Jieun specifically for being a fake bitch, Lucia for grieving like she was Dante's girlfriend when, news flash, she wasn't and never will be, that overdramatic, overtalkative bitch, Dominic for making fun of me because I couldn't drive like he's sooooooo special for not making use of public transportation, Analu for breaking up with me all those years ago and still, to this day, never really giving me a reason why, Greyson for not choosing me, Kat solely because it's something I've been dreaming of for a long time now and of course, Sarah and Charlotte, solely for being Jake's sisters.

I didn't need a reason, but I still got them. I'll be sure to let them know why I wanted them dead before I slit their throat.

Everyone's soooooooo cute for thinking I'll stay the sniveling, crying, weak person I used to be that let Kat slap me without fighting back. They'll never expect that that person is dead, buried alongside the rest of the people I stabbed.

The person I am now is just one of the many things I'm so thankful to Jake for.

However, as excited as the thought of having multiple treats tonight made me, I still had to keep up the pretense that I was the woman who had lost everything. In a sense, that was still true. But why dwell on the thoughts of the people who are already dead when I could just think about the people I could still kill?

I wasn't in a celebratory mood, that's for sure. I love love, always have, and I always want to celebrate it, but isn't it clear to everybody that Mei doesn't actually love Levi? It's actually kind of funny to see everyone put on a smile and pretend to be happy, because I'd been doing the same thing for a long time. A long, long time now, it seems.

It also didn't really sit right with me that Mei doesn't seem to be as happy as she could be, when she was getting exactly what I used to wish on every star and every 11:11 for -- a rich, devoted husband, though I could do without the whole religion talk, and a child. A family. A future that's set and stable and secured. She'd never want for anything and she doesn't even seem all that grateful for it.

Maybe I could still have all of that with Jake once Kat's out of the picture.

I kept ordering drinks, kept pretending to drink them, kept walking around pretending to be drunk and that I needed to go to the bathroom or outside to get some fresh air, but I was mostly looking for any opportunity to get people on their own.

Maybe I should have come here with a better plan, I started to think because it seemed like I wouldn't be able to do as much killing as I wanted to, just as the red and blue lights filtered in through the windows. I didn't have to fake my confusion as I wondered what was going on, and the shock evident on my face was genuine when the Chief of Police told the entire ballroom of Lucia's death.

Damn it, Jake. She should have been mine, I couldn't help thinking, though I had to stamp down my laughter as I listened to the murmurs around me. Bye, bitch. Down in the dirt you go, where you belong.

Other than the initial shock and glee that she was dead, though, I found that there was also disappointment. I talked a big game about killing people tonight and I actually hadn't done anything yet. I didn't know Jake was going to kill tonight, and if he could do it even with all these people around, even with a date, even with his siblings at this party, then I most definitely can too. I just need to figure out how to actually do it, and the fact that everyone's now locked inside the hotel room just made everything so much harder.

People wouldn't dare pass up the opportunity to think of me as a weak person, I had come to realize. It's easier for them to think of me as that and I know now that I could use that to my advantage. That, and the fact that everyone thought I was drunk tonight meant that they wouldn't really think twice about me running to the bathroom, especially when I say I'm about to throw up.

I took a special interest when I saw that Levi was going upstairs to his room, instead of going back to the ballroom where Mei was, and my curiosity got the better of me as I followed him up to his room. Just like Toby, I wondered if he was really as nice as he seemed. He was selfish, that was for sure. He wanted to celebrate while people were dying around him.

Maybe the world would be a better place without him too. He hadn't been on my list but I can add him onto it right now, I thought as I checked to see the knife in my purse, the same one I used on Rhys all those months ago. Usually, selfish people were at least smart people, but Levi didn't seem to be one of them, because he didn't even consider having security at this event. An event with his pregnant fiancée, mind you.

I just waltzed in here, in my sparkly dress, a knife that could definitely implicate me for Rhys' murder, hidden in my equally sparkly purse, and nobody knew about it. Sure, I could always say that I have it to defend myself in case a situation arises, but I also didn't want to be labeled a suspect, like Toby had been. All because of a video that didn't even make that much sense to me.

I could turn on the waterworks, though, and I know people would stop thinking that I'd have anything to do with these murders. People never want to see a woman cry, especially one who looked like me and who had publicly lost so much. They'll never believe it.

Suckers.

I laughed as Levi asked me what I was doing, before I took out the knife. What did he think I was doing? Just taking a casual stroll into his hotel room with a knife out for what? A conversation? Wow, he really was stupid.

And then he had the audacity to ask me if I had been the one to hurt Lucia, and I rolled my eyes as I kicked the door closed behind me so that it was just him and me in this room. I deserve a little privacy with the man of the evening, do I not?

No. That wasn't me. I wish it had been me, though. I would have loved to see her die, I told him with a smile. Don't worry, I said, opting for a soothing tone. It's my turn now.

There it is. There's the wonderful panic in their eyes, and it made me grin wider as I looked up at him, the anticipation on my end and the fear and tension on his end palpable before I dropped my smile and lunged forward, only smiling again once I felt the sweet feeling of blood on my hands.

This is what I should have been doing the whole night, I thought as I looked into the eyes of the man who would not stop talking about his beautiful wife to be, about what a blessing a child is, about how blessed he was. What a load of fucking bullshit, I thought as I let out a laugh when I took the knife out. I want to see every emotion on his face, I want to see the moment when he realizes there's absolutely nothing he can do. That he's at the mercy of someone who's friends with his future wife, who even slept at Mei's apartment for a couple of nights.

Mei deserves this, I thought as I stabbed Levi in the chest, a cackle escaping past my lips. An ungrateful woman and a selfish man. Wow, maybe they really are meant to be together.

Too bad he's going to die. No prayer to his god could save him now.

Where's your God now? I asked him before I started laughing and laughing, overcome with the glee that came from the look on his face. I was still careful, though. Even though I pushed him on the bed to make stabbing him easier and escape harder, I was making sure none of his God-loving blood would end up on my pretty cute dress. I could still use this dress in the future, but some of his blood splattered on my purse.

Letting out a loud groan, I continued stabbing him until I was satisfied, sighing with relief once I let the blood drip down to the floor from my knife.

Now that I started, I wasn't going to stop any time soon. I wanted more of this feeling. I wanted to kill. I wanted people to suffer.

I made sure everything was in their rightful place when I got out of the room, making sure it was locked behind me, but my eyes widened when I realized I wasn't alone in the hallway, and I quickly turned around

A part of me wondered if I could get away with it somehow, just keep walking away from this person I met at Medusa since I had my back to her anyway, but then Iris started talking. Hey skank, you obviously know he’s engaged, do better.

And just like that, the smile was back on my face, and the knife was back in my hand.

This bitch.

What the fuck did you just call me? Huh? I asked, eyes glinting with a mixture of fury and glee. I thought I was satisfied with killing Levi, but I wasn't. Not even remotely close to being satisfied because I was already ready to kill again, and I was also so happy with how quickly the next person I'm going to kill was presented to me.

Maybe Levi was onto something with believing in God or whoever, because I wished for more death, and it immediately came to me, wrapped up in the form of a bitch in a tacky dress. A whole coward too, I thought, letting out a laugh as I watched her try to run down the stairs.

I love it when they run. It makes it so much more satisfying when they realize they have absolutely nowhere else to go.

You're going to look so pretty when you bleed out, I said when I caught up to her, just in time to sink my knife into her stomach. That was for calling me a skank. This one is just for fun, I said before I stabbed her again. The anger caused by her words made me to stab her over and over again, after I took my time going down the stairs she had just fallen from. She was unconscious, probably from hitting her head, but I didn't really care. It didn't stop me from stabbing her still.

Serves you right, you fucking bitch. You deserve this, I said, always hating it when people tried to paint liking sex as a bad thing. Calling women skanks was bad enough but it was a million times worse when it came from a fellow woman, especially someone who doesn't even belong here in town. Wasn't she new? What right does she have to comment on things that don't even concern her?

You're fucking nobody and you'll die a fucking nobody, I spat out, about to stab her in the chest when I heard footsteps, causing me to narrow my eyes. I'll come back for her as soon as the coast is clear.

She's not going anywhere.

July 22, 2023 (a few minutes after midnight)

I messed up. I messed up. I messed up.

Iris had survived, according to the police officer, and she knew who I was. I couldn't even get to her now that she was on the way to the hospital.

Fucking Mei. Ruining my plans with that 911 call, causing the hallway and the stairs to be overrun with cops and medics.

I had nowhere to go. No one to turn to. This was it. This was the end of the line for me.

Good.

The one word that snuck into my thoughts was jarring, shocking even me, but I think a part of me was relieved. I already knew I wasn't the same and I'd never go back to the person I used to be, and I had already thought of myself as someone with absolutely nothing and no one to lose, but this truly cemented it.

One way or another, I was going to leave this place either dead or found out. I preferred the former.

I'm going to have my fun first, though.

It was getting harder and harder to pretend to be drunk, but with the news of Levi's death and two additional injuries, nobody really paid me much attention as I tried looking for Kat.

I will not die or be arrested tonight without killing her first. After everything she put me through, she deserves to die. I'll deal with everyone else on my list later.

I lied through my teeth and said that I had a room somewhere so that I could get out of that stuffy ballroom, I ended up roaming around the halls, searching for Kat. What I found was Vera, though.

Eh, close enough.

Vera didn't like me solely because of Kat and for someone who consistently screamed that she was a strong, independent woman, she really needed to start thinking for herself.

Oh, you bitch, I thought when she bumped her shoulder against mine. I would have probably minded my business and passed up on her on my search for Kat, but just this one, small act of unnecessary aggression changed things.

No, actually, that's a lie. I've been itching to kill Vera too.

The only sound between them was when her keycard unlocked the door and the breathy laugh I let out as I wrapped the strap of her purse around her neck and pulled.

Bet you wish you didn't bump into me now, huh? I asked, deranged yet hushed laughter filling the air as I tightened the strap around her neck, wanting her to pass out.

I'm smart enough to know I wouldn't win in a fight against Vera, and who's going to stop me from making sure this fight wasn't fair?

The police? Please, I thought before letting out a yelp when Vera threw her body against mine, causing me to loosen my grip around the strap, but it didn't take too long before I had her pinned down, stabbing her in the shoulder, in the arm.

It's not enough. She deserves so much more.

I watched with glee as she started crawling away from me, and I took my time, knowing she didn't really have anywhere else to go. Another string of laughter could be heard as I realized where she was trying to go.

The balcony? Please, what was she going to do? Jump off it? Bleed to death in the bushes below?

You know, for some reason, I always thought you were smarter than this, but maybe that's just because you're best friends with two of the dumbest people I know, I said, right as I stabbed her in the back, the image of Vera's best friends, Kat and the other being Dante's baby mama, causing rage to run through me, making me pull on her hair to pin her down again before she could reach the balcony and ruin the fun I was having.

Stay down, you fucking bitch, I muttered as I stabbed her over and over and over again, laughing as I saw the tears in her eyes. Aww, are you going to cry, Vera? You're going to cry? I taunted her, the power of being the person responsible for this coursing through me and making me laugh again, before I heard footsteps. Again.

What the hell is up with people just roaming around these hallways? Didn't they know I have people to kill tonight?

Vera was already passed out, and the blood was already on my dress, so I decided to try and drag her to the opened hotel room, but the footsteps were getting closer and closer and I couldn't tell if it was just one person or two or three. I could handle killing one witness but three? Even I knew I couldn't handle that, and the realization caused me to drop Vera's body unceremoniously back on the floor, deciding to just wait out whoever this was before I go and make sure I killed Vera for good.

THE END

Levi really was onto something believing in a God because this felt like a blessing. The footsteps I heard belonged to none other than Kat, the one person I had been looking for in the first place.

Vera and Kat. Dead. Because of me.

Ooooooooh, this is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted.

I was still hiding out in Vera's room, but as soon as I saw Kat enter the room, I let out a cackle as I closed the door behind her, eyes boring into hers as I watched her back up to the wall.

You're not sorry, I spat out, disgust on my face before I tackled her down on the bed, the adrenaline and rage causing me to be a lot faster and stronger than ever. My hands wrapped themselves around Kat's throat, and I couldn't stop smiling. I wanted to draw this out. I wanted her to be in pain for as long as possible. I wanted her to look me in the eyes and know that she'll be dead because of me. That I did this to her.

I win, bitch, I thought as I grunted, tightening my hold around her neck, trying to flick her hands away from my face. I waited until Kat's hands were no longer clawing at her face, until I could see that she was turning blue before I sunk that knife deep in her stomach, exhaling deeply as euphoria coursed through me.

The sweet taste of revenge. The blood. The look in her eyes.

This is all I care about.

Save your fucking apologies, bitch. I don't want them, I said before I stabbed her again, and again, and again.

And again, and again, and again. And again, and again, and again, and again.

I didn't want to stop, the glee in being coated in her blood causing me to not even think about anything else. I didn't care about Vera outside this door, and the fact that people might have seen her at this point. I didn't care if people might hear the laughter from this room and walk in.

I didn't care.

I WIN.

Peals of laughter filled the air as I had the most fun I had tonight, just stabbing Kat everywhere I could, stabbing her more times than I stabbed Sawyer and Toby combined.

I'm not done. I'm never going to be done. I can do this for the rest of my life.

Why had I waited so long to do this? This was so, so, so fun. Hurting Kat was so fun. Killing Kat was so fun. Seeing her blood soak into the white hotel comforter and turning it red was so, so, so fun.

It took her a while to realize she wasn't alone in the room anymore, and the smile only widened when she saw who it was.

My Jakey, I thought, standing beside the bed as I watched him look at his girlfriend. His dead girlfriend.

Now it could be him and me. Together forever. Our happy ever after.

I still had to deal with his sisters, but this was really, really good progress. Kat was no longer in the picture and the proud smile was still on my lips, even as I dropped the knife on the floor.

My work tonight is done, I think.

My head tilted to the side as I watched Jake pick up the knife and stepped closer towards me, backing me up until I was against the wall. What--, I started to ask before I felt his hands wrapping themselves around my neck, cutting off my air.

Kinky.

Oh, I actually kind of like this.

It's only when he kept talking that I realized this wasn't going to be like what they did after Theo and Bianca. I don't understand.

Didn't he love me? Didn't he say it was always going to be us in the end? Wasn't he happy I did what I had to do so we could be happy together?

I couldn't even gasp as I felt the sharp knife -- my knife -- plunge into my chest. Jake pulled me by my hair and threw me on the ground, and I felt woozy from the lack of air. I could feel blood dripping from my chest, but none of it hurt as much as my heart was.

The same heart that yearned for Jake since we were younger. The same heart that wholeheartedly believed we were in this together?

I wanted to say no, I wanted to beg him to stop, but he stabbed me again, and again, and again.

And again, and again, and again. And again, and again, and again, and again.

I don't understand.

I was his, and he was hurting me. He wanted to kill me. As I felt every stab, all I wanted to do was sob and tell him he was the one who made me into this. I thought this was what he wanted. I thought he loved me.

Because I loved him. I still did.

Even as he towered over me and hurt me and betrayed me, I loved him.

I love Jake. I always will.

I could feel myself drifting away now, as I thought about everything in my life that had brought me to this one moment. Maybe this was how it was always meant to be. I'll always be the girl who loves a little too much, gives too much of herself away, to get absolutely nothing good back.

There's nothing left for me to give now, I thought as I looked into the eyes of the man I had sacrificed everything for.

All I ever wanted was to be loved. Didn't I deserve that?

Didn't Jake owe me that? Since my love for him had been the reason for everything I did? Since he's still someone I'd do anything for?

Too much. It's all too much. It hurts too much.

It's almost ironic, how being stabbed in the chest hurt a lot less than a consistently broken heart.

[actualsunflower]

What ooc headcanons are you seeing for nick

Plentiful are ones about him being very strict and way too deep in the noir detective thing. That's just a look for him, and while sure he still carries a few traits he is SOOOOO different from that in game if you bother to take him and listen to what he has to say

Another being super into Hancock is just.... Weird. I see people saying that evidence being they're super close in game. But their only interaction besides companion swap is Nick saying "Hancock." dismissively when you first enter Goodneighbor, that doesn't scream "super close" to me, it screams "I'm acknowledging you for formality sake" and that's like the extent of it.

