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we-are-all-of-legend-now · 1 year ago

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Fictober Day 3: Okay, Show Me

Prompt number: Prompt #3

Fandom: American Dragon Jake Long

Pairings/Characters: Jake/Rose; Haley; Huntsman

Rating: M

Warnings: torture; blood; gore; medical situations; violence; on screen death(s); murder

You can read under the cut or click here to read it on fanfiction

Rose never liked having one on one meetings with the Huntsman. It never felt like a good thing to be locked in a room with a man that could treat her like a treasured pet in one moment and then try to kill her in the next, just to see if she was smart enough and fast enough to avoid actually being killed. When the Huntsman showed up to her bedroom and blocked the door out, her flight response kicked into overdrive, even though there was nowhere to go. The Huntsman looked positively gleeful and that was more than enough to make Rose realize that whatever happened next, she wasn’t going to like it.

“Yes, Master?” she said, keeping her voice even and her face serene.

“Get dressed and come with me,” the Huntsman ordered. “We’ve finally done it! And, I thought you would want to be first.”

Finally done what?

Rose didn’t ask as she shrugged into her robes and pulled her mask over her face and followed the Huntsman into the hall. They descended into the depths of the basement and Rose’s stomach started to twist. Nothing good happened down here.

The Huntsman proudly threw open the door to one of the medical experimentation labs. They weren’t often used and this room never was because this was the room for the dragons. Don’t be Jake, don’t be Jake, don’t be Jake, Rose begged in her head. She knew why she was down here and she knew what she was going to have to do. She knew what would happen to her if she tried to show mercy or free him or even what would happen to her if she killed him to save her life. It would be like a scene from a medieval torture documentary, with the Huntsman flaying her in tiny bits until there was so little left of her that she had no choice but to die because she didn’t have a body anymore. The same thing that she was expected to do to whoever was on the other side of that door. Rose just prayed that it wasn’t Jake because she could turn off her humanity and be the evil Huntsgirl and do what she needed to do as long as it was anybody but Jake.

Rose took a deep breath and stepped inside.

It took all of her strength to not fall to her knees. She had gotten her wish; it wasn’t Jake.

It was Haley.

She was strapped down by cold steel bands to the medical table. Her swings spread out but crushed underneath her body. She was awake and scared; Rose could already see the damage that she’d done to herself trying to battle against the metal. It was a battle that she wouldn’t win, Rose knew. There was another steal band around Haley’s mouth, to keep her from screaming.

“Well, Huntsgirl?” the Huntsman prompted.

Rose could never forget that here was here and watching closely. Rose approached the table, seeing the moment that Haley recognized her. Haley visibly relaxed and Rose wished she could that she could pet Haley’s hair and tell her that she was sorry and that she would do everything to get her out of here. She knew Haley was thinking that Rose was going to make everything better because Rose was her brother’s girlfriend and had dinner at their house all the time and Rose loved Haley like a sister. Rose wouldn’t hurt Haley. But, there was no Rose here. There was just the Huntsgirl.

“What do you think?” the Huntsman said after Rose had completed her lap of the table.

“Female, probably just entering puberty, no visible injuries or health defects.” Rose asked, “How was she captured?”

“Stun gun, caught her flying alone and low to the ground, minimal impact when she fell. She’s a good specimen.” The Huntsman patted Haley’s leg, as if she were nothing but a lab rat and Rose almost snapped at him not to touch her. “And we’re going to dissect her together.”

Rose just nodded and looked away from Haley. She followed the Huntsman into the other room, putting on medical gowns, masks, and gloves. As they prepped themselves, the Huntsman spoke again.

“I chose you for this because you are loyal and obedient. I chose you for this because this is what you deserve. I chose you for this because it will impact you in a way that it won’t the others and because of that, I know you will not fail me. Do you understand me?”

Rose did. It wasn’t by accident that it was Haley in that room; it probably would have been Jake if they could manage it. It was on purpose that Master wasn’t leaving her to her duties like he often did. He knew about her other life and he was letting her know that it was all over, starting immediately. Rose took a deep breath, forcing herself to go numb and be nothing but the Huntsman’s puppet.

“Yes, Master.”

“Okay, show me.”

They returned to the room where Haley was laying. The Huntsman rolled a tray of scalpels to Rose’s side.

“What are we trying to accomplish?” Rose asked, her voice all business.

Fear started to creep into Haley’s face.

“We’re going to take it apart, bit by bit. We’ve already collected samples and done x-rays and scans so don’t worry about any of that. Just make sure the cuts are clean and preserve the samples.”

“Are we putting it under?”

“No. We want to monitor how it feels pain. Where do you think we should start?”

“Cut it open, see what’s inside, sew it back up if it lives through it,” Rose said. “Just explore.”

“Then, explore.”

Rose thought through her options. “We’ll need blood.”

“At the ready here. We blood typed it before I brought you down here. We’ll see how compatible human blood and dragon blood really is.”

They moved as a team to remove scales from the inside of Haley’s arms and insert IVs. Haley tried to struggle, muffled sounds already emerging muzzled mouth even though they hadn’t done anything to hurt her. Yet. It should bother Rose – it should more than bother Rose – but she had done this before. Not with a dragon but with plenty of other magical creatures during her many bio classes. It was disgustingly easy to be clinical about it. Finally, it was time to make the first incision. Rose looked at Haley, who was openly weeping. The Huntsman collected samples of her tears. If there was going to be at time to change her mind, do something different, now was it, but Rose knew that they’d both be dead if she did that and Rose wasn’t interested in that.

Rose picked up the scalpel and made a long incision down the length of Haley’s body. The screaming sounds hit a fever pitch as Haley fought to move but she had nowhere to go. The blood poured over Rose’s hands but the Huntsman was right there with suction so that they could get a better view of the organs inside. As Rose nudged part of Haley’s intestine out of the way, she wondered how the organs rearranged themselves when Haley transformed.

“Widen the sides,” the Huntsman instructed, “I want to see the heart better.”

As Rose made another cut, Haley passed out. It was likely the best thing for Haley and it made it much easier for Rose to stay focused on what she was here to do. The human blood that the Huntsman was feeding into the dragon seemed to be compatible and the Huntsman had a steady supply. They took biopsies of all of the dragon’s organs, the Huntsman putting them in medical vials and summoning a Huntsboy to take them to the lab immediately. Rose moved slowly, taking her time to inspect all of the organs, lifting them where she could to see what was underneath, and cursing the rib cage for being in the way. Maybe, next time, the Huntsman would allow her to break it. Or maybe that would have to wait for the autopsy.

Rose was sweaty and bloody when the Huntsman said, “should we close it up?”

“I think so. It’s survived this long. We might be able to keep it alive for a while yet and who knows what we’ll want to try. Opportunities for dragons are scarce,” Rose said. “I would like to do some experiments with wings.”

“You would?” the Huntsman asked.

“Mhmm,” Rose said idly, not noticing how smug the Huntsman sounded. “Master, will get the things for stitches?”

“Yes, Huntsgirl.”

The Huntsman turned but before he could take a step, the doors were kicked in, sending dust and drywall flying. Rose whipped around, letting one of the doors hit her rather than landing in the dragon’s open wound. If something got inside of the dragon, it could go septic.

“THERE IS A PATIENT ON THE TABLE!” the Huntsman shouted.

A roar answered him and a chill went down Rose’s spine. Jake. Jake was here and she was elbow deep in Haley’s body cavity and she hadn’t even thought of the dragon as Haley in hours. Rose turned to see Jake, glowering murderously. With no doors on the operating room, Rose could clearly hear the sounds of a fight going on. Lao Shi was here too, probably with as many magical creatures as he could get to help them.

“What the fuck?” Jake said.

“Let me sew her up!”

“Don’t touch her!”

“No, she’s going to get sick now that this isn’t a clean room. She’s going to die if we leave her open – her blood supply is almost out.”

“Don’t help it – either of them,” the Huntsman ordered. “If that one dies, we’ll just have to make sure we have this one lined up to take its place.”

Jake lunged at the Huntsman, sending him flying backward into the scalpel tray. Rose moved desperately, for once in her life trying to stay out of the fight. Staples weren’t going to be as good for Haley but she wasn’t exactly in a position to sit there and make neat little stiches. Nothing was sterile anymore and Haley was going to get infected. When Rose put the first staple in, Jake turned his back on the Huntsman and knocked Rose down.

“I said don’t touch her!”

Rose struggled in Jake’s grasp, smearing Haley’s blood over Jake’s chest.

“She’s dying!”

“Because of you!”

The Huntsman was on top of Jake. Jake wriggled just enough that the staff coming for his ear missed wildly, driving down toward the floor and into Rose’s shoulder. Rose screamed, reacting blindly and pushing up at Jake. Jake shoved her away, turning back to the Huntsman who had yanked the IVs from Haley. Rage like nothing Rose had ever seen before was coming from Jake as he grabbed the Huntsman by the top of his head and slammed him against the wall. Blood spurted from the Huntsman’s nose and then Jake did it again and again. Rose didn’t try to go to the Huntsman’s aid. She snatched the surgical stapler from the floor and ran back to Haley. Rose seized what she could and stapled as much as she could even though she was starting to realize that it wasn’t going to be enough.

“Jake,” Rose shouted over the rhythmic dull thudding that was still the Huntsman’s head against the wall, “Jake, you need to be with her!”

Rose looked over her shoulder to see the lifeless body of the Huntsman fall to the floor. Jake ran to Haley’s side, pushing Rose out of the way. Rose let herself fall to the floor, bowing her head.

“Haley, wake up,” Jake pleaded, his voice thick with tears. “Haley, please. Mom and Dad need you. You’re the best sister in the world and I’ll never fight with you again. You just have to hold on so I can bring you home, okay? Do you want to go home? Haley … Haley! HALEY!”

Jake whipped around and Rose knew that Haley Long was dead and that her blood was all over Rose’s hands.

“You killed her!” Jake screamed, towering over Rose.

“You compromised the clean room,” Rose said. “She would have lived!”

“You were dissecting my sister!”

“But she would have lived and I could have come to get you as soon as I could so you could come and get her!” Except, that hadn’t crossed Rose’s mind at all. The Huntsman had caught her and Jake and Rose had known the only way to protect herself was to do whatever he wanted to Haley. And it wasn’t like Rose hadn’t come up with questions of her own, experiments that she wanted to run. She had become soulless. She had completely become the Huntsgirl and turned her back on Rose.

Rose thought that Jake could see it in her face because he didn’t stop advancing on her.

“My baby sister is dead and it’s because of you.”

Rose stayed where she was, knowing what was coming next, and thinking that it was the only way for this to end. The Huntsman was dead. Lao Shi was killing Clan members as she and Jake stared at one another, Haley’s dead body behind Jake. Rose looked into his eyes, thinking of all the times that she had woken up next to him, delighted for him to be the very first thing she saw in the morning. She thought of the life that they had built in their heads together, knowing that they would never be free to live it. All the love they’d had for each other was gone forever and Rose was overwhelmed by sadness.

Jake picked up one of the scalpels from the floor. “Think I should do to you what you did to her?”

“Yes,” Rose whispered.

Jake got into her face, using a dragon claw to shred her medical gown and tear of her medical mask. Rose stood stock still, her eyes never leaving his face. The sound of the Huntsclan battling Lao Shi was getting closer and closer and Rose knew that something had to break. Jake backed her against the wall and transformed into a human, his eyes dead as he stared her down.

“You think I should stick the scalpel right about here.” Rose gasped as she felt the edge of the blade against her bare stomach. “Drive it all the way in, tear a whole in you, and then carve your heart out?”

“Yes.”

She could feel blood started to bead around the sharp edge of the scalpel but he still didn’t push it in.

Finally, Jake threw the scalpel away and spat after it. “I’m not going to do that Rose because I’m not a monster and because I don’t think you have a heart.”

Jake turned away from her, going back to Haley’s side, taking her limp hand in his. Rose watched his shoulders shake as he sobbed and she wished that she could go to him and be a source of comfort again. But she could never do that again and she knew it. There was only one thing that she could do for him now. Rose picked up the Huntsman’s abandoned staff.

“I love you, Jake.”

Rose didn’t wait for a response; she knew one wasn’t coming. She left the operating room and headed for the fray of the fight. The Huntsclan was going to turn on her, once they were realized that she was fighting against them rather than with them, and Rose had made her peace with it. She was a monster, with no heart, because she had forgotten about Rose and embraced Huntsgirl.

And Huntsgirl didn’t care if she lived or died.

3 notes · View notes

sometimesanalice · 1 year ago

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Sana! This is so overdue, but I think it's because my brain can finally process the magic that is this masterpiece of a fic! ‘Can’t Unfeel That’ and ‘Talk With My Hands’ are some of my all time favorite Jake fics, I mean theyearningthepiningthelonging WITH the smut?? Like stick a fork in me I'm doneee.

So getting to start 2024 with this fic and seeing the beginning of Them™️ was such a treat! You outdid yourself with this one!

more for youuuuuu!

You: ugh okay text me his number//Natasha: can’t believe that after 8 months stationed at the same base you don’t have his number- I'm so amused by this tidbit, like I can see this coming up and her being so adamant about NOT getting his number. Like in the group exchange she's adding in everyone's, but when he's gets shared she's somehow checking IG and missing it completely, lol.

Because not only had Jake insisted on renting a truck (“I need the legroom!”)- the high maintenance Jake agenda is alive and well.

Four and a half hours later, you were dripping wet, trying not to shiver because the shower you took to warm yourself up had backfired, since the motel towels were basically handkerchiefs and your wet skin made the room seem extra cold.- the shitty motels must source from all the same place, I can almost feel the nubby scratchy towels, where the threads are all too visible. As if hiking along the highway with your nemesis isn't bad enough!

