#i have had a few solid years of positive body image

[lanotteviene]

(body image tw)

it is almost dizzying how ugly - in the sense of both aesthetically and also. in a general way, slightly repulsive and weird-looking - I've been feeling lately, and yet seeing 1 picture of disha patani, a woman i look nothing alike if not for our prominent features, has made me feel bizarrely soothed 

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Mr. Walz

Featuring Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

Back in the late ‘90s, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and now Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, was a high school teacher and football coach in rural Minnesota. I attended Mankato West from 2000-2004, having Walz for 11th grade history. Being gay at the time, I initially expected to hate Walz, because he was a football coach and a hunter. But he was accepting and really friendly with me; with everyone really. He’s genuinely the goofy teacher that was in the hallway greeting every kid every morning, giving high fives and fist bumps. He and his wife, also a teacher at the school, provided vital support during my formative years. And to be honest, I thought he was cute.

He was in his late 30s and about 21 years my senior at that time, about my height, which is just shy of five foot-nine. He was chiselled like most middle-aged men with a gut. He dressed conservatively, usually a short sleeve solid colored shirt with a tee shirt under it and trousers which seemed to be a few sizes too small. I couldn’t help but find myself staring at his tightly held manhood, which showed a clear outline of his thick cock. That bulge had me daydreaming during our meets and school outings. I would jerk-off with this image in my mind every night.

After graduation, I didn’t see my ex-teacher again until I attended a campaign dinner in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. He instantly recognized me, smiling broadly and gave me a big hug. We’re talking 20-something years ago, and to have your 10th-grade geography teacher remember you after all of that time, it means something. I couldn’t call him Gov. Walz, because he will forever be Mr. Walz.

We talked a bit then, and a couple times throughout the evening. He asked me about what I was up to, if I was dating, the usual chit chat. I was so giddy to see Mr. Walz that I confessed that I had a crush on him in high school. I told him I thought about him every night when I jack off. How I use a big carrot up my ass, and pretend it was his dick. And I told him I knew he would never like me, that way, but I had to tell him.

Surprisingly, he suggested I should come over to his hotel, later, placing his hotel room card on the edge of the sink right next to me.

"Wait here, I'll have an agent escort you to my room in an hour." He said before leaving. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but no one had, so I quickly grabbed the key.

Sure enough, an hour later, a secret service agent escorted me to his hotel. The journey upstairs was unbearable. Reporters to dodge, people for the agent to nod away. By the time I got to Mr. Walz’s room, I was afraid he’d think I wasn’t’ interested, but when I entered the room, he was ready and waiting. The lights were dim, Mr. Walz was in a hotel bathrobe, and he’d ordered porn on the television.

"Is this what you really want?" I asked.

"More then anything." He replied.

I made the first move, leaning in to kiss him and as soon as our lips met, his arms went around me. Quickly, he started unbuttoning my shirt, unzipping my pants, and basically tearing my clothes off as he moved his tongue around inside my mouth. His hand was on my hard dick, feeling and testing the size.

"Oh, yeah." He moaned, as he ran his hand down my tender, sensitive cock before squatting.

With his mouth at my crotch, he ran his tongue up all seven inches, before gently pushing me towards the bed. On the bed, our bodies melded into one. His hard dick was teasing mine, as once again, our tongues found the other's mouth. Hands everywhere, as we hugged and rocked each other. Kissing my way down his chest, I left a trail of saliva all the way to his cock. Taking him in my mouth, I began to suck while I swirled my tongue around his boner before he started thrusting into my throat, making me gag. I guess he got pretty turned on by what I was doing to him as he turned me around and put us into 69 position.

As Mr. Walz took my dick in his mouth, I took his dick in mine. I worked on it with such skill that he began moaning deep inside his throat as he sucked my dick. And he could really suck; he knew how to please a man. I began to feel him starting to breathe rapidly and shake. I knew he was going to explode soon. I was getting close as well.

Wanting Mr. Walz to fuck me, I quickly seperated, and rolled off the bed leaving him laying there completely naked with a huge hard-on. Hurrying to my pants, I pulled a tube of lubrication out of his pocket before I bounded back to the bed. After telling him I wanted him to fuck me, I tensely watched as Mr. Walz applied the lubricate to his cock, knowing the pain I was about to feel. I couldn’t help but thinking back to my high school years when I first saw him. I had always wanted Mr. Walz to fuck me since then. Now was the time.

“You got a nice tight asshole.” Mr. Walz told me as he rubbed some of the KY onto my asshole.

He lifted my legs and stared me straight in the eyes as he guided the head of his cock to my ass. As soon as his dick made contact, he immediately thrust all 8 inches into me. I gasped loudly, so loudly in fact that I’m sure the people in the next room heard.

“I’m going to really open up your asshole.” Mr. Walz called out with a wicked smile on his face as he slowly started fucking me.

Noticing each time the fat head of his cock passed my hard prostate, pre-cum would squirt from the tip of my dick. He reached down and scooped it up with his finger, brought it to his mouth and licked it clean.

"Oh, man, that's good." He said, as he scooped up more, but I pulled his finger to his mouth, and sucked it in.

We smiled at each other before he leaned forward and kissed me deep, our tongues caressed each other, sharing my pre-cum. Then as we kissed he sent his cock plunging deeper into me. I arched my back as I was forced to take more cock deeper into my ass than ever before.

“Yes, fuck me, Mr. Walz.” I found myself saying when he broke our embrace, “Give it to me, Mr. Walz. Make me yours!”

And he did just that. Mr. Walz started fucking me hard and fast. I took each of the strokes of his his old manhood willingly. I wanted to give him total pleasure and I could tell from the far away look in his eye that the old man was as lost in me as I was in him. I knew he was getting close, and I didn’t want to stop him, so I didn’t say a word about pulling out. Having only had sex with his wife for all those years, he didn’t think of it either. Soon he was filling my ass with ropes of cum, and I felt it filling me up.

After we got off and caught our breath, he looked at me and we both started laughing and telling each other how glad we were that we'd just met up today.

[jkoningen]

Pregnant? || Part One || [Sapnap x Fem!Reader]

Summary: You and Nick have been together for two years, planning significant events for your near future, unaware of a new event that suddenly happened.

— AN: Wow, I finally wrote something other than a blurb or chat. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, let me know if you want me to continue writing it;)

Pairing: Sapnap x Female Reader

Content Warnings: Some curse words, talk of pregnancy; nothing too juicy, yet.

not my image.

_

You and Nick have been dating for two years, and it’s been magical.  There was the occasional argument, but you two worked it out.  He may be a famous YouTuber, but you were an accountant; you didn’t know much about his career, but every time he spoke about it, you listened.  You finally made it into a steam he hosted, presenting you as his girlfriend a year into the relationship, and didn’t do too many with him after; that was his career, and you were just his supporter.

When it came to having a good time, Nick wasn’t one to use protection. He loved the intimacy.  You didn’t mind, being on birth control, and he had a suitable pull-out game; you weren’t too worried about it until a few weeks went by, and suddenly you were due for a period, but then never got it.  You looked over your birth control packet to see if you missed a pill, but you didn’t, and then you thought back to remember if he pulled out, and suddenly you couldn’t remember if he did.

Panicking, you went to the drug store and bought two pregnancy tests; to make sure one wouldn’t fool you.  Arriving back at your apartment in a rush, you realize you couldn’t pee.  You were so stressed you couldn’t feel the urge.

You and Nick didn’t live together; you were planning on it, getting bills figured out as you would be moving into a different place. He wanted something close to George and Clay.

You sat on the couch and closed your eyes while leaning back, trying to control your breathing and body.  It seemed like minutes passed before you felt the urge to pee, standing and running into the bathroom with the tests.  Popping a squat, you opened both packages and took turns peeing on them, resting the tests on the bathtub while you finished up.  After washing your hands, you looked in the mirror, and soon your head was filled with scenarios of what Nick would think.

I can’t believe you let this happen!  We’re not ready to be parents!  I don’t want to have kids.  We can’t do this together; I can’t do this.

Tears rolled down your cheeks when your eyes opened.  Sighing, you took a deep breath and finally looked at the tests on the tub: POSITIVE.  Fuck.

You always knew you could handle being pregnant and having a child, but you and Nick never really got into having kids, so you weren’t 100% sure what his thoughts would be.  You would’ve liked to be married first and living with the father, but life happens; that’s what you kept telling yourself as you picked up the phone after dialling Nick's contact.  The phone rang and rang.  No one picked up.

You tossed your phone on the counter and sighed heavily, running your hands through your hair.  Suddenly, your phone rang, and it was Nick.  Slowly picking up the phone, you answered and put it to your ear.  “H-hello?”

“Hey, baby, was just in the shower.  What’s up?”

“There’s something I need to tell you, and I just want you to know I don’t want you to feel pressured to stick around or anything, but,”

“Hey, hey.  What are you talking about?  Are you leaving me?”  His voice was now full of worry.

“No, no, but you may be leaving me.”  You paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I’m pregnant.”  There was silence for a few solid moments before he cleared his throat and spoke.

“How far are you?”

“I’m not too sure.  I would say maybe a few weeks.” Another moment of silence.

“Okay, okay, no problem-”

“I’m so sorry, I kept taking my pill, but it’s only 97% effective.”

“It’s fine, baby, listen.  I’m going to come over. I just need to get dressed.  I’ll see you soon.”  He hung up, and you didn’t know how to feel.  There was a neutral feeling in your chest, not knowing your true emotion at that point in time.

[dancuny]

Robot Royal 36 Camera

Being a big fan of The Robot cameras and having done an earlier blog post on the Robot Luftwaffen Eigentum camera, I wanted to get a camera I could use when we went on vacation or just out for the weekend. Years ago, I came across an excellent and working condition Robot Royal 36 camera. It was from an online auction, so I made a relatively low offer and won it.

 When I received it, I was surprised by the weight and heft of this particular camera. I put it through routine tests to see if the shutter was indeed opening and closing, which it was. The lens was clean, another positive, and the transport was active and in good working condition.

 When COVID hit, I was laid off from one of my favorite jobs. I started writing my camera blog. After being off work for ten months, I got hired for a better position and loved the job, company, and boss, but I put the camera on my shelf for the next four years until I recently retired and started writing my camera blog again.

History:

Otto Berning & Co. started in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1933. Otto Berning and Co. began to manufacture amateur cameras in 1934 when a young watchmaker in his 30s, Heinz Kilfitt, designed the first compact camera for what Robot would be so well known for. The design had a spring-loaded motor winder, a unique item brought to the camera industry due to his watchmaking skills. Heinz Kilfitt also designed the camera to have a 24x24mm film format. He offered the format size to both Kodak and Agfa, who rejected it, so he sold the design to a young Hans Berning, who was only 23 and worked for his father's company. 

 Robot cameras provide a film format of 24x24mm on most of their cameras. An advantage of the 24x24mm frame size was that the photographer could get 50 images on a roll of film instead of the standard 36 in the traditional 24x36mm format. Another advantage was that there was no need to turn the camera for vertical shots.

Some unique features of the Robot cameras are that they use a rotary shutter and sprocket film drive system, which are more common in the cine cameras of the time. Robot cameras also have a 90-degree switchable viewfinder, allowing the photographer to point the camera in a different direction while looking through the viewfinder and taking photos. All the cameras have a winding motor of film advance system that allows the photographer to wind the motor and shoot rapidly up to 5-6 frames on a single wind, depending on the camera.

 Robot also provided either Carl Zeiss or Schneider-designed lenses on their cameras, which gave the photographer unparalleled sharpness in their images. The cameras were die-cast zinc and stamped stainless steel bodies chalked full of clockwork inside, and they are very sturdy and extremely well made, a testament to the high-quality materials used in their construction. 

During WWII, Robot produced cameras for the German Luftwaffe to put on their Stuka dive bombers. After the war, Robot continued producing high-end cameras like the Robot Star and Junior cameras. Robot produced the Robot Royal in three formats, with a few feature and film format variations. 

My Camera:

My model is the Robot Royal 36, model III, and it has the film format of 24x36, the most common film format for 35mm cameras. My camera has a Schneider Xenar 45 mm f2.8 lens. My camera has a Schneider Xenar 45mm f2.8 lens. It measures 5.5" wide x 3" tall x 2.75" deep from the front of the lens to the back of the camera and weighs a whopping 2 lbs. 0.4 oz. That's the first thing I noticed when I unwrapped the camera. This is a very solid and well-built camera with unique features that set it apart from other cameras. 

To open the camera, as you hold the camera there is a chrome tab with etching on it on the left side. With your thumb, you lift that and the latch and open the back of the camera. Unlike most 35mm cameras, this camera has a take-up spool you need to load the leader into as opposed to just putting the film leader into the take-up slot, and the camera takes up the film. You need to take the take-up spool apart and thread the film leader into the spool, then put the cassette back together and load the film and take-up cassette into the camera. Then fire two frames, and you're ready to go.

My camera has shutter speeds from 1/2 sec to 1/500 sec, along with B for timed exposures. The bottom of the camera has a winding mechanism that allows me to fire 12 photos at full wind, which takes me about ten and a half cranks to wind fully.

 The rangefinder on my camera is very bright and easy to focus. The other significant item about the Robot camera and lens system is they allow the photographer to shoot with zone focusing, which is fantastic for street photography. The lenses have yellow, green, and blue dots, which correspond to the colored apertures on the lens. The lens's apertures 2.8 and 5.6 are in yellow, F8 is in green, and f16 is blue. All you need to do is match up the color dot on the focus dial and the aperture used, and the lens shows you your depth of field. This procedure is similar to all other lenses, but the color coding makes the system more "user-friendly."

Removing and reattaching the lens of the Robot Royal 36 is simple. A tabbed collar at the bottom of the lens, when moved to the left, allows the lens to be detached. To reattach the lens, align the two red dots and slide the collar counterclockwise. This careful procedure ensures the lens is securely in place.

Once I shot the film, One the back of the camera and to the right of the viewfinder is a switch with a green dot for regular forward film transport, there is a red dot which closed the viewfinder half way and "R" for film rewind. I put the camera in the "R" position and reminded the film as a regular 35mm camera procedure. On the bottom front of the camera are the flash sync ports for "X" (electric flash) or "M" (bulb flash) settings.

Results:

 I took a roll of film, put it through my camera, and walked around my backyard to see how the camera performed. This is the first time I got to shoot with the camera since I bought it 4-5 years ago, and there were a few anomalies in the camera. There seems to be a slight light leak, but to be 100% transparent, the film I used was old, and one I had shot just a few frames with and rewound the film with the leader exposed more than ten years ago, so I can't 100% blame it on this camera.

Conclusion:

While Leica has the prestige, Robot and Alpa are probably the best-built cameras in terms of craftsmanship and overall quality. The camera is excellent, the lenses are fantastic, and it offers things built into the system, like motor advancement and an excellent feel. I had a great time shooting with it, and I need to run a fresh roll of film through this beauty more often.

Thank you for taking time from your busy day to review this blog.

Until next time, please be safe.

[themunofprovidence]

I maxed out my tags so that’s why they end abruptly

OK but trans hunter is so funny to me

Cus

There's a few different things to consider here

Are All the grimwalkers trans???

Did Philip Know Caleb was trans??

Or did he make the first grimwalker n be like, hmmm,,,, that's,,, not quite right, must have gotten the spell wrong,,

Only for it to Keep happening

He's also like, a witch hunter christian from the 1600s, maybe he just Assumes it's a grimwalker thing??? His mind can't like, think up any other explanation

And if it always happens

Does he just raise them as boys, does Hunter even know he's trans??? Dudes never been around other kids his age, so like, gender stuff prob just confuses him

Or does belos just like, sit around, waiting for the next grimwalker to come up to him and awkwardly and timidly explain that they would prefer to be seen as a boy actually,

Only to be pleasantly surprised with how well belos took it, not knowing this is the 45th time he's done this

[starseed-twenty]

🌌 Jupiter in the Houses 💫

- Jupiter in 1st 💎

* Jupiter in 1H people are people who most likely have big features on their face/body (e.g, big eyes, big lips, a big forehead, big thighs, etc.)

