#i love him i get it he is desperate to know how she feels

[kamitv]

Nerd!Nanami who whispers filthy praises into your ear while you’re sitting in his lap and his fingers are curling deep up into your cunt.

He’s got his glasses on but they’re sitting center on the bridge of his sharp nose, allowing them to slide down slowly since he’s too distracted with you to push them up like normal.

You’re facing him and your arms are wrapped tightly around his neck, legs spread nice and pretty over his lap while he drives his thick veiny fingers up into your leaky hole. With every moan you let out into his ear, his cock bulges harder against his tight tan slacks.

Rolling his hips up slightly in an attempt of getting some friction, Nanami’s all in your ear whispering to you. “So wet f’me ‘n I’ve barely even touched you all day. Did you miss my fingers that much, sweetheart?” He talks as if you weren’t dry humping him less than twenty minutes prior to this…

Even so, you nod and your lips graze his ear. “Uhuh,” You babble, feeling his fingertips curve right against your g-spot before rubbing against it genteelly.

“Words, pretty girl. Talk to me.” Nanami hushes out to you while dragging his fingers outwards slowly before plunging them right back in and listening to the gorgeous squelch that rings out from your pussy.

Your arms cage his neck all the more tighter and your hips jerk forwards. “Fuck. You w-were busy with work all day Ken’, hnngh… couldn’t s-stop thinkin’ about your hands ‘n how much I—oh fuuck, I m-missed them.”

His lips curve into a knowing smile and he has to adjust his legs below you slightly to stop himself from snatching his fingers out of you and bouncing you up ‘n down his cock for that entire statement alone. Nanami loves it when you talk while he pleases you, he loves the way your words come out all pitched and full of pleasure, just can’t get enough of it.

“Is that so?” He hums simply with a tortuous swivel of his two fingers against your walls that has your legs caging around his thighs tightly. “Did you touch yourself to those thoughts too? Hm?” Nanami’s voice has you dripping all down the skin of his hand, your slick shiny against his wrist as it drips off of him and right over his bulge.

You drop your head into the crook of his neck and roll your hips forward in an attempt of riding the fingers he’s fucking you with. “N-No but, I wanted to.” You admit honestly.

Nanami suppresses a groan. He can only imagine how needy you were for him, probably squeezing your thighs together all day just because you missed him. “Aw,” Nanami coos deeply in that smooth honey-coated baritone of his, “You should’ve done it and then sent me a video. I would’ve stopped working and came to help you, sweetheart.”

Your breath hitches at the thought alone and you immediately start lifting your hips to escape the overwhelming rush of pleasure, to which Nanami places his other hand on your waist and keeps you in place.

“Stay still, pretty girl. Lemme take care of you,” He’s whispering to you again, digging his fingers in and out and in and out while slipping his thumb up and rolling circles over your twitching clit. “Don’t run when y’know she missed me this much. S’not nice.”

“Kento,” You whine in a desperate tone before sliding one of your hands down to hold his wet wrist.

Nanami only increases the pace of his fingers at the sound of your wines, allowing the slicks of your pussy to overtake your small noises rather quickly. Then, he turns his head and kisses at your neck just as you lift and toss your head back. Sucking on your skin, staring up at you intimately, fucking his fingers you adore so much deeper inside you—Nanami makes it so very clear that he just loves pleasing you like this.

“After this,” He speaks hotly into your skin and he can feel your cunt pulsing and clenching around him with every word. “If you help me finish my paper within’ thirty minutes, I’ll fuck you all night jus’ like you want me to.” As his little challenge leaves him, you’re making a mess of his two fingers.

Gasping, “Mmnh, really?” Which only makes him smile because he knows damn well he’s going to do that regardless of the paper he has due tonight.

“Really.” Nanami confirms.

Hell, he’ll fuck you while he completes the damn paper if he has to…

He’s practically picturing it now—having you bent over his work desk, rolling his hips firmly into yours and driving his fat cock in and out of your sopping walls while he simultaneously reaches over to your side and messily writes or types out what he needs to.

Your moans and soft whimpers of his name would be distracting, sure. But Nanami’s pretty sure he can fill you and his paper up at the same time with no problems…

[leaawrites]

I like you, because you're you

Lando Norris x fem!reader

Summary: in which, she likes him for who he is, not because of how he looks.

Warnings: insecurities (Lando), some mocking (?) (unintentional),

Wordcount: 0.7k

Masterlist

She had a type, there was no use in denying that. It looked almost like a pattern when you looked at her exes. It was almost scary how similar some of them looked.

And she may have dated one or two of them because she wasn’t over about the one before them, but those were exceptions. Those were the ones she met in a club a week after a new break up and was in desperate need to replace the heartbreak with something familiar, even when it was only a face filled with nostalgia of another for her.

It was never a serious problem for her when her friends joked about them looking like a family tree when put together, because it wasn’t totally exaggerated. It was never a problem until they started doing it at dinner with her new boyfriend. Saying how he looked like someone they knew, but couldn’t right place who it was he reminded them of. It wasn’t a problem until one said, “oh, yeah, you look like y/n’s last boyfriend. Same hair, same face structure. That must be it.” And all of them hummed in agreement. Laughing afterwards and waving it off as a joke he shouldn’t take too serious.

But Y/n knew Lando, and she knew that he thought about it. More than he should. She could see it in his eyes when they looked in hers - if they even did that evening. She knew by the way he tapped his fingers anxiously against his leg or the table. She knew from the way he chewed on his lip and how he sat in silence for most of the remaining night.

She knew and she didn’t say anything about it until they got to his apartment again, the door slamming behind him and her not even flinching because she saw it coming. Lando didn’t get angry often, he only got frustrated and closed off. Most times it was too late to make him open up when you noticed, but she knew that you just had to ask enough times to make him break.

“Lando,” she approached him, putting her lips on his shoulder and trying to catch his gaze, but Lando was focused on the skyline outside the window.

Monaco at night, a kind of peaceful you didn’t want to disturb but she knew she had to now.

“Lando, please talk to me,” she pushed a bit further, interlacing their fingers and laying her head against his back. Her thumb rubbing over his skin.

“What they said wasn’t appropriate and they shouldn’t have done it. And I know it’s a shitty perspective from you, but please talk to me. Yell or do whatever, just please talk to me,” she continued, almost sounding like she was begging. And if necessary, she would.

“Do you like me because I look like him?” He finally said, his voice shaking and quiet. It broke her heart, seeing her love so fragile. The clouds covering her sunshine. Him.

“I like you, because you’re you,” she quickly said, stepping around him and taking his head in her hands to make him look at her. She could see tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. She could see them threaten to spill over and spill out. “I could never not like you, no matter how you look. You’re so funny and charming and loving, it’s breaking me to see you so down.”

“You promise?” Lando asked, putting his hands on her waist.

“I promise,” she answered. “Forever and always.”

He pulled her closer, closing any remaining space between them. With her head against his chest, she could feel his heart beating against his ribcage. Furiously trying to break free. She kissed the place where it was at, trying to calm it down, trying to not make it worry. Lando put his head on top of hers, kissing her hair and letting his tears fall down on her.

[hoffmansgirl]

greedy for love. ━ nicholas a. chavez

now playing: greedy by ariana grande 𓇼

𓏸𓈒 author's note. based off this request!! nicholas is so fucking big istg i need him to ruin my life... anyways, enjoy! feedback is deeply appreciated ♡

.ᐟ warnings. smut! minors dni. size kink, fingering, choking, slapping/spanking, dirty talk, unprotected piv, so much praiseeeeee, public sex | wc. 1285

"i can't", she cried out, eyes closing involuntarily as nicholas towered over her, long fingers disappearing into her cunt over and over again.

and she could barely take it. her back arched into his hard chest, one of his big hands holding her leg up to rest against his upper thigh.

"need to get you nice and ready for me, yeah?" nicholas murmured and thrusted his hand upwards, y/n's walls tight and wet around him. his fingers curled inside of her, causing her to cry out, head lulling back to rest against the wall as her vision went white. y/n tugged at his shirt, silently begging for more, and he tutted quietly, slowing his movements, the palm of his hand pressing against her clit with purpose. "do you think you deserve to cum, doll?" he asked, spreading his fingers against her walls, and she wailed, the line between pleasure and pain blurring with every passing second. y/n nodded her head, eyes snapping open to look at him, his eyes dark and dangerous as he towered over her.

"'been so good for you, nick", she cried out as he removed his fingers, licking them clean, groan leaving his mouth at the sweet taste of her.

"i know you were. but i want you on my cock, okay?" nicholas unbuttoned his pants in a second and they fell on the floor along with his boxers. cock leaking and ready, and y/n whined desperately, eyes widening at the size of him. no matter how many times they had sex, his size never failed to impress her.

nicholas was quick to lift her up with one arm, her back tight against the wall as he guided his cock to her cunt. they both moaned as he swiped his tip along y/n's puffy clit, teasing her entrance in the process. she whined, hips wriggling as she tried to lower herself onto his cock.

"beg for it." he simply said, smirk appearing on his face at her desperation, taking in the sight before him. he dipped into her, only the tip, the stretch making her lightheaded.

"nick, please", she cried out, clinging to his arms, the line between pain and pleasure blurring, tears brimming in her eyes. "i can't-"

"oh yes, you fucking can, baby", he chuckled darkly, the tightness of her cunt on his thick tip making it hard to control himself. she cried out, and nicholas was quick to put his hand on her mouth to shut her down. there was no need for him to hold her up anymore; she was pressed against the wall behind her, his body pinning her own tightly.

"so fucking tight", he hissed through gritted teeth, and pushed his hips forward; only half of him was inside of her, but she felt so full already. her eyes rolled back, the sensation of his big hand on her face making the experience even more pleasurable. her nails were scratching on his hard, muscular chest, drawing blood in the process. "this pretty little pussy was made for my cock, yeah?".

she tried to nod, but the sensation of his cock throbbing inside of her made it hard for her to breathe, any thought leaving her head. his hips snapped forward once more, burying his cock fully into her tight pussy, and his head fell back at the feeling. she squeezed him so hard, and she was so wet and welcoming; he grinded his hips against hers, and smirked when she let out a squeal.

"nick, i- you're so big", she hiccuped, body trying to adapt to his cock filling her. "'s too much, baby, please".

she had no idea what she was asking for; whether she wanted him to stop or to fuck her raw. nicholas grinned; hand leaving her mouth as he took a tight hold on her hips, beginning to move his hips; thrusting slowly but steadily, making sure she could feel all of him with his every move.

"you always take me so good, doll", he praised, and she shivered, eyes rolling back into her head when his tip kissed her g-spot over and over again. "i fucking love your tight little pussy. squeezin' me so well", he groaned, the veins in his arms popping out when he tried to hold her still. you moaned, eyes snapping open when he sped up, obscene sounds of his skin meeting hers echoing through the bathroom. nicholas' hands travelled up her body, tracing over her curves delicately ━ a contrast to his rough and deep thrusts. they met her lower stomach, and he could feel the slight bulge when he forced his cock into her. "feel that, baby?", he asked, pressing on it; causing his cock to slip out of her cunt. she whined, hands finding his arms, tracing over the muscles there; the feeling of his soft skin under her fingertips made her let out a moan. "feel how deep i'm inside you? fuck, i'm practically ruining you", he rasped, voice desperate, any ounce of self control leaving his body. she nodded, meeting his dark eyes as his hand found her neck. he pressed on it tightly, and she tried to gasp; not a sound left her mouth as he cut her airflow. he groaned, thrusts going erratic as he felt his orgasm nearing. she closed her eyes, the band in her stomach ready to snap anytime now ━ but before she could fall over the edge, she felt nicholas' hand slapping her cheek, his thrusts slowing.

she moaned at the sting on her cheek. "look at me. if you wanna cum, you gotta keep those pretty eyes of yours on me, alright?", he asked, hair falling onto his flushed face, and y/n nodded, unable to speak with one of his hands still around her throat.

"i'm gonna fill you up like a whore", he groaned, letting go of her neck; she gasped for air, clinging on to him when he sped up again.

his hands landed on her ass, spanking it every now and then; then kneading the burning skin there soothingly.

his thrusts became sloppy and imprecise as he felt himself getting close. "beg for my cum, bitch", he inhaled sharply as she arched her back, the slight change of angle making her see stars.

"nick, please- fuck, cum inside me. i fucking need it, so bad", she cried out, and he hummed, satisfied.

"cum with me, doll", he kneaded the skin of her boobs teasingly, lowering his head to catch her lips with his own.

nicholas tugged at her nipple roughly, and that did it for her. she cried out into his mouth, not caring about the award show going on behind the bathroom doors anymore; her orgasm washing over her, whole body shaking as she clenched around him, hard.

he groaned, the tightness of her cunt making it almost impossible for him to move; his hips grinded against her own, his mind going blank as he shot his load deep inside her womb.

"fuck, yes, take it all", he hissed, head falling against her shoulder as he came down from his high. she wrapped her legs and arms around him as he thrusted into her lazily, making sure not a drop of his cum left her pussy.

"good girl. you did so good for me", he cooed, pressing a soft kiss against her shoulder, chuckle leaving his mouth at the sight of her messy hair and makeup.

she snuggled into his chest, forgetting that they were on an award ceremony; for a second it was just them, no flashing lights of the cameras, no loud music and no judging eyes. nicholas smiled at the thought, pressing a loving kiss onto the girl's forehead.

hoffmansgirl 2024 © | nicholas chavez masterlist ♡

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

sebek and his big ol' heart

Y’all thought I would be writing an extensive analysis on [REDACTED] or Skully but JOKE’S ON YOU, I love my lame idiot child Sebek 😭

When I tell you I actually CRIED MULTIPLE TIMES reading his Nightmare Suit vignettes… because all the pieces fit together SO well…

Before reading this (long) post, I’d like to ask that you also take your time to read this analysis and this analysis. They will help you understand some of the points I made later regarding Sebek and his internalized racism + how he expresses himself.

Have your recommended reading done? Great, then let’s hop to it!

***Spoilers for Sebek's Nightmare Suit vignettes, book 7, and various other Sebek and Silver card vignettes.***

Sebek is one of those characters that lives in infamy for how much time he takes to get warmed up to. He presents himself as loud and brazen, with these traits often earning him the ire of both in-universe peers and irl fans alike. Worst case scenario, Sebek can be seen as someone who is outright hateful. He’s rude to most people (including Silver, his childhood friend, sometimes), denounces humans, acts like Malleus can do nothing wrong, and doesn’t seem to respect his own father.

Well, I’m here today to tell you those claims are false and that Sebek is actually capable of so, so much love. All you need to really do is look at his Nightmare Suit vignettes—and how well they connect with the rest of his lore—to understand what I mean.