The audacity of him.-😂

Of course, the first words out of his mouth had been “Honey, you gotta know there’s easier ways to get your MRS degree than to become a naval aviator.”//Your crush and respect had evaporated on the North Island breeze, and it’d been downhill from there. -- I can just imagine the way her stomach dropped before being filled with rageeeee. THE AUDACITY OF HIM INDEED! This isn't how we flirt Jacob, this is NOT how you get the girl. I'm like dying to know what he was thinking opening with this, lol

You appreciated that he was reassuring you, and you did remember that he’d been in a jean jacket at the airport. You’d noticed it against your better judgment, thinking he looked like an A-List actor as he walked through the airport towards you, all broad shoulders and smiles, like you were friends. -- we love a man who is vigilant about airport germs, like the mystery motel sheets are already questionable, I'd be like we're not adding airplane germs into the mix. But also I just know miss ma'am was begrudgingly giving him the good ol' once over as he made his way up to her. She's only human!

“I’m an Eagle Scout,” he grumbled. “I can sleep anywhere.”- he's also the eagle scout who didn't stop for gas and got them stranded, so..... But also, I love a petulant huffy jake 🤗

“You could drive it,” he said, too obstinate to accept defeat.//“I will not,” you returned, “drive a vehicle that ostentatious.” -- plssss she's so funny 😂

His sweatshirt was somehow still warm. /It smelled amazing, like cedar and fancy cologne./And also sweat, which you tried damn hard to ignore./It was cozy, and you snuggled into it, and a moment later, Jake settled.- the italicized OH of it all!

But when you heard the bed shift as Jake turned towards you, you winced into the darkness, unsurprised. //“Sweetheart…” he started, and you shook your head, refusing to look back over at him. -- i just know that man is STEWING in his guilt! He's like the girl I like hates me, and now she's at risk for pneumonia or a bout of bedbugs and it's all my fault. But his Sweetheart here, oof yessss.

You realized you’d expected him to turn you over, press your back to his front so that you’d be spooned, but instead he just wrapped you in his arms. He reached around you to tuck the comforter between you and the mattress, insulating you with his warmth. -- 🥰 he's warm, he's got great arms, and he smells good. How is a girl to resist??

“Is that–” he mumbled and how dare he, honestly, how very dare he, because he sounded great. Fuck him, for that, frankly. -- THE CONTINUED AUDACITY OF THIS MAN lol

“That’s not how I wanted to tell you,” he murmured against your skin, and this time when you shivered, you knew it wasn’t from the cold. -- ok but Sana, I need to know this man's game plan. Fumble at the start line so that he can only go up from there?? How WAS going to tell her?! I'm so invested!!

To your astonishment and delight, Hangman blushed. - SQUEALINGGGGGGGGGG

"So, it’s the New Year…we could start it how we want the year to go.”//Jake’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he smiled softly, a sweet expression on his face. He turned his head to kiss the palm of the hand you had looped around his neck. //“Cuddling,” he said, at the same time you announced, //“Orgasms.”-- ABSOLUTELY YELLING SHE IS SUCH AN ICON I AM GIGGLING AND DYING AND YODELING ALL AT THE SAME TIME, plssssssss. not him being all sweet like "yeah, i'm going to play this cool and get the girl" and she's like "nah, we're going to fuck" like 😂😂😂😂😂

You’d been a part of plenty of dogfight football scrimmages, and Jake was never one for longer board shorts; you knew exactly how strong his thighs were.- my 2024 platform is: more 5in inseam shorts on men, the Euro cut is IN. thicc thighs save lives.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Jake gritted as you moved against him, and you thought maybe you didn’t mind the petname, when he sounded like that. -- 🥰

He settled at the base of the bed, crouching, and through the darkness, you could tell he was looking in your direction. His hands were intentional on your legs, letting you know where he was, giving you time to tell him if you weren’t okay with something. -- first of all a massive ana broad Jake shaped man under the covers is such a mental image, but also how he's letting her set the pace for all of this is HOT. That he's probably dying to dive right in, he's still giving her the time to make up her mind about how things are going to go between them. That kind of gentle intimacy takes it right out of meeee

“Plural?” Jake asked, and it took you a minute to understand his question. //“There’s two of us,” you managed, back to his question. “Hence plural.”//“I know this is new for us, sweetheart,” he mumbled, a kiss to your hipbone, then the opposite, “but that’s not how this is going to work.”-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

“That right, honey?” he asked, sounding smug, and he circled your clit with his tongue.-- 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

He groaned like he wanted it, like he craved that reaction, and you came hard. -- this is MUCH and I am in a TIZZY OVER IT

Right now, Jake tasted like yours, and you were obsessed. -- I adored this line!

His thighs were shaking, you noticed, and it filled you with something like tenderness. That he’d get you there twice, then let you play with him, then say “please”, like fucking you was a privilege.-- IT IS SO SOFT AND I CAN'T HANDLE IT

You’d had his fingers and his tongue loosen you, you were plenty lubricated, but when Jake’s cock pressed against your entrance, you realized it hadn’t been enough. //“Holy shit, Jake,” you gasped, as his fat head pressed against your pussy, waiting for resistance to melt. // “Relax, baby,” he whispered hoarsely, “you can do it…You’re doing so good, just a little bit of give, come on…”-- anddddddd this is where I start to lose my mind. Like good fucking goddddd this is so smutty and so hot and I don't think I'll ever recover from ittttttt.

You could tell he was trying to go slow, but the feeling of him forcing his cock into you had your legs shaking. You wanted it, needed it, and if begging was the way to get it, begging you could do. - YUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUPYUP

Then he moved.-- I MEAN ALL THIS AND THE MAN HASN'T EVEN MOVED YET! help i've fallen and i can't get up

“This what you were asking so prettily for, and now you have me, and what’s that, baby, can’t find your words? What’s wrong?”-- pheeewwwwwww. the mouth on this mannnn. oh he's so mean for this and i love him for it.

There was so much he hadn’t said, so much he couldn’t say, but he pushed it into your body, swore it to you.-- how dare you with this. this is such a pretty line!

“Come in me, baby,” you whispered, your voice watery. “Need to feel you, want to feel how you’d fuck me to fill me, please, Jake, it’ll feel so good.”-- and we all know where this leads to 🤗 now did Jake know about his breeding kink or did he only discover it after being with her? I love this little wink into where they develop from here!

You were warm, comforted, sated, and the room was still cheap, the motel was still sketchy, but you were suddenly quite alright with this start to the year. - you wouldn't catch me complaining either, lolololol.

I love these two so much, and getting to see the start of their fwb start to what they become and the affection and feelings they develop is everything to meeeeee. I fear I'll be recovering for another 10-20 business days instead of the usual 3-5, but it's worth it! I'm obsessed with everything about it! You served me everything I didn't know I needed on sketchy motel platter!

start the new year right (jake seresin x f!reader)

pairing: jake hangman seresin x fem!reader (no y/n)

synopsis: what could be worse than a delayed flight with lost luggage? driving back to san diego with your nemesis. and what could be worse than that? the car breaking down in the middle of the night, on new years eve. and of course, the motel couldn't have a 2BR room available...

word count: 8.2k

warnings: 18+ explicit content, minors DNI: explicit PiV sex, oral sex (f!receiving), bc of who i am as a person overstimulation, not the BEST communication/consent, but everything is consensual! it's just implied; normally i'm better about explicitly asking and confirming

A/N: happy new year, friends! what would my year be, if not ending with me sitting down with a stanley of chamomile and writing more than i've written the whole previous month? hope this new year is gentle to y'all.

Natasha: Hey girl! Just got an alert that your transfer flight was delayed? Are you good?

You: ‘good’ as in ‘safe’, ya

You: ‘good’ as in ‘en route’, not so much. They overbooked the flight and the next one they have available is Wednesday morning

Natasha: nooooooo

You: At least my luggage is on its way to SAN… I’m considering renting a car and just making the drive from Vegas myself

Natasha: I love you and I trust you

Natasha: but an overnight drive by yourself after an already-long day is not the move

You: ugh I know, but i don’t know what else to do

Natasha: …mkay i have a solution but it’s not the one you want

You: let’s have it

Natasha: jake’s flight also rerouted through LAS

You: absolutely not

Nat: you didn’t even hear the actual plan!!

You: if it involves me and hangman, the answer is no

Natasha: it’s just a five hour drive, you can be adults/play nice with each other for five hours

You: when has Hangman ever been an adult about anything

Natasha: fair point

Natasha: but he is also currently texting me saying he’s stranded

Natasha: you know one-way car rentals are stupid expensive

Natasha: and he likes to drive so maybe you could sleep on the way

You: stop being logical

Natasha: i do not want to get a call from the nevada state police when you fall asleep behind the wheel on New Years Eve in the middle of the Mojave

You: good, add a guilt trip to the mix

Natasha: is it working

Me: …

You: it’s working

Natasha: (Ryan Gosling!Ken gif: SUBLIME!)

You: lol

You: ugh okay text me his number

Natasha: can’t believe that after 8 months stationed at the same base you don’t have his number

Natasha: mkay just sent

Natasha: you have to promise not to kill each other

Three hours later, you were really glad you hadn’t made any promises to Nat that you couldn’t keep.

Because not only had Jake insisted on renting a truck (“I need the legroom!”), and that you didn’t need to stop in Barstow for gas (“trust me, sugar, I’m an Eagle Scout–I know we can make it to east LA”), the gas-guzzling monstrosity had fizzled out somewhere between exits along the 15.

Now the hood was smoking, there was no way you were getting your security deposit back, and you were just as stranded as you’d been when you first texted Natasha from the airport.

Only now you were in the middle of the desert, and your phone was almost dead.

Four hours later, you had walked three miles back to the last exit and were checking into a truly shady motel, straight up refusing to talk to Jake because somehow, incomprehensibly, the only room available was one with one (1) king bed.

Four and a half hours later, you were dripping wet, trying not to shiver because the shower you took to warm yourself up had backfired, since the motel towels were basically handkerchiefs and your wet skin made the room seem extra cold. You hadn’t wanted to wear your airport clothes to bed, but since your luggage was already in San Diego, that left you with just a cropped tee and boyshorts.

“You okay in there?”

You glared at your reflection in the foggy mirror, since Jake was on the other side of the door.

The audacity of him.

When you’d first met Jake “Hangman” Seresin, you’d been determined to endear yourself to him.

He was a couple years older than you, and pretty close to infamous after that stunt he pulled in eastern Europe a few years ago. He was ruthless and reckless and good enough to get away with both, and you’d hoped that if you befriended him, he could teach you a thing or two during your own time at Top Gun.

And he was ridiculously beautiful, which maybe – maybe – had your admiration veering slightly into crush territory. But you’d locked that down, determined to view him platonically, and not let that get in the way of any instruction he could give.

Of course, the first words out of his mouth had been “Honey, you gotta know there’s easier ways to get your MRS degree than to become a naval aviator.”

Your crush and respect had evaporated on the North Island breeze, and it’d been downhill from there.

You had no idea why, but he had been openly antagonistic at any given moment since then — doubting your competence but disguising it as care for your safety, and tagging a misogynistic “sweetheart” at the end of every condescending sentence. You’d ignored him as much as you could, hoping he’d get that he wasn’t in Dallas anymore, and that shit didn’t fly with you, but that had only egged him on.

But now you were exhausted, cold, stranded in the middle of the desert, and practically naked to boot, and he had the gall to act like he cared if you lived or died.

“I’m fine, Hangman,” you said, swinging open the bathroom door and beelining for the bed, hoping you could get to it fast enough that Jake wouldn’t make a comment.

Or before your tits froze off, at least.

You didn’t look over at him as you dove under the covers, trying your hardest not to think about the last time these sheets had been washed, much less bleached.

Of course, the comforter was tucked into the foot of the bed, and you wrestled with it for a few moments before giving up, and hauling the topsheet up over your body. It was paper thin, but it was a semblance of covering, and you lay stock-still, closing your eyes and hoping sleep would magically deliver you away from this situation.

A moment later, the bathroom door opened and shut again.

You could hear the sounds of Jake brushing his teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste you had bought from the “concierge” in the lobby (a relic of a man who looked like he did Civil War reenactments for fun, and seemed highly amused by your outrage at the available accommodations).

You would’ve passed the time on your phone, but the last of your battery had given up the ghost while you were in the shower.

A minute or two passed, and the bathroom door opened and closed. From behind your closed eyelids, you could hear Jake shuffle over to the lightswitch, and then he stopped.

You waited.

He didn’t move.

“What do you need, Seresin?” you asked, tersely.

“Are you cold?”

Your eyes popped open, wincing at the brightness of the lights, still overhead. A quick glance down at your body made your skin heat – your tee was skin tight, and the thin topsheet did little to cover you; you crossed your arms over your chest, hiding your pebbled nipples, continuing to stare at the ceiling and avoid eye contact with Jake.

“You could turn off the lights,” you muttered.

Technically, the cold wasn’t his fault.

But it was his stubbornness that got you here, so that had to count for something.

“I was just asking–” Jake started, and you interrupted him.

“It’s the desert in December,” you snapped, “yet, for some reason, this motel has the AC on; of course I’m cold.”

As if on cue, the machine in the windowsill rumbled to life.

You closed your eyes. “Please, just turn off the light.”

The light switch flicked off, and if it were anyone else, you’d have appreciated the immediacy of the response.

But it was Jake, and he didn’t merit any kind of gratitude, so you didn’t say ‘thank you’.

Silence stretched.

You heard a rustling, and a moment later, you felt something land on your upper body. You flinched, pulling the material away from you on instinct, and identifying it by touch as Jake’s sweatshirt.

You opened your eyes, peering through the shadows of the room. The curtains were thin (you were sensing a theme here), letting in lights from outdoors, and you found Jake still standing by the door. He was digging through his backpack, clad in a white tank and boxer shorts, apparently also not wanting to wear airport clothes to sleep, but that didn’t explain why he had chucked his sweatshirt at you.

“What is this?” you asked.

He looked up, shrugged slightly, and went back to rifling through his bag. “I run warm.”

You pursed your lips. “Jake, I–”

“I had a jacket on over it at the airport, okay? Promise, it’s not dirty.”