Another is him being a super strict, and some even saying murderous, cop, which isn't true. Not going into the details of the difference between a PI and a cop, he's just not murderous. He tells the Sole Survivor he doesn't take blood money but makes an exception for the sosu only because they rescued him. Eddie Winter commit an insane amount of crimes and was working directly with the cops and government to get away with it. That alone is reason to kill him tbh as there is no other form of real punishment as it stands in the base game. So it brings up the question, are you absolved of all your crimes of being a mob boss and murderer if you just sit there for a while? Does that reverse everything you did? Not when it comes to murder and shit. And as Nick says in his final dialogue, killing Eddie wasn't about Jenny. It wasn't about him, or revenge, it was about justice, because EVERYTHING Eddie Winter did was horrible and even if he spent 200+ years in his bunker room, he still needed to face what he'd done which was you know, being a legitimate mob boss and a murderer, and a cop conspirator for immunity. And the way the default SoSu can give him shit for this in game is sooooooo stupid because the character has a similar, yet lacking, reason to go after Kellogg. I have more thoughts on that but I'll leave that one as is for now

I also think it's soooooo funny that the only girl in game Nick flirts with is Irma, an old lady, and everyone's like omg yes he's totally into super young girls that are like 20yrs old when he's like. Probably close to 50 when he was prewar and now well over 200. I'm not a person who is super weirded by age gaps (I've pretty much only dated men older than me my entire dating career) but there is a point where it's like.... Ok that is weird...

Also strongly dislike raider ships bcs I mean. Listen to his dialogue, listen to his battle comments, listen to his location comments. He'd rather pistol whip you in a second than even think of dating you. Nick is absolutely no super goody 2 shoes, gumshoe stereotype or whatever but he has canon thoughts and feelings on these topics. He does believe people can change, he has hope for people, and things like using chems, while he dislikes it and gives you shit for it, it isn't a deal breaker whatsoever. But he clearly hates raiders

And obviously the one I preach the most: Nick Is Not Straight!!!!!!!!!!!

[madalice31]

Wait, I’m confused. I’m seeing stuff about Japanese people being upset over this new Assassin’s Creed, wanting Ubisoft to cancel the game because the black samurai is historically inaccurate and that there’s no evidence of the “slave” that was brought to Japan earning the title of Samurai. Now this is wildly going against everything I’ve ever heard about Yasuke. In fact they’re saying the idea that he became a samurai came from Wikipedia. It’s like 89,000 signatures on the petition.

It made me wonder why there was no petition created when Netflix made an anime movie, literally called Yasuke, voiced by LaKeith Stanfield’s fine, black ass. But did they not boycott it because Netflix pitched it as “loosely based” on the real character? So if Ubisoft hadn’t said the game was historically accurate, would there still be an issue? And why, after all this time, are they now wanting to “clarify” that Yasuke was never a samurai? But in that same breath, you have a bunch of Japanese scholars saying in fact he was a samurai because he was given a stipend and a sword and fought for Japan. Sooooooo…

Idk. I would really have to sit and do my own research on Yasuke because I guess all this is debatable. But I can accept it if it’s true that it’s historically inaccurate. And maybe that can allow some black men to, just maybe, get off Japan’s dick a little. Sorry to put it that harshly but the way some black men fully dedicate themselves to Japanese culture more than their own is wild to me. And having a Japanese Samurai was almost like a co-sign. But now 89,000 Japanese people are saying Yasuke was never a Samurai and claiming that making him one in Assassin’s Creed will promote racism in Asia. Lmao. I think you’re a little late there buddy. I’ve heard enough stories from black people traveling to Japan to know that racism and colorism been alive and well there.

But who knows, maybe all 89,000 people who signed the petition aren’t racist for not wanting a black samurai. I just find it interesting that they choose now to say something about it? I find it interesting that they actually state they would prefer a story about the European who became a samurai cause that’s “more accurate.” Not even can we make the character Japanese please, they like nah we would prefer the white guy. Lmao. Idk guys, it’s starting to look a lot like racism!

I hope this teaches a lesson to some black folks. Enjoy your anime, sure. They definitely enjoy hip hop and break dancing, 😂, but it’s time to stop worshipping a culture that doesn’t worship you.

Also, also, Ubisoft, stop using black characters as a sales gimmick. I see what y’all doing too. You want to include us? Showcase OUR culture. Do a game about Shaka Zulu. Shango is perfect for a Ubisoft type character, or even some other African Kings like Mansa Musa of west Africa, Ezana of Ethiopia. The King of Benin. I mean there’s a lot of historical black figures to choose from that will give you an interesting back drop for the game. But y’all don’t actually believe something like that would sale. Apparently nobody cares to play our culture. So instead of telling our story, you want to insert us into a more “popular” story that’s not ours. Cause racism and all that aside, I do agree with the fact that why are y’all doing a Japanese game, finally, but not making both characters Japanese? Because y’all knew the black man would get the attention y’all wanted. They don’t love us but they use us.

Anyway, whatever. That’s all I have to add to that conversation. My bf still getting the game

[danidrabbles]

I've been in a real reading mood lately and it made me SO excited to revisit this. Miranda, we've messaged about this before, but I wanted to give it the proper reblog it deserves!!!! (This got a little long. I'd apologize, but as a writer myself I know (hope) it's fun)

Because Dieter and ex-wife!Reader are on my mind all the time. I really like reading about people meeting, but love reading about people and knowing there's history between them, it makes things so bittersweet. Especially with these two because the love is there; you make it so efficiently evident in their "Do you want the truth or a lie?" conversation, and when they admit they think about each other, when Dieter says “I think you worried about what the real truth would be. We’ve got something here and it’s worrisome.” 🥺 It's a quick interaction, but it says so much about them.

As someone who was once a teenager with a crush on David Duchovny, Reader's meeting with Dustin is soooooo satisfying. The way he describes the production of the movie

"Everyone thinks us Hollywood actors just commit to this shit knowing it’s shit but we don’t! I mean not those of us who started at the beginning. We thought it’d be good. Like Jurassic Park, but yanno, we didn’t get Steven Spielberg. We keep getting arthouse fucks. And I like arthouse fucks–don’t get me wrong–but what’s a man with an IPhone know about blockbusters?”

made me laugh out loud.

The interactions between Dieter and Dustin are so fun, too. Their snarking back and forth while discovering they might not be so different after all... You manage to build so much tension between them and Reader in their conversation with her by the door. But then you also pack in gut punches like, “You don’t know. You don’t know me.” “That’s not true.” “Yeah it is. I’m different now. I’m not the woman you dragged around all those years.” and “You love him so much. It isn’t fair. You will love him your whole life if you don’t stop this.” OOF. ouch! It’s all walking that line between fun, comedy and sexy so well.

The smut is so good Miranda... Even on a reread I’m sitting here like 😳

Having Dustin between Reader’s legs, having so much fun with her, while she and Dieter kiss, and the way it goes back and forth between the sensations of something new (Dustin) and something familiar (Dieter) is sooooooo fantastic, I love how you kind of juxtaposed them without ever making one feel less involved in the threesome than the other. Also so good for her (reader insert me) to have her little You used to masturbate to this man. Revelation!!!! (and her getting to say it to him later was so… soft?)

I’m obsessed with the fact that you went there with Dieter and Dustin, too. Like not that I didn’t expect that of you, it’s just that M/M/F threesomes can often be... more on the M/F/M/ side, you know what I mean? When they kissed, when Dustin made Dieter suck on his fingers (As Dieter’s mouth wraps around his fingers, you feel a warm bead of pre-cum drip onto your skin. Damn…) when Reader lays back and tells Dieter “I want to see what you’re like with men,” and they just. went for it. LOVED it.

There’s so much I want to comment on, but instead I’ll give you some passages that made my heart ache…

You know he would do anything - anything - for you if you’d just ask. His love burns like a million suns and you’ll be Icarus in every lifetime. You fool. Kiss another man hard and seek penance in his presence behind you. 

That’s how you taste. He savors it like a wine connoisseur does his wine, running it over his tongue and thinking too long about how to describe it. It is so utterly you, it makes him yearn for another life. 

Some things are so true they don’t need to be confirmed. They just are. The sky is blue and people die, and Dieter is a man who will give you everything because he was once a man who gave you nothing.

“I don’t seem to regret you. Even though sometimes it’d be better if I did.”

It’s so beautiful and so bittersweet. It’s so good 😭 

And some lines that made… other places ache…

Dustin’s fingers are still in you, on you, when Dieter leans down and presses his tongue flat against your clit, greedy with lust. He licks at you around Dustin’s fingers and it feels like too much. They seem to make an agreement, working you at the same time. You cum quickly and this one seems to go on for eternity.

“He wants you so bad. Look—” You feel Dustin’s grin already across your back. “He’s so fucking hard for you. Just as hard as me.”

“Maybe we’ll do it..” he grunts, bottoming out again, “We’ll do you together. You’re tight as hell, but I know we can get you wide. Couldn’t we?”

Your Dustin is lowkey a fucking menace, jesus... Which genuinely surprised me so much!!!! But also the You see Dustin in the hazy peripheral. Lolling your head to the side, you focus on him. He stands at the side of the bed, smiles at you when you catch his eyes. With his cock standing out in front of him like that, he looks a bit unserious. If you weren’t so full of Dieter, perhaps you’d be amused by this. made me laugh so hard.

THE ENDING IS SO FUN??? It’s so creative and I love the promise of more between these three. I’ve attached Dieter to this email for obvious transparency reasons. He says he’d gladly help me carry your canvas (figuratively and literally). made me giggle.

Miranda, this was so fantastic. I said it before but I love the way you work in all these emotions so seamlessly, while never losing any of the sincerity in the process, it's so admirable. Your word choices, your analogies and metaphors, the way you picked such an unconventional relationship for this and made it work... You're an amazing writer, I am in awe of you, and I love this story so much!

three's company

pairing: dieter bravo x ex-wife!reader x dustin mulray rating: e (explicit) tags/warnings: smut, pinv, protected sex, oral (female receiving) *inserts good for her meme*, oral (male receiving), dirty talk, light voyeurism, talk and use of drugs and alcohol (weed & wine), the weirdest situationship you ever did see, a bit of angst, jealousy, fingering, dubious consent (but like, only a tiny bit dubious. the tiniest bit) word count: 16.k+ (don't ask me what happened there) summary: The world is slowly descending into madness all around you, so you decide to give in and go with Dieter to his latest poor decision: a franchise movie filming in England. One night while there, you both sweep another into this odd half-hearted, life-long tryst you've got. a/n: i don't know how i got here but i hope you enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. i could dedicate this to a lot of things but mostly i'm going to dedicate it the red shoe diaries. thanks to david and the horny '90s. also to maria (@sweetly-yours-and-mine) who has spent countless nights working through this with me. you are a gem

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Facetime isn’t the same as real people.”

“Those are bad movies, Bravo. I’m not sure I want to be around those who make them for that long.”

“I know.”

“Actors have never been my favorite company.”

“I know.”

“And I just don’t want to go.”

“I know.”

“I’ll learn to stop answering your calls one day, you know? And then you’ll do everything alone, even a global disaster.”

“I knew you’d give in. That's my girl.”

——

The hotel is a converted English Manor - the very stuff of childhood fairytales and honeymoon daydreams with its Italianate architecture and technicolor green grass. It is warm, inviting, with high ceilings and the soft, consistent hum of human activity as workers scurry around to greet the incoming guests. They filter you in through white plastic tents and stick cotton swabs up your nose before giving you the WIFI password and a room with a stunning view of their expansive, manicured grounds. You don’t have any grounds to look in America, and your studio apartment has been eerily quiet as of late. The pulse of life has stopped in Los Angeles, but here it comes back with an unvarying rhythm.

You don’t like to admit it, but Dieter was right: you are not above loneliness.

The room they give you feels anachronistic, too modern and beige, but cozy in the way all four star hotels aim to be. You’ve got a television, a pristine bathroom that hosts a bathtub and a shower, and enough floor space to move around without stubbing any toes. There’s ample furniture too: a reading chair by the large window, the queen bed, and another chair by the door, which looks like it’s meant only for bags and the stray suit jacket. They’ve given you decorative pillows and instructions not to leave for two weeks - not for any reason.

You lay out on the queen bed and Facetime Dieter. The irony of the situation is too good not to tease him for.

“I know,” he gruffs, picking up your call immediately.

You can’t help but laugh at the misery that drips from his voice. “I’ve always been better at being alone. I think it was you who didn’t want to be alone.”

He runs a hand through his unruly hair and frowns. Even if you won’t take it, you like the idea that he’s only a long walk away now. You give in and shuck off your winner’s ego. “It’s only two weeks,” you assure kindly.

“If I’m good, do you think I can earn a sleepover?” There’s mischief in his eyes, flirtation thick on his tongue. You look askance at him and the dimple in his cheek deepens. “I’m only kidding of course.”

“Ha ha,” you deadpan.

“It’ll be nice after two weeks,” he promises. You know that tone, far off and introspective. It’s not good.

“Just Facetime me when you’re losing your mind.”

“You don’t want that. I’ll be on the phone with you all the time.”

You stare down at the phone, frowning. He smiles, coming back to his body. “I’ll be alright, kid. I always am.”

“Two weeks is not so long.”

“No,” he agrees quietly.

——

Two weeks is a prison sentence.

The room they put you in, while spacious, is merely a cell block now, reduced down to its most basic elements: the bathroom with the shower and the tub, which you’ve used so much it's a miracle your skin hasn’t fallen right off; the bedroom area, with the reading chair by the window; the queen bed, which you stopped making after day four and try your damndest not to fall in before 3pm. You’ve paced the floor so many times, feeling the angry itch of loneliness coupled with a newfound, perpetually lurking anxiety.

“One more day,” he reminds you over the telephone, trying to allay your fears. You hear the sound of his tub running in the background, over the static of his voice, and you wonder what he looks like right now. You picture two week’s more worth of beard growth, the slouch of his back as he sits on the edge of the tub, the pudge of his stomach, and the inciting trail of hair below his belly button. And his naked self. At home he was perpetually nude, and you imagine it’s no different now.

You find your own reflection in the mirror over the sink: sunken eyes, with bags underneath and your flesh taking on a slightly gray cast, the color of isolation.The window sun doesn’t seem to be helping much. You frown self consciously, but try to remind yourself he must be in a state himself; he stopped Facetiming you a week ago, opting for the good ol’ telephone call at least once or twice a day since.

“I’m going out of my mind,” you say as you continue to look at yourself. You lower your voice, vulnerability shared in a hushed, confessional tone. You imagine Dieter again: with that soft concentrated look that pulls his eyebrows together, the one that enhances the lines between them. They called him a curious child and now he’s got the lines to show for it. He told you that. The thought makes you smile at yourself, but you still look so tired.

“Just one day,” he supplies again. He sounds vaguely apologetic.

“I know,” you tell him simply.

“What have you been up to today?” he asks. You hear water come to a stop and a gentle splash follows it. He’s gotten in. “Anything fun?”

“I read, watched a movie. You?”

“I got high and jerked off. So, you know, nothing different than the past thirteen days that you’ve called.”

You scan your reflection in the mirror, contemplating your next words. It isn’t a good idea, but nothing is. “What did you think about?” you ask.

“Lots of things.”

He tells you this as casually as if you’ve asked him his name. You are so achingly lonely and this is so embarrassing, but you can’t help it. You know he’ll let you. Hell, he’s probably been waiting weeks for this. Years.

“Do you ever think about me?”

There’s a short, considerate pause. “Do you want the truth or a lie?”

“A lie.” You worry your lip between your teeth.

“Oh, never.”

You laugh, relieved. “I thought you were going to say something different.”

“Hm,” he hums, “I don’t think that’s the truth. I think you worried about what the real truth would be. We’ve got something here and it’s worrisome.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Mine too. She thinks inviting you was a terrible idea but she wants you to know she’s thinking of you.”

“Mine hates you.”

He grunts. “Suppose I deserve that, don't I?”

“I think this is the first time in history that you diverted phone sex with talk like that.”

“I’m getting older, wiser,” he jokes. Then, “Do you think of me?”

“Do you want a lie or the truth?”

He considers it for a moment. “The truth. Hit me with it hard, baby.”

“Oh, a lot more than I should.”

