#it’s no joke these characters just keep getting better and better
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Hey queen you should totally do myung gi nsfw alphabet if you haven’t already also ur funny 😜😜
Myung gi NSFW alphabet
A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)
he becomes very caring and very gentle, he cleans you off and if your able to move than he’ll help you shower
B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)
his favorite body part about you is your neck, he loves to nuzzle his head into there and inhale your scene, and leave hickeys all over it as well
his favorite body part about himself is probably his fingers just because he fingers you reallyyy good, and his fingers are long
C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)
He doesn’t care where he cums just as long as he does, if you let him cum inside even better but sometimes he loves to see his ropes of cum land on your ass
D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)
A dirty secret about him is wanting to try pegging
E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)
He’s experienced, obviously since he used to date Jun hee, but over all he knows what he’s doing
F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)
His favorite position is definitely doggy style, he loves to see the way his hips crash into your ass and the way it just moves as well
G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)
He does get nervous and says a joke or tries to make things funny but the moment he’s inside you he’s done for, he gets serious
H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)
He shaves but not often
I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)
He’s very into the moment and if he going rough and sees your struggling to handle it he’ll stroke your hair a bit
J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)
He jacks off, not often but reasonable times
K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)
He doesn’t have any, he just likes degrading and praising
L = Location (favorite places to do the do)
Anywhere in the house
M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)
You in general, or when he sees you laying there after he got done screaming about crypto to his computer
N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)
anything that would hurt you extreme
O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)
He mainly eats you out often at least everytime before yall fuck but he does really love when you suck him off
P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)
Kinda depends on his mood, if he’s mad than rough, if he’s not really like feeling anything just horny than it’s a mix, he’ll go rough than gentle than rough
Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)
He does do quickies and not that often but mainly when yall are in public and he gets jealous
R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)
He gets really nervous about it and does try to keep you down, but if he really wants it he doesn’t gaf, he just wants to be inside of you
S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)
at most 3-4 rounds
T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)
no toys
U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)
he does tease every now and than but not often
V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)
if he top than just groans and growls, but if he’s bottom than he does whine out, whimpers and low moans
W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)
he’s most likely to order a strap on
X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)
I’ll say about 6 inches at most, 6.5 when he’s hard
Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)
it’s medium wage, but there is times where he can go on and on and on
Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards
not long after he finished taking care of you and making sure your okay, but if you don’t fall asleep nethier does he
#squid game#squid game season 2#squid game x reader#squid game s2#squid game smut#squid game fic#squid game fanfic#myung gi smut#myung gi x reader#myung gi#lee myung gi#player 333 smut#player 333 x reader#player 333
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The Reason ~A Five Hargreeves/Female Reader Insert request (Complete)
Rated Mature for Explicit Sexual Content (20k word one-shot with 10 fast paced chapters)
Anonymous asked:
Please just give me the smuttiest enemies to friends to lovers, with some breeding kink PLEASEEE 🧍♀️🙏🏻
KayBreezy's reply: Okay. 😂 Done. See Below to read this wild adventure.
~Tags and Warnings: feral Five, soft Five angst, family fluff, flirting, humor, rough sex, story with plenty of smutty smut but it needs to build to get there so be patient and it will pay off, Five being wonderful and awful, smart female reader insert, Diego is a bomb ass bro, canon compliant plus extra addressing of shit they didn't bother to and I wish they would have, breeding kink, enemies-to friends-to lovers, some tags left off to keep you on your toes, season 5 TUA
~Very Important Note: DUE TO SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED S4 This story starts where season 4 ends and reads like a season 5 start. It is canon compliant, letting you take what we were left with on the show, DISREGARDING the controversial sexual relationship that happened, or not. That's the big thing with this one. This is written so the reader can interpret that stuff as they want to. There are only two mentions in this that even come remotely close into that territory and those parts can also be looked at as Five simply feeling awful and not because that even happened. He has plenty of other reason for his sadness, why they felt the need to give him more and end them all, I will never know. 😭 I personally have always seen a special bond with Five and Lila, only not at all the way it played out in the show, and we will see some of my version of their admiration of each other in this one, and I did it to honor both these characters I love. It is also important to say, this is in no way written in a way that is triggering for those who hated what happened on the show. This is written to give them all something better. That was my point, and to try to do this request some justice. ❤️I hope you enjoy. Sending peace and love to all the beautiful TUA/FIVE fans.
THE REASON
Chapter one: The Beginning of the End
Slipping away, there was no reason to fight anymore.
Sensations Five couldn’t put into words overwhelming him, the glowing pulsation of The Cleanse began to cover them, first trapping their feet, then building up around their legs with terrifying speed.
As the pressure pushed at his layers of clothing, naturally, panic set in.
His mind screamed, DO SOMETHING!!!
He would have laughed at the irony along with his family if it wasn’t all so awful. Here they were cracking jokes when they were about to die, and there he was, the massive lump of guilt in his throat trying to kill him quicker than the looming mass of elemental alien goo.
Five’s entire life, he’d thought he was the strong one, that he could save them, but boy had he been wrong.
Even before this shit storm splattered the fan, he knew he should have been starting over, but he’d done very little in the way of living, or being there for any of them.
He pretended he was fine, but he wasn’t.
He was alone, like he always was, but he was too stubborn to admit how empty his life was.
Instead, he blocked all that out by playing CIA agent, foolishly not noticing that the people who’d hired him were in on all this.
Then, when it all went from bad to worse, Five ran from it. Once with Lila as they traveled the train to insanity together, and then again after that, when they’d finally made it back and he realized they couldn’t beat the horrible death blob Ben and Jennifer had become.
It took a lifetime to learn it, but there was no running from this, or the unforgivable things he’d done only to end up with nothing.
Heart sinking to unfathomable depths of despair, unable to look at their faces, or the thing consuming them, Five looked to the ceiling instead. Through the highest windows of what in another time had been their childhood home, the world outside was righting itself, the fire of rebirth was hard at work, correcting things the right way this time.
There was no reason for his suffering.
No reason for any of this.
His breath catching in his throat, the mass of destruction that was swallowing them crept up Five’s neck, seeping under his sweat drenched collar.
Shutting his eyes to block out the horror of what was happening, he forced himself to think about why this was the only way out.
“What shattered the timeline?” he’d asked the Five that greeted him at the interdimensional deli filled with different versions of him.
“Not what. Who,” his cocky doppelgänger replied while pushing a stray piece of hair out of his face.
They were 145,142 times trying to stop the apocalypse, doomed to save or destroy the world, over and over… ad infinitum.
This would go on forever. Those crazy bastards weren’t willing to rise above their own wants and needs, but he was.
Eliminate the Marigold by ending all of them, and you get no more cycle of apocalyptic destruction. Simple as that.
Despite Five’s steadfast acceptance of this fact, a rush of air crawled out of his gaped mouth, the sound of it gut-wrenchingly pathetic even to his own ears. His lower lip trembled as The Cleanse reached his chin. He jerked his head higher to get away from it, but it was no good.
He felt Lila squeeze his hand. He squeezed back, a tear slipping down his cheek, immediately eaten away by the sludgy mass burying them.
I’m sorry.
He was, for everything, but he couldn’t say it, not anymore. He couldn’t even breathe.
The taste of death covered his lips, filling his nostrils. A familiar crackle of static energy zipped up and down his spine even though he hadn’t summoned it, like his powers had life of their own, begging him to stop this.
Five opened his eyes one last time, a spike of adrenaline needlessly alerting him to the fact that he was about to suffocate from the disgusting booger-like substance pushing into his mouth.
Silently crying out, The Cleanse choked off his airway.
His body, insistent on his need to breathe, helplessly drew in the otherworldly gunk.
He was drowning.
He began to thrash.
Above, ash began to fall from the ceiling. Five felt the same desperation he had a lifetime ago while standing outside the burning gates of his home.
Like then, all he could think about was finding a way back to save them.
Just before the wave of glimmering slime slipped over Five’s head, a shadowed figure moved into his view on the second-floor balcony. The person propped their elbows on the railing. Extending their left hand, they began dangling a pocket watch, slowly swinging it back and forth on its silver chain.
As if dying wasn’t already shaking Five to the core, the ornately engraved disk they had looked exactly like a pocket watch he kept in a basket of broken timepieces back in his boyhood bedroom at the original Umbrella Academy.
He collected those discarded pieces of junk, trying to make their fragile parts work again because he saw something of himself in their busted balance springs and wheels, beaten and used, pushed aside, never able to prove to a dad that didn’t love him that he was good enough.
Reginald was right, he wasn’t.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” the young stranger said, as if reading Five’s thoughts. He angled his face into the light, the pouted line of his lips pulling to the side, mimicking one of Five's smiles almost perfectly. “For all this to work out, you had to get here.”
A faint swirl of blue energy lit up the boy’s hands as the floor rumbled under their feet. Chunks of the roof fell, but their pale green eyes wrinkled at the corners even more, not a hint of fear in them.
“I’d do this one for you, but I can’t,” he furthered. “As you always told me, when it comes to time travel, you don’t mess with the loops, and this is one hell of a temporal causality loop you set up.”
The dimple in the boy’s cheek deepened.
“No, you. No, me,” he calmly explained. “And that would mean this conversation wouldn’t be happening, resulting in you letting this end and game over for us.”
Pulling the old pocket watch back up, the boy popped it open, checking the time before he looked back down at Five through the mess of sun-kissed hair falling over his eyes.
“You know what to do. It’s time, Dad.”
He dropped the watch, the glint of metal sailing down into the abyss.
Lack of oxygen about to make him lose consciousness, The Cleanse covered Five’s shock filled eyes.
Getting crushed, he no longer felt the hands that had been holding his.
They were all gone.
As true terror set in, the last of the boy’s words echoed in his mind.
It’s time, Dad…
Chapter Two: Walk in the Park
Not even aware he was doing it at first, Five pulled at that undefinable feeling inside him that let him open doors no one else could. Within a second, the strings of time gave in to his demand, illuminating the darkness.
An explosion of violent light burst outwards, the force of it ripping his skin inside out, or it felt that way. At that point, Five wasn’t sure if he was still intact, or not. All he knew was, he’d given everything he had left, opening one final portal, not even accounting for the destination.
Flung into a tornado of time and space knitting itself back together into the one true timeline, Five landed in the only place he could.
Coming down fast, blindly flailing, he slammed down on top of a picnic table, sending the food airborne that Lila’s parents had just laid out for lunch.
Face smashed into what he was pretty sure had been a cake, Five let out a whimpered groan.
Fresh air ruffled his frosting coated hair, the white sugar standing out in stark contrast to his chocolate-colored strands.
Untwisting his legs, his dress shoe accidentally knocked into Claire’s can of orange soda, tipping it over. The fizzy mess started pouring out all over Lila’s feet as she glared at him.
Five rapidly blinked his eyes, still not sure if what he was seeing was real.
Everything was so bright, a canopy of green and blue.
Orange and yellow marigolds filled the landscaped gardens.
Upbeat music played somewhere in the distance.
“What do you know, the flying fart squirrel decided to join us after all,” Lila dryly noted as she wiped a piece of potato salad off her forehead, flicking it at Diego.
Unfazed by Five’s fumbled landing, Diego picked the mayo covered slop off his shirt, sticking it in his mouth as he rolled his eyes at her. “Come, on babe. Fivvv nev-lets us dow. I nn-ew-he-be-here,” he mumbled while reaching out to lend him a helping hand.
Once on his feet, Five swayed, but Diego held on, keeping him steady as he took in the full extent of his shell-shocked appearance. “Rough day, old man?” he asked, a look of worry bending his silly dad-stash into a frown.
“You could say that,” Five croaked.
He reached up, his trembling fingers brushing the ghost of stubble darkening his jaw.
“Thank God I’m not twelve years old again,” he breathed.
Diego and Lila looked at each other, eyes wide.
“Five…?” Diego questioned. “Since you still can’t calculate your decades long jumps worth a shit, why don’t you just use one of your briefcases to commute.”
“Uncle Five is here!” Grace shouted, abandoning the game of frisbee she was playing with Luther and Sloane. Bolting over, her arms flung around Five’s waist. “Did you bring me anything?” she asked, beaming up at him.
Five was speechless.
Her twin siblings screeched as they rolled around on a fuzzy blanket filled with toys. Behind them, camped out on the grass, or horsing around not far away, Five saw his entire family, and all the people from their past that they had loved and lost.
A few yards away, Dave was sitting with his back against a tree, Klaus lying next to him with his head in his lap.
Eudora, Sissy, little Harlan, Elliot, Ray, Ben and Jennifer…
Five kept counting.
To his left, Agnes and Hazel walked by, bird watcher guide in hand.
Even the Sparrows' faces dotted the crowded scene, the one Five didn’t recognize with blue hair oddly reminiscent of a non-cube version of Christopher.
“Holy shit,” he gasped.
With the buzz of the older kids laughing at their funny Uncle Five and his ruined suit, and the rest of his family looking at him like he needed to be locked up, the fear that everyone close to him was about to be wiped off the face of the Earth hadn’t even come close to wearing off. And that feeling only got worse when he spotted The Handler sitting on a nearby park bench.
Starting to walk towards her, he reached into his inside jacket pocket to pull out his CIA issued handgun, but it wasn’t there.
Getting nothing but a handful of Jello, Five ran right into Herb. In a domino effect, the smaller statured man started teetering backwards.
“Youch!” you cried as his heel dug into your opened toed dress shoe.
Everything you were holding slipped out of your hands as they flung out to break your fall.
Before hitting the dirt, your skirt flew up, giving everyone a show.
Looking about as thrown as you, Five looked down at the Temps Commission insignia on the journal you dropped, then the pocket watch that had fallen next to it.
He cursed.
Clenching his hands so hard it looked like he might hurt himself, he started shaking his head side to side. “Where is he?” he growled.
“Who?” you fired back at him, trying to get up.
“That kid!”
“What kid?”
Before Herb could say anything to add to your confused reply or find his handy-dandy Commission issued time stopper, Five took off again.
Scrambling to your feet, you reached out to catch his arm. He swung around with a snarl and shoved you to the ground again, then he blinked away, reappearing right behind The Handler, ready to choke her with his bare hands, the only thing stopping him being the lady coming past, pushing a baby stroller.
Seeing the real Grace’s smiling face, so much like that of his robot mother, Five looked even more manic.
“Stop!” Herb frantically cried out, realizing that something was off more than Five lacking any spatial awareness.
Five didn’t stop, and neither did you, clumsily coming after him, your dress shoes slipping on the grass, you yelled, “If you do this, you’re going to regret it!”
To your relief. Five lowered his hands.
You came to a stop in front of the Handler, your hands coming to your knees as you tried to catch your breath. She looked from you, to the crazed young man behind her.
She lowered her cell phone. “Can I help you?”
“No. Sorry,” you huffed, quickly storming around the park bench to take Five by the back of his food covered suit jacket.
“She doesn’t know who you are!” you whisper yelled at him as you towed him away from her. “What in the world are you thinking?”
Five angrily narrowed his eyes at you.
“This was your plan!” you barked, to which he equally angrily jerked his shoulder away from your hand.
Apparently, he wasn’t going to let you corral him back towards Herb, but he wasn’t opposed to stomping over there himself, which was fine by you, so long as he did, and started to calm his cake-covered ass down.
“Glad to have you back,” Herb nervously chuckled once Five was in earshot. “Sorry about that.” He glanced at The Handler who was happily chatting away on her cell phone again. “I’m sure some of this is still hard for you, but everyone affected by this needed to be in close proximity to perform all the alternations you wanted. This picnic took some time for us to set up, but we got it done. As far as they know, you all have been back here for weeks and we had nothing to do with this party.”
Five’s cold gaze didn’t falter.
After picking up the items he made you drop, you handed him his journal, the one that said to give it to him as soon as he arrived.
“I don’t want that,” he spat, refusing to take it from you.
“Maybe it would be better if we took this conversation back to The Commission,” Herb offered.
“Like hell it would,” Five snapped, “There is no way I am going back to that shitshow of manipulative sadists.”
“You are the leader of our shitshow of manipulative sadists,” you retorted.
Ignoring that and your offended expression, he came at you, a flash of light blinding you as he snatched the watch out of your hand. Reappearing a few yards away, he hissed, “Who are you and who gave you this!”
Now you were the one narrowing your eyes.
Introducing yourself, minus the usual extended hand in case he tried to bite it off, you said, “I serve as your Co-Chair, and the watch was left with your files that were given to me when I was hired. And… it is not broken anymore because I fixed it for you. You’re welcome.”
“Why would I hire you?”
“Because you clearly needed my help,” you replied, your tone as acidic as his.
“Yeah, right,” he barked, his wild eyes suddenly fixating on you in a very ungentlemanly way.
Realizing that when he’d flung you the second time, your shirt had come undone by a few more buttons than you’d normally allow, you crossed your arms over your chest, using his journal like a shield to protect your boobs from his glare. “Look,” you sniped back. “I get that for you, some of this might be a little confusing because you’ve only been back for more than a few minutes real time, but for Herb and I, our day at the park had been much longer than that, stopping time over and over to correctly wipe and reset each of your family members you brought back. So… can we just get this thing moving?”
“You better not touch my family,” Five warned.
“With Optogenetics, cation-selective channel rhodopsin are used to excite neurons and inhibit neuronal activity, so touching isn’t exactly how we’d say memory alteration works, but you already know that. You are the one that left the notes that led to me inventing the pain free process to do it. Why are you being so difficult?” you questioned.
“Because…” he childishly seethed.
“Because?”