That hadn’t been what you were going to ask, but you paused all the same.

“Can I have a pillow?” His question interrupted your recollection, and you frowned in his direction.

You were clearly on half of the bed, Jake could see which pillows were for him to use. Did he expect you not to have one?

You pointed to the pillow you weren’t using, confused, and he laughed quietly.

It wasn’t a sound you heard much from him.

Normally Jake laughed like he was proud of himself, reclining in the golden light of the world around him, blessing you all with his presence. This was a different sound, less pretentious, somehow warmer.

“Yes, I can see it,” he said, his voice still amused. “But I need it over here, for the couch.”

You blinked.

The couch was maybe three feet long, an atrociously patterned aberration that you’d tossed your carryon onto, and not looked twice at. Jake didn’t explain anything further, but there were still only two pillows on the bed, and you couldn’t understand why he seemed to think you didn’t need more context for why he wanted to decorate the couch with one of them.

“Why?” you asked.

Again, that quiet chuckle.

“Because, sweetheart,” he said, and you bristled on instinct, “that’s where I’m sleeping.”

You couldn’t have heard that right.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch,” you said.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch,” Jake said, stubbornly.

“That was never up for debate,” you snorted. “Jake, we’re adults. We can share the bed. You’re not going to fit on the couch.”

“I’m an Eagle Scout,” he grumbled. “I can sleep anywhere.”

“Yes, loyal, brave, clean, etc, I’m sure,” you said. “But I’m not sure how helpful you’re going to be tomorrow, when you can’t drive that monstrosity of a truck due to your back spasming from being rolled up on that couch all night.”

You watched through the shadows as Jake stubbornly tried to wedge himself sideways on the couch. Sure enough, his knees were practically bent up to his navel, and even through the darkness, you could see the furrow in his brow.

“You could drive it,” he said, too obstinate to accept defeat.

“I will not,” you returned, “drive a vehicle that ostentatious.”

“Says the pilot,” he grumbled.

“Naval aviator,” you shot back. “Jake, it’s an enormous bed. Get over yourself, get into it, and the sooner you settle, the sooner it’ll be morning, and we can leave.”

He deliberated, the mulish man.

But eventually he pushed himself off the couch, clambering across the room. The bed dipped as he slid into it, and reached down for the comforter, still wedged into the bottom of the bed. You tried not to be annoyed when he yanked it free easily. It was probably just momentum, or that you’d loosened it up for him. While he was rearranging the comforter, you pulled the sweatshirt over your head, and tried to be calm about the situation.

His sweatshirt was somehow still warm.

It smelled amazing, like cedar and fancy cologne.

And also sweat, which you tried damn hard to ignore.

It was cozy, and you snuggled into it, and a moment later, Jake settled. Thankfully, the bed was big enough that you didn’t have to touch each other, but that didn’t mean you could ignore that he was there.

In bed.

With you.

You snorted, thinking how much of a dream this would’ve been to you eight months ago, before you met Jake, and he dashed your crush to pieces.

“What?” Jake grumbled, and maybe it was the proximity, or maybe exhaustion from the day was setting in, because his voice sounded almost gentle.

“Nothing,” you shook your head. “G’night.”

“Night,” Jake said.

You rolled onto your side, pulling your feet up under you, and folding your hands under your face, so you didn’t have to touch your skin to the pillow. Of course, that brought the sleeve of the sweatshirt to just under your face, and you were surrounded by the delicious smell of it again.

It distracted you for a moment.

Just a moment.

Then you had to acknowledge that, even with the sweatshirt and the newly-added comforter, your wet hair was no match for the chill of the room. Your legs felt exposed and the sheets felt like they were damp and wet, and you tried your best to ignore it, but soon you were shivering.

You tried to be still, you did.

But when you heard the bed shift as Jake turned towards you, you winced into the darkness, unsurprised.

“Sweetheart…” he started, and you shook your head, refusing to look back over at him.

“I’ll be fine, I just need to fall asleep.”

Jake let that statement hang for a moment, just long enough for your shivering to start up again. He cleared his throat.

“Um,” he said, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think he sounded nervous, “I meant what I said earlier. About running warm.”

This time, you did turn over, trying to read his expression in the shadowy darkness. He looked…open. Like he really was altruistically suggesting sharing body warmth, nothing malicious and none of his normal teasing.

You were suspicious, but not enough so that you could ignore that it was a better idea than freezing yourself to sleep.

“You sure?” you asked, and Jake grunted, which you figured was as good a response as any. Actually, it was pretty damn good, because if he sounded eager, you’d be creeped out, and if he was uncertain, you’d feel guilty. But being matter-of-fact about it gave you the courage to scoot across the bed.

“How do we do this?” you asked, and Jake reached for you. It was an easy movement, natural, enough so that it surprised you when he hesitated before touching you.

“Can I…?” he trailed off.

“Sure,” you shrugged, hoping you sounded half as unaffected as he did. This was fine, this was normal. Just a guy who was SO obnoxious that it made you forget how hot he was, suddenly not being obnoxious, and basically punching you in the face with his hotness.

His hand settled on the small of your back and damn it, he was warm. His touch was soft, gentle, almost nervous, and he pulled you closer to him. You realized you’d expected him to turn you over, press your back to his front so that you’d be spooned, but instead he just wrapped you in his arms. He reached around you to tuck the comforter between you and the mattress, insulating you with his warmth.

Your head was in his chest, and with his arms bracketed around you, your breath heated up the space between his tank and your face. He’d even managed to slot his arm under your head, so your face still wasn’t on the pillow.

Cuddling with someone new was usually awkward, a tangle of limbs and expectations, but with Jake, it wasn’t. It was…damn it. It was pretty close to perfect.

“Good?” he asked, and he sounded different, with your cheek on his bicep, and your nose practically pressed against his chest. It was like you could feel his voice, rumbling around you, somehow more comforting for the proximity.

You nodded, not wanting to hear anything new on your voice if you tried to respond.

Jake hummed.

A moment later, you realized his thumb was moving. Nothing major, just a small movement between your shoulder blades, a reassuring stroke. It was a comforting motion, gentle, and it wasn’t long before his warmth and his touch lulled you into a sweet sleep.

You startled awake to the sound of guns.

Not guns, fireworks.

Damn it, it was New Year’s Eve; how had you forgotten?

Jake stirred too, a deep breath expanding his chest, and leading you to realize his head was resting on top of yours, his chin tucked on top of the crown on your head.

“Is that–” he mumbled and how dare he, honestly, how very dare he, because he sounded great. Fuck him, for that, frankly.

The situation washed over you, half asleep and fully cognizant of how random it was. You didn’t mean to start, but soon you were laughing, your shoulders shaking.

“You okay?” Jake asked, a thread of concern in his voice, and that didn’t help any.

“Just the universe’s sense of humor,” you said.

You didn’t know how, but you knew he was confused and you should’ve been worried about how you knew that, how you weren’t cold at all, how if you looked up, you’d know what a sleep-mussed Jake Seresin looked like, but all you could think was that this was so, so stupid.

You took a long breath, starting to explain.

“I just can’t believe this is how I’m starting the next year of my life,” you laughed. “Like, I’m fine, right? I’m doing alright on a career path I love, I call San Diego home, I have great friends and I’m doing as good with my family as anyone could be. And where am I on New Year’s? Stranded in a motel off an exit that’s literally not even town, cold enough that a guy who hates me is cuddling me so I can be still enough for him to go to sleep, with a dead phone so none of my friends or family can wish me a happy new year, and I–”

“Wait,” Jake pulled back, and you frowned at the interruption, “why do you think I hate you?”

You stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jake said, having the gall to look confused.

“Jake,” you said, disbelieving. “You’re literally constantly a jackass to me. You’re constantly undermining me, doubting or heckling. You throw in a – frankly overwhelming – amount of southern charm and expect that to distract from the fact that you’re being outrageously patronizing and—”

Jake kissed you.

You weren’t expecting it, and it was so sudden that it thoroughly cut off your train of thought. All you could do was comprehend fleeting sensations and emotions. Jake’s lips were soft, the pressure of them light and teasing against yours. His arms tightened around you, like he was steadying both of you. In the same way you’d sensed his confusion, now you sensed his apprehension, and an unfamiliar determination.

Just as quickly, he pulled back.

“I don’t–” his voice was rough, and he cleared his throat. “Christ, I don’t hate you.”

You licked your lips, annoyed that they had the audacity to tingle in response to him.

You wanted to ask what the hell that was.

You wanted to ask why he was looking at you like that.

You wanted to ask what that expression meant but more than anything, you wanted him to kiss you again.

Your arms were curled up between the two of you, and it took so little effort to curl your fingers in the front of his tank and pull him to you. His mouth was on yours a breath later, and his hand was on your jaw, angling your face so he could kiss you properly.

Of course he was a good kisser.

Fucking of course he was, he had to be, but it was one thing to know it in an agnostic kind of way, and another to feel his lips pressing into yours. You shivered when his tongue swept over your bottom lip and when you mirrored the motion, something in his chest rumbled, and Jake parted his lips for you.

He tasted faintly of toothpaste, and he had some kind of chapstick on his lips that was sweet, and you couldn’t get enough of him. His arms were still around you and he was so warm, so broad, and you couldn’t help but press yourself against him. When your arms wound around his neck, Jake broke away from you. You could feel his chest rising and falling quickly, and his hands fell from your back to your waist, as if holding you in place. He turned his head slightly, kissing lazily at the corner of your mouth, down your cheek, to your jawline.

“That’s not how I wanted to tell you,” he murmured against your skin, and this time when you shivered, you knew it wasn’t from the cold.

“You still haven’t told me,” you managed, eyelashes fluttering at the teasing brush of his lips, while you tried to look at him.

To your astonishment and delight, Hangman blushed.

Sheepish wasn’t an expression you were used to on him, not unlike bashful, but you thought it suited him. He looked like he was gearing up to say something and, curious though you were, you didn’t want to get into that right now. It was late, you were still exhausted, and just a few moments ago, you’d thought he hated you.

If his expression now was any indication, you and Jake had very different conceptions of flirting.

“Look,” you said, before he could say whatever he was hyping himself up to say, “this is probably a lot more complicated than either of us were prepared for. So, it’s the New Year…we could start it how we want the year to go.”

Jake’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he smiled softly, a sweet expression on his face. He turned his head to kiss the palm of the hand you had looped around his neck.

“Cuddling,” he said, at the same time you announced,

“Orgasms.”

You would never forget the expression on his face.

Sweetness morphed into amazement, and then quickly into hunger.

“I can pivot,” he said quickly, and you lifted your chin.

“You sure?” you teased, “Don’t want to strongarm you into–”

Your sentence ended with a squeal when Jake turned quickly, flopping onto his back, and pulling you on top of him. Your knee was between his thighs and you couldn’t hold back your grin as you looked down at him. Just like with this kiss, he was letting you lead, but being so clear about what he wanted.

And who were you, to decline?

Kissing him from on top of him felt different, felt amazing.

You could appreciate how sturdy he was, and when you relaxed slightly, you found yourself straddling his thigh. You’d been a part of plenty of dogfight football scrimmages, and Jake was never one for longer board shorts; you knew exactly how strong his thighs were. But it was one thing to see them on display, and quite another to feel them flexing between your legs.

One of Jake’s hands was inching under his sweatshirt that you wore, warm fingers spreading across your stomach as you moved over him.

God, he felt so good, so few layers between his skin and your core, and the pressure of his thigh between your legs was so good. You kissed him again, tongues tangling and teeth clashing, as you ground against his leg.

When you moved, you felt the hem of his boxers slide against your leg, and sue a girl, you were curious. You shifted slightly, moving your thigh higher, and when you rocked your hips, your thigh brushed against his cock.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Jake gritted as you moved against him, and you thought maybe you didn’t mind the petname, when he sounded like that.

You braced yourself on the pillow behind him and moved again.

It shouldn’t be this hot.

But it was, he was, and you felt pleasure spooling through you, just from his leg between yours, and his gentle touch against your skin. How he reacted to you, how he moved under you, it was so good, like a promise.

“Not gonna lie,” Jake said, his voice still rough, “I really like you in my sweatshirt.”

Your mouth fell open when he pushed his hips up to meet you.

You both stifled a gasp at the motion, the sensation with so few layers between the two of you. Jake’s hands crept higher under your sweatshirt, almost tentative, and you leaned into his touch, encouraging. His hands cupped your breasts, and your head dipped to the side in relief. He made a sound of satisfaction, just enjoying their weight in his hand, then his wrists moved so his thumbs could brush over your nipples. He rolled them, and you felt it in your core, your thighs clenching.

“Love you in my sweatshirt,” Jake repeated, sounding dazed, “but I wanna to see you without it.”

You leaned back immediately, pulling the sweatshirt over your head.

You missed the warmth of it immediately, but Jake’s gaze was worth it. His expression bordered on reverence, and he actually licked his lips, looking up at you. You wiggled on his thigh, heat pulsing, needing something from him, your skin prickling under his gaze.

Jake frowned, the lust in his eyes overtaken by concern. “Too cold?”

You certainly weren’t toasty, but you couldn’t say you cared.

“I would’ve thought you’d have a solution to keep me warm,” you teased, and Jake seemed to accept the challenge.

The hands that had been on your breasts dropped to the back of your thighs, and a moment later he had pushed you back. You were on your back, feet in the air, and Jake turned you gently on the bed so you were resting on the pillows again. You settled in, expecting him to lower himself between your thighs, and were surprised when instead he reached back for the comforter.

Maybe you had misunderstood, he didn’t actually want…

He pulled the comforter over his head, over your shoulders, and you blinked disbelieving at a Jake-shaped figure under the blanket, moving to the base of the bed, between your legs.

You were fairly confident, but that was a lot to ask from someone on a first date, and this wasn’t even that, and you ducked under the comforter as well.

“Jake, you don’t have to–” you protested, realizing belatedly that there was nowhere near enough light to be able to make meaningful eye contact.