——

The rapt sound of knuckles against your door incites an excitement in you that you haven’t felt since childhood. You jump from the bed, uncaring of the state of yourself, hungry for the news that awaits on the other side.

A kindly British man tells you that the quarantine has been lifted and that there will be a party and dinner for the cast and crew in a couple of hours. Formal wear is encouraged but not required.mYou spend the next few hours undoing what’s been done by isolation: the bags under your eyes; the unkempt room, with the fetid smell of loneliness wafting over everything; the living out of your suitcase and the wrinkles on your best clothes. You find an iron in the closet and shave your entire body.

Dieter stops by your room while you’re in the middle of getting ready. He sits quietly at the edge of your bed, watching you in the mirror with that dazed look in his eyes. He wears the ugliest goddamn housecoat you’ve ever seen, but he’d smiled so wide at the door that you’ve forgiven him for it.

“You’re excited,” he observes. His fingers fiddle with the sunglasses in his hands. “I thought you hate actors.”

You try to steady your hand as you bring the eyeliner up to your eyelid. “I don’t care what they are, as long as they can hold a conversation,” you mumble.

“I can hold a conversation. Maybe we ought to stay here and celebrate with each other.”

You look at him in the mirror, trying to figure out if he’s serious or not. You can’t tell. “You’re kidding.”

He shrugs. There’s a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s thinking too hard about something.

“Are you high?” you ask him.

“No, but I’m thinking maybe I should be.”

“Cheer up, boy scout. You’re the one who wanted to do this goddamn movie.”

He lets out a defeated sigh and falls back into the mattress with a groan. “I’m going to kill myself.”

———

He doesn’t kill himself, but he looks like he’s still weighing the prospect of it as you take your drink from the bartender.

Dieter suffers no one lightly, and you have a feeling the personable strawberry blonde in front of him isn’t exactly his crowd. You smile over the rim of your drink, enjoying seeing him squirm for once. Everything seems to come easy to him–except this. He’s never been very good at socializing when he doesn’t want to.

“That your boyfriend?”

You turn your head and find Dustin Mulray. You feel a hint of your teenage self come back to you as you look at him, struck wordless. It’s nothing as strong as the love that had you tacking up posters with his face on it to bedroom walls, but something vaguely akin to it. You’re happy to find it manifests itself as a friendly smile instead of love confessions. Perhaps it’s helped by his appearance: In his infinity scarf and beige knitted sweater, he reminds you more of a homely professor than a Hollywood movie star. You think: Movie stars! They’re just like us! while shaking your head in answer.

“No,” you tell him, “He’s my ex-husband.”

“Ah. That’s my ex-wife with him. Marriage is tricky, isn’t it?”

He takes a seat next to you and orders a drink. The bartender sits it on a napkin for him and he turns to you, his blue-green eyes awaiting an answer. You hadn’t thought he would want to talk to you, not really. You’re used to being invisible at events.

“I guess you could say that,” you reply.

“Are you working on the movie?”

You remember what Dieter told you to say if anyone asked: “For legal purposes, yes. Art coordinator #3.”

This amuses him, drawing out a smile. “That title come with pay or would you say it's just an internship?”

“I guess you could call it an internship.” You smile back at him. “Why? You think you could pull some strings and get me a paycheck?”

“I think I’d do you one better and get you a better place of employment. Have you read the script?” This makes you let out a genuine laugh. He brightens, smiling a little wider. “What? It’s the truth! Everyone thinks us Hollywood actors just commit to this shit knowing it’s shit but we don’t! I mean—“ He looks over the crowd, lowering his head closer to yours conspiratorially. “—Not those of us who started at the beginning. We thought it’d be good. Like Jurassic Park, but yanno, we didn’t get Steven Spielberg. We keep getting arthouse fucks. And I like arthouse fucks–don’t get me wrong–but what’s a man with an IPhone know about blockbusters?”

“Ah, I feel you but I can’t quite reach you from here.”

“No, I bet not.”

There’s something simmering in that line. If you didn’t know better, you’d figure it was a light flirtation. Surely not.

“I liked your early stuff better,” you confess.

“Me too. But those were the glory days and now I have alimony and child support to pay. How about him?” he nods in the direction of Dieter. “You get half his ass in court?”

You shake your head. His candor, although surprising, is refreshing. “No, no big payout. We’re amicable.”

He clicks his tongue in awe. “I envy the bastard but I can’t say I didn’t deserve my lot.”

“You haven’t even finished your first drink and you’re already gonna confess your sins?” You raise a curious, teasing eyebrow. He hangs his head and laughs.

“You married an actor. Don’t we all wear our hearts on our sleeves?”

“Mm, not mine,” you shake your head. “It seems he saved his emotions for the silver screen.”

It’s Dustin’s turn to raise his own curious eyebrow.

“How cozy.” You look over your shoulder to see Dieter standing in front of your chair, his fingers reaching out to the back of your chair. He looks…jealous.

“Dustin, this is Dieter,” you introduce them. Dustin sticks his hand out and Dieter plays nice, shaking it with a passing grin.

“Nice to meet you,” Dustin mutters. Dieter nods his head. “Yeah, you too. I was actually coming over here to steal her away for a moment. If she doesn’t mind.” He looks over at you, expectant. There’s a bite to his words you don’t like at all. How fucking rich, you think bitterly, remembering all the times you had to sit by while he shamelessly flirted with half the fucking world.

“She does mind,” you respond. The sharp finality of it makes even Dustin cough awkwardly.

Dieter looks taken aback. “Okay,” he mutters, looking between the two of you. He nods again, as though he’s drawn some conclusion. “Alright.”

You watch as he walks away to the other side of the room. Looking back at Dustin, you give him a rueful grin. “Sorry. And here I was, talking about how amicable we are. Exes of the year.”

He raises his glass. “To us pitiful people and our pitiful crash and burn marriages.”

You clink your glass against his, fighting the urge to cry or kill Dieter. “To us.”

—

The dinner table arrangement is unforgiving for Dieter. He’s sat next to Dustin at the far end of the table, with yet another red headed actress to his left. Unlike the talkative one, this one is in a state of brooding and continually huffing at everything he says. You’re slightly more lucky, sat at the other end, sandwiched between Dustin's ex-wife and the director.

He watches woefully as you chat with the ex-wife, nodding your head along politely. You were always such a good listener, even with the worst people. He frowns. He had changed his outfit between the party and the dinner, opting for a classier open dress shirt. He had seen the look in your eye when you had opened the door for him earlier, and figured he could use all the help he could get now that he’s undoubtedly pissed you off. He had hoped that they would’ve sat him next to you so you could talk. He’s even wearing that cologne you like. Or used to like. He doesn’t know anymore.

“So, like what—you usually get along with her or…?” Dustin asks him, following his eyeline right to you. Dustin brings the cool champagne they’ve served to his lips, his eyes too burningly curious as he gazes at you.

Dieter tries not to be possessive. He saw it in your eyes, heard it in your tone: that sharp, angry disappointment that you’re so used to delivering him. You don’t like when he gets like that. Not that he has much. This is a relatively new side effect he’s required since the divorce. He shrugs lazily, pushing the sunglasses up his nose. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

This earns him an even laugh. He looks over at the older man, frowning. “What?”

“I see magazines with your face all over it, man. C’mon, we all kiss and tell, even if we don’t want to.”

Dieter bites at the side of his cheek and considers him for a moment. “Look you and your wife-“

“Ex-wife-“

Dieter nods, uncaring. “Sure, your ex wife — you both like to talk a lot.”

“I’m just trying to figure out if I can make a pass at her or not. Make it easy for me. I don’t want to have to suffer this entire shoot because you’ve got some weird shitty thing going on between you. I don’t step on kept grounds….Well, not anymore,” he adds.

“How noble,” Dieter says wryly, “She’s not mine to answer for. Besides, it seems like you were already doing a good job at making a pass earlier.”

He fights down the petulant child inside of him, biting at his lip instead of wearing an all out pout. Through the concealed tint of his sunglasses, his eyes soften at the sight of you across the room. He can almost feel the crack in his heart as he considers the fact that you might have actually liked talking to this man.

Dieter knows one day it’ll come, the moment when you find yourself in a serious relationship with someone else. Most of the time he thinks he’ll be okay — that it will affect him like it must but it won’t ruin him entirely — but sometimes, like right now, he worries he’ll get on his knees and beg you not to do it. You don’t deserve that. He hates himself for the greed he feels, how he can’t ever just let you be happy. He doesn’t want to be like this dick, taking and taking from his ex-wife, all while he noses around and wets his dick in anything that will let him. He never wants to embarrass you like that. Not again. Never again.

Chugging the last bits of his drink, Dieter looks over at the man. Dustin looks back at him, nonplussed. It takes herculean strength to say the next words.

“She doesn’t like men who are crude or too direct, but to be frank, I think you can’t really fuck up with her. She likes you and always has.” Dieter casts a glance in your direction again, feeling mischievous. He smirks, letting himself have this one. “Well, since you were last relevant, that is.”

Dustin laughs the burn off, shaking his head. He touches Dieter’s shoulder in a show of faux friendliness. “We’re in the same shitty franchise now, bud, so welcome to the club,” he whispers, just low enough for him to hear.

Dieter raises his empty glass to Dustin with a forced grin. Feeling defeated but comforted by the fact that he’s now got something to separate him from that asshole, he raises his hand to the pretty waitress for another drink. To celebrate.

But he truthfully doubts there will be much to celebrate.

He fucking hates Hollywood.

—-

Truth be told, Dieter didn’t plan on doing this tonight. Getting high. He planned, if he was being honest with himself - and he is trying, at his most introspective more now than ever - to be doing you. Had he invited you on the vacation just to fuck you? No, but ignobility inevitably follows in the tracks of his nobility. It was written between the lines, something you both had hinted at over the past two weeks. But now you’re somewhere else. There's a lot of rooms in this hotel. Maybe you’re in your own. Maybe not. Dustin had looked like he was going to devour you at the bar earlier tonight, so probably, you’re doing him in his room.

Or do you bring men back to your own place now? He doesn’t know.

Dieter would blanch if he wasn’t so high. He sits in the middle of the decorative couch, staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes, and he tries to imagine a different version of your last phone conversation.

When you asked if he ever thought of you when he touched himself, he’d tell you the truth. Because you like the truth. He’d say: all the time. More than he should. Really a sickening, depressing amount because he misses you, especially lately. New York is a terrible place to be these days; death permeates everything and nothing seems as right as it used to. Even loneliness feels worse, no longer poetic or artistic but just lonely. It's less like Al Pacino on the set of the Godfather and more like Michael Corleone, sitting alone at the empty dining room table. Days stretch on and on, and he’s hungry for life that has halted so he paints terribly, insecure of even hobbies. What else is he supposed to do but play with himself and remember poignantly that he had once been married to a lovely sort of woman who would’ve made it all better, if only he hadn’t fucked it up?

Well, he doesn’t think about that last part so much. It doesn’t really make for good masturbating material.

He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the pandemic before they asked him to do this movie. And of course he asked you along when they had. It’s the only way in the world he could ask for your help: through omission of truths and beating around the bush. He wonders if you might take pity on his soul again and let him crash with you for a while, just to wait the rest of this out together after the movie wraps. If you really are fucking Dustin, it might make things tense but not impossible. He’ll learn to live with it. He’ll have to. What else is he going to do? Go back to this moment in time and stop you?

Perversely he wonders if Dustin is not the first man you’ve fucked since the divorce. You’re not his last but he wishes you were a lot. It’s been nearly two years and he’s forgotten what you feel like, what you taste like. It’s miserable. When he touches himself and thinks of you, you’re like an apparition, some Franksteinian woman built of fragmented, hazy memories. All he remembers was that the last time wasn’t nice and that you didn’t cum. He couldn’t make you, something about you being too sad or too angry. It was a shame, because he’d always imagined the two of you would’ve gone out with a bang.

This thought makes him smile, but it doesn’t last for long. There's nothing funny about your divorce, not really. He broke your heart tediously, and now you’ve got to tell people that it wasn’t just one thing but many things. He knows that. An unanswered phone call. That waitress in Vegas who he flirted with so unabashedly your mother thought he was cheating on you - along with half the internet and for a brief moment, yourself too. The apartment in New York he bought and moved into without asking you. That art house opening he missed, the one you’d asked him continually throughout the week to set time aside for. So many things—the seven sins and just a few more to top it off.

He wasn’t really surprised when you had asked him for a divorce over lunch one day. You didn’t even live together at the time - the New York apartment became more permanent than he had originally planned for - and you looked so tired, like you were drained of life, overwrought and quiet. What surprised him was the fact that you hadn’t done it sooner. The knowing that you had tried against hope was not an easy one for him to reconcile with for a long time after that. Even in that moment you had developed a sort of halting lisp as you pushed the statement out, as though your own body protested it. He remembers that better than the sex.

You had waited for him to get better and he never did, so you both took your chicken salads with a side of failed marriage that day, and now here you are. Dieter sighs, feeling the familiar pangs of remorse.

“Whatever drugs you’re on must not be very good because you look miserable.”

Dieter lifts his head off the back of the loveseat, straining his eyes to make out the shape that’s hovering in his doorway. His brain catches up with him before his eyes do, and the distinct mumbling voice of the figure comes to him. Dustin.

Shaking his head, Dieter laughs, relieved. “I was thinking.”

Dustin takes this as an invitation to cross the corridor. As he comes closer, Dieter finds he’s in more casual clothes - perhaps even sleepwear - clutching a bottle of wine in his hand. If this is a peace offering, Dieter will take the olive branch. He’s so goddamn pleased you’re not fucking this guy, he might even kiss him.

“You want a joint?” he asks him, straightening on the couch. Suddenly it’s not so hard to be magnanimous, not with the sheer euphoria of you not having betrayed him (is he allowed to call it that? Probably not, but there’s no word quite so apt). He feels he might even be smiling, but he can’t be sure. He hopes so.

“God, please,” Dustin groans. He sits the bottle of wine on the table and rubs his hands together eagerly as Dieter lights the one he’s been puffing away at.

“I figured you were the one with the goods,” Dustin says around a cloud of smoke. He looks over at the open door, nodding at it. “We should close that, huh?”

Dieter shrugs. He thought he had closed the door, truthfully. “Probably should. I think I saw a kid here,” he says. Neither of them get up.

Dustin passes the joint to Dieter. He takes another hit when he gets it because fuck it, this is a celebration. “What, she didn’t want you?” he can’t help but ask.

Dustin laughs mutedly. “I don’t know. I figured by the way you reacted at dinner that I better not try. And there's that thing with my wife.” He shrugs. “I’m always fucking that one up. I thought I should just wander around and see where the night takes me.”

Dieter rests his head back against the couch again, nodding sympathetically. “Mm, I understand. Me too.”

“What’d you do?”

“The better question would be what didn’t I do.”

“Did you cheat?”

Dieter turns his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t fuck anyone else while we were together but she said I might as well as have. And I guess she’s whose opinion really matters, isn’t it?”

Dustin mumbles an agreement. “I fucked a lot of people,” he confesses. “Even the divorce lawyer.”

“And she still talks to you?” Dieter asks.

“We’ve got a kid.”

“That’s right. She told me that, because she likes to talk.”

“Hey don’t be a dick. Yours does too, you know? That’s what women like to do—talk. And they like to be listened to.”

Dieter narrows his eyes. “Is that what you were doing at the bar? Talking?”

Dustin nods. “Yeah. Listening, too.”

“I listened.”

“But you didn’t like what you heard.”

Dustin says this more as a statement than a question. Dieter looks back to the ceiling and pinches his eyes closed, too high. “Mm,” he mumbles. “I’m just so happy she isn’t fucking you right now. I really thought she would be there for a second and it was making me sick.”

Dustin huffs out a laugh. “I take it you never shared?”

“What do you mean ‘shared’?” Dieter asks. “Like wife swapping? No. We seemed to have left the practice in the sixties.”

“Not necessarily. Threesomes?”

“Have you done that?”

Dustin shrugs, smiling unashamedly. “Before we got married, of course,” he tells Dieter. Then, “And a little after too.”

Even with the high, Dieter can’t help but feel curious about the arrangement. “With men?”

“Sure. It wouldn’t have been fair with just women. That was the rules, anyway. Why? You’ve never been with a man?”