The vignettes start with Jack Skellington finishing a bento that Sally made for him. Sebek tells Jack that he should now return the basket that the bento was delivered in to her and to let her know what he thinks of her meals, but Jack says he can’t because he’s busy with Halloween preparations. Jack asks Sebek and Azul to return the basket in his stead, which they do. They aren't allowed to see Sally because Dr. Finkelstein has locked her up for misbehaving, so they leave the basket. Azul advises that they also pass along Jack's comments (he had called Sally smart, thoughtful, and kind; he often forgets to have meals when he's absorbed with his work, so it's generous for her to prepare a delicious meal like this for him). Sebek loudly refuses, as he believes that hearing these grateful words from Jack himself would be much more meaningful to Sally.

He later confronts Sally at Town Hall and asks to speak with her privately (in an ALLEYWAY lol). There, Sebek flat-out tells Sally that such roundabout tactics will never help her feelings reach Jack because he's way too dense. Of course, she reacts with denial which sends Sebek into a passionate speech about the lengths Sally will go to for love (short of actually speaking about it). She literally threw herself out of a window and put herself in bodily harm to get to Jack when Dr. Finkelstein locked her in her room. She deliberately disobeyed her guardian and brainstormed a way to get out when theoretically she should not have been able to move around freely. If that's not motivated by love, then what is? Sebek declares that it's really annoying to watch Sally dance around the issue and to see her devotion go to waste. IT'S LIKE HE'S WATCHING/READING A ROMCOM AND THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS KEEP PLAYING THE "WILL THEY, WON'T THEY" CARD... She admits that she can't share her feelings because Sally thinks she's not worthy of someone as impressive as Jack... They're not compatible. And you know how Sebek responds??? BY TELLING SALLY ABOUT WHAT IS BASICALLY TWISTED ROMEO AND JULIET... Sebek reading tragic romance confirmed 😭 He describes the story as one of two lovers whose families do not approve of their union. In desperation, the lovers try to elope--but their plan fails and they return to their warring families. Instead of committing dying like in the original tale, the lovers live the rest of their lives lamenting the outcome and how they can no longer see the person they love most. Sebek shares his own interpretation of the story and its moral: because the lovers gave up hope that they could get their families to accept one another... because they never tried to get their families to get along... because they could not properly articulate their feelings to their families... the lovers could not be together. He is convinced that if they had communicated better, the story would have a happier ending. Sebek is of the firm belief that a story itself cannot come to be without the author wanting to share their own thoughts or feelings; he even suggests that maybe the author of Romeo and Juliet experienced something similar--a regret that resulted from neglecting to express deep-seated feelings. It's not just this book either, Sebek claims to have many stories with a similar theme or miscommunication leading to conflict.

Above all, Sebek stresses to Sally that she must believe in herself and take swift, decisive action. And why does Sebek whole-heartedly throw himself into this belief? Because his own family is living proof that a happy ending is possible if you try hard for it.

If you've paid attention to Sebek lore prior to this, you'll know that he has a human father and a fae mother. Their marriage faced opposition and scrutiny in Briar Valley, a country which is isolated from the rest of the world and suffered greatly from human invaders pilfering the fae lands for resources. One of these sources of opposition and scrutiny is Sebek's own grandfather and his mother's father, Baur. Apparently, Mrs. Zigvolt married Mr. Zigvolt against the wishes of her dad.

Sebek shares even more details with Sally in his Nightmare Suit vignettes. To this day, Baur does NOT approve of his daughter's marriage--but Mrs. Zigvolt doesn't let that get her down! No, she does everything in her power to prove to her father that she made the right choice and she's perfectly content with her life. She'll send letters enclosed with photographs of her family, take her children to visit Baur's home, and invites him to join family dinners. Sebek adds that he's sure his mom made other efforts too--all to try and get Baur to acknowledge her marriage. More recently, Baur seems to have lightened up a little... as in, he always used to turn Mr. Zigvolt away at the door, but now lets him in about once a year (though Baur still avoids eye contact with him and continues to frown). Mrs. Zigvolt stubbornly believes that if she keeps this up, her dad will one day change and bless her marriage with the man she truly loves. Sally commends Sebek and his mother's ability to speak their minds loudly and proudly, but then disparages herself again by saying she can't do the same. Sebek then confesses that he can relate to Sally's frustrations. He related her feelings to his own inadequacy in serving Malleus, the powerful and noble king-to-be of his country. That feeling... Sebek describes it as akin to heartache. But instead of wallowing in that heartache, he pushes himself to close that distance between himself and his idol. If he keeps hesitating, then there is absolutely no way he can catch up to where Malleus is! Sebek must dedicate himself to becoming someone worthy of serving him. He encourages Sally to do the same through both her words and her actions! At that moment, Jack walks in and Sally makes good on Sebek's advice. (This part isn't important to the analysis on Sebek's character, so I'm glossing over it.) The vignettes end with Epel complaining about Sebek being loud as per usual. Sally doesn't take issue with his volume though. She simply giggles and informs Epel that Sebek speaks so loudly and clearly so that his words can resonate with others--like how his words gave her courage.

We have learned new lore about Sebek's grandfather and mother. What does this tell us about Sebek? A lot, actually--if you slate it with all the other lore we have on hand.

We see just how strong of a woman his mother is. I suspect this is where Sebek picked up a lot of his hard-headedness, as well as the tendency to express himself very overtly, from. However, it also speaks to the loving environment he grew up in.

His mother seemingly never questioned her own life choices and never gave up fighting to prove her happiness to a father--and likely an entire community--that rejected her marriage, her husband, and maybe even her children. She fiercely loves and defends her family and the life they have made for themselves. Sebek states that he looks up to her for her magical strength, but that he also admires her principles and strong convictions. Indeed, it was her who ardently pursued Mr. Zigvolt and did not allow naysaying to deter her.

Then there is Mr. Zigvolt. In Sebek's Birthday Boy vignettes, he describes his father as "a strange man" who is "magically deficient" and "never lets his smile fade, no matter what I say to him [...] he defies comprehension." Though Sebek doesn't seem to hold the same amount of respect he has for his mother for his father, we don't hear Sebek openly insulting his dad, just expressing confusion about him. When asked about it, Sebek denies depending on his father--but it's clear there is a fondness there that he's not addressing. Mr. Zigvolt is impressed whenever his children use magic, buys them snacks they never asked for, and talks with them for long periods of time in a calm, patient manner. His father, too, has given Sebek so much compassion and understanding.

We don't know a lot about Sebek's siblings, but they seem to get along fine! He has mentioned going to parks with them. They've also gone fishing together and witnessed magic competitions, which they were all amazed by. The Zigvolts in general (or at least the parents) seem to be accepting too, as they volunteer to take Silver in whenever Lilia is unable to take care of him.

And you'd think that's where it ends, but NO. Baur ALSO has a lot of love to give. Despite not approving of his daughter's marriage, he doesn't actively despise his grandchildren. Quite the opposite, in fact! Though he's rough around the edges and looks scary, Baur doesn't fault any of his grandchildren for being born half fae and half human. He actually makes it a point to bond with them, and especially with Sebek. It was Baur who taught Sebek the language of nocturnal fae and instilled in Sebek his love for reading (as he bought many books for him and tells many stories himself). He also personally reached out to Lilia to train Sebek, as the young boy (at around age 7) expressed an interest in martial arts. Sebek has a love for salmon carpaccio because he and his siblings would fish at Baur's house and then prepare the dish for him--Baur was so happy about it. Additionally, Baur values getting a good education and was proud when Sebek shared with him that he was invited to attend Night Raven College.

Sebek grew up in a country that dislikes humans, but he was raised in an household where he was loved unconditionally and provided with all the resources he could need to get a good education and become someone who is physically strong. So of course he becomes frustrated when he sees Sally, who is so nervous to act on her feelings. What would have happened if Sebek’s mother had been like Sally? Sebek, as the youngest of three, might not event exist. His parents may not still be together… or maybe they wouldn’t have gotten together in the first place. It’s exactly because Sebek knows what love is supposed to be like--courtesy of his own family—that he can see it so well in others, and wants them to act on it. His very existence is proof that love is possible, and it transcends arbitrary labels like race that serve to divide people into categories.

One quirk of Sebek's is how he's always dishing out back-handed compliments or making comments that come off as rude but aren't at their core. He can't seem to help but say a good thing that sounds like something bad. His Diasomnia classmates, usually Silver, have to translate these Sebek-isms for others, who misunderstand him or interpret his words in the worst possible way. For example, from one of Silver’s Fairy Gala lines; “Sebek said to me that no self-respecting disciple of Lilia’s would dare get a single stain on this clothing. That's his way of encouraging me.” In Silver's Dorm Uniform vignettes, Sebek tries to reassure his friend and tell him to not let other people's opinions hurt him--but he phrases it as, "Hmph, ridiculous! I see no reason for you to heed a few random comments from some humans." The duo is also shown to be competitive with one another in training; it's never malicious, they both want to prove themselves as the superior knight, and the other serves as motivation to improve and/or a means of measuring one's own growth against a fellow disciple. When the mostly elderly population of Harveston is in need of physical labor, Sebek comments "[...] the humans in Harveston are woefully out of shape," yet he insists he "still [has] energy to burn" (as if to volunteer himself to do more work) and call such tasks "simple" (as if to point out how easy it is for him to do, so don't worry about troubling him). He hauls apples and helps the villagers with whatever they need, declaring that they should "be grateful"--but if he truly did not care, he could have stopped at any time or settled for just making fun of them. But Sebek doesn't, because he DOES care deep down. This aspect of Sebek is made even more obvious in Fairy Gala: What If. He appears at Ramshackle and opens by declaring, "NO! I am by no means worried about anyone! [...] Don't mistake my intentions. I am NOT here to help! If your mission doesn't succeed, the repercussions will definitely affect Malleus and Lilia. Hence... I shall lend you uneducated humans my aid! [...] You're welcome to weep with joy at my magnanimity..." Time and time again, we see Sebek demonstrating a lot of kindness, but deflecting or not being totally transparent with his intentions due to pride or embarrassment. This behavior is very reminiscent of Baur, the grandfather that Sebek loves dearly and spent so much time with. Baur, too, can be very passionate and loving, but struggles to speak of those feelings openly. Just look at how the man deals with Mr. Zigvolt. The behaviors of the family, then, imprint on Sebek and influence his behaviors--and being that Sebek is from such a loving group, it follows that Sebek puts out a lot of love into the world too.

A lot of times when the fandom discusses Sebek's attitude, I feel it's from the context of him being hateful towards humans. I'm not going to deny that Sebek has said some pretty nasty things about half of his own identity. The point I would like to make here is that Sebek can love just as strongly.

The most obvious thing that supports the claim that Sebek is capable of strong love is how he views Malleus. It's no great secret that Sebek practically worships the ground his dorm leader walks on. That's essentially Sebek's key defining character trait. What I'll ask you to consider instead is the nature of Sebek's love--not the obsessiveness of it, but rather the unconditional nature of it.

In Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas, Skully laments that Sebek has not been disappointed by his idol, Malleus. Sebek actually corrects him by saying that love isn't imposing your own views on your idol, it means preparing to accept them, flaws and all. He says the same of Malleus; should the time ever come where Sebek's expectations of Malleus falter or their paths have to diverge, then he will still embrace his young master, never once turning his back on him. And where does Sebek gets this from? His parents. The father who loves his children no matter how critical Sebek may be of him. The mother who remained so strong in the face of her friends and family being against her life choices.

A common fandom sentiment regarding Sebek is that he blindly follows Malleus--but when speaking about his idol to Skully, Sebek says that agreeing with someone and continuing to love them are different things. You can disagree with someone's actions and still continue to love them and accept them. This follows what Sebek does in book 7; though he is betrayed and hurt by Malleus turning his powers against the world, Sebek does not let up on the hope that he can bring his young master back. He even sillily calls the yet-to-be-hatched Malleus tamago/egg-sama, showing even an infant form of Malleus great respect after witnessing his OB. Skully took the opposite path that Sebek did; when he realized that his own idol, Jack Skellington, was not as he imagined him to be, Skully became enraged and lashed out over it. Sebek points out Skully's inadequacies as well, which ties back to how he spoke of his own drive to improve in his Nightmare Suit vignettes. Skully confesses to trying desperately to emulate Jack--so much so that he breaks down when Sebek's UM destroys his iconic shades. He wallows in his current state and doesn't make efforts to change or to be better; the past and his own vision is where he's comfortable. It's a strong contrast to Sebek, who has made it clear he will continue to train and work hard to prove his merits and to be someone worthy of protecting the great Malleus Draconia.

It is Sebek's passion and boundless love that makes him a hero both in Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas AND in the main story's book 7. He serves as a foil to Skully in the former and actively saves Silver when he's on the brink of despair in the latter. After learning that his biological father is the man responsible for killing Malleus's mother and leading the Silver Owls' onslaught on Briar Valley, Silver despairs and comes to the conclusion that his father must loathe him. "He could never love the son of the man he despised! He has to hate me! He has to!" Sebek rushes to Silver's side using Living Bolt, a UM he has yet to master (thus causing residual damage to him when he casts it), to correct him:

"You have this much strength... and you dare to say you weren't loved?! That you were hated?! [...] If [Lilia] hated you, he didn't have to give or teach you anything. He could've just raised you into a dimwitted coward and made you a servant. But he didn't--and look at you now. Even alone and helpless, you stood firm. You spoke up, unfaltering in the face of our liege's madness. Even trapped in the darkest despair, you kept on fighting! Who raised you to be so strong? LILIA DID! Why don't you see? Why do you doubt? You should have understood years ago! What can you call your strength, if not the direct result of Lilia's love?!"

WHETHER SEBEK REALIZES IT OR NOT, A LOT OF WHAT HE TELLS SILVER HITS HOME FOR HIM TOO... Like, thinking about it... Sebek must have faced a lot of prejudice from his community because of who his father is. He might have grown up thinking he, too, was hated, had he not been protected by his loving mother, father, and, yes, even grandfather, who is still struggling to accept the human in their family. Baur must have been feeling very complicated emotions upon meeting his half human grandchildren for the first time... but even though he dislikes humans, he could never find it in himself to dislike his grandkids. If he had hated Sebek, he wouldn't have wanted him to get a good education. Baur wouldn't be happy that he got into NRC. He wouldn't personally ask Lilia to train the grandson who expressed an interest in combat. He wouldn't buy so many books for Sebek or read with him or tell him stories or teach him his language. But Baur DID do all of these things, because deep down he loves Sebek no matter what he is. If it was anything less than love he felt for his grandson, if he decided to neglect his grandkids, then Sebek would have grown up as some "dimwitted coward". IT'S ALL CONNECTED.

And now here Sebek stands, able to tell others that they are loved and should be cognizant of that love. He reminds Silver that Lilia loves him. He advises Skully to reevaluate how he sees his idol. He tells Sally to speak honestly about her feelings, because it was his own mother speaking honestly about hers that led to Sebek and his entire family being as happy as they are now. He shouts at people to act and to speak their minds because he doesn't want them to live with regrets, because he doesn't want to see them be weak and timid--a version of himself that could have resulted if he hadn't been loved so strongly.