“You said orgasms, right?” Jake said, his voice full of a familiar smugness.

If he was offering, you were beyond okay with this.

“Right,” you said weakly.

His hands trailed up your thigh, his warm touch light, and his fingers closed over the band over your boyshorts. You nodded, a sound he heard because your head rubbed against the comforter.

He kissed your thigh.

It was a feather light touch, a brush of his mouth against the sensitive skin, but it was so gentle that it reassured you. He kissed your other thigh, then higher, and one of his hands felt up to your stomach, and he pushed, an unsubtle prompt. You lay back against the mattress, nerves and desire warring within you as Jake kissed higher.

You felt a brush of his tongue when he reached the edge of your underwear and your breath caught.

“Plural?” Jake asked, and it took you a minute to understand his question.

His fingers pulled at the edge of your boyshorts, peeling them slowly down, his mouth pressing gentle kisses as he revealed more of your body. He was exploring by touch what he couldn’t see, so slow and perfect it was overwhelming.

“There’s two of us,” you managed, back to his question. “Hence plural.”

Jake laughed, a soft exhale against your skin. He’d bared you to him, and you shifted, like you were seeking his touch.

“I know this is new for us, sweetheart,” he mumbled, a kiss to your hipbone, then the opposite, “but that’s not how this is going to work.”

You bit your lip, nervous again.

You were new to this with him, and some guys thought oral sex was some kind of prerequisite – check the box, half ass it for thirty seconds, guarantee she’ll let you hit it – but something told you Jake would be different.

You were panting, anticipation making you breathless.

You whispered his name and it was like he was waiting for permission, because he leaned into you. His first kiss against your pussy was gentle, just as sweet as those kisses he’d trailed up your thighs. It was so sweet it made you squirm, and Jake chuckled, a sound you felt as his breath ghosted over you. He pulled back long enough to draw an audible breath, then his tongue licked over the whole of your cunt, a long, torturous swipe that had you trembling.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he said, muffled, and your hips bucked. “You’re already wet for me.”

You reached under the comforter, your hands tangling in his hair and Jake hummed his approval before following your prompting back to your pussy. He lapped at you, learning you, and when he trailed up to circle your clit with it, you couldn’t stop the cry that escaped you.

“That right, honey?” he asked, sounding smug, and he circled your clit with his tongue. You felt a hand slip from your hip to your entrance, rubbing over you as his tongue played with your clit. He kissed you, teased you, and when he pushed a thick finger into you while his lips closed over your clit, you moaned.

“Feels so good, Jake,” you cried, and you felt him shudder at your voice.

You heard it too, how wrecked you sounded, and it was his fault. Your hips were pushing up into him, chasing the suction of his mouth, the pull of his fingers. He was only a knuckle or so into you, but his finger was so wide, thicker than your own, and you moaned at the unfamiliar intrusion.

It was Jake between your legs, Jake’s wicked smile, sharp tongue, capable hands, Jake who was working you with his fingers and mouth. He felt so good, and your body felt like it was humming to a frequency he set.

You trembled as he sheathed a finger in you, you moaned when he sucked your clit, and when his teeth brushed over your clit, the pleasure coursing through you snapped. Your fingers in his hair tightened, and Jake groaned when you pressed your pussy harder against his face. He groaned like he wanted it, like he craved that reaction, and you came hard.

He coaxed you through it, gentle and steady as he’d been so far, and as you came down, you pulled slightly at his hair.

“Jake, that was–” you gasped, and you felt him laugh again.

“Honey, what part of ‘plural’ is so hard for you to understand?” he asked.

And he pushed another finger into you.

Your back bowed off the mattress; you were so sensitive and it made everything Jake did to you feel so much more.

His mouth traveled down to where his fingers were pressing into you, and he curled them into you. You heard an obscene slurping sound, and your eyes rolled back as you realized he was pulling your release out of you, tasting it from his own fingers.

“Like honey from a honeycomb,” Jake mumbled, his voice thick, and you whimpered at how he sounded.

A moment later, his lips closed over your clit again, and your head thrashed against the pillow.

“Jake, I just–” you panted, but he sucked again and you broke off on a moan. “I can’t, I just – fuck, give me a second– oh, that feels so good.”

Jake either didn’t hear you or he wasn’t listening.

He was following your body, the way your hips were pushing up into him, the way your cunt was clenching down on his fingers, and it was like he was drunk on the taste of you. He suckled on your clit, his tongue laving over you, stoking you higher again. He felt so good, and you were sure you were telling him, but you were fast losing confidence in your ability to form words.

You lost track of time, there was just pleasure, and the heat from Jake, and the way he was working your body.

“You gonna come for me again?” Jake coaxed, pulling back to blow a long stream of cool air over your clit. You flinched, you writhed, you would do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn’t stop. “I think you can do it, honey, it was so pretty the first time. This pussy is so good, doing such a beautiful job coming for me, tasting delicious and I bet you can do it again…”

Your legs felt limp as he licked over you again, tasting where his fingers fed into you, pumping them and pulling pleasure out of you. His tongue flicked over your clit, a maddening pattern, and when his lips closed, he sucked hard. It was so strong, so unreal, and you shook as you came again.

“Ah, there it is…That’s so good, sweetheart,” Jake soothed, and you weren’t sure if he was talking to you or your pussy, and you certainly didn’t know which was hotter.

He continued to stroke inside of you, his thick fingers pulling you through your orgasm, keeping you grounded, keeping your pleasure coming.

You weren’t cold anymore.

In fact, you were burning up, and Jake didn’t seem like he wanted to stop. The moment he felt coherency return to your posture, he dove back in. You genuinely didn’t think you could stand another orgasm from his mouth, and you let go of his hair – he wasn’t listening to you anyways – and flipped back the comforter.

God damn, he was so hot.

He looked up from between your thighs, the lower half of his face smeared with your arousal, and he fucking licked his lips, before smiling up at you. His hair was in complete disarray, and you could tell his whole upper body was flushed from overheating, and he looked so smug, so proud, and he had every right to be.

“C’mere,” you asked, and it was enough.

Grinning, Jake crawled up the bed, caging you with his arms again.

He hesitated, unsure what you were okay with, but you kissed him hungrily. You could taste yourself on his lips, on his tongue, and you felt a sort of possessive pride that it’d chased away the cloying sweetness of his chapstick.

Right now, Jake tasted like yours, and you were obsessed.

When he realized he could, Jake returned the kiss with enthusiasm, his tongue sweeping into your mouth.

Your hands smoothed over his back, curling in the hem of his tank and pulling it over his shoulders. Jake wouldn’t separate from your lips to let you pull it over his head and you giggled as he kissed you through it, like an infinity scarf. You felt up his back, hands delighting in the contours of muscles that you’d only admired from a distance, before you caught yourself.

He was so strong.

Warm and toned and big, intoxicating to think of him over you. Finally, he ducked his head to chuck off the shirt, and the motion lowered his hips to yours. You both groaned at the brush of his cock between your thighs, and then Jake was kissing you with fresh urgency. You hadn’t seen him yet, though he’d had his face in your pussy, and you reached between the two of you.

You felt him over his boxers, and Jake broke off the kiss at your touch, his head dropping to your shoulder. It was like he couldn’t contain himself, and his hips pushed into your touch. You explored the shape of him through the thin cotton, your own hips rocking into him on instinct.

Fuck, he felt big.

You felt a small bit of wetness near the fat head of him, and you moaned as your thumb rolled over the leaking precum, rubbing his sensitive head.

“I have a – shit,” Jake broke off, his hips rutting into your touch, and your head fell back. “I have a condom in my wallet.”

“Of course you do,” you teased, and it would’ve been more effective if you didn’t sound so needy about it.

You turned your head to press a kiss to his cheek, then scooted out of the bed.

The room felt freezing outside of the bed, but it was refreshing, as you darted over to his backpack. You found his wallet, and the condom inside it, and when you got back to the bed, Jake had only moved to push himself up. He was kneeling in the middle of the bed, and he shifted as he pulled off his boxers.

“Holy shit, Seresin,” you whispered, not even caring that your voice sounded reverent.

His cock was beautiful, thick between his thighs, bouncing parallel to the bed. Jake gripped the base of it loosely, like he had to do something while he watched you watching him, and you crawled back to the bed, still staring, kneeling so your knees almost touched his.

“Can I?” you asked, holding up the condom. “Please, sweetheart,” Jake said, his voice so gruff and gorgeous. You licked your lips and ripped the foil, but hesitated before you pulled it out.

“I’m clean,” you told him, sitting back on your thighs. “Um, we should still use this, but I just wanted you to know.”

Jake caught your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your head up to him. He kissed you quickly, short and sweet, and there was something unexpected in his eyes when he pulled back.

“Me too, sugar,” he said, his voice deep. “Thank you.”

You couldn't be sure what he was thanking you for, but you felt like you should be thanking him. For making sure you felt good, for thinking of a condom, for making you feel so cared for. So you tilted your head, reached between you to where he was loosely fisting himself, and replaced his hand with yours.

You pulled your hand loosely over him, obsessed with the warm feel of him, how thick he was in your hand, how heavy. Jake’s hands hovered like he wasn’t sure where you put them, and they settled on your upper arms, like he needed you to keep his balance.

It didn’t stop you from leaning down and guiding his tip towards your mouth.

Jake groaned, a beautiful, strangled sound, and it was lost to you when you first tasted him.

This wasn’t the proper angle for a proper blow job, and you wanted to feel him, but you were curious, and your tongue lapped at him. His skin was scalding hot, and a pearl of precum beaded at the end of his cock, like an invitation. You licked it into your mouth, moaning at the salty, rich taste of him.

Jake’s hand fell to the back of your head, not pushing, but like he needed to steady himself. You licked over him, acquainting yourself with him, learning the veins and sensitive spots, knowing you’d want to come back to them later. Too soon, Jake’s hand tightened in your hair.

You looked up at him, hoping he’d like the picture of you from this angle. His jaw clenched and his eyes fluttered shut, if that was any indication.

“Need to be inside you,” he ground out, and opened his eyes. “That mouth is so sweet, honey, gonna make this be over too soon. I want to feel that pussy.”

God, you wanted that too.

You pushed yourself back up, pulled the condom out, and rolled it over his thick length. His thighs were shaking, you noticed, and it filled you with something like tenderness. That he’d get you there twice, then let you play with him, then say “please”, like fucking you was a privilege.

When your hand reached the base of his dick, condom secured, he surged forward to kiss you. You swayed on the bed, kneeling in the middle of it, his hands cupping your face, yours on his waist. Both pulling, both needing to be closer, and when Jake lowered you back down, you followed his prompting eagerly.

He settled you back against the pillows, back how you’d been when he’d driven you to the stars with his tongue, but this time his handsome face was right over you. When he settled over you, you closed your eyes against the intensity of the moment. You were both fully naked, and it felt so heavenly to have so much of his skin pressed against yours. He was warm, strong, all around you, and you needed him in you too.

You spread your legs, letting him rest deeper between your thighs, and whimpering when his hot cock brushed against your stomach, then down.

“Don’t know how slow I can take this,” Jake said, like he expected you to have a problem with that.

“I want to feel you,” you told him, honestly. “Please.”

Jake kissed you again, pulling back to press his forehead to yours as he guided his dick between your thighs.

You’d had two orgasms.

You’d had his fingers and his tongue loosen you, you were plenty lubricated, but when Jake’s cock pressed against your entrance, you realized it hadn’t been enough.

“Holy shit, Jake,” you gasped, as his fat head pressed against your pussy, waiting for resistance to melt.

“Relax, baby,” he whispered hoarsely, “you can do it…You’re doing so good, just a little bit of give, come on…”

You whimpered at the new endearment, but there was no way. You felt needy, cloying. You could fit him, you knew it, but it felt—there.

He eased in, just a breath, and you felt like sobbing. It was so good, so overwhelming, so fucking tight, and you needed the rest of him.

“Jesus, honey, you’re so tight,” Jake said, he sounded choked, and you loved it.

“More,” you whimpered. “Please, Jake, want to feel you…you’re so big, I need more, please, please.”

“Honey, you can’t say things like that–” Jake gritted, your words driving his hips forward.

You could tell he was trying to go slow, but the feeling of him forcing his cock into you had your legs shaking. You wanted it, needed it, and if begging was the way to get it, begging you could do.

“Want to feel your thick cock, Jake,” you whispered, and he shivered. He was bracing himself against the headboard, and you could feel his arms shaking as he fought to keep from driving into you. “You feel so good, need to feel you so deep…want to come on your cock, please, Jake…come on and fuck me.”

He groaned like he was in pain, as he pressed deeper into you.

He was trying to go slow, trying to be gentle, but you wanted to be mindless, you wanted your whole being centered around the deep push of his cock. You wiggled your hips, and sighed as he sunk deeper.

“Thank you,” you breathed, and his hips punched forward again.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered, and you would’ve laughed, but you were too overwhelmed.

This was what you wanted, this was what you knew he could give you. Your hands dropped from his shoulders to your breasts, squeezing and massaging your breasts as he sank into you. You turned your head to look up at him, and found him staring, slack jawed, down at you in awe.

“You make me feel so good,” you coaxed him. “Please, Jake…fuck me.”

Jake growled, a sound that came from deep in his chest, and his hand fell between you to brush over your clit.

You jolted at his touch, your hips opening impossibly wider, and a hotter, stronger arousal racing through you than the steady, heavy press of him. Your hips bucked up, and you tweaked your nipples, working yourself up onto his cock rather than pressing him into you. It took a couple more burning minutes, and you were both coated in sweat by the time he was seated in you.

“Baby…” Jake breathed, his voice a dream and you had to resist the urge to purr. He was so warm, all around you, inside you, it felt like he was grounding you.

Then he moved.

His first pump had your back arching, your knees jolting up, your eyes flying open. Fuck, how did he reach that part of you, how was there room, how were you–

Jake laughed, a deep, dark sound.