“That’s right,” he continued, his face contorting as his jaw muscles repeatedly tensed. “You throwing out big words means nothing. I’ve been fed a lot of lines of bullshit over the years, and I have no reason to trust a bimbo who’s wearing tiny pink underwear that would make a stripper blush! Or Herb! Or anyone that works at the place that ruined my life and millions of others!”
You smiled, and it wasn't the nice kind of smile. “Name calling? Really?”
“This has set up written all over it!” he yelled.
A lump of frosting fell off his head, landing on one of his expensive dress shoes. Fingers twitching at his sides, he was about to go ballistic.
In his notes spelling it out how this was going to go down, the Five of the future that hired you had written nothing about the possibility that the him now would have no clue what was going on, but it was clear he didn’t. Fortunately, there were protocols to handle situations like this-his protocols.
“We didn’t ruin anyone’s lives. That is the opposite of what we are about, but if you aren’t willing to come back and talk about that, I guess we are done here,” you said, raising an unimpressed brow.
“Sweetheart, I was done so long ago, you have no fucking idea.”
After condescendingly insulting you again, Five turned to check on his family.
None of them were concerned, and you knew they wouldn’t be. The moment he walked away, their attention was back on entertaining the kids.
“Do you want to do it, or me,” you quietly asked Herb, who looked over at you, looking about as tired as you’d ever seen him.
“I’ll lug this thing,” he sheepishly offered, picking up the huge Commission briefcase you used to get there.
You reached in your pocket, calling out to Diego. “Hey, guys! Something came up. Five is needed back at the office.”
Five started to turn back, readying for a fight.
Sticking him in the neck with a fast-acting sedative before he could fully swing, his legs buckled at the knees.
“You didn’t jus-st-ffffah-kkkk," he slurred, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Chapter Three: The Founder
A line of drool running out of his mouth, Five flopped over the side of the settee he was passed out on. Groggily looking around from his new position on the hard marble floor, he saw the lights were dimmed and there was only the slightest bit of daylight on the horizon outside the heavily draped windows.
He had no idea how long he’d been out, but he knew where he was.
This was 1955 and these were the crown molded walls of AJ Carmichael’s office, then The Handler’s, but evidently this office wasn’t either of theirs anymore because the polished plaque sitting on top of the old mahogany desk read otherwise.
“Five Hargreeves, Director… Well, I’ll be damned,” he breathed.
Getting to his feet, head spinning, he swallowed, his throat thick.
On the small side table next to him, he noticed the pocket watch he’d stolen back from you and a glass of water next to it with a pink post-it note stuck to it that read, Drink Me.
“Yeah, right. I’ll probably shrink like Alice in Wonderland,” he grumbled, remembering how you stuck him in the neck with a syringe, at this point equating you to an evil version of the white rabbit, forcefully leading him back into a nightmare.
Running a hand through his hair, seeing no one there to ambush him, Five spotted his neatly polished shoes placed under the edge of the couch. There was also a fresh suit, with the addition of a pair socks and black briefs laying on one of the adjacent chairs.
Five looked down at the slumped blanket around his ankles, then his hands.
He still had on his undershirt and underwear, a pair exactly like the ones on the chair, but that was it. He’d been cleaned up, no more frosting anywhere.
Kicking free of the slumped blanket at his feet, he stomped over to his desk, eyes on the journal laying there and the slightly smashed piece of cake that had another post-it note next to it that said, ‘Once you’ve had your nap time, and snack time is over, put your big-boy pants back on and read this over for me, please.’
Looking at the door, his expression soured even more.
Picking up the leather-bound book, he recalled that you said it was his, but he didn’t remember it. Then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d left something for himself to find later.
Shoving memories of the subway station out of his mind, Five opened it, his finger running along the date and time noted at the top of the first page. There was no denying he’d written it.
Slowly sitting down, his eyes moved along, reading the detailed directions explaining all the things you were supposed to do before he got there. Things like making sure certain people from his past only remembered what they needed to remember, and that meant for some, like his ex-supervisor, some remembered nothing.
For his family, their memories were more complicated because they were a part of things that needed to be remembered, but in clipping bits of time from their minds, he stated it would allow them the easiest transition.
Further diving into this new reality, Five read that many of the superpowered Hargreeves, including some of the Sparrows, worked for him and were involved in a new initiative of non-kill orders for all time corrective actions.
They’d been wiped. Just like you said. The device used to do it, one he told you to make, and it sounded a lot like the one Reginald used to erase the memories of how the original Ben died.
That happened. It all did. Five remembered it and his notes said the others would too- for the most part.
The past still happened because it had to, but that didn’t mean everyone needed to be burdened with the heavier traumas of it. That idea was a core value stated in The Temps Commission’s original doctrine, also written by him, conveniently there on the desk for him to go over.
All of it confirmed what you said. He was the Founder of The Commission; the same place that let him waste away in the apocalypse for forty years and then go through the rest of this crap. Apparently, that cruel joke didn’t just come to fruition in the Sparrow timeline spin off.
It was madness.
Somehow, his family survived, powers intact. He got them out of there at the last second, with none of them aware that anything odd was happening when you’d come up to them at the park, waving your specially calibrated brain wave eraser in front of their smiling faces.
You were an invited guest to their event and so was Herb. They knew you and trusted you, just like he supposedly did, only he didn’t.
Hearing a soft knock at the door, Five tensed.
“Come in.”
Herb timidly stepped inside, leaving the door ajar to the empty hallway. He lowered his chin and shook his head as if he already knew that what he was going to say was something Five wouldn’t want to hear. “That was a bumpy start,” he began. “We didn’t see that coming and we are so sorry about that. If we-”
“How long have you known about this,” Five sharply cut in.
“As you’ve read, that’s complicated,” he carefully replied.
“Herb,” Five sighed, his hand rubbing the worry line between his eyes. “All I have ever wanted was for this to end, but I don’t-"
Herb held up his hand stopping him. “I know you don’t want this. We all know what you’ve given to this place already, but we need you. With what you are capable of, your unique skill set makes you a perfect choice to run this organization.”
Herb paused, hoping Five understood that but he looked as unconvinced as before.
“This doesn’t have to be forever,” he tried. “The board just wants reassurance, and with you at the helm, it’s clear that people here will feel more comfortable about this transition. We no longer focus on preventing complications from the other timelines breaking off because there is only one timeline now. You took care of that by allowing The Cleanse to happen. Now we are here to ensure someone is present in case anything like this threatens us again. This is a big change for everyone,” he clarified, as if Five didn’t already grasp how big this was.
“And Reginald?” he quietly questioned, his troubled eyes pulling downward.
“Gone with the Cleanse,” you answered, coming into his office, “but as far as anyone else knows, he died years ago. You were there to spread his ashes. Many things are the same as before, but with the addition of the things that changed during the last five years you were gone, only you do not work for the CIA, even if that’s the cover we are using.”
You strolled over, sitting down next to Herb.
“The element your father’s wife inadvertently created as a byproduct of producing the thing they called ‘marigold’ is also gone. The marigold is still in all of you,” you furthered.
“That alien was not my dad,” Five tartly retorted, “and your presence here is not needed.”
When you didn’t move, he pointed to the door.
You crossed your legs, eyeing Five wearily. Putting a hand on your friend’s shoulder, you said, “You can head home, Herb. You haven’t slept in days.”
He smiled. “Neither have you.” He looked to Five, tiredly getting up. “Please listen. She’s smart. That is why you hired her.”
Five’s brows furrowed as he took in the weight of what Herb said. He looked down at his lap, but the second the older looking man left the room, he looked back up, eyeing you with the same contempt. “No syringe?” he coldly dangled.
“No pants?” you countered.
He cocked his chin. “Why bother? You already violated me while I was unconscious. I figured this way if you came at me again; there’d be less in the way if you really wanted to go hard stomping on my dick.”
“You are the only one here being combative, but if you want me to stomp on your dick, keep it up, I will, but I’d much rather finish this debriefing, filling you in on anything else you might not recall, which sounds like everything you did to get here from this point on.”
“Time loops are a bitch, and you are…” He didn’t finish, instead he picked up his fork, putting his focus on stabbing his piece of cake into even more of a disaster.
“You don’t like me. Got it loud and clear,” you said, “but after meeting you, I must admit, I don’t like you either. Before this, I admired you, but you are nothing like the person I thought you were based on all the great things I read in your files.”
“Well… Most things look better on paper,” he sneered.
“Look… How about I just do what I am here to do, and you do the same?” you offered. “Cut the lines of bullshit you hate so much? Because that’s what this pissing match is. Waste of time bullshit.”
“Fine.”
“As I was about to say,” you started again, laying out your sheets of chemical equations for him to follow as you explained. “For Reginald’s dearly departed wife, in making the one element that also gave a fast track to your births, and then the other not so nice one Jennifer got stuck with, she essentially shot a machine gun at a needle in a haystack, but the bullet and needle didn’t fuse together completely, and you just witnessed the ricochetted result of that when they did finally fuse with Ben and Jennifer getting together, the bad part of that synthetic reaction vanishing forever in a timeline that is no more. Story done.”
“So, you are saying we weren’t the cause of all this?” he asked, still not believing it.
“No,” you said. “Abigail’s bad science was and that really wasn’t that hard to figure out. It only took me a few days once I was given the top-secret files you left behind for Herb to find in your Paradox Proof bunker.”
“That’s impossible. I’m the only one that can get in there,” Five argued.
“Not exactly,” you calmly disagreed. “After Dallas, when Herb was holding the temporary position of Chairmen of the Board, he gained access to many interesting things you hide around here, including a glass eye you had made that was a replica of yours.”
“The retinal scan,” Five murmured under his breath.
“Yes. You were very busy at some point in the future, and lucky us, everything you did paid off.”
Saying nothing, Five didn’t look like he felt lucky, but when he didn’t question you more about the bunker, you moved on.
“Another thing you probably don’t remember figuring out, is that when it comes to thinking you were all only born because of the release of the Marigold on our planet, that isn’t true. You all would have been born regardless. All your mothers were already pregnant, only days along and none knew it yet. You all had fathers and mothers, just like the rest of us, only with you, the second that alien dusting of orange entered our atmosphere, it needed to find a host and you were it, the perfect jump off point for a miracle.”
“The Umbrella Academy?” he asked, dismissing your explanation about his parents, like it didn’t matter that he wasn’t just alive because of aliens playing God.
“It happened. You were all acquired by Reginald, same as before,” you continued. “The world knows about most of you like they always did, and they are aware you’re back, the details of your disappearance understood to be a complication due to your ability to spatially jump. The running story is you were frozen between jumps, not that you’d jumped to the future. We don’t want the entire world knowing about time travel and your ability to do it, or ours.”
“So, there you have it,” Five scoffed.
“Dumbed down, yes, but I thought since you’ve had a hard day, you’d appreciate that.”
“Are you one of us?” he asked as he studied you, for the first time his eyes not darting away from yours when you determinedly refused to look away.
“No,” you half laughed, half scoffed. “As you can see,” you waved a hand in front of yourself, “I am not the same age as your siblings, but I suppose when it comes to you, that means little, so fair question. Unlike you, I am the age I appear to be, which I’m guessing is not much off from you physically at this point. I was plucked out of college to come here, and since then, I devoted my life to being here to help you in any way I can, and I assure I am qualified to do it otherwise—”
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have hired you,” he finished for you. Hand at his mouth, anxiously edging his teeth across his thumbnail, Five’s eyes grew distant again.
Silence filled the room.
“We have a meeting with the board in the morning. I will drop off the agenda early enough for you to go over it beforehand,” you said, pushing your chair out to get up.
You waited a moment for him to look up, but he didn’t, so you headed to the door, turning just before you left.
“This is over,” you said, the anger in your voice completely gone. “At least you can take solace in that.”
You shut the door behind you.
Still seeing the delicate features of your face overlapping those of the mysterious boy on the balcony who’d looked like him, only not, Five mentally kicked himself.
“This isn’t over,” he breathed.
Chapter Four: I’m the Daddy Here
By the next day, when Five’s brothers dropped into his office, he had shadows under his eyes and his young bones were aching like his body really was 70 years old.
Sitting in front of him, next to Klaus, Diego stretched his arms up over his head, as he said, “Dude, you still have your shitty apartment from your CIA days to crash at, so why does it look like you’ve been pacing your secret lair all night?”
“Oh gee, I don’t know Diego,” Five threw back. “Maybe I forgot I had a place to call my own and I did pace in here all night? Unlike you, I have bigger things on my mind than which Hawaiian shirt I’m going to wear to work.”
“You look so Miami Vice,” Klaus said, giving Diego a high five, before he moved his attention to Five. “What are you whining about, man? We are riding on a gravy train with biscuit wheels.” He threw his arms around like they should look around him. “We won!”
Five lips pursed tighter.
Klaus’s jaw dropped as he looked over at Diego. “What… We didn’t win? We’re all in the void?”
Diego laughed. “For a someone with the powers of divine entity you sure are—"
“We won,” Five interrupted, bringing them back to the point. “Or I should say, we will, but not unless I finish this.”
“You did finish this. We are here and life is good,” Diego pointed out, moving on to what he felt the real problem was. “Are you happy, Five? And what does that even mean to you outside of making sure we all keep breathing? Maybe the answer to that is why you’re still struggling. Apocalypse addiction is a-“
“Fuck you, Diego. I don’t need one of your psych ward therapy sessions you and Lila get off on. I need to have a kid! If I don’t, we will all cease to exist and there will be no do over this time and that is very bad!”
“How do you know that?” he questioned, his amused smile still proving that he thought they were just having one of their usual lectures with Five about him needing to get out more.
“Shit. Is it hot in here?” Five complained, yanking at his collar.
“Earth to Five,” Diego rammed him, “I asked you a question.”
Having loosened his tie enough to feel like the walls weren’t closing in on him, Five testily said, “I know this, Diego, because a kid that looked a lot like me was there just before The Cleanse finished its job, and he called me dad. If he hadn’t been there and said what he did, verbally slapping me into doing something, we wouldn’t be here.”
“What?!” Klaus bellowed. “No way! You’re a dad!”
“No,” Five sighed. “I will be a dad in the future-maybe.”
“Maybe!? Why didn’t you tell us this!” Diego yelled, nearly falling out of his chair.
“I am telling you,” Five replied.
“Yeah, sure,” Diego huffed. “Now you are. And why does your kid have powers and mine and Allison’s don’t?”
“Wow. It’s just like Marty McFly in Back to the Future.” Klaus lifted his hand, checking to see if it was disappearing yet.
Five tiredly smiled at him. “It’s not at all like that. Time loops don’t work that way. If we evaporate, it will be instantaneous, and at this point, I have no idea how long I have to prevent it. There will be no warning.”
“Time loops shhh-mime loops,” Diego said, running his fingers over his mustache. “You know we don’t understand any of that shit. But hey, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Your nuts are full of superpowered swimmers. You should be excited.”
Five rolled his eyes. “Excitement is not exactly what I’d call what I am feeling. If I don’t produce a magical progeny, none of the things I have done will matter. We all die anyway. Case in point, this is a bad thing.”
“Shoot,” Klaus whistled. “If you’d known this years ago you could have spent way less time privately polishing your palm and instead been out trying to impregnate the world with your superpowered sperm.”
Five groaned. “That wouldn’t have worked, because it needs to happen now. After The Cleanse and the time situation was fixed.”
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Klaus insisted. “You’re a stud. Get out there and have some fun.”
“And if it’s having kids you are worried about, they are both the best and worst thing that can happen to you,” Diego added. “I would know. Having three of them putting their sticky little fingers on all our shit all the time isn’t awesome, but creating them was fun.” He nudged Klaus. “This one time when Lila and I were in the back of Wanda we—"
“Not another word!” Five yelled.
“Whatever, man,” Diego chuckled. “You just need to see the bright side. Your kid was trying to help you and did.” He cleared his throat. “When it comes to Dolores, you can beat the meat with her all day but you’ll never beat the real th-“
“Please stop,” Five groaned again, burying his head in his hands.
Nodding his head in agreement, Klaus grinned hopefully. “I think what Diego is trying to say is having a breathing lady has its benef—"
“We’re done!” Five snapped, as he sprung forward. “If you don’t zip it, I’m going to blink you downstairs to the incinerator and lock you in there.” Slamming his index finger down on his desk, pointing at his gigantic desk pad calendar, he grinned maniacally. “And what do you know, it’s garbage day! You won’t be swimming in last week’s rotting tuna salad for long.”
“You’d never do that to us.”
“Really, Diego? You want to test that?”
Five’s brothers glanced at each other, eyebrows raised, like testing that wasn’t such a bad way to spend their afternoon.
“Five—"
“No, Klaus! Like I told Luther. I’M THE DADDY HERE! I am done entertaining you idiots. Get out!”
“Settled down,” Diego laughed. “We’re just trying to help you see that this isn’t so bad. And with the kid thing, I love mine and you do too. Speaking of which, it would be nice if their favorite uncle babysat them more often. Lila and I haven’t had a night out in a while.”
“I babysit,” Five defended.
“Not enough,” Diego shot back, pointing Five’s ballpoint pen at him.
Reaching forward, Five swiped it away. “Deigo, if I came over more often so you dipshits could go out and do disgusting things in your van, then you’d be dealing with more than three sticky-fingered monsters.”
Diego glanced at Klaus, then back at Five, smirking. “Say what you will, but I know you love being an uncle. The mountain of stuffed animals each of the girls has is proof of that.”
