#i Cannot believe there are five more seasons. how much more stressful is this going to get sklfslkdfj ;skl

[regencyrosalie]

Could you write some Anthony bridgerton x wife reader angst with a happy ending

i love a happy ending. thank u for the req! here’s husband!anthony and his four braincells fighting for his life

To say Anthony has been stressed would be an understatement. The sheer amount of paperwork he’s had to do within the past week would put any regular man into an early grave. Not to mention that Hyacinth has attracted enough suitors since her debut to keep him busy and on edge every time there’s calling hours.

His wife has been trying her best to help, even organizing his papers when he’s busy, to which he would thank her profusely. She’s also been busy with the social season, arranging dinners and parties and visits to the modiste.

They never fight. (At least not since they got engaged). Which was why Anthony was so out of his element when he accidentally snapped at her one evening.

“Dear, would you like me to bring you a cup-“ she opened the door to the study, clad in her night-things.

“Could you spare me your rambling for once in your life?” he chastised, trying to add costs on paper with his exhausted mind.

She just stared at him for a moment, and he tensed, before backpedaling.

“Darling, I did not-“

But she had already left, and shut the door behind her, teary eyed and angry. He had never spoken to her in such a way, especially when all she was trying to do was assist him and bring him tea.

Anthony followed her out instantly, “My love,” he called desperately, but the hallway was empty, and she was nowhere to be seen. He raced down the corridor to their bedchamber, but it was empty. It did not even register until then that she may be in her own bedchamber.

And that she was, she was sat on her bed, weeping silently. She secretly prayed that he would find her, and muster up a tolerable apology because she could not bear to sleep without him. The sheets she was perched on had very likely not been changed since before she arrived at Bridgerton house, as she never spent more than five minutes in her own room each week. Much to her dismay, and the dismay of her pride, she was spiraling at his words. For how long had he believed her to be rambling? Was her presence so bothersome?

There was a knock on the door, like an answer from the divine.

“My love, are you there?” Anthony’s voice cut through the mahogany door.

“No,” she called back, trying to stop her voice from shaking. She wanted him to know she was there, but also to prove a point. Mostly to watch him suffer.

There was a sigh of relief as he found her, and he tried the door handle, to no avail.

“Please, darling. I am dreadfully sorry. I did not mean it. I was foolish. Please do not shut me out,” he pleaded from the other side of the door.

She did not make any reply, but she stood from the bed, crossing her arms over her chest, as if she knew she would be opening the door soon.

“My love,” he called, trying the door again “please. I love you. I cannot go through the night without you, you know I cannot. I will beg, if that is what you wish. I cannot be parted from you.”

She debated for a moment, and stayed silent, pacing around the room.

“What are you doing?” he practically whined through the door.

“Sparing you.”

He groaned. “No, love, please. That is the last thing I want. I did not mean it. You must know I did not. I have just been so busy, it has taken a toll on me. I did not mean to say such things to you, dearest. You know I do not feel so.”

That soothed her slightly, and she stopped in front of the door.

He heard her get closer, and he continued his begging. “Please, my love. I do not wish for you to spare me from anything except your contempt. I relish in your conversation, I crave it. Do not do this to me. I cannot bear it. I need you desperately. You know I do. I adore you. I adore everything you do, everything you are. I love you so dearly I feel as if it may kill me at times. And it very well might if you do not open this door.”

A smile tugged at her lips as he pleaded with her, and she wiped her eyes before unlocking the door and pulling it open.

Anthony looked a mess, his cravat was half-tied, his hair was disheveled, as he had probably been running his hands through it incessantly, and his eyes were glassy and pleading.

She almost giggled.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he said incredulously, with a hint of a smile.

“Perhaps a bit,” she replied, letting him pull her into his arms.

“You evil woman,” he chuckled softly, before pulling back to look at her face, frowning at her puffy eyes, “I am so sorry. Words cannot express my regret. I did not mean to cause you pain. I was foolish.”

“Yes, you were. But I forgive you,” she replied.

“Thank you, my love. I do not deserve your kindness.”

She kissed his cheek. “You do not need to earn my kindness. I know it has been tiring, with all of the work. But it is not my fault.”

“I know it is not. Of course, it is not. You give me nothing but strength. I adore you. I love you.” he murmured into her hair.

“I love you,” she replied softly, with a hint of amusement.

“Let me show you,” he mumbled, lifting her off the ground, “let me show you how much.”

She giggled.

“Anthony Bridgerton you are insatiable.”

[armandyke]

Queer horror abound in this lot of reviews, for better or worse.

41) The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (DNF)

This is not a bad book, and I cannot stress that enough. I actually enjoyed the bits I read, but for some reason I just couldn’t stick with it. I started reading this book months earlier, then put it down and read several other books, then picked it up and read a couple of chapters, then put it down and read several other books. 

I will say that it was very slow, and I don’t think that’s just because I was taking month long breaks in between chapters. I was about 30% into this book when I stopped reading and I’m pretty sure the main plot had only just started to play out. I liked the writing style and the story seemed interesting, it just wasn’t for me. 

42) Wranglestone by Darren Charlton (3.5⭐)

Excuse me, I’m a horror reader, how dare you give me adorable tenderness. 

I actually really loved this. Sure, I would have liked a bit more gore from my zombies but hey, it’s YA so let’s not traumatise the kids. The story follows Peter, who has spent his entire life living in a tiny isolated community in the middle of a lake, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. As you do. 

The horror kind of takes a backseat in this one, it’s more of a coming of age story about Peter facing pressure from his peers to “become a man”, dealing with his crush (yes, it’s gay), and discovering that not everything he’s been brought up to believe is necessarily true. I really loved it, and honestly I didn’t even realise it was YA until I went hunting for the sequel. Yes, I kind of knew how the plot was gonna pan out, but the journey was fun and there were still some genuinely tense moments. If you’re looking for tenderness and also gross zombies, check this one out. 

43) Piñata by Leopoldo Gout (4⭐)

This is your classic “for the love of God leave that ancient religious site alone, you’re gonna get haunted!” horror story. Set partly in Mexico and partly in New York, the story follows Carmen, a single mother of two daughters who moves back to her hometown in Mexico to oversee a restoration project, transforming an old abbey with a very bloody history into a hotel, because of course. Naturally, things quickly go awry, and Carmen is forced to step down from the project and return back home, only to find that whatever they uncovered in Mexico has followed her and her daughters. 

What I really loved about this book was how much history and Mexican folklore was weaved into the story. Even though the foundation is a classic horror trope, it felt incredibly original. The pacing felt slow at times, and after the initial impact of the prologue it seemed to take a while to really get going again, but overall a great read. 

44) Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca (1⭐)

Jesus fucking Christ, dude. Unless you get off on reading graphic descriptions of rape with absolutely no bearing on any plot, and which subsequently get retconned anyway, don’t bother with this. If this book was on fire I wouldn’t piss on it.

45) Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (5⭐)

Chuck Tingle you beautiful genius. This man has the ability to take the most bonkers concepts and somehow make them feel real (if you haven’t read Camp Damascus, you should). 

This book follows Misha, a Hollywood script writer who is haunted by his past both physically and metaphorically. Heading into the next season of his most successful show, his producers give him an ultimatum: either cut the scripted gay kiss between his two protagonists, or kill one of them. Misha refuses, and quickly finds himself being stalked and threatened by characters from his previous scripts. 

If you think you know where this story is going, you don’t. I had no idea what was going to happen from one chapter to the next, but, somehow, it works. It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking, it’s relatable, it’s terrifying. Was it better than Camp Damascus? No. But they both got five stars. 

46) The Ghost Woods by C.J Cooke (4.5⭐)

If I had a nickel for every time I read a queer book about fungus, I would have three nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened three times. 

This is my second C.J Cooke book. I read the Lighthouse Witches last year and loved it, but I loved this one even more. The story follows the timelines of two women staying at a mother and baby home until they give birth. The owners of the house are strange and distant, the workers seem to be keeping secrets, and there’s something weird going on with the woods behind the house. 

It’s creepy and gothic and yummy, but what I’m coming to enjoy about this author’s writing is her ability to weave heavy subject matter into her stories in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the plot, but doesn’t get brushed aside either. She clearly takes a lot of care with her subject matter and it shows. Again, I won’t list the specific triggers in this review because it’s a reveal that comes quite late in the book, but if you do have certain things you need to avoid I would recommend looking up a list of warnings before you go into this one. 

47) Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (3.5⭐)

I read this for a book club and being so real I don’t remember much about it. It’s a sci fi thriller about the multiverse theory and it was okay. I do remember thinking that if I was in the protagonist’s situation I would have gotten everything done a lot more easily and efficiently, and that it started to annoy me a little how despite inventing a multiverse portal, he seemed to be kind of an idiot. 

48) Alice by Christina Henry (1⭐)

I don’t even know how to begin explaining what a mess this was. I sent a 20 minute voice note to my friend immediately after reading it, and even then I struggled to summarise what the hell I’d just read. 

It was bad. 

My god it was bad. 

And yet somehow it was still better than Good Girls Don’t Die.

49) The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton (3.5⭐)

Trigger warning upfront for a pretty graphic rape scene in this one that I don’t really think was needed or added anything to the plot. It dropped a star for that. 

Besides that this was a pretty standard Graham Masterton horror. I’ve read a few of his books now and while they generally follow a similar formula, I still enjoy them and continue to buy them. In this case the plot revolves around a house that has been left for a trio of siblings to take care of after the death of their father, but when they arrive people start to go missing and there are strange noises all around the house. 

I will say this was quite a fun twist on a haunted house. I won’t spoil things any more than that but even though it followed the usual haunted house formula I think the reveal and the explanation for what was happening was quite unique. 

50) All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes (4.5⭐)

As I’ve mentioned before, one thing about me is that I love when people are stranded in an isolated snowy setting, and things begin to go very badly wrong. 

This book has it all: strangely abandoned arctic research facility, slow descents into madness, botch job amputations, manifestations of grief and guilt, men having sex with each other in secret, AND the main character is trans. What more could a girl ask for? Well, obviously, cannibalism, which sadly we don’t get. The story follows Jonathan, who joins an arctic expedition after the death of his two brothers in the war. It’s a chance to honour their memory as well as a chance for the ultimate gender affirmation: spending months living in cramped, intimate conditions with other men. Naturally things go wrong and they end up stranded in the desolate wasteland of the arctic, and naturally something supernatural is afoot. My only gripe with this book was that we spent a lot of time following the initial journey, which then meant less time to spend seeing the supernatural events unfold. Other than that, I have no notes.

[hyenahunt]

Rouge & Ruby: February's Situation - 2

Writer: Umeda Chitose

Season: Winter

Characters: Hiyori, Jun, Nagisa, Ibara

Proofreading: royalquintet (JP) & Skyress (ENG)

Translation: Mirei (Adam) & hyenahunt (Eve)

Hiyori: I can't believe Jun and Ibara would leave us out of this, Nagisa-kun. This is a dire situation on our hands. How deeply upsetting it is for them to be hiding things from us...!

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Hiyori: Ahh, wasn't that fun! Getting to talk and sing together as the four of us is truly the best!

I gain a sense of fulfilment from working as Eden that I just can't get anywhere else... ♫

Jun: I thought we got some pretty good shots too, but you're crazy hyped about it, Ohii-san.

Hiyori: Well, that's because working as the four of us is just so fun, no?

So I simply wanted to do as much as possible. After all, we've had way too much separate work as Adam and Eve since the new year began!

Jun: I agree with you there, Ohii-san. I mean, I'll be doing location shooting with you both tomorrow and the day after that...

Hiyori: What's that? Are you complaining about shooting with me?

Jun: No, dude, I was just going along with what you said about having too much work in separate units?

Don't take it out on me just 'cause you're getting stressed out lately, 'kay~?

Hiyori: Hmph, it's all on Ibara for filling up our schedules with nary a word of explanation!

I'm sure he's got something in mind, but he hasn't explained a thing to us, though? Terrible weather, the way things are going!

Nagisa: … Fufu. Hiyori-kun is saying the same thing I said.

Hiyori: Eh?

Nagisa: … On our way to the TV station, I also asked Ibara what plans he had.

Hiyori: Ooh, is that so? Heheh, no matter how far apart we are, Nagisa-kun, we truly have a telepathic connection... ♪

Nagisa: … Yes, it really is telepathy.

Hiyori & Nagisa: … ☆ (they high five)

Jun: (whispers) Hey, c'mon. Our seniors started having a lil' gigglefest on their own, so what're you doing staying all silent, huh?

Ibara: (whispers) Oh no, I was simply warmly watching their beautiful friendship blossom… ♪⁠

Jun: That's a lie if I've ever heard one... It's 'cause you'll get dragged in if you say the wrong thing, so that's why you're just watching on, aren'tcha?

Ibara: I felt that it would have been insensitive of me to interrupt a conversation between His Highness and Jun, or between His Highness and His Excellency…

Ibara: They also haven't directly demanded an explanation from me, I saw no reason to insert myself into the talk.

Hiyori: And I'll have you know that's absolutely unforgivable!

The only reason I haven't demanded anything yet is because I've held myself back while suspecting something is up. In fact, I've been bursting to ask for an explanation!

Ibara: … Even if you say that, it is quite distracting for you to say that whilst continuing to hold hands after that high five. But I suppose I appreciate the consideration.

Besides, I was waiting to explain after you demand it… or more like, I’m thinking of explaining it once I manage to create enough foundation for the plan.

If it were something that only I know, I would rather take my time and proceed at my own pace. It would be much more convenient for me to keep it to myself.

Nagisa: … But back in the car, you said you'd talk about it when Eden is gathered. We can't do it now?

Hiyori: You said that, did you? Well, out with it, then, now that you've got all four of us gathered here.

Ibara: Not that we cannot, just not here.

I can’t bring out confidential documents here, and we also can’t occupy the dressing room for too long. Not to mention, we haven’t even changed our clothes.