“That's what you wanted, sweetheart?” he asked, and he moved again. You cried out, overwhelmed, perfect.

“This what you were begging for?” Jake grunted, between strokes, “This what you were asking so prettily for, and now you have me, and what’s that, baby, can’t find your words? What’s wrong?”

Nothing was wrong, not a damn thing, but you couldn’t summon the wherewithal to tell him. All you felt was pleasure, pounding and sweeping, full and as good as eternal.

“This pussy is so fucking tight, sweetheart,” Jake swore, his head lowering to kiss down your neck. He sucked at the skin there savagely, needing a distraction, and you clenched around him, when his lips closed over your pulse point. “Pulling me in, so tight and warm. You look so good around my cock, honey, you wouldn’t believe… Like a dream, like a fucking wet dream, but you’re here, stretched around me, taking me so good…”

You moaned as he found a rhythm.

The headboard was banging against the wall with the strength of his thrusts, and he pounded into you. There was so much he hadn’t said, so much he couldn’t say, but he pushed it into your body, swore it to you. He soothed it over your clit with his thumb, he promised it with his thick, heavy cock inside of you, and you felt yourself falling into it.

“Please, Jake,” you managed, begging again. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything other than take the harsh fucking he was giving you, and craving it, needing it.

“What’d’ya need, honey,” Jake groaned. “You have me here, so fucking deep, never felt this good, this right—what do you need, baby, tell me, whatever you need.”

Had the room been dark? Surely it’d always been bright light, sparking, blinding.

Pleasure was rolling over you, suffocating, live-giving and you shook your head, moaning with every thrust of Jake’s hips. The only words you could manage were his name, and please, and it seemed to spur Jake on further. His thumb pressed hard into your clit as his hips sped up, and you felt the wave inside you cresting.

“You’re close, honey, I can feel it, can feel how hard this cunt wants to come. Are you gonna do it, baby? Milk this cock, make it even tighter around me, want to feel that, need to feel your pussy twitching around me, sugar, please come…”

Your orgasm shattered over you, blinding and perfect. Your throat felt hoarse from your moans, or your breathlessness, but everything heightened. You felt like you were breathing with Jake, felt every hitch and gasp and shudder as he coaxed you through it. You felt like you were suspended in space, like the only thing there was was Jake’s arms around you and his cock within you and you needed, you needed, him to come.

“Come in me, baby,” you whispered, your voice watery. “Need to feel you, want to feel how you’d fuck me to fill me, please, Jake, it’ll feel so good.”

“Fuck,” Jake shouted hoarsely, his hips thrusting harshly into you. “Oh, sweetheart, you feel too good, you’re so tight around me… I need to come, need to feel– fuck –”

You could feel his thighs shaking, his back tensing, and you turned your head to kiss him as he came. He moaned into your mouth, his whole body jerking as he emptied into the condom. You felt how strong he came, felt how thoroughly it worked through him, and it filled you with pride and satisfaction as he collapsed over you.

You knew he meant to push himself to your side, but you didn’t let him go.

You were just as boneless.

You both lay there, a sticky, sweaty, mess, panting. It was like a dream, a daydream crossed with a fantasy. You were warm, comforted, sated, and the room was still cheap, the motel was still sketchy, but you were suddenly quite alright with this start to the year.

tag list: @cheekymcgrath @laracrofted @callsign-fangirl @bradshawsbitch @bradshawsbaby @withahappyrefrain @hangmanssunnies @callsignspark @lewmagoo @mxgyver @sebsxphia @daggerspare-standingby @ryebecca @teacupsandtopgun @hangmanbrainrot @sometimesanalice @wildbornsiren @whoeverineedtobe @clancycucumber230 @javihoney and i think a couple folks have changed their URLS, so please let me know if you still want to be tagged!

#read this if you need to reset your brain #I am 404ing over here #god these two are one of my favorite jake couples #the sweet the smut #tgm fic rec

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buckyownsmylife · 4 years ago

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Replaying - Jake Gyllenhaal/Reader (ft. Tom Holland) smut

The one where you share a night with Jake after Tom admits one of his kinks to you.

Warnings: cuckoldery, reader doesn’t think jake would respect her lack of consent, but she doesn’t actually safeword, so kinda dubcon?, you decide, definitely rough, use of the word whore, forced orgasms at some point, talk of anal

A/N: this is an one-shot depicting what happened between the reader and Jake like she told Tom about in in my fic “Do it”. I’d been meaning to write it ever since that first one came out, but a request gave me the push I needed to actually get this out. I’m very proud of this one.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

My heart was pounding against my chest as I made my way to Jake’s front door, hesitation for a bit before knocking. You’re doing this for Tom, you reminded yourself. He wants this. You’re not doing anything wrong.

And as much as I kept repeating that to myself, those few seconds that took before Jake welcomed me into his home made me second guess everything, from what I was wearing to the strength of my relationship with my boyfriend.

And God, I hated it. I hated it because I loved Tom, with every fiber of my being. I would never cheat on him, and I would never come close to doing anything like this if it weren’t for his admission of his own desires.

But now that it was here, out in the open, and *I was here, naked under Jake’s burning stare, I couldn’t deny that I wanted this. Fuck, I wanted this. And I was terrified of this feeling, terrified of what it could mean for my future with Tom.

I was going to do this, though. There was no doubt about it.

I thought Jake would try to ease me into this, offer me a glass of wine to settle my nerves or whatever, but the second his eyes met mine after they ran over my body, he pounced. “Fuck, I’ve been wanting you for so long.”

I moaned against his mouth as he dragged me through his house, his hands making quick work of my dress before manhandling me over his shoulder. The pure show of strength and animalistic behavior was enough to have me creaming my pants, and he must have noticed, if his chuckle was any indication.

“You’re such a horny little girl, aren’t you, sweetheart? There’s no way Tom knows how to treat you the way that you need to be treated. But that’s alright. I’m here now, and I’m gonna take good care of you.” As soon as he had me on the bed, he was all over me again, sucking bruises and leaving bite marks all over my skin. It was clear that he was the possessive type, and the fact that I was actually Tom’s didn’t really mean anything to him.

Little by little, he sucked a trail of lovebites from my neck, to my stomach, going over my chest, until he reached my underwear, where he finally stopped to look up at me. “I can’t wait to taste this little pussy.” In a second, I was completely nude before his eyes, and he rose to his feet to stare down at me, most likely reveling in the marks he had left me with.

The intensity of his gaze was so powerful that it intimidated me, forcing me to remember just exactly what I was doing, instead of simply losing myself in the moment, like I’d managed to do when I actually had his touch on me. So before I could even realize it, I was covering myself up, crossing my legs so he couldn’t really see the parts of me that he was interested in right now.

I don’t think Jake liked that. He raised an eyebrow, a hand covering the enormous bulge that had me salivating, probably in an effort to get some relief to his hardness, before he threatened, “Be a good girl and spread your legs for me, or you won’t like what I’ll do next. Tom has spoken so highly of you, I don’t think you want to disappoint me.”

I hesitated for a bit, but something in his eyes warned me not to get on his bad side. However, it seemed like I wasn’t quick enough to satisfy his wishes, because he pulled me by ankle to the edge of the bed, before turning me around until my head was hanging off of it.

“Fine. I know you want to be fucked like a whore anyway.” Without any sort of prelude whatsoever, he grabbed my cheeks, burying his fingers in the flesh to force me to pucker my lips, before feeding me his cock with his other hand. “Here, suck on this. I really want to hear you gagging around my cock.”

And that was all the preamble I got before he suffocated me with his dick, cutting off my breathing as he thrusted roughly in and out of my throat, directly. In no time at all, I was a mess of tears and spit, and while I was sure that the image couldn’t be all that attractive, still Jake didn’t seem to mind at all.

Jake’s P.O.V.

I don’t think I’d ever been this hard in my entire life. It meant that I was barely hanging on to my already diminished control, but who could really blame me when I had this fucking woman for me to do as I pleased?

When I finally pulled away to let her catch her breath, she coughed and sputtered desperately, hands trying to hold my hips so I would give her more time to breathe. “Please,” she babbled, voice hoarse and fucked out, immediately provoking a smug smirk to rise on my lips. “Please, be more gentle.”

I had to coo at how cute she was. Holding her hair back so I could run a single finger across her face, I buried it on her lips like I’d done with my cock before leaning over to remind her, “You’re mine tonight, princess. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to you.” And then I pried her lips open, spitting in them before filling her mouth with my cock once more.

“Damn, all those times I thought about bending you over a table and fucking you right in front of your boyfriend, I have to say… I’m not even in your pussy yet and you’re already much better than I imagined.” I thrust in and out of her mouth a couple more times, relishing in the choking and the tears until I could feel my balls threatening to release inside of her warm mouth, and that simply wouldn’t do. The only place I’d be cumming tonight would be inside of her pussy.

So I allowed her some time to recollect as I slowly rounded the bed until I was standing in front of her pussy. “You know, you had a much harder time taking my cock in your mouth than I expected you to. I didn’t take Tom for having such a tiny cock.”

Even if I was exaggerating, I could see by the guilty look on her face that he was significantly smaller than me. It only added up to make me feel even hornier, that much more determined to give her the pounding of a lifetime.

“You did a good job sucking my cock, sweetheart. Now let me see this pussy.” Kneeling in front of my bed, I pulled her by her ankle so her legs were dangling off of it before I positioned her feet on the mattress, spreading her open to me. “Fuck yes. This is a pretty pussy.”

I was almost clinical in my exploration of her hole, starting by slowly running my fingers up and down her lips, making sure to spread her juices all over them before spitting on her cunt and spreading that all over the perfect sight.

“Hmm, yes… You look delicious.” I leaned down to give both me and her a little teasing taste by very quickly running my tongue on her clit, but immediately had to come back for seconds.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“Damn, you’re sweet.” I didn’t know what to do, it was impossible to figure out a way to behave properly while Jake fucking Gyllenhaal was lapping my pussy like it was his last meal on Earth. Every moan that escaped my lips felt like a betrayal to Tom, even though it didn’t make any sense.

“Stop that.” The man that right now seemed more animal than human called my attention with a loud slap over my weeping cunt, breaking the dam with which I had tried to contain my sounds of pleasure. “I want to know just how thoroughly I’m ruining you.”

I’d never make it out of here alive, I thought. At the very least, I knew I wouldn’t leave this bedroom the same woman I’d been once I stepped inside of it, but instead of fear, all I felt was the familiar rising wave of pleasure and the unknown curiosity of knowing more about this new version of me. The one that knew what it felt like to be touched by my boyfriend’s best friend.

A single finger penetrated me, the same systematic approach of exploration was applied as Jake slowly and carefully got to know my insides, looking for what made me tick and what helped him in his task to destroy me. When I clenched around his digit, I felt his grin against my pussy, his smugness at having found that sweet spot that was once only reserved for Tom and Tom only.

“Wanna see you cum now, pretty baby,” he teased, the vibrations of his words only adding to the efficacy of his plan. “Cum all over my fingers, angel. Want to see you breaking apart for me.”

The use of such sweet nicknames when I already knew he was nothing but a rough lover only added to the fire that had been lit in the pit of my stomach. The feeling of being powerless, abandoned in the hands of a man who didn’t seem to know mercy was what brought me to my first orgasm of the night. Flashbacks to just how out of breath I’d been only minutes before, the panic when I realized he wouldn’t pull back. For a moment, I honestly didn’t know if he would respect my use of the safeword he and Tom had agreed upon beforehand, and that was the thought that brought me to a messy, relieving release.

“There you go. So sweet and wet, you dirty, dirty girl.” I knew I tried to respond and it only came out in some sort of broken sound, but I didn’t recognize it as a whine until I felt another slap over my pussy, startling me.

“Don’t whine,” he ordered, and I could see that dangerous glint in his eye that electrified to my very core. “Whiny babies get punished, angel. Do you want to be punished?” As much as the very thought of what Jake could have in store for me had my pussy clenching, I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it, at least not tonight, not after the amount of anticipation that I’d built even before I walked into his house.

Jake’s P.O.V.

I smiled as she shook her head emphatically, arms and legs wrapping around my body as she tried to cling to me, stopping me from performing what she thought I intended to do. “No, no, please. I-I need you.”

Shit. Hearing her admit her desire for me had my cock twitching, precum undoubtedly starting to drip from the throbbing head. Still, I had enough control left in me to remember that I needed to prepare her first. I needed her to be ready for me, so I could truly give her the pleasure that she deserved.

“Not yet, sweetheart.” I forced another finger inside of her, groaning to myself at just how tight she felt, wanting to stretch her open with my cock, feel her struggling to take it, but knowing it wouldn’t be right. She hadn’t agreed to be mine, she wasn’t prepared to deal with everything I was as a lover.

“I need to open you up for me, yeah?” I was breathing hard, trying to restrain myself as I watched her pussy swallow my fingers eagerly, releasing more and more of her sweetness to help ease the stretch. “Have to make you cum again, baby. Can you do that for me?”

The sight of her shaking her head had anger rousing inside of me. Here I was struggling to make this easy on her, and she just couldn’t help me on that gradually more and more herculean task.

“Oh, but you are going to do just that. And you’re going to like it, *angel.” Deciding that the best way to get through this torture was to get her to cum quickly, with the added bonus that it would serve as a punishment too, I started to fuck her with my fingers faster and faster, making sure to curve my digits just right so I would hit that particular spot every damn time.

“Yes, see? This is what you get for misbehaving. You’re gonna cum all over my fingers, and you’re gonna pay for each damn time you made me want to have my cock inside this pretty little pussy and had to resort to fuck some other woman instead. “C’mon. You can’t pretend you don’t want to cum and keep moaning like a whore. Cum right now,” I urged her orgasm until I felt it, her channel clenching around my fingers and making me groan again.