“A few. That’s not what strikes me as odd. You just didn’t strike me as the type.”

“I wouldn’t say I was, but fair is fair. And it can be nice. Interesting.”

Dieter rolls his eyes. “Gay sex is gay sex, no matter how you cut it. If you’re about to tell me it doesn’t count, I’m gonna laugh.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just like there to be a girl there too.”

The information weighs heavily on Dieter’s drug induced state of mind. He finds himself beginning to laugh. “Wait a minute, are you trying to talk me into a threesome? Is that what this is? Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson? That’s what the wine is about, isn’t it?” He points to the bottle in question, and everything suddenly seems much too funny.

Dustin begins laughing too. “No! The wine was for something. I just couldn’t figure out what”

Dieter ignores him. “Your…your wife hates me,” he manages to hiccup out, “And mine? She—“ She hates me too. This thought makes the laughing come to a slow halt. That’s right. She hates him too.

“I bet she’d do it,” Dustin supplies, soft chuckles still emitting from him. “They can surprise you like that sometimes.”

Dieter shakes his head, his smile more soft, almost sad. “Not with me. I pissed her off. I was thinking I’d try with that waitress downstairs but she’s young and I’ll for sure hate myself for that later.”

“Don’t do that. Your wife really will hate you for that,” Dustin advises. “Take it from an expert. Just call her. Apologize.”

Dieter shakes his head. “That won’t work. It’ll just make her more mad when she realizes I’m high.”

Dustin considers this. “Maybe. I don’t know. Let’s go to her room. Do it in person.”

“You can’t go,” Dieter tells him evenly. It’s not often he’s the voice of reason — even less so when he’s high — and this dynamic is beginning to make him feel out of sorts. He wants to shut his eyes and sleep this off, but naturally — because he is who he is — he will follow this train of thought through with Dustin.

“Why not?” Dustin smiles widely, catching his stride in the conversation. He speaks more animatedly, bringing his hands into the mix for emphasis. “She doesn’t want to fight with you in front of me! And she can see we’ve made friends. That’s progress! She’ll like that.”

Dieter considers this. He does want to show you he’s sorry — really.

“You just want to fuck her,” he says to Dustin. He’s too high to be angry, even if he really wanted to be, but he is suspicious.

When Dustin doesn’t respond to that, Dieter narrows his eyes. “You do!” he accuses, acutely horrified by the idea.

Dustin looks at him, a smile playing across his lips. “C’mon, aren’t you a little curious to see what it’d be like?”

“No. And besides, even if I was, I don’t think she would. She’s not…I don’t know, I don't know how to explain it.” Dieter pinches up his face, stuck for the right words. “She’s not a prude by any means, but I don’t think she would.”

“Would you? If she did?”

Dieter doesn’t consider the question, only beats around it. “She wouldn’t. I know her.”

He watches as Dustin rises from the couch. “Let’s just go ask her.”

Dieter jumps up, feeling sobriety sneak up on him. “No!” he says, horrified.

But Dustin has snatched up his bottle of wine and began to make his way out into the corridor before Dieter can stop him.

So crumbles the olive branch.

—-

When you see Dustin standing at your door, holding up a bottle of wine with a goofy grin, you think it's a sign from the Heavens above. No more Dieter, that’s what it tells you. He’s ruined your life for a decade now and it’s a cause you’ve got to accept is a lost one. A new man is here and you’re lonely, and you didn’t even have to go search this one out. You smile, open the door a little wider.

But then you see Dieter shuffling down the corridor, brown eyes blown wide. Dustin looks over at him with a grin and you realize with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t what you imagined it was. You don’t know what it is, to be exact, but you’re sure it’s not right.

They look up to no good, with glazed eyes and Dustin’s too wide grin. You close your door just a smidge when Dieter shoulders to the front. He smiles apologetically, and you instinctively hold out a hand to keep him steady. But he’s steady, in no risk of tumbling forward. He puts his hands over yours before you quickly take it away. He looks stung but you don’t care.

“Hey kid,” he says sheepishly. His eyes seem to be asking you something - saying something - but you’ve long lost that way of communicating. You frown, slumping against the doorway.

“Make friends?” you ask, nodding back to Dustin.

Dustin nods his head, unaware or — more likely — too high to be aware. “He’s being a good boy,” he vouches.

“I’ve been good,” Dieter echoes. He tries another grin and that easy charm of his, but none of it works. You fold your arms over your chest.

“Listen, I’m a little tired and—“

“I’m sorry. I know what I did earlier was shitty. I don’t know why I do things like that. Don’t shut me out. Please.” Dieter pouts. The sincerity of his words punches you in the gut, and makes you angrier somehow. Like it’s mocking, even though you know it’s not. He seems to sense this and he continues talking. “I know I don’t own you like that. I had no right. None at all. And I’ve been meaning to say it to you all night. And I know you’re thinking ‘this prick is high.’ I am. I’m really high, and I can’t deny it, but I’m sorry too. I was sorry even before I got high. That’s why I got high.”

Dustin giggles behind Dieter. You look over, feeling pangs of annoyance for him too. Now that he’s not your knight in shining armor he’s just some asshole in kahoots with this asshole. “That’s terrible,” he huffs out. Dieter glares at him over his shoulder before you’ve got the chance.

“I’m sorry,” Dieter tells you again, pleadingly. You shake your head.

“You’re always sorry. That was always the problem.”

“I know! God, I know.”

“Ask her if she wants some weed,” Dustin whispers.

“And I suppose you smuggled that in?” you ask, straightening yourself up. You feel motherly, glowering at him like this. You want to wring his neck. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed fuck you, make you feel eternal and sexy. But no. Now you’re so matronly, standing there in your PJs, frowning so hard wrinkles are mapping their permanent home in the places your face creases.

He nods guiltily. “But you knew that! I’ve talked about it all week.”

“Yeah but—“ you wave your hands in the air. “It all adds up with you. It’s..”

“The little things,” he finishes sadly. “I know.”

“Why do you know so little if you know so much?”

Dustin coughs suggestively behind Dieter and Dieter turns around swiftly. “No,” he tells him sharply.

You furrow your eyebrows. “No, what?”

Dieter shakes his head dismissively and Dustin shrugs, looking around aimlessly. He’s trying hard to contain a laugh or a grin, you can tell. You hate that Dieter is making you a bitch in front of him. You could be fucking him for God’s sake, but you’re just annoyed.

“Go to bed,” you tell them.

“Well that’s the idea,” Dustin counters, his lips drawing upwards. Dieter looks pallid.

“It wasn’t,” he tells you. “I swear. I came here to stop him from asking!”

“Asking what?” you say, exasperated.

“For a threesome,” Dustin says simply, like it’s nothing at all. “Though I can see now that’s probably not in the cards. And it wasn’t really asking for one, just a hypothetical.”

You look over to Dieter. He looks down at the floor, like a kid in trouble. “Dieter,” you scold.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want him to ask. I told him—I said you wouldn’t. I didn’t even want to suggest it,” he mumbles helplessly. “That’s not what this was supposed to be at all, kid. I swear. I just wanted to say sorry and…I don’t know.”

You don’t know whether to believe him or not. “But you talked about it?”

“Hm?” Dieter raises an eyebrow.

“The threesome? You were talking about having one?”

“Yeah, but not like—it wasn’t locker room talk. Not really. He just started talking about it and asked if you would and I said no—“

“How do you know I would say no?” you huff. “You don’t know. You don’t know me.”

Dieter frowns. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah it is,” you nod. “I’m different now. I’m not the woman you dragged around all those years.”

“I never thought of you like that.”

“Well, still, yes,” you say, feeling angry and stung and in a desperate need to prove him wrong and spite him all in one go. It’s such an ugly feeling and it’s not right, but you can tell the words take him by surprise.

“Yes?…” he asks. “Listen, I get that you’re angry, but you don’t have to do this.”

“No I want to,” you say. “If that’s what you want, what he wants, I want it too. If that’s what you’ve come for, then you’ll get it.”

He shakes his head. “You’re angry and you’re not thinking straight. You’re…being mean. And you’re only going to piss yourself off more, I think, and then you’re going to be mad at me because I drove you to it.”

You shake your head. “No. I think I’m being quite nice. I’m standing here telling you I want you to fuck me. I want him to watch. I want him to fuck me and you to watch. Whatever perverse things you cooked up together, let’s do them. If you’re going to make me mad, then I’m asking that you have the decency to fuck me too.”

Dieter struggles to compute the information. You do too. You hate him. You love him. You are so high strung and pissed and you’d do anything to be touched. Let him prove himself, goddamnit, or let him be damned jealous. Either way, you get fucked. Everyone's a winner or only you are. You don’t give a shit.

Dustin seems altogether pleased by this, clapping a hand onto Dieter’s shoulder. “I told him you might surprise him.”

“Mm hm,” you hum. You do not break eye contact with Dieter. He nods his head, resolving to trust you—or to go along with it. It doesn’t matter, just so long as he doesn’t question it.

When he steps forward, you put your hand up, blocking him. “First the weed.”

He lets out a soft sigh and stays put for a second, looking as though he wants to say something more. He’s wise enough not to in the end.

As he rounds the corner, heading back to his room, you finally glance back up at Dustin. He smiles softly. “You don’t have to do this,” he tells you. “I really was just to get some fire under his ass. I mean, I’m not against it, but if you’re just doing it because you’re pissed—“

You cut him off with a hard look. “I want to,” you say resolutely. “And I am pissed. So be it. Men start wars for less.” You shrug. He looks amused and you feel something arise in you, up alongside the anger — arousal. Desire. Something. He smiles handsomely. The grayish scruff on his cheeks bodes well with his aged features.

You do want to fuck him. That’s freeing information. Propping the door open wider with the kick of your foot, you nod him in. “C’mon. Get in here before I change my mind.”

The dichotomy between his laughter and the intensity of the fight you just had with Dieter makes you smile despite yourself.

“Wouldn’t want that,” he responds with a wink.

He brushes past you with his body and you fight the urge to suck in a shallow breath at the sudden casual contact. As he moves into the room, he pulls you away from the door with him, gripping at your shoulders. He doesn’t let you stay back and wait for Dieter like some lost puppy.

You look at him, eyes wide, and he hands you the wine in his hand. He is so unserious that it’d be plain endearing if it hadn’t been a source of annoyance a moment before. You watch as he wets his lips and looks down at yours. There seems to be a pregnant pause, eyes searching yours for an answer to an invisible question. You think of Dieter, of all the sex you’ve not had since the divorce, and how hurt he seemed when you pulled back from his touch. You love him so much. It isn’t fair. You will love him your whole life if you don’t stop this. You heed your mother’s warning too late and you kiss Dustin hard on the mouth. He takes some of your grief with a practiced tongue, kissing you deeply until you’re interrupted by a cough in the corner a few blurry moments later.

Dustin smiles, holding your face between his hands. “The weed,” he remarks. Dieter nods. He looks a little hurt, a little angry, a little betrayed—looks like he’s always made you feel, and you are not surprised it doesn’t make you feel any better.

You love him. You fool.

You shake Dustin off and Dieter hands you the joint with a forced grin. “It’s strong,” he warns softly as he lights the end. As you inhale, Dustin comes to stand behind you. Dieter’s eyes watch as his arms snake around you. He plants wet kisses alongside your neck and Dieter worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

Dieter reaches out to you, touches the wrist you’ve risen to put the joint in your mouth. His calloused fingers try to reach across burned bridges and you aid him, handing the joint back and reaching out to him too. His baggy sleep shirt is easy to take between your fingers. He takes a hit and then comes closer to you, pressing into you.

When he kisses you for the first time, you think of an ouroboros. Whole and eternal, destruction and rebirth. Your mother hates him when she once loved him. He knows your birthday and the way you like your coffee in the morning. You don’t know what he did yesterday. He doesn’t know your friend’s old cat died and that you’d been to two weddings before COVID hit. He tastes familiar and feels strange against you, unreal and vivid. You open your mouth and he slides in his tongue. The kiss isn’t like the one with Dustin; he does not explore you as much as he remembers you.

Dustin and Dieter pass the joint between them. When you feel the loss of warmth behind you, you turn curiously, detaching from Dieter’s lips. Dustin goes to abandon the joint on the table by the bed and Dieter’s hot mouth presses kisses alongside your neck. You wrap your fingers in his hair and you can't help but moan when he tongues alongside your jaw. Dustin’s eyes spark with delight at the sound.

You look down at the wine bottle still in your hand and hold it up. Dustin takes it from you, grinning. “I forgot to tell you it was my gift. I’ll open it. It’s good, aged to perfection,” he comments.

He searches your bedside for a glass and finds a crystal one beside the water vase that they gave you earlier that week. He looks down at the bottle in his hand and frowns. “Fuck, I forgot the wine opener.”

“Call the desk,” Dieter says against your skin.

You turn your head back and begin kissing him again, humming an agreement against his lips. Dustin shuffles behind you as you return completely to Dieter, your lips ghosting over his. He licks into your mouth and grasps at the back of your neck, keeping you attached to him as you begin the dance backwards to the bed.

The weed gives you a cloudy feeling, enhancing the warmth of his fingers and lips on your skin, but erasing any inhibition that would make you embarrassed to be doing it in front of another man. You like the idea of it, actually, that there’s some stranger - albeit a familiar one - standing somewhere in the room as Dieter’s fingers lift up your sleep shirt and dip beneath the hem of your underwear. Your ass presses against the edge of the bed and you feel his erection against your thigh. You moan carelessly, tugging at his hair, and he exhales into you, the line between pleasure and pain thin and delicate as he rushes to do what he’s afraid Dustin will get to first if he doesn’t.

Dustin hangs up the phone and looks at the two of you on the bed, a surge of desire filling him as he watches. You’ve got your legs open and Dieter’s got his hands down your underwear and he can see it all from this angle. You’re making delicious, breathy moans and Dieter’s arm muscles flex as he works them out of you. There’s a wet spot on your underwear and he wants nothing more than for Dieter to take them off so he can see more of you.

He watches a while longer, captivated by what makes you tick and what kind of a lover Dieter is. It's kinda like hotel porn that he’s had on repeat the past few days, but live. Before he can get out the request for Dieter to take your underwear off, or wait for the inevitability of it, there’s a knock on the door. He rushes to answer it, holding the door open only enough to take the glasses and the bottle opener. He mumbles a quick thanks before shutting the door on the confused worker.

Dieter enters you with a thick finger and you let out a loud uninhibited moan around his kiss. As Dustin attempts to open the wine he smiles, thinking of the young man who was just outside the door. He likes that you aren’t afraid; he’s always found that attractive in women.

“Here,” he says, pouring the pinkish liquid into three separate glasses. Neither of you look at him, so he repeats it again, this time with more command in his tone. You look so thoroughly kissed when you look up, red lipped and swollen, that it makes him ache, and Dieter’s wild haired annoyance is charming in its own way. He hands you both a glass and you take it with a shy smile. Dieter is less pleased, but takes it anyway with a soft ‘Thanks.’

Dustin watches as Dieter wipes your slick from his fingers with a pang of envy, swallowing down the wine. This isn’t something he’s made a habit of doing often— watching people fuck, threesomes — but he had felt that it wouldn’t have been right to do without Dieter. Truthfully, he had had every intention of going to your room by himself before he had peered into Dieter’s open door. The sight of him sitting there, staring up at the ceiling like he had been doing, inspired sympathy. He hadn’t been entirely truthful about that with Dieter, but what he’s learned over the years about sex is that some little white lies must be told sometimes.

A part of him feels guilty, knowing his own ex-wife lies somewhere in this hotel, probably brewing in her own anger. But he’s leaving her alone. That’s what she asked of him, isn’t it?

“So, any rules?” he asks, abandoning this train of thought before it crashes.

Dieter unwraps himself from you, sitting on the edge of the bed like you are, and shrugs his shoulders. You both look at each other. Dustin feels like an outsider, intruding on something too big and personal, but he doesn’t mind. A bit of self-flagellation mixed in with pleasure was always how he did his sex best, and there’s nothing quite like sleeping with two people very much in love during a pandemic.

“Dieter said you’ve never done this before,” he says, looking at you. “Is that true?”

You nod your head. “What do you mean by ‘rules?’”