Nagisa: … That's fair. We should change our clothes first, Hiyori-kun.

Hiyori: Mmm, you're right. I certainly got carried away, but I can't stay in this outfit forever.

Jun: (In the middle of changing) ...Actually, I think I've got a pretty good guess of what Ibara's explanation gonna be.

Ibara: You do?

Jun: Yeah. It's probably related to Chocolat Fes, I think. Over the new year, he said he'd slowly share the details with us.

Hiyori: ?

Ibara: … Ah, is it when we met on New Year’s? Now that you mention it, I do believe I said that.

Nagisa: ?

Hiyori: What's that? I had no idea of this! Just when did the two of you start keeping secrets from us?

I can't believe Jun and Ibara would leave us out of this, Nagisa-kun. This is a dire situation on our hands. How deeply upsetting it is for them to be hiding things from us...!

Nagisa: … I don’t think they are trying to exclude us from it, but if Hiyori-kun feels sad, then so do I.

… Ibara, can you explain?

Ibara: (whispers) …This is your fault, Jun. I already tried to delay their curiosity so I can talk about it at a time that suits me.

Jun: (whispers) Hey, you didn't try to hide it either, y'know? Don't pin all the blame on me, alright~?

Ibara: … Even if I’m asked to explain now, as I’ve said before, this is not a good place to talk about it.

I'lll set up a proper opportunity for us, so let's meet at the agency at a later date.

Nagisa: … It's fine as long as Ibara informs us of the schedule later. However, what I wanted to ask was what happened on New Year's.

Jun: Honestly, nothing special happened.

I went for a run on New Year's, and noticed that the lights on the eighteenth floor of the ES building were on.

I wondered what was up, and when I went to check it out, it turned out Ibara was working there. We just had a little chat after that.

Hiyori: You went training on the day after SS, hm? Jun-kun, you truly never change. That goes for you, too, Ibara — to think you were working on New Year's Day!

Nagisa: … I understand that both of you are very strict with yourselves, but I would prefer it if you both take a break, too.

Ibara: There is no need for concern, Your Excellency. I also take efforts to get proper rest, after all.

Jun: Or so he says, but he's been hammering away on his keyboard since New Year's.

...Ah, was it 'cause—

Filming for COMP started right after New Year's, so you've been slaving away at preparations since then?

Hiyori: Ahh... It was a rather sudden shoot, and I did wonder just when you even made the preparations for it. So while the rest of the world was enjoying their New Year's break, you’ve been working behind the scenes, Ibara?

Jun: He did complain it was a pretty sloppy project, so it makes sense to me why he was so ready to give up his break for it.

Nagisa: … You were working on many things, Ibara. But there was also talk about "Chocolat Fes" right?

… Does it mean there is a connection between the preparations that are still underway and the state of my activities?

Ibara: Argh, enough, too many questions! Whatever you may think of me, you are free to interpret things as you like.

Besides, I already said that I'll explain it all another day, alright? No more questions! No more!

Come on now, get changed quickly and leave this place immediately! I’ve already arranged the return car ride, so don't be too slow!

[ ☆ ]

✦✦✦✦✦

← prev ✦ all ✦ next →

[futurehauntedghost]

Okay If I’m being honest, Hazbin has made me pretty much lock it away from ever giving it anything higher than a 6/10 (For meaning “this overall is fine but I'll never rewatch it) And I feel a lot bad for it because I'm honestly less mean to it the Helluva. Because my biggest criticism of both shows is that they go WAY too fast. And that is really bad if you are a character progression show.

But I give Hazbin less shit for this because it is a LGBT+, animated show on a streaming service. They had reasons to believe the show wasn't going to get a second season. It is of course, but when working on the episodes they had no reason to believe that. They don't choose how many episodes they are given. They were only given eight episodes. That is an unfortunate amount of episodes too, even if you did do it at the right pace, you would have to pray it doesn't get canceled. So that's less of a fault on the show and more just the fault of streaming services nowadays and that just makes me sad.

This is more of a fault with Helluva because, please correct me with proof if I'm wrong, but there is ZERO reasons why they don't have time for at least ONE more episode. I know working on an animated show takes time I'm not downplaying that. But I CANNOT stress this enough. If you are a character progression show, don't skim over the progression. My biggest problem with stolitz is that it feels rushed to the point it is now. It would’ve been better if the two had ONE episode together. IDK maybe their working on a I.M.P mission together they bond. And with that, you can make Blitz’s feelings for him not come out of nowhere. Because it just shows UP in D.H.O.R.K.S.

And honestly do think I might like the Hazbin better. I'm not at the point where I hate a character that’s a good sign for me. Charlie is good, Husk is good, Angel and Vaggie are good. Pentious is great, Niffty is great. And fucking hottake after watching episode five. I think Alastor is my favorite character, I like him being a petty little bitch. Only being asshole to Lucifer by passive aggressively becoming Charlie’s father figure in only night because he’s a bitch. he’s horrible. He’s great.

Honestly the only way I'll love him by the end of the show fully. Is if he is just the main antagonist by the end. Let this petty fucker be the villain it would be awesome.

(I lied I hate Carmine as a character. Hey writers! Don’t reavel the culprit to a mystery after we just introduced that same character and then make them sing a power ballad over it so we can feel bad for them even though we just met them. Let us at least know the character for an episode before doing that.)

Last thing I saw someone say this and I need to let out a some facts. For those who say they changed Vaggie’s backstory last minute. Let me remind you that the pilot came out FOUR YEARS AGO. Things changed. Your OC’s aren't always gonna stay the same in the span of four years. I'm sure there are DOZENS of things in Hazbin that was changed for the original plan four years ago. And that's not a bad thing. Remember in the Steven Universe Pilot where they hinted Amethyst and Steven might be a couple, that shit ain'tn nowhere in the final show. The Pilot and the final show are different things. Things are not always gonna remain the same and that's fine.

(ALTHOUGH I DO HATE THAT HAZBIN FUCKING HOPES YOU WATCHED PILOT TO UNDERSTAND THE CHARACTERS MORE VIZIE I KNOW ALOT A PEOPLE DID BUT NEVER ASSUMEED EVERYONE WATCHED THE PILOT TO UNDERSTAND THE SHOW Y’ALL COULD’VE JUST REMADE THE PILOT EPISODE IF YOU FELT LIKE YOU NEEDED TO)

[thebirdandhersong]

Favourite moments from s1-s2

probably all of them tbh

Team Bonding through dangerous missions, near-death experiences, and working frantically to save each other

Fitz and Simmons and the way they name their inventions (the night-night gun, using the names of the dwarves from Snow White, etc.)

Coulson showing off Lola’s special functions like a proud father

“Why are you doing this? Where is the I-told-you-so?” + “That’s not me anymore. I’m just glad you’re alive”

Jemma and Fitz’s high five after they prank Skye

May’s prank :) and her little smile when Fitz is INDIGNANT and DEMANDING to know who did it

Coulson risking his life and staying with Diaz because he knows that Diaz is terrified and needs someone with him

Jemma fussing over Fitz before his two-man mission with Ward

the girls going undercover at the Hub to save “our boys” when they find out that there is no extraction team

Skye tucking Hannah into bed :’)

Skye seeing people when they’re out of danger and going right for them to give them a hug (Jemma, Hannah, Coulson, etc.)

May telling Coulson that she’s been in on the whole Fury thing because she cares about him (and also how genuinely upset and hurt she is when Coulson doesn’t believe her... because she does care for him very deeply and in that part of the story she’s lost his trust)

Fitz and Simmons's arguments/banter over things like monkeys, etc.

when Coulson notices how distressed Skye is after she finds out about her past and holds her hand while they’re on the plane

Skye pretending to be May (complete with sunglasses and leather jacket)

“I hate undercover” + Skye/Fitz/Jemma/Coulson undercover shenanigans (with Jemma’s very elaborate backstory and Skye’s improvisations) + Coulson’s little smile of bewilderment and pride when Jemma starts shouting some alarmingly specific details about ‘his’ private life at him

the fact that the first person May sees and looks for and runs towards when she’s off the train (during a mission) is Coulson (and not Ward, even though their relationship up to that point has been...... strange)

Fitz being gentle and kind to Donnie even after he’s told that it’s all been a trap

“You weren’t weak. You had compassion. That’s harder.” (!!!!)

May and Coulson going on undercover adventures together (complete with costumes and chirpy personalities)

Eric questioning everyone and Fitz responding to the box question with “Simmons”

also: Simmons responding with “the TARDIS” (she would be an EXCELLENT Doctor Who companion)

Fitz going into the quarantine room to help Jemma + “We’re going to fix this. Together” 

Coulson saying that there HAS to be a third option for Mike Peterson

Jemma leaving the room to cry and Fitz knowing her well enough to follow her and embrace her

Fitz telling Ward that he can CHOOSE to be good, Fitz refusing to believe that Ward is completely evil

Fitz sacrificing himself for Jemma at the bottom of the ocean

Jemma refusing to let him do it (right before he does) and crying and kissing his face

the Mack and Fitz conversations post-coma

Skye making friends :’)

Mack shielding Fitz when the wall collapses

Fitz standing up for Skye after everyone finds out about her powers

everyone’s reaction when May and Coulson are undercover and they can hear May giggling in the background

Mike Peterson working with Coulson

all the Coulson and Skye reunion hugs

Fitz telling Ward that Coulson told him to take care of Ward, too

Jemma and Bobbi breaking out of HYDRA together

FITZ AND SKYE MOMENT (superior)

Ward’s reaction to Skye’s powers

how Everyone who had doubts about Coulson (especially Mack and Lance) come to love and respect him

Fitz finally getting to eat his sandwich (and later telling Jemma that it was really good)

Lincoln making Daisy ‘fly’

Bobbi dragging herself in front of the gun so that the automatically discharged bullet hits her instead of Lance

Bobbi waking up to find Lance sleeping on a chair beside her because he was waiting for her to wake up

the process of going from Skye (chosen name) to Daisy (given name) to Daisy Johnson (chosen name)

Skye’s last scene with her father (and her last scene as ‘Skye’)

[themotherofhorses]

you can pretend it's not meant to be (but you can't stay away from me)

summary: to you, he is fictional. but to him, you are everything and more. he can't live without you. and, really, there is no use in trying to run away, he'll always find you.

pairing: (somewhat) dark!aemond targaryen x fem!reader

warnings: explicit language. noncon to dubcon. abduction. massive obsessive tendencies on aemond's part. breeding kink. slight spitting kink. pregnancy.

note: hey this is me practicing writing smut because ive never ever done it before and i don't know jackshit like wtf is a dick hahaha im dreading posting this hahahasendhelpplshaha

masterlist | series masterlist

part two | part three | part four | part five

How did you end up here?

That was all you could ask yourself, over and over again.

It had only been hours ago, maybe, that you were sitting at home, rewatching the first season of House of the Dragon for what seemed to be the thousandth time. Perhaps you dozed off on the couch too, but that was it. You have heard of shifting techniques before- ways to visit your favorite fictional worlds- but you never sought to try them out yourself.

College left you too busy with assignments and textbook readings, as well as the constant and unwavering pressure to maintain both your scholarships and high GPA.

Ever the dutiful and driven daughter, hungry for academic validation and success.

Oh, fuck, your scholarships!

Your GPA!

All those assignments and discussions and exams!

And what about your family? Your mother and father? And your best friend?

Aemond Targaryen seems not to understand your words, and why you tell, beg, and plead for him to let you go. “Please, I need to go home,” you cry loudly, while yanking at the thick knots that bound you to his bedframe, “please! My family, my friends. They will be worrying when they don’t hear from me, and all my hard work and accomplishments, it will be for nothing! Please, I beg you, let me go home.”

But he just chuckles and kisses your forehead and says, “Oh, my sweet girl, I’m your family now. Or what is of it.” His lips feel so soft and wonderful, and how desperately you wish to enjoy the feeling. But not like this. You cannot think properly nor muster any sort of response, too distracted and stressed and focused on calming your breathing.

“Although,” he then adds with a smirk, “it truly is not considered a family until you have a babe of your own…or two.”

At his words, you tremble and whimper and try your best to break free, though it is all in stupid and foolish vain. There is no going anywhere, the knots are too tight and Aemond can easily overpower you. All you can do is stare up at the man you once considered your favorite character in the series, ever since the eighth episode aired and he stole your heart and soul and burrowed himself deep within your most inner thoughts and fixation.

“Do not worry,” he says, and you can see a twinkle in the violet of his eye. He rests a hand on your collarbone, gently drawing little shapes across the skin. “Good things will come out of this night, my love, I promise you that.”

Look on the bright side, you tell yourself, in some dumb attempt to steel your nerves, better Aemond Targaryen to lose your virginity to.

“You need to be quieter, my darling-” Aemond murmurs close to your ear “-we do not need curious ears listening in, do we?” He has you riding him, both hands clutching your hips as you do your best to bounce on his cock and match his thrusts. You’re sloppy and inexperienced, and a bit confused on what exactly to do, but it is so endearing that his lips curl into a grin.

Oh, you were made for me, he thinks, watching the way your glazed-over eyes try to hold his gaze. He will have you believe that by the end of the night, dawning if necessary.

There is much rush now that he found you, now that he has the chance to claim you.

You still moan, loud and high-pitched, and he slaps a hand flat over your mouth to shut you up. It makes your pretty and teary eyes widen more as you grab at his wrist, holding onto it while he tuts. “I’ll move my hand when you learn to listen to your husband and stay quiet. No one is allowed to hear my wife in her pleasure. No one but I.” At that, you bat your eyelashes at him, breasts heaving as he leans you down, so close your lips nearly touch, and Aemond can feel your heavy pants against his mouth.

“They will take you away from me, and ship you far across the world where I can’t find you,” he hisses, pinching your swollen nipple between his fingers, “I can’t have that. No, no, do you hear me? I will not survive being torn from you.”

The mere thought of losing you, either at the hands of his mother and grandsire or you returning to your homeland, fills him with sheer dread.