I didn’t stop moving them though, instead opting to squeeze a third one, so I could finally have my cock inside of her in only a few seconds. “P-Please,” she started begging, tiny hands circling my wrist in an effort to pry me away from her, and I had to coo at how adorable she was.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. You can handle one more. C’mon. It’ll be so worth it when I finally get my cock inside of you. I’m only doing this to help open you up, baby.” She was sobbing now, pretty body twisting and trying to get away from the pleasure that was clearly becoming too much for her.

Leaning down to cover her body with mine, I nibbled on her jaw before licking her slightly open lips. “Kiss me, Y/N. It’ll help distract you. Kiss me.” I probably didn’t need to repeat it, because as soon as I finished breathing out the words, her lips were on mine, hands losing themselves in my locks in an effort to leave me be inside of her pussy.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

I immersed myself in his kiss, desperate to find something to distract me from the incessant dragging of his fingers against my walls, the squelching sounds of my sopping wetness simultaneously embarrassing and arousing me. Damn him and his sexual appeal. It didn’t take him long at all to have me trembling because of his three fingers, desperate to cum yet again.

“See? I knew you could handle it.” There was a smug smirk on his face that I wanted to wipe, but the only way I could do that now was by kissing him again. I had no idea how he knew my body that well, despite never having touched it again. Not even I believed I was able to cum another time, and still, here I was eager to finally have his member inside of me.

At long last, his fingers came out, being promptly wrapped by his beautiful lips before he looked down at me with that same stupid smirk. “Are you ready, pretty girl?” I could only nod, watching enraptured as he slowly jerked off to the sight of my already ruined body, but I should have known that wouldn’t be enough.

“Say it,” he ordered, knowing fully well exactly how wrecked I was. “Say you want my cock inside of your pretty little pussy.” I stopped a whine just before it managed to erupt from my chest, panting wildly as I stared up at this dark angel that looked so determined to destroy me for anyone else.

“I want you inside of me,” I murmured, instantly knowing it still wouldn’t be enough. He was rubbing the head of his member over my dripping lower lips, and at the sound of my compliance, a slap echoed around the room, leaving my thigh tingling - surely with a hand-shaped bruise behind.

“Louder.” My cunted pulsed with the need to be filled, so much so that it didn’t take any time at all to get me to repeat the same words I’d just uttered, in a louder, much more desperate tone. My reward was immediate. Jake filled me slowly but surely, only stopping once he had completely bottomed out inside of me, and I had to focus on my own breathing or I was sure I’d forget to inhale and exhale as I struggled to accept his cock in my already stretched out hole.

He was right. I would never have been able to take his cock if he hadn’t taken the time to ease me, opening me up with his fingers. The comparison was *right there, it was impossible to ignore. Still, I tried to distract myself, focusing instead on the feeling of Jake’s beard as he nibbled on my jaw, waiting for me to adjust to him.

“So many times you teased me, with those short pretty dresses and cute little smiles, and now I finally have you right here where I want you.” He hid his head on the crook of my neck, just the way Tom usually did, and instinctively, I laced my fingers over some of his locks, just like I usually did with my boyfriend. “You know what, angel? I think I might just keep you.”

I couldn’t really focus on what he was saying, and I knew it wouldn’t do me any good either. There was some comfort in thinking that he only wanted me for my body, that’s what I knew and that’s what I wanted to focus on.

At the first snap of his hips, a whimper escaped my lips, still unable to relax so it wouldn’t hurt. Jake only chuckled, brushing away a few strands of untamed hair that covered my face before kissing my lips briefly. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m gonna fuck the pain away, you’ll see.”

Regardless of the discomfort, I savored each and every thrust of his member inside my walls, holding tightly to his shoulders as I prayed - for what, I had no idea. I wanted this to be over just as much as I wanted to cherish every second of it, if only for the memories I’d get to recount to my boyfriend when it was all over.

Almost as if he was reading my mind, Jake spoke on that moment, “Wouldn’t it be hot if Tom was here to watch me fucking you?” That was a thought my brain could process, and it made me come that much closer to cumming all around Jake’s cock. “I bet you wanted him to be here, so he could see just how good I’m fucking you.”

A particular thrust of his hips had him finally hitting that spot that had me melting underneath him, releasing his shoulder in order to find hold in the tangled sheets of the bed. “God, I can’t believe he’d let you out of his sight for only a second, much less that he let me fuck you.”

His words were only murmurs pressed against my skin, accompanied by licks and bites all over the already bruised skin of my chest, but I heard every single word, questioning just how much kinker this man could get.

“I’d make you beg for my cock right in front of him, baby. I’d make you cry for it while he was watching, make you forget you even belong to him.” There was a pause then, when he finally looked up from my glistening skin, covered in his saliva, to meet my eyes. “I’m gonna do that now.”

That was his warning as he picked up the pace, keeping eye contact that I desperately wanted to break, but found myself unable to. He was like a force field in himself. Magnetic, inescapable. When he said he would ruin my innocence for Tom, I had no doubts about it.

Each thrust of his hips revealed parts of myself I was unaware of before, parts I was unsure I wanted to recognize as being mine, anyway. And in the midst of this tug of war between head and heart, I was growing more desperate to cum with each passing second, suffocated by the weight of Jake’s body on top of me, his muscles locking me under his control.

When it was impossible to hold it in anymore, I expected to be able to bring him down into the depths of pleasure with me, but I should have known better. While I reveled in the aftershocks of yet another orgasm, body laying heavy and without response on the bed, he just groaned and kept fucking me, like he was would never be able to forgive himself if he wasn’t able to keep going.

“Swear to God… I’ve never had a better pussy in my entire life.” The filthiness of his words surprisingly added to the sensations of my own afterglow, making my pussy even wetter - and I knew he could feel it, especially by the growl that escaped his chest. “Yeah, you like knowing that, huh? You like knowing I’ve fucked a shit ton of women and still your pussy is the tightest, wettest, warmest pussy I’ve ever had.”

I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t feel as aroused by him comparing me to other women, or the thought of him with other women, but I did. Maybe it was because he wasn’t mine, and I knew he never would be. I was okay with that - Tom was all I wanted. But knowing that the memories of what we shared would haunt him way after he was thorough with me gave me some spiteful sense of pride, and I just couldn’t deny it.

“What about me, huh? What about my cock? Do you like it? Do you like the way it’s splitting you open, making you cream around me? Tell me, angel. Tell me how good I make you feel.”

Jake’s P.O.V.

I could see that the overstimulation was getting to her now, and she relented, telling me exactly what I longed to hear, probably in need to distract herself from how raw her pussy was feeling now.

“I-It feels s-so good…” I had to bite back a grin at the admission, knowing how much it cost her to let it out, but also aware that she needed to completely let go in order to fully enjoy this the way that she deserved to.

“Are you gonna tell him? How it felt to have my big cock inside of you? Are you gonna think about it while you fuck him?” The thought of Tom had her moaning more loudly, more easily close to letting go of the control she still held so tightly to her chest.

“Come here, sweetheart. I think it’s time you ride me.” I inverted our positions so that she was the one on top now, letting my body rest on the headboard so I could still keep a tight grip on her hips.

I was so fucking close, I craved to reach my high and I knew that she was aware of it. It was clear in the way I couldn’t let her do her job, instead fucking myself up against her, desperate to cum. And the sight of her breasts right in front of me only added to the fire in my lower belly, growls and groans escaping me the more I forced her to quicken her movements.

“I’m going to give you something…” I started right when I felt that delicious sensation taking over my body, spreading through every single part of me. “A gift so you can give to Tom.”

I could see that she was puzzled, but right then my orgasm hit me, making me spill ropes upon ropes of cum into her tight, delicious pussy. Surprisingly, the feeling had her sighing and curling up against me, like she knew that this meant we were through, and she could finally relax.

I chuckled, squeezing her ass as I milked my own orgasm, making sure every single drop was inside of her, before slapping one of the cheeks. “Keep it in,” I ordered, and I knew she was aware of what I was talking about. “He’ll love it. Just like you loved to take me in your pretty little hole. Didn’t you?”

Instead of answering, she just hid her head in the crook of my neck, making me chuckle loudly. How adorable. I’d just fucked her silly, and she still felt embarrassed about something so natural.

In the quiet of night, as I waited for both of our breathing patterns to come back to normal, I absentmindedly traced shapes against her back, thinking about how in a few minutes she’d be out the door and back in her boyfriend’s arms and I would go to sleep alone. Like I always did. And because my mind knew well enough that I wouldn’t handle being vulnerable in front of her, my hand ended up between the cheeks of her ass, right where I hadn’t had the chance to explore.

“Tell me, beautiful,” I broke the silence, kissing her shoulder to relax her when her muscles tensed after I circled her puckered hole. “Did he ever fuck this ass? I bet I could fill this little hole real good, too.”

Y/N’s P.O.V.

Just the thought of having him like that had me clenching around his member again. It wasn’t necessarily a scary thought - I was more afraid of how arousing the mental image got me, especially since I hadn’t had the chance to explore that with Tom just yet.

Before I had the chance to explain there was no way in hell I’d be losing my ass virginity to him, he laughed, slapping my butt lightly again, before clarifying, “Don’t worry, angel. I’m not going to overstep my welcome. Besides, it’d take too much time to get my dick inside of you, I’d never be able to stop myself from cumming too soon.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I opted to just nod before I managed to slowly gather my strength to finally climb down from his lap. I bit my lip to stifle the groan that threatened to erupt from my chest at the feeling of being so empty after being so thoroughly fucked, but the second I was away from him, his hand fell down on my ass once more, his face taken by a boyish grin when I turned around to stare at him.

“Maybe next time.” It took me a while to understand he was still referring to anal sex, and when I did, I felt my face burn at all the implications of that statement. “I trust you’ll think of me if you and Tom ever decide to open the relationship to embrace someone else in the mix.”

Now that was unexpected, and yet again, there was nothing I could say, so I just silently gathered my stuff - annoyingly conscious of the little souvenir he’d left me to carry with me back to the house - while he located some sweatpants and followed me downstairs.

“Bye.” It felt weird saying just that to wrap up everything that had happened between us ever since I stepped foot into this house, only a few hours earlier, but what else was there to say? Of course, Jake had a different opinion, and that became clear with the parting words he left me to ponder as I sat alone, sore and dirty on the taxi ride back to my house.

“Goodbye, sweetheart. Rest assured, everytime your eye meets mine while we’re out in public, I’ll be thinking about how it felt to be balls deep into you. I hope you’ll be thinking about me too. Maybe then you won’t tease me so much.”

#jake gyllenhaal smut #smut #jake gyllenhaal #my fics #my requests #jake gyllenhaal fic #jake gyllenhaal fics #jake gyllenhaal reader #jake gyllenhaal reader insert #jake gyllenhaal reader inserts #jake gyllenhaal x reader

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randomfandomimagine · 3 years ago

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Old Ficlets Masterlist

These are considered ficlets because they are less than 5k words, but they’re mostly written in first or third person and sometimes with female reader. Keep in mind that there are some old fandoms here as well.

🔷 BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

◾ Jake Peralta

Smart (Hurt / Comfort, Mutual Pining)

Amy’s sibling Y/N visits the precinct, wanting to be a detective like them, and ends up getting in trouble that Jake needs to get them out of.

Reckless (Mutual Pining, Hurt / Comfort)

Taking his job too seriously, Jake keeps getting injured. At least, those injuries bring him closer to a doctor called Y/N.

My Best Friend (Fake Dating, Fluff, Idiots In Love)

Jake and Y/N have been best friends for a long time and they’re comfortable in their relationship. One day everything changes when they encounter her ex-boyfriend.

◾ Rosa Diaz

Out Of Your Shell (Hurt / Comfort, Angst With A Happy Ending)

Y/N is having some difficulties with their relationship with Rosa, and it isn’t until they both get in trouble that things get solved.

Work Visit (Secret Dating, Fluff)

Y/N decides to go visit Rosa at work. Jake, not knowing that Y/N is dating Rosa, starts flirting with her.

◾ Misc

The Mysterious Case Of Y/N (Fluff)

No one knows exactly who Y/N is, only that everyone likes them and enjoy when they drop by the precinct. Jake takes it upon himself to find out their mysterious identity and the reason behind their many visits.

🔷DC

◾ Clark Kent

Waiting For Superman (Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Fluff)

Y/N is having a rough time, so when she is saved by Superman she thinks that things wil start going differently for her.

🔷 DCEU

◾ Misc

Let Her Go (Love Triangle)

Y/N is currently happily dating Clark Kent, but her ex-boyfriend Bruce realized the mistake he made when breaking up and promises to treat her right now if she gives him a second chance.

🔷 DEATH NOTE

◾ L Lawliet

Her Lament (Angst, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Songfic)

L tries to understand Y/N’s strange behavior and ends up learning about her tragic past.

🔷 DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

◾ Connor RK800

Zlatko’s (Hurt / Comfort)

Connor and Y/N investigate the case of the deviant androids, following a lead on an old mansion where a man named Zlatko lives.

My Favorite Person - Part 2 (Hurt / Comfort)

People at work are mostly too intimidated by Y/N to talk to her. It isn’t until she meets Connor that she realizes how human an android can be.

◾ Markus RK200

I’ll Follow Into You The Dark (Songifc)

Having nowhere to go, Y/N finds refuge in Jericho and a family in Markus. To give back to him, Y/N uses their artistic abilities to paint a good image of androids in order to support his cause.

🔷 DISNEY

◾ Aladdin

Wish (Fluff)

Hanging out with Y/N, Aladdin wonders if they have regrets about their life and wish for something more.

🔷 DOCTOR WHO

◾ Eleventh Doctor

Not Enough (Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Angst With A Happy Ending)

Being the Doctor’s daughter isn’t easy, especially when Y/N tried to leave that life of travel and adventure behind and he returns looking for her.

🔷 FANTASTIC BEASTS

◾ Newt Scamander

Invisible Beauty (Soulmate AU, Fluff)

Life has always been black and white for Newt, until he came across a lovely blind person called Y/N.