“Well, I guess it’s a bit different because no one is with anyone here, but sometimes there will be requests people make to ensure no one gets their feelings hurt. For instance, you might not want me to cum inside of you or enter you at all. They’re for safety too—consent, boundaries.”

“I see.” You look down at your glass of wine, thinking. “I don’t really have any rules. Maybe just use condoms.”

“Are you sure?” Dieter whispers, tugging at your shirt sleeve. He leans in closer, says something Dustin can’t hear. You shake your head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t care if you do that,” you tell him. He seems surprised by your answer.

Dustin can’t help himself. “What’d you ask?”

Dieter shrugs his shoulders. “Just about how she feels about us.”

“Do you have any rules?” he asks.

“Don’t cum in her first.”

You look at Dieter quizzically and all he provides is a shrug that says nothing. Dustin nods his head. “That seems easy enough: condoms, don’t cum first.” He swallows down the rest of his wine and sets the glass aside.

You twirl the liquid around in your own glass, smiling faintly. “I can’t believe I’m gonna do this,” you say.

“Me either,” Dieter replies. He sits his glass, half finished, on the nightstand.

“I’m feeling high,” is your next sentence. Dieter seems to grimace.

“You’re in the wrong state of mind,” he tells you.

You shake your head. “No. I made up my mind before I got high. I want to be fucked,” you tell him, voice plain and even. “If you don’t want to fuck me, I’m sure I’ll be okay with just him.”

Dieter shakes his head adamantly, cheeks beginning to red. “I—I do want to. I always want to. I just want to make sure you’re not doing something you’re going to regret later.”

With a smile, you tell him teasingly, “I won’t regret it later. Not if you do it right.” You offer him a teasing wink that draws out his dimple. He leans forward and presses a chaste kiss on your lips, too romantic and sweet to be good for your soul.

You decide then that this will have to be less Dieter focused if you want to last. “Lay on the bed,” you say to him. He nods his head, prying off his house shoes. You look over to Dustin, who stands awkwardly at the head of the bed. He smiles again with that charming Hollywood grin that age hasn’t dimmed in the slightest, and you grin back. “I want to kiss you again,” you tell him directly.

“That can be arranged,” he says, dipping onto the bed.

Dieter lies back against the heap of pillows at the headboard, his knees spread apart to make a spot for you. Dustin guides you there slowly, his body pressing into yours until there’s nowhere left to go but into Dieter. He kisses you deeply, hands strong and warm and unfamiliar in an entirely exciting way as they bunch up the fabric of your sleep shirt and expand over your skin.

Dieter doesn’t touch you, even though he badly wants to. Part of it is heartbreak and disbelief, and the other part is erotic fascination—watching you come apart like this, at another angle, is undeniably doing something to him. You are so pliable under Dustin, so easy for him, like you’ve waited your entire life to be like this. Maybe you have. Maybe he never paid enough attention—maybe in all your thousand little, subtle ways you had once alluded that you’d like to be this way. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a prick, he could’ve made more rules, one like ‘Don’t enter her at all’ and ‘Don’t kiss him like that because I know once upon a time you kissed me like that and I screwed it up, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better husband. I’ll be a better friend, just don’t kiss him like that.’

But then again maybe not. That’s a mouthful and you’re high and he’s high. Maybe it would be just like this. It’s just that he loves you. It’s an odd kind of love, but it’s real. Dustin has his tongue down your throat, his exploratory fingers beneath the fabric of a sleep shirt, but Dieter loves you. The fool.

Blissfully you are unaware of the pity party Dieter throws for himself behind you. He is a body, a springboard for desire and heat, as you surrender yourself to lust the way you never really have before. You do draw up some comparisons, unable to help yourself.

Dustin is grittier, all command and surrender. He is an electric taste of the illicit, some faraway fantasy made palpable. Dieter is your ground zero, vivid and stormy. He is what yesterday was. You read somewhere once that when you have a child with a man, their genes have the ability to change your own. Though you and Dieter have no children, you feel like something irrevocable like that happened — that you carry a part of him in your genetic makeup. It doesn’t make Dustin worse for it. In fact, it makes him better, an exotic vaccine into your very tired bloodstream. You deserve it. You deserve it so much, and you practically beg for it, mewling as Dustin kisses his way down.

“I bet you taste like heaven,” he mumbles warmly into your skin, licking a teasing strip over your midriff. You watch, mouth agape, heart beating wildly in your chest. Dieter tilts your chin up, directing your attention towards him, feeling impossibly greedy now. He kisses you languidly, tonguing lolling gently against yours, making it lasts forever. Your mind is in a haze, the slow, sensual turn of your tongues lighting a fire in your belly as Dustin uses his own on you. He trails lower and lower, warm and wet, fingers drawing down your underwear and then—

“Fuck,” you say, gasping out the word. You surprise yourself. Dieter captures the word in his mouth and groans in soft appreciation. You glance down your body, your knees hanging loosely over Dustin’s shoulders, watching his warm tongue pressing against your clit. It’s a sight to behold, the way his pink tongue flattens over you. His large hands grip onto your legs, holding you apart as your back presses into Dieter’s front. You feel his semi-erection nudge into your back.

Dustin spends his time with you, teasing you lightly with his tongue at first, learning the careful intricacies of your body. As you run your hands through his unruly bed hair, the tip of his tongue dips into your opening experimentally. He looks up to you, blue-green eyes searching for approval. You buck against his face, desperate, full of want and drugs and something indescribable but undeniably exciting. Ambition. Want. Joy. You used to masturbate to this man. His nose grazes against your clit and he laughs as you struggle. It is warm and bubbly, and you feel it all the way down to your bones.

You tug his hair so hard that he sends another noise vibrating through you: a low, half pained, half aroused groan.

Dustin brings his mouth back to your clit, grazes it gently with his teeth. “Oh,” you say, your head drawing backward, falling into Dieter’s shoulder. He watches you, his dark eyes fixed. He presses his lips onto yours like time hasn’t changed anything. You bask in it, give yourself over to the fantasy with the ease he’s offering it—you kiss like lovers, familiar and intimate, an unformidable duo in sex where you weren’t in marriage.

Dieter doesn’t leave your lips as he says, “I never got to see this sort of thing from this point of view. You’re so goddamn pretty.”

His hands tease up your sides, fingers drawing closer to your chest. “Is he making you soaked? Just like I used to?” he asks, his voice a low drawl. You arch up, bringing your lips up to his. He slots his mouth over yours, pressing into you roughly as his fingers find a pebbled nipple through the cloth of your night shirt. As he scraps over the top of it with the pad of his thumb, you draw your eyes closed. The heady scent of Dieter surrounding you mixed with the intoxicating feel of Dustin pressed against your cunt is almost too much to bear. Almost. You moan against Dieter’s lips again as Dustin’s tongue works you, and Dieter smiles, nodding. “Oh baby, he’s gonna be like me. A pitiful, helpless fool for you. Aren’t you?” he says, looking down the valley of your body to the other man.

Dustin grunts wordlessly against you and your hips fail you again, pressing up into the vibration. Sensing this isn’t the end of lack of control, Dustin presses a hand against them, pinning you down. As he licks you open, spreads your folds with the warmth of his eager tongue, you feel on fire, the sensation reaching every part of your body. He’s good at that. He’s lapping and lapping, his strong nose meeting your clit at just the right time each time he comes up.

“He’s so fucking good,” you say helplessly, uncaring of who hears. The drugs make you uninhibited, looser. You meet Dustin’s eyes as he takes your clit into his mouth again. He is sucking lightly and you try to roll your hips into him, but he presses down, a silent no. “Fuck, you’re so—good at that. Oh my god.”

Dieter pinches your nipple between his fingers, humming softly at the sight before him. “You’re gonna make me jealous, baby.”

Dustin’s mouth grows more focused, intent. You feel your orgasm drawing up, coming closer and closer. You open your eyes, blown wide with desire, and focus on Dieter. He kisses you softly again, bringing his hand up to your other breast. Dustin sucks your clit into his mouth, his fingers digging into your soft flesh, and your hardened nipple scraps against the warmth of Dieter’s palm. It's all so right. You cum then, toes curling into the sheets, body going rigid beneath the touch of them both. Dustin doesn’t stop; he laps up your want greedily and Dieter draws up his head to watch. His eyes darken, full of desire and what you assume is a begrudging respect.

After you’ve ridden out your orgasm on Dustin, Dieter huffs out a soft laugh. “He wants to fuck you,” he tells you, thumb swiping affectionately across your cheek. Dustin, unable to let that one go, presses a kiss to your inner thigh and muffles a laugh against your skin.

“Bravo, you’re so jealous it’s making you stupid. She knows that,” he says, nuzzling his face against your inner thigh. “Of course she knows that.”

“M’not jealous,” Dieter denies evenly. When he looks down at you, brown eyes too kind, you half believe him.

You break the eye contact and smile appreciatively down at the man between your legs. A finger you’d locked in his hair now swipes across the bottom of his shiny lips. He takes it into his mouth, wetting the pad, and you say, “You aren’t a very good team. I think it’s important to be a good team.”

Dieter places a hand on your arm, more of a phantom touch than a grip, but you know it’s a stroke of possessiveness. You glance back up at him, cupping his cheek in your palm. “Dieter likes men,” you tell Dustin, not looking away from Dieter. “He’s not playing nice now and I think it’s a shame because I bet you taste just like me right now. And I know—“ your gaze drops down to Dustin, your voice velvet “—how much this dearest ex-husband of mine likes the taste of me. Have you ever kissed another man, Dustin?”

Dustin bites at your bait, smirk growing wide as his body stalking up yours. “Of course. I looked like a God in the ‘90s. Everyone wanted me and I wanted everyone,” he jokes, his warm hands flattening against your torso. His legs rest behind your thighs as he sits upwards, and you can see the tent of his erection against his sleep shorts. The black of them does little to conceal the full outline, and you thrill at the idea that he’s probably not wearing any underwear beneath the fabric.

You’re not one for getting starstruck - not anymore, anyway, a Los Angeles resident for years and the ex-wife of a star - but the fact that you used to masturbate to this man in front of you is something you still can’t shake. It occupies your mind, the way you had rewinded scenes from his raunchy, made for tv erotica over and over. Even now, many years later, you can still picture it: his younger frame pressed behind a blond woman, fucking into her in haste, his hands all over her and his thrusts rough. It was incredible to you back then, placed in some seedy location like an alley. Public and animalistic—the stuff of paperback romance novels. You remember the way he tugged her shirt upwards, how in the heat of the moment he grasped at any part of her he could get. A black bra and a long skirt, the bra pushed askew, going higher and higher with each thrust, and the skirt gripped onto, used for leverage as he pushed into her from behind. The VHS that hosted the scene had been passed from friend to friend in your college days, until someone’s VCR had eaten it. You feel a bit excited to know you’ve got the real thing right here. You think about telling him.

But it’s not about you, not now; it’s about Dieter. You widen your legs, make room for the ‘90s heart throb to slip between your body and come closer to the man you’ve dedicated your life to. In this moment you can admit as much. Dieter’s got his cock pressed against your back, and you know he would do anything - anything - for you if you’d just ask. His love burns like a million suns and you’ll be Icarus in every lifetime. You fool. Kiss another man hard and seek penance in his presence behind you.

Dieter stiffens as Dustin presses closer and closer to him. You shift to accommodate them, moving your body up, guiding Dieter along. He holds you close like a shield but doesn’t protest when Dustin’s lips press into his.

Dustin tastes of earthy vineyards and you—like sweetened strawberry wine and the familiar palette of tangy and acidic that’s blessed Dieter’s tongue many times over. That’s it, he thinks with a smile against Dustin’s generous lips. That’s how you taste. He savors it like a wine connoisseur does his wine, running it over his tongue and thinking too long about how to describe it. It is so utterly you, it makes him yearn for another life.

He plunges his tongue so deeply into Dustin’s mouth, it threatens to gag them both. But it doesn’t. They’ve both got their party tricks, after all. Dieter’s kiss grows hungry and suddenly there’s no space between any of you. You are a perfectly molded puzzle, fingers on skin, in hair, tongues swiping against lips and chests, and there are deep guttural moans exposing what the erections do well to show.

You know Dieter wants this, can feel his evident excitement press into your back. You happily welcome the warmth of Dustin’s firm body pressing impossibly close to yours. Dieter wets his bottom lip and squeezes you reassuringly, a habit from other life slipping into this new one.

You alternate kissing one another, creating a new taste on your warm, eager tongues. It is perfect. Dustin’s hands gingerly fumble over your chest, not focused or intent but curious, and Dieter’s allow it. The possessiveness has translated into something entirely more agreeable, and these men work together like lovers.

Your fingers grip at Dustin’s muscular shoulders, trail lower and lower over the slope of his chest down to the dip above his shorts. The path is slow and arduous to your lust riddled brain. He grunts against your collarbone, his hot breath fanning over you, and you go lower still, taking the shorts with you.

Dieter’s eyes trail the same place yours do, his chin tucked into your neck; you share the same view of Dustin: the red weeping head of his cock as it bops against his toned stomach, eager to be touched and licked and surrounded. Dustin sighs hotly against you as you press against him - against it - and Dieter swipes his tongue behind your ear. It is heaven, the way Dieter and Dustin feel against you, combined like this. You want them both. You need them.

You wrap your hands in Dieter’s curls, let him support your body as it rubs frantically over Dustin’s. Dieter peppers kisses alongside your neck and whispers, “God, you’re so fucking hot. God, I was so fucking lucky—“

The rest of it is lost against the shell of your earlobe. Some things - even the kindest, most genuine things - are better left unsaid.

Dustin emits soft, urgent moans as his cock catches between your bodies. The tempo of your shared thrusts grows quick, more focused, and he is close, on the very brink of letting go. You knit your brows, watch curiously and excitedly as he draws closer. You think of it: A hot spurt, just for you. Dieter holds up your sleep shirt, seeming to expect the same.

But then Dustin stops, his thick fingers rough and tight against your skin as he stills your movements. In the morning you’ll be bruised, a thought that thrills you. “Not yet,” is what he says in explanation, leaning his forehead against yours.

Dieter laughs softly, some terrible joke about bad endurance dying before it rises to be heard. He’s on his best behavior. Dustin tastes of you, of him, and you’re all naked and you’re so happy, so pliant. You lean against him like he’s someone you can lean on, and he swallows the serenity of that thought silently. Dieter is a half guilt, a perpetual bleeding heart, and you are his salvation. He knows it doesn’t work like that, can’t, but sex is not about what is real and logical. That’s why you were always so fucking good at it; it was beyond the both of you, and somehow a language you spoke best together.

He should feel worse about Dustin. Perhaps it’s because you want it so bad, or maybe it’s because he’s so horny, but the inclusion of him feels less intrusive than before. This is not your marriage bed - it’s been lost to the cruel seas of time - but it feels like a union, and Dustin plays a curious part. Not the voyeuristic onlooker, but the active participant, his glistening cock hot and heavy against your beautiful stomach. It should make Dieter sick. It did, thirty minutes ago. But now it makes him hard, wets his mouth. The bastard is good looking.

What can he say - you have always had good taste.

You turn your head and lick into Dieter’s mouth, redirecting your attention. He turns you between their bodies, pressing you into him as he kisses you feverishly. Dustin assists him, holding you against his body like Dieter had been doing before, only upwards. Dieter draws back and lifts the cotton sleep shirt over your head. He takes advantage like Dustin hadn’t been smart enough to, wetting your nipple with his warm mouth and tweaking the other between his fingers. You squirm, pressing your hot cunt against his stomach. He feels too clothed suddenly, having been denied contact because layers. You help him take off his shirt and Dustin helps you take off his pants. You waste no time wrapping your hot hand around him and tugging loosely.

His mouth finds your nipple again and you wrap your fingers into his unruly hair, jerking him off slowly as he kisses and sucks at your bare chest. He knows you’re already dripping, seen it on Dustin’s glossy lips when he got done with you, but this is his body remembering you and he can't stop. He remembers the way you got when he licked at you like you were the last scraps of his final meal on earth. How desperate and needy you became, just as desperate and needy as him. His hand travels down your stomach, straight down to your cunt, and he palms the wet heat of you into his hand. Dieter relishes the way you gasp into his mouth as the heel of his hand finds your clit, a smirk on his lips and a sentence like, “That’s it, baby,” coming out against you.