He does not know how to tell you that you are the girl of his dreams, everything he has desired and more. He has seen you in his nighttime slumbers and in the gleam of the summer sunlight and up among the black midnight stars.

But the words fall apart on his tongue, and all he can do is lay beneath you and marvel at your beauty: cheekbones and pretty puffy lips and the curve of your nose, the way your eyebrows furrow in pure pleasure, and how you look utterly delicious and ruined.

“You were made for me,” he breathes in awe, palming at both your breasts. You have to believe him, this sweet and pretty girl of his, how could you not? The gods above created you for him, he will make you see it. “You are taking me so fucking well,” and Aemond flattens a palm against your belly, where he can feel the slight bulge of his cock. “Look at you, you’re my dream come true.” He thrusts his hips up, fucking into you harder and deeper. It makes you squeal and go cross-eyed.

“Is this too much? I know you can handle it, my darling. My love, my sweet girl,” he purrs.

Aemond swipes at the drool pooling at your lips before stuffing two fingers in. “Fuck,” he whines, breathing hard, slipping his other hand in between your thighs, and with his thumb, rubbing at your clit. Your face twists in a gasp as you tremble, your entire body tightening until you cream over his cock, your loud moan muffled by the fingers in your mouth.

“Good girl,” he hums, slowing his thrusts, “Such a good fucking girl. Look at that, did that feel good, my love?” he asks you.

You nod, rocking your hips back and forth. Your thighs shaking and your face scrunching in complete bliss as you start again, taking his cock deep in your stomach with tiny bounces. “Please- please- please-” you babble against his palm. “I-I want- I need-”

“Want what, my sweet girl? Need what, my darling wife?”

You don’t answer, too overtaken by the pleasure. Aemond chuckles and leans upwards, to bury his face between your breasts. You are absolutely stunning, gorgeous, a living goddess; how he went this long without you is baffling. “You wish for my seed. Is that what you want?” he mutters against your nipple, “of course you do, this belly is too empty, isn’t it? My son should be sleeping inside.” His fingers pinch your clit, and you gasp again. “You’ll be the prettiest mother. You were made to carry my children. You were made for me,” and he pulls your face back to his, with a rough grip on your chin.

“Tell me,” he demands through a pant, “tell me how fucking badly you need my seed. Tell me…tell me right now.”

“I- I need it-“ you choke out, but then you shake your head. “No- No I can’t! I- I need to go- go home!”

Aemond laughs, so hard he flings his head back. The sight takes you by surprise before he shoves you off, causing you to land next to him on the bed. You stare up at him, wide eyed and puzzled and swollen and covered in countless bites and bruises. In one swing, he forces your face into the pillow as he mounts you from behind, fucking you hard. His fingers return to your clit, squeezing and tweaking and not caring one bit about your muffled yelps and whines

“You’ll learn, my sweet girl, but perhaps not tonight. I am your home now, do you understand? I’m your family, your husband, and the father to your children.”

He grabs a fistful of damp hair and yanks your face back, never once slowing his thrusts. Your mouth is open with many moans spilling out, eyes clouded with tears, and cheeks flushed. With his lips next to your ear, he whispers, “You are going nowhere.” Then propping himself on one arm, he trails small kisses up your back to your shoulder blade until his mouth slams down on yours in a heavy and wet kiss.

And when he pulls away, his fingertips squeeze your cheeks together as he demands for you to open your mouth. "You are mine," he grunts, "you belong to me," before spitting into it. "Good, now swallow."

And when you do, he smiles.

"There, see?" he coos, leaning to kiss your forehead as he feels you tighten around his cock. He was going to seed you again, deep inside your womb. Come the morning, he knows his son will be in there, and he can hardly wait.

"My wife, my darling girl, the only woman deserving of me and all of me. Only me." He watches you sob at that, pink lips pressing in a tight line as fat tears streak down both cheeks. "Oh, do not worry, my love. You're too lovely to be crying," and he uses his thumb to brush away the tears, "I'm here to give you the life you deserve," he vows, so lovingly, "you will want for nothing."

With a loud huff, you plop yourself on the couch.

The saying “home sweet home” never felt more sincere until now. It took much time and planning and effort and sneaking around on your part, but you managed to find a way to escape from Aemond Targaryen, though not without consequences. Your belly was growing only larger with every new moon, and your babe was starting to shift around more. At most times, you could feel the fluttering sensation across the bottom of your tummy, and every now and then, the tiniest kick.

It was adorable, you admitted, and you tried your best to find enjoyment throughout the pregnancy, sometimes wondering at night about who your child would resemble.

Would their looks favor yours? Or would they favor their father, with his Valyrian features- that iconic silver hair and violet eyes. The latter worried you the most. How could you even begin to explain why your child looked as if they belonged in the Game of Thrones series, specifically in House Targaryen?

Speaking of such, you had not touched House of the Dragon since you arrived back home all those months ago, too unwilling to turn on the tv and see the man whose child you were mysteriously carrying in your womb. It just did not make any sense, it felt more like a weird dream than reality.

But you were dying of boredom. The dragonling (you had taken to nicknaming the baby that, it sounded both cute and appropriate) was stealing away most of your time and energy, and your mother refused to allow you to do anything that could cause harm or add more unnecessary stress.

So you bit your tongue and swallowed down your grumbles and settled comfortably on the couch before opening Fire and Blood.

“Fucking crazy to think that this is a book of your family’s history,” you mumbled to your baby bump, “fictional my ass.”

So you read, to yourself and to your babe. Read about Aegon’s Conquest and the Year of the Three Brides and King Jaehaerys and his Alysanne and their triumphs and tragedies and legacy, and you read until you reached The Dying of the Dragons, the Blacks and the Greens, where you just sighed.

“And when Alicent sent for her second son to fly to Storm’s End, with the purpose of securing Borros Baratheon’s loyalty to Aegon II by winning the hand of one of his daughters, the Four Storms, the truth was finally known. One-eyed Prince Aemond, twenty and one, had taken a wife of his own in secret, a young maiden not of Westeros (according to Mushroom). Yet Prince Aemond lost her a month into their marriage, although by that time he had become so besotted with his bride, to such an extent that he could not bear the thought of living without her or taking another woman as his new wife.

With Prince Aemond refusing his mother’s orders, Queen Alicent had little choice but to send her youngest, Prince Daeron, in his place to Storm’s End. And by the seventh month, Prince Daeron wedded Floris Baratheon, and Prince Aemond One-Eye had reunited with his wife, who was heavy with child by the time he found her.”

You suddenly glance up from the book pages, feeling your heart hammering so hard in your chest that it seems at the end of your throat. On the wall, to your right, hung the calendar which you had taken to use as a means of tracking your pregnancy.

In two weeks, you’ll be at your seventh-month mark.

[professional-rat-eater]

The disaster family at Disneyland:

Obi Wan: organises an absolutely immaculate itinerary planning the day from start to finish down to the last second. He has meticulously calculated and timed every single ride people want to go on in order to anticipate when the lines will be the shortest, and has accommodated every single one of the parks everyone wants to visit.

Anakin: immediately runs off as soon as they get in, destroying all of Obi Wan’s plans.

Ahsoka: follows him but feels bad about it later and comes back to find Obi Wan. She forces him to wear matching Minnie Mouse ears with her which doesn’t actually take much convincing. They both look adorable in them.

Rex: looks apologetic about the desertion and will claim he wants to go off to find them and bring them back but will get distracted and inevitably dragged onto rides by Anakin. He doesn’t like rollercoasters (cue flashbacks of every time Anakin has crashed a ship or used the force to throw him) but it’s too late because he’s already in line and Anakin is very persuasive.

Cody: helped Obi Wan plan everything and can see how stressed he is so he goes to find them all and actually brings them back. Ahsoka comes back on her own though because she knows Anakin is a bad influence. Cody also particularly enjoys the parades and is trying to come up with a good excuse to hold Obi Wan’s hand throughout the day. He’ll claim it’s so they don’t get separated but no one believes that, not even him, but they’re all too scared to challenge him on it.

Padmé: An absolute adrenaline junkie. If the ride moves slowly, she’s not interested. She was fine with It’s A Small World the first thirteen times Luke made her go on it because she will gladly make sacrifices for her children but it’s getting to be too much. She longs for the rides that move so fast it feels like her head might be detached from her body. That’s what she came here for.

Luke: Wants to meet all the Princesses and is adorable doing it too. He’s scared of Mickey Mouse though and I do not blame him. That mouse is evil. He can feel it in the force.

Leia: Stays by Obi Wan’s side the entire day. She knows she’s too small for a lot of the rides, but she respects how organised he is. Refuses to let go of his hand. When she gets tired, she rides on Cody’s shoulders. She’s also able to convince absolutely anyone to buy her anything she wants from the gift shops. It doesn’t matter how expensive the thing is. She gets her persuasive abilities from her father (and Obi Wan has also been teaching her to negotiate a little too) who as it turns out is actually the weakest when it comes to saying no to her. Anakin is the biggest girl-dad and that is canon.

Fives: Points out at one point they’re in one of the parks that seems to sell merchandise with them on it. There are droids literally everywhere as well as people in very familiar costumes but no one notices. No one can see past the fourth wall except him. Once more, Fives knows the truth and is ignored. He gives up and gets a picture taken with the Darth Vader they have in the park and texts it directly to Anakin and says “look familiar?”. The reply he gets is just “is that Black Panther?” Fives sighs. Anakin has the wrong franchise and he doesn’t even know, he thinks to himself. Fives has achieved full enlightenment and self-awareness. The idea that he is a fictional character should scare him, but it doesn’t. It’s actually way less pressure because then his terrible life choices aren’t actually on him. He didn’t write them. He claims no responsibility.

Echo: kidnapped by Mickey Mouse. Luke’s instincts were correct. The mouse cannot be trusted. Echo will not be recovered until season 7 where they come back with The Bad Batch. For now he will remain lost in Magic Kingdom until he is either rescued or becomes part of the park.

[tennessoui]

I feel like this is a big ask, but 1. welcome back! 2. can you ever see KUWSK going angsty? Not permanently or anything, but what would a KUWSK obikin disagreement look like?

yes thank you for welcoming me back a month and a half ago i'm a bit trash to be so late on this but!! here is about 2k of a more serious fight between anakin and obi-wan.

(2k)

“You’re talking to your ex,” Anakin says. It’s the tone of voice he uses on work calls when he’s absolutely furious but trying to remain professional. Obi-Wan has never heard it directed at him before. He almost doesn’t recognize it. 

“Casually,” he stresses. “We’re…casually speaking.”

“Casually,” Anakin echoes in that same voice. Obi-Wan is starting to think he’s done something incredibly wrong. 

“She messaged me,” he stresses, feeling as if this is an important fact. “I didn’t reach out to her.”

“But you reached back!” Anakin says loudly, putting the spoon on its rest a touch too forcefully. “And then you didn’t even tell me!”

“I thought it was a non-issue!” Obi-Wan protests. “I don’t tell you when I talk to the woman at the supermarket checkout line!”

“Keep Francesca out of this,” Anakin cuts through the air with the side of his hand as he spins around to open their spice cabinet. “You know full well that’s different.”

“She flirts with me at the store, and you’re fine with it!” Obi-Wan quite completely feels like tearing out his hair. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation. He can’t believe his own fortune, that he’d pulled up a picture mid-playful argument with Anakin over what the twins had dressed as for Halloween when they were five, and he’d shown it to his partner at the exact moment that Satine ex-Kenobi had texted him, replying to something he'd sent a week ago.

That had pretty much ended the playful part of their argument.

“Yeah, and it’s not the fucking same, Obi-Wan,” Anakin responds, shaking a bit of salt aggressively into the stew. “You were never fucking married to fucking Francesca.”

“Anakin—”

“And by the way,” Anakin snaps, trading the salt for cayenne pepper and seasoning it liberally. “Implying that your ex-wife is also flirting with you over texts you did not tell me about is not the best strategy, Professor.”

The worst part is that he’s not even looking at him anymore, scowling instead into the contents of the heavy pot.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan tries, because he’s not listening, he’s just reacting. Of course Obi-Wan knows Francesca and Satine aren’t really the same thing, but they mean the same thing to him. One slips him free red bell peppers sometimes by ringing them up as green ones with a wink and a quirk of her lips. The other is his ex-wife.

But neither of them is Anakin, and so they mean the same thing to him. He doesn’t love them. He can’t even pay them the slightest modicum of his attention, because he’s too wrapped up in and around and going crazy over this man who’s petty enough to have absolutely just ruined Obi-Wan’s dinner on purpose by adding too much spice to the stew Obi-Wan had requested.

“Anakin, I think we need to take a step back from this,” he finally gets out when his partner is distracted by opening and closing the cabinet doors, ostensibly looking for the bowls even though he’d been the one to reorganize the dishes in the first place, years ago, and he’s never not known where something is.

“I think I’m going to sleep in my room tonight,” Anakin replies in an icy voice. “I think you might be right.”

“What? Darling, no—Anakin, love, it’s—casual cannot even come close to describing the texts, you can read them if you want, there’s nothing there—“

“Daddy? Obi?” Luke asks from the kitchen doorway. He’s peering around it, little face looking horrified. Obi-Wan freezes. How loud had they been? Luke and Leia are seven now, they remember these things, they have questions—“Is dinner ready? Obi?”

Leia’s face joins the same pale ghost of her brother’s, and Obi-Wan feels awful. Absolutely terrible, but the sort of terrible he doesn’t know what to do with. The twins heard them arguing, they were practically shouting at each other, Anakin is planning to sleep in a different room, Anakin didn’t even call it a guest room, he called it his room even though they’ve been together for—for a year and a bit now—and isn’t that devastating? My room, Anakin had said. Does he not understand everything Obi-Wan owns is his as well? Does he…does he not want it?