You can say many things about Sebek: that he's loud, that he's rude, that he's a fanboy, that he has big muscles. But of all those muscles, Sebek has a very big heart too. And what made him so strong? All the love he received from his family, despite growing up an environment that surely invited hatred for humans.

[rizsu]

ꪆ୧ ── REAP WHAT YOU SOW ┊ LOVE TO LOSE ﹑ JJK. ⤿ starring: gojo satoru x fem!reader.

꒰ heart to none ﹢ if only he knew karma would come back to bite his ass a few years later. now he misses his ex while she's moved on.

𖧷 · love, ‘su: nothing much!! just moments of him suffering

co-parenting with satoru truly isn't all butterflies. as reserved and respectful as he is (to a selected few), satoru never hesitated to taunt you whenever you mentioned going on dates.

“a date? hmm, good luck with that.”

“if it happens to kick off, good for you, but i don't want him near my child.”

“how exciting! i hope it fails.”

those are just some examples of his behaviour. he's vocal about disliking you and the idea of sharing you. had he known beforehand he'd become slightly possessive, he would've avoided you and relationships altogether.

loving someone his mind hates but his heart longs for isn't an experience he'd wish upon his worst enemy — it's too much. the wretched feeling in his chest deepens whenever he's with the kid; scenarios of you being beside him at that very moment flashes before his eyes, but his pride's too high to crash whatever you're doing.

that doesn't stop him from texting, however. he never had an issue with double—triple texting you. if he had something to say (which is never anything important), he'll say it.

satoru: hey.

satoru: did you forget you have a family at home?

satoru: my child's asleep btw, we had fun all day.

you: my* child. not yours.

satoru: so what am i, an elf on babysitting duties?

you: sure if that's what you want. now stop texting my phone.

satoru: what if i'm dying?

you: i'd pop some champagne. throw something on the grill. light up a cigarette, even.

satoru: you don't even like cigarettes.

you: exactly. now bye i'll be there for six.

yeah, there's no doubt that you'll never entertain him again. he, too, wouldn't entertain himself if he was in your position. sure, he was an ass in the relationship but— you're both older and wiser. maybe you can put the differences aside and come together? a flat no is what you'd answer.

satoru doesn't even hear from you often; most of your activity reports come from your child who excitedly tells their father the details, wishing he was there.

“you guys had fun. i wish i was there too, bub.”

a sentimental tone settled in his voice. he's suffering the consequences of his actions, and he desperately needs you to help him through it.

just like old times: you'd be there for him, going along with whatever he needed to calm down. whether it's wanting to be in you or on you— as long as your arms were wrapped around him.

but it's all a memory now. a bitter one.

do you show your vulnerable side to the guys you date, too? do you hold them the way you held him? do they even know what you like? do they know you the way he knows you?

jealousy, regret, longing— everything mixes in his mind. his stomach aches. it feels as though his insides are hollow.

he adores your child. they look mostly like him, but the personality stems from you. the attitude, tantrums, even the way they hold things — it's all you. he guesses the kid's observed you and eventually picked up your habits. satoru relates; after all, he still has some of your habits he picked up.

as the clock ticks on, his fingers hover over the keyboard on his phone. somehow, he found himself in your pinned chat— debating whether he should text or not. he's been typing and deleting for the past ten minutes. unless you're not on the app, there's no way you didn't notice the ‘typing...’ under his contact name.

satoru: i've been thinking.

(message deleted)

satoru: fuck your date let's get back together.

(message deleted)

satoru: or whatever you're doing right now. let me apologize — it's been years. our baby's four now.

(message deleted)

satoru: hey.

you: what's with these deleted messages?

you: are you okay?

he wonders. is he okay? would you come over if he said no? are you going to be mad if he re-sent what the deleted messages said?

satoru: uhhh yeah. everything's fine.

satoru: i'm bored that's why.

satoru: you should totally come over.

you: no.

you: talk to you later.

satoru: please? i'm serious.

you: fine.

satoru: might as well spend the night.

(message deleted)

satoru: thanks.

(message delivered)

“well fuck...” he sighs, raking his fingers through his hair. he doesn't have anything to say nor do with you. actually, he does — he has quite a few, but he wouldn't push your buttons. he'd love to, but the chances of him receiving a slap is high.

[cosmerelists]

Cosmere Fake-Dating Pairs That Could "Plausibly" Happen

As requested by @room-temperature-orange-juice :)

Sanderson doesn't seem to go for fake dating all that much. But here are some scenarios that could TOTALLY happen if he did want to incorporate some fake-dating comedy into his books...

1. MeLaan & Marasi

The Scenario: Well, they obviously need to go undercover to solve a case, perhaps to a ball or a party or a wedding where it makes the most sense to pretend to be a couple

MeLaan (currently in a woman's body): All right. Let's do this! Marasi: U-Uh, MeLaan? Are you sure that's the...best body for this operation? MeLaan: Shit, you're right. Hang on! MeLaan: [Returns as a much more voluptuous woman] MeLaan: Now everyone will know that you can pull. Marasi (deeply red): T-THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT

2. Kaladin & Szeth [Rhythm of War spoilers but NO WAT preview spoilers]

The Scenario: Well, we know that Kaladin and Szeth will be going to Shinovar on a mission. Let's say Szeth needs to explain why he's brought a stone-walker into his homeland. The obvious explanation is that they're dating!

Shinovar authority figure: D-Dating?! Why would you date a stone-walker?! Szeth (expressionless): I like tall men. Kaladin (equally expressionless): He likes it when I hit my head on things. Szeth (still expressionless): Though I love him deeply, I do enjoy a good instance of head trauma. Shinovar authority figure (muttering): Is double "Truthless" a thing?

3. Charlie & one of those princesses

The Scenario: Rather than driving off all of the eligible princesses by being as boring & gross as possible, Charlie finds one who is willing to play along.

Charlie: T-The truth is, I already have a woman I love. The Princess: Really? Charlie: Yeah, but my dad doesn't approve of her... The Princess: I know how you feel. My father also doesn't approve of the woman I love... Charlie: ... The Princess: ... Charlie: ... The Princess: ... Charlie: Five-year engagement? The Princess: At least!

4. Lyn & Renarin

The Scenario: Fed up with her parents being all judgmental because she dumped Kaladin Stormblessed, Lyn decides that she HAS to bring an awesome date to her family dinner--and who better than a Brightlord, a Radiant, AND the king's son?

Lyn: Don't forget to bring up that you joined the 4v1 duel before Kaladin. Lyn: And how you took down a Thunderclast! Lyn: Storms, if you just smile occasionally, I bet that'll make them forget about Kaladin... Lyn: ... Lyn: Honestly, I think you might just be a better catch than Kaladin. Renarin: I'm gay, though. Lyn: Heh, well I didn't say you're a better catch for me...

5. Kaladin & Elhokar

The Scenario: Imagine that, during the infiltration of Kholinar, that part of their disguises involve Elhokar (disguised as a lighteyed woman) being the wife of Kaladin (disguised as an ugly old man).

Elhokar: Mmmm...I don't feel that I would go for a man with eyebrows like that. Shallan: Brightlady, please! Surely you can pretend that beneath his rough exterior, he has a good heart. Kaladin: ...pretend? Elhokar: No, no. I definitely would have insisted that he at least groom better. Can you make his eyebrows at least a bit neater? To sell the illusion? Or, do we have time to stop for nose-hair trimmers? Shallan: What if I just make his cheekbones a bit sharper? Elhokar: Mmmm...okay, yes. I could see myself marrying him. Kaladin: CAN WE PLEASE GET GOING

6. Wayne and Ranette

The Scenario: Wayne begs Ranette to fake-marry him.

Ranette: [looking at Wayne with a mixture of horror and pity] You said you weren't gonna do this anymore, Wayne. Wayne: No, no! Don't you get the wrong idea here! I need you to marry me and then divorce me horribly so you get half of my money in court! Wayne: Please understand--I've tried everything to get rid of this money. I'm desperate here! Wayne: Please! Ranette: ... Ranette: I get to divorce you horribly? Wayne: You better eviscerate me in court! Ranette: ... Ranette: Might be right therapeutic, actually. Wayne: You're such a good friend!

Moash & Kelsier

The Scenario: Moash realizes he's going to be reunited with his former Bridge 4 friends and makes plans accordingly.

Moash: Yup. This is my old Bridge 4 uniform, but now it's dyed black, because I'm new & evil now. Moash: And this is my new boyfriend Kelsier, who's just like you, Kaladin, only he survives MORE and actually FOLLOWS THROUGH on killing the king. Kelsier: Lord Ruler. Moash: Whatever. Moash: So as you can see, I don't even miss you guys AT ALL. Moash: ... Moash: What do you think? Will this make them jealous? Kelsier: ...I think we need to practice your speech a bit more.

[ashwhowrites]

i love love love your writing and i have been waiting for your requests to be open!! can you please write a billy hargrove x reader story where he rejects her and then he regrets it and has to grovel?

Like she is super nice and friendly with everybody, and she can even get Billy to soften up to her. She's had a crush on Billy for the longest time like since he's arrives in Hawkins but he always is hooking up with somebody or flirting with somebody else. Then she notices that he's been alone for a couple of weeks and thinks this is her chance so she confesses to him and he lets her down gently because he doesn't feel the same (he so does but in his experience romance never lasts and he could never ever bear to lose her) and so she decides that having him as a friend is better than nothing.

But obviously she can't act the way she acted before and she starts distancing herself from him. No more grabbing his arm for security when the hallways are crowded. No more asking him for rides to and from school. No more chattering in his ear during lunch. Instead, she's doing those things with her best friend Steve or Eddie because they knew about her heartbreak and they're trying their best to be supportive.

And obviously he can tell right away that things are different and he's fighting the urge to shove Steve/Eddie away and take back his place next to you. He's trying to reach out and spend time with you and he doesn't care if he sounds desperate when he's doing so but she keeps blowing him off because she wants to get over him and she thinks he's just pitying her.

He finally snaps one night and sneaks into her room and tells her how he's been going crazy. She apologizes for being distant and says that she's moving on so that they can be friends. And Billy just says screw that and he doesn't care what he said before he just wants HER.

Sorry if this is a lot but I can't wait to read what you do with this!!!

I hope this is what you wanted and you enjoy it. Thank you for requesting 🫶🏻

Relationship guy

Y/N and Billy had a touchy friendship. From afar they looked to be a couple, with the way they held hands, hugged, kissed each other's cheeks, and the way Billy would do anything for her. She was the only person in the world Billy had a soft spot for, that had to mean something.

There wasn't much time when they were apart. Billy was at her house first thing in the morning, the door open as he waited. The way he leaned against his car made her heart race every time. Then they arrive at school, and as usual, everyone is watching. They moved around the school and when people got too rowdy, Y/N would latch herself to Billy's arm.

"I got you," he smiled as he threw his arm over her shoulder. It wasn't the first time and probably wouldn't be the last.

Lunch was Y/N's favorite part of the school day. Not only because of no class but because she got to talk to Billy non-stop for those few moments.

"Do you think you'll win today's game?" Y/N asked, crunching down on Billy's ignored apple.

Billy scoffed, stuffing his face. "Duh, I'm on the team."

Y/N laughed and nodded, "Fair point, and Steve too!"

"Oh yeah because he does a lot," Billy rolled his eyes.

"Be nice, he is my other best friend," Y/N playfully lectured.

"Yeah, but we know I'm better,"

"In basketball or being a friend?" Y/N asked to clarify

"Both, babygirl," he winked.

The bell rang and they packed up their trash. Before they went separate ways for class, Y/N kissed Billy's cheek goodbye.

~~~

Y/N fell for him, of course. She had eyes for Billy ever since he moved to Hawkins, but he didn't have the eyes for her. His eyes looked at every girl that passed by him. Y/N never made a move because he was always sleeping around with a new girl, but lately, he seemed to be alone more than usual.

With his eyes not looking elsewhere, Y/N found a boost of confidence to ask Billy out.

They were lying in his bed listening to music when she turned to look at him. She took in his handsome features, studying how gorgeous he was up close. She watched as his lips formed a smile and he turned to look at her.

"Why are you staring at me?" he laughed, placing an arm under his head and propping himself up. He reached out and placed his arm over her waist. She smiled at the feeling, her heart racing.

"Have you ever seen me more than just a friend?" she asked, her stomach twisted as his smile slowly disappeared from his face.

"What do you mean?" he asked, licking his lips nervously.

She took a deep breath, cuddling closer into his warm body. He hoped she couldn't hear how fast his heart was pounding.

"I like you, Billy. I have for a long time but never said anything. Lately, you've been alone and it got me thinking maybe this is my chance to tell you."

Billy was in awe of her soft voice and the beauty of her heart. The truth was, he did like her. He was alone because no girl could get his mind off of her. She was the only person in his life that made him happy and he wasn't sure if he'd live if he lost her. He never tried to have a relationship so he had zero hope he would treat her the way she deserved.

"I think you are incredibly beautiful, inside and out. You've given my life a whole new purpose and I'm grateful to have you. I'm not a relationship guy and that won't change. I love you and hold a place for you in my heart, but in a friendly way." Billy said gently. He softly rubbed her hip as she sighed.

"If you were a relationship guy, would you go for me?" she asked, moving to look up at him. There was so much emotion in his blue eyes and she wished she could detect it.

"My first and only choice, baby," he said softly, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "Are you going to be okay? I really don't want to lose you as my friend," Billy admitted. He feared she'd pull away and he wouldn't blame her.

"Yeah, I'll be okay," she smiled. The rejection slightly hurt but she had a gut feeling Billy wasn't the boyfriend type anyway.

Billy hummed as a response. He moved to wrap both his arms around her, setting his head on hers as she cuddled into his chest.

~~~

Turns out she wasn't as okay as she thought she'd be. Spending all her time with Billy was fun and exciting. But now all she could think about was how badly she wanted more and how it would never happen. The kisses to her cheek that made her heart race were starting to make her stomach sour. And riding with him to and from school felt suffocating as his cologne filled the space.

She realized she would never be able to move on from him if she didn't change things. So, she figured creating a little distance would help her clear her head and heal her heart. Once she felt over him, they could resume their friendship and it wouldn't hurt her anymore.

Y/N got in Billy's car, her mind reeling. She was in deep thought and had been struggling with what to do.

"Steve is going to bring me home today," she said quietly. Billy turned down the music and turned to look at her. But she kept her eyes on the road as he drove.

"Oh, why?" He asked, moving his eyes back to the road. He ignored the ping of jealousy that ran through him.

"I think I need some space from you. Not in a bad way, it's just to help me. We'll still hang out and be best friends. I promise," she smiled. She reached over to place a comforting hand on his thigh.

Billy wanted to do what was best for her, but selfishly he didn't want space. He nodded and focused on the road, he hoped she couldn't see the water filling his eyes as he pulled into the parking lot.