He fingers your entrance teasingly and finds you devastatingly wet. This is heaven, he thinks, the wet stickiness of you on the pad of his finger and your hot breath on his lips. You dig your nails into his shoulder, shut your eyes against the sensation of one of his fingers entering you. Dieter is ground zero. In your Garden of Eden, Dieter was there, at once Adam and the serpent. This is the apple. How delicious it is to be fucked, how perfectly human. Of course they’d turn on God for this. Cover up with leaves and be terrified of the whole earth later. Bleed and cry. Divorce. Whatever. This is worth turning back on perfection for. Poor Eve. Poor you.

You rub yourself against his hand and Dustin takes one of your breasts into his hand, watching. Dieter is so focused on the squelch of your juices and the way his finger - fingers now, two, and you stretch so perfectly for him - enters you that he doesn’t even mind. You’re no pissing contest, he sees that now—you're the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He swallows your moans and tries his best not to cum. Your grasp on his cock is so loose and it’d be so embarrassing to cum on your stomach when the tugs are nothing, and besides this is about you. So he focuses on trying not to.

“Condom,” you mutter, your lips landing on the side of Dieter’s mouth. Dieter nods his head but doesn’t pull back from you. He watches, enchanted, as your hips move against his hand. He can feel your orgasm build in the way you clench around his fingers, the penultimate pressure too much to bear. When you come, its with a shudder, your body tight and rigid above his as you ride it out. Dieter is so high and so in love with you, and he’s so sick about it that all he can do is laugh earnestly, even though what he wants is to ask you to marry him again.

Dustin is touching you all over with his hands, palming your perfect breasts, and you’re arching farther and farther back. Dieter can hardly bear the sight—not because of the jealousy—but because he’s deathly afraid this is it for him. You’re the best thing he’s ever had, and he knows he can’t think that way. You had a good run—you’re great friends now—but God, you married him in Vegas and you used to sketch his nose with careful affection onto canvases you kept for yourself. Who’s gonna sit in your studio now? Who’s gonna take up space in your heart, make you smile over the canvas as you work? He would weep if you didn’t look so pretty and sated, leaning into Dustin the way you are.

He kisses you hard on the mouth just to get rid of the thoughts, and then he kisses Dustin too, grabbing roughly at the back of his hair the way he hasn’t ever with you. It’s not kind, but Dustin doesn’t seem to mind; he moans gruffly, absorbing nothing but the desire behind it.

Your hands explore Dieter’s exposed skin as they kiss, warm and gentle, unconsciously fingering the scar he got as a child. You know the map of this body. When his hard cock bops against his stomach you take it in your hand again. Before he has time to think, you put him in your mouth.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against Dustin’s lips. They stop kissing, looking between them at the sight of you. Dustin is so considerate, so much better than Dieter has ever been. He moves aside your hair, kisses against the curve of your spine. All Dieter can do is think about not cumming. He feels bad about this, wishes he could gather enough strength to think about your hair and things like that. But your mouth is warm and you take him in with expertise, bobbing in a rhythm he wouldn't dare break. Up, down, the tip of your tongue running alongside a vein, back up again. He’ll cum like this. You look up at him through your eyelashes and he touches the top of your head with unspeakable tenderness. Cum, you beckon, but he won’t. Can’t.

Where is that goddamn condom? How can he make this last forever?

He pulls back from your lips smiling an apologetic grin when you at him, surprised. You seem to understand, a devilish little smirk playing across your glossy lips. He wants to kiss you, but even that feels dangerous right now. He thumbs your lips instead.

“Condoms,” he tells you softly. You nod your head.

“In my bag.” You point over to the corner of the room. Dieter pads off to get them.

Dustin’s hands sneak between your thighs and you sigh when he finds your entrance, the tip of a finger rubbing the spot Dieter abandoned. You’re so wet and you want it so badly. He presses his lips against your shoulder and you feel the heat of his breath against your goose pimpled flesh. As you loll your head against him, he slides a finger in. You scratch the back of his head and nod frantically.

“You’re so tight.” He nips your skin and then licks at you with a desperation you’ve only experienced in Dieter. You like being wanted this badly. You lift your hips and ride his finger, squeezing around him. So tight, right. He laughs and you feel that too. “You like being talked dirty to, don’t you? You’re being so good, riding my finger like this. I can’t wait to fuck you. To feel you around my cock like this. And I bet he’s thinking that too.”

You both look over to Dieter as he unwraps a found foil and takes out the condom. You sigh; Dustin’s thumb finds your swollen clit. “We’ve got to make him cum in you, but I don’t think you’ll find that hard. He wants you so bad. Look—“ You feel Dustin’s grin already across your back. “He’s so fucking hard for you. Just as hard as me.”

Dieter strokes himself through the protective sleeve as he watches the two of you. You feel the familiar sensation of heat spreading low in your belly. When Dustin dares to enter another finger into you, you gasp, feeling full and stretched and yet not full enough. He spreads his fingers inside you, preparing you. You tug at his hair and make eye contact with Dieter.

He smiles lopsidedly, suddenly boyish and more handsome than he’s ever been. You think he looks happy for you—so pleased that you’re pleased, with a glint in his eye. Maybe it’s the drugs. You don’t know. Maybe he is happy that you’re happy. He was always better at saying he loved you than he was at showing it, but you suspect that this is his showing you. Love. Maybe it spills over in divorce, just another cruel thing you’ve got to cope with.

When Dieter comes back, he presses a condom into Dustin’s thigh. You are at the edge of another orgasm, everything perfectly in place — the sensation of Dustin’s thumb, the way his breath hits your skin, the idea that Dieter is watching you—but he denies you it, interrupting. You go to protest, whine, but he doesn’t give you a chance.

Dustin’s fingers are still in you, on you, when Dieter leans down and presses his tongue flat against your clit, greedy with lust. He licks at you around Dustin’s fingers and it feels like too much. They seem to make an agreement, working you at the same time. You cum quickly and this one seems to go on for eternity. You squeeze Dieter’s shoulder. The other condom package falls loosely onto the bed as Dustin uses his hand to keep you steady, your knees weak from the pleasure.

You tug at Dieter’s hair to make him stop. Dustin seems to know instinctively, leaving you feeling empty when he takes his fingers away. His slick covered fingers rest on your hips as you tell them both, breathlessly, “I can’t do another one. It’s too much.”

Dieter shakes his head in protest but Dustin takes the information in stride. He’s too good at this, moves through the motions with ease, improvising quickly. He extends his slicked fingers to Dieter. Dieter, who has been so focused on you, looks at them quizzically, unsure of what they mean. Then he seems to get it, hard features smoothing out in realization.

He looks at Dustin, and it’s not like with you. He's focused, not icy or angry but so intent. It’s not a loveless gaze, per se, but it is devoid of love; filled not with something warm but something hot.

Dustin’s cock presses into the small of your back. As Dieter’s mouth wraps around his fingers, you feel a warm bead of pre-cum drip onto your skin. You bite at your lip. You’ve never seen Dieter with men before, and this new side of him excites you—like unlocking a new door in a house you’ve had for ages. He puts on a show for you, bobbing like you did on him. Dustin’s fingers seem to be an extension of yourself. You shudder as Dieter tongues along them, and Dustin rubs himself helplessly against your backside.

“I want to see what you’re like with men,” you say to Dieter, your voice barely a whisper. But Dieter hears you and his eyebrows perk in interest. This is a long unanswered question to something you’ve never been brave enough to ask. You’ve always known that he’s been interested in men — that he’s had sex with them — but you’ve never really questioned outright about what it was like. It felt equal parts too personal and hurtful; you didn’t want to know what it was like with other people before you. But everything seems different tonight. You want to know badly, like he’s got secrets that could be your salvation hidden in him.

You slip from between them, lying against the pillows. Before filling the space, Dieter looks over at you. His brown eyes implore you for a sign and you nod your head.

He’d asked you earlier, when Dustin asked about rules, if you’d be alright with them touching each other, maybe even entering one another. You hadn’t expected it to get to that, so it had been easy to say you didn’t mind. In fact, you had figured Dieter only said it as a means to scare you away from the idea. And now that the notion is not only on the horizon, but a reality, it comes just as easy to say yes—maybe even more so.

He stalls, hesitating, so you nod again, laughing. He smiles. Your ex-husband is a startlingly beautiful man like this, looking so openly vulnerable. He’s physically and emotionally naked and you’ve waited decades for it.

Dieter and Dustin kiss each other like men do, aggressive and dominating, neither willing to lose the good fight just yet. You feel your interest piqued, watching the way their fingers touch each other. How they tug and grip, search for purchase all over. Dieter is much rougher with Dustin than he’s ever chanced to be with you, with bruising kisses and bruising touches. When he grabs the man’s cock, it is with an ugly dedication, fast dry and quick tugs. Dustin hisses the first time but doesn’t protest. In fact, he thrusts his hips unashamedly into Dieter’s closed fist, licking into his mouth with a degree of delight. They tug at the back of each other’s heads of hair and eventually Dieter gives way, falling back to allow Dustin to mount him.

Dustin searches for the condom on the bed, his chest rising and falling heavily in an attempt to grasp at long denied air. You watch through heavy lids as he slides the latex onto himself. He’s circumcised, pink and swollen at the tip. Drips of pre-cum have made him all glossy and you bite your lip watching him struggle to line himself up. When he gets the latex down to his base, he smiles a satisfied smirk. He doesn’t look at you. If he notices you staring, he doesn’t mind at all. This is his favorite play, and he’s an actor after all.

Dieter’s knees knock apart to accommodate his frame—a body you’ve begun to notice with quiet admiration in your desire. He’s broad, much broader than he’d been in his youth, and he’s got muscle all over now, whereas before he’d been lean and lanky. He’s hard and tight and as he begins to rub himself against Dieter, you’re taken with the way his skin stretches over the plains of his back, his arms, his stomach. Dustin is in impeccable shape, perhaps one of the only men who can claim he’s doing better now than he was in his youth. Gone is the boyishness, replaced with a heady, sure masculinity.

Dieter seems to relinquish his fight happily now, soft growls emitting from his lips. Dustin presses down into him, and while most of what they’re doing is obscured by Dieter’s legs, you can imagine it well enough: the steady, erratic thrusts of Dustin’s cock rubbing against Dieter’s. There’s a sheen of sweat on them both and Dustin buries his head in Dieter’s neck. He licks at the places you had once, and it is nothing but erotic little huffs from them both.

“You’re…” Dustin begins, but falters off. He lifts himself up, repositions, bracketing Dieter’s head between his strong arms. Dieter’s eyes are pressed closed, his dark features etched with pleasure. All they do for a while is rub against each other. You feel like an intruder, like something stopping them from getting where they need to be. Maybe you are.

You dare to speak: “Aren’t you going to touch each other?”

Dieter looks startled. He’s red in the cheeks, the exertion of their movements and the heat of his desire making him flush. He taps Dustin on the arm, making the steady roll of his hips slow until suddenly it’s nothing. It’s all quiet for the first time in minutes.

They both look at you with intent eyes. But Dieter is the first to take charge. “You should fuck her,” he tells Dustin. Dieter looks at you, questioning.

“But—“ you protest. Dieter shakes his head.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Later.”

Dustin has no qualms about the interchanging of you and Dieter. You notice that he's notably gentler with you than he was with him, though. He crawls to you, kisses you chastely—as if testing the waters. There’s nothing necessarily erratic or rough about what he does to you. He looks between your spread legs and fingers at your entrance once more, circling the area teasingly. You groan in anticipation and his head falls to your chest. He takes a taut nipple into his mouth as he plunges his fingers inside of you, pushing them against your front wall. As you sigh heavily, he moves his wet mouth to the other nipple.

You turn your head, catch Dieter’s fixed gaze. He reaches out his hand and you lace your fingers together. He’s touching himself through his condom, stroking softly. You want to devour him.

Dustin takes his fingers from you, and you look back at him. Before you can plead for more he says, “I’m gonna enter you now.” You nod, wordless.

He gathers the slick from his fingers and coats his latex covered cock with it. As you squeeze Dieter’s hand, Dustin lines himself to your entrance. His kiss is soft, barely a kiss at all, and he enters you, inch by careful inch. He feels so overwhelmingly right, snug, puncturing something decidedly primal inside of you when he bottoms out.

“Oh, fuck,” you groan hotly against his shoulder. He manages a small laugh, running his lips against your cheek. “Go hard,” you ask. He hasn’t moved yet, stays still inside of you. You think of the way he was with Dieter.

“I don’t know if I can. I think I’ll…” He swallows. “I know I’ll cum.”

“Please,” you beg. You dig crescent shaped nail marks into ass and he smiles teasingly, running his warm tongue against your sensitive skin. He presses so intimately into you, your nipples scrap against his chest. It feels so good. Everything does.

“He said no,” he answers, looking up to meet your eyes.

“He’ll give me anything I want,” you say. Dieter’s fingers leave yours then, and you look over. You think you’ve made him mad but he’s only repositioning himself, coming closer to your bodies. He doesn’t say anything.

Some things are so true they don’t need to be confirmed. They just are. The sky is blue and people die, and Dieter is a man who will give you everything because he was once a man who gave you nothing.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dustin mumbles, finally drawing back. You nod your head, encouraging, but he doesn’t go harder. He moves in the same way he did before, experimental and slow. When you look at him, imploring silently, he shakes his head. “But a rule is a rule, baby. ‘Sides, I think he’s making me get you ready. Your husband is a bit of a pervert. He’s touching himself, watching me stretch you open with my cock.” Dustin presses his lips into yours. Against you, he mumbles, “Did ya know he likes to watch? Bet he likes to hear too. You—“ Dustin pushes back into you, stopping himself, and the squelch of your juices adds to the effect. He smirks. “—You’ll get fucked. Just not by me. Not yet. Maybe I’ll fuck him while he fucks you. Maybe we’ll do it..” he grunts, bottoming out again, “We’ll do you together. You’re tight as hell, but I know we can get you wide. Couldn’t we?”

You feel Dieter’s fingers but can’t move your eyes away from Dustin’s. They’re greener like this, up close. Dieter trails a line over your body, and then up to Dustin’s, with a lone finger. Dustin turns to look at him and he smiles, nodding. They seem to work without words.

Dustin reaches down to grip the condom as he pulls out of you. You look over at Dieter, half angry and half amused that he could interrupt. You realize what they’re doing almost immediately. Dieter holds open your legs by pressing his palm against one of your knees, and Dustin shuffles, moving back to let Dieter take his place.

His cock probes against your entrance and he smiles down at you like a fool. “Hey,” he tells you evenly, half sober. You ache for him. You clench around nothing as he licks into your mouth.

“Hey,” you respond, overcome. Your fingers wrap around his arms and you notice that he’s got more muscle than before too.

“You want to be fucked?” Although he attempts to make this a question, it is more of a statement. You nod along anyway. He kisses you hard, rough like with Dustin, and he nearly enters you as he rubs himself greedily against your naked warmth, wetting himself with your slick.

“Yes. Hard, like you do with him,” you tell him. He smiles against your lips. You take his cock in your hand, so much more sure with him than anyone, and he slides into you. It feels like homecoming, wet and warm and familiar, your fingers digging into his skin and the smell of sex in the air. He does what you ask, his thrusts sharp, his hips snapping against your hips.

“Dieter,” you pant out, nodding your head. He kisses the side of your mouth sloppily and you smile the best you can. Where Dustin felt right, Dieter feels perfect. You feel like you touch the hem of eternity as he plunges into you with the intensity you requested, uninhibited and giving in the roughness.

He repositions you both in one expert movement, moving to his knees, pushing your hips farther up. This makes you let out a startled gasp; he hits you far deeper like this, his thumbs digging into the flesh on your hips with bruising intensity. You can’t kiss from this position, but it doesn’t matter. He fucks you. Really fucks you.

You see Dustin in the hazy peripheral. Lolling your head to the side, you focus on him. He stands at the side of the bed, smiles at you when you catch his eyes. With his cock standing out in front of him like that, he looks a bit unserious. If you weren’t so full of Dieter, perhaps you’d be amused by this. He doesn’t even touch himself. This makes you frown.

“D—Dieter,” you stammer out.

“Huh?” he grunts.

“Dustin.”

“Mm, what—what about him?”