* When you get to know them you'll probably find that they are the most confident people you've ever met (but they don't necessarily boast too much about it). They may even be too confident and it can manifest as arrogance.

* Fortune is not too scarce for them (throughout their life). They may have gone through rough patches here and there, but they always try and look at the positive side, and thus, positivity (fortune) comes in easily for them too.

- Jupiter in 2nd 💎

* I think this one is pretty obvious. People with 2H Jupiter are fortunate when it comes to finances, possessions, skills and luxury. Jupiter gives these people an abundance of what the 2nd house holds: money, assets, wealth, talents/skills, so they do find luck (if not now then later) when it comes to these things.

* Most likely they enjoy boasting (maybe in a lowkey way) about the things they have. From luxurious items, to their skills and abilities to do something, to their body (2H also rules the body).

* They also most likely hold many values, ethics & priorities and try to keep up to their many values.

- Jupiter in 3rd 💎

* People with this placement may be individuals who like to talk or enjoy thinking and talking or communicating to a bunch of people. People also just seem to be drawn to their way of communicating. They may even be digitally well-known.

* These people may also have a number of siblings, friends or cousins and probably get along with them well. It's not likely that they are lonely or have too few family members or friends [unless their Jupiter is badly aspected].

* They most probably also have a lot of activities or interests. This could range from hobbies they have, to a collection of something (movies, books, magazines, etc.) or social activities they're part of (such as clubs, societies, bands, etc.).

- Jupiter in 4th 💎

* Having Jupiter in the 4th house can make someone rather fortunate when it comes to foundations/groundwork. They've had good, proper and solid foundations throughout most of their life. This can range from forming a plan, to starting a business, to developing a hobby that ends up being something substantial.

* The 'Jupitarian abundance effect' for them might take on mostly the family department. They most likely also have a big home or family whom they really love and feel blessed to have.

* These individuals may also be pretty connected to their background/heritage. They really do try to connect with their roots and see the good in aligning with where (they feel) they come from.

- Jupiter in 5th 💎

* 5H Jupiter people are probably fortunate when it comes to the romance department. They like to meet people who seem very compatible with them and they gel really well. However, Jupiter likes to give things easy and give things a lot. Meaning, these romances don't last too long cause there's another one waiting.

* On the other side, these people may also have an abundance when it comes to children and have a lot of babies.

* They also probably have a ton of hobbies, or go out/have gone out a lot. They enjoy having fun out with the people they love. They also most likely enjoyed their teenage/adolescent phase, doing many things throughout their high school years.

- Jupiter in 6th 💎

* People with 6H Jupiter are often people who constantly have work or jobs to do or that they create for themselves. They enjoy it though, because Jupiter (being a positive planet) makes them see the positive side to it. This can then make them quite busy people.

* They most likely (lowkey) have an obsession with their body, how their body looks, how they should treat/feel about it, and what they eat. This is a stretch, but they may also be people who like to eat weird stuff or exotic stuff. Always trying things out.

* Most 6H Jupiter individuals also like pets/animals or have at least one pet/animal.

- Jupiter in 7th 💎

* People with this placement often meet plenty and various people throughout their life. And from the people they meet, they take or learn something. They almost never meet someone for no reason.

* They probably have this thing of giving people the benefit of the doubt. So they always try and see the positive in people, and have belief in the things they say.

* Similar to 5H Jupiter, they are fortunate in the romance department. They meet amazing people and get all carried away, falling in love in 0.2 seconds. Unfortunately, with Jupiter comes abundance, so these don't last as long as they'd hope for because the romance department is making room for more.

- Jupiter in 8th 💎

* Jupiter in 8th house people relatively receive an abundance of karmic experiences. They may suffer from one thing at some point, but eventually that suffering ends and breeds a new life within them.

* They may also suffer from feeling indebted though. It's like they see something great about giving to someone. Whether it be their family, friends, people from their past, or anyone, they have this sense of constantly giving [and sometimes giving their all to something too].

* This is a bit of a stretch, but these people (when they're emotionally/mentally healthy) can be some of the most iconic individuals. I see a lot of icons with this placement.

- Jupiter in 9th 💎

* Most 9H Jupiter individuals are either the most open-minded or the most closed-minded people you'll ever meet. Their way of thinking and sense of higher-knowledge is unique. You could either find it easy or hard to speak to them because of the beliefs they have.

* In general though, they are thought-seeking people who just love experiencing things. From travelling, to dates, to debates, to talking about dreams, etc.

* Fortunately, they also have their Jupiter where Jupiter enjoys being placed. The 9th house is naturally a good house for Jupiter because Sagittarius rules the 9th house and Jupiter rules Sag, so these lucky-stars live life with a bit of ease, connecting comfortably with the abundance that Jupiter has to offer.

- Jupiter in 10th 💎

* People with Jupiter in 10th are really fortunate. Not only to have this placement because this is pretty much the best one, but to have fortune when it comes to their career and public life.

* They are perfectly fit for the career or jobs they would like, they gain a lot of experience (pleasant experience too) in their field of work, and are seen as admirable/have a prestigious position.

* Their life can be focused too much on their career though if they don't also dig deep into their roots and appreciate their loved ones, so it's best they try to balance it out to live a successful life.

- Jupiter in 11th 💎

* Having Jupiter in 11th house can mean you connect with a group or groups of people in quite a beneficial way. There is an abundance and fortune when it comes to you involving yourself with certain groups, the community, societies, or social media.

* So 11H Jupiter is a pretty favourable placement for people who would like to one day be famous. If you have Jupiter in 11th then connecting with a large mass of people, mainly on social media, should not be too difficult or harmful for you.

* Your goals and aspirations are also ones that don't become too difficult for you as the power of Jupiter makes reaching them pretty easy. So if you're aiming at something, it'd be best for you to push it. Jupiter is with you.

- Jupiter in 12th 💎

* Jupiter in 12th house people, from what I've seen, are pretty spiritual people who typically come across an abundance of karmic experiences or get to see and feel spiritual insights throughout their life a lot.

* They see the positivity and beauty in aligning with spirituality and connecting with the subconscious/retreats from the world and believe that they mainly find their fortune there (which they do).

* These people may, more often than not, find it hard not to dream wild or have a 'grand scale' image of what they want/the things they plan. They keep a lot of hope for the future in that sense. At the same time though, they may get deeply sad (but try to keep it hidden) because they're such hopeful beings; and that sometimes people don't understand them.

Side-note: Having a Jupiter in retrograde can make the advantageous energy that Jupiter gives off a bit wonky or not as efficient/powerful as it normally would, so there are some (not-so-good) side-effects that could come around in your life if you have Jupiter in retrograde.

[theacevampire]

Pool

Pairing: Genma x fem!Reader

Genre: romance, fluff?

Wordcount: ~2.4k

Warnings: language, suggestive, mentioned hookup

Track: Eduard Romanyuta – I Want Your Love

A/N: This is for the first request I ever got, so I hope you like it!

“There are multiple ways to hold it, just remember you make the bridge with your non-dominant hand.” You noticed a senbon coming from behind you, appearing in your visual field, until his hot breath fanned over the shell of your ear. Paralyzed you could only throw it a side-eye. His chest made contact with your back, softly pressing your hips into the table. Instinctively, your upper body moved an inch forward, trying to escape the burning sensation, and your hands darted on the table’s surface to steady your balance. His chest tremored as he chuckled, lightly touching your back in the process, before moving further forward and caging you between his body and the table.

His proximity made your heart race and gave you goosebumps under your shirt, but you did a good job at hiding the impact he had on you. Years in the ANBU entailed a perfect poker face. “You think this will work?”

Genma clicked his tongue and chuckled again, the sound caressing your soul. “It did last time. Now, where were we? Ah yes, the cue.” Placing his left hand on yours, his right one put the cue on the pool table.

“Don’t flatter yourself. That was on the alcohol.”

Without touching upon your remark, he continued, “Just choose which position is the most comfortable for you. For example, you can sprawl your fingers over the surface and guide the cue along your thumb and index finger, like this. Personally, I’m the best with this one.” With his left index finger, he enclosed the cue, resting the tool on his thumb and splaying the remaining three fingers on the billiard cloth. “It helps me keep control over the shot.”

You sneered. “Yeah, I figured you like being in control.”

Soft lips brushed over your neck and his senbon graced over your collarbone, the chill of the metal seeping through your shirt. “I remember you being more than willing to submit to that.”

Heat crept up your neck as shreds of that night a few weeks ago flashed before your inner eye. Images of him hovering over you, a film of sweat covering his forehead with a reflection of pleasure on his face, and others of him holding your back against his chest, his hand on your throat and his lips on your neck. The sound of your ragged breaths, both of you panting, and skin slapping on and brushing over skin echoed in your ears.

Still, you let nothing of your inner turmoil show on the surface. “So? I merely stated an observation I made; I didn’t voice an opinion.”

“So, you’re not here to reiterate that night?”

A sigh slipped past your lips and you thanked every god – existing or not – it wasn’t shaky but sounded annoyed. “I told you I’m here because I need someone to teach me the rules of pool, so I can win the stupid bet I made with Asuma when I was drunk.”

His breath fanned over your ear once again. “You need me, huh?” When you didn’t react, his presence disappeared behind you and the thick tension between the two of you vanished. Now he was the one to sigh and say, “Damn. The Hokage Rock is more expressive than you.”

Your muscles you hadn’t noticed tensing relaxed and you took another relieved, deep breath. Grabbing the cue, you got into position for the break shot. “Back to topic: Whether I have to pocket the solids or the stripes I determined when one of us pockets the first one. If you pocket a solid one first, I got the stripes and vice versa, right?”

“Correct. Except for balls pocketed in the break.” He removed the rack around the balls and took a step back from the table, crossing his arms before his chest and giving you a challenging smirk. “Let me see what you got.”

Your break shot scattered the balls across the table, several hitting the cushion and one stripe stopping conveniently near a pocket. Unfortunately, the cue ball was surrounded by multiple other balls, making it a little complicated to pocket the single ball. “Since the table is open, it’s not a foul if I hit a solid ball before pocketing a stripe, does it?”

Genma nodded. “Also correct.”

“In that case...” You shot the cue ball so it hit the solid in just the right angle for it to hit the stripe which then fell into one of the pockets. “I got the stripes.”

Hands resting on the tip of his cue, he watched you, admiring you. “You’re learning fast. I see why you’re in the ANBU.”

You managed to pocket two more before your shot wasn’t hard enough and you missed pocketing another ball by an inch. Nonchalant you stepped back from the table, giving Genma a nod. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Your turn.”

His face did nothing to hide how impressed he was. Not only by your quick learning but also by how uninterested you were in his flirting. His brain couldn’t wrap around the fact the person leaning over the pool table was the same person who had fucked with his mind, making him question his determination to be a single. You got under his skin. Not because you returned his flirting, his banter, his sarcasm and not because you were flustered by him, acting shy, giggling. No. You got under his skin because you didn’t. While others would’ve laughed, rolled their eyes or retorted something at his comment about your expressiveness, you hadn’t reacted at all. And that’s what threw him off. He wasn’t used to his flirting and antics getting ignored.

Before your hookup a few weeks ago you had been acquaintances as you were friends with Yamato and Kakashi since their time in the ANBU, so he didn’t know you very well though Anko had merely shrugged her shoulders and answered that’s just how you are when he had asked her about you. Much to his dismay, she had then asked why he asked and he couldn’t even explain how the two of you had landed in his bed that night, so he had come up with the lame excuse he had simply wondered what kind of person you were.

“Not your type”, she had replied to that. Little did she know... Especially since she seemed to be right as you resisted every other attempt of him flirting since then. Had it really only been the alcohol?

For the first time a woman wasn’t running after him and he wished you did. There was this inexplicable urge to impress you, make you fall for him like he had fallen for you. Oh, what he would give to have you on that pool table, to wake up next to you, to kiss you first thing in the morning.

A knocking sound pulled him from his daydream. You had tapped your cue on the edge of the pool table, your features stoic as ever. “Are you gonna stand there all night or can we continue?”

“Sorry, I was just enjoying having a beautiful woman in my apartment.” With his ever so smug grin he swiftly pocketed two of his own balls, unfortunately missing a third in the following shot and hitting your suit first, thereby leaving you in the lead.

Not a single muscle in your face twitched at his excuse. You only leaned over the cushion again and Genma couldn’t stop his eyes from roaming over your perfect curves. He bit down on his senbon to keep any noises from slipping past his lips.

Another one of your balls landed in a pocket, simultaneously pocketing one of his in the one across, before you looked at him again. “I’m surprised you’re still hitting on me. I thought you only hook up with someone once and despise when they run after you afterwards.”

Because you were different. You practically ran away from him with the sun rising the morning after, declining his offer to make you breakfast. He was convinced you would’ve had left his apartment silently like the shinobi you were, had he not woken up by you moving out of bed. You had awoken the instinct to chase after you in him. Not that he would tell you.

“Can’t I make an exception?”, he asked with a shrug, desperately concealing just how much you affected him. Nervously he played with his senbon, rolling it from one side to the other.

You walked around the table to shoot from the other side, eyeing Genma in the process and his twitching senbon didn’t go unnoticed by you. “You can. I just didn’t expect me to be said exception when you have enough women throwing themselves at you. So why would you choose me who’s even less emotional than – and I quote – the Hokage Rock?” With ease another one of your balls landed in a pocket.

He clicked his tongue. “And I didn’t expect you to rip me off like this. Why did you ask me for help if you’re winning easily here?”

“I never said I couldn’t play, I just needed someone who goes through the rules with me, like what actions count as a foul, how the turn-taking works.” Your eyes scanned the balls on the table. With every ball pocketed it got harder to strike your own suit instead of Genma’s.

“Touché. Though I’m still questioning why you asked me of all people to help you. After what happened I thought you wouldn’t turn to me.”

Your body froze. The hand holding the end of your cue tightened its grip until your knuckles were white and you gulped. You could only hope Genma didn’t notice your eyes widening. Truth to be told, you weren’t sure yourself, it had just felt right to ask him. “You’re the only with their own pool table and what happened was a casual hookup, I don’t see how that would affect our relationship.”

Although Genma had noticed your hesitation, causing him to suspect there was more, your words hit home. Not knowing what to do or say, he could only watch you pocket the last three balls of your suit, leaving only the solids and the black ball on the table.

“Left one over there”, you said, tongue suddenly heavy, designating the pocket you chose for the last ball. Pocketing this one was easy, but it felt oddly conclusive. The air felt sticky, thick, crushing and you couldn’t bring yourself to move. You only stared into the void with your mind blank.

You didn’t know how much time had passed when Genma clearing his throat lifted the fog off your mind. “How about something to drink?”

Still numb, you nodded before managing to straighten up your upper body, barely noticing him leaving for the kitchen. You took a deep breath to clear your thoughts and lift the weight on your chest. You liked Genma and judging by his demeanor he liked you too, so what was holding you back?

In the next room, Genma did the same, calming his nerves and contemplating giving up on winning you over. ‘One last try’, he promised himself. Grabbing two glasses and a water bottle, he came back to find you sitting on his pool table, legs dangling of the edge.

He put the glasses on the billiard cloth, filled them with water and handed one to you. Your fingers trembled when reaching for it and bringing it to your lips. He sipped on his own when you mustered up the courage to talk.

“It felt right to ask you. When I thought about it, you were the first person coming to my mind.” You paused for a moment before continuing, “To be honest, I like spending time with you. You’re fun to be around.”