🔷 FINAL FANTASY VII

◾ Cloud Strife

About Time (Childhood Friends To Lovers, Soulmate AU)

Y/N has been friends with Cloud all her life, but sometimes not even his friendship is enough to fill the void that her mysterious soulmate brings. Wondering if she will never find them, Y/N fails to realize she founds him a long time ago.

Busy (Soulmate AU, Gender Neutral Reader)

Being a very busy person, Y/N retorts to writing things down on their arms and hands. What they don’t know is that those written things show up in someone else’s skin, and it will bring Cloud Strife into their life.

Motion Sickness (Fluff, Angst, Emotional Hurt / Comfort)

Cloud feels really insecure sometimes, especially when it is about his motion sickness. He wants to get over it, but it won’t be until he runs into Y/N that he will accomplish it.

🔷 FINAL FANTASY XV

◾ Noctis Lucis Caelum

You’re A Jerk (Angst With A Happy Ending)

Noctis is trying to teach Y/N how to fight, but his ways are upsetting Y/N.

◾ Prompto Argentum

Invisible (Songfic, Angst With A Happy Ending)

Y/N is jealous of Prompto’s crush on Cindy and it takes Noctis getting involved for Y/N and Prompto to figure things out.

Contradictory Feelings (Crossover, AU)

Ever since he became Spiderman, Prompto is worried that something might happen to Y/N even though he has the biggest crush on her and wants to tell her everything, but that will put her in more danger.

Evil Mastermind Noct (Mutual Pining, Fluff)

Noctis knows that Prompto likes Y/N, so he takes advantage of how naive she is and teases Prompto about it in the hopes that he will be embarrassed enough to confess to her.

Happy Birthday, Prompto! (Idiots In Love, Fluff)

The boys think that Prompto’s birthday is the perfect opportuntiy to bring Y/N and him together given their obvious crushes on each other.

◾ Ignis Scientia

Experto Mode (Fluff)

Ignis and Y/N decide to cook together, and shenanigans ensue.

◾ Gladiolus Amicitia

Big Change (Fluff)

Y/N gets along really well with Gladio, but becomes flustered around him because of her big crush on him.

🔷 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST

◾ Edward Elric

Equivalent Exchange (Idiots In Love, Angst, Fluff)

Y/N has finally decided to confess her feelings for Edward, but his response is one she would have never foreseen.

◾ Alphonse Elric

Homecoming (Angst With A Happy Ending)

Y/N need get close to Edward and Alphonse Elric and travel with the brothers. However, it is during the journey that Y/N becomes friends with them, and their friendship becomes endangered when Y/N’s secret is revealed.

🔷 GOD OF WAR

◾ Baldur

Cure (Character Study)

Y/N doesn’t know what to think of Baldur, but all he knows is that as soon as he met them, he started to feel something again.

🔷 HARRY POTTER

◾ Harry Potter

Not You (Angst, Hurt / Comfort)

The situation is dire, and the locket horcrux is only making things worse. They only have each other, and Harry can’t bear the thought of losing Y/N.

◾ Ron Weasley

Too Close (Idiots In Love, Mutual Pining, Fluff)

Ron and Y/N clearly like each other, but won’t act on their feelings. Taking advantage that Y/N is staying at the Burrow, Fred and George take it upon themselves to bring those two together.

◾ Fred Weasley

Muggle World (Fluff)

Fred is acting a bit strange lately, and when he finally talks to Y/N after days of silence he keeps asking her about the muggle world. Only to surprise her later on with a ‘muggle’ object.

◾ George Weasley

Welcome Home (Fluff)

George is very excited to take Y/N to the Burrow for the first time. What she doesn’t know is he has a plan to court her, starting with spoiling her.

◾ Remus Lupin

Stupidly Obvious (Idiots In Love, Angst With A Happy Ending)

Both Remus and Y/N are completely oblivious to each other’s feelings. After a series of misunderstandings, Sirius decides to do something to help his friend.

🔷 HEROES

◾ Peter Petrelli

The One (Angst, Fluff)

Although Y/N is very fond of Peter, they can’t quite reciprocate his feelings. They talk about the situation, finding that Peter is very respectful of those boundaries.

🔷 JOHN WICK

◾ John Wick

We’re Even (Hurt / Comfort, Angst)

Y/N is forced to go for John for help despite their complicated relationship.

🔷 JURASSIC WORLD

◾ Zack Mitchell

Fire And Ice (Fluff, Mutual Pining)

Y/N keeps receiving mixed signals from their crush Zach. Going with him to the park, Zach’s true feelings are revealed when Y/N and him find themselves in danger.

🔷 KINGSMAN

◾ Eggsy Unwin

Courageous (Emotional Hurt / Comfort)

Y/N feels like an inadequate candidate for Kingsman, but a sweet boy called Eggsy is determined to cheer her up.

◾ Merlin

Like Magic (Fluff, Hurt / Comfort)

Merlin looks after Y/N when she comes back from a mission with hypothermia.

🔷 MARVEL

◾ Wade Wilson

Psychic Shifter (Mutual Pining)

Y/N and Wade are an unlikely pair, but they decide to team up given their shared interests. From then on, they find that they really like each other.

🔷 MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

◾ Steve Rogers

Priority (Hurt / Comfort, Friends To Lovers, Mutual Pining)

Something strange is happening in SHIELD. After a meeting with their superiors, Y/N meets with Steve for something mysterious. However, things changed when something happens that endagers Y/N’s life.

Speak To My Heart (Mute Reader, Fluff)

Despite Y/N’ being mute, Steve understands them perfectly without needing any words. Y/N speaks right to his heart.

◾ Peter Parker

Spider-Pal (Friends To Lovers, Hurt / Comfort)

Peter seems to be neglecting Y/N in favor of Liz. Jealous of his crush on her, Y/N instead finds comfort in the friendly neighborhood when he suddenly starts visiting them.

Special Like Me (Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Fluff)

Dating Spiderman is not easy. Y/N worries a lot about Peter, and also worries that he deserves .better.

◾ Misc

The Power Of Love (Love Triangle)

Both Thor and Loki have feelings for Y/N, wh odoesn’t really know who to choose.

🔷 MERLIN

◾ Arthur Pendragon

Rain (Songfic, Modern AU)

Y/N and Arthur are very different, and she is starting to have doubts about their relationship. He doesn’t hesitate to address them and comfort her about it.

◾ Merlin

Things Magic Can’t Fix (Angst With A Happy Ending)

Merlin can’t stop thinking about Y/N, and although she definitely reciprocates his feelings, there’s something holding her back. Merlin then decides to disguise himself in order to talk to her and find the truth.

🔷 MR. LOVE: QUEEN’S CHOICE

◾ Gavin

Waste My Time (Fluff, Mutual Pinning)

Y/N has been thinking about Gavin a lot lately, and one day after he walks her home, she gathers the courage to ask him to stay with her for a little longer.

🔷 SHERLOCK

◾ Sherlock Holmes

Light In The Darkness (Angst, Hurt / Comfort)

Despite Sherlock’s wishes, Y/N insists on helping with their current case. This insistance results in Y/N getting in danger, which stirrs Sherlock’s feelings for her.

🔷 STAR WARS

◾ Obi-Wan Kenobi

Just Like Me (Bodyguard Dynamics, Idiots In Love, Mutual Pining)

Obi-wan has been assigned to protect Y/N, and despite their stubbornness in return to his, Y/N feels just as fond of the Jedi as he is of them.

🔷 STRANGER THINGS

◾ Steve Harrington

So Much More Than That (Idiots In Love, Fluff)

The kids realize how close Y/N and Steve are and take matters into their own hands to give them a little boost on their relationship.

◾ Jonathan Byers

Magical (Friends To Lovers, Fluff)

Y/N is best friends with Jonathan, and one day he picks her up to hang out. Even though they both have fun that day, Y/N makes a discovery about her own feelings that changes everything.

What I Like About You (Songfic, Fluff)

In an attempt to catch her crush’s attention, Y/N tries to change into what she thinks he would like her to be.

🔷 SUPERNATURAL

◾ Castiel

The Only Exception (Enemies To Lovers, Soulmate AU)

Being a demon, Y/N has never really gotten along with any angels. That is, until Castiel arrives, who also happens to be Y/N’s soulmate and the person whose words are tattooed on Y/N’s skin.

◾ Sam Winchester

Solace (Angst, Emotional Hurt / Comfort)

Strange things have been happening to Y/N. Feeling lost, scared and confused, they find solace in a stranger called Sam that becomes so much more than just that.

Earth Angel (Emotional Hurt / Comfort)

Not fully understanding what she is due to her memory loss, Y/N is afraid of her powers. With Gabriel gone, Sam decides to look after her himself.

🔷 TEEN WOLF

◾ Stiles Stilinski

Time Bomb (Angst With A Happy Ending)

Stiles and Y/N keep arguing, and their relationship seems to be about to end. However, they find that they love each other too much.

◾ Derek Hale

Comfort (Hurt / Comfort)

Afraid to tell her brother Scott about what happened, Y/N goes to Derek for comfort.

🔷 THE HOBBIT

◾ Thorin Oakenshield

Queen Under The Mountain (Mutual Pining)

Y/N joined the company on their travel, and despite the fact that everybody likes her, it is Thorin who truly captures her attention.

#masterlist #ficlet #ficlets #ficlets masterlist

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years ago

Note

Thoughts on the ship Rosalie/Bella?

While it’s a nice thought, sadly, I don’t think either Rosalie or Bella are what the other would ever seek in a partner.

Indeed, I think the other would be too close of a reminder to what they see in the worst of themselves. So, even in better circumstances, I don’t think they’d choose each other.

Let’s break that down.

What is Rosalie Looking For?

Rosalie’s past is one filled with brutal trauma, betrayal, and heartbreak. She has been violated by men in the worst of ways, betrayed by the man she thought would be her husband, and then has the surreal experience of being turned into something that, while alive, is not human.

She romanticizes the human life she could have had, clinging to it, never acknowledging that circumstances were such that she never would have had it.

Rosalie never was going to get that simple future of being a humble, good, simple man’s wife with beautiful children and a comfortable life. She was raised in society, uncommonly beautiful and charming, and was set to marry the wealthiest man she could. It might not have been Royce, she could have married a good man, but she would have married into this wealthy world and not ended up with someone like Emmett.

I think this is very telling.

For very understandable reasons, Rosalie has never confronted nor truly gotten over her trauma. Oh, she murdered her rapists and murderers, and put their deaths behind her, she married Emmett and has a (fairly) good relationship with him, but she hasn’t taken her full final steps to recovery.

I think this in part shows in her ending up with a guy like Emmett.

Emmett’s not bad, don’t get me wrong, but it’s very telling in what he loves of Rosalie and that Rosalie loves him for it.

He worships her beauty above all other things and is described as a very simple but pleasant and laidback guy. I think Rosalie is at the point where she wants to be worshipped, especially for the quality that was most valued in her human life, her beauty.

She wants to be with someone safe, someone who loves her, and that someone is definitely Emmett.

I think in the short run this works out very well for the pair of them and perhaps even in the long run. I think both could have chosen a better partner.

Rosalie is complicated, she’s not the shallow vain bitch Edward complains she is nor is she what Emmett seems to see her as. Emmett doesn’t really get his wife, or defend her all that much, he’s in love with her beautiful cheerleader persona. Rosalie, similarly, is in love with this man whose greatest attribute is his love of her. I’m sure there are moments she finds Emmett rather boorish and slow on the uptake.

What Do I Think Rosalie Needs?

To be honest, of all the characters where I raise my eyebrow at Meyer putting them with someone of the opposite gender, Rosalie’s one of the ones where they raise the highest.

Even Carlisle, when Rosalie drags in this man’s bleeding carcass, goes, “Oh, is this your cousin?” And has a “Him?!” moment when Rosalie explains this is her new husband.

I always would have expected, especially after her experiences, for Rosalie to be with a woman. That said, I do think her society’s prejudices and expectations would be a huge barrier for her and she’d have to do a lot of character growth before this would ever be possible. And I mean a lot of character growth, as in, Rosalie hasn’t reached this point even post Twilight saga.

Right, regardless of gender, I think Rosalie needs a partner who a) understands her b) does not value her looks c) accepts the good and the bad parts of her.

Like all of us, Rosalie is flawed. She’s a very impressive, down right intimidating, woman who has an iron clad will and gets what she wants. She has a deep love for her family and a great capacity for compassion. However, there are times when she’s the sixteen-year-old girl who has very much not escaped her society’s mindset. She fully advocates Bella Swan’s murder so the family won’t have to move, not realizing until Carlisle points it out that this is a heinous thing to do. Rosalie says vicious, racist, things to Jake likely never realizing exactly what it is she’s saying. She’s stubborn, proud, and as Edward put it a bit pig-headed.

Emmett tends to just go “Yeah, she’s a bitch, but she’s my bitch”. Which... great, thanks Emmett, that’s very helpful.

Bella Swan is Not That Person

Bella per the start of the series is a seventeen-year-old girl with cripplingly low self-esteem, huge parental issues, and a dangerous inclination towards depression.

Bella shows serious interest in women sexually (her relationship with Alice has some serious homoerotic undertones) but she’s also very intimidated by them. Rosalie, especially, makes Bella evaluate and feel worse about herself as she knows she will never be as beautiful as this teenage blonde goddess.

In other words, this Bella is not in a position to be the kind of person Rosalie needs. She’s too caught up in figuring out who she herself is, cares very much about Rosalie’s appearance and using it to compare against her own, and isn’t stable enough to be what Rosalie needs.

And by the end of canon... Well... Bella’s left the planet and will soon join Esme in being a hauntingly strange person entirely divorced from reality.

What if we’re in a slightly AU world?

Well, we’re banking on a lot of character development for Bella that I don’t believe can happen with Edward around. Either Bella shows interest in Edward or, well, he eats her. (No, seriously, this is canon, both Alice and Edward confirm as much.)