“Almost,” Anakin replies. He sounds so forcefully happy that it’s manic. It comes across much too fake, and Obi-Wan can feel the way Luke immediately distrusts the word, the expression. “I just realized I forgot something at the store though! We need bread! We can’t have the stew without bread.” 

Anakin nods once to himself as he says this, shooting Obi-Wan a very quick glance before his eyes snag on the phone on the counter between them and he looks away as if incredibly pained, hands ghosting down to the pockets of his jeans to check for his keys.

Obi-Wan thinks it would really actually kill a part of him to watch Anakin drive away on his bike right now. Not to mention the twins.

Oh, the twins. 

This had been why they were so hesitant in the first place, to bite the bullet, to kiss and mean it and remember it and lean in again. Their relationship affects the twins, and as much as Obi-Wan loves Anakin, he’d been so worried about even accidentally causing the kids distress. 

He thinks seeing their father leave when they can tell something is wrong would be devastating.

“I’ll go,” Obi-Wan says, putting a hand flat on the counter, pocketing the phone, and fighting the urge to glare at Anakin because the other man should know—should think—but this Anakin is almost a stranger to him, all clenched jaw and shaking hands and it’s just a text—it sort of makes him mad as well, angry that it hurts so much, that Anakin doesn’t trust him. They’ve known each other going on three years, their entire lives were intertwined almost immediately. “Give me the keys.”

“Yeah, right,” Anakin scoffs, shoulders tense and unyielding. “To the bike?”

“No, dumb—” he cuts himself off because he’s too old to be namecalling, especially around little ears. “The keys to the car are behind you. On their hook. Can you hand them to me?”  He doesn’t think he should get within a few feet of Anakin right now. Not for fear of violence–either from him or from his partner—but because it just—it doesn’t seem like a good idea. Not when they need bread.

“Should I leave my phone?” He can’t help but ask acidly. 

“I don’t know,” Anakin shoots back with deadly accuracy, slinging the keys across the countertop hard enough that they spin out of control and Obi-Wan has to stoop to catch them “Should you?”

Obi-Wan turns and gets to the mouth of the kitchen without another word. He debates his actions, his emotions, for a second’s pause before he puts his phone on the countertop and sweeps out into the entryway and then just as quickly out of the house all together.

He can’t go far. The Skywalkers have made him incapable of it. He’ll go to the store. He’ll get Anakin his fucking bread, which really means he’ll give Anakin space to think, and he’ll take his own space to think, and then he’ll come back because it’s Anakin, it’s Anakin and it’s his family, and he thinks this is the stupidest fight in the entire goddamn world because doesn’t Anakin know how much he can’t love anyone else? Doesn’t he know that if Satine were to turn up on his doorstep tomorrow and ask for him to unsign the divorce papers, he wouldn’t even consider it?

Doesn’t he know—

“Obi?” Leia’s voice says at the same time there’s a hesitant tug on the edge of his shirt. He turns around and looks down at the girl. “Where are you going, Obi?”

“Your father wants bread for dinner,” he tells her. “So I’m going out to get bread. For dinner.”

“Oh,” Leia bites her lip before looking back behind her at the open door of the house. “Luke wants to know if you’re gonna come back, Obi.”

Since she turned seven, Leia has had trouble admitting when she wants to know something. She finds it so much easier to pretend she’s her brother’s spokesperson. “Daddy, Luke wants to know if the dog dies in the movie.” “Obi, Luke wants to know if we have to go to the barbecue, only cause Johnny is going to be there, and Luke really doesn’t like him.”

“Leia love,” Obi-Wan crouches down to look at her completely. “Of course I’m coming back. We need bread, darling.”

“I don’t want bread,” she snaps, sounding suddenly so very much like her father. “I want you.”

“Leia,” Obi-Wan pauses, smoothing his hand over the top of her hair carefully. He needs to soothe her, because he and Anakin had been so out of line earlier, fighting where the children could hear and now look what it’s done to them.

“Obi,” Luke trots out of the house before he can figure out what to say to her. “Obi, you should take this,” he holds something up and presses it into unresisting hands. “If daddy needs to keep your phone, you can have mine. Just in case you wanna talk to us while you’re gone.”

It’s the plastic, bulky flip phone that’d come in a kit of kid’s toys a Christmas ago. Smiley faces instead of buttons, but it made sounds when you hit it. Luke had been obsessed with it from the beginning.

Obi-Wan looks down at the phone and feels the very absurd urge to cry. “Loves,” he whispers, pulling Leia into his side. “Oh—”

He remembers thinking once when he’d just been given the Skywalkers, that first time he’d been asked to sit beside Luke’s bed until he fell asleep, that for children, love was about staying.

How can he possibly leave them now? When he loves them so much as well? When his love never grew out of that child’s wish for someone to stroke his hair as he dozed?

“Oh, alright, Luke, Leia,” he says, standing with only a bit of a wince because he’s getting so very old and Leia has thrown her arms around his neck unexpectedly so he rises with the weight of a child attached to him. “If your daddy wants bread, then let’s get him bread.”

“Road trip?” Leia asks with excitement.

“Better,” Obi-Wan promises, letting Luke grab onto his hand. “Science experiment.”

[ericspinkhair]

dirty thoughts from a distance

pairing: dom!changmin x virgin!reader, best friends to lovers, college au!

synopsis: you masturbate while thinking of your best friend and he catches you moan out his name

word count: 3.8k

warnings: maybe slight angst, (getting caught) masturbating, mutual masturbation, sex in general ig

a/n: y'all are crazyy! it has barely been 19 days and I have already hit 100 followers🤧 thank you guys so much for your support and sending in requests!!! everytime I see leave me nice messages I feel so encouraged to keep on writing even though there is still a lot of room to improve and I am not always completely satisfied with what I create. I wish all of you a great day and hope that you stay happy and healthy!!

this chapter is especially dedicated to @bangcrispychannie​ and anon who requested this kind of scenario ❤️

masterlist + requests

for three years you wondered why you hadn't lost your virginity yet. it's not like you didn't have enough opportunities since you had been in two relationships so far, both lasted about five to seven months.

the feelings in your first relationship were been mostly one-sided however.

when a guy in your biology class named Minho confessed his crush for you, you thought that the only logical next step was to become a couple. you were quite flattered that he had taken such an interest in you and believed and hoped you would eventually develop feelings for him as well. the problem was you didn't. after not being able to be emotionally let alone physically intimate with him for a few months into your relationship, he finally confronted you and you confessed that you just couldn't bring yourself to see him that way. your relationship came to an end just before becoming a senior in high school.

in your last year, you got close with Seonghwa. you were seat neighbors in your english class and you'd chat all the time. he was perfectly sweet, smart and funny and you instantly got along just fine. you developed an interest in him and he seemed to feel the same way. he asked you out with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some chocolate and you agreed to being his girlfriend without much thought. you caught yourself falling in love with this boy and didn't shy away from physical affection such as kissing and holding hands. you were convinced you were ready to give yourself to him during prom night but when it came to it you chickened out. a couple of hours before, you had found out that your best friend changmin had broken up with his girlfriend of six months.

for a long time you hadn't been able to decipher why you hadn't slept with Seonghwa then. as time passed, the unpleasant answer became clearer and clearer: you had brought up your hopes.

you had been best friends with changmin basically since you started elementary school. on the first day, he scared you with a stupid horror mask he had sneaked in from home and made you cry. he felt so guilty and was determined to make it up to you and to become friends. you had been inseparable ever since.

when he got his first girlfriend in junior year you were devastated. you convinced yourself that the reason for that was that you had been scared he was going to replace you as his best friend but in reality you had felt jealousy.

you were suppressing your feelings because if you confessed, things might become awkward. there was no way changmin could ever like you the same way.

all of this became more difficult as you moved in together for college. you were sharing an apartment now and every day, it became harder to avoid your growing and troublesome feelings. your heart would beat faster whenever he walked around shirtless (which was most of the time) and you decided to try to ignore him. this was especially difficult since you wanted to appreciate his physique. when had he become this handsome? changmin had been dancing all his life so he had always been fit but now that he was majoring in it and training most of the time, his body had developed and he had become super toned and his abs were more prominent.

he'd often make his way into your dreams and you'd let him do inappropriate things with you. you'd wake up wet and needy and even more confused. you were ashamed of seeing him this way. this was not how one normally thought about their best friend.

it was a wednesday morning and you were eating breakfast when changmin joined you in the kitchen. he flashed you a big smile, making his pretty dimples appear which you didn't see as you did not look at him.

'good morning, y/n!' he greeted you in a good mood. you just grunted in response, intensely staring at the cereal swimming in your bowl.

the fact that you couldn't even spare him a glance hurt changmin but he tried to not let it show. he wanted to get you to talk to him.

'do you want to watch a movie and play some board games today after class?' he proposed. you hadn't spent a lot of time together ever since you had become aware of your feelings.

'I have an essay due tomorrow,' you quickly made up as an excuse. the corners of changmin's mouth twitched but you didn't notice as you were too preoccupied with doing anything that didn't include looking at him.

'then maybe on the weekend. or next-' 'I'll be busy,' you interjected. 'I have lots to do.' you stressed the lots to emphasize there was absolutely no way you would be able to hang out with him any time soon.

'umm… okay. I'll be going to class.' he told you dejected. your heart sank but you didn't respond. he was wondering whether he had done anything to make you upset but he couldn't wrap his mind around it. this had been going on for a while and he was starting to become desperate.

when you first got the apartment you spent every free minute of the day together, happy that you finally moved out and could be with each other 24/7, but then you stopped talking to him completely out of nowhere. from one day to the other, you would avoid leaving your room when he was outside and barely talked to him anymore. at first, changmin thought you were just stressed and that you'd eventually warm up again when exam season came to an end but a few months had passed and, if anything, the situation was even worse than before.

you were watching the time and after ten minutes you decided to leave for classes as well. you had started doing this so you couldn't possibly catch up to him and risk having a conversation.

'hey, y/n, what's up!' your friend chanhee hugged you when you arrived on campus. you were both majoring in fashion design and were getting along on well since the beginning of the first semester.

you sighed exasperatedly. 'changmin's up.' you puffed your cheeks and pouted. chanhee nodded knowingly. he was the only person who was aware of your little secret and that was only because you had accidentally drunk confessed the whole story to him at your first college party.

'you know maybe you should tell him. this whole thing is clearly not making you happy and I saw changmin walk by a few minutes ago. if I had to guess I'd say he was in an even worse mood than you. someone accidentally ran into him and he pushed them hard and called them names. it's not like him to overreact like this. he's usually super collected. I think you finally managed to break his spirit,' chanhee reported to you.

this had never been what you intended. why did everything have to be so difficult? you didn't want to be the cause of your best friend's unhappiness.

'he must feel like I despise him. but I cannot confess to him, that would be the end of our friendship!' you were constantly torn apart by this dilemma.

'well, if you're not gonna act on your feelings, maybe try to move on? find something casual or serious with someone new? then you'd forget all about changmin and you'd be able to go back to acting normal around him' he suggested.

chanhee's advice didn't sound too bad. if you couldn't get with changmin then you had to de-crush yourself and find somebody different to focus your emotional energy on. but on who?

'is there anyone you could think of?' you ask chanhee. he had great taste in practically everything so you highly valued his opinion.

'hmm, you could potentially try younghoon hyung? I've seen him eyeing you for weeks now and he even told me thinks your gorgeous.' he wiggled his eyebrows teasingly.

younghoon was a pretty art student, whom chanhee knew from high school. you didn't talk to him often, mostly at parties and he wasn't exactly your type but you tried to remember shouldn't judge him by his first impression when you haven't even got to know him.

chanhee pulled out his phone and soon you felt yours vibrate in your back pocket. you looked at him questioningly.

'I sent you his number in case you're interested,' he explained proudly. he put his hand on your shoulder and you could see the concern in his eyes. 'you really need to get over changmin if don't want to confess,' he insisted firmly.

so you decided to text younghoon during class. he was very polite and you thought he was cute as he seemed excited to talk to you. you agreed to hang out sometime to get to know each other and decided to meet up friday for dinner.

after the end of your classes, you walked home to warm up yesterday's leftovers. to your dismay, changmin had also decided to come home for once. since you began acting all weird and refused to eat with him, he usually spent lunch time with his dance mates as they had practice after anyway. why had he decided to come here today? your question was answered when he ran up to you, smiling from ear to ear and you noticed he was hiding something behind his back.

'you know how there is a blackpink concert downtown on friday? guess what!' he held up two tickets. surely you would at least agree to spend time with him if it meant being able to see your favorite group, right?

he must have gone through so much trouble to get tickets for you and since blackpink were your favorite music artists you were actually contemplating on going but then you remembered you had made plans.

'I can't. I'm going out with younghoon friday night.'

'kim younghoon?' he raised an eyebrow skeptically.

'why would you to be spending time together? I didn't know he was even talking to you,' he questioned you. anger was boiling inside of you.

'maybe it's because you don't know everything about me,' you snapped at him. you were aware that you were being harsh but somehow his words hurt you. why did he doubt you? did he think you weren't able to get with someone as awesome and popular as younghoon? did he not consider you pretty enough?

the microwave beeped, indicating your food was ready, making you snap out of your thoughts.

'y/n, I swear, that's not what I meant.' he stepped directly in front of you so you were forced to look at him. you stared deep into his pleading eyes as you closed the microwave door, turned your back to him, stomped to your room and slammed the door shut, leaving changmin behind in the kitchen.

your whole body was tense as you listened closely to any sounds coming from outside and felt relieved when you heard the front door close. feeling sad and depressed always made you feel tired so you decided to take a nap to forget about all the negative feelings.

when you woke up you were horny af. you had a dream about changmin taking you on the kitchen counter and now your panties were completely soaked with your arousal.

desperate, you pulled them down and tossed them somewhere to the side. it didn't matter. you needed relief now.

you closed your eyes as you slowly started rubbing your clit, imagining it was changmin's slender fingers touching you instead. your imagination was running wild and you sped up the tempo.

eventually, you plunged your middle finger and then your index finger inside you, pretending that changmin was stretching your walls with his cock.

you moaned loudly and picked up the pace, chasing your high. oh, how much you wished he was the one making you come.