Tipping his weight back in his chair, Five folded his hands over his lap, wearily eyeing his brother. “I am not wrong,” he said, ignoring the point about his nieces and how much he enjoyed spoiling them. “You still have no idea how this baby making thing works and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be complaining about baby number four on the way and how you already have no room in your house for all the people living there.”
Diego scowled. “Hey… I understand how it works just fine. I already told you guys the last two weren’t my fault. Lila told me she couldn’t get pregnant while breastfeeding.”
“And you should believe everything your wacko wife says?”
“Yes.” No longer able to contain it, Diego burst out laughing. “Five. This about you, not me, and as much as you want to act like you know it all. When it comes to enjoying the good parts of life, you are still about as fresh out the gate as you can get. Just flirt with a girl. Get to fucking her on the regular, and ta-da, circle of destiny complete. No more death knocking on our doors.”
Five let out heavy sigh. “It isn’t as easy as that.”
Raising his hands in an open palm gesture, Klaus said, “Maybe it is.”
Five narrowed his eyes. “You have no idea what you are talking about, or what I have been through. Or the complications I am dealing with.”
“We get your hangups, we really do but,” Diego chimed in.
“No, you don’t!”
“Then tell us.”
“It’s her!” Five angrily pointed to the door. “The woman I hired who loathes me for reasons I can’t really blame her for, not when I’ve been such a colossal asshole to her. She’s the one! It has to be the right person for this kid to be the exact same kid I saw, and it’s her. She's the mom!”
“How do you know?”
“I just do, Diego!”
When neither Klaus nor Diego stopped staring at him, Five started counting on his hands.
“I know because…
One: The boy had my pocket watch that she also had on her when I got here. He threw it and she dropped it, all within seconds of our timelines merging.
Two: She has his eyes! They were my color green but the shape of hers!”
Five shook his head, his hands shaking he was so upset.
“The way they both look when they smile…” he breathed, “the curve of her lips is the same as his. Him being there with that watch wasn’t a coincidence. For him to be there at all, that means he jumped between timelines. I sure as hell couldn't do that, but if I could have, I know that everything you take with you on that kind of impossible journey would make it that much harder. He brought that watch with him because he was trying to point me in the right direction with her and I didn’t see it until it was too late, and now the only deal I’ll be sealing with his mother if I try to hit on her is going to be a kick in my magical nuts.”
Like a deflating balloon, Five sunk his face into his arms where he had them folded on top of his desk.
“It’s not too late. You guys seem to get along,” Klaus soothed.
Five shook his head no, not bothering to look up.
“Just be nice to her,” Diego unhelpfully added.
“I think it’s a little past that,” Five mumbled.
Chapter Five: Entente
“Say nothing,” Five warned. “I don’t need everyone up my ass. You two knowing is bad enough.”
Tapping your knuckles on the door, Klaus called out extra high pitched, telling you to come in.
“Who’s daddy here?” you said, your smile getting bigger as you asked about the outburst you just overheard from your office next door.
“Five is,” Klaus happily exclaimed.
“Incinerator!” Five barked, wildly motioning at him like he was going to slice his head off with his index finger.
“Blah, blah, blah,” Diego said, his hand mimicking the action of a mouth as he squawked it at Five. “We need to get this show on the road. I’m gonna tell—”
“Diego, so help me,” he hissed, cutting him off.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” you said, your eyebrows drawing together, “but some of us have a meeting in two minutes.”
Five quickly picked up his notes and pushed out of his chair. “Shall we?” he said, directing you to lead the way with an assertive wave of his hand.
You walked in silence to the boardroom, but reaching the door, Five unexpectedly placed his hand on your upper arm, holding you back.
Coming past, Diego smacked his ass. “Don’t look so spooked, kid.”
“I will kill you,” Five replied, his voice as sugary sweet as his fake smile.
Still laughing, Diego joined the others
“What’s so funny?” Lila asked, before shoving him down in his chair, opposite yours, next to the head of the table.
“Five,” he answered.
“When isn’t he? I mean look at him,” she said, eyeing you both up with a curious look before looking back at her husband, giving him an even more devilish smirk than she’d given you. “Why don’t you spank me like that?”
“Oh, I’ll give you a spanking, babe, especially if you keep looking at me like you want to go for a ride on my sweet mustache.”
“LA-LA-LA-LA!” Ben bellowed. “We do not need to hear this, you ASSHOLES!”
“I’m sorry,” Five quietly breathed, directing your attention away from the Hargreeves family daily bickering forum. “What you have done here for me, and for them, I don’t have the words to express how thankful I am.”
He paused, the sincerity in his eyes startling you.
Without hesitation, you reached out, your fingers slowly sliding up the length of black silk leading to his neck. “There,” you said, fixing his knot. “You didn’t seem to be aware you were all twisted.”
Looking humorously befuddled, Five’s Adam’s apple bobbed up then down. “I am not aware of a lot of things going on,” he quietly replied.
“No? You?” you teased.
“Thank you,” he said again.
“You’re welcome. Now, shall we?” you asked, as you gave him the same heavy-handed gesture he’d given you in his office.
~~~
For the next hour and half, Five sat at the head of the table in a board room full of people all appointed by him. Even Elliot was sitting in as the new director of analytics since Diego and Herb and Lila were now acting as supervisors over all operations that either he or you weren’t.
He’d read your notes, telling him what to expect, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lost. Still, each time a question was directed at him that he couldn’t readily answer, you seamlessly stepped in, replying for him. No one was the wiser that he was floundering, but by the end of the day, your smooth handling of him was only adding to how uncomfortable he felt.
Shutting the door to his office, briefcase in hand, Five was about to open a portal to travel forward in time, back to his musty old apartment, but then he heard something.
Turning, he saw your office door was open. He came that way, moving into the light streaming into the hall.
“What is all this?” he questioned, watching you trying to ram a stack of boxes in the corner, your sock covered feet repeatedly slipping across the slick flooring because the tower of cardboard cubes weighed more than you.
“These are all my worldly possessions,” you replied, glancing his way before giving your things one final shove. Bending straight, you placed a hand to your sore lower back, massaging it. “Since the sale of all employee housing and other unused buildings started, and then prepping for you all coming back, I have been a tad bit busy. I haven’t had time to find a new place. So this is it for me right now.”
Taking in your short cotton sleep shorts and well worn t-shirt, when you busted him staring at how your shirt had fallen off your shoulder, Five diverted his gaze to your small meeting table covered with disassembled briefcase parts. “You’ve been sleeping in here? Where?” he asked, sounding very concerned.
“Most of the time, I sleep with my head on my desk, waking up with a tattoo of whatever I was working on the night prior inked on the side of my face,” you said, laughing a little. “This morning, that was the user manual for the new watches that will replace those huge briefcases. The roll out should be ready next week. I just need to get the mockup version down to research and development and they can take it from there.”
Five frowned even more, which made you smile even more. “You figured out how to recalibrate the energy field alternators so they’d fit in something that small?”
“I did, but it was you who invented the briefcases to begin with. I just used your original notes and changed a few things. We have a pretty bracelet version too if you’d rather that over the watch?”
“Huh…” Five looked impressed, and at a loss of words.
When he didn’t move from the threshold of your door, you took pity on him. “Would you like to have a look?” You gestured to the scattering of tubes and sapphire-colored vials of glowing liquid energy that he at some point down the road created to mimic what he naturally produced when he time traveled.
Coming in, Five set his briefcase down and started to look over your work.
“I think the watch version will be just fine,” he said. “Thank you for fixing this one for me. Seems you are very good at fixing things I can’t figure out.” As you looked down at the silver chain hooked to his vest, he smirked.
“Watch it is,” you said, getting more and more flushed as he rocked back on his heels, his hands fiddling in his pants pockets as if daring you to look just a little lower.
“Can we talk?” he asked, breaking the awkward tension, but also worrying you with the way his cocky smile instantly evaporated.
“Ah… Sure.” Heading to your desk, you removed the garment bags hanging over one of the two chairs co-workers usually sat in. Sitting down in the chair across from him as he lowered himself in the spot you cleared, you said, “What’s on your mind?”
“What would you say if I told you, that when it comes to me needing your help, the complexity of things I asked you to do so far only touched the tip of the iceberg when compared to what I’m about to ask next?”
“I’d say we need a drink,” you laughed.
“I’d say yes to that,” he said, the tiniest pull at his lips again making his eyes gleam and your cheeks feel warm.
Thankful for a reason to look away, you opened your desk drawer, pulling out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.
“That’s a good one,” he noted.
You cracked the seal, pouring a few fingers worth for each of you. “I’m sure it is,” you replied. “I heard the boss enjoyed this brand and I was going to give it to him as a welcoming back gift, but he turned out to be a dick, so I kept it.”
You pushed his glass across your desk.
“To bad bosses and putting them in their place,” he suggested, raising his glass.
You fluttered your eyelashes at him overly cutely, clinking his glass with yours. “To telling you off.”
Taking a sip, Five nodded his approval, his grin deepening.
“Speaking of workplace relationships,” he said. “That brings me back to what I need to talk to you about.”
“Go on.” You took another drink.
“I would rather gargle a pinecone than have to say this, but I have no choice. This isn’t just about me and if I live to see another day or not. It’s about my family too.”
You set your glass down, your eyes glued to his. “What do you mean if you get to see another day or not?”
“What I mean is, the only reason my family and I, or any like us, are here is because of something my future kid said to me right before I dropped out of the sky landing in a cake. If he hadn’t paid me a visit, telling me to move my ass and not let The Cleanse eat us, we’d be dead and never been born at all as far as you’d be concerned. Now, if I don’t succeed in producing him, this entire causality loop will disintegrate, my family along with it.”
“The kid you asked about?” you breathed, remembering Five yelling at you in the park about a kid, right before he knocked you on your ass a second time.
“Yeah. That kid. Our kid,” he said.
You started rubbing your temples. “Our kid, you say?”
He nodded.
“And you know I’m a part of this how?”
“There were clues,” he said, rolling his eyes, but not at you. “I stupidly didn’t put any of them together until after I repeatedly insulted your intelligence and unleashed my wounded ego on you.”
“What kind of clues?”
“Big ones, like every part of him I saw was half you, down to the way you are looking at me right now with those pouty lips.”
“I am not pouting.”
“Neither was he.” Five titled his head down, looking at his drink he hadn’t touched since the first taste.
“What are you asking?”
He looked up and laughed weakly. “I think you know.”
“You want me to have a kid with you, so this future person can exist to complete a loophole in time or all of you will be gone-just poof?”
“Yes. But it’s more of a causality loop than a loophole,” he corrected, the hint of his smirk playing up the corner of his mouth.
“That’s it?”
Five leaned forward, setting his glass down a few inches from yours. Sitting back in his chair, he steepled his hands at his chin, his face becoming even more forlorn. “We can do this no-strings attached,” he offered. “I will raise our son alone if that’s your wish, or we can do it together, but you owe me nothing. I will support you either way. It’s all strictly business with this deal.”
“This is not at all what I thought we were going to be talking about,” you said, staring at him, still looking for sign he was fucking with you.
“This is a matter of life and death, and I would never put this on you if it was just me I was worried about,” he said, his guilt evident in the tortured look filling his eyes. “It’s my family and their kids—”
“No, I get it. You mentioned the family thing,” you quickly cut in, holding your hand up as you shut your eyes. The lines in your forehead deepened when you looked back again. “How long do we have… I mean, can I think on it?”
“I don’t know how long. I could have days or even years to get you pregnant.What I do know is, if I don’t do it fast enough and suddenly I’m gone, there will be no going back with a briefcase for a do over. That said… of course you can think on it.”
You said nothing, your eyes darting around your messy desktop.
Five started to get up. “I’m sorry.” The sound of his voice was about as self-deprecating as it could get. “I am not the type to say those two dirty words very often, but with you,” He smiled sadly again, then picked up his briefcase, “it’s something I might as well start every sentence with.”
When you said nothing, Five finally turned his gaze downward, swallowing hard before he opened his mouth again.
“I’m sure I’m the last person you want to procreate with, and there are other less touchy ways of getting this done, but with time of the essence, and with how high the stakes are, I’d prefer if you agree to do this, we do it the old-fashioned way. The odds of it working are higher that way and there is no need to involve anyone else.”
“Makes sense,” you quietly replied, your cheeks flushing as much as his suddenly were.
“You are welcome to sleep on the couch in my office,” he offered, looking around your office again. “The blanket you left me is still in there, and it’s not my place to say it, but I did put you in this situation and I’d feel much better knowing you were in there, not in here, waking up with lines from a boring user manual printed to your pretty face.”
He cocked his head to the side and smiled.
You silently nodded, then Five activated his briefcase, leaving you alone, shaken beyond words.
Chapter Six: Only Fools Rush In
Knocking over your unfinished third glass of Scotch when you accidently threw your hand into it while readjusting your face on the stack of books you’d taken out to reference, you gave in, going to Five’s office to sleep on his couch.
He’d only laid on it once, but when you were doing the same thing, you felt his presence as if he were right there. Everything in your life revolved around Five Hargreeves, and now even your blanket smelled like him, and so did the end pillow you had your head on.
It wasn’t a bad smell. Even passed out and covered in cake, Five smelled good, like a minty warm scent mixed with something earthy and wild. When you cleaned him up, you couldn’t help but notice his prominent jaw that could cut glass, or his shiny dark hair that was as soft as it looked.
Despite a decent place to sleep, all you could do was think about what he wanted you to do with him.
Way before he came in for the day, you were up and out of there. Showering down in the now mostly unused field agent locker rooms, you dressed in your usual modern day pencil skirt and blouse paired with heels, taking a little more time than normal at the mirror.
“Calm down,” you lectured your reflection.
Coming past Five’s open office door a while later, seeing him working alongside Herb at a chalkboard one of them had wheeled in, just breathing normally became a task you’d rather not add to your many others.
Five looked immaculate. He was wearing a new suit-three piece, like his others, but this one was tailored in a way that accentuated everything about him you were trying not to think about.
The figure he cut was full of promise and unimaginable power if he only thought of wielding it. Yet, he was noticeably relaxed in all his movements, everything he did deliberate, down to the way he looked your way for just a second, politely smiling, then went right back to scratching his numbers on the green slate as if you weren't still there staring.
At any second he could disappear, his family, and the young boy he told you about too, and thinking about that devastated you in ways you didn’t even have words or emotions to convey.
Sitting down in The Commission cafeteria hours later, you anxiously watched as Five moved through the line, loading his tray while in conversation with Viktor and Luther.
Nervously tapping your index finger against your milk carton, you waited. The moment he noticed you looking, he came your way.
“Can I join you?” he asked, approaching your empty table.
“Let’s do it,” you blurted.
Five slowly dropped down on the bench across from you. “Yeah?”
“It’s the only option,” you less embarrassingly replied. “I may not have my head wrapped around all of this, but I don’t know what I’d do if all of you suddenly weren’t here anymore. Explaining that to the kids and just… No. It can’t happen. I won’t let it.”
He nodded, letting go of his tray as he sat back.
“When?” he asked, his soft smile and twinkly green eyes filled with relief.
“Now. If you are ready? The sooner we do it, the sooner we know you are all safe, right?”
“Right,” he said, his increasing eagerness showing in the hyperfocus of his cunning eyes as they quickly moved from yours, to the door of the lunch hall, then back again. “Come on.” Getting up, leaving his untouched food where it sat, Five took off.
He dashed down the busy hall past the lobby area, heading for the stairs.
“Where?” he called out.
“I don’t know?” you breathed back, still trying to catch up.
Heading down the hall towards your offices, seeing the busy flow of people working down at that end of the building, Five stopped in his tracks.
He glanced over at the bathroom door a few doors back in the direction you just came.
Restless looking as before, taking you by the hand, he spun you around like he was leading you in a dance, pulling your back against his chest.
You had no time to recognize that the heat you were feeling wasn’t just from his body suddenly pressed to yours. Static energy sizzled, the light from it so bright your eyes automatically flew shut as he blinked you away with him.
Appearing with your feet back on solid floor, your breath whooshing out of your pounding chest, the harsh smell of cleaners filled your nose.
You opened your eyes to the sight of a toilet and a wall in front of you.
Once sure you weren’t going to topple over, Five stepped back, the sound of the bathroom stall door behind him bumping into his back before it creaked closed.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice so low behind your ear that only you could hear it over the sound of the person washing their hands at the sinks.
“Yes,” you whispered.
There was a soft turning of the metal as Five latched the door.
Hinges squealed and two seconds later, the heavy wooden door to the hallway banged close.
~~~
Approaching you from behind, Five’s cock twitched. Just looking at you like this was enough to make it happen. He palmed himself through the fabric of his pants, an unexpected thrust of his hips threatening to topple him forward.
His entire body was so alert it was vibrating, the desire in his loins building to a fever pitch.
His trembling hand brushed against your hair, brushing it aside so he could see the side of your face, the other working to get his zipper down.
You let out a surprised gasp when he suddenly forced one leg between your thighs, parting them easily.
Having freed himself from his pants, feeling your whole-body tense as he pressed up against you, his head swimming with lust, he launched at your throat. Biting at your soft skin hard enough to sting, you reactively cried out.
“Quiet,” he growled, then thrust himself against you again, his fingers dragging the fabric of your skirt up your legs.
Sliding his palm down your stomach, Five pushed your panties down with the motion of his fingers clumsily running between your folds, a quick smile spreading across the back of your neck when he felt how wet you were.
His hand at your back, pushing you forward until your feet fell out of your slingback heels, you were forced up on your tippy toes with your hands falling into the wall behind the toilet. In one forward thrust, he buried himself, his body crushing against your back.