His characteristic smirk tugged on his lips. He hadn’t made the wrong decision when choosing to pursue you. “How could you not? I’m a pretty awesome person.” When you only looked at him expressionless, he added, “And so are you.” Propping his hands on either side of your thighs, he looked deep into your eyes, searching for any signs of uneasiness only to be met with pure affection. “There’s a reason I kept flirting with you, because somehow you managed to make me question my bachelor lifestyle.”

Hiding your feelings was significantly easier when he couldn’t see your face this close. With your noses brushing against each other he saw your dilated pupils in your widened eyes, your nostrils moving ever so slightly with every breath you took and your gaze flickering between his eyes and lips.

“But you said–”

Genma shut you up with a kiss. Not a long, deep one. Just one barely long enough for you to process what he was doing, but not long enough for you to react. “I know what I said, but unlike the face on the Hokage Rock, only your facade is made of stone.”

“I’m gonna be away a lot...”

He kissed you again, still not leaving you time to react. “So will I. Kakashi’s the only one with more completed missions than I, so I’m off on a new mission about every week. And I prefer a partner who’s a shinobi as I won’t have to leave someone home alone more often than not.”

“I’m not just a shinobi, I’m in the AN–”

Another kiss. “So? Hayate and Yuugao are happy too.”

“But I’m not good with feelings.”

He chuckled and kissed you again. “Neither am I. All my life since I was a teenager I’ve only slept around, never catching feelings for anyone to the point I questioned myself.”

“But–”

Another kiss. “Will you stop worrying now so I can kiss you properly? Please?”

You nodded, not saying anything, letting him capture your lips in a long-desired, deep kiss. Your body melted into him, your hands found his sides, pulling him closer by the shirt, as his found your hips, pulling your hips closer at the same time. His senbon felt warm in the corner of your mouth, just like his lips.

“Maybe making that bet with Asuma wasn’t so stupid after all”, you mumbled when he pulled away.

Genma grinned, giving you another peck. “About that: Would you like to play another round or would you rather stay like this and do other things?”

[mimzy-writing-online]

Writing Toph Beifong, Advice from a Blind Writer

I’m Mimzy, an actual visually impaired writer and blogger who talks a lot about writing blind characters accurately and sensitively. A while back someone sent me an anon asking how to write Toph more accurately and sensitively.

Anonymous asked: Hi there! Your blog has been super-helpful already - I thought I knew a bit about writing with blind characters, but it turns out there was a lot to learn - but this is more specific. I'm writing a The Last Airbender fanfiction, and one of the characters is Toph. I think the fandom has done a fairly good job of respecting her blindness, but what are some things you'd like to see when people write her? I want to represent the character as best as possible; thanks in advance!

It’s taken a while for me to answer because I have a lot of thoughts about it as both a blind writer and someone who has read a lot of atla fanfiction. So here we go:

Before we get started, I want to mention some things: 

One: I have an entire series for writing blind characters that continues to grow with time and the most up-to-date version can be found pinned as the top post on my blog. There will be a time-stamp for when the post was last edited and a long series of links to all relevant posts on the subject.

Here’s a quick link to that post, but again, all you have to do is click my blog url and you’ll find it immediately.

Two: I’ve noticed something amazing about the atla fandom and I would like to thank you for it. I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers have taken to writing image descriptions for both the fanart and memes you post in the fandom, whether it’s OP including the description or another blogger adding it themselves. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fandom so consistently doing this and that’s incredible. Realizing how many different blogs were picking up this habit has warmed my heart.

I’d like to see writers use her other senses. There’s soooo so much more to her O&M (Orientation and Mobility) than earth sense. 

Beyond sight and earth bending, there’s hearing, touch, smell, taste, sense of direction, hot vs cold, sense of pain, sense of where your body parts are in relation to the rest of you, sense of internal well-being, etc. Before Toph had mastery of her earth bending, she had to have mastery of those too.

Toph also must have very strong opinions about certain smells, sounds, tastes, and textures. Toph is opinionated about everything, and when so much of your understanding of the world depends on senses that most people are ignoring in favor of some other sense you don’t have, it gets frustrating. I’m sure that tree looks pretty but the smell is terrible. Who cares if this fabric looks pretty, it’s scratchy, do. not. like. at. all.

But also in positive ways too. Oh, that flower arrangement looks bland and monochromatic? Who cares, it smells sweet and honey-like. Weird dark cavern with high ceiling and no light? The harmonics are awesome.

Every character probably has a certain sight or image they’re particularly fond of: Katara watching snow fall, or Aang enjoying how small the world looks from up on Appa, or Zuko enjoying the sunrise every morning during meditation. In that line, Toph must have some things personal to her that she enjoys.

I imagine she likes the taste of foods familiar to her childhood, the smell of whatever flowers grew around her home, and the texture of certain kinds of dirt Example: loose dirt probably isn’t the best for seeing, but I think she would enjoy how it feels to run her fingers through it or maybe enjoy the way it softens her perception of the world the same way sighted people like to see colorful, bright lights reflecting off puddles in the middle of rain.

If you struggle with this, that’s okay. I recommend taking some time to think about it for yourself, to find what tastes and smells and textures and sounds you enjoy the most, what makes you feel safe and at home, what brings you comfort, and relate that back to Toph.

In a Modern AU, I want to see Toph have a cane. Even in a Modern AU with bending included in the world building, I think Toph would benefit from having a cane.

The cane has a lot more function than bumping into things. A big part is that it signals to others that you are very obviously blind. Which is a big deal because sighted people are really, really bad at spotting the blind person.

(psst, please stop saying ‘the blank look in her eyes’ because I swear to god it’s been killing me inside for years.)

Also, even in an AU with bending, I think Toph would like the advantage of tapping her cane to create a stronger, more distinct vibration than a small shifting of her weight on her feet. It would have more control.

You could give Toph a guide animal, buuuuuuut, um, Toph is not a guide dog person. Like, there are some people who definitely prefer a guide dog, and some people who definitely prefer a cane, and some who definitely prefer no mobility device at all. Toph does not have the vibes of someone who wants to be both responsible and reliant on an animal when she’s so insistent that she can take care of herself on her own. Toph likes animals, but not that much.

Although, yeah, only 10% of the blind community use mobility devices, so cane and guide dog users are the minority of the blind community, but I stand by the vibe that Toph would love the independence of a cane. Also, it’s almost never ever done. Modern AUs never seem to touch much on Toph’s O&M skills with canes or guide dogs.

I wrote a whole post on everything you need to know about canes, what orientation and mobility is, how you learn O&M, what kind of canes exist, how to use them, how to describe the sensory input a cane gives you, and everything I know about guide dogs from past research.

Honestly, you could give Toph (or any blind character) a cane in any AU, because I fully stand by the theory that canes are a piece of technology that has been invented, lost, and reinvented again and again.

I wrote “I found a piece of lost blindness history” a few months ago after a visit to see my grandparents. My grandmother told me how her blind aunt found a way to write letters by hand to send to my grandmother when she was a child. I speculated on how the long cane has probably been invented and then lost and then reinvented over and over again in history, as well as giving a little history on the growing popularity of guide dogs in the 20th century following World War 1.

About the “blank look in her eyes,” I have a theory to the exact cause and nature of Toph’s blindness.

I know it’s common to think that the milky green color of her eyes is why she’s blind, though I’m not sure how many realize that milky green color is caused by severe cataracts. At least, cataracts is what I assume to be the reason for the color of her eyes. However, people with cataracts still have some remaining sense of light and shadow perception.

Only 9% of the blind community is completely blind, seeing absolutely nothing. The rest have some remaining vision, even if that’s only light and shadow perception or the perception of vague movement.

The percentage of people born completely blind is even smaller.

Toph says that she’s never been able to see, which would lead me to guess that the initial cause of her blindness was a defect with the visual processing part of her brain. I also theorize that the cataracts developed slowly over her very formative years and that she likely wasn’t born with them. For that reason, I think it would have taken a few weeks or months for her parents to realize there was something wrong with her eyes.

Here is a post about the developmental years of blind children and how their life would differ from both sighted children and from someone who went blind as an adult.

What is it like to see nothing?

It’s a concept that sighted people struggle with and I completely understand. I myself didn’t understand the concept of “nothing” until someone explained it as this:

“Imagine trying to see out the back of your head.”

Which, genuinely, imagine that. Try that. Because here’s what I found. There’s no part of my body that can help perceive that. I don’t have eyes there, nor do I have a part of my brain that can process that. Because of this, there is no sense of light or dark, no shape or shadow or movement or depth that I can perceive. There is nothing.

And honestly, it gives me a headache trying to think too much about it.

Toph doesn’t see black, doesn’t have a mental image of it. When people talk about light and dark, Toph has nothing to base the concept on. The closest relation she has to that is silence versus sound, or her earth sense when she’s in the air on Appa versus when she’s on solid ground. But it’s not the same.

I would like to examine the way the show tried to describe Toph’s earth sense, that black void with ripples of white stretching from her feet and outwards. Television is a visual medium so of course their explanation of Toph’s earth sense would be visual, but that’s not what it’s actually like in her head. More accurately, it’s like touching the back of your head to something and feeling what’s solid behind it and what has more give. A wall versus a pillow for example. Slamming your hand on a flimsy table and feeling it rattle under your palm. And for someone so adept at using that sense, she feels not just the table surface under her palm, but the individual rattles down the four legs, how uneven those rattles are because the legs are carved decoratively instead of solid planks, and how the foot of each leg bumps against the ground, and how the floor vibrates in response to the impact, which she feels in both her feet and hand. 

About Toph’s Relationship with Her Parents

It’s not something I see touched on much. There’s been a lot of focus on Zuko and Azula’s relationship with their parents and the abuse, as well as exploration of Sokka and Katara’s trauma with losing their mother, and Sokka looking up to his warrior father while Katara struggles with her abandonment issues.

Please don’t take this as a critique, because there are a few valid reasons for this and I would like to give you some insight on how to explore Toph’s relationship with her parents.

For starters, the show had a lot more reason to focus on Zuko and Azula’s parents, with Fire Lord Ozai being the primary villain and Zuko’s greatest abuser, and Azula’s dependent worship of her father in response to Ursa’s neglect and favoritism of Zuko, which was likely Ursa’s response to Ozai’s favoritism of Azula. Their parents are huge driving motivators for why Zuko and Azula make the decisions and mistakes they do, why they are at one point in the show the villains themselves. (And why I think Azula should get a redemption arc and some healing.)

Katara’s trauma of losing her mother and blaming herself is a huge factor in both her response to the war, her relationship with her bending, and her motherly nature with her friends. The show has to explore that. Just as it has to explore Sokka’s problems with toxic masculinity in response to being the man of his village, and his desire to be a great warrior and leader like the father he idolizes. 

The show needs to explore that to make the plot move forward, and it benefits from these being two sibling sets with different responses to their upbringing and different sibling dynamics, setting them up as foils for each other.

The show also wouldn’t benefit by giving Lao and Poppy Beifong more screen time. Their established character were two nobles who kept as far out of the war as possible and prospered monetarily for it. Poppy was polite and demure and Lao liked to lead the conversation. Unless the gAang decided to return to Toph’s home, those characters had no reason to pop up anywhere in the show. And if they did, they would be a hinder to Toph and her part in the plot as both Aang’s earth bending teacher and as the greatest earth bender in the world, tossing Fire Nation soldiers eight ways to Sunday. 

So truly, I understand that there’s not a whole lot of canon material (comparatively) to go off of when developing this, but I will offer some insight on what is there in canon.

Toph’s relationship with her parents is explored in that it maps out why Toph doesn’t want to be mothered by Katara, why she wants to prove how independent she is, but there’s very little on screen interaction between Toph and her parents.

Toph deeply loves her parents. I think that plays into why she doesn’t want Katara mothering her, because she has a wonderful mother at home who she loves and wants to better understand her, but she had no friends growing up and no older sister, which are the roles she needs and wants Katara to fill. If Toph wanted a mother figure, she would have latched onto Katara. Look at how Zuko never sought out another mother figure but did find a father figure in Iroh as he began to heal from his childhood trauma and separate his self image from his father’s acceptance.

Toph is in a complicated situation, she loves her parents but the way they’re raising her is hurting her in the long run. But Toph can see that their actions are because of their immense love for her. She can see how they would do anything for her. While she never had any examples of how other noble children were treated by their parents, who might have been distant or disinterested or always away for their social and work lives, she was remarkably loved by her parents. Her father put careful thought into her tutors and checked in on her progress. Her mother feared for Toph’s emotional state when she was kidnapped (even if she was incorrect about how Toph would respond), showing genuine empathy for her daughter.

I think their over protective nature became the love language Toph best understood them by, and part of her reasoning for not revealing how capable she was, was because she wanted to keep experiencing that love and care for as long as she could. But it’s not a love language she would put up with from anyone else.

I would like to point out Toph’s genuine excitement to see her mom again in the season finale of Book Two, how badly Toph wants her mom to understand and accept her for who she is.

My thoughts on what Toph can’t do: read, swim, see in the sand, fight things mid-air.

For how incredibly powerful the show makes Toph with her earth bending and the O&M she taught herself through it, they do touch on some of her weaknesses when they come up and find a useful way to showcase them.

The Serpent’s Pass was an excellent example of Toph’s vulnerability in water. From her fear of not being able to see on Katara’s ice bridge to not being able to swim and needing Suki to save her, Toph’s weaknesses putting her in danger added to the excitement and “sitting on the edge of your seat” feeling while watching the episode without turning her into someone who was helpless. She was just in a position where her normal defenses were useless.

Just like the earth benders in the metal prison in the ocean, or Katara having little water in the middle of a desert where her friends needed that water to survive more than she needed it to fight, making her vulnerable later in the show when the insect-wasp things attacked. Just like fire benders being weaker at night, or powerless during a solar eclipse, or a sighted person being lost in the dark. Those were just situations in which the tools you were accustomed to relying on could no longer help you or were taken away.

The show was clever in that it didn’t make her inability to read a direct threat to her safety, but rather as a clever plot device for her to be alone when the sand banders attacked and have to choose between fighting them to save Appa, or holding back an entire fricking building by the tiniest spire on its very top from falling into a void leading to the spirit world. It also showed her weakness to not being able to see or fight as well in sand. Which the show later made an effort to show how she’d improved on that problem in Book Three when she was surrounded by nothing but sand at Ember Island.

Like improving her ability to see in the sand, I would like to see a character teach Toph to swim, or at least float, so that she never feels helpless again. If she took the initiative to improve her sand bending so much, I’m sure she would have learn to swim eventually.

And on the note of reading, I’ve seen some speculation on how Toph could learn to read, whether it’s through using ink that has some percentage of earth mixed in, or developing the sensitivity to feel out the different weight, consistency, and texture of ink on paper. 

I would like to bring your attention to Louis Braille, the blind Frenchman who invented Braille while studying at  the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, the world’s very first school for the blind in Paris France (established 1785). Previously Louis was learning to read through a method in which each letter was pressed into the paper to leave an imprint that someone could feel out with just their fingers.

Louis Braille concluded that raised lettering was impractical because-

1.       It is difficult to read, the letters had to be printed in huge font to be fully felt out and printed on thick paper.

2.       Thick paper means higher quality, more expensive. Larger font means more paper is needed for a single text.

3.       This made it inaccessible due to expense and the sheer volume of a text.

4.       If today’s Braille books are hard to access and giant compared to traditional books, I can’t imagine how inaccessible those raised letter books really were.

The subject of Braille, the start and controversial near downfall to  Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles were discussed in a post about writing a blind character during the Victorian Era.

I’ve heard others complain in the past about fantasy universes in which a sighted person invents a solution to allow the blind to read, when the most effective and longest lived method was invented by a blindman over two hundred years ago and is the standard taught in schools today.