~

The end of the day arrived and Billy could feel her lack of presence. He walked in the hallways alone, watching as she clung to Steve instead. She didn't sit with him at lunch, but that didn't stop him from staring at her the whole time. He dreaded driving home alone all day and he hated that it arrived. He also hated that her needing space meant everything changed.

He gave her a small wave as she drove by in Steve's car. His heart sped up as she excitedly waved back with a big smile. At least she still cared about him.

~~~

Billy tried to be patient with giving her space but after a week, he was ready to throw in the towel. He had to physically hold himself back from slamming Steve against the lockers whenever Y/N touched him. That was Billy's place. He fought the urge to sit at her new table, and beg her to gossip about her friends, anything to listen to her talk.

He missed driving with her, her smell in his passenger seat was slowly fading.

He sat on his bed as he held the phone to his ear, he hoped with everything in him that she would pick up.

"Hello?"

Billy smiled at the sound of her voice, "There she is, I've missed you," he admitted.

"I've missed you too, Billy," she said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Want to come over? We can order your favorite and watch those horrible movies you like," Billy offered.

"That sounds amazing, but I can't tonight. I'm sorry."

"That's alright, maybe next time," Billy said disappointed. The call ended shortly after and Billy slammed the phone down. He pulled at his hair as he took deep breaths to calm himself down. He was mad, frustrated, and hurt.

"You okay?"

Billy looked up as hot tears streamed down his face. Max stood at his door with a worried expression, a look he'd never seen her have before.

"I'm fine," he snapped. He walked up and slammed his door. Max didn't take it personally, it was the first time she ever saw Billy cry.

"I know we aren't friends, but it's okay to be upset. It's okay to feel things other than anger." Max said before she walked away.

~

The more time they spent apart, the more desperate Billy got. The more he called, the more he begged. He didn't care if he sounded crazy or pathetic, all he wanted to do was see her.

She noticed all the attention, and it was hard to look the other way. But she knew she'd never get over the love she had for him if she went back. She couldn't talk to him without getting lost in his eyes, or be in the same car inhaling his cologne. She couldn't touch his skin and not think about how much she wanted to taste it.

She figured he was pitying her, trying to lessen the blow of rejection. She knew Billy cared about her and it was something he'd do, but it didn't help her. It only made it harder.

She went to turn off her lamp when she heard knocking on her window. Only one person went through her window so she prepared herself to see him again.

She quickly fluffed her hair and smoothed out her sleep clothes. She walked over and opened the curtain. She didn't say anything as she unlocked the window and let him through.

"I can't do it anymore. I tried and I want to do what is best for you but I can't do it anymore!" Billy ranted as he paced around her room. "I can't take the distance. It's selfish, I know but I am falling apart here."

"Billy," she sighed, "It's hard now but trust me, it'll help us in the end."

"No, it won't!"

"If we don't do this now, I will never get over you. It'll damage our friendship in the long run. I'll never be able to accept when you get a girlfriend or decide one day to get married. I'll be tortured and unhappy. I'm doing this for the future us," she explained. "This is the only way I'll be happy for you."

"I don't care about future us. I care about us right now. I care about you being in my life right now." Billy begged. She watched Billy walk around the room, tears building in his eyes.

"I can't have you in my life right now!" Y/N argued, "You don't understand how painful it is to be in love with someone who can't love you back."

"What if I can?" he whispered, she felt her anger come to a halt.

Y/N scoffed, "You said it yourself, you're not a relationship guy."

"I don't give a fuck what I said. It was all bullshit, okay? I'm scared and have no idea what I'm doing and I don't know if I'll be who you want me to be, but I don't care. I want you," he confessed. He walked over and placed his hand on her cheek. She felt her breathing pick up as he looked down at her, so much emotion in his eyes.

He leaned in and she followed, turning her chin up as she closed the gap between them. She sighed in bliss as his warm lips worked against hers. He wrapped his arms around her, desperately pushing her body against his. Kissing her was better than Billy imagined, she was sweet and soft. He wanted to beat himself up for waiting so long.

Needing air, he pulled away. He placed his forehead on hers, opening his eyes as he panted against her mouth. "I'm ready to be a relationship guy. I love you."

"I love you too, Billy," she smiled, placing her lips on his.

~

Billy couldn't wipe the smile off his face as he pulled up to her house. He got out of the car and opened her door. He crossed his arms as he waited for her to walk out.

"There's my girl," he whistled as she walked down the driveway. She rolled her eyes but blushed at the nickname. She greeted him with a kiss, loving the way he wrapped his arms around her to deepen it.

"Good morning to me," Billy said against her lips. She pulled away to smile. She got in the car and Billy followed.

His hand was on her knee the whole drive. Y/N felt butterflies in her stomach ever since they kissed. She couldn't believe she and Billy were in a relationship.

They held hands as they walked into the school. He was happier than ever to have her by his side again, and this time as his girlfriend.

[brotherwtf]

I submit this and humbly request your imagination of a scenario

wait wait this got me thinking about frat boy/preppy Gale, someone who's a little shit kind of like how Gale is in canon, quick one liners to easily make fun of people all while looking so innocent

John who's kind of shy, doesn't really talk to people and keeps to himself, but he opens up more with his friends, some sort of tutor and that's why he's always in the library when Gale finds him

Gale's failing english, point blank period, and he needs to save his grade or he's going to get kicked out of his frat, so he finds John in the library and asks for his help.

and John's nervous because he has a couple of classes with Gale, knows he can be outright cruel if he wants to be, knows he has a beautiful girl on his arm, so he hates himself even more when he gets those stupid teenage butterflies in his stomach whenever he sees Gale, all cleaned up and proper and Johns already so far gone

but Gale's a sweetheart, always kind and quiet with John and while he sometimes teases him it's all in good fun, and Johns always a blushing mess whenever Gale sits next to him and he almost can't concentrate on the assignment they're working on

sometimes Marge will tag along, offer up some unhelpful commentary, maybe she mentions something about Johns glasses "they do nothing for your face, hun" and when Gale gives her a look she feigns innocence "what? I'm just stating the obvious," and Johns up and leaving, trying not to look behind him and have his heart broken again

the next time John meets with Gale he wears his contacts, he almost doesn't recognize himself in the mirror but maybe Marge was right, maybe they were the problem, and he hates to admit that he wants Gale to like him the way he likes her

and when Gale sees him he looks confused, like he's trying to place something until he asks "where are you glasses, John?"

"I decided to wear contacts, Marge was right they're not doing anything for me" John shrugs and Gale furrows his eyebrows together

"I thought your glasses made you look cute," and OOPS John's a fucking goner because now he can't talk and he's rendered speechless and Gales acting like nothing even happened as he very casually pulls out his book and waits for John to get his wits together so he can actually be doing what he's supposed to

and it keeps going on like this "that sweater makes you look cute" "I really like those pants Bucky" "did you do something different with your hair? it looks good" all while John is secretly telling him to shut up because he can't handle all of the compliments lest Gale wants him to pass away from all of the compliments

Gale says one day that he broke up with Marge, couldn't handle her negativity, says he likes how positive John is, and then it's quiet for a moment, Gale fiddling with the pages of his book, and Johns freaking out before Gale just kisses him on the cheek, smiles with the faintest blush and runs out of the library before John can even say anything

he texts Gale after, asks if everything's all right, and Gale doesn't respond, doesn't respond for a couple of days and John worries that their friendship is ruined, blames himself for all of it even though Gale technically kissed him first

he's walking back to his dorm one night when he hears someone call his name, and he turns to find Gale running after him, panting and looking like he just ran across campus

"John, I'm really sorry, but I gotta tell you something. I like you, like I like you a lot, and I'm sorry if kissing you fucked up our friendship, you don't ever have to talk to me again, I just felt like I had to say something before you left," Gale confesses, and it's like John was hit with a fire hose

and he can't quite help himself, doesnt know what happened or what came over him, but he grabs Gale's face and kisses him, almost desperately, and he can feel Gale smile into the kiss, hates but doesn't hate how much he loves how it feels to finally kiss him, after so many hours of quietly watching him, it feels so good

anyway I have this sweet hc where Gale just lifts John's glasses whenever he wants to smush his face against John's, pulls them off so he can sloppily make out with him and I just think that's neat :))

[redvexillum]

Read the summary, and I was like... oh my satan's ass crackers I just - wait - uhm - HOL UP??!!?!?!?

Let’s start with that beginning—him spiriting her away in the dead of night, away from prying eyes and judgmental whispers. The secret romance? The thrill of being held by someone who’s not “approved”? UGH, my fave trope!!!!! And the way you capture Alastor’s ability to make her feel alive, like jazz running through her veins? I can feel every shivering giddy pulse that makes her forget her own discomforts. That’s the mark of truly powerful storytelling—where the character’s world fades away in the presence of the one they love.

And then, when they’re alone in the dimly lit speakeasy, and he pulls her into that desperate, passionate kiss? OH, the imagery is just absolutely delicious! The scent of tobacco and bayou earth? —it’s so visceral and distinctly Alastor! His hands on her, the way they crave every inch of each other, her leg hooked over his hip? It’s the embodiment of raw, untamed desire, and I. Am. HERE. FOR. IT. 🔥

But oh, let’s not forget the absolute gentlemanly savagery when she hesitates and he’s all, “I don’t mind.” He’s so confident, so utterly devoted to giving her pleasure and comfort, it’s like he’s made to chase her worries away. Alastor saying he isn’t afraid of a “little blood”? I’m swooning. It’s bold, it’s intimate, and it’s so real. And the way he reassures her with that line about easing her pain with pleasure—HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING, and it’s giving us everything we could ask for!

Then, THAT moment when he licks his fingers? Holy smokes, it’s such a daring, unapologetic act, and it’s just so him. He’s practically worshipping her, and her reaction? PRICELESS. The sensuality, the fascination, the shock—it’s a perfect touch of vulnerability that makes her feel even more deeply connected to him. And as if that isn’t enough, he takes it a step further, pushing her into this thrilling mix of scandal and desire by letting the public setting amplify the risk. Every soft whisper, every forbidden touch, it’s like they’re suspended in their own private universe amid the crowded speakeasy, and it’s SO HOT I CAN BARELY HANDLE IT. 😳🔥

This entire scene captures their love, their passion, and the desire that pulls them to each other despite every risk. It's seductive, it’s rebellious, and I can’t get enough. You’ve woven this tension, love, and thrill with such a gorgeous hand, and it feels both exhilarating and tender all at once.

And don’t even get me started on the details! The imagery you created with him looking down, admiring how they’re connected, saying she’s “painting him red”—I am melting. It’s so raw and intimate, as if he’s completely entranced by her, savoring every second they have. It’s like he’s utterly obsessed with her in the best, most spine-tingling way! And the way he’s determined to keep things quiet, even as things get absolutely wild? He’s keeping up this delicate balance of control and desire, and it’s maddeningly hot.

Then there’s her tasting the salt on his neck, and Alastor’s reaction—the nips, the kisses, his shuddering breaths… You capture every glance, every soft moan, and it’s like we’re right there in the dim light, watching the world melt away around them ..... shit, does that make me a voyeur?????

AND OH, THAT ENDING! 🥵 When they finally come undone, when he’s kissing her so deeply to keep her quiet as he finishes inside her? It’s tender, intense, and dripping with love. That whispered “I love you” after everything? I’m on my knees. It’s so pure, so vulnerable, and it hits straight in the feels. The fact that he’s trying to tidy her up at the end, helping her straighten her skirt, giving her one last gentle kiss—my heart is just full.

I WOULD LIKE ONE ALASTOR PLEASE. At least the Alastor you painted in this story!

Not Afraid Of A Little Blood (Human Alastor x Reader)

CW: Public sex, period sex, vaginal fingering, licking fingers clean Rating: Adult Summary: Out at Mimzy's Speakeasy for a night on the town, Alastor finds himself feeling rather amorous and isn't swayed by your monthly condition or the public nature of the location. You find your will crumbles as he shows he's simply not a man who's afraid of a little blood.

You loved the nights when Alastor spirited you away from your family home in the late evenings, when you should already be asleep. Your family did not approve of the older man, regulating your relationship to one that existed largely in secret. 

There was no place you wanted to be but in Alastor’s arms. It felt like home. As he flung you around the dance floor, lively jazz running through your blood like electricity, the dull ache of your cramps was easy enough to ignore. 

Alastor’s hands wrapped around your waist, holding you to him as you laughed together, though you didn’t remember the joke. With him, you could forget everything. That was the magic of Alastor. He chased away every worry and demon. 

You hadn’t realized that he was chasing you or that you were fleeing from him until your back hit the wooden wall at the back of the speakeasy. Light struggled to reach the back of the room, but the music had no issue at all. Deep shadows swallowed Alastor as he leaned down, lips sealing over yours in a hungry kiss. 

He tasted you eagerly, pushing into you as he trapped you into the shadows. The scent of tobacco smoke and the earthy scent of the bayou clung to him. Strong hands gripped your hips, clinging to you, greedily running over curves. The ghost of his thumb on the underside of your breast made you gasp.

He took that chance to slip his tongue between your lips, deepening the kiss. The taste of whiskey coated your tongue, filling your senses as you clung to him. Roaming hands ran down your sides, seeking and seeking until he hooked your leg just above the knee. He pulled it up, resting your thigh against his hip. 

Greedy touches took into the feeling of your skin under his hands, roaming and exploring. Your hands slip under his jacket. Strong, lean muscles flex and bunch under your touch as you try to map the landscape that lay hidden under the cotton shirt. 

Fingers went higher and higher, chasing the soft feeling of you. Your back arched, lost in the feeling of being touched by him. 

“Alastor,” you moaned his name, clinging to him as if he would somehow keep you from drowning in the sensation of him,. 

“You’re so soft,” he whispered as his fingers caressed closer and closer to your core. 

“Wait-” The suddenness of your word, clear of the passion and lust froze his hand in place. 

“What is it?” Alastor asked. “No one can see us, I promise.” 

“It’s- It’s not that,” you whispered. “I’m… I’m on my…” 

“Oh,” Alastor said, fingers flexing into the fat of your thigh. “I don’t mind.” 

“What do you…?!” you gasp as his fingers caress higher and higher along your inner thigh, fingers finding the place where the pad was held against your body. “Alastor!” 

“I’m not afraid of a little blood,” Alastor’s voice was a warm purr as he ran his fingertip along the side of your folds. “Did you know it can make a lady’s monthly pains ease, if she’s had pleasure?”

“What?” your voice wavered, coming weak as he reached pushed the pad to the side, making use of what little slack the belt that held it in place allowed. It was a thinner pad, being early in your cycle yet, and it easily folded in on itself as he forced it to the side. 

“Let me ensure you’ve got no reason to be feeling any pains?” Alastor asked, though the question sounded far from a request. 

It sounded like he knew you’d agree. In truth, you struggled to deny Alastor anything at all. He owned your heart and soul. What harm was there in giving him your body, too?

“We can’t,” you whispered even as you ran your leg higher up his hip, opening yourself up to his hand just a little more. 

“We can,” he whispered in your ear, tongue sliding out from between his lips and running along the shell of your ear. “Do you trust me?”