“Let him fuck me too. Please.”

Dieter shakes his head. “No, you’re mine right now. You’re—“ he snaps into you roughly, the bed creaking. “I’ll suck him off. Or maybe—“ Dieter grunts again, “Maybe he’ll be smart and he’ll get behind me. And maybe he’ll—“ his head drops to your neck, and your head the next part through mumbles. “Maybe he’ll rub against me like he was doing before. But it doesn’t matter right now. Just think about you. It’s all for you.”

You close your eyes, nodding. That sounds fine. Great. Dieter’s finger gazes at your clit and you nod, your hand reaching out to hold his wrist. You always liked to feel the way his forearm moved as he did this to you.

“Cum for me and I’ll cum for you,” he says, and you feel it begin, the stirrings of another orgasm. You think of him, of the way he punctures his thrusts with grunts, how good he feels inside of you, bottoming out like this with measured fury. You like how rough he’s being, like never before. You like this side of Dieter. You like that there is more of Dieter to know.

When you cum, you call out his name. He swallows it, pressing his lips to yours. “Fuck, you’re such a good girl for me. You’ve always been.” He fucks faster into you, his own release on the horizon. You squeeze around him once, twice, and that’s it; he’s filling the condom up and he’s gasping earnestly, amazed and so goddamn in love. He kisses you on the mouth and it’s so genuine. You kiss him back, smiling like a newlywed.

“Dustin,” you say against Dieter’s lips, after a moment. Your chests are both heaving and you're drenched in a thin layer of sweat. He presses his forehead against yours and you smile. “Let me take care of him,” you tell him.

Dieter rolls off of you, collapsing into bed with a soft groan and saying nothing. You take a moment to recuperate, breathing in and out, letting the bliss of this moment wash over you.

“Come here,” you say to Dustin, patting the open space of the bed beside you. He listens, the bed dipping beneath his weight. It takes a lot of effort on your part, but you rise to your knees. You guide him onto his back and he helps you straddle him. For a moment, you just sit there on top of him, looking at him.

“I used to masturbate to you,” you finally admit. This makes him grin. Beneath your cunt, his erection jumps a little.

“Thanks,” he says. His hand palms one of your breasts again. “You don’t have to do anything to me. I can finish myself off if you want.”

You shake your head, grinning. “Didn’t you hear me? I used to masturbate to you. This is a dream.”

Another hand comes up to cup your other breasts. “Are you sure you don't feel too sore? He fucked you pretty good.” You begin to glide your cunt alongside his prominent erection. He sucks in a swallow breath. “Guess that’s a no.”

“That’s a no,” you confirm.

“Just let her fuck you,” Dieter tells him quietly. You smile over at him but he doesn’t see it; he’s too busy watching the way you move your hips over Dustin. Even with a flaccid penis and in a state of post-coital peace, you manage to get to him.

You ride Dustin quickly, grabbing onto his strong shoulders as he tongues your alongside chest, finding your nipples. He groans, the sensation vibrating throughout your body as you follow the motion his hands set for you. A fast up and down, your back arching, taking him in completely and then pushing back so far he nearly falls out.

Admittedly he does most of the work, your legs wobbly and your body tired. But it feels good. God, does it feel good. You like this, being with two men back to back, each of them taking turns. Dustin generously tries to get you to cum again, his fingers sliding between your bodies, but you stop him.

“It’s too much. Just this,” you tell him. You grind down on him to make him feel better about it, and he hums sympathetically around a mouthful of your breast.

You ride him less enthusiastically the closer he gets, both of you too tired and worn. He stops aiding you so much, kissing anywhere he can access: your jaw, your neck, the side of your mouth. He lets your body fall forward into his. It’s a sort of lazy fucking that you do, meeting halfway to create the sharp thrusts that push him closer to climax.

“Cum in me,” you tell him, voice silky against his ear. He knows how tired you are, feels it too. He gathers up the last of both of your strengths, rutting up into you with intent. As he cums, you ride him, curious, taking all he can give. Dieter is too sensitive, can’t stand to move when he cums, but Dustin nods, moaning against you. When it’s over, you collapse into him, hugging his sweaty body. He laughs against your warm skin.

“Thank you,” he tells you softly, so only you can hear. You nod. You lie on him like that for a moment, listening to the beat of his heart. Dieter watches you, his expression unreadable. But he doesn’t look faraway.

You reach out to him with your fingers and he smiles, coming to.

Dustin helps you off of him and you fall between them, sated and spent. He slides off his condom and reaches across your body. “You want me to take yours?” he asks Dieter. Dieter, no longer feeling jealous but merely tired, nods. He hands the man his condom and Dustin pads off to the bathroom. Dieter and you watch this, amused.

“I kinda understand what you see in him now,” he confesses, smiling. He interlocks your fingers and you let him.

“Thank you,” you say, ignoring his comment. You look over at him.

He nods, sincere. “Of course. I assume I did it right?”

“You did it right.”

“And you don’t regret it?”

You shake your head. “I don’t seem to regret you. Even though sometimes it’d be better if I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I love you.”

You kiss him chastely, even though you know you shouldn’t. “I know,” you tell him softly. “I love you too.”

“Like a friend?”

“No.”

“Like a husband?” he asks, testing the waters. You laugh. Dustin comes back from the bathroom.

“No. Something more than all of that.”

“I can handle that.”

You nod your head. “Me too,” you tell him.

The bed dips from the weight of Dustin once more, and you roll over to your side, cuddling into him. He passes a warm rag to Dieter and he accepts it, cleaning himself. He goes to hand it to you, but you shake your head.

“I’ll take a shower in a little. When I can walk.”

This earns a laugh from them both. Dustin reaches an arm around you, drawing you closer to his body. Dieter, surprisingly, doesn’t mind this; he curls up behind you, too, wrapping an arm around your waist. You’re all so close, and it’s nice. He thinks maybe they might be something to this sharing after all.

“I liked that,” you say to no one in particular.

Dustin hums, fingering trailing over your arm. “Enough to do it again?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I think the opportunity for this kind of thing only happens once in a lifetime, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know about that. This is Hollywood, and they love sequels,” Dieter adds, smiling.

“Yeah,” Dustin nods, “That’s true.”

You close your eyes, smiling faintly. “A sequel, then, maybe,” you say tiredly.

In the morning, you do not regret any of it.

—-

A YEAR LATER.

SUBJECT: THREE’S COMPANY, BUT ONLY SOMETIMES from: dustin.mulray@gmail.com

I was at an art show the other day and I saw a painting with your name on it. The guy in it looked a little familiar (they told me it was an old painting, from nearly a decade ago, before you were both famous. Cute). I bought it, of course. Not that I’m in the habit of buying paintings from people I’ve slept with, but it was for charity and it looked good and I’ve got a new apartment that I’ve got to fill, so I thought why not? It cost a lot (good for you!) and because of that they let me wrangle an email address from them to tell you what a brilliant job you did. You did great. Very Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of you. Anyway, to the point: You weren’t at the premiere of the documentary with Dieter last month. He told me that it's because you don’t like that scene, and I don’t blame you. Neither do I. But I was wondering how you feel about commissioned paintings? And do you think that Dieter would like to come with you to deliver it if your opinion is positive? (He told me I had to ask you that myself, so I think he’d be happy to accompany you if the canvas is too big to carry by yourself). P.S. I’m asking you for sex–a sequel, as it were–but I really would like a painting, too. I’ll spend a lot (not for the sex, but the art. I guess for the sex too, if you’re into that). Love, D. Mulray.

—-

SUBJECT: HOPEFULLY NOT ROSEMARY’S BABY SITUATION to: david.bravo@gmail.com, dustin.mulray@gmail.com

Sometimes I commission art work for people I like and sometimes I make an exception for those I don’t if they pay enough. I’m sure you fall somewhere in those categories, Dustin. But I must warn you: I won’t do dick drawings. I might do a vagina one if the inspiration strikes. I must admit I’ve never had a man ask me for sex over email. Kind of thrilling, like a retro sext but without any of the sexy parts. I’ve attached Dieter to this email for obvious transparency reasons. He says he’d gladly help me carry your canvas (figuratively and literally). P.S. It will cost you. For tax purposes, I hope you’ll let ‘it’ be the art.

—

from: david.bravo@gmail.com to: you, dustin.mulray@gmail.com

Who said divorce couldn’t be sexy?

[asset35-maya]

Sooooooo… instead of tackling my heap of writing WIPs and IRL work, I’m gonna do something else today.

Please enjoy some mildly depressing DBH character studies, post android revolution:

Gavin: Contrary to expectation, this asshole decides to shut up and lay low. Like extremely low. He basically blends into the furniture. He’s been running his mouth talking shit about androids for MONTHS… and now 65% of the DPD is comprised of completely liberated, very deviant and very assertive androids. He does NOT want a repeat of the evidence locker incident, so he’s smart enough to keep his head down. No more witticisms from this little rat for a loooong while.

Connor: After all the media buzz and public adoration, he returns to a rather stern environment at the DPD. To be fair to the others, Fowler says he can keep his job only if he doesn’t rely purely on his advanced programming. From now on, he needs to learn from his colleagues and collaborate with them… but he’s never trusted completely by either humans or fellow androids… no matter how hard he tries. Eventually he just stops. Eventually he starts snapping. Eventually his outbursts rival the violence of the ones that used to involve Gavin.

Sixty: Sixty chooses a desk role with minimal interaction… and far from any firearms. He arrives early and leaves late. He is careful to never be alone with anyone else. He doesn’t respond well to figurative language or hyperbole. His superiors learn that it’s best to be direct and simple with instructions. He doesn’t take initiative. He doesn’t want unnecessary responsibility. He doesn’t try to read between the lines. He doesn’t want to make any mistakes. The only thing about him that might hint at a personality buried deep within… is his long hair, flopping over his face, covering the deep gash on his forehead…

Hank: He quits. He realises the only thing keeping him alive before the revolution was his shit job. The vague semblance of serving the nation… and maybe owing something to his buddy Jeffrey. But now he’s not in that dark place anymore. Recent events have shown that literally nothing matters and everything is made up. So he goes off to do his own thing. Life doesn’t magically turn into sunshine and rainbows, but his heart definitely feels fuller when he’s volunteering at Rose’s Farm rather than sniffing around some gruesome crime scene.

Nines: Yeah… this guy is just lost. He has no clue who he is or what to do with himself… but he tries. He keeps trying. If there’s one thing the engineers did right by the RK900 model, it’s the perfect ever-learning algorithm. Nines never stops trying. He doesn’t have a social module installed and he manages to creep out even the oldest, most rudimentary android models, but he keeps trying to make friends. He doesn’t know what his likes and dislikes are, so he goes to every class at the community center. It all goes so terribly that even Gavin starts to feel better about himself.

Sorry folks. Don’t mind me. Just projecting some insecurities onto the DPD gang.

[insomniaccipher]

/tftsmp spoilers 12/02 (part 1 of ?)

Sooooooo... I watched last nights Tales From the SMP stream and I know people have already talked about this but I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring.

First of all, we finally got an answer on how Karl is a time traveller. When talking to DreamXD, DreamXD says "I made you a time traveller" so there we go clean-cut answer no need to make a theory about that. It's what he says not long after that has people talking:

DreamXD: "Look... The last... time traveller they......... forgot they were a time traveller"

This has pretty quickly led people to speculate that the last time traveller was Ranboo. And that led people to look at all the evidence and moments in Ranboo's lore where it didn't make sense or it felt like it led nowhere. But as much as it does make sense we have to look at what DreamXD said after that:

DreamXD: "And that's kind of a problem so.... I mean.... So... I got rid of him"

Now I will digress and say that we don't know what DreamXD meant by 'got rid of him' but considering how XD has been in the past it wouldn't surprise me if the last time traveller was offed by XD. For now, though let's just look at the evidence that might suggest Ranboo being the last time traveller.

The first bit of evidence I want to look at is the Red Banquet.

I won't claim I came up with this idea that credit goes to this person on twitter:

I never would have thought of this so thank you! (Also if you're the person in that tweet and want me to remove you that's okay just let me know)

For those who remember Ranboo could be seen running around in the ceiling during the Red Banquet just watching everything going on. As far as I'm aware we never got an in-universe explanation for this, we just assumed that he was just ender walking and being used by Dream to see what was going on around the SMP. But with the recent events of Tftsmp it has made people think that maybe Ranboo was there as the time traveller.

(If it was explained at some point please let me know, I'm one person and can't watch every second of every vod)

We've seen with Karl that you can't necessarily control when and where you go and I think it would be safe to assume that the same would apply to the last time traveller. It could be possible if Ranboo was the previous time traveller that the Ranboo we saw in the Red Banquet wasn't actually the current Ranboo and it was a past version of him back when he still had his memories of being a time traveller, and that's why he wouldn't intervene, why would a past version of Ranboo help people he might not have known?

(Please keep in mind that I am one person and I can't watch every-single VOD so please correct me if I'm wrong. I would to be educated and told about things I miss so I can do better.)

There will be a part 2 to this please give me time

[depressing-debbie]

AOT Trio’s Annoying and Endearing Habits

Characters: Eren, Mikasa, Armin

This is my first time doing like more serious character headcanons that aren’t basically crack, so I hope you enjoy! Let me know if you want me to do more characters :)

EREN:

ANNOYING:

never washes his hair. it’s so greasy.

literally smacks his head off of things when he’s frustrated

eats really spicy food and cries every time, refuses to stop eating it

mansplainer. chronic.

tells people with anxiety to “just relax” because he genuinely does not understand what anxiety is

ENDEARING:

incredibly loyal, will not hesitate to fight anyone who insults someone he barely even knows

always has a hair tie on his wrist and will probably offer it if someone asks

always willing to talk trash about with you about people you hate

uses the fact that he’s loud to talk over everyone in a conversation and get their attention for his quiet friends

MIKASA:

ANNOYING:

tell me that scarf has been washed even one time. it hasn’t.

answers personal questions with another question towards the other person

never initiates a conversation. you guys will literally sit in silence staring at each other until you say something first.

says “this is easy” when someone is struggling, not to be mean, but because she genuinely doesn’t realize why they could be struggling

ENDEARING:

gladly listens to people complain, asks if they want advice or just want to rant

glares at anyone bothering her friends, you guys know that tiktok trend showing off your scary dog friend? that’s her.

saves snacks for her friends when she knows they’re too busy to get food

that one friend that brings up something you told them a year ago in casual conversation because they remember everything.

ARMIN:

ANNOYING:

“actually, that’s incorrect”

trips over his feet every 30 seconds, and half the time he accidentally tackles whoever is walking with him

talks sooooooo quietly sometimes

will not, NOT, lose an argument. even if you walk away thinking you won, you will be presented with written scientific evidence proving his point a month and a half later.

automatically assumes the people around him need help with anything academic (let’s be honest, though, they generally do)

ENDEARING:

can always spot the telltale signs of a panic attack beginning and asks if there’s any way he can help, remembers for next time

such a good listener! empathizes and offers advice, no judgement

shares books with his friends that remind him of them or that he thinks they would like, and they’re all annotated with little messages

keeps the conversation going with tiny little facts about his interests, and gets super excited when other people do the same

Note: Ahhhh okay I know I said I would start posting less but I just have so much in my head that I need to get outtt, so I’m very sorryyy!!

[i-prefer-the-term-antihero]

Additionally, your thoughts on Dracula and Adrian from the Netflix adaptation of Castlevania? I find Dracula really tragic, and the ending scene of Season 2 crushed me because I was not expecting Adrian to cry. He’s usually so stoic and calm that I didn’t think he would weep, I expected him to just shrug it off like heroes usually do, but no, when given time to process everything, the first thing he does is break down into tears. Sypha was right in calling him a brooding teen in an adult body.

Ohh man. If you just take a look at my writing blog (or anywhere I post my fanfiction) it’ll become pretty clear pretty quickly how I feel about them XD So far all my Castlevania fics have been about the Tepes Family. Adrian and Drac are my favorite characters in the series!! (Though I do love pretty much all the characters in it.)

YES YES YES!!