'yes?' you opened your eyes and gasped loudly as you saw changmin watching you from the doorway. you hecticly pulled up your blankets to your chest to cover your naked lower body. for how fucking long had he been standing there?

'oh fuck, changmin...' you cursed out loud.

to your surpise he laughed. 'oh, is this why you have been so distant? were you embarrassed about imagining doing dirty things with me?' your cheeks were burning red and you were unable to move a muscle.

'you know, if you had told me you were thinking of me while doing it then I could've helped you out already. that would have spared both of us a lot of frustration.' he stepped into the room and pulled the sheets away, his hungry eyes fixed on your desperately dripping pussy. you tried to hide it with your hands.

'n-no… what are you saying? aren't we best friends? ' you couldn't comprehend what was happening right now. the way he was acting was so unexpected that you didn't know how to react or what to say. he brushed his hand over your burning cheeks. his eyes were conveying disparity.

'but what if I told you I don't care? that I like you? that I see you as more than just my best friend?'

'wait, you like me?' you couldn't believe your ears. was he actually reciprocating your feelings?

he groaned in exasperation. 'y/n, why did you think I ended things with my ex out of the blue?' you shrugged your shoulders as you weren't sure. you had thought it was because she had lost interest in him, at least that's what changmin had told you back then.

'because I realized I was in love you, you dumbass. how could I be together with someone if I had feelings for someone else?'

'I actually ruined my chances of having sex with seonghwa for the first time for the same reason. it was just after I had found out about the breakup,' you confessed, relieved that you were finally beginning to make sense of everything.

he climbed onto the mattress and positioned his knees next to your closed legs, leaning his hands on the wall behind you so that he was hovering above you.

'I'm sorry that you lost that opportunity. let me make it up to you,' he whispered with his face mere inches from yours and then kissed you. losing all self-restraint, you immediately pulled his body closer so that he was straddling you. after all these months filled with sexual frustration and just frustration in general, you were desperate for his touch. your hands wandered under his dance shirt and you were finally able to touch those abs you had been secretly admiring for so long.

you broke the kiss to take off both of your shirts and changmin skillfully unclasped your bra.

while his tongue was exploring the insides of your mouth, his hands were kneading your breasts, occasionally rubbing and pinching your hardened nipples. you felt his hard dick press against your lower abdomen as he grinded himself into you to get friction.

after having dreamt about this moment for so long, you felt impatient. this was too good to be true and you were scared that if you didn't act quick, your bubble would bust.

without thinking twice about it, you pulled down the hem of his sweatpants and boxers just far enough so you could easily reach inside and whip out his dick. you stopped for a moment to admire his length. it looked even better than you had ever imagined in any of your wildest dreams.

he sat upright, leaning on the wall behind you, while you stroked his cock. he was sensitive to your touch and not shy to show you how well you were doing by responding with moans.

'fuck, y/n. you're doing amazing.' his praise made you eager to show him just how good you could make him feel. your lack of experience was barely noticeable as the adrenaline flowing through your veins was guiding you.

you tapped his thighs to signalize him to inch closer. that way your mouth had easier access to his dick. you hesitantly licked up his length and were fascinated by how he tasted. wanting to have more of it, you swirl your tongue around his pink tip. changmin eventually became impatient and forced more of his dick inside your mouth so you tried to take as much of him as you could but your gag reflex made it difficult for you. instead, you worked your hands where your mouth couldn't do its job.

not wanting you to feel neglected, changmin reached behind him to stimulate your clit. he skillfully started rubbing all the right places and you moaned around him, sending vibrations through his cock.

he couldn't take this stimulation for much longer before he had to force himself to pull out of your mouth.

'wow, you almost made me come there.' he panted heavily. 'but I want to be inside you first.' you got lost in his touch as he placed a long kiss on your lips but a sudden thought brought you back to reality.

'wait, I don't have a condom,' you informed him embarrassed. you hadn't planned to lose your virginity any time soon so you hadn't bought any. did that mean the end of this wonderful dream?

but changmin laughed light heartedly. 'no need to worry. hold up, let me get some from my room.' you relaxed again as he disappeared and came back shortly with a condom wrapper in his hand.

you were prepared for him to start right away and took a deep breath in preparation but he didn't do anything.

'I don't think it's a good idea to start yet since I haven't even prepared you. the last thing I would want to do is hurt you so just lay back.'

he positioned your legs over his shoulders so your hips were hovering in the air. you felt his warm breath against your vagina before he drove his tongue inside you, seeing for himself how wet he had made you and tasting your arousal. you clasped your hands over your mouth to stop yourself from releasing any sounds.

'don't do that. I want to hear how good I make you feel,' changmin complained.

when he slid two fingers inside you, you couldn't hold it in anymore and let out some kind of aroused squeal. you felt self-conscious but it seemed like changmin was only more eager to please you.

at the same time, his tongue was abusing your swollen clit and it was impossible for you to hold back the curses that were spilling out of your mouth. the pleasure he was making you feel was a whole different sensation from anything else you've experienced before.

'more please, changmin!' you begged. you wanted more. you needed more. you needed him.

he carefully lowered your hips back down. 'are you sure you want this?' he asked you, waiting for you to clearly consent to having sex with him.

'I want you. you, and only you,' you reassured him and brought his face closer to kiss him. changmin's typical bright smile formed and you felt the butterflies in your stomach go crazy.

he positioned himself at your entrance, swiping his dick between your folds like a credit card to coat it with your juices.

you gripped his arms tightly as he pushed in. he slowly continued until all of him was buried deep inside you before stopping. the feeling of a whole penis inside of you was very different from your or changmin's fingers. it filled you up to the brim and was rubbing all the good spots. while it initially caused you a bit of discomfort, it wasn't overwhelming and it also felt good in a weird way.

when your walls finished adjusting to his length, he began to steadily move his dick in and out.

changmin intensely studied your face. he couldn't believe that after all those years you were finally close to being his. he wanted to savor every single expression you made while he was inside you.

you wrapped your legs around his torso, trying to push him deeper. he slammed his cock back inside you.

'you are mine,' he declared and started going harder and faster.

'I am yours,' you confirmed and wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him in for a kiss.

because of the extensive foreplay and your own masturbation prior to this, it didn't take long until your walls were tightening around his dick and you felt an orgasm approaching.

driven wild by you clenching around his cock, he thrusted into you even faster. you rested your sweaty foreheads against each other as both of you almost came simultaneously.

changmin kissed the top of your head before he pulled out and threw away the used condom. you opened your arms and he let himself fall right into your embrace.

'I know this might be kind of weird to talk about right now but do you want to be my girlfriend?' Changmin asked you. he still wasn't too sure what all of this meant for your relationship and he desperately needed to know where your mind was at.

'after having liked you for all this time I'd be an idiot to say no.' 'you're an idiot anyway,' he teased. you slapped his arm.

'hey! I'm not the one who ignored you for a couple of months because my hormones are out of control.' you hid your face in the crook of his neck, too embarrassed face him.

'I'm really sorry for that. you just mean so much to me and I didn't want my feelings to get in the way of our friendship.' he stroked your hair.

'I do understand that. if I hadn't heard you moan my name today I wouldn't have acted on my feelings either. but all is good now, right?' 'right.' you smiled and placed a small kiss below his ear.

'there is still one thing you need to do,' changmin tried to remind you. you looked at him, puzzled.

'what do you mean?' 'younghoon,' he hinted. you immediately started looking for your phone. that date was definitely going to have to be cancelled. there was no need for you to find a distraction anymore since you had been granted your wish after all.

[foreverindreamlandd]

Alright, let's see if I can get my Stranger Things feelings out in a coherent post lol.

Spoilers under the cut for S4 Vol2

Overall, I really liked it! I still think season 3 is my favorite, but I do love how the season is starting to connect the whole series together with the Vecna stuff.

The final season of episode 8 with that version of the Journey song made me actually stand up from my seat I was so pumped up lol.

Not sure what all five confirmed deaths were? There was Papa, Eddie, Max for a second, but then I don't know? Unless he counts Jason which they should NOT lol

Speaking of Jason, his death was so gloriously insignificant I loved that there was no fuss or big show of it. He just got Darth Mauled and that was that. Amazing.

Max.....this might sound horrible, but I kind of wish her death was more final? That was such a beautiful scene and I think her death would have made SUCH an impact. Also high key annoying that the Duffer Brothers were heavily teasing that a main cast member was going to die but it was just on a technicality?

Also, Eleven being able to resurrect people is...idk how I feel about that hahaha. That's all I'll say. Again, I think it would have been better if Max had died died (though I love her character so much and would have cried for days from it lol).

SO FUCKING HAPPY THAT MY BOY STEVE IS ALIVE YOU HAVE NO IDEA I WAS HAVING STRESS DREAMS ABOUT HIS DEATH. HATE the love triangle and will hate if he gets back with Nancy because she does not deserve him. But I will say the scene in the Winnebago (which I was convinced was a death monologue lol) will be excellent fic content for all of us lmao.

SO FUCKING SAD AND UPSET THAT EDDIE DIED LIKE THAT. They tried to hard to write him as a hero that they made it fall short I think? Death by bats where he honestly didn't need to do that was just so upsetting. And (as many people have already said), the fact that Dustin was the only one talking about it afterwards even though Eddie was officially a member of the gang AND JUMPED THROUGH THE GATE AT LOVER'S LAKE TO HELP SAVE STEVE is so shitty and sad. Also it's so annoying because they added a new member in s2 (Max) and s3 (Robin), and they could have AND SHOULD HAVE had him be the new member for s4. What a loss of such a stellar character who would have added so much to the rest of the show.

Anyways, I'm super grateful to be in the fanfic community where we can rewrite and fix the hell out of all of that :,)

Okay back to staring blankly into space as I continue processing lmao.

Also thank fucking god we finally got the Hopper and Joyce smooch. I cannot believe I've been waiting eight years for that shit and honestly the scene was done perfectly.

[7central]

tua s4 opening predictions

I’m just having fun honestly.  I’m thinking that some narrative time will pass between the end of s3 and the top of s4, partially because Elliot Page and Aidan Gallagher are going through physical changes that cannot really be explained well otherwise.  Plus, there is some intense worldbuilding to be done.

Luther: I think Luther will be lost, but carrying on.  After a while of catastrophizing, he gets a job and figures out how to keep living, but every night when he gets home, he desperately researches everything he can find out about Reginald (think s2 Diego), and he’s secretly planning to confront him when he feels he knows enough (he doesn’t know hardly enough, he’s a tinfoil hat).  He does, however, know that Reginald isn’t human, and begins to put together the pieces that his time spent on the moon was more relevant than he thought.

Diego/Lila: Diego and Lila are their usual chaotic selves even when dealing with a baby.  Turns out babies are hard.  Maybe there’ll be a nice little montage of the pregnancy.  I think that both of them will have some additional discomfort around parenthood given that they both had terrible parents, which will bring them even closer to one another.  They are beyond stressed, but going about their plan to settle down and raise a kid together.  Diego is a little restless and misses his powers more than he will admit.  He craves the bargain batman lifestyle a bit, but cares too much about his kid to act on it.

Allison: I believe that Allison is living within the pocket universe that was Oblivion, since she retained her injuries and was completely separate from her siblings.  I think that the artificiality of her isolated world will start to grate on her, as will the fear and guilt about what happened to her siblings.  I imagine that her relationships to these versions of Claire and Ray will be less meaningful than her original ones, with each of them potentially having gaps in their understanding of who they are (or, conversely, remembering and missing things that didn’t make it into this world–Ray’s friends and family, Patrick, etc.).  I think Allison will eventually be overcome with the guilt and pain of this reality and seek a way to get out of it, thinking that she can take them with her, but I don’t know if she can.  When she eventually reunites with her siblings and learns that they lost their powers, they want her to use hers (does she still have them? perhaps), but she is reluctant to accept that this world requires her to even attempt a test run, as she has sworn them off again, and doesn’t see anything terribly wrong with this world to begin with.

Klaus: I think Klaus will relapse further than he did in this last season, overwhelmed by the sudden silence of having neither Ben nor other ghosts.  I think he will be more inclined to bother his siblings than the others, in part because he has a hard time taking responsibility for himself.  That said, he’s strangely joyous to experience being truly by himself for the first time in his life.  He stops himself at the last minute with many of his reckless habits, realizing that he is more prone to dying than he ever thought.  He tries hard to quit and practice more harm reduction for himself.

Five: Five at first relishes in the freedom of “retirement” from apocalyptic aversion.  However, he soon realizes that life is monotonous, it’s hard to do 60yr old hobbies without powers and in the unfortunate body of a teenager, and when the world isn’t ending, his healthy skepticism of anything that appears safe turns out to be an unhealthy paranoia.  He is frequently perceived as a “troubled teen” which drives him up the wall.  He’s deeply agitated beneath the skin but forces himself to act casual and his drinking is picking up again as his idleness brings back memories of the apocalypses.  He is rubbed the wrong way by the constant image of Reginald on every little thing in this world and cannot help but think through the math of how he ended up here when he tries to sleep at night.  He wants to interact more with his siblings but doesn’t know how to communicate and bond without a sense of urgency propelling conversation.  Even though he’s right on the verge of losing it, he finds himself moved to joy at the smallest of experiences that he never got (think, comic!five and ice cream).  He still secretly wants to go on a roadtrip.

Ben: We know that Ben is 1) in South Korea and 2) up to something worth teasing.  I think he has the weirdest time adapting to this new world, since he has never been independent from the Sparrows or experienced being thrown into a new world before like the others have.  He is thrown off by Reginald’s sudden shrewdness in Hotel Oblivion after years of (relative) mildness from him, and directs his anger and grief towards him.  I’m not really sure what to make of his credits scene, but his suit strikes me as that of a successful businessperson of some sort, perhaps as a rival to Reginald’s companies, or maybe....working at one of them?  But to what end???