Lips worked their way down your neck, leaving a trail of stinging nips soothed by soft kisses. “I do,” you said, struggling to breathe. 

Alastor wasted no time letting his fingers slip between your folds. You gasped as his fingers ran along your slit, circling over your clit. He repeated the motion again and again as your back arched, pushing your breasts into him. The dampness left from your cycle’s bleeding was quickly replaced with the slippery slick that spoke clearly of your arousal. 

“You’re so responsive,” Alastor groaned in your ear as his finger worked into your tight hole.

The moan that fell from your lips was rich but unfortunately loud, leaving Alastor the choice to either withdraw his finger from you or silence you somehow. Without any hesitation, Alastor kissed you deeply as he pushed a second finger into you, swallowing the hot sound of your desire. 

Again and again he stroked you from the inside, drawing pleasure you hardly could understand from you. The flat of his palm worked over your clit with each thrust of his hand, sparking more sensations. 

“Alastor,” you whimpered as he took control of your body.

“You sound so pretty,” he groaned as his hips flexed, pushing his hand harder into you. “I need you, cher.” 

Fingers left your core, leaving you feeling empty. It was a challenge to think too deeply about that with the way his lips moved over your skin. Soon, that feeling was gone too, leaving you no choice but to blink your eyes open. 

Alastor’s hand lingered in front of your face, fingers shiny with the slick he had worked up from within your body. Unlike all the other times he had helped himself to the warmth of your core, you could see the dark smears and streaks, thicker in some places than others, that told you your blood coated his fingers. 

“I am so sor—” your eyes went wide as Alastor brought his fingers to his lips. 

The sight of his shiny tongue slipping from between his lips stopped the flow of your words. Greedily, he ran his tongue over each digit. Each pass of his tongue was a curling caress you couldn’t look away from. 

Shamelessly, he licked his fingers clean. He seemed not bothered in the slightest by the bloody tinge to the slick. Surely he could taste it, couldn’t he? 

“You taste as good as ever,” Alastor mumbled as he pulled his fingers from his lips,

It was only then that you realized he wasn’t touching you in that moment. Just as you realized that, he was touching you again in a whole new way. 

The velvety soft skin of his cock ran up and down your slit, pushed out through the fly of his pants. You hadn’t noticed the sound of him undoing his pants, let alone the shifting he would have had to have done to free himself, too entrapped by the sight of him licking his fingers free of your bloody slick.

The music changed as the band ended one song and picked up another, reminding you that you were very much in public. 

“Alastor, put that away,” you hissed. “Someone will see.” 

“They’ll think we’re young lovers necking in the back,” he insisted, voice thick with desire. “I need to be inside of you.” 

“I’m on my cycle,” 

He cut you off. “I don’t care. I need you, need to be inside you so bad.” 

“We’re in public.” The head of his cock nudged your sensitive clit, pulling a needy whine from your throat. Alluring kisses peppered your jaw, working along your neck as he teased you. 

The touches of his cock against your folds were just light enough that he could say they were innocent, that he wasn’t trying to wear your resolve down. He just hadn’t gotten around to tucking himself away and as a result, as he kissed you, he slipped between your slick folds. Each innocent nudge and caress of his cock coated him in more bloody slick. 

You moaned into his neck as he pushed forward, the shaft of his cock running through your slick folds. Fingers dug into your thigh as he hiked your thigh up again, using you as a shield against prying eyes. 

“Alastor.” This time, his name left your lips not in protest but in a wanton moan that brought a smile to the lips that kissed your neck. 

“You want me?” he whispered, lips kissing the collum of your neck as he spoke. 

“I do,” you whined as his large hand slid forward, cupping your breasts through your beaded dress. “Fuck, Alastor. We’re going to get in so much trouble.” 

“We won’t get caught,” Alastor reached between your bodies, grabbing his shaft with one hand and lifting your hips with the other, pulling you slightly off your freet. 

The tip of his cock ran along your folds as you wrapped your leg around his, ankle resting on his calf. The delicious stretch of his cock pushing into you was all-encompassing. It was a battle to hold your head up, a battle you lost. 

Alastor’s wet tongue ran up your exposed neck, tracing the line of muscles as he inched deeper and deeper inside you. The vibration of your soft moan was the greatest treat, felt but unheard as he slowly bottomed out. 

“Hold on to me,” Alastor directed, hand digging into your thigh as he wrapped his other arm around the small of your back. 

You did as he said, running fingers through the fluffy brown hair that was oh so close to curly that topped his head. He changed the angle of your hips, letting you sink deeper down his cock before he pulled out. Your weight was nothing to him as he held you in place. 

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Alastor said thickly, looking down at his cock, a bridge between your body and his in the dim room. Light reflected off of his slick covered shaft, ribbons of red covering him. “So beautiful painting me red,” Alastor said, sinking slowly into you again. 

The pace was slow, more of a rocking of his hips as he stirred your insides with his cock. Deep gasping huffs of air passed between you as flushed face met flushed face. You could drown in the deep wells of love and affection you saw reflected within Alastor’s eyes. 

The feeling of his cock in you was addicting. Nothing ever made you feel as full as he did. His large hands kept you grounded as he slowly worked his length out of you only to slide right back home in one easy thrust. 

Alastor had to swallow, working to keep his throat open and wheezing breath from becoming a rich moan. Your eyes watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. It was daring you to lean forward and put your lips against it. Who were you to back down from a dare?

The salty taste of his skin coated your tongue as you placed open-mouthed kisses along the soft skin. The ghost of stubble scraped at your lips as you worked up his jaw, muffling your moans as he slowly thrust into you again and again. 

“Cher,” he groaned as you nipped at his neck, just under his jaw. “So warm.”

“So big,” you whispered back, tongue tasting the sweat that formed on his skin. “You’re so big.” 

His thrusts picked up pace, no longer the subtle rocking of hips as he worked in and out of you. The sound of the music covered the soft tump of your lower back hitting the wall he held you against. Breaths turned to airy moans as he fucked into you harder, faster. Each thrust bullied through your walls, the head of his cock reaching every part of you. 

“Feel so good,” Alastor whispered in your ear, resting his head against the wall behind you. “You’re made for me.” 

“Please, Al- I’m so close.” You buried your head in the crook of his neck, clinging to him. Nails dug into the muscles of his back, feeling each flex of his shoulders as he fucked into you faster and faster. 

“Can you-” he gasped as your walls fluttered and clenched around his cock. “Can you be quiet for me?” 

“Please, Alastor,” you whined, so close. The coil in your core wound tight and threatening to snap. “Please.” 

“You have to mind your voice,” he groaned as your walls fluttered, so close to your peak and threatening to pull him along with you. “If you want to finish, I need you to be quiet.” 

“I’ll try,” you whispered, making a promise both you and Alastor knew was a lost cause. 

It was too late for him to stop, anyway. Each thrust had you clenching and fluttering, walls pulling at him lightly as he worked his way in and out. He was chasing his own release now, pushing you closer and closer to yours. He watched as your body went ridged, only movement being the gasping breaths in your chest and your walls clamping down on him. 

Leaning forward, he sealed his mouth over yours as your body twitched and convulse. The coil within you had snapped, taking your control and resolve with it. Deep moans and high-pitched whines bubbled up from your chest as he fucked you through your orgasm, his own hot in its heels. 

Alastor swallowed every sound as his tongue worked into your mouth, caressing and exploring everything he could reach as his thrusts turned sloppy. It was his turn to moan deeply, letting you swallow the sound as he swelled and twitched. Hot white ropes of his seed shot into you, splashing your cervix and painting your walls as he rutted into you. 

His body stilled as his cock twitched against your sensitive walls. Neither of you were sure where one began and the other ended as you clung to eachother. Even as deep breaths mingled, he continued to kiss you deeply for a few moments longer before pulling away. 

“I love you,” he whispered his secret confession as his cock slipped from your hole. 

“I love you, too,” you answered, numb legs finding the ground as he let you down. You watched as he tucked himself back into his pants, zipping his fly. That did nothing to hide the smears of slick on the front of his pants. 

“You should go clean up,” Alastor said, leaning forward to straighten the skirt of your dress as he placed a soft kiss on your lips. 

You nodded, walking on trembling legs. Over your shoulder, you watched Alastor pull his shirt from his pants, letting the fabric fall over his hips. Such a thing would look sloppy, something that would drive your lover mad, but it was better than wearing the mark of your bloody slick. 

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[livesworthlivingau]

Lives Worth Living Chapter 34

ISAT/Two Hats spoilers below as always! CW: Heights, Peril, Falling

(You slowly awaken with a yawn and light stretch, feeling those familiar strong arms around you and cuddling up into them.) "Hmmmmmm... Morning~."

"Morning sleepy head. Do you know how crabbing cute you are when you sleep?" (Isa pulls you closer to himself, kissing your head as he holds you in that secure, comforting grip.)

"Hehe, noooooo, you're just biased!"

"Nope, it's a scientific fact! I did the math and everything!"

"Noooooooo! You can't bring math into this! That's cheatiiiiing!"

"Too late, I calculated everything and it all checks out! You've been mathematically proven to be super duper adorable, I don't make the rules!"

"I'll never be seen as a cool, mysterious rogue ever again..."

"Hah! Nope, sorry, you're just a cutie patootie, my sweet Siffarooni~." (You can't help but laugh at how ridiculous this was getting. You shift in his arms to face him, giving a love drunk smile up at him before closing your eye. You lean in for a kiss, being met with the warm bliss of his face meeting yours... before you're interrupted by sunlight pouring in as the tent flap is opened up.)

"Uuuuugh! Why is everyone being so gross lately?! First Nille gets all cuddly with Vale and now you two are being all kissy again!!" (Bonnie shouts in protest. You both can't help but laugh in response. You gently push off of him to sit up.)

"So sorry snack leader! We'll keep the grossness to a minimum!"

"Good! Now come on, breakfast is ready, we gotta head out soon if we're gonna get a ride back home!" (They command before rushing back out.)

(You remember them saying something about a horse drawn carriage that takes people through the mountain range in about a day, while going around takes 3. You perk up as you feel Isa's hand against your face, pulling you closer as he kisses your cheek.)

"It's a good thing we didn't tell them what the minimum was." (You can't help but blush a bit at that, turning your head to give them a light peck on the cheeks.)

"Maybe your math skills aren't so bad after all~."

"I SAID BREAKFAST TIIIIIME!!" (Bonnie shouts from the middle of the campsite, causing you both to jump.)

"R-Right!!"

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"I know I'm usually the one that complains about having to walk everywhere... but this can't be the superior option." (Odile complains, seeing the rickety old carriage we'd be taking through the mountains. Nille laughs her worry off.)

"C'mon, they take this path like every day, it'll be fine, Dile!"

"The more times it completes its journey successfully, the more likely it is to fail the next one..." (Isa lets out a hearty laugh.)

"Hah! Don't worry madame, I'll block the window for you! I'm sure the journey will go nice and smooth!"

"Fantastic... Forgive me if I request Vale to knock me unconscious again during the trip." (Odile complains further before Mira chimes in with a giggle.)

"I'll be sure not to heal you too much if that's the case m'dame!"

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(You're all crammed into the just large enough carriage as it's on its way. You and Vale sat opposite each other next to one set of doors, Odile and Nille sat in the middle with Bonnie in Nille's lap, then Mira and Isa sat beside the doors on the other side, helping block the window like he said he would. You even gave Odile your hat to help block her vision as she tried to focus on her book as a distraction.)

"WE'RE ALMOST HOOOOOME!!!" (Bonnie cheers, excitedly bouncing on Nille's lap while she held them securely.)

"Boniface if you don't stop bouncing I'm going to crabbing lose it." (The sudden and desperate outburst from Odile made everyone freeze, even Bonnie was staring in shock.)

"Holy crab, she said crab..." (Nille laughs, noting everyone's reactions to this.)

"I'm guessing that means you should really stop doing that, bug."

"Sorry Dile!" (They quickly respond, trying to sit politely and motionless... very clearly trying super hard to keep their leg from bouncing even. Isa chimes in to try and ease the tension.)

"So why don't you two tell us more about Bambouche? Without the bouncy enthusiasm." (Bonnie sticks their tongue out playfully at Isa before Nille begins to explain.)

"Oh it's amazing! Wonderful port town with plenty to do. The beach is just gorgeous, especially at night! Everyone there is so sweet, even by Vaugarde standards. They all even saw me off to try and find y'all, threw a little good luck party for me, gave me some extra coin and supplies." (Her smile shifts a bit as she goes on, less cheery and almost bittersweet?) "They've helped me out a lot when I needed it... I couldn't be more thankful to live there."

(Isa takes note of her tone change before speaking again.) "Sounds like a terrific place! Can't wait to meet everyone there! And hey, that reminds me Bonnie, who taught you how to cook anyhow? Nille mentioned she was uhh... lacking in that department."

"You don't gotta sugar coat it, I could find a way to ruin the simplest dish you could imagine, it's like a curse on me or something!" (She chuckles before Bonnie responds.)

"One of our neighbors had a really nice old cook book style familytale! Everyone in her family wrote down their favorite recipes and even made up one or two themselves. They didn't always turn out great, but it showed me how fun it can be to make up stuff and try putting different foods together!" (Mira makes her bright sparkly face you love to see as she joins in.)

"Oh! That sounds wonderful! I remember how much fun my cooking class was!! Though sadly I think I was closer to the Nille side of the spectrum!"

(You all enjoy a nice laugh together, even Odile having been distracted enough to relax again and enjoy a chuckle. You glance back over at Vale. They've been silently staring out of the window the whole time, but the soft smile on their face shows they were listening, enjoying the company from the sidelines like you often do. They notice you looking at them and you give them a brighter smile. They force one back before going back to staring out at the mountains.)

(Nille takes note, placing a hand on their back to gently rub at it.) "How yah doing, Vay?"

"Oh, I'm fine~! Why do you ask?"

"You just seem mighty entranced by that window."

"Just enjoying the view is all~. You all continue your conversation, I'm fine, truly."

"Okay, if you say-" (The sound of splintering wood fills the air as the carriage suddenly shifts and slams to the ground, launching all of you to the side as you and Vale bash into the doors. They burst open at your impact before you're suddenly careening off the edge of the cliff with them.)

"SIF!!!"

"VALE!!!"

(You hear voices call out for you both as you rapidly approach the ground before-

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[justenjoythegossip]

CHRIS & ABBA’S LATEST PR STUNT & THE VISIBLE ENDGAME OF THE PR STRATEGY or… “WILL YOU JUST GET OVER IT ALREADY? IT HAS BEEN TWO FREAKING YEARS”…

Recap of recent events: 

Yesterday was the premiere of Red One in Berlin. Go Germany. Chris didn’t walk the red carpet before Dwayne as he was supposed to, arrived late with his wife, walked the carpet (after almost missing it) without her, played with the precious very ostentatiously for the cameras, she and Chris shared a moment together as they hugged and she gave him a look of... disgust(?). Then they were filmed sitting together for the movie and Chris seemed angry/pissed(?) at her as he gestures, seemingly does a nervous tick by pressing on his glasses and she rolls her head… #couplegoals LOL

Side note: kudos to the PR agent sitting next to Abba for her clapping as it seemingly helped indicate to her she was supposed to applaud her loving husband and also served as miraculous blocking from this angle, to show us only what they want us to see. 

She was always going to be there…