And while I couldn’t easily explain it or how it works because I can neither read Braille nor speak Chinese, I can tell you that Chinese Braille exists and works only slightly differently from the Braille western languages use. So, again, modern AUs especially would benefit from enabling Toph to read Braille and use a computer and phone with screen reader.

But just as easily you could choose not to have her learn to read but rather have sighted people read things aloud to her. Whether it’s in a professional setting as an adult having an assistant who reads and writes for her, or as a cute, fluffy little moment between Toph and another character. Both are just as genuine to the blindness experience.

Blind Jokes

If you ever get around to reading my post about blind jokes, I’d like you to remember that it’s primarily written for people writing original characters and that Toph canonically makes blind jokes, so to take away from that would not be true to her character.

Does Toph’s Earth Sense Negate her Blindness?

It’s a question I’ve seen raised before and discussed by both abled, disabled, and blind people. There are multiple perspectives on it, but my own take on it is that Toph’s earth bending does not negate her blindness, but rather functions very much like the process of learning to use a cane.

She had a tool, a teacher, and she learned to use that tool. Instead of a cane, it was seismic perception and her teacher were blind badger-moles. She spent years learning to earth bend as they do and then continued to take it to new heights as she explored fighting with it on her terms against sighted fighters.

Come to think about it, I would love to see Toph teach another visually impaired or blind earth bender who to see and bend as she does.

Is Toph Good Blindness Representation?

This question was posed to me in the comments of my master post, and my answer was something like this: “Toph is good representation, but she can't be the only type of representation we get. She's the best we had 15 years ago, but there are a million ways to nuance the blindness experiences. Toph's experience being born blind, having very over protective parents, being a small girl in a patriarical and wealth influenced society, having no friends growing up. Those are all great aspects of blindness to show, but there is so much more to explore. As for her blindness and whether or not that's negated, that's also nuanced. She has limits, she's not all-powerful, but she is the best earth bender hands down. More or less, I love Toph, she's a great character, give me like a million more blind characters who are completely different from her.”

I want to see accurate and well-written blind characters become much more common in modern media, and that’s why I started this blog. So if you decide you want to write your own blind character from scratch, feel free to come back and look at some of my other stuff.

End Notes:

I want to thank the anon who sent the original question because it never occurred to me how much the atla fandom would benefit from a post like this. 

You should follow my blog. Along with advice about writing blind characters, I write general writing advice and answer questions about writing, college, plot development, character analysis, and living with blindness. I curate writing advice from fellow writeblrs, write my own image descriptions for writing memes, post about mental health and working/living with ADHD, disabilities outside of blindness, and LGBTQA+ topics. 

[makeitagood0neao3]

Safe Inside

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Word Count: 2,754

Warnings: Non/con. Explicit sexual content. Dark!Peter Parker AU. 18+ only!

The knock on your apartment door couldn't have come soon enough. After a long, tiring day working virtually, all you wanted was your take out, likely still warm from the restaurant downtown. Hair in a messy bun, long shirt covering a pair of shorts you padded to the door. Looking through the peephole, just to be safe. You couldn’t be too careful nowadays.

You opened the door to see your usual delivery guy standing before you, grey Supreme hoodie beneath a black coat, the hood pulled over his head. In his hand were the handles of a plastic bag as he balanced a soda on top of it.

“Greek delivery for a pretty lady in apartment 410?” He asked, barely able to contain his smile.

“Hey Pete,” you greeted, matching his energy. “I just Venmo’d you.”

“You better not have included a tip, Y/N.” Peter handed over the soda and bag before grabbing his phone from his pocket to check for the transaction. “I told you to stop tipping me.”

“I know you did,” you answered smuggly. “But you deserve a tip when you give me life by baklava.” He smiles back before peering into the apartment behind you. He was always doing that; checking, observing. You only ever ordered dinner for one, but that didn’t stop him from being curious. Not one to easily trust, you know the little world you built can be easily destroyed if you let the wrong person in.

He never asked if you were seeing someone or overstepped. The most flirting you had done with this younger man was to tell him that if he got straight A’s this semester at the university, you’d invite him inside for a drink. 

“Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you. I gotta run, but I’ll text you.” He waved and made his way down the hall.

Using your foot to kick your door closed you locked it with your free hand and set the food down on the counter. Setting your Spotify playlist to shuffle on 80’s rock before digging in at your tiny dining room table that barely fits in your small apartment.

You met Peter on a whim. Never one to plan meals out in advance, you were often left to starve or eat cereal for dinner after working. Never one to leave your apartment when it was dark out, you settled for having dinner delivered. Peter was delivery guy on a food delivery app and learned your dinner routine and favorites quickly. Which was surprising, because you couldn’t possibly be the only person in Queens ordering take out every other night.

And he couldn’t be the only delivery guy around, but he somehow became your usual delivery guy and you, his regular. Usually one to get chips as a side at a nearby deli, you didn’t order any one evening. He messaged you No chips tonight?

It surprised you, but you brushed it off, telling him you were cutting back on junk food. He dropped off the meal at your door with a knock, but by the time you opened it, he was gone. Sitting at the top of the paper bag was a bag of your favorite chips.

Always one to drop off your food quickly and not stay to chat, you caught him one night to thank him and tip in cash. Since then, you two would talk in your doorway briefly, mostly keeping your friendship to text as you were both busy. After a year of limited in person social interaction, any casual conversation over your threshold was greatly accepted. One day soon you’d venture outside, but with the availability to have nearly everything delivered, you doubted that day would come soon. You just weren’t ready.

Soon you ditched the app and just text him when you wanted dinner and he dropped it off to you. The price for you didn’t change, but gave him some extra. You honestly didn’t know why he chose to deliver food; he was always dressed extremely nicely in name brand clothes and you later found out he has a lucrative position at Stark Industries.

Once you had asked him why he chose to do this, in the literal rain and snow, and he told you that it was something to do. He got bored often and it was better than sitting in a lab all night. He made it seem like he did this for several people, but you didn’t see how he had the time to.

In the middle of scrolling on your phone, there’s a slow delay in registering what you’re seeing. Shaking your head and blinking hard, the sensation didn’t go away. Your body seemed to relax as a deep buzz set in and your body movements sluggish. Bringing the fork up to your mouth for another bite, you missed completely, the rice pilaf dropping onto the table. You tried for another bite and this time succeeded.

Are you... high?

You tasted the mineral chalkiness before you noticed the white powder poorly mixed into your rice pilaf. Brain fuzzy, you tried to analyze the substance. Thinking it strange, you drank from your take out cup of soda to wash it down. It became harder to swallow each sip, but you had already finished half the meal.

A knock at your door echoes through the wood. Each footstep towards the door bounces between your ears. Struggling with the lock, you finally got it open, your legs almost numb and your arms heavy. On the other side of the threshold stands Peter, his hood over his head, eyes assessing you through his lashes as his head angles down.

“Pete?” 

You feel his arms around you before the whoosh registers in your head. Blinking hard, you are lying on your back, limbs heavy. Some time must have passed, but you can’t be sure.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered from above you. “I think I gave you too much.”

Struggling to keep your eyes open, a shiver blankets your skin. You let out a whine when your tongue refuses to curl with your words. It lies heavy, your jaw loose as you slur out questions.

“Peter?” You try again. Your question is slurred and there’s a pitched whine to your voice.

“Shhh, this is for your own good.”

“Mmph” you mumble, unsure if you actually feel hurt right now at this moment. Your movements are heavy and slow, like running through water. Your back is against something soft that smells like your fabric softener. Your bed. When did you get here?

“I’ve wanted you for so long. Now I can finally have you.” His hands seem to be frantic as he pulls your shorts from your hips and down your thighs before discarding them. Is he frantic or is this normal speed? His coat is gone and he pulls his hoodie over his head, his shirt stuck inside it. He’s next to you a fraction of a moment later

His warm hands graze your hips as he pulls the oversized shirt off of you, the crack of static electricity sparking from your hair as it's pulled through the collar in your ears. His hand gently rests your head back down on the pillow. You whine again and try to cover your bare chest with your small hands. He notices and pulls them away. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he reassures, mistaking your modesty for insecurity. He’s lying on top of you now, chest to chest. The heat of his bare skin as he presses into you, his hands tracing the shape of your waist and hips. He seems to be mesmerized.

“We can’t-” you want to scream, but even you aren’t sure your thoughts matched what came out of your mouth. Your hands try to push him off of you, but he’s too solid, too in control. When that doesn’t work, you slap his chest, but you don’t really feel the impact on your palm. You’re too numb. He grabs your wrist.

“I don’t use my hands to harm and you won’t either.” He says this firmly, eyes locked on yours, but follows up with, “Behave or I’ll have to tie you up so you don’t hurt yourself.” The latter comes out softer, more timid like the Peter you know.

His head dips down as he places sloppy, unpracticed open mouth kisses on your neck and shoulder. Quickly this turns into full sucking. You angle your chin to the side, scanning your nightstand for something, anything to help you. You eye a book, hardcover, heavy hand reaching up to grab for it. Maybe you can hit him hard enough to buy time.

Peter catches your movement and lets out an irritated, though shaky, sigh as it leaves his lips. “What did I say?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, silver device. He grabs both of your arms and places each palm on an iron bar on the headboard before a white, sticky, material shoots from it and seals your hands to it. You pull, but they don’t budge. He tosses it aside and slides down your body as you fight against your restraints.

The cool air brushes against you where your panties were. Vision unfocused, try to reconcile the split image of him and merge it into one. It’s dim in here, but it looks like he has your panties in his fingers as he tosses them aside. He lowers himself to his forearms, eyes never leaving your face. Or you think he’s looking at your face.

His nose brushes against your slit, tentatively, as you flinch. Your tongue is motionless in your mouth, but feels swollen, like it will suffocate you. All the things you want to say are being swallowed in your constricted throat.

His tongue pokes out as you manage to shake your head a fraction bit side to side. It probes your folds, uncertain. It takes him a few attempts, but he seems to find a technique he likes. The flat of his tongue swiping up as he breaks eye contact and his eyes roll back, indulged in the taste of you.

The sight of him enthralled in your most delicate region forces a squeak from you. His eyes snap open and his hands grip your hips a bit harder as he dives his mouth onto you. Seemingly encouraged by your noises and movements.

“You taste so good, baby.” He says, breathless, before he dives back in. Suddenly, his mouth finds your clit and he flicks his tongue against it hard. It’s too much pressure and it has you wriggling, brow furrowed.

He seems to notice this, because he modifies and begins sucking on your clit instead. A shock wave is sent through you, your hips angle up to meet his mouth eagerly. Taking this as a sign to continue, he inserts two fingers inside you, stretching your hole.

Quivering, you try to fight off the orgasm building, thighs clenching his head. He seems superhuman as his fingers never cease their rhythmic curling inside you and his mouth sucks the life from you. Whatever he gave you makes it impossible for you to take deep breaths and the orgasm that drenches your body in sweat steals the air from your lungs. He slows his motions as you ride his fingers and mouth before slowly removing both from you.

He seems proud of himself as he says, “I’ve always wanted to do that to you.” It’s almost endearing, but then you remember you’re drugged and bound.

Stalking you like the prey you are, he crawls up your body and slides his pants and briefs off his hips. He’s already hard as you try to focus your vision on him. Unable to tell how thick he is, you wonder if it will hurt. Perhaps if he caused you pain, your body would snap and find the adrenaline you need to get away. You pull against the bars again, hoping to break free. In the very least, your head lulls side to side in protest.

“I didn’t bring a condom, but we don’t need to worry about that. I’ll always take care of you.” He says, his forearm resting next to your head while his other hand reaches down, lining himself up with you. He pushes forward, breaching your entrance. Removing his hand, it moves to cup your head in his hand, sound muffled as he presses his palm hard against your skull.

Unable to move your head as he cradles it, your eyes flutter, unable to make him out clearly. His eyes penetrate yours, his eyes a deeper brown than you noticed before. His lips are parted as he catches his breath.

He slowly pushes forward, inch by inch. Your wet channel stretches and forms to him as he slips inside you. Despite the heaviness in your limbs and numbing to your skin, you can feel how your body accommodates him. The feeling of him is amplified by his heavy breathing in your ear as he pulls back and slams back into you.

“Fuck, you’re tight.” You try to tune him out, the only thing you really focus on is the wet sound of your slick as he draws more from you. Your body operates on sensation alone and all you can feel is him. He finds a rhythm that seems inhumanly fast as his hips push yours into the mattress harder and harder. 

He presses his chest against yours again and you can’t tell whose body temperature is higher. The desire within you builds. Fighting through the haze, you cry out, spine arching off the bed. The fabric is damp beneath your hips and you wish you could be embarrassed by it.

Both of your breaths grow louder, more frantic. On particular thrusts when he tilts his hips. the tick of his cock angles up to hit your g spot, you let out a moan. Encouraged by this, the corner of his mouth lifts into a cocky smile.

“Louder, baby.” He commands breathlessly, seeming to find his courage.

He lifts his chest from yours and kneels, his hands lifting your hips up with him, your ass no longer on the bed. Grabbing for your ankles, hooking your heels over his brawny shoulders, he slams back into you. His forearm wraps around your shins, holding them in place while his opposite fingers find your sensitive clit. Letting out breathless gasps, you can’t catch your breath or restrain your vocal cords. He continues plowing into you, fingers rubbing diagonally, frantically, against you.

“Come for me, Y/N. Soak my cock.” Something about this version of Peter, this feral side of the sweet delivery guy you thought you knew, makes you come again. Eyes rolling back, your lids closing as his hips become frantic. He squeezes your legs like a lifeline as he comes inside you, a loud grunt from above you.

He pulls out of you and lowers your hips to the bed. The euphoria sets in and your taught muscles relax into the bed. Leaning over you and he connects his nose with yours as he catches his breath. You’re both hot, a thin layer of sweat over your skin, but that could be from whatever he gave you. Your shoulders are stiff and you try to tug again on the headboard.

“Oh,” he chuckles, “those will dissolve soon.”

Abruptly, he gets up, wiping his cock against the inside of your panties, before he slips them back on and settles them on your hips. His come drips out of you and into the panties, keeping you wet and reminded of him. How did this happen? You never let anyone inside the safety of your home.

Moments pass as you process this. Faintly, you hear his feet on the carpet before he’s back in your room, sipping on the soda he brought you.

“Thirsty?” He asks and angles the straw to your mouth.

“My shoulders hurt,” you murmur out.

“Then next time don’t fight me. I think you understand that now, don’t you?”

Even without touching you, he is still inside of you. There is a faint pulsing from your clit that radiates down to the soles of your feet. Rhythmic and matches your pulse as you come down. Your arms and thighs goosebump from the chill in the air and you can feel the balloon in your head deflate. But you’re still unable to respond to him so you lie there, surrendering to his power over you. 

[reidingmelodies]

The Luckiest

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Category: Fluff Word Count: 2k Includes: Dad Spencer, Children, Pregnancy A/N:  I wrote this one for @anxiousblanketqueen’s birthday challenge: Happy Birthday, Jill! ♡ I hope you have an absolutely amazing day!! Main Masterlist

“What’s this, Daddy?” Spencer turned, eyes finding his daughter holding the scrapbook Penelope made for your anniversary a few months prior.  The book held your most cherished memories: from your first meeting to your first dates, to your marriage and the birth of your children.

“Auntie P made that for us, bug,” he explained, bending down to clear the pile of blocks on the floor to make way for her little feet.  She bounded towards him, the book dangling from her arms while she climbed next to him on the couch.

Big brown eyes similar to his own looked up at him, her little lip sticking out in a pout as she pushed the book towards him in a silent question.

She was only five, but she was fully aware that he was incapable of saying no to her; after all, she learned the puppy dog pout from its creator: his wife.