Viktor: I think Viktor will be most equipped to just live his life again, although he mourns his powers that he only experienced for so short a time.  He picks back up violin, but it doesn’t quite feel the same as it used to.  He does feel lighter than he ever has, more in his own skin.  He misses Sissy still, but is starting to get used to appreciating himself as an individual in a way he never did pre-s1.  He stays sort of in touch with his siblings.

Reginald: I think that Reginald had plans to reset the world for a while, so as to better stake his claim in it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was up to an x-files-esque plot to somehow use the Earth for the benefit of his home planet.  I know it’s cliche but come on, wouldn’t that be cool?  He is (somehow) much more powerful than he was in the original world, and has a new fire in him now that he has his lover back.  I think he retained memory of everything and keeps discrete tabs on the Umbrellas, although he thinks that he’s bled them of all they’re worth and they are no longer a threat.

Sloane: I’ll be honest, I have no idea what happened to Sloane, but I think it would be cool if Reginald had “kept” her for some purpose.  His deal with Allison involved keeping her family safe, but since she likely only specified the Umbrellas, he has kept Sloane with him, since he preferred her to Ben.  I wonder if perhaps she has memory loss as well, not remembering her siblings, Luther, or even the way that the world was reset.  I could see her potentially having greater antagonistic energy than she did in s3, but slowly warms up to Luther, beginning to remember.  She’s a true insider and ends up being the greatest asset to the Umbrellas when she eventually joins up with them.

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

[sophfandoms53]

So now that you caught up with Amphibia and cause it'd be fun seeing you answer an Amphibia question, do you think it does a better job conveying important information on screen than Ducktales inspite of usually having their episodes at 11 minutes instead of 22 like Ducktales and why?

Oh absolutely.

I cannot stress enough how much I love the way the conflict between Anne and Hop-pop in regards to the music box was handled. My favorite part of that plot was even though Anne said she forgave him at the of After The Rain, deep down she was still hurt and struggled to truly forgive him for lying about and hiding the music box.

The conflict isn’t one-sided either. Both of them have their reasons for what they did, at the end of the day Hop-pop was the one who messed up, but he did what he thought was right to protect his family. He owns up to hurting Anne and that he made a mistake by never telling her what he found out about the box and it’s potential dangers.

Having there still be tension between them during the majority of First Temple was a great way to show how sometimes forgiveness takes awhile to be accepted. Sometimes a simple apology isn’t enough.

The best part of this conflict is at the breaking point when Hop-pop is begging Anne to tell him how he can fix this and help her forgive him and Anne straights up tells him, “I don’t know.”

That type of response is completely believable and real.

And then this wonderful conversation that happens afterwards,

“I just need time... Look, I want things to go back to the way they were but... but...”

“I’m sorry, Anne. You take all the time you need. Maybe it’s enough to admit we’ve still got issues instead of pretending they don’t exist.”

“I think that’d be good.”

Anne knows Hop-pop is sorry, but knowing that somebody is sorry sometimes isn’t enough to fix things. When someone hurts you as badly as Hop-pop has hurt Anne, that’s a wound that needs time to heal.

And the fact Hop-pop is willing to let her take her time and no longer force her to forgive him shows how much he’s grown to love Anne as his own kid and how much he understands Anne as a person. He loves and respect her and he’s gonna give her the space she needs to let herself forgive him.

This show is so good at having people talk and acknowledge their issues and actually work on those issues. Which is more than what DT tried to do.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying about Amphibia is how they aren’t afraid to acknowledge the conflicts they’ve created, they deal with those conflicts and the characters learn from those conflicts and it shows.

This is done really well when it comes to Sasha’s story, who is a really well written character, and how the other characters react to her presence. The constant suspicion the Plantars and Anne have about Sasha the entire time she’s around because of what she did to them back in the season one finale? Completely valid and justified.

Anne continuing to stand up to Sasha and letting her know Sasha can’t push her around anymore? Amazing.

Sasha trying to put on an act that she’s changed and is only following Grimes’ plan but we still have those moments she could possibly be having second thoughts about her loyalty? Again, really well done.

I really adore the way Anne, Sasha and Marcy have all been written, between their personalities, stories, growth, and arcs, they’re all unique and so far been done really well.

Amphibia is such a fun time and it’s so good to watch a show and feel like every episode is worth it. They take time for their silly episodic episodes but they never forget the story they’re telling nor the tensions and conflicts that follow it, and it’s an amazing watch.

One final thing is that I am so happy that the Plantars don’t talk about how they’re family every five freaking seconds. I swear to god DuckTales said the word family every other sentence and preached it like it was some type of religion and it was like omg pls stfu about how you’re family and how amazing your family is and actually SHOW us how you’re a family. The way DuckTales treated its family concept is a whole thing and while I don’t dislike the entirety of how they handled it, we definitely did not need the show to shove its family message down our throats I can tell you that.

The Plantars just are a family. We see how much Hop-pop, Sprig, Polly and Anne love each other, how close they’ve become, how much they would sacrifice for each other, how much they’ve grown, and how much they care for one another. We are SHOWN all that and seeing a family be a family is so beautiful and the found family message of the show is so well done because Anne is just a part of the Plantars. They love her and she loves them.

There’s no preaching, no shoving anything in anyone’s faces, no saying “we’re family” every 2 seconds, none of that, it’s just... A family.

The Plantars are family and we will show you how they are a family.

[yellowocaballero]

Can't believe you're too on the Hot Jon Rights! team. Like, when I read Sucker's Bet I thought it was just Web!Jon's Spider mojo but then I read Hope etc. "It's God's apology for the orphan thing" and now there was your tima travel fic... Like I'm not complaining, I'm just surprised with the take.

PS: Loved the time travel fic. Very funny (but also what about the eye thing? Why is Future!Martin angry at it and Future!Jon?)

I cannot stress enough. I cannot stress enough. I cannot stress enough.

I am completely and totally unattracted to men. Even aesthetically. I can kind of objectively tell if a guy’s attractive, but even if he is I will never care. It gives me no pleasure to canonically make Jon weirdly hot. I get nothing out of this. This brings me no joy, nor any satisfaction. 

However, I think it’s really fucking funny.

Like, out of all the people to be hot, right! Why does it have to be Jon! It’s so wasted on him! It gets him out of so much shit and he just has no idea! Like, don’t get me wrong, nobody’s attracted to him. If you talk to Jon for more than five minutes, or know him in any meaningful way, you are completely turned off him forever. Completely unfuckable energy. This is why Martin’s a freak: not because he finds Jon hot, which is just normal, but because he still finds him hot after actually knowing him. 

And it just makes narrative sense, quite frankly. I think I expressed this opinion through Melanie: that hot, tall men naturally get a lot of attention, so they don’t bother to grow a likable personality. I genuinely think it explains a lot about his personality. Everybody just assumes that Elias hired him because he was hot, which might be a little true. It also is the only explanation for why Martin would ever get a crush on him in Season 1. There was no attraction to Jon as a person: it was all horniness, baby. It’s also the only explanation for why he has an ex-girlfriend (who lets him live with her in S3!!) in college. 

It also is an essential component of my headcanon that when Elias ‘casted’ the Archives, he kind of did it like a CW show? Like, come on, he knew that he was going to have to keep an Eye on these people for years, and he already had to pick out gay people without families, so he was going to use eye candy. He ‘casted’ Jon as the super hot CW lead, and casted a super hot love interest of both genders - Tim and Sasha. Then he threw in Martin as comic relief. This is why I think every member of the original Archives are hot but Martin. This makes Jonmartin very, very, very funny to me. 

Sorry I talked about this so much - Hot!Jon is my gospel and is actually kind of a cornerstone of how I write Jon and his interactions with the world. I cannot stress enough that if I’m writing Jon, he’s weirdly hot. 

(Re: time travel fic, thank you! Not quite sure what you mean, so sorry if my writing was confusing - when Jon monologues to ‘You’, he’s talking about the Eye. He assumes that the Eye is still pissy over the whole “blinding myself to make the apocalypse less bad” thing. Future!Martin isn’t mad at anyone he just likes making Jon go get the milk. If that doesn’t clear it up, point me to the passage and I’ll specify. the story was VERY quickly and badly written, and I didn’t clarify a great deal of what was going on because it would have made the story less chaotic, so if it’s confusing I understand!!)

[mericalovess]

Strangers to Spouses

Fandom: Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin Rating: MA Main Ships: Eremin and Eruri (Genderbent Levi and Armin)

Summary: Five couples get married on a hit reality show called Strangers to Spouses. They are legally bound to a person matched to them by love and relationship experts. Before their weddings, they will know nothing about their new spouse, not even what they look like. These five couples have eight weeks to decide if they want to continue their marriages or get a divorce. Making things even more stressful, they are hauled up in an apartment complex and shut off from the world while the whole eight weeks are live-streamed 24/7. 

This is a collaborative project between myself and Vintagevelichoria to convert a roleplay to a story format. 

Ships 

-Eren Yeager/Armin Arlert (Genderbent) 

-Erwin Smith/Levi Ackerman (Genderbent) 

-Jean Kirstein/Mikasa Ackerman

-Ymir/Historia Reiss -One other surprise (crack) ship. 

Pleased to introduce, Arlert-Yeager

“So, why did you choose Strangers to Spouses?” 

Eren was pretty sure he was going to be hearing that question for the rest of his life. At least he hoped he would. This was a big step for him and Eren hoped that the woman he married would be his partner for life.  He was pretty much a catch. Handsome, athletic, and successful. Who wouldn’t want to be with him, right? Well, it wasn’t exactly about who wanted him. It was about who was right for him. 

But the catch was, they would be meeting at the altar on their wedding day. 

Eren had just finished one of his many interviews. Now he was getting ready for his wedding. His friends and family were there and supportive, even if they didn’t understand why he would want this. Eren was thankful for that. He had been going through the process for half a year and finally, he was getting ready to get married and start the show. 

He had picked out a simple tux to wear, not wanting anything that would be too flashy and outshine his bride. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill black suit with a white button-up and black bowtie. Eren put his hair up in a slicked back, tight bun and made sure he looked his absolute best. He also had a gift taken to his new bride to open before the wedding. It was a beautiful, delicate diamond bracelet with a handwritten note from him.

’To My Bride,’

’It means so much to me that you would go through this process by my side. I trust the experts and I believe that we will have a strong connection. I’m a little bit of a romantic so, my heart's going a mile a minute every time I think about you and wonder what you look like or what you will be like. I will work as hard as I possibly can to make sure to be a good husband for you.’

’I cannot wait to see you in your beautiful wedding dress,’

’Yours Truly,’

’Your Husband’

Strangers to Spouses was a hit from the first season. It was a reality tv show, but it had a pretty amazing concept and setup from the beginning. Five couples were matched together by relationship and love experts. Their looks had not been taken into consideration for the experiment, only core values and qualities that matched them together. Scientifically speaking, the marriages should flourish. But, showing from the first season that was not always how it worked out. 

After meeting at the alter and having their, very legally binding, weddings the couples would be taken from the wedding venue straight to a luxury resort for a week to have their honeymoons. When the honeymoon was over they would all be moved into an apartment complex where the couples would live together for the next seven weeks. At the end of that time, they could decide if they wanted to remain married or get a divorce. 

What gave the show notoriety and popularity was how it all worked. The couples would have no outside influence after their weddings and everything would be live-streamed. The only privacy offered to the couples would be the small water closets. The production company also owned and ran the wedding venue, resort, and apartment complex. When the show wasn’t being filmed they offered the spaces to the public, of course removing all cameras, but during filming the spaces were meant and set up for contestants and crew only. 

Yes, that meant if the couples wanted to have any intimate relations it was going to be seen through the live stream unless they kept it to the water closet. Of course, everything aired on television would be edited and shortened to the most interesting moments. The live streams were for mature viewers and it was a complete free for all. 

Eren knew he wanted to be a part of this since he saw the first season. Not because he wanted to be famous or anything, but it just really interested him. He liked things that were out of the ordinary and new. It showed through his brand. 

At the age of eighteen, Eren began working on his brand and it didn’t take off till he turned twenty. Now he was twenty-four and he was the owner and head designer of one of the most popular street fashion brands. He didn’t have any physical stores, working mostly online and scheduling pop-up shops. He owed a lot of his success to the social media influencers that took interest in his clothes and started showing them off. 

Now anytime Eren had a new drop everything would be sold out by the end of the day, if not in only hours. 

So again, why would a man like Eren Yeager need to have experts match him up with his wife? It wasn’t that he needed to. It was that Eren was dead tired of the dating scene. He was sick of wannabe fashion and fitness influencers trying to date him for more followers. That was pretty much the only type of person that would approach Eren those days. He wanted, no he needed, someone he could share his life with. Someone he could rely on to support him and his endeavors, while he also did the same for them. 

Leaving it up to the experts just seemed like the best way of getting what he wanted. 

“Eren,” The groom was pulled from his thoughts by his father’s voice. Grisha Yeager had always been a good father to Eren. He was a hard-working doctor and took care of both Eren and his mother very well. Some had a different opinion on Grisha’s parenting, but Eren loved his father and appreciated him. “It’s time, son,” 

Nerves were setting in, though Eren had been expecting that. He knew that this was one of the biggest decisions of his life. He was putting himself in an interesting position and things could go south, he just had to give it a try. 

All the guests were inside the ceremony area. Eren had no clue how the place was decorated or anything. After one last look in the mirror, Eren was followed by producers, cameramen, and his groomsmen to the entrance, two very large and intricate double doors. He was waiting for a moment, waiting for his cue to go in. During that time he was being coached quietly by one of the producers. 

Then it was time. 

Eren shook his nerves off before he walked into the main ceremony area, head held high and visible confidence on his face. He greeted the guests that were there for his bride quietly as he walked past them to the altar where the officiator waited. 