I have been asked many times if I thought Abba would show up at the premiere. And I always answered that I was 50/50 on the matter. When we learned that it was actually Justin who arranged that podcast for her, I was leaning towards no. Because why would she feel the need to go on a podcast no one asked for, if she was going to get the exposure of a big Hollywood premiere soon, right? Then we got the Avengers’ PR stunt where they endorsed Kamala Harris and Chris was flashing his ringless hand so ostentatiously. And then I immediately thought, of course she will be there. Her saying her marriage year was terrible coupled with his non wearing his wedding ring was meant to manipulate his fans into thinking the end was near and like always to add shock value to their next PR stunt. 

And of course she was going to be there, this is actually a big part of why he did this PR stunt in the first place. He wanted the world to know he was a married man and there is no better platform than a Hollywood event to push a narrative… even when you push it as discreetly as you can so that you don’t offend your fandom and the general public any further…

Why did we get a remake of what happened at the Ghosted premiere and what does this mean?

If people remember the Ghosted Premiere, they did not walk together as they infamously made their red carpet debut for the Vanity Fair party. At the time, I theorized that the reason they didn’t was because they wanted to ease his fans in as they knew there was quite a lot of backlash from his fans but also from the general public. I still think that was the case but it’s even more obvious after today’s stunt, as this was a win-win for Chris. He gets to sell the married man brand he is craving so desperately while putting his kinda wife in a corner.  Go Berlin! She gets to come but has to make sure she is not seen too much as her presence could offend his fans and a part of the general public and more importantly have an impact on his movie’s box office and his career more generally speaking. And look how his “fans” take this as a victory… 

But it’s not, it’s just more manipulation and gaslighting on Chris and his team’s part. 

Because clearly all the content of the 2 of them was not meant for the general public but destined to his fandom. And as you can see they didn’t make it to the Just Jared article this time. But they did get to sell the “we are real and private/we are just PR” narrative. Badly like always because it’s the point. 

https://www.justjared.com/2024/11/03/dwayne-johnson-lucy-liu-chris-evans-more-premiere-new-holiday-movie-red-one-in-berlin/

But now we finally get a clearer sense of why Abba felt the need to go on a podcast no one cared about for the first edition of a small festival that got little to no media coverage! She is basically reduced to a prop that has basically no voice or agency but is taken out for minimal lowkey PR stunts when it’s absolutely necessary. But since she a Nazi sex worker, I am guessing we should all be ok with this. But more on that later. 

The latest appearance of the precious ring and its use from a PR standpoint… 

I have already discussed the ring profusely and even recently when he went to the walk of fame for Kevin Feige. Here are a couple of posts where I give my 2 cents about it.

Before I dive into the latest shenanigans with the precious, it’s important to note that playing with wedding rings is very “in” right now. And so what Chris did last night was textbook CAA. Just look at what Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck recently did with theirs or even more ridiculously how Dakota flashed her engagement ring during an arranged papwalk. 

Here you can see a video of Chris with the very purposefully loose ring:

As people have pointed out, the ring is way too big, isn’t it? And clearly that’s the whole point since it feeds the “it’s only PR” narrative, isn’t it? But that’s not even the most interesting part about this little clip. Look at where the fans are on this video, then pay closer attention to the camera placement. Can you see how much emphasis the person who is filming (not a fan) is putting on the loose ring and how CURATED this all is?

And now look at Chris playing with his ring so naturally and organically (sarcasm) as the photographers are taking his picture. 

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They want you to see it, they are showing it to you, as ostentatiously as it gets. Even when Chris plays the game of “hide the ring”, it is to draw more attention to it while trying to gain sympathy from fans who are so desperate to see a glimmer of regret in his demeanor. 

The programmed obsolescence of Team Real/Team PR and the endgame of the PR strategy 

I have discussed months ago, how this strategy of “divide and conquer” which was symbolized by the discourse and fighting between Team Real and Team PR was just a starting point. A PR strategy can only be understood and appreciated when it can be analyzed in the long run. Those 2 trolling teams were the loud extremist voices that were obnoxious and repulsive enough (in their tone or rhetoric) to drive fans away from them and the narratives they were selling, paving the way for the more reasoned and rational Team Middle. I wrote a post about it if you want to check it out. 

As Team PR and team Real have become completely redundant, all that is left is the narrative Team Middle are pushing. Notice how they purposefully keep blurring the line to disorient (classic manipulation tactics by the way) and make people accept what they are selling. And today they might distract you with the loose ring, the presence of her relatives, the not walking the red carpet together or taking pictures together (but just you wait for the NY premiere as it is just around the corner), their bad body language around each other, the awkwardness and coolness of their exchanges, her cheap outfit while he is dressed in designer clothes by his scientologist and rapist apologist stylist, or they will point out how over the top and fake he was in his reactions at the premiere and I could go on and on… All of this is true BUT it is all a distraction and misdirection. 

As they have pointed out repeatedly, it has been two years, so you should just accept it or move on. The fandom no longer needs your services if you are not capable of enjoying the content they “so kindly” provide for you. They will feed you the crumbs showing how fake it is to appease you and to distract from Chris’ complicity and manipulation as long as you behave. 

The seemingly counterintuitive promoting of this girl by plants, their vicious trolling and what purposes it serves..

So many plants allegedly hate Abba but talk about her constantly. The amount of attention she is getting from them seems incommensurable. Like posting her numbers religiously or obsessing about what she is wearing and so forth.

If it weren’t for them we would hear very little about her. For example, we would have known she was going to do a podcast in her home country only after she posted about it and not a long time before hand. It's also important to note that most of the time she is mentioned, it is in a very negative way as they usually make fun of her and humiliate her. As you know, “there is no such thing as bad publicity”. But in this instance, it’s interesting to ask ourselves why and also what purposes it serves more specifically.

Well, I have just mentioned that bad publicity is still publicly, but another key rule is: know your audience. And obviously Chris’ fandom dislikes her so intensely that talking about her in a negative way, showing animosity towards her is the smart approach to gain the trust of his fans you want to manipulate. The goal here is to paint her as an absolute villain. I am not defending her by the way as she is an awful person but she has 0 power in this story but she makes for a hell of a scapegoat in this shitshow. And indeed, people can easily project all of their disappointment, anger and negative emotions onto her in order to soothe their frustration. 

You see the industry makes you do things you don’t want to do if you let it, talent agencies are as unethical as it gets and will play an awful game if you let them, the PR wife that you selected (or agreed on) might be a POS… but at the end of the day, it’s all a reflection of your own choices and of who you are… 

NB: special thanks to friends and mods who provided me with content and shared with me their smart observations. If I don’t thank you by name it’s to protect you from being blocked LOL

[amourningcrow]

some thoughts on the lucanis romance. caution! spoilers

you know, i've seen a lot of people complaining about how lucanis's romance is somewhat lacking and i agree, at least a little - i can't say i enjoy the scene where you lock in his romance (could have been a banter) and i honestly didn't get that it was supposed to be a 'i'm scared of wanting you' kind of romance until the end where he actually said that (i was constantly sleep deprived while playing though, so maybe that one's on me) - but i don't really think more scenes were really necessary. i loved the last one and the one in the middle was also pretty good, even though i didn't like how scripted it was.

what i really, really miss in this are the party banters. you know, like the one with alistair and wynne, where she teases him about checking out the warden?

imagine for a moment: davrin and lucanis

'they're fine.'

'i- what?'

'they're fine. you keep staring at their legs, but the venatori barely even graced them. you can stop checking every time they climb up a rock or bend to pick something up.'

'of course! i was checking on their injury! that damn venatori, nearly got them, huh?'

... (awkward silence)

'right.'

oooor maybe taash and lucanis?

'you're not being subtle, you know'

'excuse me?'

'saw you sneaking in with rook's favourite food yesterday.'

'so? i make everyone's favourite every once in a while.'

'not in the middle of the night just after they tell you, you don't'

... (stony silence)

'yeah'

ooooor i dunno, harding and lucanis?

'lucanis?'

'hmmm?'

'it would be okay, you know. if you liked someone and told them how you feel. hypothetically.'

'what? what are you talking about?'

'nothing. i just... thought someone should tell you.'

'mierda, harding, there's no one like that. so this is completely irrelevant.'

'hmhm, sure. but in theory, if there was... i'm pretty sure they like you, too. and you both deserve to be happy.'

i'm obviously not a writer, but i really think some stuff like that would have helped to set up the romance more. i tried so desperately to look through the game and find something, and maybe i just haven't discovered it yet! but the few banters i did find were all after the relationship was officially established. i don't know. i'm really disappointed because i think the potential was there, it could have been such a sweet, angsty slow-burn but they just.. didn't set it up right? the yearning™ feeds on other people seeing exactly what is going on and rolling their eyes at the idiots involved not getting on with it (/getting it on lmao). maybe something like that was planned but they had to cut it because all the companions had to get their 'making it official' chat at the same time? and pretty late in the game, too. that would sort of explain why his relationship with neve was more fleshed out as well. idk. that and my added frustration that i can't really roleplay my rook the way i want (in my roleplaying game) probably means i'll just have to write some stuff myself. and wait for someone to search through the audio files so i can get my grubby raccoon hands on all the banter i didn't hear yet 🤞

[sequinsmile-x]

Hide Beside Me

Emily shares her oldest secret with Aaron. A few years later, that secret resurfaces.

Part 3/3 (Part 1, Part 2)

-x-

Hi besties <3

Thanks so much for all the love on this fic, it truly means the world. I really hope you like this last part.

Fair warning, I made myself cry when writing this - and I could count on one hand the number of times that's happened in 375 fics.

I hope you like this, and please, always, let me know what you think <3

-x-

Warnings: pregnancy, teen pregnancy, abortion, adoption, forced adoption

Words: 5.5k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

She invites Rebecca to come over to the house just three days after she unexpectedly showed up on the doorstep and back into Emily’s life.

Emily goes back and forth on it, wonders if seeing the evidence of the family she had, the children she’d kept, would be hard for her to take, but Aaron talks her down. Assures her if she had a problem with it she would have said something, especially since Rebecca had seen Rose and Issac and therefore knew Emily had kids. 

She finds herself watching the time, tapping the screen of her phone to illuminate it every time it goes black, seconds feeling like hours and minutes like days. The only thing that keeps her even vaguely grounded is the picture of Jack, Rose and Issac as her wallpaper. It was a picture Aaron had taken in the hospital just 6 months ago when Issac was born. Jack and Rose were sitting next to each other, the little girl’s face pinched together in concentration as she listened carefully to Jack as he told her how to hold the baby lying across both their laps, Emily’s hand in the shot as she supported her newborn's head.

Emily sighs as she hears Aaron step into the living room, his familiar footfall a comfort until he comes to a stop and leans over the back of the couch to kiss the top of her head. 

“What if she doesn’t come?”

He kisses her head again, making sure he lingers this time, his hands squeezing her shoulders in a way he hopes she finds comfort in, “She got in touch with you, Em,” he says, “She wants to know you. She’ll come.” 

She hums, swallowing thickly as she tries to push down everything she isn’t sure she wants to feel, “What if…” 

He rounds the couch and sits next to her as she drifts off, hooking his thumb under her chin to encourage her to look up at him, “What if what, sweetheart?” 

She smiles tightly, her lips pressed together to stop the shake to them as they hear a car pull up onto the driveway, her hand seeking his out to link their fingers together, “What if I’m a disappointment to her? Depending on how long she’s known about me, she might have been building the thought of me up for years.” 

He hates what this has done to her, how a decision her mother and other adults had made without including her long before he’d ever known her had torn down her confidence like this. He pushes it away, knowing she doesn’t need the anger he felt on her behalf, certainly not now when she was on the brink of getting to know the child she’d had to give away. She needed his love. His support. The reminder of all that she had now. 

And those were things he would make sure she always had in abundance. 

“That’s just not possible,” he says, leaning forward to kiss her forehead, letting her sink against him when they hear footsteps on the steps leading up to the porch, “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She’ll see that too.” He says, and she smiles, something that fades when the doorbell rings, “Want me to get the door?” 

She shakes her head and presses her forehead against his, trying to take some of his strength through osmosis one last time before she stands up.

“I can do it,” she says, wiping lint that isn’t there from the thighs of her jeans as she stands up, desperate to keep her hands busy so she doesn’t tear her cuticles up or twist her wedding rings around so much she’d risk losing them. When she makes it to the door, she blows out a breath and gives herself a moment, her hand tight around the door handle before she opens it, her smile shaky as she stands back, “Rebecca, hi. Come in.” 

Rebecca smiles at her, her expression equally as shaky, her hands tight around the handles of her purse as it hung over her shoulder, “Thank you,” she says, looking around as she steps into the house, turning to look at her when she closes the door, “You have a lovely home.” 

“Thank you,” Emily says, as she leads her towards the living room, heaving in a deep breath as they walk towards Aaron. His eyebrows raise as he looks at the two of them together, the resemblance uncanny apart from Rebecca’s blonde hair, and it takes him aback for a moment, leaves him frozen on the spot until Emily clears her throat and draws him out of it, “This is my husband, Aaron,” her breath is shaky as she carries on, “Aaron…this is Rebecca.” 

“Nice to meet you,” he says, “Would you like something to drink?” 

She smiles, his wife’s smile, “A coffee would be great.” 

“Coffee it is,” he squeezes Emily’s shoulder, “The usual, sweetheart?” 

She smiles up at him and nods, “Yes, please.” 

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” 

He leaves the room, and Emily realises she and Rebecca are still both standing up. She points towards the couch, “Please sit down,” she says, and she sits when Rebecca does, making sure to put space between them, to not cross any boundaries the other woman may have in place. She’s sure if she touched her, if she hugged her, she’d never want to let go. 

“So,” Rebecca says, her eyes fixed on the door Aaron had walked out of, “Is Aaron my…”

It takes a second for what she’s asking, the question she can’t finish, to register and Emily shakes her head, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, “No, he’s not. We met at work,” she says, “Your…he’s called John. I’m not in touch with him, but I have his contact information if you want it.” 

Rebecca smiles, a sad tinge to it as she looks down at her hands, “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I want it.” 

The silence between them is thick. Not uncomfortable, or tense, but full of everything they both want to say even though neither of them know where to start. Emily clears her throat, feeling a sense of responsibility to go first, a weight that was heavy on her chest as she looks across at the woman whose face she’d spent the best part of her life trying to picture. 