Feeling himself throbbing inside you, Five began to move, his fingers pulling away from your clit so he could put them on your hip, opposite his other hand. Rapidly thwapping his pelvis against the erotic feeling of your squishy butt cheeks, he bit at your shoulder again.
Fingers digging in, he yanked you towards him with each thrust. Then, going harder, his heels coming off the floor, he bottomed out.
You cried out, his hand just as fast flying off your hip, covering your mouth.
Pulling your head back to his shoulder, Five’s thrusts became rougher, more insistent. Groaning into your ear, his ragged gasps signaled his rapidly approaching climax.
In one fluid thrust he withdrew almost all the way out, then sunk back in as he came, finishing with a few shuttering jerks of his hips.
His hands slowly slipped from your mouth to rest at your throat as he fought to catch his breath.
You didn't move until he backed away, letting your skirt drop back into place.
Hot come started trailing hot down your inner thigh.
Sounds from the hall filled the tiled room with voices, then the door closed again. Footsteps moved across the bathroom, the metal partition surrounding you rattling as one of The Commission’s staff enclosed themselves in the stall one away from yours.
Burning from the force of Five’s entry, your entire body shaking, you started to turn around. Refusing to meet your eye, or even acknowledge you were there, as soon as Five had his pants fastened, he blinked away.
~~~
When you reached Five’s office a few minutes later, he was standing inside, looking over his mail.
Marching over, you said, “When I said let’s do this, I didn’t mean I wanted it like this!”
“What did you mean like this?” he hotly shot back, throwing down his letter opener.
“I have feelings! I am not a fuck doll!” you fired back at him. “Why did you just leave me like that?” Five bristled, his nostrils flaring. “I fucked you. That’s what we agreed we are doing, remember? I can’t help that you wanted it right then and there. Your pussy was clenching on my dick so hard, there’s no way you didn’t get off. What more do you want from me? I did my part.”
You slapped him.
Holding his cheek, Five let out a shallow breath, a clear sense of confusion in his stunned eyes.
“You don’t just fuck someone like that and disappear!”
“What’d you expect me to do?” he yelled back just as Elliot walked in, quickly pivoting back out the door the second he heard the still very intimidating man he once thought was a scary little alien boy going off on you.
“I don’t know what I expected, but I… I just thought…” Feeling your eyes prickle, you looked away. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t care.” “Do you want me to care?” “You are such a prick,” you muttered.
By the time Five’s thoughts had merged together to form a defense, you were gone, slamming the door behind you.
Chapter 7: Public Displays
“I didn't ask for this!” Five growled, about to come after you as he swung his door open to find his brother standing outside, his hand raised to knock.
“What,” Diego asked, “having a nice conversation with a real woman?”
“No!” he barked, stomping past, heading to your office, but right away, he saw Dot at your desk, not you. Coming back out, he raked a hand through his hair, cursing under his breath.
“Did you tell her?” Diego pushed.
“Yes, I told her.”
“Did she say yes to jumping your little bones?”
Five breathed in, his teeth clenching as his shoulders bounced.
Diego grinned. “You banged her already, didn't you?” “Why don't you irritate Lila and leave me alone.”
“Oh! You did!” Diego started pumping his fist. “Yes! That’s what I’m talking about… I knew you wouldn’t let us down, and with the rest, I’m just messing with you, man. Lighten up. That’s part of your problem.”
Five clapped his hands together brandishing a fake smile. “Nobody said I had a problem but you, and whatever this is, is over. I am in no mood to fight with you.”
“This was not a fight. And if it was, I’d win.” Diego threw his arm around Five’s shoulder, pulling him back inside his office. Letting him go once inside, he said, “And sure, nobody said you had a problem, but that girl’s teary face did when she just passed me.”
“She was crying?”
“She was doing that thing women do when they are trying not to.”
“Shit.”
“Five,” Diego said, in a very big brotherly tone, “for so long you’ve had to evaluate everything under the brutal terms of survival, all things either being irrelevant or not, but with this one, maybe that’s not the way to go. Kill the emotionally stunted old man shit. I know you have the hots for her. She’s perfect for you, which I’m betting is why you hired her, that, and she’s way smarter than you, which again goes back to why I know you are being a dick.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I don’t? So, you didn’t just do something stupid?”
“It’s so much more than that,” Five said, his eyes turning even more tormented looking as he looked away, then back again, doing his best to keep it together.
Diego smiled. “You are a good person, man. You can fix this.”
Sad and angry, Five said nothing, and he continued to say nothing to Diego about it, or you for the rest of the day, and then the next, and then the next. You kept doing your job, of course, communicating with him when necessary, but that was it, and it was killing him.
Diego was right. He had to do something. It was his fault-again.
~~~
Day four, Five couldn’t take it anymore.
Lightly tapping on your door frame, you looked up from your desk. He raised one of the two coffee cups he was holding. Offering a smile. “Two sugars, one cream?”
Your pen slowed to a stop. “Why would you know that?”
He came in. “I know that because, over the last few days I’ve been asking the girls around here all sorts of things about you, and because of my persistent inquiries with them and pretty much everyone else around here, I’m fairly certain the entire building knows their boss is falling hard for you.”
Taking the coffee from his outstretched hand, your mouth opened but nothing came out.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “That is the last thing I wanted to do.”
Slowly standing, you asked, “Can we go for a walk?”
“I would love that,” Five quietly replied.
Once outside, strolling across the open green area between The Commission's main buildings, taking sips of his coffee to fill the silence between you, Five waited, watching you for signs of what to do.
“I suppose we can’t go far,” you finally said. “If we ventured too off campus we’d probably start a flurry of chatter with the good citizens of this quaint little town.”
Five smiled, “True. But if you wanted to change into your poodle skirt, and I could dig up some of my frumpy old man trousers somewhere, then maybe we could snag a milkshake down at the drugstore. I’d even give you some nickels for the jukebox since you’re my favorite girl.”
“I like you in your old man trousers, and I’m not your favorite girl. But nice try,” you laughed.
“I get to decide who my favorite girl is, not you and I’d like you in anything,” he retorted. “And hey…” He frowned. “When did you see me looking like the crazy old bastard I really am?”
“In your files and footage on the Infinite Switch board. I did my research. I take my job very seriously, as you know.” You gave him an even more teasing looking grin, then added, “I can’t wait to see you with that cute mustache again.”
“You can’t?”
Taking Five’s hand in yours, you pulled him over to a shady bench under the fluttering leaves of a towering oak tree.
Once you had him sitting, you let go, watching his fingers fidgeting with unease as they came around his cup with the others, gripping it way too tight.
“Five…”
He looked up, meeting your gaze.
“I was hurt about what happened in the bathroom because you are right,” you started. “What you did, the way you did it… Everything about you and that was hot. With just that moment of amazing sex, you left me ruined and it really scared me.”
“It scared me too,” he admitted, his soft eyes searching yours. “That’s why I left.”
“All I wanted was for you to hold me,” you said. “Anything but leave.”
“The last thing I wanted was to leave but I thought you’d only agreed to do this because you felt like there was no other choice. I asked you to have a child with me, but that didn’t mean you had to be with me more than that..”
“Five…” you said, setting down your cup so you could take his hand in yours again. “The moment I was hired, everything I learned about you further proved what an amazing person I already thought you were. I was fighting an embarrassing schoolgirl level crush on you even before you got here, and since, it's only gotten worse despite you being a jerk most of the time. That’s how much you mean to me.”
“It’s not just me feeling this way?”
“No. It’s not just you,” you said, as he lovingly caressed the underside of your wrist with the tips of his fingers.
“Can we start over?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, his emerald eyes about as worried looking as you’d ever seen them.
“We already are,” you said, his nervousness distracting you from your nerves.
Moving your entwined hands into Five’s lap, his breath hitched, his air intake stopping entirely when your warm palm slowly moved over his crotch.
With only a peck at first, your lips meeting his, Five whimpered against your mouth, his cock growing heavy and warm under your hand.
After only allowing yourself to feel the desperation of his kiss for just a moment longer, you pulled back, smiling at him. “You are ready to go just like that, aren’t you?”
“It’s my secret superpower,” he said, already trying to kiss you again, his tongue dipping inside your mouth, exploring.
“Just the smell of your body is enough to get me hard,” he groaned, having to break away to breathe, as you massaged your hand harder over the bulge in his pants.
Loving this, you leaned into Five more, placing extra soft brushes of your lips just below his ear.
“We need to either stop or we need to go somewhere, now!” he warned, the pitch of his strained voice so funny, you laughed, the heat of your breath against his throat enough to make him whimper like a puppy all over again.
“Get us out of here, and I won’t stop,” you said, in between kisses along his jawline.
Your discarded coffees spilling from the force of air filling the vacuum of space you’d just been sitting in, in less than a second, you were clumsily standing between buildings, only partially hidden from any onlookers by a bush full of spring flowers.
Falling into Five as he leaned his back against the brick wall behind him, you raised your eyebrows in question.
“When the blood flow to my brain is in short supply, like it is right now, it’s best I don’t try to blink somewhere I can’t already see,” he frantically explained before smashing his lips against yours again.
Working his pants down as fast as you could, you reached inside his pants, gripping his naked cock in your hand.
“Fuck,” he gasped, his hips helplessly thrusting.
His eyes becoming even more heavy-lidded, you started to move the outer skin of his shaft over the harder core.
Your other hand lowering, you cupped Five’s balls through the bunched material draping off his tensed thighs. His heartbeat already pounding in his ears, when you gave him a little squeeze, his scrotum pulsed to the same rhythm, his mind becoming even more clouded.
“Yes, do that,” he groaned.
“At night, do you think about us doing things like this?” you questioned as you smirked. “Because I do, writhing on your couch with my fingers between my legs?”
“Ffffuck yes, I think about this!” he croaked as you slid your hand up his cock, swirling your finger round and round over the glistening pleasure seeping out of him.
“How exactly do you think about me, Five?” you pushed.
He shook his head, back and forth, overwhelmed with your touch as he was by the things you were saying.
“Please tell me,” you encouraged, feeling more empowered by the second.
“I think about you underneath me,” he gasped. “I see your hands gripping my sheets, and I hear you moaning my name as my cock fills your sweet little pussy full of load after load of my come.”
“Tell me more…” you said, your smile broadening.
“I fuck my hand, pretending I’m inside of you, every fucking single morning and night. The way you smile at me, I want to bite your lips so fucking bad, and the way your body looks in your tight skirts! I want to devour you!”
Five’s breaths were coming as quick gasps and there was no point in asking him if what you were doing was right. His face pressed against your shoulder as your hand moved faster, his soft shuddering not letting up the whole time.
The sound of voices passed by, but there was no indication that whoever else was out enjoying the sunny afternoon looked your way.
Your hand slicked, moving easily over Five with the silkiness of his bountiful pre-cum, even more hot wetness began to coat your hand. At your neck Five desperately kissed you as he sucked in gulps of air.
His whole-body trembling, you ran your fingernails through the back of his hair as you slowly stroked him through the final tremors of his release.
“Holy fuck I loved everything about that, but it was not at all conducive to us achieving our goal,” he finally said, smiling as he sheepishly peered at you from under the dark curtain of hair falling over his sleepy eyes.
“No, it was not, but that was the point. This is not just about that. This was about us starting over, which I think we just did. I want you and you want me and together we are going to do our best to make a superpowered little family,” you said.
Five laughed. “You really are smarter than me, and along with this being more proof of that, I think most of my remaining dignity just went down the drain with that crazy shit I just said to you, and the rest was just obliterated after that when I jizzed all over your skirt. A gentleman might have fought you off harder, and not done that,” he said as you burrowed into his warmth, with your head resting on his shoulder.
“He might,” you agreed, “but I think we both know that you are no gentleman.”
The softness of Five’s expression as you peeked up at him only made you want to see the kind of pleasure you just drew out of him all over again. All the harshness you knew he was capable of had washed away, leaving his eyelids heavy and his wetted lips parted in silence as he held you like he never wanted to let go.
Knowing you couldn’t stay there forever, a few minutes later, watching you clean you hand off, seeing that not only when he blew his load, some of it got on your shirt too, a little of the worry had found its way back into Five’s contented expression, but you were quick to address it, wiping the milky white off with your finger before sticking it in your mouth.
“There,” you said, pulling your cleaned finger out for him to see. “All better. Now be a good boy the rest of the day and pay my next dry-cleaning bill, and I might let you take me to dinner tonight.”
Chapter 8: Taking Care of Business
Finishing your workday, you changed into a new sundress, one that you never had the chance to wear until now. On pins and needles, springing around your office, you tried to pick up your hopeless mess, every minute Five took to get there making your heart race faster.
As you promised, if he was good the rest of the day, which he was, shortly after you saw several of his family members come out of his office, Five strolled in, a single flower in his hand, only it wasn’t a rose or anything traditional like that. It was a bloom that looked just like the ones on the bush he’d blinked behind so you could man-handle him.
Coming your way, he extended the fluffy white blossom. Taking it from him, holding it to your nose, the summery perfume enchanted your senses as much as his sweet smile.
“Ready?” he asked.
You nodded, yes.
Giving you a look that made your panties instantly wet, after a few buttons pushed on his new watch, you were off.
~~~
Like any first date, yours was filled with nervous jokes to hide insecurities, but it was exactly what you both needed to circle back to where you should have started to begin with.
As you already knew, Five was complicated. He had been through unimaginable things, some you knew about, some you didn’t. No matter where the conversation took you, when it came to his past, he was forthright, and everything new you learned only made you respect him and hurt for him more.
Five took his time asking you questions, listening patiently as you told him about your life, from the start to now. In those parts of the night, his smile never seemed to fade.
“Have you considered a day off might be in order if you are ever going to move out of your office?” he teased when you got to the part about the last few weeks.
“Yes,” you said, after swallowing another delicious drink of the Bordeaux he ordered to go with the herb-crusted roasted lamb on your plates. “But my boss would be lost without me for even a minute, so it looks like I’ll be stuck sleeping on the couch in his office indefinitely.”
“I’d rather you slept in my bed,” he silkily replied, his smile reddened even more seductively by the rich sip of wine he just licked off his lips.
You rubbed your foot along his lower pant leg, tickling your toes up and down like you’d been doing most of your dinner.
Eyes darkening, Five reached across the table, pulling your hand into his. Like every time he blinked with you so far, you had almost no warning it was coming.
Bouncing down on his mattress, propelling himself on top of you, Five’s fingers dug into your ribs, tickling with no mercy.
“Five! Stop!” you cried, laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe.
“No! You’ve been fucking with me all night!”
“I have not!”
“What do you call that move you did with your foot nudging my dick while I was ordering?” he growled, kissing your neck in-between his breathy love bites.
“My shoes! Our bill!” you complained, realizing your heels were still laying under the table at the restaurant.
“I’ll get you new ones and I already paid the bill. Now hold still so I can dominate you,” Five gleefully demanded, as you squirmed.
When he finally let up, so you could catch your breath, you got a better look around his bedroom. It was small. There was the queen bed you were on, a side table next to it with a lamp on top, and piles of books on the floor everywhere. Other than a bathroom door to your right and what appeared to be an equally small living room, just outside the door, with a kitchen area attached, that was Five’s home.
You loved all of it, from his boyishly blue plaid comforter, to the worn but cozy look of his single sad recliner.
You put your hand in the middle of his chest, lifting yourself on your elbow to gaze at him. Turning his fingers around yours, Five drew you closer with his arm, sitting you up with him.
In a much quieter game, he let his fingers play up your spine, each little bump like a run on a ladder he was climbing up your back.
Enchanted by the way he is looking as you were by his featherlight touch; your breath quickened all over again.
With a smile, licking his lips, Five slipped his hand down the back of your dress, loosening your bra until it fell out of his way. His dark hair brushing your chin, his mouth came down, gently covering your nipple through your thin cotton bodice. Hot and wet, he kissed you there, soiling the fabric as he sucked, then kissed again.
After a moment, he turned his attention to your other breast, the innocence of his expression as he enjoyed you that way so sweet you could cry.
On your knees already, raising your arms at his insistence, Five took your dress up over your hips, then over your head, tossing it aside.
Kissing you full on the mouth, your bare body trembled under his hands as he tugged at the thin straps at your hips, pulling your underwear down until he couldn’t.
Breaking away to kick out of them, he said, “I love these tiny pink panites. I hope the stripper you stole them from doesn’t ask for them back.”
Laughing and fully exposed, there was little shame left in you, but there was still shyness. You lowered your gaze, and Five took care of that by giving you hundreds of kisses until you became completely unaware of anything but how you felt about him.
You held the back of his neck as you kissed, the longer ends of his hair tickling the back of your hand. In turn, Five brought one hand back to your breasts. He held the weight of them in his palm as he squeezed and rubbed you and made small, short sounds of enjoyment into your mouth as he did so.
His smile was on the darker side of playful as he caught you by the shoulders and brought you down on his bed. There was no demand in how he positioned himself next to you. His hair a chaos of brown from you messing with it, he reached out, the tips of his fingers brushing your cheek. “I'll be sorry for treating you the way I have been until the day I die.”
“You are forgiven,” you whispered as you pressed your face into his left palm. You pulled at his sleeves, pulling the warmth of his body over your chilled skin.
Five hissed between his teeth when you took your adoring kisses sideways, to his jaw, then his throat. When the tip of your tongue came out, tasting him, his hands tightened on your arms, and a soft sound of surprise crept out of his throat.
His fiery gaze looked almost apologetic when he pulled back. You gently touched his face and Five closed his eyes as though he couldn't bear to look at you while you explored his lips with your thumb. “Your affection is more than I would have ever asked for,” he breathed, before kissing the tip of your finger.