“Come here, love,” he situated his daughter on his lap, laying a gentle kiss on her hairline before opening the book to the first page.

“Is that Mommy?” her fingers moved to trace along the first photo, a still of you and Spencer at Derek and Penelope’s wedding seven years prior. Your eyes were focused off frame, gaze solely fixated on the couple’s first dance, but Spencer’s were glued to your every move.

It was your very first meeting, years of Penelope trying to set Spencer up with her high school best friend had failed up until that point.  Plans to go to bars were halted by last minute cases in different cities, parties in Penelope’s apartment were missed because you had a date lined up, lunch dates with Penelope where she hoped you would finally meet Spencer were ruined because he wouldn’t leave his desk.

Years and years of trying to get you two to meet, and all it took was her and Derek getting married.

If she knew it would have been that easy, she would have gotten hitched years ago.

As luck would have it, you and Spencer had somehow narrowly avoided each other during wedding planning as well.  It was as though the universe had something against you, as if all the signs were screaming that you weren’t meant to be.  But then, on the night the stars aligned for Derek and Penelope the same happened for you, your pre-planned seating arrangement leading you directly into Spencer’s arms and proving the universe wrong.

It was that night that two perfect strangers became stakeholders in one another’s lives, the night when two hearts found the piece that had been missing for too long.  Neither of you knew it then, but a few shared conversations and lingering glances over dinner were enough to change your lives.

“Yeah,” Spencer whispered, smiling at your daughter.  “That’s Mommy”.

And like their words summoned your presence, the front door opened and you walked in, your two year old son’s hand gripped around two of your fingers while your purse hung from your free arm.

“Mommy!” your daughter jumped from her position on Spencer’s lap to wrap her arms around your legs, your body bending to place a series of kisses against her head.

“Hi, Sweet Pea!  Did you have a good time with Daddy?”

“Mm-hmm!” you watched her pigtails bounce as she twirled, her hand moving to hold her brother’s as she walked him towards a tower in the center of the room.  “We played with blocks and read books and looked at a pretty picture of you!”

“Wow!  What picture was it?” but alas, your question fell short on your daughter’s ears, her attention long gone and instead focused on teaching her brother the right way to build a tower.

And honestly, as far as you were concerned that was perfectly okay.  Any moment they were getting along without tears or screams was a win in your book.

“We were looking at the album Penelope made us,” Spencer’s voice carried over the sound of your children’s giggles and you swiftly moved to sit next to him on the couch, thigh to thigh while your head rested against his shoulder.  “We made it through the first picture before you guys came home”.

You placed a gentle kiss against his shoulder where you laid, eyes scanning the photo in question. It was one of your favorite nights, but it paled in comparison to the picture on the next page.

“Remember that night?” you asked, pointing at the photo you had been eyeing.  It was a blurry mess to put it lightly, Spencer’s hand holding the disposable camera at an odd angle while you attacked his cheeks with kisses until a trail of lipstick was left in your wake.

You were young, in love, and inseparable- a blurry photo was a small price to pay for being with him.

“How could I forget,” Spencer chuckled lightly, shaking his head as he examined the picture, “I got off the jet at 11 PM and headed to your place for a midnight picnic.  We were only dating for three weeks and JJ thought it was weird to go to your place so late, but I didn’t care.  Did you think it was weird?”

You snuggled closer to him, the hitch at the end of his question cluing you into the fact that he was nervous you did.  “If you didn’t come over I most certainly would have went to your place- I hated being away from you, I still do now”.

You were rewarded with a kiss to your palm before Spencer continued to flip through the pages in a comfortable silence, your life together thus far being pieced together with every new picture.

From movie nights cuddled up on the floor of Derek and Penelope’s living room, to office holiday parties where you walked around with your pinkies intertwined, to stolen kisses at happy hour and café dates where you both sported espresso foam mustaches.

With the next flip of the page, you watched as your smiles grew wider in each photo with the addition of a ring on your left hand.  There were pictures of Spencer down on one knee at your favorite park thanks to Penelope’s hidden vantage point behind a set of trees a few feet away.

The sky was a cerulean blue, yellow and pink tulips in full bloom at your feet, but in that moment, with Spencer kneeling in front of you and the most beautiful declarations of love falling from his lips nothing was visible but him.  

Another flip of a page and yet another moment when nothing mattered but Spencer was on full display- your wedding day.  His arms were looped around your waist as you danced in front of your family and friends, your smiles the widest they’d ever been.  The night was filled with love filled glances and silent assertions of love fit for two in a room bursting with joy, each and every one caught on camera thanks to Penelope’s dedication to capturing one of her favorite love stories in action.

A series of selfies followed in the next few pages, each one a picture you had sent Penelope during your honeymoon as proof you weren’t always locked away in your hotel room. Spencer was sporting a sunglasses tan in each photo while you were sporting a smirk, each picture reminding you of the vacation that gave you one of your favorite gifts yet nine months later: your daughter.

You looked up from the album to glance in her direction, your lips curling into a smile as you watched her separate the blocks into color coded piles much to her younger brother’s amusement. With each passing day she reminded you more and more of Spencer, and it was by far one of your favorite journeys to witness.

Your focus shifted back to the book in Spencer’s hands, weekly progress photos of your stomach’s growth (which Spencer was determined to capture in all its glory) gracing the pages along with ultrasounds, memories from your baby shower, and pictures of Spencer’s hands constantly flitting over your lower belly. His head rested gently on your middle in each one, his face the picture of happiness as he whispered bedtime stories and facts about space, completely oblivious to everything but you and your daughter.

You watched as the baby you had spent months dreaming about came to life in pictures, her features the perfect mixture of you and Spencer from the moment she was placed in your hands. With each passing picture the bags under both of your eyes grew bigger, but your smiles grew wider.  Images of her firsts graced the pages: the first time she sat up, the first time she ate solid foods, the first time she said dada (and the tears in Spencer’s eyes when he heard it), her first steps, her first day of school.  

And then one made way for two, your son joining the midst of photos and bringing an endless amount of love and joy to your family.  Much like your daughter, he reminded you of Spencer: he was inquisitive- curious eyes always studying his surroundings, his hand always finding comfort in yours just like his father.  

Pictures of his firsts graced the pages much like your daughter’s, except this time the first time he sat up he was accompanied by a beaming sister, when he said mama for the first time it was you who was in tears, and when he took his first steps he walked straight into Spencer’s open arms.

The book was a picture-perfect testament to your love, one of your most prized possessions, but there was one thing missing.

“I love the life we built together,” Spencer whispered in your direction, his fingers tracing your side as he thought about how lucky he was. How lucky was he that he went from a man destined to live a solitary life to a man with a wonderful wife and two children made from love?

“I love it, too,” you murmured as your hand moved to reach for your purse, “but there’s one thing we’re missing”.

You watched as Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed, his eyes scanning the empty pages at the end of the book.  “I know the pictures are a little out of date, we can order some more this weekend to fill the empty pages though”, he stated as his gaze found yours to see if that was the answer you were looking for.

“We definitely can,” you nodded, removing an item from your purse and unsticking the scrapbook pages to place it in the middle.  Once you were satisfied with its placement, you adjusted the top sheet before holding both of Spencer’s hands in yours, “but we can start with this”.

The previously blank page was now the home of your very first ultrasound photo for your third baby, a surprise you had confirmed earlier that morning at your doctor’s appointment.  You watched as Spencer’s eyebrows shot up, his face breaking into a smile while his eyes filled with tears.

“Really?” his voice was so soft, you were sure you would have missed it if you weren’t sitting directly next to him.

“Really, really,” you confirmed, your left hand moving to grasp his jaw as you pulled his face closer to yours.

“Are you excited?” you whispered, fully aware that the answer was yes but craving confirmation.

With your question, a tear escaped his lash line, trailing down his cheek and making its way to a beaming smile that rivaled the ones you had seen in the scrapbook.

He nodded, at a complete loss for words as he closed the gap between you and let his feelings out in a kiss. It was a kiss filled to the brim with love, happiness, and appreciativeness.  

And in that moment, there was only one coherent thought on his mind as he listened to his children’s giggles in the background and felt the weight of your love against his lips: How lucky was he that he went from a man destined to live a solitary life to a man with a wonderful wife and three children made from love?

The luckiest man alive, that was for sure.

***

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[kajinovaa]

Hi hello I absolutely love your art 💞

Like literally it makes my day and I get so excited every time I see it. I aspire to one day have a hold on my own art like you do owo. (If my going absolutely insane in tags ever seems like a bit much my bad lmao hekdudodhdkdhdk)

Saw your recent post about building blocks when drawing characters n I had a few questions if you didn’t mind?

Are the building blocks something you actually draw out each time before sketching a character or is it something you’ve sorta just memorize and imagine when drawing?

How did you begin using the blocks? Cus like I’ve def used shapes before but making them 3d like that seems kinda ruff 👀 hskdhdkshsksh.

Do you feel like it helps at all with executing anatomy?

Thanks again, and I hope you’re having an alright day ówò 💜💜💜.

Heyo~ Firstly, glad you love my art so much. Knowing that my scribbles have a positive impact on people means I'm doing my job right as an artist. :> And you can do it! Just takes patience with yourself, practice, and trusting the process of improving even though there are days when you don't feel it. Don't worry about the tags, I read every single one people leave behind cuz it makes my day and most of the time cracks me the fuck up lmaoooo So for the building blocks question, I'll answer it in parts:

Are the building blocks something you actually draw out each time before sketching a character or is it something you've sorta just memorize and imagine when drawing?

It's actually something that I've come to memorize over time! I don't draw those shapes unless the position or the structure of how I want the character to look like becomes more of a hassle and requires more critical thought into the process. Most of the time, I draw out of memory how each section of the body looks. So the funny thing is, I wasn't actively thinking about 3D shapes on a 2D plane until about the beginning of this year. A last minute resort to this would be to use a free virtual doll online, or Clip Studio Paint's virtual doll function, and rasterize it into an image I can vaguely trace over and define the shapes that I want.

How did you begin using the blocks? Cus like I’ve def used shapes before but making them 3d like that seems kinda ruff 👀 hskdhdkshsksh.

Unfortunately, in order to start using the blocks properly, you need to get a good solid grip of how a 3D shape would look from your perspective, and an even tougher concept to grasp is playing with the perspectives. Examples of basic shapes that you can use to mess around:

Do you feel like it helps at all with executing anatomy?

Absolutely! In its most basic form and combining the shapes, you can determine the complicated structures into a more simplistic format!

Please be advised, I'm not exactly an expert in these areas, but I do know just enough to get by KLDSGHHKLGKHL Thank you, hope you have a nice day as well, and hope the quick demonstrations have helped you in some way :D

[shining-magically]

so I’ve wondered this since the trailer came out years and years ago and Chloe defended the movie - was the red shoes teaser written by the same team that made the movie? were they forced to market it like that, was that based on an earlier draft, etc?? not sure if you know but you seem like the leading expert!

Sorry, this is gonna be an absolute novel because you know I’m an animation fan and the history and production of Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is SO interesting and insane. Like, Tangled levels of insane. Thanks for calling me an expert, no one else was gonna do it so I just kind of took up the helm lol.

Here’s the low-down... The timeline of the movie’s production is an absolute mess and kind of an extremely wild ride. It was in production for ten years, went through a lot of different crew members, and went through at least two other major versions of the story before landing on the final version.

Since there’s not a ton of info on the movie’s production, a lot of this is pieced together from different interviews and context clues, and also a lot of what I’ve read and what I am quoting has been translated from Korean, sometimes pretty roughly. But yeah.

Here’s the story of why the Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs teasers and poster were so, so bad and fatshame-y and the actual movie was so, so good and body-positive. (With pictures and production artwork!)

(This is a beast of a post so I’m putting it under a cut.)

All right, so. After its conception originally as a short story by the South Korean studio Locus Creative in 2009-2010-ish, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs was being worked on and was set to come out in Summer 2017, as evidenced by this poster at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, featuring a different logo and very different character designs for most of the dwarfs.

In early-mid 2016, the first teaser (in which we see Snow White undress and then two dwarfs recoil in horror at her fatness when she takes her magic shoes off) was released, after the film had kind of been slowly chugging along for 6 or so years. (I am having such trouble pinpointing when the second teaser was released (in which one of the dwarfs basically attacks Snow while she is sleeping to steal her shoes), but I believe it was around the same time.) The teasers didn’t get that much traction because this was a small film from a small indie studio in South Korea.

None of the final actors had been cast yet. At this point in the production, the story was different, one of the many versions that the movie went through. As in the final movie, the dwarfs were actually cursed knights/princes and Snow White switched back and forth between two body types due to her magic shoes, but in this version, the dwarfs needed to steal the shoes from her in order to break their curse (rather than needing “a kiss from the most beautiful woman in the world” like in the final movie).

The weird thing is, I believe they had JUST changed the movie’s story when the teaser came out. I’m almost positive it was released more as a proof of concept than as an actual trailer for the movie. They had just recently combined two separate characters (seen above), a typical pretty, skinny princess character (Snow White) and a cute chubby girl character (’Bonnie’), into one single character that switches back and forth between the two appearances when she wears the magic shoes (also they had just dropped literally half of the movie taking place in the real world, with a magic mirror portal, it was a whole thing). 

They didn’t have the details of this aspect of the new story hammered out yet, and the first pass at presenting Snow’s magically changing body type, was, yeah, not good and super offensive. This was a really inexperienced indie studio making their first film on a low budget, so even the animation and voice acting wasn’t great. I think they just wanted to get SOMETHING out there because it had been 6 years and they wanted to have something to show for it.

But here’s the thing. Despite how the teasers make it seem, this was always supposed to be a movie about body positivity, letting go of appearance-based prejudices, and loving yourself and others for who you are and for who they are, which we see in the final film.

I like to think of our film as a kindhearted one. Our intentions are nice.

- Director Sung-ho Hong

It’s important to keep in mind that this movie was made in South Korea by a 99% Korean crew, and, as I understand it anyway, in Korean culture, ‘fatshaming’ is not really a thing that is seen as overtly offensive. Also, children’s media there seems to have more adult things in it than in the US, which probably accounts for the more risque parts of the teasers. That said, I really believe that at this point in the timeline, the movie was on-track to be bad (or at least not very good) when it was released, and it would have ended up bad IF a few key players hadn’t signed on (which I’ll get to in a moment).

Interestingly, the movie’s producer, Sujin Hwang, said in a 2017 interview:

“[Both teasers] were solely produced to induce curiosity. They’re completely irrelevant to the actual story.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

I think what she was trying to convey was that neither one is a scene in the actual movie, because while the teasers didn’t reflect the revamped story as it existed in summer 2017 (the time of the interview), they DID reflect the earlier version of the story where the dwarfs wanted her shoes, which is what the story was at the time they were made.

Now that we’re in post-teaser 2016, HERE’S where things start to turn around. After the teasers were released, my guy Disney veteran and native Korean Jin Kim joined the project. He and Red Shoes director Sung-ho Hong had been buddies for about eight years and Sung-ho had been trying to get Jin to come to Seoul and work with him at Locus for a long time, and he finally succeeded.

Jin and his twenty years of Disney experience as an animator and senior designer on films like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana, had a HUGE HUGE HUGE influence on the movie. He redesigned almost all the characters, oversaw all the visual development from the moment he signed on, and heavily (HEAVILY) supervised the animation, literally going frame-by-frame through preliminary animations and drawing over them, teaching the inexperienced animators at Locus everything he knew. (Literally almost everyone except him either only had TV experience or had no professional experience because they just gotten out of school.)

From an outsider’s perspective, it really seems as though Jin joining the project (and his gargantuan effort) made the quality SKYROCKET. Not just in character design and animation, but also in things like effects animation, story, etc. After he joined, Locus really started pushing HARD to make a good, high-quality movie, and his influence and experience from being a prominent figure at Disney was absolutely key. The studio also began to really study Disney films and other well-made animated films from other studios to really try and pinpoint what the DNA of a good animated movie really is.