He did notice that there were empty seats where the parents of the bride were meant to be. 

.

Armin had originally signed up as a joke. Honestly. She had never thought she’d get so far in the process anyway, but here she was, a crew putting the final touches on her hair. She stared at herself in the mirror, heart pounding. 

She was anxious as hell. What if her husband to be was horrible? What if he was… well, ugly? What if he was mean? But she tried not to let these thoughts take over, instead focusing on getting ready and what she wanted in a husband. Tall. Handsome. Sweet. Considerate. In love with her.

A producer brought a small gift and a note, making the young woman’s heart flutter. His handwriting was nice, the sentiment was so sweet, and the bracelet was absolutely gorgeous. Armin couldn’t help but wondered if this was from the show’s money or his own. She felt suddenly hopeful as she clasped the bracelet onto her delicate wrist. 

It went perfectly with the dress she had picked out. Flawless, white fabric draped over Armin’s body, her shoulders left bare. The sleeves were described as bishop style, puffed and flowing from the top and cuffed around her wrist. The dress fit her well, though it didn’t hug her curves as much as it elegantly flowed to the short train dragging behind her. It was a bit conservative, but it fit her personality very well. 

After conducting a few interviews, she was taken out to the ballroom of the venue where she’d exit the double doors and walk down the aisle. Cameras were everywhere but Armin did what she could to ignore them. Couldn’t get cold feet now. It was far too late. 

“Ready, Armin?” The main producer called out. She straightened up a bit and nodded, doing her best to hide her growing nerves. 

Armin didn’t have parents anymore to be there with her, but her grandfather was, and his eyes were filled with tears as they linked arms while Armin held a very pretty bouquet of white flowers in her other hand. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered to her, and she clutched his arm tighter. 

This was it.

The doors opened, and sweet music filled the area. She took a shaking breath before stepping down the small staircase.

Her first thought was the man was tall. Thank god. And his hair was in a bun! She bit her lip lightly, looking down to steady herself as they slowly walked forward.

The crew had put a lot of effort into the ceremony hall. 

It was simple yet elegant, decorated in soft white fabric tied to the chairs along the aisle and a long, white rug rolled out from the double doors to the step leading to the officiant and… her husband. There were beautiful potted plants placed strategically through the hall to give a pop of color, but only with the green stems and leaves since the flowers were all white. 

The moment Eren laid eyes on his wife, he knew this was all going to be worth it. She was more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. Fair-skinned, lovely blond hair styled elegantly to go with her dress, and honestly, she was the cutest woman he had ever seen. His heart was pounding so hard he could swear everyone could hear it as he watched her walking closer and closer. 

Eren took a step down off the small platform of the altar. As his bride and, who he believed to be, her grandfather stopped in front of him, Eren first turned his attention to the elderly man. He gave him a charming smile, shaking his hand. “Thank you,” Eren whispered to him before he turned to the little blond and offered his arm. 

“Hi,” It wasn’t the smoothest way to greet his gorgeous new wife. But, Eren was extremely nervous, and seeing her both soothed and amplified the feeling at the same time.

Armin was almost starstruck by her groom. She stared up at him with big, sparkling, blue eyes, which viewers would later fawn over claiming that it really was true love at first sight. Slowly, Armin linked her arm with the man’s, hand coming to rest on top of it as the stepped up. She couldn’t help but giggle a little, looking away for a moment before shifting her eyes back up to him. “Hi,” she whispered.

Her gaze drifted to a producer, who waved her hand in a ‘keep going’ motion. Armin looked back up to the man with another little smile. God, he was gorgeous. His eyes were piercing and perfect for his skin tone. It almost seemed fake. “You’re..” she stopped short, giggling again. Armin hoped she wasn’t coming off as an airhead. She was actually extremely intelligent, almost to a fault. That didn’t mean she wasn’t a little “boy crazy” at times. And this seemed to be the perfect time for that. “You look really nice… I’m Armin… by the way.”

Eren guided his new wife, or maybe fiance was the best term, up the small step, making sure he was stable and strong. He flexed just a bit under her hand, unable to keep himself from trying to show off a little to the beautiful woman. Eren couldn’t believe she, Armin, was going to actually be his wife. She was so far out of his league in his mind. She was perfect, straight out of Eren’s dreams. 

“Armin,” Eren said softly as he moved to face her at the altar. His gaze never left her. It was impossible. Armin was breathtaking and seemed so sweet and innocent even. “I’m Eren,” he finally said, his cheeks growing slightly tired from the smile that wouldn’t leave his face. Eren felt like the luckiest man in the world and it showed all over his expression. 

Eren. Finally, a name with the face, the handsome body, the sweet note he’d written her. Armin bit her lip lightly, glancing to the officiator as they began the process. As soon as she looked back to Eren, she found herself captivated by his eyes, staring up at him with her own big, innocent-looking orbs, staring at him through her lashes. She was a truly sweet girl and the producers desperately wanted to cling to that.

The ceremony was pretty short, but it was filled with the officiator talking about Armin and Eren. Introducing the couple to the guest and each other. Eren loved everything he heard about Armin. He knew this was the woman that should be his wife. She was everything he could ever ask for. Intelligent, generous, and ambitious were just a few words used to describe Armin to her new husband. 

Armin’s heart was still racing and she felt more than just a bit nervous, but standing with her small hands in Eren’s was making it a little better. Finally, when it was time to seal the deal with a kiss, she looked up to him with a light flush. 

This was the part Eren was nervous about. For that day at least. Whether or not they would kiss. When it came up, Eren blushed a little, but it was mostly hidden by his tanned skin. Even so, the man looked slightly meek compared to how he normally was. “Can I?” he asked softly.

“Yeah..” Armin answered with a giggle. Eren looked so cute and shy at that moment. It wasn’t exactly how she pictured the kiss at her wedding, but she could have never known her husband would be a complete stranger either. 

Before she could lose her nerve, Armin got on her toes, squeezing Eren’s hands tightly as she pressed a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips. Their little audience applauded the new couple excitedly. Eren could even hear his mother sobbing like everyone knew she would at his wedding. Little did either of them know this image would damn near go viral and launch viewers of the show into an obsession with them both. When Armin pulled back, she squinted up, seeing little, white flower petals raining from a rig on the ceiling. She laughed as she caught sight of her grandfather waving, and she waved back as they stepped down and started to make their way back down the aisle.

She was married! To someone she didn’t even know, but… she was married nonetheless.

[unholyobsessions]

Take a sick day (or a dozen)

Pairing: Julie x Luke

Description: Five times Julie takes care of Luke and one time he returns the favor

Requested: Yes

A/N: For the first part technically, Luke should not have gotten the symptoms as quickly, it normally takes days, but let’s just pretend okay? let’s not worry about technicalities

Warnings: Sickness, light cursing

Word Count: 4.7k

Masterlist 

It’s the middle of July. Julie should be getting ready to go to college not taking care of her stupidly adorable little brother. Her dad is out of town photographing a wedding, so when Carlos comes down with Chicken Pox, she is stuck with nurse duty. 

Luke, her ever so caring boyfriend, offers to help her so that is why they are both running around the house, waiting on Carlos hand and foot. Julie keeps phoning the doctor every thirty minutes because Carlos still will not eat and Luke keeps replacing the cold towel on his forehead. 

What Luke forgot to mention when he offered to help was that he never got the Chicken pox as a child. After the third day Luke woke up, scratching at his arms and torso non stop, Julie starts getting worried. A few hours later she gets tired of seeing Luke not so subtly scratching again, so she grabs his arm and pulls up his sleeve. His arms are covered with blisters and Julie lets out a loud gasp. 

“You lied!” Julie exclaimed. 

Luke pulls his arms away from her grasp and raises them in defense. “Technically I didn’t lie. I did not know I never got chicken pox!.” He counters her accusation and Carlos, who is sitting between them, just glances back and forth between the two, highly amused by the interaction. 

“Go take a shower, I’ll go call the doctor and ask him what to do when an eighteen year old idiot gets chicken pox.” Julie huffed out, getting up from her crouched position beside the bed. 

Carlos and Luke stared after her and the former shook his head. “You’re lucky she loves you.” 

Luke let out a small laugh and pushed himself up. “Yeah I am.” 

Fifteen minutes later Luke is out of the shower and now running a high fever. The doctor reassures her that he would be fine and that she should just use the same medication that she has been giving Carlos. 

With that out of the way, Julie realizes that Luke is a giant baby. He complains more than Carlos and whines about the slightest inconvenience. It should be in her best interest to send him home and have his parents take care of him but she knows they both have full time jobs and cannot afford to take a week off to take care of him. So she muscles through it, running back and forth between Carlos’s room and her own room, where Luke is staying. 

It’s after midnight, two days later, and Carlos has already succumbed to the exhaustion so she is sitting next to her bed, placing a cold towel on Luke’s forehead, who had just been complaining that the room is too hot. A moment later, after he had taken his medicine he turns to look at her, a loving smile on his lips. 

“I love you so much. Thank you for putting up with my bullshit.” He says it so softly that she has to lean forward to hear him properly, but there is so much emotion in that statement that it makes her cheeks flush. 

“I would do it one hundred times over Luke, you know that,” she whispers, reaching a hand toward his, curling their fingers together. 

“I know, but still thank you. I know you would much prefer to spend the weekend shopping with Flynn.” That gets a laugh out of her and Luke smiles triumphantly. 

“You would have found a way to tag along,” she retorts and Luke barks out a loud laugh, immediately followed by a yawn. “Go to sleep, I’m in my dad’s room if you need me.” She presses a kiss on the crown of his head and gets up to leave, turning the lights off on her way out. 

. . .

It’s their first semester at University and things are going great. But of course Luke had to go and ruin it all. Julie really does not know how someone could get sick as easily as Luke. It’s normally a common cold that goes away in twenty four hours but no. He had to go all out. 

It’s flu season and Julie is stuck in a dorm room with her very annoying, very sick, and very adorable roommate/boyfriend. 

Luke can barely move, his body feeling heavy. His head is pounding and the room feels both too hot and too cold at the same time. 

Julie walks back into the room after a quick trip to the local CVS store to get supplies. She really hopes this doesn’t last for more than a few days, because she can’t afford to miss too many classes. She makes the mistake of turning on the light, prompting Luke to grown loudly and yell in discontent as if he were being stabbed. Julie rolls her eyes and turns the light off, settling for the lamp on her desk. 

She pulls out the thermometer from the bag and proceeds to tear up the packaging with her teeth because in her state of stress, she didn’t think of just putting the bag down. Once she finally got it open she put it against his forehead and waited for the indicated beep. 

She hisses once she sees the temperature. “102.5. Damn I was really hoping you didn’t have a fever.” She takes out the packet of pills from the bag and a water bottle and hands him two pills and the open bottle. “Take these.” 

Luke obediently takes them and turns to look at her. “Aren’t you worried about catching it?” 

“Not really. I had my flu shot two weeks ago. I told you to get it but you’re afraid of needles.” Julie deadpans and sits on the edge of his bed. 

Luke shoots up with a sudden burst of energy. “I am not afraid of needles,” he exclaims. 

Julie rolls her eyes and pushes his shoulder lightly. “Yes you are you big baby. Now lay down or you’ll get dizzy.” 

Luke mumbles incoherently, no doubt complaining, but he obeys and lays down, squeezing his eyes shut because just as Julie said, he gets dizzy. Julie pulls the covers up to his shoulders and runs a hand through his hair. Luke hums, content with the feeling of his girlfriend playing with his hair. 

“Can you sing me a song?” He asks after a few minutes, startling Julie who thought he had fallen asleep. 

“Yeah, of course.” She nods her head even though he can’t see her. Luke grasps her arm and pulls her down to lay down next to him. She lets out a small giggle and cuddles up to him

“I’m in my bed

And you're not here”

Luke interrupts her, finally opening his eyes to look at her incredulously. 

“Could you have picked a sadder song?” Julie barks out a loud laugh, slapping a hand over her mouth in order to not be too loud. 

“I’m sorry! It was just the song I had in my head.” Luke shakes his head, whispering a soft “unbelievable,” under his breath.

“Pick something happier but still soft.” 

Julie looked down at him, fully prepared to ask him what the hell he meant by his request, but he has already nuzzled back into her side with his eyes closed. She let out a small sigh with a small smile on her face. 

“Any suggestions?” 

Luke stayed quiet for a second before piping up with a tired voice. “Truly, Madly, Deeply. The One Direction song you showed me other week.” 

She decides not to comment on his unusual choice, Luke never having been one to willingly listen to One Direction (he loves them, he just refuses to admit it.) Julie simply kisses the top of his head and with a deep breath, she begins the song.  

Julie missed three days of classes, and every second not spent doing the work she missed or getting Luke his medicine, was spent singing him to sleep. 

. . .

Luke should have known that eating those hotdogs was a bad idea. The food truck was sketchy and mostly without customers but Reggie and Alex dared him to do it and because he’s a prideful idiot, he did it. Now he is suffering the consequences as he retches the contents of his stomach into the toilet as Julie rubs his back soothingly. 

She’s singing something under her breath, Luke doesn’t recognize it at first so he focuses all his energy on listening to her voice. 

“Sana sana colita de rana si no sana hoy, sanará mañana,” and she repeats it again and again. Luke has stopped throwing up by now and is resting his head on the toilet seat, which is not the most hygienic  but he can barely keep his eyes open much less move. He mumbles something incoherently and Julie leans forward, “What did you say?” 

“What the heck are you singing?” 

Julie has to resist the urge to laugh as she answers. “It’s I guess a saying? I’m not sure how to describe it, it’s just something my mom used to say whenever I would get injured.” 

Luke wants to believe that he nods his head in affirmation but in reality, it doesn’t even look like he’s breathing with how still he is, slumped against the toilet. His lips starts moving but there is no sound escaping them and for a moment Julie thinks he fell asleep, but then his arms reach forward to grip the edge of the seat as he starts throwing up again. 