Opening his eyes, there was that reflection of sadness, something that ran so deeply and painfully in him that it only made you more determined to change that.
As your hands moved down the sides of his vest, his drifted to your thighs, rubbing slowly.
“I’m wearing way too many clothes,” he cutely laughed when you tried to get your hands under his shirt but were hardly able to move them once you did due to the tight fit of his vest.
“Yes, you are,” you giggled. “We need to do something about that.”
In a burst of light, Five vanished and reappeared just as fast, his naked body flawlessly pale as he pushed his groin against yours, his hard cock glistening as it bobbed against your lower belly.
“How’d you do that!” you gasped.
He smirked. “If I explain it, then I have zero surprises left.”
Reaching down, taking himself in hand, this time when Five slipped inside you, the feel of him slowly filling you was enough to make your eyes water.
Grabbing for his shoulders, you hooked your ankles around his waist, your body simultaneously clenching around him as it tried to resist his entry.
Five stopped, his face full of worry.
“Keep going,” you urged, digging your feet into his lower back.
Pulling himself out, undulating his swollen tip at your entrance a few times, Five slipped his cock back in just as slowly, both of your eyes crushing closed the sensation of it felt so good. Doing it again, he accidentally slipped out all the way. Fumbling between you, grasping at his swaying cock, he lowered himself over you even more, letting out a guttural curse of pleasure as he entered you again.
Pushing his hands under your butt, he hoisted you up, rocking his hips against yours in earnest as he tried to kiss you, his lips grazing yours with each downward thrust.
Head getting pushed back further and further into his pillows, you began to match his urgent movements. Working together, his sharp thrusts ignited something inside both of you. Your fingernails digging into his shoulders, you started to see stars, everything inside you suddenly exploding when you felt the heat of his release.
Crying out this name, every exhalation streaming from your lips matched the throbbing of your orgasm that was not letting up as Five kept thrusting, the sound of him fucking you as sinful as it was wet.
When Five did pull out, your back arched on the bed, the emptiness of losing him and the sight of his rigid cock still ready to go shocking you as much as the darkness in his eyes.
Without a word, he flipped you on your stomach.
As Five came down over you from behind, his spent cock easily slid back in, and just as fast, he started to rut, rough and needful, punishing your quivering walls all over again.
You squirmed, the feeling of it too much, but Five pressed his hand against your upper back, pressing you against his bed, forcing you to arch into him as he kept at it, fucking you at an unrelenting pace.
A minute in, he wasn’t slowing, his thrusts sliding into you so deeply the force of it kept causing his headboard to bang into the wall
“Five!” you cried as you pulled at his bedding.
“I’m not stopping until I fill this fluttering cunt!” he growled.
Not even close to being over your first shivered round of aftershocks, he did just that, emptying himself in erratic spurts and uncoordinated thrusts.
Prying his hands from your hips, Five rolled you on your back. Blanketing you with his body, he started placing delicate touches of his lips on your cheeks, his long eyelashes brushing along your skin with the softness of an angel, while his fingers worked between your legs, gathering his leaking come so he could carefully and repeatedly push it back inside you until you surrendered to him all over again.
Helplessly quivering, you buried your fingers in his sweat-dampened hair as he took his kisses to your neck, then added a few final nibbles to your ear. Five seemed incapable of moving further than that, the tenderness of how he was nuzzling you, echoed in the throbbing fullness you felt.
When he finally sat back, it was only to reposition himself alongside you. He rested his cheek against the top of your head, squeezing his arms around you tightly.
Feeling his warmth mingle with yours as you snuggled into him, you heard him yawn.
“Tired of me already? Was that a sign you want me to go?” you teased.
“This business we just did is hardly what I would call tiresome, and you aren’t going anywhere. I am not done with you yet,” he joked, but his hold not letting up meant he wasn’t actually kidding.
As you touched his hair, searching through it with your fingers. His limbs relaxed the longer you kept at it, his hand placed over your belly circling slower and slower. Your feet wrapped around his shins locking him to you even more surely, and with it, his breathing slowed along with his hand coming to a stop.
“Are you falling asleep, Five?” you softly asked.
His chest moved up and down against your side along with his quiet laugh. “Sleep is for the blameless, and I am not that. If you can wait a few minutes, I’m happy to give you round two with a fresh lesson on what you're dealing with since it seems you forgot already?”
“I think you already made your point that you are the cutest fiend to ever walk the Earth,” you laughed. “It sounds fun, but I doubt either of us has enough steam for that lesson right now no matter what you claim.”
“Honey, I am like a jackrabbit,” Five chuckled. “For all you know, I can bring you to unmanageable heights of ecstasy with this next one.”
You gave a playful tug of his hair.
Five nudged the top of your head with his face. It wasn't a kiss. But it didn't need to be. The way he was holding you, you knew that everything had changed.
“We can go back to taking care of business in the morning,” you assured.
“There's always the morning,” he agreed, slurring slightly.
Soon, listening to this heartbeat step into a cadence of sleep, feeling the warmth of Five’s body next to yours, you drifted off in peace along with him, and you did the same thing together every night after that.
Chapter 9: Tiresome Work
“Are you free to chat for a few minutes?” you asked, gently clicking the large door closed behind you as you entered Five’s office.
“I’m always free for you,” he said, looking up from his desk.
Coming around next to him, you propped your bottom up on his mess of papers.
“How’s your day?” you asked, your eyes traveling from his soft pink lips, down to his neck, then to the relaxed motion of him spreading his legs as he leaned back in his chair.
“It’s getting better now that you’re here,” he replied, followed by a mischievous grin.
Doing your best to remember why you’d come in, the reason for it in your hand, you extended him your notebook. “Would you be willing to look this over? I think the numbers look good, but I’d appreciate a second brain on this one just in case I missed something.”
“I’ll look at it, but I doubt you missed anything. You never do,” he replied, his eyes smoldering. He patted his knee. “Why don’t you sit here and let me entertain you. You need a break.”
Your cheeks instantly flushed, and the more Five gave you that predatory look the worse it got.
You didn’t move so he raised a brow.
“Come here,” he hotly demanded.
Hopping up, Five quickly snatched your waist, pulling you to him faster than you were already coming.
“We are supposed to be working,” you scolded, as he trapped you between his legs with his hand tickling up your back.
“We covered this already. This is us working,” he said, following your every movement with wolfish fixation.
Trying to rattle him as much as he was flustering you, you broke away, half-heartedly attempting to organize the millions of items on his desk.
“That sign you are playing with says I’m the boss! Now get over here!” he angrily insisted, but not without laughing.
Giving you the sexiest smile you’d seen on him yet, one that was all dimple and shiny white teeth, Five patted his knee again.
Feeling silly, you perched your bottom on his knee.
With hardly anything between you and his finely woven pants, the bones of Five's knee purposefully pressed into you.
“Now then, isn’t that better?” he taunted as he leaned forward, his lips grazing the side of your neck.
“Five Hargreeves, you are a bad man.”
“And you like it,” he coolly replied with his hand coming up to fondle your breasts.
The room felt like it was on fire already, but everything got warmer when his fingers parted, slicing across the peaks in your blouse, softly catching on your nipples before his warm palms slid over them again.
Feeling like a drunken sailor, you swayed in his lap. Trying to steady yourself, you extended the tip of your shoe to the floor, but Five nudged his knee into you with a little lift of his foot, his hands locking you in your seat to prevent your escape.
Plucking at you until your nipples were visible through the delicate fabric covering them, your small whines and the wetness spreading between your legs were met with his cocky grunt of approval.
“Five, there are dozens of people outside that door,” you said, shutting your eyes tight when he gave you a pinch.
“So,” he deadpanned.
The second you tried to get up again, he let out a growl, simultaneously biting into the crest of your shoulder, the feel of it all making your head roll back on your shoulders as your next broken moan filled his entire office.
“Never mind. Please don’t stop,” you breathed, as his magical lips pressed against the edge of your jaw.
“I wasn’t going to,” he shushed. “This is the most important thing I have left to do here, I say fuck these numbers you brought me. You’re the one who should’ve always been checking my math. My sole purpose now that I have you to do the brain work is fucking you.”
“Five,” you moaned as you shifted your weight on his thigh, desperate to relieve the pressure.
“Mmmm?” he replied.
“You are driving me crazy.”
“I know, but I need to get this baby inside you and seal this deal,” he insisted, kissing you with even more vigor, his mouth sucking at your skin as he moved his hand down between your legs, massaging your swollen folds through your underwear.
“Yes. I understand that but…but we maybe already did seal that deal,” you stuttered. “And if that really is what you are trying to do right now again anyway, it can’t be in here.”
With another quick nip at your throat, Five said, “This is my office, and I intend to use it in any way I please. I earned it, damn it!”
“You did earn it,” you said with a breathy laugh, shifting your weight again, trying to turn towards him and put your feet on the floor. “But we should at least lock the door.”
“Stay put!” he barked, but it had no bite to it because he was trying to paint a silky line with his tongue along the shell of your ear.
Biting your lower lip next to distract you, flipping his hand out from under your skirt, Five pinched your firm nubs of flesh again, not with pain, but with shocking effect. You gasped as a burning jolt of electricity detonated between your thighs.
“Please hurry,” you weakly begged him, the pressure of his knee under you both good and bad at that point.
His fingers gripped under your jaw, moving your face towards his. “There’s no hurry, honey. Daddy is the boss here and everyone knows about us anyway,” he whispered, velvety soft.
You opened your mouth to what, at this point, and with that daddy comment, you didn’t even know anymore, but Five was quick to cover your mouth, his index finger pushing your lips open.
“Suck it like you want to suck me,” he directed as his other hand moved up, slowly opening the buttons on your shirt, stopping when he had enough of them undone to get his hand inside.
“Just like that,” he softly hummed as he watched you caressing the length of his finger with your lips and tongue. Breathing in, his nose brushed along your hairline. “Such a good girl.”
Pulling his finger from your mouth, he reached under your skirt, his wet finger trailing up your thigh, nudging under your panties.
“God, I needed this,” Five adorable whimpered, his thumb pressing down on your pubic bone as his finger slipped inside you, slowly pumping in and out.
“Oh, oh-fuu-ah-kkkkk! Faster!” you helplessly yelped as you ground down your weight against his leg, your hips frantically jutting into his hand.
His finger pumped faster. “Come on, baby. Come for me,” he encouraged,
Your ability to formulate thoughts going all to hell, nothing but gibberish spilled from your mouth. “Mmmm-ahhh-fff, yyyy-e-sssss.”
Adjusting himself, spreading his legs wider to accommodate the tent his erection was making in his pants, he said, “More?”
“Yes,” you moaned.
The rhythm of his hand changed, and a second finger added to his thrusting while his thumb kept fondling your clit with enough pressure to make your head spin.
Gripping the front of Five’s vest in a lame attempt to ground yourself, he began placing a path of kisses along the side of your neck. “My heart beats for you,” he said, his voice deep with longing that matched the look in his worshipful eyes.
Your legs spread embarrassingly wide, the backs of your heels knocking against his shin, you rocked on his knee, your building climax pulsing to a roaring scream. Five kept going at it, not letting up the pace or intensity of his finger repeatedly hooking inside you, drawing out moan after moan.
Your eyes droopy, he grinned at you like this was the best thing he’d ever done while at work, which was ridiculous considering his desk was littered with all the plans he was putting in place to fend off any future apocalyptic events that could threaten the existence of humanity.
Blowing your mind and making you come so hard you couldn’t see straight was hardly important compared to all that, but he didn't seem to think so. He was so beautiful, you could have sat there all day, dreamy admiring the shape of his eyes and their soft lines of happiness, but when he withdrew his fingers, it shot you back into reality.
At the sound of Diego walking by, talking loudly, and Lila smart talking back at him, you instantly started to get up.
Smirking, Five got up too while sucking his newly freed digits in his mouth, licking them clean.
Weak with orgasmic afterglow, you pressed your face against his collar, contentedly breathing in his warmth. “Let’s go somewhere where I can take care of you,” you said, nuzzling him.
“I need you to take care of me right here, love. I have a good feeling about this spot,” he whispered.
You were crushed speechless all over again by the way Five called you love, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway if you found a way to argue because his mouth molded to yours, opening it with the force of his kiss, so he could use his tongue to tangle and tease you into submission.
When Five did relinquish ownership of your mouth, it was only to spin you around, so your backside was facing him again. From there, he released you and started fumbling with his clothing, the sound of his zipper coming down just before the metal of his belt clanked to the floor.
You reached for the desk in anticipation, thinking he was going to lay you out, chest down over his mess of papers so he could fuck you from behind, but instead, his hand latched onto your waist as he pulled you back with him, towards his desk chair.
“Show me you love me the way I love you,” Five breathed, the back of his legs bumping his seat as his cock prodded between the legs.
You hesitated, not sure what you were supposed to do, so Five plopped himself down in his chair, clarifying when he said, “Sit down.”
The pointed toe of his dress shoe rubbed against the inside of your ankle, further making his intent known. His hands brushed along your thighs, lifting your skirt, then he pushed your panties down.
Reaching back, you put your hands on his armrests. Lowering your body, he stopped you short, hovering over him.
The heat of his length ran along, gathering the wetness he’d already drawn from you. His swollen tip moving back and forth had you holding your breath and the tightening coil of desire inside you clenching with renewed need.
After several more passes, Five lined himself up. “This time, I’m going to fuck you so deep, there’s no way my boys won’t be able to stick their landing.”
“Oh, my God, Five,” you laughed.
“Please, honey, sit down!” he frantically laughed back.
Smiling like a fool, you began to lower yourself over him again, but almost right away as he entered you, it felt like you were being impaled by the girth of his rock-hard shaft, and you had to stop. “Fi-fff -vvvv- ” you sputtered. “It’s too much like this I—”
“I know, just go slow, I’ve got you,” he said, sure to keep his hands under your bottom to support some of your weight.
Giving you all the time you needed, Five shifted back, his chair creaking from his weight. His hiss of satisfaction when your body took in more of his cock was met by your teeth stabbing into your bottom lip.
“Fuuuuuck…” Five groaned, echoing your silent sentiment exactly.
Forcing yourself to take it, adjusting your body down on him until you were sitting all the way down in his lap like he requested, you were shaking like a leaf.
His lips pressed under your ear. “I am hopelessly in love with you,” he whispered.
“Oh, Five,” your voice trembled as he buried his face against your neck.
“Fuck me,” he ordered in a maddingly cocky tone.
Knowing full well he was smiling, you started rocking your hips. Almost right away, to your delight, Five placed his hands over yours on his arm rests, his knuckles going white.
His breaths started to rush out of his mouth, moist against your throat. When you started bringing your body up and down, sliding his cock in and out, deep then shallow, he fell back, breathing a quiet chorus of profanities.
“You like that?” you cheekily asked, bouncing on his cock in a way that felt so good for you, you never wanted the feeling to end.
“Fuck yes I like it!” he groaned. “Why the fuck did I wait until today to make you sit on my dick like this. We should have been doing it this way, every day, three times a day!”
Working your bottom up and down, taking him in and out, faster and faster, his head flopped back against his leather chair.
Smiling, just thinking about the fucked-out face Five was probably making, you said, “Five, I loved you even before I met you. There’s no one else in this world I love as much as you.”
“I can think of someone,” he groaned, “but I’m okay with that since that little charmer is going to be the son I am going to give you right now.” Kissing your shoulder, he grabbed you by the curve of your waist, pressing his fingers to your stomach, increasing the pressure inside you.
Jolted with each thrust of his hips meeting your ass, his hand at your waist lifted you up and down, allowing his cock to slide into you as deep as it would go.
“You’re mine now!” he growled.
His teeth sank into the crest of your shoulder blade.
“Oh, fuuuuuckkkk,” you cried, as he hummed his reverberated delight, his teeth marking you as if you weren’t already his.
Before the pain of his love bite became too much Five let go, his breaths coming fast as his sharp grunts. “Are you getting close? Because I can go at any time,” he huffed, ruthlessly railing you, his heels digging down on the floor as he thrust his hips up and down.
“Uh-huh,” you replied, unable to say more as you struggled to stay over him and not melt into a puddle of mushy bones in his lap.
Your body shuddered, your breaths not enough. Your body reactively clamped down on his cock, repeatedly spasming. The second Five felt it, he filled you, his own body jerking and twitching as he erratically slowed to a stop and sank back in his seat.
His grip loosened as he let you down in his lap. His cock throbbing inside you, the final pulses of his release and the burning of your thighs overwhelming both your senses.
You were on fire, and the sweat on his brow proved that he’d just pushed himself to the point of glorious ruin too.
“I wasn’t expecting that when I came in here,” you quietly laughed, laying against him, your chest heaving with his as you reached back to run your fingers through his hair.
Just then, the door burst open. You jolted upright, but Five’s arm instantly flexed, refusing to let you off his lap.
“Hey, Five?” Luther said, stepping in the door, still looking behind him as he took the package one of the mail room staffers handed him as they whisked by. “Oh! Hey, guys,” he corrected, looking up, seeing you and nothing but the upper half of your bodies.
Coming closer, thinking Five was just showering you with affection like he almost always was, Luther said, “Sloane wanted me to invite you to—"
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes locked on the sight of his brother’s lap as it came into full view.
Your skirt was hiding the worst of it, but with Five’s pants tangled around his ankles, there was no way Luther couldn’t tell that he was imposing himself on you from behind.