I don’t have any solid evidence, but I’m pretty sure that Tony Bancroft (an animator and the co-director of Mulan) then joined the project because he’s good friends with Jin Kim. He is only credited as the voice director (the movie was recorded in English and the characters were animated to the English dialogue), but I am SURE that he probably also had a pretty big influence on the movie, because like... How could he not? I really really think there was more to his role than his title would have you believe, even though there’s almost no info out there about it.

So now the movie goes through a gigantic metamorphosis. Character designs, visual development, and animation quality are all rapidly improving, the story is tightening, and the themes of the movie (which, again, were always the same and intended to be positive) are being presented in a more sincere way. The movie is becoming the sweet, self-love-encouraging and body-positive movie that was eventually released.

I’m putting a gif from the credits of the final movie here. As we move into 2017, when the giant eruption of backlash occurred, please keep in mind that the story was finalized at this point and that THIS was the movie people were so mad about:

Chloe Grace Moretz accepted the role of Snow White immediately after she read the script and she recorded her lines (I think) in early-ish 2017. Her co-star Sam Claflin also immediately accepted the role of the romantic interest, Merlin, after reading the script and recorded his lines in (I believe) July 2017.

In the summer of 2017, the story and script were more or less the same as in the final movie. Promotional images from that time show that most of dwarfs had been completely redesigned by this point and didn’t have their teaser designs anymore.

They also released a few screenshots that look exactly like the final film. The movie was advertised as coming out in ‘2018′ at this point. Here’s a promo image from 2017 that is MUCH more tactfully worded than the infamous Cannes poster:

So now we’re in summer 2017. The Cannes Film Festival. The movie’s script and story have been basically nailed down, animation is underway, and the Korean film company Finecut is beginning to market and sell the movie to worldwide audiences. They are planning on showing some footage to potential buyers at the festival, and they make a poster to advertise the film there.

Unfortunately, it’s THIS POSTER:

Now here’s where there are some unknowns. By this point, the movie is basically in its final form, which is an adorable, body-positive story about loving people for who they are, loving yourself for who YOU are, and that provides commentary on society’s standards of beauty and how they affect how people are treated/viewed. So why this poster??? All I can really tell is that someone (I think Finecut) really, REALLY messed up and either horribly mistranslated the tagline, or didn’t do enough research to know that this kind of thing is REALLY NOT OKAY in western culture.

The above picture is shared and the internet backlash begins, fueled by tweets from prominent body-positivity activists like Tess Holliday. Even Chloe Grace Moretz speaks out against it, because she of all people KNOWS that that’s not what the movie is about. The internet then finds the old teasers from before the movie was revamped and it makes things worse. Producer Sujin Hwang profusely apologizes and says that that is NOT the message of the movie. Locus pulls the advertising campaign, and takes down the two old teasers.

“Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

Voice director Tony Bancroft also tried to explain the situation:

“The truth is the film has a body-positive message as its core theme–it’s the opposite of what reports are saying. The problem is one poorly translated movie poster that has been taken dramatically out of context.” 

- Voice Director Tony Bancroft

And then... There was nothing for a while. The movie didn’t come out in 2018 and was delayed. From what I can tell, I DON’T believe this delay was related to the Cannes backlash. I think it was mostly due to Locus’s limited budget and resources, because as we know, animation is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and easy to do badly but hard to do well. Also, probably with Jin Kim and Tony Bancroft’s influence, they REALLY wanted to make sure to do a good job with the animation because they now had a great story and they really wanted the movie to be a quality, worldwide hit that would kind of put South Korean feature animation on the map. Just take a look at how nice the final animation was:

The movie was released in South Korea on July 25th, 2019. Unfortunately, the damage was done in the English-speaking markets and it was not released to an English-speaking audience until June 22, 2020, when it was released digitally in the UK. At the time of this post, there is no set US release date, but the distribution rights were recently bought by Lionsgate and the MPAA gave the film an official PG rating.

So who’s to blame? There’s no good answer. You could blame Locus for making those old teasers. You could blame Finecut for the competely tonedeaf Cannes poster. You could even blame cancel culture for raging against the movie based on one poster and two old teaser trailers without researching what the movie was actually about.

All I know is, it’s a damn shame.

[lemons3ason]

Vinsmoke Brothers React To You Coming Back After Their Father Took You From Them!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ICHIJI VINSMOKE

“How dare you bring that vermin here with you.”, Judge growled scowling down at his only living grandchild.

Once again he attempted to marry Ichiji off to some spoiled princess from a random kingdom but instead Ichiji would use his infant daughter Asami as an excuse to get out of the engagements. The red haired father simply scoffed as he made his way to the Phoenix Kingdom’s dining hall where the family waited. The princess looked so excited when he entered the room until she noticed the small baby resting his arms, her mood suddenly turned sour. Ichiji sighed and sat across from the girl as he cradled his sleeping daughter against his chest as the parents began to speak amongst themselves. The Queen seemed extremely interested in Ichiji’s daughter, something seemed so familiar about the small infant.

“Pardon me asking but Prince Ichiji does that child have a mother?”, The Queen asked.

“She did unfortunately she passed away due to some unforgivable reason after child birth. It’s been two months since I lost her and in all honesty I don’t intend to remarry so this is a waste of time.”, he admitted much to his father’s disgust.

The story furthered the Queen’s suspicions on the child, she stood up and walked over to him taking in the child’s complete image, she smiled for a brief moment and gently tussled the little girl’s soft (h/c) locks. “H-her mother didn’t happen to be a girl named (Y/n), did it?”, she asked her voice cracking as your name escaped her lips. Ichiji’s reaction was enough to tell her the truth, he tried to soften his body as quickly as he could but he had already been caught.

“You said she passed away, how?”

Ichiji bit his tongue not sure of how to truly word it without making himself cry, “My Father ordered her execution.”, he sighed. The Queen smiled and stood back up to her feet, “Would you like me to reunite you with my first born daughter?”, she asked softly as her husband came to her side.

Ichiji stared at them puzzled, how could they bring back someone dead? He quickly noticed red flames erupt from the Queen’s back and she smiled as her grandchild reacted to her abilities, her own little pair of flame wings flapping softly behind her. Ichiji stared down at his child in awe, your mother smiled and ordered Ichiji to follow along down to some chambers that seemed to be piled up with ashes. One room in specific held one small pile of ash, “It is said that the Phoenix bird was born a female, in our land there is a story that a Phoenix fell in love with a human and bore a child that would later become the first Queen of our land. All the females in the Phoenix kingdom are born with the abilities to be reborn, no matter how they die their body becomes ash and returns home where they choose to stay dormant or be reborn into a new life. These ashes appeared about a month ago and I knew that they belonged to my (Y/n), our kingdom was raided and she was kidnapped by pirates, for years I waited for her return but now I see she’s still needed. (Y/n) left behind a daughter and a man that loved her so that should be more then enough to bring her back.”, she took little Asami from his arms and kneeled down before your ashes. Asami’s little wings touched your ashes igniting them into flame, Ichiji watched in shock as Asami was lifted into the flame, he was worried but then he heard something. Your laughter, your laughter resonated from the flames, he watched them disappear and you remained with your daughter in your arms and tears falling from your beautiful (e/c) hues.

“My beautiful little girl. I’m so sorry you had to wait so long to meet mommy.”, you smiled kissing her small face.

“(Y/n)?”

Your heart skipped a beat to his voice, you looked up to see Ichiji staring at you in shock. You tears spilled faster as you raced to his arms, you cried into his chest emotionally overwhelmed to see him again after what felt like an eternity. His shock was quickly replaced by his urge to hold you tight, his arms wrapped around your shoulder holding your head closer to his chest as he cried your name into your head softly kissing your (h/c) locks until you looked up to kiss him on the lips. Your mother smiled seeing you so happy with your family, at least now she knew you were safe and sound with someone who loved you dearly.

“I’ve missed you so much Ichiji. I’m so sorry.”, you apologized feeling stupid for letting yourself die and leaving him to suffer parenthood alone.

“S-shut up. Don’t you dare apologize for this, it was my fault for not keeping you close. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but I’m so glad you’re back.”, he sighed kissing your face desperately as if he’d lose you again. Your hand cupped his cheek softly as you deepened the kiss making up for lost time. Little Asami started to cry from being crushed between you both, you apologized and softly cradled her in your arms softly hushing her back to sleep. Ichiji smiled, he was finally complete, you were back thanks to a miracle. Once you had all returned to the dining hall Judge spat out his wine seeing you alive. He dared to say something but Ichiji quickly wrapped an arm around you and activated his raid suit, “You will not take her from me again. She is my wife and I don’t give a shit if you approve or not.”, he growled receiving a kiss from you that made his anger quickly disappear. You moved back to the Germa Kingdom and everyone celebrated your return. A huge party was held for you and everyone drank till they passed out, with Asami in her crib next to your bed you stood in front of your huge window and looked out over the night sky and sea. You hummed feeling his lips press against your cheek and turned to kiss his lips once more, “I’ve missed this, I’ve missed you.”, you smiled staring up at your husband.

He picked you up in his arms and laid you in the bed, for once he’ll sleep happily in your warmth that he’s missed all this time. You felt safe in his arms and slowly drifted off to bed happy to be back home with your family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Niji Vinsmoke

Niji was already the cruelest of his brothers but now that he lost the only woman that mattered to him his heart was frozen solid and broken. Even as he killed all these innocent fishmen he didn’t feel a shred of pity or remorse, yet when he was just about to finish off the elder of the group he was quickly stopped by a voice that only his heart could react to.

“Niji, stop don’t!”, you screamed.

He scanned his surroundings for the source of the voice and found a single woman with short (h/c) hair gasping for breath, “Child no run away.”, the old fish man cried out.

“Niji stop please. Not these people.”, you cried just feet away from the blue haired Vinsmoke.

He released the old fish man from his grip and stumbled toward you, the old man begged Niji to take his life instead of yours but when he came to a stop just in front of you he understood what was going on. Niji couldn’t believe his eyes, you were supposed to be dead and yet here you are. You didn’t fear him in the slightest, you opened up your arms to him for an embrace but he stayed where he was. Just a few feet out of reach taking in your appearance. Scars littered your skin, your hair now cut short, but still you smiled at him as if nothing had happened.

“Child get away from him!”, your grandfather yelled pulling you towards him with his shark tail.

Niji quickly snapped his neck towards your new position and growled at the old man for taking you from him. You calmed your grandfather down and he stared into your eyes looking for a hint of fear or lie in your words but he found nothing but love and let you go. You stepped towards Niji once again opening your arms for him, he raced towards you wrapping one arm around your waist and the other over your back burying your head in his shoulder with his hand as he whined your name.

“Y-You’re supposed to be dead.”, he stuttered.

You nodded your head gently pressing kisses against the skin of his neck that wasn’t covered by the scarf of his neck, “I know but I’m not. I should’ve been but my grandfather found me in the waters and patched me up and I didn’t drown because I’m a fish man hybrid.”, you explained.

He couldn’t believe it, he thought he lost you, he hugged you tightly even as you pulled down his goggles to look him in the eyes and gently brushed back his blue hair so you could enjoy his expression. His teeth gritted into a scowl as Niji tried to fight back his tears but the little kiss you pressed against his lips broke what little restraint he had. He kissed you roughly even through his tears, if you pulled away he chased your lips for more cupping your face in his hands to keep you in place. The battle had come to a standstill as everyone watched you both kiss away the minutes in your own little world.

“I thought I lost you.”, another kiss.

“All this time you were alive, I should’ve looked for you.”, another kiss to your cute plump lips.

“I thought you had died hating me for our fight. I’m sorry.”, another long passionate kiss until you had to pull away for breath.

“If you forgive me for being to afraid to go back then I’ll forgive you for the stupid fight. I can’t blame you for judge wanting to kill me it was obvious from the start that he hated me.”, you sighed resting your head against his chest smiling at the sound of his racing heartbeat.

He nodded kissing your face sweetly, he scooped you up in his arms like a princess and started carrying you away until your grandfather demanded he stopped, “Can’t you see I’m taking my wife back home.”, Niji growled in annoyance.

You smiled at your grandfather over Niji’s shoulder and reassured him that it would be alright, your grandfather allowed you to go. Niji’s troops quickly repaired all the destruction they had caused and respectfully buried the people they had killed while he returned to the small Germa ship with you. As soon as he had you in his quarters he sat you on his bedside and opened a drawer to return something to you, you smiled as he placed your necklace that Judge had taken from you back into your hands.

“I’ve been without you for a year, do you know how hard that was?”, Niji sighed resting his head against your knees.

His hands softly rubbed over your scars as he counted each one that he’d kiss as soon as you were home and safe. You smiled and leaned your head down until your forehead pressed against the top of his head.

“I’ve missed you, you jerk.”, you sighed.

“I love you.”

“I know Niji, I love you more. Come on get up here.”, you ordered opening your arms for him to rest in.

He smiled at you and tackled you into the mattress kissing your face, you had a lot of affection to catch up on but this time he wouldn’t let anything happen to you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sanji Vinsmoke

The wedding was nearing but Reiju knew her brother wouldn’t be happy without you, after she had pulled your corpse away from his grasp she realized that you still had a weak pulse. You were alive! She quickly rushed you to the laboratory to let the doctors heal your wounds, she paid close attention to them to make sure they didn’t try anything funny with you, now as the day neared she watched your naked form in the healing tube softly breathing in the green liquid.

“Please (Y/n) don’t let Sanji go. He’s a good man with a good heart so please save him even if we die.”, she begged deactivating the machine so she could release you.

She quickly dried and clothed you before scooping you up in her arms and flying you back to the Thousands Sunny. Everyone was ecstatic to see you alright and to have you back, as their mission plan finalized you realized that no matter what you had to save Sanji. As everyone prepared for the wedding Nami presented you with short (f/c) backless dress that would stop just at your mid thigh. You put it on and quickly fixed your hair, you had to look decent since it was a wedding after all. You smiled finding the room that the Charlotte Children had locked away the weapons in and grabbed two handguns that would last you a bit until you had to use your devil fruit powers. As soon as the action began Sanji noticed your head of (h/c) hair and gasped, you were alive. From his place at the top of the wedding cake he screamed your name making it echo over the crowd, you smiled and blew him a kiss before returning to fighting the Big Mom pirates. Once everyone was on Bege’s fortress Sanji tackled you, your giggles quickly erupted in the room as the emotional blonde kissed your lips hungrily.

“S-sanji wait I can’t breathe.”, you whined playfully.

“You can breathe again when I’m done getting my fill of you, I thought you died.”, he sighed holding you carefully as if you were a fragile doll.

You smiled and held his face in your hands before slamming a kiss to his stupid lips, “I’ve missed you so much you idiot.”, you cheered smothering his face in your lipstick.

Sanji smiled, his eyes forming into hearts due to your affection but the fight wasn’t over yet. Until Luffy was back on the ship it was a battlefield on the sea, you worried until Sanji was back on the deck with Luffy. Once they were sailing away from Big Mom territory Sanji cooked an extravagant feast for all of you, his food was delicious as always and he looked so happy to be back in a kitchen. After dinner he found you staring out over the ocean and noticed the scar from your stab wound poking out from the top of your tank top he sighed and wrapped his arms around your waist before softly kissing the sensitive skin.

“Sanji.”, you called sweetly.

He smiled at you and pressed a kiss to your cheek before resting his chin against your shoulder. You laughed at the feeling of his goatee against your skin but calmed down once you felt content. You don’t even remember how long you had been out but you were more then happy to be back at Sanji’s side.

“I’m glad you’re back and safe honey.”, you admitted leaning your head against his.