“Do your parents know you’ve come to see me?” She asks, oddly okay with referring to other people as her parents. She was her mother. She’d brought her into the world and loved her ever since, but she wasn’t her parent. She’d never been given the chance to be. 

“They know,” Rebecca says, smiling properly, her dimples making their first appearance, “They actually encouraged me to do this,” she stops for a moment when Aaron steps into the room and passes her a cup of coffee and Emily a cup of tea. Rebecca thanks him as he sits next to Emily and places his hand on her knee, “I’ve always known I was adopted.” 

Emily furrows her brow at that, not sure if she was relieved or not by the revelation, “Oh?” 

Rebecca nods, her grip tight on the mug in her hands, “As long as I’ve been old enough to know what it means, I’ve known,” she says, “Mom and Dad struggled to have kids, which is why they adopted me. Then a few years later they had my brother naturally,” she laughs when she says it, in-jokes with her family that Emily wasn’t party to shining in her eyes, “Even if my parent’s hadn’t been upfront about it all I think I would have caught on eventually, they all have blue eyes and blonde hair,” she tucks some of her dyed hair behind her ear as she says it, “I’ve never known anyone who looks like me, until now,” she looks up at Emily and then around the room, her eyes catching on family photos hanging on the wall, “It’s weirdly unsettling,” she jokes, drawing a laugh out of both Emily and Aaron. “I’ve had a good life. And loving parents. I…on the way here I was thinking of what I’d want to know if I were you, and that’s the thing I kept thinking of.” 

Emily blows out a breath, her vision going blurry as she tries to stop the tears from falling, her eyes burning with them, “I’m glad. I’m really glad.” 

“I also think it’s important you know I’ve never been mad at you, or angry,” she says, tears filling her eyes too, “I’ve also always known you were young when you had me,” she smiles sadly, “When I turned 15 it was the first thing I thought about. And every year since it’s just felt younger than the year before. You did the best thing you could.” 

Emily grips Aaron’s hand, her grip on him so tight he feels his knuckles knock together, and she sucks in a shaky breath, tears that she immediately wipes away slipping past her lashline.

“Thats…thank you.” She wasn’t aware how much she’d needed to hear it from Rebecca herself until she did. A burden she’d carried for years suddenly lighter, a space in her chest she hadn’t known existed opening up so she could breathe a little deeper, “What made you come looking for me?” 

Rebbeca sucks in a deep breath, “That’s…a bit of a crazy story.” 

“Oh, if you don’t want to-”

“No, I want to,” she assures her, cutting over Emily’s panicked retraction of her question, “I just…” she looks between the two of them, “Don’t want to upset you.” 

Emily furrows her brows, confusion and something close to dread flooding through her, her cheeks burning with it as she leans into Aaron’s side, “You can tell me. I won’t be upset, I promise.” 

Rebecca sucks in a breath, “I always thought about it. I wanted to know more about where I came from than the small amount of information my parents were given from the place where I was born. But I also never wanted to intrude on your life,” she tucks some of her hair behind her ear again, drawing attention to her torn-up cuticles, “I was well aware I could be nothing but a reminder of the worst part of your life. And then…I saw an obituary for you in the paper.” 

Emily gasps, her eyes screwed shut as she clenches her jaw, “Oh, god. I’m…” she clears her throat and looks up at her, “That’s so complicated. I’m so sorry.” 

Rebecca shakes her head, “Please don’t apologise. As soon as I saw it, I regretted never reaching out to you. I grieved everything we could have had. I moved forward,” her smile turns sad, “I probably paid for my therapist's vacation that year with the number of sessions I had,” she looks down at her hands, and Emily is grateful for it, grateful for a moment to wipe away a tear, to shift impossibly closer to Aaron, his hold her as tight as she’d ever known it to be, “And I learnt how to be okay with it all. Then, a few weeks ago I saw a picture of you in the paper. At first, I thought it was a memorial-type thing, but then I read the article. It was about a case at Interpol and you were the spokesperson. It felt like a second chance. So I came to find you.” 

Emily nods, her chest aching with the sobs she was keeping in there, emotions she wouldn’t set free until it was just her and Aaron in the house, “I’m glad you did. I’m so glad you did. And one day…if you want, I’ll explain all of that to you,” she offers her a half smile, “Or at least, as much as I legally can.” 

Rebbeca smiles before she presses her lips together, a question she’d had for years on the tip of her tongue. 

“Did you ever think of looking for me?” She asks, and Emily feels Aaron squeeze her hand, a brief moment of comfort as he continues to be a silent bystander, understanding the support she needs without her even having to ask for it. 

“I did,” she replies, “I wrote letters at first, when I was still a teenager, but my mom kept having them intercepted. For a long time I just…pretended it all happened to someone else because it was easier,” she answers honestly, “And then, when I finally felt able to look for you it felt selfish. I didn’t want to intrude on anything.” 

It’s half the truth, the other half feeling too complicated to explain. By the time she was working for Interpol, she decided to leave Sophia, Rebecca, alone to keep her safe. Well aware that if anyone knew of her existence it could be used against her. It was a decision she stood by when Ian eventually would hunt her down, glad he had no idea of her biggest secret other than him, that whilst she’d failed everything else she’d been able to keep her daughter safe. Even if she had ended up grieving for her despite never knowing her. 

Rebecca nods, “I can understand that. You’d have always been welcome though,” she says, smiling, “Mom and Dad want to meet you, if you’d like. Eventually. And my girlfriend,” her smile gets wider, “When I told them you have kids, that I have little brothers and a sister, they all got really excited. But I want to get to know you first.” 

It sparks hope deep in her chest, but she doesn’t quite allow it to catch yet. Rebecca wanted to know her. To have this be more than just one meeting to answer some questions, “I’d like that,” she says, turning to look at Aaron for a moment before she looks back at Rebecca, “We’d like that.” 

“They aren’t here?”

“The kids?” Emily asks, and Rebecca nods in response, “No, they are with their Aunt Jess today,” she says, “But I’d love you to meet them if you want to.”

She’d have to explain first, and figure out a way of making it appropriate for Jack and Rose, Issac being too young to understand it at all. If Rebecca was going to be in her life, in their lives, Emily wanted it to be as her daughter. Not wanting more secrets and lies to cloud her life now it was as clear as it had ever been. 

Rebecca nods, “Of course I’d love to,” she smiles, “What are their names?” 

“Jack is our eldest,” Emily says, not feeling the need to explain any further than that right now. Jack’s history was his to share, and he’d taken to introducing her as his mom to new friends lately, no longer explaining that she was his stepmom. When she’d asked him about it, he said he preferred it this way. That whilst he loved his mom, and he missed her and always would, he hated being the kid whose mom had died, that it was a label that never went away, “And then we have Rose and Issac who you saw the other day.” 

“They’re adorable.” 

“Thank you,” Emily says, “We think so too. Do you have any other questions? I’ll answer anything.”

“Just one, for now,” Rebecca says, placing her cup of coffee down, “And I know it sounds juvenile, but I’ve wanted to ask you this for years,” she stands up, and steps towards her, her arms awkward at her side as they twitch, and Emily knows what she’s going to say before she says it, and she makes a point of passing her cup of tea to Aaron in preparation, “Can I have a hug?” 

Emily’s on her feet in an instant, the crack in Rebecca’s voice making her want to do nothing other an cross the gap between them, “Of course you can.” 

She pulls her into a hug, and it’s like two things are happening at once. She’s 15 again, holding her baby tight, desperately trying to remember everything about her, whispering a lifetime of love against her forehead as she counted down the seconds until she had to let go. She’s also 45, hugging her 30-year-old daughter, the once tiny baby now slightly taller than her, a grown woman who had lived a whole life without her. Everything was different - including the fact that this time when she let her go, it wouldn’t be the last time she got to hold her. 

What she doesn’t know until later, is that Aaron takes a picture of them wrapped up in each other’s embrace. Their arms tight around each other, tears on both of their faces as they try and take in as much as they both could after a lifetime of separation. 

He prints it for her and hangs it on the wall amongst the rest of their family photos, a sign of the start of a new beginning she’d convinced herself she’d never get. 

___

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” 

Emily smiles as she turns to look at her husband, Issac on his hip as they both stand in the foyer of their home. She walks over and kisses Issac’s forehead and then Aaron’s lips, “I think I need to do this part myself, honey,” she says, running her fingers through his hair, “This is a conversation I’ve needed for years.” 

He sighs, clearly holding back his disagreement, his dislike of her mother’s treatment of her not something he was shy about, “If she says anything-”

“I’ll call you and you can come over and yell at her,” she promises him, kissing him one more time, “If Rebecca…she’s going to be in our lives. I’m not going to pretend she isn’t mine to anyone,” she swallows thickly, “And that starts with talking to my mother about her.” 

They’d never discussed it. Not once. When Emily met her in Russia, still wearing a diaper and pads in her bra whilst her milk dried up, Elizabeth hadn’t said anything. She’d acted like her daughter had been at a summer school, nothing more, and they carried on as if nothing had happened. 

“I know, sweetheart,” he says, kissing her, “We’ll be here when you get back.” 

She nods, blowing out a shaky breath as she kisses Issac, pressing her forehead against his temple, “I wouldn’t be mad if you ignored bedtime tonight.”

Aaron smiles, already having planned on letting the kids stay up, no matter how much it would mess with their routine for one night, knowing Emily would need to see them, to hold them, when she got home. 

“Consider it done.” 

The drive to her mother’s house has never felt quicker. Traffic was frustratingly on her side, each light green as she wishes for the journey to drag out, wanting more time to figure out what she wants to say. 

Elizabeth is surprised to see her when she arrives, but only makes one comment about being busy, a mercy that Emily is sure doesn’t come from being able to read her body language. Her housekeeper brings them both a glass of wine as they make polite small talk, and Elizabeth eventually clears her throat. 

“So, what are you doing here, Emily?” She asks, her eyebrow raised at her, “It’s not like you to drop by unannounced.” 

Despite planning it all out in her head, any attempt to practise this conversation disappears in a second. She takes a sip of wine and then sucks in a breath, three words summing up how her life had changed so dramatically in the last couple of weeks. “She found me.” 

Elizabeth’s shoulders tighten, her grip on her wine glass briefly tighter as she takes a large sip, the gulp of it audible, cutting across the tense silence between mother and daughter, “Who did?” 

Emily presses her lips together, holding back 30 years worth of anger and swallowing it back down, knowing it would do no good to air it all now, “The baby you had taken away from me 30 years ago,” she says, staring at her mother as she looks down at the table to avoid her gaze, “She found me. Her name is Rebecca.” 

“Emily-”

“You never gave me a choice,” she says, cutting off whatever her mother was going to say, not sure she could take hearing it, “I wasn’t given a choice.”

“You made a choice when you had sex, Emily,” Elizabeth says, making Emily scoff and shake her head, “If Rose ever-”

“If God forbid Rose ever finds herself pregnant at 15, or 18 or hell even if it happens when she’s 30 and has an asshole for a partner who leaves her in the lurch, I will make sure she knows what all of her choices are,” she says, her jaw tight as she wipes away a stray tear, “And I’ll hold her hand through whatever she chooses to do,” she blows out a shaky breath and chokes on a sad laugh, “I always knew it was cruel when those people you sent me too ripped my baby away from me after a few minutes, even then I knew, but I only realised how cruel it was when I had Rose.” 

“Emily-”

“When they tried to take her from me, when they were simply trying to take her to the other side of the room to clean her off and weigh her I couldn’t let go. Aaron ended up having to promise me that he’d go over there with her and that he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Did you know that?” 

It’s a rhetorical question, they both know it, because they’ve never talked about any of this before, “No. I didn’t.”

“When Rose was born she cried so loudly the doctor made a joke about it, and then when she laid her on my chest she stopped. We kind of just…looked at each other and she stopped crying. When she was on the other end of the room she was crying again, she only stopped when Aaron brought her back over to me and I just kept thinking…did Sophia cry when they took her away from me?” 

Elizabeth furrows her brow, “Sophia?” 

Emily sighs and swallows thickly, internally cursing herself for letting it slip, “Rebecca. Sorry. Sophia was…” she clears her throat, “That was the name I gave her.” 

“I didn’t know you did that.”

Emily smiles sadly, “Yeah, well. We’ve never spoken about it, have we?” 

“Why are you telling me all of this?” 

“Because we’re working towards being part of each other's lives more permanently,” she says, blowing out a breath, “And it will take some time to learn about each other, but we both want it. We both want to make up for lost time, and I will not lie to the world anymore. I won’t say she’s my cousin or my long-lost sister. She’s my daughter and that’s how I’ll introduce her to people.” 

Elizabeth’s eyes go wide, “Emily, what will people think?” 

She scoffs, “Other than question the fact you sent your daughter to a home that has been condemned in every way possible in the press since?” She shrugs, “I don’t care, Mom. I spent so long caring about what people would think of me. But she’s beautiful. And smart. And I’m proud of her, even if I don’t have any right to be. So I refuse to let shame take any more away from me than it already has,” she stands up and wipes tears from her cheeks, “You can carry on being a part of my family if you’d like. But I won’t hide her away to satisfy some old need of yours to maintain appearances.” 

She walks away, determined to leave, to get home to her family, but she’s stopped by her mother, “Emily.” 

She turns and sighs, “Yes, Mother?” 

“If she’s anything like you,” she says, clearing her throat, not able to look her in the eye, any softness between the two of them always hard for them both, so different to the sharp edges of their relationship that they were used to, “You have every right to be proud.” 

___

Six Months Later

The house is busting at the seams. 

She can hear all the conversation outside, the sound of it filtering through the open window in Issac’s room as she walks in, smiling when he’s stood up in his crib, his arms already up and waiting for her. 

“Mama!” 

“Hi Zaccy,” she says, walking over and lifting him into her arms. She kisses his cheek several times, chasing his precious laughter, “You know, as you get older, it’s not acceptable to take a nap in the middle of your own birthday party,” she says, settling him onto her hip, “So enjoy it whilst it lasts, sweet boy.” She couldn’t believe he was one. That her youngest baby was a toddler now, that he was close to walking and could say Mama and Dadda and a sound they think means Jack. Time had flown by too quickly for her liking, as it always did, and despite her age, and her insistence when she was pregnant with him that he’d be their last, she found herself wondering if maybe one more kid couldn’t be the end of the world. “Let’s go join the party, huh?” 

She walks downstairs with him in her arms, listening to his chatter as they go, and the doorbell rings as she makes it to the bottom of the stairs. She answers the door, her heart growing in her chest when she sees Rebecca and her girlfriend, Carrie, on the doorstep.

It still surprised her sometimes that she could do this. That her eldest could come to events like this and that she wanted to. 

Everyone knew about Rebecca now. When she told the team, the empathy and sympathy had been a little hard to take all at once. A wave of other people's emotions as they thought about what she’d been through exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. Aaron had kept her afloat. His arm around her shoulders as he answered most of their questions, as he held her tighter when Penelope tried to hug her, his expression clearly saying not now in a way she’d thankfully taken note of. They’d accepted Rebecca into their lives with open arms, making her another part of the family they’d built for themselves. 

“Hi,” Emily says, pulling Rebbeca into a hug first, and then Carrie, “I’m so glad you made it.” 