“What is going on!?” he yelled, covering his face with the cardboard box that had Five’s name on it. “Guys! We are at work! I mean… Wow this is not appropriate!”
“What is going on is, I’m working,” Five calmly informed him. “It’s a well-known fact that when doors are shut, it’s for a reason, so this one is on you. And sure. We would love to join you and Sloane for dinner. Thank you.”
Five’s chin came to rest on your shoulder as he cooly stared at his brother.
When Luther just stood there, too shocked to move, Five gave him a much clearer dismissal.
“Get the fuck out, jackass,” he said as sternly as he could make it sound, which wasn’t even remotely threatening because he was laughing as he said it.
Luther huffed a few more words of confusion, then, fumbling around blindly, he eventually made his way back to the door.
When you were alone again, Five grinned. “Would you like to go for another ride, my love?”
Chapter 10: Ad Infinitum
Less than a month later, Five moved in, taking center stage from Herb.
“It’s been said several times tonight by others,” he began as the lights shone down on him, all people who worked for him anxiously waiting to hear what he had to say, “but I am going to say it again because you deserve it from me.”
Five glanced your way, looking so handsome.
Sitting in the row behind him filled with other board members, your ankles were crossed, and your heads were neatly placed in your lap. You were doing your best impression of a dignified businesswoman who hadn’t just spent her afternoon with your back on his desk and your heels resting on his shoulders, but the second his eyes met yours, your flush gave you away.
Having lit you on fire with nothing but a happy quirk of his lip, Five turned back to the crowd. “I personally want to thank all of you for your hard work prior to me coming on as your Director and especially after. Without all of you, this place never would have happened,” he explained, drawing a small applause of agreement from the crowd. “The last few months have been hard, but I know that what we have accomplished is worth it and it will make a world of difference.”
Five laughed softly, almost too quiet to hear, but it was very him, and with it, it was impossible not to fall for his charms.
“I mean that quite literally,” he chuckled. “The changes we have made will end up saving the world, probably many times over.”
It was no secret what you all did at The Commission and averting the end of days was sort of your thing, so that got quite a few laughs from his audience and Five nodded knowingly before moving on.
“Whether you wanted to or not,” he continued, “by now, everyone here knows me in some way or another, and I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t make knowing me easy. I am an asshole and always have been, so sorry about that.”
Five made the motion of physically shrugging that off and that got more laughter filling the large auditorium.
His warm smile grew a little more.
“I’m an asshole, and I am working on it, just ask the very patient woman I hired to keep me in-line. I’m a work in progress, and probably always will be,” he joked.
He pressed the palms of both his hands on the slanted surface of the podium, a prominent line forming between his dark eyebrows.
“Long ago, I made a horrible mistake, and I continued to make many more mistakes after that, and I paid for it, and my family paid too, over and over. The last thing I wanted to happen were the things that did.”
Five paused, his pained gaze directing downward as a loose lock of his hair fell, concealing the sadness in his eyes.
“But,” he said, forcing his voice to sound brighter again as he looked up, “It’s time to move on and look to our future.”
His lips pulled to the side.
“As we all know, I’m wrong a lot.” He sniggered at himself. “I couldn’t fix all of this on my own and I never should have tried.”
He turned and winked at you and your face instantly lit up and your heart skipped a beat.
“Everyone here is a family,” he said, still looking at you. “We are a team, and we will never stop fighting as one, but The Temps Aeternalis was never meant to be an organization that only preserved life,” he insisted, looking back towards the lights. “We are here to live it to its fullest with the people we love. That’s what makes us human. That’s the real reason we are here. To support that idea.”
Five looked over to his right at the rest of the board members, his eyes landing on Lila and Diego.
Seeing that Five was ready for them, Lila pushed herself up, giving him one of her overdone eye rolls and a hand at her mouth, intentionally drawing attention to her big, bored yawn as she approached. Behind them, Diego stood up too and began nervously shuffling his papers with his back turned to the audience.
At Five’s side, Lila smiled. “That was one hell of a speech. Sure took long enough, you old sap,” she complained, but Five merely smiled back at her equally affectionately, not taking the bait to verbally spar with her.
Knowing that it would drive her nuts, he swept in, pulling Lila in for a big hug, smooshing her to his chest. Lila’s arm quickly found its way around his back, holding him just as tight.
“I still think that you are a little piss-pot, you know that, right?” she whispered, while trying to hide that she was getting choked up by rubbing her runny nose all over on the arm of his suit jacket.
“I know how much you love me, and stop wiping your boogers on me,” Five said, scowling at her but it was so fake even the people in the back row knew it.
He pulled away, but not before giving her his pocket square. Then he leaned into the mic moving along to an epic finish.
“I am truly honored that you all entrusted me to make this organization into something in the end that we can all be proud to be a part of, and going forward I look forward to working with you all in a much less hands-on capacity.”
As murmurs from those who didn’t see this coming filled the room, his brother stepped up behind him and Five dropped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.
Diego looked nervous but Five knew he was ready for this. Like so many things they were taught to think by Reginald that were wrong, Diego was never a second to anyone.
He was a leader and always had been, and his well-timed words of advice when it came to seeing things clearly with you would always mean the world Five.
When the votes came in, he was not at all surprised to see that Diego came in at the top to replace him. Diego was a perfect choice to shake things up around there and Five looked forward to stepping back in from time to time to watch his brother in action.
Hearing Diego take a long breath while he enthusiastically shook himself like he was about to spring into a scuffle, fists swinging like a boxer in the ring, Five’s proud, and somewhat exasperated smile got even bigger.
He looked back out over the podium.
“I am officially stepping down, and so is our Co-chair. Thanks to her, I’m going to be a daddy, and I can’t live another day with taking a little time away to enjoy that miracle with her,” he declared, giving everyone the good news.
The entire crowd stood and started giving their departing Director and you a standing ovation filled with excited whistles.
“It’s about time for that vacation,” Klaus yelled through his cupped hands with Viktor next to him, much less boisterous but equally thrilled in his enthusiastic clapping.
Motioning for the room to quiet but getting little back other than more clapping and shouts of encouragement, Five proudly said, “It is my honor to give you, Diego Hargreeves, our new Director, and his second in command, or first, however you want to look at it, your Co-Chair, Lila Hargreeves.”
Stepping aside, with a wave of his hand, motioning for Diego to take the mic, the echo of clapping didn’t stop and neither did the calls of well wishes for both the amazing man walking away, and the one trying and failing to get them to calm down.
Coming back to his empty seat next to yours, Five took your waiting hand into his, holding it tight as he whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” you mouthed back, smiling so hard it hurt.
As you stood together, cheering for Diego, it finally sunk in for Five.
This was it. The reason for it all.
Finally, he could start living life as he wished, and he couldn’t wait to do it with you by his side and his new baby boy in his arms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~❤️
Thanks for reading.
For all my super fans that read this and my entire first Five Centric series over on A03, if you noticed a similarity in the end of this one and that one, you are not crazy. I love my boy and I am a sucker for giving him endings he deserved. 😂😘 Long live TUA and FIVE!!
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Thank you to all who interacted on my teaser post from 15 days ago, who either commented they wanted to be tagged or showed interest by hitting like. If I missed anyone, I am sorry. I appreciate your patience in getting this one done. 😘 @noodleprinter35 @starlitflora @clownstillwritesfanfic @ifellinto-fantasy @groovydazephantom @redros3y @em1989ts @fckyeahlames @sweetxserenity @honeybunchesoftoenails @9katherinestar @jedaweda @blazingcroutons @sinpforfictionalcharacters @in-love-daily @danlynnie @kalerah02 @ilydiego @3xclus1vel0v3r @yoko-haitani @lianaqui @clappincheeksmeatyflaps @bvbblejayyyy @lanabelle @sweetbabythrills @strawberieee @mimy2004 @fireheart13x @sublimeangelcollection @otralouie11 @idolkerry @tenshiseto @nooneenoticed @moniquem31 @nataliemonicaferlewich @appleypi @little-forest-goblin @i-love-gvf @ursovaine @hargreeves05 @jana0509 @marydbl @temptedtreasuretrove @noodleisodd @mugtrees003 @moonkitty59 @fivehargreevesnumber1fan @badkitty3000 @tuanputri-magui
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The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.
This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.
I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?
My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.
For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:
Setup
Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)
Payoff
Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)
There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!
I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.
Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.
My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."
As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:
He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of
He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)
He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens
He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop
There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger
His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead
People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.
At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"
That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.
As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:
Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.
Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.
This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)
There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.
That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.
I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.
#anon ask#ml writing critical#ml writing salt#pandaofsecrets#character core#Once again none of this is meant to excuse any specific actions as “not that bad”#This is just me explaining how I approach the characters#I know there are fics out there that try to be sugar while embracing some of the bad parts of canon and that rarely works for me#To address these issues correctly you basically have to rewrite canon with the goal of properly setting up and addressing a specific issue#You can't just jump into canon as-is and fix anything in a truly satisfying way because canon is such a disaster#Lila and Alya is a perfect example#Alya's writing in Lila's episodes goes so hard against who Alya is supposed to be that you have to completely rework Lila and/or her lies#Which is why my list of favorite Lila takedowns is so short#Even the ones that are kind to Alya have her painfully gullible because of how badly written the Lila stuff was#You can't have Alya smart and clever while including all the things she's canonically done in the Lila plot and I hate it#Season five at least temporarily killed the fun of writing for this fandom for me#I hope to get it back so I can finish my in progress stuff because I really do love these characters#Canon just makes it so hard to have fun these days#The stuff I've heard about season six is just depressing#I hope my love for the characters and ideas comes through on this blog in addition to my frustration#I wouldn't be here if I just hated everything about the show#Canon is so beyond saving that I can't even read a lot of non-salty fanfic these days#The stuff that tries to embrace the later seasons while also giving happy endings just depresses me because it never works.#I can only read early canon stuff AUS and reboots#Only way I can enjoy the fandom is to treat canon as a popular but horrible fanfic that a bunch of the fandom is embracing for some reason
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Observations of an Employee at a Trampoline Park (That is Frequented by Cosmere Characters)
Characters at a trampoline park requested by @queenfishiethemagnificent :)
[This post contains some WAT-jokes! Specifically in the entries for Szeth, Leshwi, & Kaladin/Syl, just in case you want to skip those!)]
At a trampoline park somewhere in our world there works an innocent employee who keeps a diary about what they experience at their job. Here are some of the observations on the Cosmere characters who inexplicably show up at this trampoline park.
1. Szeth [warning: Wat spoilers]
That bald guy (Seth? Zack?) was back again today. I have never seen anyone bounce so seriously. I don't know how to describe it, exactly. He never smiles or laughs; he bounces like it is his Job to Bounce and he Must Take It Seriously.
But also he's really good at it? I feel like he must have trained as a dancer or something because he's actually really graceful, always landing on his feet and then soaring right back into the air, like a beautiful bald kangaroo.
SO serious though!
2. Ann
Oh man it was the saddest thing today. There was this woman who came in really excited to try our Extreme Trampoline Dunk Zone--you know, where you bounce up and can dunk a basketball. She was like, "Oh yeah, I'm great at making baskets" and paid for the entrance and everything and then I watched her miss. Every. Single. Throw. S-She kept at it, though! But, like, I didn't think it was possible to miss that many in a row...
After like the saddest half hour of my life, her friend came by and brought her glasses. She did WAY better after that!
3. Elhokar
That guy who broke his leg came back!!! I honestly can't believe it, since when he left he was saying that it must have been the "assassins" trying to get him "again," and he seemed really upset and also it's kinda horrific when bones break here.
But he was back, and much calmer, and said he was sorry for making a fuss and also did I want to feel his leg because it's "really funky feeling now." I said no, and he nodded gravely, and went off to bounce I guess.
Weird guy. Seems to mean well. I hope the assassins don't get him, I guess.
4. Vin
I had to kick someone out today :( I call her Coin Girl. She kept, like, throwing coins down onto the trampoline! She said it made her fly higher which, like, isn't how science works?
To be fair, she did gather up all the coins she was throwing down. Kinda weirdly so...like she'd snatch them up almost as if they were being magically drawn directly to her...which is also not how science works!
And also to be fair, she was able to jump almost alarmingly high... And it was weird how the coins were almost driven down into the trampoline like they were being pushed by a great force...
But still! Throwing change around on the trampolines is NOT okay!
5. Wax
Okay, is coin-throwing like a meme or something now? A tiktok challenge? Because I had to kick someone ELSE out today! And this guy was old!! He had kids and a wife and everything!! And he was ALSO throwing coins around and then soaring up really high into the air while holding his kid who was shrieking in laughter and it WAS really cute but again! No! Throwing! Coins! In! The! Trampoline! Park!
Maybe I need to make a sign...
6. Adolin
When this very buff guy came in and wanted to try the Battle Beam (where you fight with padded sticks while standing on this beam over a pit of foam cubes), I wanted to be like, "You know that's for kids, right?" But instead I just pointed the way.
I peeked in later, and this guy was letting the little kids WAIL on him and kept dramatically "dying" and falling into the foam pit. The kids LOVED him. It was super sweet.
7. Sarene
Ha ha as if in DIRECT contrast to yesterday we had this woman come in today who also wanted to try the Battle Beam only this lady was MERCILESS. She was knocking kids into the pit left and right. To be fair, she was also giving them tips on their stance and stuff, so I bet she teaches fighting or something, but mostly it was hilarious to see her sending kids flying left and right.
The kids seemed to like that too, actually. Everybody likes to be thrown into a foam pit sometimes.
8. TenSoon
A dog tried to get into the trampoline park today. I was like, "Uh, are you with someone" and I would SWEAR he shook his head!!!
Anyway, we don't get dogs come into the trampoline park, and for some reason I told him that, and he walked away.
Weird.
9. Yumi
Okay most impressive dodge ball feet to date. So in our dodge ball area you basically bounce around and try to hit people with balls, blah blah blah. But also if you CATCH the ball when it's thrown at you, the thrower is out.
You should have seen this woman!! She was, like, catching ball after ball after ball. I swear she ended up with like a dozen of them, stacked high in her arms, WHILE BOUNCING!!
How did she do that?? She's got to be some sort of master stacker!
10. Leshwi [warning: Wat spoilers]
Most people wear tights or shorts or something you can move in if they come to a trampoline park. Not this lady! She came in wearing a dress whose train was like eight feet long, I swear. Maybe it was a wedding dress or something?
Then she went straight to our High Bounce area and started jumping. I'll admit that when she reached the highest point, and the train of her dress was like flowing down around her, it did look pretty cool.
She was also humming the whole time, and the melody felt really sad somehow. If that was a wedding dress, I don't think it worked out. :(
11. Lift
Had a teenager come in today wanting to try our Ninja Obstacle Course. I gave the safety spiel and she was like, "Don't worry. I'm stormin' graceful" (is that what kids these days say instead of "fucking"?).
And to be fair, she DID complete the course. She also scooted on her butt over any balance obstacle. But you know what? Whatever works! Good job, kid!
12. Kaladin & Syl [warning: Wat spoilers]
Okay, so the most gorgeous couple came in today--like, I don't know if they WERE a couple; I just mean they were both gorgeous and came in together, you know? The man was very tall and muscular and had luxurious hair, and the woman was wearing blue body paint (look, it worked) and a blue dress and wow. They bounced on that trampoline like it was a dance, and they seemed to be having a fantastic time. You know how some people seem to BELONG in the air? These two did.
I could have watched them bouncing together all day.
#cosmere#cosmerelists#wat spoilers#Szeth#Leshwi#Kaladin#Adolin#Syl#Lift#Sarene#Wax#Win#TenSoon#Elhokar#Yumi#Ann
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SPOILERS for Inside No 9: Stage/Fright!
I was lucky enough to attend the matinee performance on 25th Jan, and now I'm going to ramble about it :D
I'm given to understand that y'all who want them are already adequately furnished with plot summaries etc (excited to read them! waiting to do so until after I've got all this down) - so I won't worry about deep-diving. This'll be a mix of things that particularly struck me, and details that would have been unique to the performance I saw :)
I sneakily secretly got front row tickets (!!) for me and @toosicktopray, and I didn't tell them where we were going until we got there (I didn't even tell them we were going anywhere until that morning!) :D Then afterwards we got to meet up with @silverview and @unreesonable, and we ended up just chatting shit for hours! The boys didn't come to the stage door (apparently because "they're old men" :P) but that was better, frankly <3
Opening "theatre" skit/front-of-curtain prologue:
oh, this has Reece's fingerprints all over it! Getting to sit and simmer with comic rage over literally the exact same things that he's frothed with comic rage about on podcasts? Having no lines to need to learn, and then getting to do a bunch of revenge-fantasy murders? And get spattered with stage blood? Go off :3
aaaa one of Reece's secretly-poppers quick-change shirt buttons had popped open when he came front-of-curtain (probably got overenthusiastic doing his murdering) - maybe the third one down, at his upper stomach - and all I saw underneath was what I presumed to be a white undershirt, so I went back to staring at his face - but toosicktopray caught a little glimpse of his fluffy tummy above it!! (so it was probably actually his mic belt or something)
BCDR:
When they knocked down the wall during Brown Bottles, there was this great WHOMPH of air (and bits of dust and stuff, according to toosicktopray :P) right into the front row :O
Also it took Reece/Tommy two goes to actually smash the brown bottle over Steve/Len's head :P (the first time it just went "boink" XD)
Credit where it's due, Steve's very good at doing the not-actually-his-own-hand stuff :D (love me some of that shit). I'd say not all of the routines necessarily worked as well live as they do with the camera angles in the ep, but imo honestly that one was better :)
Kidnappers Sketch:
Wheelie bin with an 18 (1+8 = 9, or two 9s) on it in the background scenery!
toosicktopray saw the hare. Where? There, on the stair!