“As am I darling. Don’t scare me like that ever again though.”, he whined.

You nodded and moved in his arms so you could see his face, and once more placed a kiss to his lips before returning to your quarters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yonji Vinsmoke

You really were just a puppet, Yonji was so heartbroken by your experimentation that he couldn’t even bring himself to look at you. Every time he stared into your dead eyes he was reminded of how he failed you but his brothers loved to play around with you. They’d take you on missions and would return with you cut up or bruised from the fights, but today as they walked to the dining hall Niji had decided to pick a fight with you and you simply nodded your head in agreement. Yonji’s body froze the moment Niji’s knee connected with your head sending his Henry’s Needle attack through your skull, blood poured from your ears and nose from the shock as your body was thrown into the wall. Yet despite your injuries you listened to Niji’s orders to stand up. Yonji’s stomach lurched in pain watching his brother’s fist meet your stomach but your killing instinct kicked in, you held his wrist tightly and pulled a blade from your belt thrusting it into Niji’s neck. The blade shattered of course due to his hardened skin but your attempt to kill him angered him, he slammed his hand against your face shoving your head into the wall over and over again until you fell unconscious. Niji chuckled once his hand was stopped by his younger brother, he let go both of them listening to the sound of your limp body hitting the floor, “A broken toy is no fun, guess we’ll have to get a new one.”, Niji laughed taking Ichiji’s side as they continued onto the dining room.

“You idiot!”, Reiju growled kicking her brother in the head.

Yonji took the hit he didn’t care if his sister was mad because nothing could beat the rage he had inside his heart, he picked you up in his arms holding you close as he walked back to his room. He ordered one of the doctors to come and heal your injuries immediately but the impact to your head was likely to cause a concussion if not a coma. Yonji held your hand in his remembering the good old days when you’d wake him up with kisses and cook for him but now it was all just a fading dream.

“Damn it (Y/n), please just say something.”, he sighed tears threatening to feel from he cold eyes.

“Y-Yonji my head hurts.”, you sobbed pulling him out of his train of thought.

The green haired man looked up to see you in tears with your free hand holding the side of your head because of the pain. Yonji gasped seeing the light in your eyes and smiled. He gently leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to the side of your head before stealing a kiss from your lips. He wanted to scream and yell that you were back but if you were in pain then he had to keep himself quiet to avoid making your pain worse. Yonji quietly hushed you, he ordered for a servant to bring you pain medication before taking up the other half of the bed.

“Oh (Y/n) you’re back.”, he chuckled softly rubbing circles against your head in hopes that it would help the pain.

“Where...where have I been?”, you asked.

Getting to hear your voice again made Yonji so happy, Niji’s electricity must’ve reversed the effects of your experimentations. Why couldn’t he have been a jerk earlier?! Yonji insisted that it wasn’t important, for some odd reason you couldn’t remember anything but that morning when you baked him cookies but it was probably for the best because now you didn’t suffer. Once you had eaten the pain medication he pulled you right back into bed spooning you, Yonji was never this affectionate but you certainly weren’t complaining when he started peppering your head and face with kisses.

“I love you Yonji.”, you hummed triggering something in him.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“Yonji, I love you.”, you giggled kissing his rough lips.

He made you repeat that phrase over and over again until a new spark lit up inside both of you. Yonji wasn’t seen the rest of the day, it didn’t bother anyone really but Reiju was curious. The next morning she went to check on Yonji only to see you both passed out in bed and a new ring glimmering on your finger. Looks like everything had turned out for the best.

[yoshkeii]

"𝚂𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎."

࿐ character(s): Daishou Suguru, Atsumu Miya, Sakusa Kiyoomi

࿐ genre: angst (to fluff)

࿐ type: headcanons (hcs)

࿐ requested: yes, as a continuation of  "𝚄𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍.”

⌦ male!reader (he/him)

⌦ mentions ; cheating (atsumu’s), angst to fluff (sakusa)

⌦ they all have different scenarios, so its best to check out the first post for a little more context.

A/N: never expected to make a part two, but i guess the feedback said otherwise. its been awhile since ive written anything, so i may be rusty, disregard mistakes too please-

𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴 ; this is queued. i am still on my hiatus.

𝙳𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞:

→ ever since the argument, you had left. taking majority of what was yours and what you could in the quickest of matters. you and Daishou barely talked or interact within those days. often dead silence within the shared home... or rather what was shared.

→ it was quite suffocating as well, leaving each other after a long relationship you both committed to. but you had a gut feeling it would end unfortunately.

→ Daishou had seen you leave for the last time past the front door. only exchanging a blunt “bye.” before disappearing behind the solid door. he really hoped this was all lies and games, but it wasn’t. he knew this was real, he knew this will be his reality. without you. the fading steps signaled that you were not gonna look back.

→ since then, he hasn’t heard of you since. he hasn’t seen your name around social media and only the bittersweet memories of when his friends would bring you up came into mind.

→ but it was like, you erased him from your world. and yet Daishou still held tight of the cut thread that lead to you. the other end laying flat onto the floor as the other end you had, disappeared as a whole. a huge gap between you both.

→ him being in denial, he kept mainly to himself. 

→ the old shared space felt empty. drastically different every time he would come home. he would hear your welcoming voice that made his whole body so warm and fuzzy, but now, the silence was painful and cold as he stepped inside his so called ‘home’. he didn’t know why...

→ but he really wanted you back. he wanted to see your face no matter when he came home. he missed your whole presence. he yearned for something that he could’ve kept if he would just shut up.

→ Daishou didn’t expect to see you here. at the same party he would be invited to, he watched you from the second floor that had the view of the merged rooms of the living room and kitchen. seeing you laugh and smile with two other friends who you stumbled upon, the sight made his heart sting.

→ a sharp stab straight through his chest, only thinking if he could be the reason for that smile. that laughter. oh he envied it.

→ he tried to avert his thoughts away before he heard some whistles and calling of names, to see your figure slip away with someone else from the crowd.

→ watching you both from his higher position, he noticed your hands intertwined with the other. his own hand slightly clenching the daring drink he held, the other grasping the rail tighter the longer he watched.

→ Daishou’s eyes soon looked up at your face. the expression you had made him feel conflicted.

→ the wide pure smile you had accompanied with the deep flush, made him feel that oh so familiar feeling. but knowing he wasn’t the cause of it pained him.

→ although, seeing you with someone deserving made him feel at ease. but the stabbing dagger in his heart laid there still, only reminding him that he could’ve been that better person.

𝙰𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚞:

→ after the confrontation, you and Atsumu had split ways of course. it was difficult to move on and realize the situation at hand, to the both of you.

→ seeing where your stuff would be gone in the shared space made it surprisingly empty and less... alive. the whole place felt dead and empty, like a home left abruptly without an obvious reason of why.

→ but Atsumu knew why, and it began to nag at him. it made him feel so guilty to do that to you. to him, you were so pure, kind, and oh so nice. he could go on about your looks too, he really could. but every thought of you made his mind so hazy and clouded with distraught. 

→ why did he cheat? you were loyal to him- if only he could be too.

→ its been a couple years since then, it was tough for Atsumu. he had cut ties for who he was cheating with, regretting what he did and in hopes to regain you back before- didn’t obviously work. so now he stayed alone in the home that practically mocked him of his decision. 

→ he was quite surprised Atsumu wasn’t blocked by you throughout social media etc. but he didn’t dare to strike a conversation and laid idle as he saw you occasionally appear on his feed. 

→ seeing you mention being in relationship but only giving vague hints and images, truly never revealing who to your followers. 

→ sighing as he slipped his phone into his pocket, he didn’t want to think about it all, so he decided to pay a visit to Osamu at his restaurant. to his twin’s dismay.

→ arriving there fairly quickly he waved at his brother who was behind the counter cleaning up for the night, seeing his twin wave back slightly before continuing on whatever he was doing.

→ Atsumu couldn’t help but noticed the metallic object that wrapped around Osamu’s ring finger. 

→ “..’Samu? What’s on yer’ hand?”

→ “Oh- ya noticed already. I got engaged not so long ago, or recently.”

→ curiosity jabbing at the blonde made him eagerly question again.

→ “I- What?? By who!? ‘Samu ya didn’t even tell me you were in a relationship!” Atsumu could only just whine, knowing his brother didn’t share with him about his personal life after highschool. 

→ “Shut up ‘Tsumu.. Don’t be so loud in my restaurant or I’ll kick yer ass out of here!”

→ “..but do you still wanna know?”

→ Osamu seeing his twin nod with anticipation made him sigh, knowing this wouldn’t end too well. “Well.. me and [Name] are getting married. Just got engaged with him two days ago.”

→ “..[Name]..?” Atsumu could only repeat the familiar name, his voice faint but still audible to his brother’s ears.

→ he couldn’t believe it. his brother... and.. 

→ “W-well-! That’s.. nice for both of ya, haha..” the blonde tried to played off, hoping that the wavering of his voice didn’t catch his attention but, Osamu already knew, simply playing along as the conversation continued and slowly shifted off to something else.

→ Atsumu had left the place rather quickly than he originally intended to stay- but he didn’t expect it. he didn’t expect you being engaged with his twin, eventually knowing you’ll see each other soon.

→ he didn’t know how to feel about this. he was happy for both of you- but- he wasn’t over you. although it has been more than two years, he wasn’t. he missed you, he yearned to see you again. he wanted to hear your laughter and giggles, your voice overall. he wanted to see you smile, he wanted to see your handsome face. 

→  he wanted... you back. but he knows he can’t have you. not anymore.

𝚂𝚊𝚔𝚞𝚜𝚊:

→ when you left passed the front door, you hadn’t come back after a few minutes. and it was.. raining. pretty badly.

→ having worry built up in his stomach that soon turned into a mixture of anxiety made him feel uneasy, overthinking the situation and words he said to you earlier made him choke on his actions. 

→ snapping out of the trance, he rushed to go grab a coat to slip on. retrieving his phone. hurrying out the front door hoping to find you haven’t gotten too far already, almost slipping down some steps of the apartment building on the way to find you.

→ the rushing anxiety continue to flow through him, making his movements more loose and clumsy as he ran off to find you. calling out your name aimlessly of the darkened rainy streets. not caring that his curls were getting soaked in the pounding rain, he just wanted to find you. 

→ to find you and keep you safe.

→ Sakusa’s heart kept increasing every moment he didn’t see you. he wanted to find you so bad- this anxiety he had was much worse than when around he was in crowds, this one felt more instinctual.

→ forgetting he had brought his phone, he slipped it out of his pocket quickly dialing and calling you. to find you answering on the second ring.

→ “..h-hello-?”

→ “[Name]..! T-thank god your safe.”

→ the slight mess-up Sakusa slurred with his words made you feel slightly worried, “..yes I am safe. what’s up with you??”

→ “Nothing..! But w-where are you?”

→ “I’m.. at a nearby cafe. Are you sure you-”

→ your boyfriend interrupted you quickly, “I’m on my way.”

→ “H-hey..! Don’t just-”, hearing the call end with singular beep, “aaaand.. he hung up..” you decided to look around from your position outside, grasping your phone nervously. realizing the rain was pounding down much harder than earlier.

→ the sound of the familiar voice calling your name from the distance caught your attention, gazing over to see Sakusa running over towards you. 

→ “S-saku-”

→ jumping lightly at the sudden hug he enveloped you, muttering soft rushed apologies over and over again as he hid his drenched face in the crook of your neck. he had continued his rambles of apologies as you hugged him back, rubbing his back lightly. watching the ravened hair male let it out a little longer before you could mutter reassuring words to him back.

→ the tension slowly rising from his muscles but the hold of his hug didn’t falter at all, only continuing to snake around your waist.

→ “..you scared me..” “...im really sorry, babe.”

→ you lifted your gaze to meet Sakusa’s, lifting your hands up to cup his face. brushing a few strands of hair away from his view sending a quick peck onto his lips. “you don’t need to apologize anymore Omi. you did enough already..”

→ “A-and you’re drenched! Baby, you’re gonna get sick-” you blinked, noticing how flat his hair was from the rain that couldn’t reach you both from the small roof over the entrance of the cafe. 

→ “..i-i’ll be fine..” the soft stutter Sakusa made noted he was embarrassed about the thought, “..i’m glad your the one not gonna be sick though.” he muttered before softly pecking your lips.

→ “Honey..” you sighed, taking your hands in his before heading inside the building. “..lets just get something to drink to warm us up, ‘kay? then we can head back.”

→ “I-m.. paying aren’t I-..”

→ “Yes. Yes you are. A treat after a bad tiring day!”

→ “..you just want sweets-”

→ “Shut it Kiyoomi.”

[sasa-gay-yo]

Levi Gives You A Promise Ring

Request / Summary:  Levi worried about reader before a scouting mission (maybe they were hurt in the last one or something), and to make him feel better about it he gives reader a promise ring?

Timeline: Pre-Season 1 

Warnings: some swearin’ and suggested NSFW 

Art Credits: AoT 

He had called you into his office to try and convince you to stay back for today’s expedition. Walking to that dark, stuffy office, you were thinking about the numerous arguments you could give him that would make your place on the expedition team solid. You were a squadron leader. You were one of the best fighters that the Scouts had currently. Levi couldn’t hold you back just because you two had a relationship. How was he supposed to assign you to his elite squad next week when he can’t even let you go on a simple expedition?

However, you knew why he was worried about letting you go today. Last expedition you were injured by an abnormal. A new recruit was shellshocked by seeing his first titan and was easily grabbed off of his horse and body thrown towards the titan’s mouth like a snack. You swung through, shoving the boy out of the way, and your ODM line was caught by the titan. If you were to survive, you’d have to cut one of the wires and fall about forty feet to the ground. Levi watched helplessly as your body fell, but not before you sliced into the titan’s ankles.

Miche was the first one to reach you and pull the abnormal’s dead, limp body off of you. Levi came next, frowning at the fact that you were laughing at your bad fortune. The new recruit was also looking at you like you were crazy, and Levi made them run laps for that after their return. Levi, not able to show care in public, watched helplessly as Miche took you on his horse and cared for you until they returned from the expedition. Miche had done Levi’s job. In the HQ’s makeshift hospital, he watched as Hange wrapped feet after feet of bandages around your middle. Broken ribs and a sprained ankle and wrist. Still, he couldn’t come near you while Hange and Erwin were laughing at your jokes. He just had to sit back and watch the others care for you. At that moment, he decided that you wouldn’t be joining them for next months expedition, but he hadn’t told you of his decision yet. He couldn’t live like that. Always having to watch your risk your life for any member of the Scout’s while he sat on the sidelines.

You, now with a healed ankle and wrist and only a few bruises left on your abdomen, were about to get him to change his mind.

You knocked on his door and a grunt from inside signaled he knew it was you. You opened the door and slid in, closing it behind you. By the way he was sitting in the chair, you knew he was Captain Levi to you right now. Not the man who likes his shoulders massaged after hard training ODM with the new recruits.

“Squad Leader (Y/L/N), thank you for coming on such short notice.” You wanted to roll your eyes at his formality, but you knew that it would give him a reason to actually bar you from the expedition.

“Captain,” you let out, short and sweet so he knew how you were feeling about this meeting. He didn’t smile or smirk at you like he usually did with your sass, he just stared straight ahead thinking. Over and over in his head, he was replaying the image of you falling from the titan hands, your body bounding off the ground on impact. If only you listened to him when he said that it wasn’t your job to save the recruits, then you two wouldn’t be in this position. You crossed your arms, waiting for him to respond.

“I don’t think it to be wise for you to go on this expedition with your injuries still fresh.” He was bullshitting you. If your injuries were still fresh, why did he have you in his bed the day prior? He didn’t care about your injuries when his fingers left bruises on your hips. His secret marks of passion.