Julie grimaces and continues to rub his back, only stopping when her phone rings and she has to reach her arm up to the counter to grab it. She speaks in hushed words to the doctor on the other end, nodding her head along to what he’s saying. A few minutes later she hangs up and Luke squints at her, wanting to know what’s going on. 

“Well apparently all of your symptoms align with mild food poisoning. Nothing too serious and since you don’t have a fever, it should go away on its own by tomorrow. Only thing is we have to keep you hydrated so I texted Alex and Reggie to get you some electrolytes.” 

Luke didn’t even try to move this time, simply groaning audibly and clutching an arm around his abdomen, which feels like it’s on fire. After Luke goes a full five minutes without throwing up, Julie brings a hand up to flush the toilet. The sudden noise causing Luke to jump up and turn to Julie with a paranoid gaze. 

Julie, not wanting to make him feel bad, hides her smile by biting her lip. She runs a hand through his sweat matted hair and gently pulls his head onto her lap. She continues to softly speak the ‘sana sana’ because even though she knows now that it doesn’t work, her little seven-year-old self believed it could cure any injuries or sickness. 

She stays in the bathroom floor, back cramping and neck stiff, for about thirty minutes, simply enjoying seeing Luke breathing in and out calmly. She knows that as soon as he wakes up, he will be filled with pain and discomfort so if she has to suffer a few minutes of it, then so be it. 

He is woken up by the sound of a knock on the door, no doubt Reggie and Alex with the supplies she made them get. Luke immediately shoots up and starts gagging and Julie doesn’t know how he can still be throwing up after having done so about five times already. 

She gets up and brings a hand to her neck, yelling out an annoyed “coming!” as the knocking persists. She opens the the door, takes the bag out of their hands, and closes it again, the fact that they are the reason she is in this situation not escaping her. 

She makes Luke brush his teeth before bringing him to bed, knowing he will be much more comfortable. She hands him an opened bottle of the lemon flavored drink, but he pushes it away. Julie rolls her eyes and pushes the drink back toward him. He groans and turns away, refusing to even so much as look at what she is offering. 

“I swear to God Luke if you don’t take this right now, I will pour it down your throat myself.” And she knows she is being a bit harsh but this is the only thing he has to take in order to feel better and he is acting like a child over it. 

With fear in his eyes, Luke takes the bottle, bringing it to his lips and taking the tiniest of sips, his mood immediately brightening at the smile Julie sends him. 

(Julie was right and he did feel infinitely better the next day)

. . .

It was supposed to be romantic.  

Julie smiling widely at him as he twirled her and dipped her repeatedly. Their laughter both echoing louder than fireworks and being drowned out by the wind. The rain hitting them at a rapid pace, quickly soaking them from head to toe. But they didn’t care. They were just two teenager in love, enjoying the clicheness of dancing in the rain to the beat of their hearts, which pounded against their chests as one. 

Luke doesn’t remember when exactly he started to sing, a couple of meaningless lyrics he had had stuck in his head for the a few days. And he is not sure when Julie joined him, but by the time they stopped, they were out of breath, it was already dark, and the large raindrops had turned into a light drizzle. 

So in reality, it was extremely romantic. 

What isn’t romantic is Luke waking up the next day with a horrible cough, congested, and a low fever. He tries to hide it, not wanting to admit it is big deal, but of course, Julie sees right through it. 

“You literally have the immune system of a newborn,” she says with a shake of her head. “Go take a warm shower, I’ll go call the doctor.” 

Luke opens his mouth to protest, but one harsh look from Julie sent his way and he immediately heads to the bathroom. He lets the warm water run over him, closing his eyes and hoping the steam created will ease up his nose. 

By the time he gets out, Julie has placed a warm towel and his favorite pair of sweats on the counter. He smiles and quickly dries up and changes. He pulls on one of his old muscle tanks as he exits the bathroom. 

Julie turns at the sound of the door opening and smiles. “I changed your sheets so they will be more comfortable. And the doctor said to give you the same things as when you had the flu but just in smaller doses.” 

Luke simply stares at her because he can’t help but think how the hell he got so lucky. His head is pounding and his throat is sore but with her sitting there in front of him, looking so effortlessly beautiful, he feels on cloud nine. He scampers off to his bed, taking in the scent of the new sheets and closes his eyes. 

Julie appears next to him a few seconds later, holding a bottle of cough syrup, a water bottle, and a small bottle of pills. He lets out a loud groan that is immediately followed by a cough. 

“You know Luke when I said I would take care of you one hundred times over, I didn’t mean it literally,” she says, trying to feign annoyance, but the loving smile on her face gives her away. “Now take your medicine please.” 

Luke throws his head back but takes the items from her hands. “Only ‘cause you said please,” he pouts. 

Julie snorts and kisses the top of his head before turning around. Luke lets out a sound of protest making her turn around instantly. 

“Where are you going?” He asks, voice filled with concern and disbelief. 

“Uhh class?” She phrases it like a question and shrugs her shoulder, not knowing what else she’s supposed to say. 

“And you’re going to leave me alone?” Luke has the biggest pout gracing his lips and he feels his throat closing in a little. Julie never leaves him alone when he’s sick. 

“You’re going to sleep all day anyway.” Luke shakes his head so fast that he has to squeeze his eyes to stop the room from spinning after. Once he has regained control he looks up to find Julie eyeing him softly and he knows she’s caving, so he puts on his best puppy dog eyes. 

With a defeated sigh, Julie drops her backpack. Luke cheers triumphantly and pats the space next to him.

“Wait. Before you lay down, can you get me one of those wet rags for my forehead?” Luke practically begs, and who is Julie to deny him?

She marches up to their little kitchenette and soaks a rag in cold water before filling a bowl with ice. She places the rag in the bowl and makes her way back to the bed, where Luke is just about ready for cuddles. She places the rag on his forehead and Luke shivers involuntarily. 

It is only a few minutes after Julie lays down beside him, when Luke decides to ask for something else. It seems that since he got her to stay, now he will take full advantage of it. This time he asks for a hot peach tea to ease his throat. And after that it’s a cold water bottle. After that it’s a plate of her peanut butter banana toast. 

By the time Luke falls asleep, she has ran around the room about ten times in order to fulfill his requests.  She lays down in her own bed, absolutely exhausted and is about to fall asleep when a loud whine come from Luke’s bed. With a groan, Julie sits up and her heart melts at the sight. Luke looks at her through half lidded eyes and makes grabby hands at her, clearly not liking having her so far away. 

Julie’s sure that by the time he wakes up he will no longer feel any trace of sickness so she goes and lays next to him, enjoying the familiar weight of his arm around her after a long day. 

. . .

Luke has no idea what words are coming out of his mouth at the moment and he supposes that’s an effect of the drugs. Today is the day he got his wisdom teeth out and his parents were supposed to take care of him for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, they had a last minute business trip and who is left with the responsibility? No one other than Julie. 

So that is why she finds herself lugging a nineteen year old back to the car, as he slurs out sentence fragments that don’t make a lot of sense. She finally gets him into the backseat and she takes a moment to breath before making her way to the drivers side. 

“Vroom vroom.” Luke mimics the sound of the engine turning on as Julie turns the key. 

“Yes Luke vroom vroom,” she responds with a smile on her face. Julie has taken care of Luke a number times but she has a feeling that this will be much different. 

When she parks in front of their dorm Luke lets out a loud ‘whoop’ from his place in the backseat. Julie turns and smiles at him and he does his best to smile back with the amount of cotton in his mouth. 

“The first thing I do,” he pauses as Julie wraps an arm around his waist to lead him up the stairs of their building. “The first thing I will do when I die, is ask Jonbenét Ramsey who killed her.” 

Julie stops walking for a full minute but Luke doesn’t seem to notice as he keeps rambling theories on who he thinks killed her. She looks at him, at first thinking that he is spitting out nonsense and then realizing that what he is saying actually makes a lot of sense. She makes a noise of agreement and continues walking up the stairs, letting go of Luke to open their door. 

Once she gets Luke settled he pulls on her arm and grins up at her, a small amount of saliva dribbling down his chin. “Kiss?” 

Julie shakes her head. “Sorry bud, no kisses until you’re no longer on drugs.” She wipes the drool with the tip of her thumb smiling back at him. He pouts and hugs his stuffed koala closer to his body. 

“Kiss!” He says again with a slight bounce. Julie laughs and shakes her head again, telling him to get some rest. “Cuddle?” He asks, trying to compromise. Julie complies with this request and lays down next to him. 

“You know what?” He mumbles and Julie hums, prompting him to continue. “I love you, more than you could ever possibly imagine.” 

“Is that so?” Julie giggles. 

“Yes. You are,” he furrows his brows to try to find the perfect word to describe her. “You’re music Julie. Your voice is the lyrics of my heart and your laughter the melodies.” 

Julie’s heart stops, her breath hitching as she blinks away tears. “I love you too Luke.” 

When Luke wakes up, he asks Julie if he said anything weird and Julie tells him he didn’t. And maybe it’s a little selfish of her but she wants to keep that little love confession to herself. 

. . .

Julie does not get sick often, so it it quite surprising when Luke wakes up and finds Julie curled up in her bed, groaning in pain. He scampers to her side quickly, gently shaking her shoulder in order to get her attention. With a soft whisper of her name, Julie stirs and squints up at Luke. She releases a whine and pulls the covers over her head. 

Luke’s eyes widen and he freezes for a second because, what the hell is he supposed to do? This situation is normally the other way around. He spots Julie’s phone on her desk and he makes a dash for it, knowing that she has the doctor’s phone number saved. 

“Come on, come on,” he mutters under his breath as the phone rings in his ear. He almost yells in success when the doctor’s voice comes through the phone but he is immediately offended by what the man says. 

“Is your boyfriend sick again Miss Molina?” Luke scoffs and responds in an equally sassy voice, because if Luke Patterson is anything, it’s petty. 

“No, actually Miss Molina is the one sick this time,” He waits for the reply, expecting another dig at him but the doctor shows immediate concern and asks for her symptoms. In that moment Luke realizes he doesn’t know what Julie’s symptoms are and has a weird need to turn to his mom (who isn’t there) and have her answer the questions. “Hang on a second.” 

He goes back to Julie’s side and does his best to get her to say something to him. He tells her that if she tells him what hurts he’ll get her ice cream, not actually expecting it to work. Seconds later, Julie is telling him all of her symptoms which he promptly repeats to the doctor on the other end of the call.

He tells her that it is better to bring her in so he can test her for different sicknesses but the one that caught Luke’s ear, is strep. He got strep (unsurprisingly) when he was younger and although he doesn’t remember all the details, he remembers it sucks. 

He coerces Julie to take a warm shower, insuring her that she will feel much better when she does. With a disgruntled noise and a lot of protest, Luke gets her to the bathroom. As she showers he changes her sheets and gets her favorite hoodie of his from his dresser. He places them on the counter for her and then sits by the door, leg bouncing up and down with anxiety. 

A few minutes later he is driving a sleeping Julie to the doctor’s office where they confirm that she does in fact have strep throat. Julie whines about getting her ice cream to ease her sore throat and he makes her promise that she will eat the chicken soup the doctor recommended first. He get’s to CVS and gets all of the medication the doctor prescribed as well as a pint of Julie’s favorite cookie dough ice cream and a few cans of chicken noodle soup. He can’t cook okay?

He tucks Julie into bed, giving her all the extra pillows so she can sit up as Luke heats up the soup. Julie grumbles about it being from a can and Luke does his best to assure her that it’s good, which includes him having to eat his own bowl of it. She falls asleep immediately after finishing the soup and Luke stays next to her, running fingers through her curly, still slightly damp hair. 

He is scrolling through his phone when Julie starts to stir, a noise of pain exiting her lips followed by a whine. 

“Hurts,” She whispers, cuddling closer to Luke. His heart aches for her and he pulls her even closer, kissing the top of her head. 

“I’m sorry Jules. Anything I can do?” He feels her nod and he looks down at her surprised. “Really? What do you need?” 

“Ice cream,” She mumbles into his chest and Luke’s shoulders start shaking with silent laughter. When he tries to get up, Julie clings to him and he has to remind her that she has to let go in order for him to get her the ice cream. She reluctantly allows him to leave and smiles the brightest she has all day when he comes back with Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough and a big spoon. She quietly enjoys her ice cream as Luke starts up a movie on his laptop. 

Luke spends the rest of the day emailing both his and Julie’s professors which takes much longer than he expects since he only has the use of one arm, Julie clinging to the other one tightly. The response from their professors are about the same, telling them to make sure to do their readings and whatnot. Eventually, when it is already late and dark outside, Luke shuts his laptop and goes to sleep. 

The next day, when Julie is a bit more lucid she pushes Luke off the bed in a haste. He yells out a string of profanities as he hits the floor and Julie looks at him incredulously. 

“Why are you in my bed? I’m going to get you sick!” Luke rolls his eyes as her hand goes to her neck, immediately regretting raising her voice. 

“Really Jules? You literally have taken care of me dozens of times. If you think that I’m not doing the same for you, then you’re insane. I love you and I’ll do anything for you. So lay back down while I heat you up some soup.” Luke gets back up and pushes her back into a laying position. 

Julie complains about it but agrees to his conditions quickly, not really having much energy to argue. She is much less clingy, now fully aware that she could let Luke sick if they’re not careful. 

Luke finds that taking care of Julie isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He teases Julie about her always complaining after he gets sick and she reminds him that she is much less of a nuisance than he is, which Luke supposes is true. After a week of Luke fighting Julie to take her medicine, long whines, five pints of ice cream, and a whole lot of naps, Julie is feeling much better. Luke says it’s all thanks to him, and Julie agrees with him for the sole reason of seeing him smile after she does so.

The most surprising part though, Luke doesn’t get sick and to them, that is a win within itself. 

(He does end up with a twenty-four hour virus going around campus about three weeks later but that’s a story for another time.)