I'm not the biggest Quiet Night In enjoyer, but I liked the characters better with dialogue, tbh :)
It took Reece/Tommy(/Geoff or whoever the fuck he's being) two goes to fire the gun XD "It's not even loaded. [gun doesn't go off] I'll try that again."
Our special celebrity guest was Gary Kemp! He really went for it, to the extent that I think Reece was breaking character (smirking) a bit while e.g. waiting for him to finish a much longer flamenco than expected XD The charade (as has been documented) was "Car Reek Hemp", and it was quite funny watching Reece frantically yell out lots of synonyms for hemp, which Steve was miming as you might expect ("dope! skunk! uh, weed!"). Couldn't help thinking about "The Quiet Ones! The Quiet Things! Be Quiet...!" The way Len incensed him was to keep singing "I know this much is true" except substituting in e.g. "glue", "poo". Missed opportunity to callback it in Tears of Laughter ("laughter is my memory of poo" "it's you!"), which would have been overambitious/flow-breaking, but amusing. Also jokes about mistaking him for his brother :P ("I loved you in Eastenders!" "That was Martin!" "I thought your brother was called Reggie?" "That's the Krays!")
Briefly glimpsed Reece's trademark cartoonist block lettering on the pad they hold up for the celeb to read off! <3 I feel like the bit of paper with '9'/'6' on it might have been his handiwork too?? The attention to detail <3
Terreur de l'Asile
Pahahaha well now it's getting bonkers :D
Ticked off my bingo card: Reece going boink boink boink :3 (in the Elements Song)
Ticked off Reece's bingo card: getting forcibly restrained with one arm bent up behind his back :P If you had complete creative co-control over what you had to do once a day for the next ten weeks (and twice on Saturdays)...
ohoho speaking of which how about Steve taking control of your mind and forcing you to do his bidding o.O
I like Hugo's character design :) Always a fan of braces! I think I used to have a pair that was quite similar, actually, which was distracting :P And his floofy curls :D
I like Marcus too! With his wig that's kind of just a younger Reece's hair :P wandering around in his bloodstained sawn-off pyjamas XD Very here for both the ludicrous melodrama and the arch meta reveal :P
Kooky popstar woman was so good! They were all great, but her especially :) doing her "dead face" and her hammy audition tape :D
Ahh the conceit with her taking the camera backstage was so imaginative and super creepy! Shades of Dead Line. Christ, when the person unseen picks the camera back up again D:
Oh no, poor Reece, having to get choked to death every night and twice on Saturdays :3 (but also, having to embody any degree of sexual energy just beforehand, which... not really his forte?! :P)
Curtain call, and beyond:
Ahhh that was a fun show. Wait, what? WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK, STEVE? STEVE! YOU'RE MAKING ME FEEL INSANE! Oh my god there's MORE, what NOW?! :D
Hahhh omg he killed him again XD
"Reece Shearsmith, 1969-2025" now that's fucking ballsy to do in January X'D
Hahhh omg he killed him again!!
Aaaah Reece in his pretty white Marty Hopkirk getup! <3
Ticked off Reece's bingo card: be a ghost :3 god he'd fucking love that... "if nobody can see me, then nobody can notice me, then I can't do anything wrong" D:
"All I get is fucking Little Toby!" okay FIRST OF ALL: Toby's real name is Toby :D and SECOND OF ALL: Reece calling his own understudy little?! :D
The idea of Reece falling to his death through a trapdoor shouldn't be as weirdly delightful as it is XD
For the James Acaster enjoyers: "Every ghost story is a love story when you love ghosts" :P (- toosicktopray)
Good gracious, they have never been so Morecambe and Wise as suddenly appearing in top hat and tails stage left while all the chorus folks are vigorously waving fans stage right :P
Awww, they finally found another Nine to be Inside, and it was Cloud! :3
Loose change thoughts:
Bloody lovely use of lighting throughout - subverting things by turning it on the audience, using bright light to mask what's happening in darkness (e.g. suddenly fucking Little Toby!!) - and I didn't know using onstage cameras/screens was becoming a theatre trope, but I enjoyed how they messed with it :)
OK, so, some of Reece's characters wear glasses (including "himself", wearing his "own" "everyday" glasses), and some don't - fascinated to know whether he's got prescription costume glasses and is just pushing through the blur the rest of the time (seems both unlikely and unsafe!), OR whether he's wearing contacts and all the glasses are fake including his "own" "everyday" glasses <3
A perfectly entertaining show all round but dear god when they pulled us into Steve's shared hallucination that fucking Little Toby had been Reece all along it felt like a crackfic unfolding before my very eyes XD Utterly deranged behaviour and it tickled me so much!! The canon-typical meta nonsense and fridge uncanniness of it all! The implication that we too are so obsessed with Reece that we hallucinate him along with Steve (uhh don't @ me)! The way it retroactively both completely centres Reece in the narrative (even when he's playing a character) (me staring at every Reece character going "mmm, Reece": justified) and simultaneously completely erases him from it!... GO OFF, LADS XD
And the fucking audacity of them to position themselves as in the Morecambe and Wise mould! People will hate it and I bloody love it XD I mean, yes, to us, the fans, the comparison is perfectly apt - silly fluffy adorably-close Northern comic geniuses - but imagine, for the casual viewer/journo - it's those two ghoulish twisted fuckers from that thing in the 90s with the nosebleeds, what's their names again, that write those gory bleak plays full of death and tragedy and then slap the "BBC Comedy" logo on them, and they're playing at being the most famous, beloved and wholesome comedy double act in the history of British television?! Oh my fucking god I can't wait for press night ;)
Similarly, the way it was basically wall-to-wall vaudeville and knob gags, which, sure, we expect (and frankly makes the most entertaining use of their talents in a live setting - it's well-executed vaudeville and knob gags), but, uh, probably has more Actual JokesTM total than the entire TV series put together (and about 300% less horror and heartbreak than your average ep). Again, I was utterly down for it! Some folks... will be less so XD
Is there anything they can't do?... uh, write a single coherent two-hour plot-line, apparently XD (hey, man, I get it! I'm a one-shot guy too! ;) )
All in all, a very fun and silly time! By all means Ask Me AnythingTM, unless possibly it's about Steve, bc he could have had his fly open the whole time and I wouldn't have noticed XD
#stage/fright spoilers#stage fright spoilers#stage/fright#inside no 9#gig report#sheece rearsmith#sheece rearsmith live
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Hey congrats on getting the book out there! I hope someone picks it up, because queer outlaw slowburn sounds like exactly what I want more of in this world
So here is a PILE OF QUESTIONS, pick your favorites or none at all.
Is there a random bit that you think is hilarious and want to show people because you're actually kind of proud of your joke?
Who's your favorite side character?
Hell, who are your main characters? Can you describe them in a sentence, as what kind of dog they'd be, and hill they'd die on in a modern AU where they're a redditor for some reason?
Is there something about your worldbuilding you really want to tell people about?
thank you thank you thank you!!! I personally totally agree that we need more queer outlaw slowburn in our lives and I'm more than happy to provide.
thank you so much for these questions!! I love them all and I'm going to answer all of them :)
this is such an interesting question because this book, in general, is not very funny. it's very much a dramatic pine-y angst-fest (with a HEA, don't worry) but the characters themselves have senses of humor and there's one exchange early on that I think is a good example of the particular way in which Tex is a little shit (yes he was cheating and yes, he almost immediately gets punched in the mouth for it)
oh this is easy--Etta is absolutely my favorite side character. she's twenty-six and already totally washed up--a former vaudeville performer who's stuck in Desperate Hollow and drinks too much. she's still kind of hung up on her old girlfriend and I have a whole sequel mapped out about her and said old girlfriend coming to her for help after being robbed. Etta acts really tough and spends most of her time harassing Sawyer like a little sister, but she's a total softie deep down.
oh gosh, how to describe these characters succinctly. in a meme way, I think of them as Tex "I'm sorry my love language is acts of service and all I know how to do is kill" Bullock and Sawyer "I wish the blood in my mouth was yours" Watson.
Tex is a total construct of a man (he chose his own name) but at some point the construct became real--he's killed a lot of people, left a trail of lovers in his wake, and still has a huge bounty on his head. he's known as the unholy terror of the west but literally all he wants to do is talk about novels and also be Sawyer's guard dog. orphaned at 8 years old, his biggest fear is being left.
Sawyer is exactly who he is at all times and no one can do anything to change that. despite being part of a notorious gang, he's got a very strong moral compass and the kind of confidence you want to follow. but his biggest fear is being given grave responsibility and fucking it up, which is part of why he has no idea what to do with Tex's devotion. he doesn't want Tex to be his guard dog, he wants the two of them to just be safe and happy but he's also thinks he's deeply undeserving of happiness.
Tex would get on reddit and argue with people about how they're interpreting literature. Sawyer would stay as far away from the internet as possible, but would be standing over Tex's shoulder and telling him how better to write his arguments
oh gosh, world building is such an interesting question in this particular instance because it's not historically accurate, but the setting is meant to feel historically placed. so a lot of my world building was ripped from reality. that said, one of the things that's very true to life in that time is that neither Sawyer nor Tex would have had very much. so what they choose to keep and carry with them, what they have to repair, what they spend their money on...it's all building the world. they also have a shared symbol they use for "blind post offices" (aka, spots where people would leave things to get later or to communicate secretly) and that symbol comes up in lots of good and painful ways
#desperate hollow#thank you so much for your curiosity!!!!#lauren answers things#lauren writes things#tex bullock#sawyer watson
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A lot of these people assume that Snape was certain Remus Lupin was a werewolf and had some nefarious plan to expose him and get him expelled.
First:
Getting expelled is not worse than getting dead.
It's literally one of the iconic jokes of the series. Severus Snape trying to convince his best friend that Lupin is dangerous and she should stay away from him is not only sound advice given that the Gryffindor boys are vicious to Snape and he does not trust that Lupin wouldn't hurt a fly. The best adult Lupin can offer Snape as a fellow teacher is backhanded compliments and the best kid Lupin can do is be the lookout making sure the other three don't get caught bullying Snape. From young Severus' point of view, Lupin's kindness is an act he puts on to cover for what he and his friends do for fun and it does not get better in the 90's.
Second: What was the plan? Seriously, where in canon is this version of events laid out? Like everything that wasn't in The Prince's tale, we have to consider the source. In this case it's only inferred from the most barebones of explanations. This is very soft lore! We have to imagine it, so: What did Snape think he was doing? If someone claims he knew a werewolf was at the end of the tunnel when he went down it I can only assume they never read the books. Snape is cautious, inventive, and smart. He's also mean, blunt, and a bit of a dick - but he is not stupid enough to keep waling down that tunnel if he expects to find a werewolf at the end of it.
What did Sirius tell him to make him go down under the Whomping Willow?
It simply can't have been the truth, otherwise it wouldn't be a trick or a prank, and it is characterized by the characters themselves as a prank. It had to be something other than that Remus was a werewolf, something Snape would believe enough that he'd break curfew to do it.
While a master at mind arts like Snape could have altered his memories, the man was dying and while they could have been cherry picked I think it is more in character that he simply poured out the core of himself the same way he gave all for Lily's memory and the war. Even if they are cherry picked, they are unaltered because that is how Snape lies and Harry was shown how to spot modified memories in a pensieve. Snape as a spy lies by omission and half-truth when he does it at all. We have three options: We see none of the prank itself because Dumbledore swore him to secrecy, or we see none of it because he is omitting it intentionally so Harry gets the wrong idea about it, or he is omitting it because it isn't part of the core of who he is the way these other memories are.
(Or perhaps the trio is sloppy and that memory fell on the floor, seeping into the floorboards of the room where it happened, the loaded tear of a dying man falling to the floor where he once cheated death containing the memory of how he had survived.)
So we have what Sirius and Remus said about it, and nothing of substance from the other side about their bullying beyond SWM - which was probably after the werewolf revelation. That prank incident happened when Sirius was 16, which you might think means it was in their 6th year, but Sirius has a birthday quite early in the school year. He is sixteen from 3rd November 1975, so the majority of that year of his life happens in his fifth year at school. If the prank happened in late '75 before the Christmas break or early in 1976, shortly after Snape's own sixteenth birthday, then there would be a few months where Snape wants to tell Lily how dangerous these bullies are and can't name names or explain details.
And doesn't that just fit so perfectly with what facts we do have?
Think about how much strain that would put on their friendship, that Snape is desperate to try and communicate to her and she won't listen, because as far as Lily knows the (likely older) Slytherin boys Severus is hanging out with recently are worse. She doesn't know Sirius attempted to get Snape eaten. She does know 'what Mulciber did to Mary' and that there is a dangerous cult about.
It also makes logical sense to me that Snape would seek protection from his fellow Slytherins post-prank and that this factors into his radicalization. He is hanging out with them more, because he nearly died and then Dumbledore covered it up. To him, Dumbledore is one of the villains ignoring the law to do whatever he wants. To Albus, Snape is a nosey kid who wants to get Remus executed for being a werewolf and Sirius put on trial for attempted murder when he should have known better than to trust what Sirius said.
So what did Sirius say? It just keeps coming back to that, and we don't know. We just don't. I'll share what my best guess is:
I got the impression that Snape thought they could bury the hatchet, not to become friends but just put an end the intense bullying. Maybe Lily was name dropped "If Evans says you aren't all bad, then maybe we'll see. You have to prove you aren't a snively crybaby anymore" and a test of bravery is on brand for a Gryffindor. "Spend the night of the full moon in the Shrieking shack with all those ghosts and that'll prove you aren't a weepy baby" sounds plausible, doesn't it? At this point Snape is being pressured by the older Slytherins to join a cult, and he's on the edge in his fifth year.
He needs to make a decision before the summer. He's a half-blood, so these pure-blood guys aren't going to give him forever to join or not. They want him because he is smart and inventive and capable, and doesn't that just feel so good after being called smelly, greasy, and ugly for so long? Still, he doesn't trust them yet. The compliments are weird, he isn't used to them and he is suspicious of it. Lily tell him they are awful people and assures him it isn't so bad what Potter and them are doing to Severus, and Severus can take it, and he's brave too even if he is in Slytherin.
A black dog or a gray rat hears them talking, and the four boys have a good laugh at how pathetic Snivelous is and how he doesn't deserve Lily Evans.
So then Sirius Black comes up to snape a few days later, thinking he can get rid of this disgusting guy who is hanging around a pretty witch his best friend wants to date. He'd do anything for James, and nobody is going to miss Snape. Lily will be better off, if she's even sad at all. She'll probably just be relieved. So he tells Snape they'll lay off him if he can prove that Lily is right about him, and Snape is suspicious but Lily has been saying that and maybe she did say it to Black and them trying to get them to lay off him. Maybe Severus has been tutoring Regulus Black for some pocket money, and Snape thinks that has earned him some consideration from the elder Black brother, but I don't think anything less than Lily would convince him. The events of SWM are only remarkable because that was when Severus lost Lily's friendship, the things being done to him by the marauders were routine. He wants Lily to help him because he's being treated like this for a long time, and now Black is saying he is willing to listen to Lily.
He's probably been asking her to do that, an she hasn't really been doing much. She doesn't raise her wand in his defense, and only meets him in out of the way places because they likely can't meet in public or it would cause a fight between the marauders and the Slytherins. Severus understands that, but Lily can sit and talk with her other friends, and if he was included in the group maybe Potter and them wouldn't come at him. However, he is poor, and poorly groomed, and wearing robes so worn the charity shop would toss them out if he donated them. If he did join her, the other girls would leave, and then Lily would get upset at him.
Their friendship was great once, beautiful like a flower, but it has wilted from lack of care and been roughly handled by two powerful personalities who can't help who they are.
So here Severus Snape is, caught between a failing friendship, cult indoctrination, and the marauders bullying him mercilessly. He sees a possible way to alleviate if not remove one of his problems, and even if he doesn't completely trust it, even if he thinks it might be a trap, he is still willing to d it because at minimum it will prove that he isn't a crybaby or a
Coward.
He has such a visceral reaction to that word. He's insecure about it despite very clearly being a brave man. He wants people to know that he is brave, but as a spy he can't tell anyone the best of what he has done. By age 37 he doesn't think he deserves it, though he was keen on getting an Order of Merlin for catching Black in '94.
So I think Snape thought that even if it was a setup, and he'd be caught out of bounds and well after curfew, he'd still prove he was brave by going down the creepy tunnel to the shack. The whole way down he's steeled his spine and holding back his misgivings because he is going to prove he's not a snively wet rag, he's a proper young man as brave as anybody.
Then he sees just enough to know what Sirius had tricked him into doing before James comes running like there is hell on his heels, and while it isn't fair Snape can't argue that he should have known better and was out of bounds. He'd been tricked, properly, and his understandable reaction to seeing a fully transformed werewolf - even for an instant - then becomes further proof he's a coward and a sniveling crybaby. He smells like piss for the entire meeting in the Headmaster's office, since James went quickly and not quietly or stealthily to yoink Snape out of there and they are probably caught at the door.
So now the marauders add pissing his pants to their repertoire of insults, and he can't tell anyone why Slytherin lost house points, and Lily doesn't believe that he wasn't trying to get the other boys in trouble since she heard it in the common room first that Snape tried to get Remus ad Sirius expelled.
JAMES POTTER'S REDEMPTION???