“With all due respect, Captain, my injuries have healed, and I’ve been cleared by Hange. I think medical knowledge outweighs your concern. Are you going to not let Petra go on this expedition too when she was injured recently?” He drew his eyebrows in with annoyance, one hand going to rub his temple. Why couldn’t you just listen to him, so he didn’t have to worry about you?

“(Y/F/N) can you just sit out this one, please? Everyone would understand why. There’s no reason to-“

“I thought you said you would never give me preferential treatment, Captain.” Little did he know, his actions when you were injured stung your heart. Even if he felt the need to hide your relationship, that doesn’t mean he can’t care for you as a worried Captain. He just stood there, watching Miche carry you on his horse, no protest or quick jabs of insults. Even when it was only Hange and Erwin, the two people who were already suspicious of you two, he barely looked or responded to your yelps of pain. He would only visit you once a week for five minutes, weary of the others who lay in the cots around you. It hurt you that you were visited by that new recruit whom you hadn’t know existed till you saved him more than your boyfriend, who you’ve known for five years. And now, after all of that, he’s showing whatever kind of concern this is by barring you from the mission?

“Are you upset with me for caring about you?” He had completely transitioned from Captain back into your Levi, but you wouldn’t let him have this moment. Your arms were crossed, jaw clench, and your eyes were boring holes into him. These were all the telltale signs that you were angry, having studied them in secret for years.

“You have no consistency, Captain.” He sighed this time, knowing now exactly what you were talking about. Did you really believe he felt no remorse? That he wasn’t fighting inside himself to go and grab you from Miche’s arms? To put the bandages on you himself since Hange was causing you even more pain with her incompetence?

“You know I cannot express my care for you under the watch of the others. Not only is it for privacy, but your safety could be at risk.” This time you rolled your eyes, loud and clear. He doubted so many of your abilities.

“My ability to defend myself shouldn’t be a problem, Captain, and your ability to just show a little care for me as a fellow soldier shouldn’t either. You can patch up Petra’s wounds, but as soon as I’m hurt, your hands don’t work anymore, it seems.” He slammed his fist against the table at the mentioned of Petra’s name. Why is it always Petra? Oh, yes, besides the fact that she told you that she had feelings for the Captain, why was it her?

“Do you think I don’t feel pain when you’re injured?! Is that it? You don’t think I care about you?!” Now, all formality was off. You were yelling. Hopefully, someone didn’t walk by and ruin Levi’s want for privacy. It was a possibility to, seeing that the expedition is supposed to depart soon.

“If you care you have a funny way of showing it, Levi! Not doing anything when I get injured, not visiting me, not tending to my wounds, only to order me to not go on the expedition?! You know my squad needs me, so you’re being selfish now, but how come you can only be selfish behind this door, huh?” You pointed to the wood behind you, the one you were about to walk out of and slam in his face. It infuriated you that he thought he could assert his control over you like this. If he showed you one ounce of concern while you were hurt or in the medical barracks, maybe, just maybe, you would let him. You would stay behind, sleeping in his fresh sheets, and rest a bit longer. But now, it seemed he was only concerned about you because he was in pain.

He stood up slowly from his desk, eyes still on his fist which connected with the wood.

“How dare you think I don’t care about you. Do you know how much I wanted to go to you? How I wanted to rip those bandaged out of Hange’s hands and do it myself? How I wanted to kill that new recruit for not only causing you harm, but for visiting you and talking about you during training?  I’m suffering inside because I can only hold you at night. I can’t sleep when you’re not with me! Do you know how many days of unrest I got while you stayed in the barracks? I want to tell everyone. I want to get up on that damn table in the lunch hall and announce to your little fucking fan club that you’re mine, goddamn it! But I can’t. You know why? I care about you too much to let the Royal Government put a target on your back because of me! To let everyone know that you’re Captain Levi’s would let those who want to kill me know the same. There’s so many in the Underground who I know would jump at the chance to hurt me, and I’m not ready to let you live through my past mistakes. I’m not ready to let you get hurt in front of me while the only thing I can do is stand and watch!” He was breathing heavy at this point, and you had your hand on your heart. It was beating fast at this sudden burst of emotion. You weren’t used to this Levi. Only in your shared bed would he show a glimpse of what the demons he was truly fighting inside, but now he yelled it loud enough that it Erwin was in his office, he would have heard all of Levi’s soliloquy. The last line. That last line wasn’t about his past or the Underground. That last line was about the expeditions. About watching you fall to the ground before his eyes, the titan falling on top of you.

His breathing hadn’t stabilized, and you couldn’t see his face to know how he was feeling. You couldn’t get a glimpse into what he was thinking.

“Levi,” you said, your voice soft. Had you known all of this previously, this problem wouldn’t have occurred. If only he told you about how you felt, and only if you told him your frustrations with his displays of emotion. Your problems were always about communication. Levi didn’t know how to communicate love to anyone.

“Do you know how many times that scene replays in my mind? You falling? Your body smacking into the ground, rolling as the titan falls on top of you? Over and over. Erwin knows about our relationship because he heard me yell for you when it happened. I shouted my name for you.” Your eyes widened, remembering hearing that. Hearing the name that he gave you behind closed doors be announced over the battlefield. The name that signified his private love for you. The name he never used around anyone, for it being too revealing of his emotion. You thought it was your mind playing tricks on you then. There was no way that the man who turned a cold shoulder to you had shouted that out of the battlefield.

“Erwin knows.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a confirmation to you. Confirming that Levi had told someone on his own accord, even if it was because of a mess up. Someone knew about your relationship, and it lightened some metaphorical load on your shoulders. Erwin knew. The Commander knew and he had a whole month to tell you two that it was against the rules for officers to have certain relationships with each other on the pretense of nepotism. That meant he didn’t care, or rather, he approved.

“I wanted to give you something, at a different time and in a different setting, but I don’t think I can let you leave today without it.” That made you lighten up even more. He was letting you go on the expedition.

“What is it?” He opened the top draw of his desk and dug into it, walking over to you with something in his palm. When he opened his palm, there lie a small circle of green jade. Your heart sped up again, not knowing what this was for.

“Levi…?” You asked breathlessly. You two had only been dating for a few months, so it couldn’t have been that, but you’ve almost never gotten a gift like this from him. It was always tea or some chocolates he brought back from meetings in Mitras. One day, he brought back clothes for you, and you had to tell everyone you bought it in Trost, fighting back to the urge to brag about Levi’s care for you. However, this ring, whatever it was meant for, this wasn’t just something you could lie about or hide in your dresser drawer.

“I read about this in a book. The main character wanted to give something to the person he loved, just so they knew how deep it was. Its a promise. A promise to love you. To care for you. As long as I’m alive. No matter how cold I seem to be on the outside, I care for you. I care so much it hurts. And… and if you’re ever in a situation when you’re doubting me, like the one we are in now, then you have this,” he held it up for you to look at, before grabbing you hand and slipping it on. The jade felt cold against your finger, but you were surprised at the sung fit. Your eyes teared up.

“Levi, it beautiful,” was all you could breathe out. You were on cloud nine, receiving this gift of devotion, but also having him say it out loud. The shouts of the past fifteen minutes had faded in your memory with one touch of this jade. He linked his fingers in yours, holding your hand up so he could see and feel the jade on your finger. He marveled at it too, something inside of his tightening at the thought of a ring on your finger. A ring he had given you.

“I promise to be by your side forever, (Y/F/N).” You looked up at him this time, wiping the tears from the corner of your eyes. Never had anyone in their lives devoted themselves to you like Levi just had. Instead of responding verbally, you pulled his face in, kissing him in the middle of his office. His grip tightened on your hand as you did this, allowing you to feel the passion run throughout your whole body.

A knock at the door had broke you two apart, but your hands were still connected. Erwin’s head popped in slowly, knowing that he might walk into to something very different. He’d seen you stalk off to Levi’s office in a huff, ordering some cadet to hitch your horse for you. Yet, he saw that your hands were connected, and when Levi didn’t push you away from him, hands still together for Erwin to see, your smile radiated enough for Erwin to feel his effects. Good. He needed his two best fighters to be happy again.

“Hurry up, you two. We’re leaving and it’s going to be obvious who’s missing soon.” You were the first to let go, knowing that you’d probably have to feign some innocence for the others. The fan club Levi had mentioned liked to know your every move so they could cater to it. You decided that walking down with Erwin was probably the best bet at secrecy and so you bid Levi a smile goodbye before walking out into the hallway with the Commander.

“I didn’t know he told you, Erwin.” The blonde man huffed once in laughter, looking down at your hand. He recognized that ring, Levi quickly confining with the man about relationship advice. Erwin wouldn’t tell you, it wasn’t his place, but Levi was as eager to finally have someone to talk about your relationship with.

“It was due to a mistake, but yes, he told me. He threatened me as well. A very bold move for a subordinate.” You knew he was only joking, and you lifted your hand up to cover your laugh, imagining Erwin punishing Levi of all people for that.

“I’m sorry on his behalf, Commander.” You reached the door out into the field, everyone getting lined up in their formation to leave. Somehow, Levi was already there, sitting on top of his horse with that same neutral expression. When he saw you and Erwin walk out, it didn’t change at all, but this time it left no sting like it had previous.

“No worries, Squad Leader (Y/L/N). I’m glad the ring fits, he was worried about that.” The wicked smirk that broke across your face was confirmation to Levi that Erwin had told you something about their secret conversations about you. He glared at the blonde as he climbed up on the horse next to him.

“I moved Squad Leader (Y/L/N)’s camp closer up in the middle so you won’t have to worry, Captain.” Erwin purposely said that out loud, the others around them trying to pretend they didn’t hear their Commander’s words. Levi’s glared intensified and he gripped the reigns. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw you mount your horse, only thirty feet away from him.

“Why would I care, Commander? Good for them. Now when they mess up, they can have us to back up their asses,” Levi growled out, trying to make it sound as harsh as possible. That made the others around stop listening, hearing a normal response from their Captain.

“I’m glad it fit, Captain,” Erwin said lowly, starting his horse to walk up to the front of the formation to give a rousing speech. Levi’s expression softened a bit, but he looked forward, testing out angles that made sure you were always in his periphery.

“I am too, Commander.”

Masterlist

[katieverse]

Brettsey + forehead kisses, but it's the male being kissed on the forehead

AN: This turned into a mini prompt series. Find Part I and Part II here. Also, please don't send any more prompts. I got more than enough now! Just FYI, this is taking place in the summer after season 8.

Prompt #3, Kiss on the forehead but it’s the male being kissed

As something tickles her nose, Sylvie slowly rises to wakefulness. She tries to blink her eyes open, but she instantly gets blinded by a bright light. Screwing them shut again, she lets out a quiet, irritated huff. The last time she remembers, her bedroom windows had blinds, so where is this sun coming from?

She tries to concentrate on any other sensations she might feel, and it doesn’t take her long to notice the immense warmth that surrounds her. There currently is a heatwave raging through Chicago so feeling hot is normal these days, but this feels different. It’s a solid warmth. One that tightly surrounds her upper body only.

It takes her a second longer to realize that she’s locked in place and unable to move, but then she registers the strong heartbeat underneath her palm, and it gives away her location. Images of the previous night fill her head, and she freezes in her spot–well, it’s not like she can move anyway.

Broken water pipe in her apartment. A text to Stella. Matt opening the loft door for her. The two of them having beers together while watching HGTV.

Matt is the solid warmth that surrounds her, and the steady and soothing heartbeat belongs to him. She should have known that it would be him. These days, he’s the only person who makes her feel completely safe and appreciated. He has the ability to lift her mood with just a few words or sometimes even with his mere presence, and she’s been seeking his comfort more times than she can count lately.

They have gotten closer in the last couple of months, so close that their carefully drawn line is slowly slipping. He’s easily become one of her best friends, but lately, she finds herself wishing he could be more than just her friend.

Which is a problem because he can never be more than just her friend. There is so much history between them, and despite every bone in her body telling her to screw it, she doesn’t. His friendship is too important for her to lose.

Matt sighs softly then, and Sylvie’s attention is turned to him. It makes her aware of their intimate position, and an overwhelming sense of security spreads through her. His warm embrace isn’t something she should enjoy and long for this much, but she can’t help it. It feels like everything to her, and she doesn’t have the strength to move away from him.

Last night, when she fell asleep, she vaguely remembers her head resting on Matt’s shoulder, but now she’s turned in his embrace. Her cheek is resting just above his heart, with her face looking up at him. One of his arms is spread along her back while the other one is flung over her front, his hands resting intertwined over her lower back and hip to hold her against him. It must look like an awkward position, but Matt has slipped down on the couch, so his upper body is titled, making it easy for her to rest on his chest.

She’s surprised she can still feel her legs as they are bent and tucked under herself, her knees pressing against the back of the couch. A blanket is covering her lap, another thing that Matt must have done last night.

Why did he always have to be so considered and caring? He’s making it harder and harder for her to push her feelings aside, and right now, she has zero interest in doing so. Maybe if she just enjoyed his closeness for a couple of minutes, then she might get it out of her system. It sounded like a solid idea, but it backfires for her.

She ends up gazing up at him, her eyes moving over every inch of his face. His head is resting against the back of the couch, but it’s tilted to the side. He looks at least ten years younger in his sleep, his features relaxed and all his lines of worry missing from his face. The urge to run her hand over his cheek overwhelms her, and without realizing it, her fingertips smooth over his cheekbone.

It’s a featherlike touch, but Matt instantly leans into it. A soft sigh leaves his lips, and Sylvie could swear the corner of his lips tug up. At this point, she can’t tear her eyes away from him, but then he tightens his arms around her, dragging her up his chest a couple of inches. Her head hits his chin, and before she could react, her head is tucked in his neck and his cheek rests against the side of her head.

It all becomes too much then. Not because she doesn’t want it, or it makes her uncomfortable. No, it’s the opposite. If she doesn’t extract herself from this situation now, she’s never gonna stop wanting to be with him.

Instead of contemplating it, she straightens her back and pushes herself up on his chest until she hovers over him with her face close to him. His grip on her doesn’t loosen, so she cups his cheek and runs her thumb over his cheek again. He instantly relaxes under her touch, and she uses the momentum to shift them on the couch.

Matt mumbles incoherently, his hands loosening on her but not a second later, he searches for her again, but Sylvie is quicker. She slips off the couch and to the floor, kneeling next to it while Matt comes to rest on his side on the couch.

He grabbed her hand after all, but despite all the movement, he stays asleep. She tries to not put too much into it, but at the same time, she can’t help but wonder if he feels just as safe with her as she does with him.

Her hand finds its way to his hair, and she softly brushes the slightly longer bang on his forehead back. It awakens another memory from last night, and her breath hitches in her throat.

It’s always been you.

The words sound like they could be out of her dreams, but she’s almost certain Matt had whispered them to her last night. She’s not sure what they mean, and she tries to not get her hopes up. They can’t happen anyway.

Her mind is a jumbled mess, but before she gets up to go to the bathroom, she surprises herself by leaning closer to him and pressing a kiss to his forehead. It’s longer than just a quick peek, and her eyes close for a brief moment, but ultimately, she pulls back and stands up.

After grabbing her bag, she spends the next twenty minutes in the bathroom. Her mind is running a mile a minute, and as she freshens up, she wills her brain to stop thinking about Matt. It’s almost impossible though, and when she walks back into the living space, she finds Matt sitting at the counter with two cups of coffee in front of him.

He looks groggy, his hair messy and his eyes still tired, but she has never seen a more handsome man in her life. When he flashes her a lopsided smile, pointing to the spot at the counter next to him and then the second cup of coffee, her heart skips a beat.

“Good morning, Sylvie,” he greets her in a raspy voice.

It takes everything in her to not walk up to him and kiss him senseless, and she realizes she won’t be able to suppress her feelings for him any longer. One day soon, they would come to the surface, and that makes her incredibly nervous.