“Of course we did,” Rebbeca says, smiling when Issac reaches out and wraps his hand in her dark hair, “We wouldn’t miss Zac’s birthday, would we?” She tickles his belly and he reaches out for her, and she takes him, settling him on her hip. “Mom and Dad send their apologies,” she says, “But they also sent a massive gift for Zac.”

Emily smiles as she takes the offered gift bag, “I’ll make sure to text your mom to say thank you, they really didn’t have to get him anything.”

Rebecca chuckles, “I’ll leave you to have that conversation with her.” 

The first time she met Rebecca’s parents, Eleanor and John Mount, was as emotional as her first meeting with Rebecca. Eleanor had pulled her into a fierce hug, and held her close as if she was still the teenager who had given birth to their daughter, and John had done the same. They’d brought her a massive photo album, a book so heavy it had to be held with two hands, full of pictures of every moment of Rebecca’s life. 

She looked through it frequently, trying to commit everything she hadn’t been able to see happen to memory. Smiling as Aaron looked at it over her shoulder, never failing to comment on how much Rebecca looked like Rose when she was her age. 

“Everyone is in the back,” Emily says, ushering them in and closing the door behind them, the sight of her oldest and her youngest together something she wasn’t quite used to. 

Telling the kids about Rebecca, and who she was, was the part Emily had been scared of the most. Unsure how to tell them, how to answer questions she was sure they’d have, their curiosity that she usually loved bound to be her downfall. They’d taken in their stride. Jack was the one who understood the most being the oldest, and he’d been excited to meet Rebecca, claiming he’d always wanted a big sister. Emily wasn’t sure how much Rose understood, but she loved Rebecca too, and Emily knew there would eventually be a time when neither she nor Issac remembered life without her. 

In her worst moments, that made her jealous of her children. She wished she could only remember what it was like now - that the pain she’d gone through for decades wasn’t so visceral she could still feel it, but she knew she couldn’t undo anything. And that, if given the choice, she’s not sure she would. She didn’t believe in fate, and didn’t like to think that the universe was in charge of her life. She’d fought for what she had now. For the family she loved. And she wouldn’t want it to be any different than it was.

It was messy. Complicated. A picture made of broken pieces, glued back together with time and love and purpose. But it was hers, and because of that, it was beautiful. 

“Becca!”

They all turn to see Rose running towards them, her arms tight around Rebecca’s legs as she throws herself at her. Rebecca laughs and runs her fingers through her hair, “Hi Rosie-Posie.”

“Come play with us,” Rose demands, holding Rebecca’s spare hand, the other still securing Issac to her, and Carrie’s as she drags them towards the backyard. Emily watches them go, blowing out a slow breath as she twists her rings around her finger.

“You okay, sweetheart?” 

She turns to look at Aaron, smiling at the sight of him in their messy living room, bags of gifts and wrapping paper everywhere, “I’m okay,” she assures him, holding her hand out, her smile getting wider when he walks over and grabs it, linking his fingers through hers, “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have them all, and how lucky I am to have you.” 

He kisses her temple and they walk towards the backyard, “We’re the lucky ones.” 

She rolls her eyes at him, but her response is cut off when she hears laughter as they step out into the yard. Rebecca is sitting on one of the swings of their swing set, Issac on her lap as she gently swings them back and forth. Rose is on the swing next to her being pushed by Jack. She’s overwhelmed by it, by the image of all four of her kids together laughing and having fun. She’s about to ask Aaron to take a photo, her own phone somewhere inside the house, placed down as she tried to organise her son’s birthday party and all the food they’d made for their guests.  She doesn’t think she’s ever loved her husband more than when she sees he’s already doing it, taking dozens of pictures so she’d have a choice of her favourite. 

“Can you send those to me?” She asks, and he nods, wrapping his arm around her waist. 

“Already on the way to you, sweetheart.” 

She squeezes his hand and goes in search of her phone. She sets one of the pictures as her wallpaper immediately, making sure she had a reminder every time she looked at her phone of what she had now. Of what she’d lost and regained. There were times when she wished more than anything she could speak to her 15-year-old self, that she could tell her everything would be okay in the end. That she’d know her daughter. That she’d have a family with the love of her life. Most of the time, she was glad that she couldn’t. Sure that the person she was now wouldn’t exist if she had known what was to come. 

The future was a gift to the young, the path laid out before them a mystery they must walk. 

“Mom,” Rebecca calls into the kitchen, her smile wide as her eyes meet Emily’s, “Rosie is demanding you join her on the swings.” 

She nods and looks down at her phone one more time before she tucks it into her pocket, “I’m coming, honey.” 

[aihoshiino]

The babygirlification if Hikaru is crazy in this fandom... I can't believe that people seem to believe he did zero bad things when ch109 literally showed him standing over Yura and saying that she died so he could feel something...? Just because he's not the one who pushed her, doesn't mean he wasn't an accomplice! (I don't see how Nino would've known about the hiking trip without his help. Also don't see why he would be there monologuing unless he's also a hiking enthusiast who just happened to be there.) He could be both! He could be someone Ai loved but also be a person who became lost without her! Look at Aqua who literally went on a maniacal journey of revenge that saved literally no one & killed 2/3 people whom Ai loved. Because she's gone. The way I see Hikaru's character is that, he loved Ai and understood her as a person instead of the persona she presented. Yet her passing made that persona the only legacy she left behind (in his eyes). She was seen as "the idol closest to the Dome" even though she didn't care! That title wasn't given to any of the other Bkoma members, just her. And, he wasn't really allowed into their children's life because she said so. The only thing he's got left were the "lies" and despite knowing that killing people for her legacy is not what she would've wanted, she's not around to stop him anymore. I think he was a man driven to desperation and doing terrible things because his love was genuine yet no one taught him how to love properly. And her final "rejection" made him believe that being a terrible person was the only thing he could be. Which was why Ai's video became such a huge blow to him: he could've lived without her knowing that her as a person didn't let go of him, yet he went down this path thinking that the true her rejected him & the "lies" was the only thing he could take.

I don't think Ai's rejection broke Hikaru, per se. I think she made him believe that he was worthy of love and not broken (like he thought). And the way things unfold drove him into a spiral that was planted long ago. Humans don't need to be innocent to be worthy of love. The HKAI relationship was two traumatised children finding comfort in eachother. And Hikaru's crimes were about someone letting intrusive thoughts get to them. I don't like how Akasaka handled it at all, but I think erasing Hikaru's grief and the destruction it brought isn't a good way to read his character.

SO, for what it's worth, I do think the way you've analyzed Hikaru here is how he was intended to be read by Akasaka, at least by the end of the story, I don't blame anyone at all who went into this final stretch of OnK legit thinking we were going to get a reveal that Hikaru was not just a straight up villain or at least sympathizing with him and interpreting him as a slightly softer character, because the story basically spends the entirety of the Movie Arc beating you over the head with Extremely Sympathetic Hikaru Characterization.

Hell, it starts asking you to sympathize with him basically from the word go. The first concrete fact we learn about him outside of Aqua's insanely (understandably!) biased POV immediately throws every explicit and implicit assumption we have about him out the window. Not only does his age mean that he was one of Ai's peers and not, as Aqua seems to have been assuming, an older man who had victimized her but we learn this information in tandem with realizing - as Akane points out - this means Taiki was conceived when he was eleven years old, with all that implies. Akane's disgusted reaction pretty clearly telegraphs to the reader how we're supposed to take it and… idk, maybe this sounds cynical, but giving a character a backstory of CSA is like the Press To Make Audience Instantly Want To Protect This Character's Smile button. It very much primes you to want to feel bad for him.

109 does throw a spanner in these works and I do remember even at the time feeling very fucking uncertain about OnK potentially going for the grody old trope of "this character was a CSA victim and now they're Evil" (IF ONLY I FUCKING KNEW) but the more I re-read 109, I felt increasingly uncertain of what, exactly, we were supposed to take away from it. I actually had a suspicion for a really long time that 109 was so heavy handedly and overtly portraying him as a straightforward villain specifically to mislead the reader When They Cry-style and that he wasn't the one responsible for Yura's death at all.

Add all this to the fact that the Movie Arc centers Hikaru's victimhood and his extremely sad wet cat pathetic boy characterization literally at the expense of Ai's story in the movie that was supposed to be about her but what the fuck ever and it's really hard not to think that this is how the story wants you to feel about Hikaru. Hell, the Movie Arc even asks us to empathize with Airi, who is a fucking child rapist. I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone to assume that we were not supposed to think of Hikaru as a straightforward villain, especially when Ruby basically, like, looks into the camera when she's having her meeting with him and goes "nobody is born ontologically evil btw people get fucked up by their environments and blaming individuals for systemic issues isn't how anything gets fixed".

Also, like… I want to be delicate about this but I think it's also important to remember that Hikaru's motivations and supposed villainy as portrayed in OnK as of late are pretty outlandish and hard to connect with. But there are almost certainly people in OnK's audience who are also C/SA survivors who are able to resonate with a more grounded portrayal of him. I don't blame anyone at all for preferring a more sympathetic take on him in that case.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Yanno something I don't think is explored nearly enough? Ambrosius's relationship with the Director, and I'm referring to both versions here because they're both interesting in both similar and different ways

For the movie version (I will talk about the comic version on this post too, don't you worry) first of all my pal @walrus150915 wrote an incredible fic exploring this for the NBB please go read it right fucking now, but moving on from that, Ambrosius arguably saw the Director as his mom, or at least a stand-in for his mom.

She was (or seemed to be) a nurturing but authoritative adult who guided him in the role he was supposed to fill. A lot of people like to write her as an overtly nasty bitch in pre-canon fics, and while I completely get that, let's not forget that Ballister, at the beginning of the movie, found it potentially believable that he was her favorite student. He was dumbfounded and devastated to see she had been the one to frame him, he couldn't believe it and never suspected her for a second. I'll talk more about Ballister's relationship with her in another post, but the point is this is an Oscar-winning actress, people!

Ambrosius had every reason to look up to her and believe she cared about him. And she went from (in his perspective) treating him with patience, kindness, sympathy and respect, to trying to MURDER HIM.

You don't just get over a parental figure doing something like that to you (then oh yeah, promptly fucking d y i n g). The pain, the loss of realizing someone you loved and trusted was never who you thought they were (after he'd been battling those same feelings about Ballister) and never really cared about you as a person, it would be devastatingly traumatic. Like poor guy what the fuck. He had to cope with that WHILST trying to repair his broken relationship Jesus Christ

And that's not even getting INTO the comic version, which I will be getting into now. There's a big difference between the two and I think that's in no small part due to the timeframe. C! Ambro has been under the Director's thumb a full 15 years longer than his counterpart. This gave her time to exert more control over him, and also gave him time to grow more aware of her behavior. M!Ambro and the Director have the relationship of a person and their (non-sexual) groomer, while C!Ambro's relationship with her is more overtly that of a person and their abuser.*

She's regularly seen threatening him, threatening to have his loved one (Ballister) killed if he doesn't obey her thereby forcing him to do things against his will (like murder a child), insulting him, and showing him absolutely zero sympathy or kindness, even when he's seriously harmed. I think Ambrosius would, by this point, know that the Director isn't a good person and that she doesn't love him, but she's had much more time to sink her claws into him.

He's not going to leave her. This life, being the Champion, working for her, it's all he knows, and it's all he has. Where is he going to go, back to Ballister? Ballister hates him (because the Director took measures to isolate Ambrosius from him) and he's worked for the Institution his whole life. He knows the Director is bad, but he still trusts her. This is the devil he knows, at least, so by the time the story takes place he at least feels confident that they have a mutual understanding.

I imagine it took time to get to this point. He saw her as a mentor and spent most of his life desperate for her approval. After the joust, I can only imagine this got worse. She was all he had, and he'd do anything to prove himself worthy of the championship title he knows deep down that he stole. He probably saw her as a real friend for a long time, no matter how obvious she made it that the feeling wasn't mutual, and that he'd have to try ever harder to earn her praise.

What I'm saying is this man spent fifteen years under the boot of his abuser, then after fifteen years of grooming and psychological abuse she threw him in the trash, stripped him of his title and everything he'd worked for, tried to have his lover executed, then fucking died. And NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT??? HELLOO?????

*this is not to say that M! Ambro's relationship with the Director was not abusive, it was, or that C! Ambro wasn't groomed, he was. Simply that for him, the grooming had more time to develop into overt, recognizable abuse.

[lovemyromance]

Have the eluciens ever considered that perhaps the reason Elain acts so uncomfortable and avoids Lucien and apathetic around him and says "I don't want a mate" is not because she secretly feels eternal love for him and wants to fuck him 24/7" ..... and maybe because ....

SHE JUST DOESN'T WANT HIM???

like my god. It is not that hard to understand that maybe - just maybe - elains actions and words match and this time - this woman just honestly doesn't want that man? I know it's hard to believe because yall have such hardons for Lucien (??) but .... maybe she doesn't want him and she means that!???

There's only one reason Eluciens want an Elain POV - and it's not because they love Elain and want to know her struggles and fears and hopes and dreams. They want Elain's POV bc they are still holding onto some desperate hope that her POV might say that she is avoiding Lucien and shrinking around him because ..... she's in love with him?? She's making out with Azriel and getting aroused for him because .... she wants Lucien, I guess???

If she wanted Lucien - genuinely what reason does she have to hide it?? Nobody is standing in their way and Feyre was initially trying to push them together as early as ACOWAR.

She is not Feyre. She is not Nesta. And it's important to remember that before people go around trying to compare these very different scenarios.

Everyone could tell Feyre & Nesta had chemistry and wanted Rhysand & Cassian, regardless of their brief avoidance and dancing around of each other and flirtations with others. They had major scenes of buildup even before their actual "couple" book.

Here - you have the opposite. Multiple characters are noticing Elain just doesn't want Lucien. They are noticing he's just as uncomfortable around her. Elain is developing a deep level of understanding for Azriel, not her mate.

I genuinely can't believe that people are trying to use the logic that "oh Feyre and Nesta also avoided their mates" as a reason for Elucien to still be happening. As if every character and their mother hasn't pointed out just how different these situations are.

Like.... ok... keep holding out hope for your Hail Mary of Elain maybe secretly wanting Lucien and doing everything in her power to NOT show that (for what reason idk - nobody stands in their way of getting together).

But some part of you HAS to accept that maybe Elain is showing her true feelings on the subject.... and maybe someone should finally believe her.