Scrolling through Tiktok and the algorithm decided to give me a video about "the prank". And in the comment section, I see Marauders fan trying to defend the Marauders. It was okay, until I see them say
"James saving Snape's life is his redemption?"
I mean, EXCUSE ME???
You say 'saving his life', as in James Potter cleaning up his own mess. Said mess being HIM and his gang baited Severus Snape into the same room with a literal werewolf that could kill him???
And by realising how stupid it is, by pulling Snape out of the situation that HE created, he REDEEMED for pushing Snape into it in the first place?
Oh wow? Is that what redemption means now?
And in a way, it's not similar to "Saving his life" as Dumbledore nobly put it. James Potter knew how dangerous Remus Lupin was, and yes, even if he saved Snape in the end, he still owed Snape more than an apology, for all the things he had done.
Furthermore, they also said "Remus was too scare to mention it" or "He was traumatise too", "He regretted it later", etc.
Okay, let just assume that he remembered, let assume that at the time, he was too scare of being expell to face Snape.
How about in Harry's third year? How about that?
Did he, canonically, apologise? Or did he just take Snape's potion, say a thank, and then act all friendly?
There is just so many things wrong, and the ways they were defended ridiculously underwhelmed the trauma and the risk they had put a schoolmate through, as well as how light they treated it later.
And don't even get me started on that blasted fanfiction that they all prayed to everynight. It's blasphemed.
#severus snape#harry potter#fandom discourse#young snape#maurauders era#sirius black#james potter#the prank#remus lupin#sirius orion black#maraudersera#the maurauders#death eaters#cult indoctrination
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the way they are structuring the arguments minato and shin have in this season are absolute genius, and i cannot get enough of it. and this episode is so good for showing that, bc everything that seems petty or trivial or silly when they bicker hits at something deeper and more prominent that exists as an actual issue in their relationship, and somehow every time they bicker, it goes back to it, the real crux of the situation, which is how they see each other as childish. it’s minato’s favourite rebuttal to call shin a kid or a little brat, bc he thinks he can just reduce any actual problems or grievances shin has to just childish behaviour. and when we think about how the strong, passionate confidence with which shin shares his feelings is associated with the naivety of being young, you don’t know the world or haven’t experienced it enough to have those learned insecurities, you can see how minato has the excuse to reduce his behaviour down to this. and you can also add on this generational divide that’s probably exacerbated by how familiar and ingrained minato is to the society and community where he lives where he sees elder people day to day and becomes close to them, plus him leaving his city job to continue a family business almost feels like an early retirement so the life he leads is only shared by older people, he feels like he belongs to an older generation despite not being old, and thus has picked up all these notions about his identity and relationship that belong in that older generation, hence his difficulty with coming out and exposing his relationship.
shin, on the other hand, is part of this youth where it doesn’t matter and it’s not ingrained in him to feel guilty or like he needs to hide, and he’s aware of this and how it affects minato. and when he sees minato as childish, it’s not that he needs to grow up necessarily, it’s more like he needs to grow forward, out of these old notions of gayness being tied to guilt, and emotionally mature in that way, almost like he needs to grow up again, just in the current surroundings and be taught these new things about identity that allow him to be comfortable. but another way in which shin does see him as childish is how fickle he thinks he is, that he’d fall for people easily, which centres around this insecurity about minato’s feelings for sakuma and feeling like he can’t be secure in minato’s feelings for him because of it. it’s ironic bc minato turns his nose up at this idea shin not trusting him, but he also easily distrusts shin and thinks the worst when he sees him with someone else, almost like he can’t have any security in shin’s feelings for him bc that childishness of his passion implies that it’s not genuine, that it too is fickle and temporary. and shin’s distrust would be placated if minato learned to be more forward and reaffirm his feelings for shin without seeming like it’s hard or a big deal, but he can’t do that bc of all the reasons above about why he’s insecure in this relationship in the first place. it’s all connected, and it needs growth on both sides to get better, but my favourite thing about all of it is that neither of them wants the other to change fundamentally. shin can list all the things he likes about him and it encompasses his looks and his cuteness and his kindness and his brattiness and how difficult he is bc he likes him being this complicated handful minato knows he is and doesn’t shy away from. and when minato just says shin is handsome, I don’t think it’s just him stuck on looks, I think it’s more that there’s this inherent handsomeness to him, not just in the way he looks but the way he holds himself, the way he pursues his goals, the way he shares his feelings with confidence and is so kind and giving, it’s handsomeness in every facet. shin doesn’t want minato to not be difficult, and minato doesn’t want shin to not be so full on, they just need to find the ways to stop these things they like clashing and getting in the way.
and ps. I just love seeing shin talk to shu and rolling his eyes bc emotionally immature men really do be coming at him left right and centre
#it’s no joke these characters just keep getting better and better#shin was an icon in this ep#minato shouji coin laundry
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this drawing is from a couple mouths back now; ......but i still like it 😝 forbidden love as witnessed by ms. Varona. it killed off my traditional art kick when i was done with it, but i had fun. i used very faint watercolors for this one just to see how well i'd do with them and pencils together. my favorite part of it is this tree, love how it looked in this WIP pic i took:
and some random bits of the drawing but closer because i do love pencils as yk✍
had to compress the whole pic a bit cus it was huge, but a version that's a bit better can be seen heare, still not the best it could be, still crunchy, but better nonetheless
#tes#skyrim#talvas fathryon#neloth#varona nelas#my art#second nelvas drawing on a full A4 format....... i should make another and have it be an incoherent trilogy#filling out big areas with black is literally no joke LMFAOO i wanted it to keep the texture so didn't really give it a much darker -#- watercolor backdrop#it's kinda Cute how u can see me go out of bounds with the watercolors in places Ok WERK#dramatized drawing for dramatization purposes bcos neloth isn't taller than talvas but i needed it for the power imbalance to happen Bye#nelvas been so good to me art wise this year i like to see it as me already perfecting my Thinking skill and devoting more time to -#- 'art' instead; while last yr i was just trying to mold my thought pattern on skyrim characters to perfection instead#instead of focusing it on 'art'.#not related to the whole shtick of 'drawing the same characters over and over and getting better' cause i don't like that viewpoint people#- have on their drawings; i'm getting better because i want to ..... and i have something special going on with talvas fathryon...exactly#i'm very......in touch....with my.......nelothian side!#(diagnosis sheet)#i'm sorry for being a reincarnation of him in this timeline it really is a tragedy
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Me: ::practicing writing smut::
Also me: Oh sick, @jetii just posted a new fic let’s go check it out…
Also also me:
#fic writer appreciation#like let’s give that another go shall we?#Roy I love your writing and you have definitely inspired me to keep at it#gworl your most recent chapter of In Your Name was 🔥🔥🔥#I will say I am getting better at keeping track of how many hands my characters have#which we all know can be tricky in Star Wars#I just finished a Gregor one shot that got WAY spicier than I meant it to be#but dang Gregor was fun to write in a spicy way#it’s been a fun challenge this week#for legal reasons this is a joke
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winston my quant of billions
#''😒''#corned beef#winston billions#& green of all things; drew it in purpley pink & being like whoa hey is this too much deliberately breaking out this Rare Coloring#minty fresh....been funny to be rotating the villainy of; let's say; bsol & xmas & then thinking about billions' whole other world there#& its completely different take where of all things winston is like. treated as a villain in a way its sicko My God central men aren't#(who are also quite different from iconis villains but yknow with the very fundamental differences in general what else is a surprise)#axe? prince? alive & well & billions does mean to be commenting on that like yeah sure#but winston? gotta be humiliated & violated & attacked / killed (if figuratively + just by assumption Oh He's Fiiine)#as well as basically truly dead to everyone but in a Never Existed / Spontaneously Shunned way. nobody thinks about him ever again#including when non wretched central men characters are getting these silver linings Benefits from their sabotaging a central man#not winston though maybe; the writing has forgotten him / sees no worth in bringing him up unless At His Expense; not gain#didn't get background randos telling prince or the like to go fuck himself at any point. open contempt reserved for winston there#better to have Objective Entitlement to power over / access to people & then; hey what the; be an asshole about it???#than to not just Have that entitlement & not expect it & not try to use it & be friendly & minding your own business as much or more than#any other characters like good lord what a Loser. the queerness & disability of this inferiority? just some jokes (at winston's expense)#& we will be killing him like nobody even considers for central men takedowns. those are polite & we all have Some regret it came to this#better to abuse people than. be so unepic (different from Normal white cishet 50some men who love certain media)#& on that note you're never gonna guess what's Good to do to the unepic people who bring it upon themselves....yeah haha. abuse#you're never gonna guess but power difference is a given & also good if an epic person has that power. & on that note#what can they do with it but keep unepic people in their place? what other hope do we have? winston may try to say a pun. or speak at all :#anyway while there's the absolute joys of Any Good Bastard over in a wildly different oeuvre it's like well yknow#while winston is already Ruining Things as more a Wretched Sicko Evil Asshole for seeing himself as a person & others as people#instead of himself as an inferior who has to apologize for existing & initiating any interaction vs only ever doing as he's told#unlike the best heroes who know they're superior & will use others & mess with their lives however they feel is justified; you're welcome#like well if winston's such an exceptional dick(tm) around here that he has to be introduced w/discussion / explanation around this#great let him be even bitchier & more ''difficult''....& billions would never & that's why [sorry to all the characters trapped in there]#the slightest glimpses of like & The Quasirival Weirdo Duos Are Kinda Being Cunts b/w usual parallels riawin & taylip#what comes of that? oh nothing. but as ever these are at least glimpses of a little more liveliness & range for making room for this a sec#anyway imagine getting so niche that your other kinda just as niche thing is like. less niche. but not really. wheee yayyy fr lol My Whimsy
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sometimes you have bad mental health days and then sometimes you decide to rewatch Voltron: Legendary Defenders
#I know it gets bad later down the line. I was there. I was in the trenches since season 2#but god I forgot how fun the first season is#I’m trying not to get too attached because I can’t go through the heartbreak of watching this show go downhill again#it’s kinda like the frog in the pot thing#Voltron#Vld#sophi rambles#also dw guys im doing much better now#Anyways Hunk is my favorite character he’s so funny and they do him so dirty all of the time#STOP REDUCING HIM TO A FAT JOKE. MY BOY IS ON HIS WAY TO GETTING A PHD#HES JUST AS COMPETENT AS EVERYONE ELSE#Growing up is relating less and less to lance and more and more to hunk#Anyways I have a whole idea for a rewrite if anyone cares#Also also hot take Keith isn’t even that emo he’s just autistic and everyone keeps misreading him
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The pokemon anime subreddit fascinates and frustrates me on equally deep levels
#smiling and blinking innocently. long tags ahead :) being normal :)🌸☀️☘️✌��💐#i'm such a 'minding my own business' person in fandom. i feel like my usual reaction to seeing takes I disagree with is#'well. people probably hate some of my takes so whatever'. perhaps even the ones i'm about to share#but. man.#it's like a portal to 2010 forum discourse but goh and serena are there this time.#deeply fascinated by the repetition of old ship wars too????#what do you mean we're still having legitimate 'but drew and gary are mean' discourse 😭#i mean by all means they should keep arguing because mostly i'm just glad that the wider pokeani sphere remembers drew at all#but that being said i wonder what kind of rivalry these people would have wanted instead?????#because there's other rivalries we could point to where they weren't air-quotes 'mean'. but we have those and people ignore them lol#because they're-imo- usually less engaging and dynamic. except for dawn and zoey who have never done anything wrong in their lives.#like we COULD give everyone the supportive happy rival experience a la may and grace or whatever but that's just not the SAME#and augh. taking psychic damage and trying to be normal but that's the THINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG OKAY#are Gary and Drew needlessly mean in early episodes? yeah lmao. i'm not arguing on that. they suck ❤️ completely insufferable.#b u t#there's that line. right. the line where it slowly slides into backhanded compliments too and giving that motivation-#-for their rival to work harder and the fact that they want that reaction and attention from this one person so badly.#like shipping aside I really do think that the friction of the Gary/Ash and May/Drew rivalries is what made them GOOD.#and yeah sometimes it was out of line but also that's just how the dub is as a whole tbh. they just said whatever shit they could 😭#AND BACK TO THE BEING NICE THING. Ash and May both got growth from their nice rivalries but not what they got from Gary/Drew.#it's different types of growth and lessons and they needed both kinds from different sources. I'd argue the rougher rivalries taught more?#regardless of your opinions on the characters themselves you can't deny that Gary/Paul/Drew/Harley/etc- the rivals that pushed A&M-#had the biggest impact on their growth over the rivals that didn't push. note that 'friends' and 'rivals' are different categories for this#I'm pitting. like. gary and paul against morrison and ritchie and not against dawn or pikachu or brock or whatever. different convo.#but it was growth out of spite to be better than the jackass rival at first and then that CHANGED INTO MUTUAL BETTERMENT#AND WANTING TO BE BETTER ✨FOR✨ AND ✨WITH✨ THEIR RIVAL. OKAY. (re: gary and drew specifically)#and as a result of all of this. drew and gary did get better to be fair!#well gary did kind of just start picking on goh instead gjkhsdkfj (joking) but ykwim.#DAMN IT I'M OUT OF ROOM AND IT DELETED A WHOLE ASS PART 2 THAT I HAD TYPED OUT#fine. i'll make this its own post at some point because i yearn to yap on about it
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it's been one day and im still pissed when will this end. season 4 had some neat assassination scenes but none of them shined as bright as the writers assassinating the characters like go off monarchs
#like dude#all of these characters have SO MUCH potential#and it's wasted time & time again#LUTHER MY SON why do they keep portraying him as himbo material#like sure he can be goofy and fun whatever who cares but???? it's like they keep using him for JOKES#klaus idk dude they just wanna torture him ig?#in every single season they put him in yet another traumatizing situation and for what lol#they don't even use it for character growth it's just?? angst for the sake of angst atp#ALSO STOPP LUTHER DIDN'T EVEN GET TO GR I EVE SLOANE#five...............#marvellous five writers have already talked about his character assassination and no one knows better than them ok#im just soooo tired#also LOL BENNNNN#im a ben blog AND HERE I AM SAYING NOTHING#BC WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT JENNIFER INCIDENT HUH#sparrow ben was a mistake there i said it i don't care#sparrow ben has no connection to the hargreeves !! fight me if u disagree#viktor wanting to save him and their little bonding scene where ben says 'im scared' is cute & all and was probably meant to parallel +#ben comforting viktor in s1 i if i remember correctly??#BUT THAT'S NOT EARNED u know why#bc ben <3 doesn't get <3 bonding moments <3 with <3 them <3#bc he IS right#they're not his family. his family was KILLED#they fumbled so hard with the jennifer incident im so pissed#really went & made his death so... idk how to explain#a plot device#that's all ben is#he IS a plot device#literally gets no growth whatsover#avril's ramblings
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TBH the best case scenarios in my mind for Fit's lore ending on Thursday are either:
Madagio has mercy. They know what it's like to lose everyone they love, and seeing what's happening on Quesadilla Island is just a reminder of everything they loved and lost. Madagio releases Fit, and he reunites with Pac e Mike and Richarlyson, and they're all able to leave Quesadilla Island.
Or:
Madagio and Fit destroy the Federation together. Fit goes full 2B2T mode and there's nothing left of the Federation once they're finished. Madagio and Fit finally have their revenge. (And then maybe Fit can reunite with Pac + all his loved ones and they escape the Island, or reclaim the island for their own since the Federation no longer has any power over them).
Bonus: A very unlikely but "Wouldn't it be fun?" scenario would be Pac and Mike flying down on a fully-grown dragon Richas and rescuing Fit from Vacuus Island and they fly away and live happily ever after.
#i talk#qsmp talk#Genuinely need a vacation after the past two weeks (or however long it's been)#I keep seeing people say ''the best case scenario is Fit dying lol'' and I clearly care WAY too much because seeing that made me legit mad#Did my whole ''lmao ok let's calm down and take a walk'' and went out for a few hours only to come back and be like#''no actually I'm still mad. This entire situation sucks.''#I think this will probably be the last mcyt type series I let myself get invested in. I'm so exhausted of being disappointed#and the constant angst the fandom churns out#I wanna be able to love things without getting burned#I've got enough things to be sad over irl I don't want my escapism series making me sad too#Worst case scenario for me is Fit dying or him getting trapped in 2b2t again#and/or him saying q!Pac is dead#I'll be honest: CCs killing off their character feels like a betrayal to the people who have spent so much time loving them#and like yeah there probably ARE ways to do it well#but it's like. why would you choose that option there are so many better options#negative#idk man I'm just frustrated by this whole thing#all the untagged suicide jokes are making me frustrated too
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Puffbun progress report:
-I overestimated myself. Chapter 1 is still not ready for this week.
-Half of the first chapter is all ready to go though! Almost there >:)
- Here's a doodle introducing the main cast
-I did not intend to color code them as obviously as I did in this doodle lol
#sweet hero puffbun!#original comic#artists on tumblr#aashi doodles#man how the character dynamics keep changing#originally bay and ellie were the only siblings and cori was just a long time friend but#i kept making the joke that people thought they might be siblings given that bay and ellie's dad looks a ton like him#then i went occams razor. They're my characters. If i want them to all be tlsiblings#then they are all siblings!#plus earlier drafts of cori's parents kinda sucked and he was a super lonely and depressed guy#he's still depressed but now he's not lonely and honestly i hated how lonely i made him before i think this version is going to make for#a better story#once im actually through first act it will be fun to compare all the different previous drafts i had to the one that made it out#getting ahead of myself tho gotta actually get those chapters done first haha
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