They did an incredible job making Drac sympathetic and tragic. I don’t know if you know anything about the games, and granted, they couldn’t put a lot of story stuff in the games, but (at least as far as I’m aware) in most of them it’s like “ya, he was an evil dude who did evil things because he was evil.” So it actually would have been pretty accurate to the source to make him just an unsympathetic, irredeemable villain, but they didn’t and I LOVE them for it. Playing Symphony of the Night (Alucards game) after watching the series l was almost longing for that Drac I know and love from the series, (though it’s fun to see evil Drac too).

As I’ve said, I adore redeemable villains, and they did an amazing job with him, to the point where pretty much everyone in the fandom adores him, which is extremely tough to accomplish—even if you write a redeemable villain well, often large parts of the fandom don’t see it and hate the character. I knew that the point was that they were going to defeat Drac but I have to say, especially since I originally knew nothing of the games, I was hoping they’d save him by the end.

I think the fact that he liked and was kind to Hector and Isaac was evidence that he wasn’t too far gone. I mean, the only two people he genuinely trusted and liked in his court were human…that’s so interesting, I wish it was at least talked about, either in the show or in the fandom. I think he actually liked humans, partially or especially because of Lisa, he just...was so angry, and needed someone to blame. He probably ultimately blamed himself for not being there to save her, and it was just easier to blame the humans he once hated/didn’t understand, even if in reality he didn’t hate them as much as he thought he did...

Doing more thinking and research into the show for my “If These Walls Could Talk” fic I recognize now that symbolically it made sense even within the show that he died when Lisa died (which I can explain more about if you want but id probably end up going off on a long tangent so I’ll save it)...but I still thought practically, in the show, he could have still been redeemed.

Omg I LOVED that. The longer I take to sit with it, the more I realize just how much I loved that they put him crying instead of shaking it off.

It’s very interesting that Drac and Alucard are more openly emotional characters. I might be totally wrong, but as far as I remember, they (...and Lisa when she dies, and probably Isaac in a flashback), are the only main characters we see openly cry. It’s a pretty bold move to make any of your characters emotional like that, but especially your villain, and your bold handsome hero. It’s sooo easy to get emotional characters and emotions wrong…or just offputting to some people...but more on that later.

I think Adrian and Drac are both rather sentimental, in an odd way. Much of Drac’s motivations in the show and even in the games (the times his motivations are explained) had to do with his wives (yes he was married before Lisa in the games...unless Lament of Innocence was retconned...) which is interesting. So many of his decisions are based on emotion. He lets Lisa in just because he likes her, he goes to war with the world because of Lisa, he sits in his study mourning her loss, he let’s Alucard kill him… I also notice very often he digs his nails into his palms until they bleed, presumably because if he didn’t he’d hurt someone else (in the scene where he hurts Alucard, he does this). His sentimentality doesn’t diminish is power as a villain, which is SO difficult to accomplish.

 I am emotional myself so I absolutely love to see emotional characters, but for most people, seeing even a normal character be emotional diminishes them in their eyes, or makes them whiny, so making your villain even a little emotional, and having that not take away from the audiences perception of their power as a villain is sooooooo hard to do, and I applaud them for making a so well-beloved, and still villainous and intimidating, but also emotional (at times) villain.

For Alucard. I don’t see any problem with him being emotional, but it makes even more sense if he’s a teen in an adult’s body—which was indeed portrayed quite well.

Yes that was interesting when he cried when drawing his parents!! I wasn’t expecting that when I saw him drawing them. I was enjoying and intrigued by his story so much, then when he started crying I was caught off guard—but in a good way. It really made me feel for him, and understand that he was still grieving his mother, and that knew the gravity of what he was currently doing.

I think it’s kind of important to show that kind of thing in a situation like this. It’s easy to think Alucard hates his dad, and they need to show the emotion of the situation to make it clear “no he doesn’t hate his dad, this actually breaks his heart, he just knows he has to do this.”

I loved when he was telling Trevor and Sypha about how much the world would lose by killing Dracula. It’s really interesting that he hides his emotion with them, and that Trevor and Sypha are so stoic. The son of Dracula isn’t the guy you expect to be the only hero who cries.

In “For Love” when Trevor’s like “Don’t get weepy about it” I was sitting there, sobbing, like “No, please get weepy about it! Let the boy cry for goodness sake!! Give me some emotion!!” But I too was not expecting him to cry like he did, and in grieving the death of his parents...

I knew the crying scene was coming because I’d seen pictures of it on here and pinterest, but I had no context for it. In the end it wasn’t just the weeping itself that made the scene so impactful, it was everything surrounding it. I didn’t know it would happen when he was completely alone (and would be for the foreseeable future), and in grieving his parents, or about the ghosts/flashbacks before it (cementing his grief), or that it was literally the last scene of the season, or that there would be no music for both the scene and the credits thereafter.

And that was what really got me.

Because, firstly, we never got to see any flashbacks to his childhood, and that was what I was begging for the entire series (and hence why its what I write about). To finally get it, and it not to just be something the audience gets to see, but something Alucard himself is seeing... a happy memory he’s seeing when he knows that is completely gone, he cannot hope to have it again, and for him to now be in his father’s place…that’s heartbreaking. Like just having your character cry—let alone those kinds of full-on sobs—is painful enough, showing a son grieving his parents is a particularly heart wrenching kind of sadness, but showing that he is haunted by memories of those parents he lost—not only lost but one of which he killed, and, if SOTN is canon for the show, the other of which he could have saved—of a happy childhood, and he is alone with these memories for the foreseeable future...that is truly heart wrenching.

Also the scene with Trevor and Sypha in the wagon earlier in the episode was super sweet, they could have easily put the Adrian crying scene earlier, and had the Trevor and Sypha scene be the last scene of the season (and Trevor’s game actually does end with them looking into the sunset, so ending with the last scene of “For Love” would be accurate as well), and left it on a positive note, and the audience would have been left with a completeness. But they made a conscious choice put his crying scene last, and it was so powerful, because it made you remember that at the end of the day, he isn’t just our bold handsome hero, he was a son who lost both his parents, and that, to him, this isn’t really a triumph, but a loss. It also kinda confirmed that Drac wasn’t an "evil guy, end of story". That there was reason to grieve him, and to show his son grieving, and to leave it there because of it. It was a personal gravity too

In the end, it was the lack of music in the scene, and even more so during the credits, so theres only his tears, and all you are left with in the end is this amplified emptiness that really did me in. I think I literally sat there, tear tracks on my face, my mouth open when I hit the credits.

Playing Symphony of the Night after watching the show is really interesting in exploring his character. I knew there was very little story, so I wasn’t expecting much from the story, but I actually found that I was beyond excited whenever there actually was some story, and the few lines they did say are stuck with me.

Maria comments early on that Alucard’s not very good at talking. At first I just chalked it up to...weird translations or whatever. But the more I played the game and the more I thought about him in the show...I think she’s right. He’s not very good at talking, yet if and when he does talk he’s quite eloquent, and precise with his words. (This actually makes him a somewhat difficult character to write). I wonder if perhaps this has some connection to his emotionalness. He’s very careful with what he says, and this may spread to what he does—such as being careful when he shows emotion. I’m curious why he’s like this. It could just be his nature, but I wonder if as a kid he was ever hated because he was a vampire—maybe people made fun of him, and he cried, and they made more fun of him because of it—and he learned both to hide his emotions, and that he had to be very deliberate and show people he didn’t mean any ill will with his words. (And he looks older than he is so people might call him immature for acting his mental age). All very speculative, of course. But it’d be fun to write about!

Also, another thing from SOTN that is related to this topic, there was a fight that really struck me (enough I actually wrote a fic about it (inverted recurrence)). SOTN takes plays 300 years after the events of The Netflix Series (aka Dracula’s Curse). Most of the bosses don’t seem to have a lot of meaning story-wise, they’re just there for you to fight. The other day I (Alucard) walked into a boss room...and there were Trevor, Sypha, and Grant (who was omitted from the Netflix series). They were fake versions of them, of course. And there’s no dialogue in the fight so maybe I’m just speculating, but what struck me was that the fact that Dracula could use them against him probably means he still cares about them, even after 300 years. It probably also means that they’re some of the only friends he’s ever had. Granted, he was asleep for a good chunk of those 300 years, still. It goes back to that sentimental-ness I was talking about earlier.

I few years ago I watched the Gravity Falls commentaries, and from them I got a lot of the writing advice I still think about and use today. Alex Hirsch said something on this subject which I really liked which is “Hold your tears.” When a character cries they’ve broken, that’s as far as they can go. So if you make a character cry when the audience themselves doesn’t feel the weight of the scene, or it doesn’t feel like the character has broken yet, it can feel like too...much/cheesy, and distance the audience. especially with cartoons where the way it’s drawn can actually affect your sympathy for the character (it can look weird or accentuated).

They did such an awesome job with this by literally holding his tears until the very end. I don’t know how other, non-emotional people felt about it, but Ive don’t know if I’ve ever seen tears used so well in a show, pack such a punch. To have it not just be a part of the scene but literally the focus, and at the end...it was powerful.

Sorry for the long response, and more importantly, I’m beyond sorry for taking so so SOOO long to respond. I hope you enjoy my response, if you see it <3

P.S. For anyone else who made it all the way to the end, I actually have a Castlevania sideblog now: @symphonyofthewrite !! I’d be beyond happy to recieve asks like this over there, if you’d like to hear more of my thoughts!!

[karma-vvitch]

Come back to me

pairing: bucky x reader

warnings: fluff(at first), goes to town on angst trust me

summary: Bucky made a promise to you, but you didn’t make a promise to Bucky

a/n: it looks cute and fluffy at first, but don’t let that fluff fool you.....I was really in the mood and I saw this prompt on pinterest sooooooo there, boom a story

_

“Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers is requesting everyone to be in the conference room right now.” F.R.I.D.A.Y announced startling the super-soldier who was trying to cover his ears. “give me 5 more minutes” He grumbled turning over. “Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers is requesting this urgently” at this Bucky sighed knowing he would earn an earful, “you know Steve’s gonna kill me if I don’t get your ass out of that door right now,” the figure next to him smiled.

 “Wouldn’t he already do that because you’re still here, lying next to me and not getting out of the covers?” Bucky replied turning over to face the figure. “You’re not wrong, soldier” you giggled, scooting closer to him, “well knowing that Stevie is going to give us both a speech on tardiness, why don’t we just-” Bucky then started crawling on top of you while you were laughing trying to get him off you. 

“Bucky stop it we have to go, it might be serious” you tried reasoning with him, “c’mon doll, just a few more minutes” he was now fully focusing on you, observing how you looked at that moment. Noting on how messy your hair was, eyes puffy and tired, and lips plumped with some dried saliva at the corners. He chuckled to himself, even at this state you were the most gorgeous thing he saw. Bucky reached his hand out to tuck a stray strand hanging near your eyes, while you just stared at Bucky with a knowing look.

 You were about to say something until a knock interrupted you. “If both of you don’t get out right now, I will break down this door and carry you both out, decent or not.” Steve said clearly annoyed. You and Bucky were trying your hardest not to laugh, while getting out of the bed. “I think that’s our cue” you said, tying your hair up trying to look more decent. Bucky just smirked at you putting on his shirt “yeah we should go before he actually breaks down the door” You laughed again heading for the door.

_

It was an extraction mission. There were some files in an abandoned Hydra base that held some important information, S.H.I.E.L.D thinks they might contain important information on other bases and weaponry. Since this was a small mission only a few people were going to be handling this and one of them was Bucky. 

You were nervous for sure you knew he had a better grasp of himself than he had before, the Wakandans made sure of that but you still had this feeling that you might lose him....again. The meeting had ended awhile ago but you still lingered. You were no hero nor enhanced being but you always had this gut feeling something is wrong or somethings gonna go wrong, that was what you were feeling right now, “hey” it was Bucky “hey” 

“You alright?” no you weren’t “yeah” bucky held your hand making you face him “Y/n I know that face, you aren’t okay” you let out shaky breath “I’m just scared Buck, I’m scared that I might lose you again” Bucky tensed at this, he knew he was okay now after his time at Wakanda but the fear of Hydra capturing him again was still there no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, “I know doll, I get scared too but you and I both know that won’t happen, I have Steve with me and I have full control over my brain.” 

you glanced at Bucky “I know I just always get that feeling that they’re gonna take you away from me” tears were forming in your eyes, “oh doll” Bucky pulled you closer to him as you let the tears fall from your eyes “Bucky promise me you will come back to me”   “Doll you know I wou-”   “Bucky please, just promise me you will come back to me” Bucky looked at you tears prickling at his eyes as he looked down at your form, his heart breaking at the sight. He knew he could be taken at any time, he knew Hydra was out there planning to take back their “asset” but for now he knew better than to let that out to you, he knew it will come one day but for now all he could do was hold you closer and promise. Promise that he would come back to you.

_

The group had arrived at the Hydra base within 2 hours, they were now headed to the lab trying to find the files. “So what happened between you and y/n, awhile ago?” Steve had asked trying to break the silence, Bucky glanced at Steve then sighed “You should have seen her Stevie, she looked so defeated. She was scared that she would lose me and made me promise to her that I would come back. Of course I promised her that but you and I both know Hydra still wants their winter soldier back and that they would stop at nothing to achieve that...” “Buck, I wouldn’t let that happen, y/n knows that too doesn’t she?”     “She does but she also knows that one day it might happen and you won’t be able to stop it.” 

Once Bucky finished they were already in front of the lab. The files were right where the info said it would be, they placed it inside of a secured case and left the lab. As they were walking out of the lab, a bunch of Hydra agents came out of nowhere and started shooting at the group. Steve and Bucky were able to take out most of the guys, then sprinted to the jet. Once the whole group was in the jet they left the base, heading back to headquarters. 

The flight back was silent, everyone was tired and still shocked by the surprise attack. Half way through the flight Steve’s comm went off. “Steve you there?” It was Natasha “Yeah, what the hell Nat, the information said it was abandoned yet there were agents waiting for us outside the lab, ready to fire”  “Steve”  “The group could’ve gotten hurt”  “Steve”  “Why was the information wrong”  “STEVE”  “What”  “How far from HQ are you guys?”  “not that far, why?”  “You need to go faster”  “Nat, what do you mean”  “Steve HQ has been compromised”   “what do you mean?”  “Steve” this time it was Bucky but he wasn’t looking at Steve, he was looking outside the jet. 

When Steve looked out he couldn’t breathe. It was HQ but half of it was burning, with some structure already falling off. Steve quickly landed the jet, briskly unbuckling his the straps and opening the jet. Bucky beat him to it though, running out the jet into the clearing where agents and employees gathered, trying to help the wounded or trying to figure out what was happening but Bucky didn’t care about that, all he cared about right now  was you and if you were safe. 

As he was trying to look for you in the crowd he overheard Natasha and Steve talking “Nat what happened?” “We don’t know, one minute we were doing our jobs the next, a bomb exploded at the east wing” Steve saw Bucky frantically searching through the crowd and he knew exactly who he was looking for. “Nat do you know where y/n is?” Natasha was thinking but her face immediately went pale “After you guys left, she went to storage to get some of her weapons” Steve paled realizing what Nat meant “I haven’t seen her since” 

Steve didn’t waste another second and ran to Bucky. He explained everything to him and they dashed to the rubble. Thankfully the second floor hasn’t collapsed yet, but they had to be quick. Both men started shouting your name hoping for a response but nothing came. Bucky couldn’t lose you, he would never forgive himself knowing that they took you. As he dug through the rubble just to find you he just hoped, hoped to God or whatever being was up there that you weren’t under all these rocks and that you were already in the clearing.

 He stopped holding back tears trying not to think about it, as he was going back to digging Steve called his name. Bucky stopped again facing Steve, he then felt all his fears coming back to him. He felt his heart breaking as he walked to Steve but when he finally saw him his heart fully shattered. In his arms your body, limp and not moving. 

Bucky couldn’t stop shaking as he was handed your body, he fell to his knees as he cradled you. He tilted your head up, getting a better look of you and the evidence that you were in a fight before this, He wiped the streak of blood from your mouth as he started sobbing, “y/n”  “y/n, c’mon wake up doll.”  “hey you gotta wake up for me right now”  “doll”  “DOLL” Bucky wailed as he held you closer. “who did this to you”  “who did this to you!” He kept trying to find a pulse but there was really nothing. “Didn’t I promise you that I would come back, look baby I did. I came back for you” Bucky sobbed “doll you gotta come back to me” Bucky pleaded

“Come back to me”