And if the family packs up and leaves during New Moon and never comes back... Well, of all the people Bella might end up with after that, I think Rosalie might just be the least likely (not to mention Rosalie would not be down for hanging around Edward’s stupid human girlfriend).

What is Bella Looking For?

Bella’s looking for validation of her very self. She wants to be loved, more than that, she wants to be worth something.

Bella has such a low opinion of herself that, at this point in her life, she needs this feeling to come from elsewhere. She finds this in both Edward and Jacob.

And it doesn’t matter how scary they are (and both are, indeed, very scary towards her), it doesn’t matter what it is they value, just that they both seem to want her even though she’s a foolish, clumsy, pale, ugly, human, nobody, loser.

That’s all Bella wants.

Edward’s a perfect storm in that he’s inhumanly perfect, beautiful beyond all comprehension, and completely obsessed with her. In Edward’s eyes, Bella is not just perfect, she’s fascinating.

And then, of course, she’s not and it utterly destroys her.

Basically, Bella’s is a very sad life.

What Does Bella Need?

Bella needs time to grow up and find out who she is and how to value that.

Bella is your very typical teenage girl. She’s precocious, has a lot of issues growing up with her mom, but she has a lot of issues many teenage girls do have.

I think, before Bella can find a truly good partner, she needs to learn how to value herself.

This will be painful and take a lot of time. In New Moon, I think Jake actually sets her back as she uses him to find value in herself for her (essentially replacing Edward).

Only after Bella discovers who she is, reaffirms why she is important and worthy of love, can she find someone.

What does that person look like?

Well, it sure as fuck isn’t Vampire Patrick Bateman, otherwise known as Edward Cullen. Nor is it Jake Black who sexually assaults her, tells her to kiss him or he’ll kill himself, then tells her that her dying is pointless as it means he and Edward fought over nothing.

It also isn’t Alice, who treats Bella a lot like she would a life-sized Barbie Doll rather than a friend and a human being.

I’m not sure who it is, to be honest.

Someone who recognizes who Bella is, certainly, the good and the bad. Someone who is able to... reconcile her with the world she truly lives in. Maybe, circumstances changing around a bit, it’s Carlisle Cullen? (Though that would certainly be a dumpster fire of divorce and despair with Edward and Esme) Maybe it’s Jasper (also a dumpster fire of divorce and despair with Edward and Alice)?

I really have no idea here. Unlike Rosalie, I can’t even tell you what this person would need to be like.

What I do know is...

Rosalie is Not That Person

Just as Bella views Rosalie as a threat, as something to measure herself against and feel unworthy of in every way, Rosalie does the same.

Bella is a pretty human woman who captures Edward’s attention in a way she never can. Rosalie, at the time we start canon, for all her accomplishments and all she’s done is still insecure enough that she needs to be the prettiest woman in the room.

Just as Bella’s not secure enough to be what Rosalie needs, Rosalie is not secure enough to be what Bella needs.

Rosalie also doesn’t see Bella for what she is. Rosalie sees, at first, a normal boring human teenager and dismisses her. She falls into the typical Cullen trap (for all but Carlisle) that they forget humans are people too. Later, Bella discounts Rosalie’s very earnest advice and Rosalie never forgives her for it. This is understandable, Rosalie lays her soul bare, but she forgets Bella’s a teenage girl and more can’t see what Bella herself is battling with.

Bella thinks being human is worthless because Bella thinks being Bella is worthless. Children and a human future mean nothing to her.

It would take a lot, A LOT, of character development for Rosalie to be someone that Bella needs in this situation and even then... Well, they’d have to deal with the horrifying shit show that is Edward. Because if Edward/Bella isn’t happening...

It’s lunch time.

TL;DR

I’d say pin your hopes on Alice/Bella, except that one’s not happening either for all that they do have their very homoerotic friendship.

#ask #anon #twilight

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twihard-diehard · 3 years ago

Text

What if the cliff diving went different?

This is pretty long, here's the Ao3 if you'd prefer.

When Bella woke up, she knew something was wrong. She tried to remember what led her to this place and all she could recall was jumping from somewhere. Now she was somewhere she shouldn’t be there were people she knew and people she didn’t. She seemed to be in a bed and breakfast. Once she feltlike she couldn’t stay in bed anymore she left the room. There were pirates, Victorian ladies, characters from books she’d once read.

She decided to leave the building and there was a river around the place and aa small area of green grass and then a forest. It was nice that this forest wasn’t scary like most of her nightmares. She felt like someone was following her but when she turned around no one was there. So, she kept exploring and finally she seemed to see people.

They were all fuzzy and sort of see through and they all seemed to be asking he same questions, why did you do it, do feel better, are you crazy, when are you coming back? Several of them seemed to be her dad, others seemed to be people from school, Mike, Jess, Angela, and a much smaller number seemed to be her mom. Was it sad that that didn’t surprise her? No, though it was pretty sad. She realized in that moment that she was ready to leave her mom behind, too bad that future was taken from her too. Finally as she started to stumble and curl up; a pair of arms picked her up. She would know that smell anywhere, it was her favorite smell, Edward. He carried her back towards the bed and breakfast and then she was on the grass and he was gone. She looked for him but he wasn’t there so she fell asleep again.

“How long until she wakes up,” Charlie demanded, once again, not that anyone listened. All they told him was they were waiting on a specialist to arrive. The way they said it made Charlie sure he knew who the specialist was and he wasn’t thrilled. He remembered how he ended up here in the first place….

“Hey, Charlie,” Alice’s soft voice broke his reverie. He just wanted to come home and Have dinner with Bella, maybe she’d have lasagna ready. She really dd make it the best it even beat his mom’s. This wasn’t good, if Alice was back were others back?

“Alice, is anyone else here?”

“No just me Charlie. I was just coming to see how you were. Any idea where Bella is?”

“She’s not here,” now she had his attention. She should be home she hadn’t seen her or Jacob in ages. He stomped past her and opened the door, holding open so she could come in too. He didn’t take anything off, her being here and Bella not being here seemed foreboding at best. So he stomped into the kitchen and picked up the phone. He called Billy’s house first.

“Hey, Chief Swan,” it was one of Jake’s friends.

He knew this voice, “Oh, hey Sam. Do you know where Jake and Bella are?”

“They aren’t there?”

“No, why would I call if they were here. Any idea what they were up to today?”

“Yeah, they were going to go cliff jumping. Charlie, get an ambulance down to First Beach as fast as you can. I’m going to go down and see if their there But I’m worried.”

“Charlie, want me to drive?”

Charlie looked up as he hung the phone up and lost it. He clung to her, god she was cold to the touch, and he cried. First his best friend, now his daughter who decided to go cliff jumping was missing. Finally after what seemed ages, he whispered, “Yes please. Hospital first, take the cruiser so we can speed. Hospital first and then First Beach.”

“Okay,” then she all but carried him to the car. She was in faster than should have been possible but he was under strain so maybe she wasn’t. Then again, it took less than one minute to get to the hospital. She said she’d stay in the car while he ran into the hospital.

Then they were at First Beach and Same was leading them down to the beach. There were two bodies on the ground. Charlie was only barely able to hide the hysteria “Sam they aren’t, are they?”

“No Charlie they’re alive. I think they are both in comas,” Sam answered and then it seemed like his lips were moving but he didn’t say anything.

It was all a blur until this moment. The buzzing and beeping and chaos was all that kept him grounded. He was sitting here with two very broken teenagers. Billy was trying to help Sue out because her kids were not handling Harry’s passing well. Alice had stayed by his side almost constantly. She only left twice, both for a phone call, neither lasted more than a minute.

------------------------

Leave it to Bella to cause this much chaos. That was all Alice could think when she had the vision.

“If Edward calls, tell him to get to Forks as fast as he possibly can. When Carlisle and Esme get back tell them we’re going to need him in Forks too,” Alice said swiftly as she threw some cash and a change of clothes into a bag.

“Great what in the hell did that stupid human do now?”

“Rose, if you don’t drop it I’ll walk away from you for a decade,” Emmett said. Alice was only mildly shocked, it had been coming because Rose kept muttering about the ‘stupid girl’ and Emmett kept growling.

“What?!”

“I said, disparage my lil sis one more time and I will walk away for a decade. I’m not dealing with it anymore. It because of that kind of bullshit that we ended up here in the first place. So you will stop, and you won’t do it mentally either, that girl is part of this family and I am part of this family and if you cannot see it then maybe you need a break from us,” Emmett said with quiet vehemence. Alice was really shocked because he was the only way she was going to get her head on straight and he almost never stood up to his ‘savior,’ so he must really care.

While the shock on Rose’s face held, Emmett turned to Alice, “Can I come? I want to be there if she’s hurt.”

Alice held up a finger and played through all the possibilities, he seemed to disappear in several of them, “Fine, BUT you have to keep your temper under control, there are things I can’t understand at play right now so we have to be cautious.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Yes, Rose I am. You stay here with Jasper and pack up the house. If things are this bad I think we’re moving back to Forks,” Emmett said soft but with no room for argument. And then they were out the door and on the road.

“No one is here,” Alice said as she came back out of the house. “I think Charlie’s down on the reservation, I lost his trail at the line,” Emmett said as he sat with her on the steps to wait, “Is she okay?”

“I’m not sure, did you smell or sense anything else? Yeah, it was like wet dog but stronger.”

“Hm, I’d have to ask Carlisle or Rose but I think that the wolves are back,” Alice said questioningly, “That would explain her sudden disappearance.”

Just then the phone rang. Alice picked it up, “Hey Rose.”

“I’m sorry. Can you tell Emmett that?”

“Yeah, anything else?”

“Oh, right, Edward is headed that way. Carlilse was finally within cell range and we got ahold of him but they’re still a few hours out. Any idea what’s happening?”

“No, not yet. Oh, wait I hear his cruiser. I’m going to go, I’ll let you know once I know something.”

Emmett went to sit in the car. Probably better for Charlie to just see me first me reasoned. God, Charlie looked terrible, did something happen to Bella was all Alice wanted to say but instead she said, “Hey, Charlie.”

“Alice, I wasn’t expecting you. Why hasn’t Bella let you in?”

“She’s not here Charlie,” that seemed to pull him out of his reverie. He looked at the street and finally registered her truck missing. He rushed past her and opened the door, though he paused to let Alice in.

He rushed to the kitchen and made a call, Alice put the number in her phone.

“Hey, Sam,” Charlie muttered, “Have you seen Jake or Bella?”

It was faint but Alice could still here the other side of the conversation, “No, they went cliff diving today. Aren’t they there?”

“No.”

Muttered curses, “Charlie, I think you need to get an ambulance and head to first beach I’ll go ahead of you.”

Alice tucked out as Charlie hung up the phone and dialed the number back quickly, “Sam, you don’t know me but I’m sure you hate me. Please hear me out before you hang up.”

Sam growled but listened.

“Carlisle can treat Jacob without the need to take him to the hospital, I’m sure that will help prevent questions about your physiology,” Sam made a noise that sounded like consent. “So, if you get there and there is an issue, hide Jake. And please allow me, Emmett, and Carlisle onto the reservation to help you move them. Emmett will meet you at First Beach.”

She heard Emmett get out of the car and shoot back towards the reservation. Then she returned to the kitchen and carried Charlie to the cruiser and rushed him to the hospital. While he was inside he called Carlisle.

“Hey, it looks like she and one of the wolves went cliff diving and no one has heard from them in hours, leave the packing to everyone else and get here.”

Carlisle while shocked got out, “Okay, I’m leaving now. I’m dropping the phone explain to Esme.”

“Alice?”

“I think something happened to Bella and Jacob. Apparently, the kids on the reservation are turning into wolves again. You guys pack cup and get here when you can but I needed Carlisle now.”

“Okay, see you soon. Keep me updated.”

As soon as she hung up she called Edward, “Hey, where are you?”

“Halfway through Arizona. What happened?”

“Jacob is a wolf and has been taking care of Bella. Charlie said he’s starting to heal the holes she’s got. However, today they went cliff diving, and no one has heard from them in quite some time. Charlie’s walking back out of the hospital after getting an ambulance, Emmett is on his way to first beach and Carlisle is on his way here to be of any assistance he can be. We could use you.”

“Shit, I should be there by dawn,” Edward growled and he hung up as Charlie got back in the cruiser.

“Okay let’s go,” he said in a defeated tone.

“She’s okay Charlie,” Alice said reassuringly.

Just then her phone rang, “Hey Emmett what’s up?”

“They were both on the beach. I think they are in comas. They are breathing but totally unresponsive past that. Sam and I are going to carry Jacob to our house.”

“Okay, I need to tell Charlie,” Alice said aloud, then silently, “Be back at the beach when we get there.”

“Okay, Emmett and Sam found Bella, she’s alive but they think she’s comatose,” Alice told Charlie. He kept his composure, barely. “Want to talk about it?”

“Harry died today, I cannot afford to lose her too,” the pain was so raw and deep. It hurt Alice to hear it, she pulled him closer and let him rest on her while she drove as hast as she could to the beach.

“We’re not going to lose her,” Alice said, “I want you to know I called Carlilse while you were in the hospital, he’s on a plane now and will be here by morning to make sure she’s okay.”

Charlie growled, “How can you just come back after ripping her to shreds?”

“I’m sorry Charlie, we didn’t want to leave. We just had to for a bit, a family emergency,” Alice said as convincingly as she could.

“Is it all handled now? No more leaving? I cannot watch her go through that again.”

“No more leaving, By tomorrow night almost everyone will be here, we’ll make sure Renee get’s here and you can just stay by Bella. We’ll get you food and everything, okay?”

The relief that rolled off Charlie was so profound it even shook Alice, “Yeah, thanks Alice.”

Then they were at the beach loading Bella into the ambulance.

-------------------

Bella woke back up in a room at the bed and breakfast. Jess was looming over her, “What was that? You were there and then you weren’t it was like a light switch; you know better than to mess with the fae.”

“The fae? What the hell? Where am I?”

And then she was being shoved through a crowd of people, she saw Jake and grabbed him. Then they were next to a giant tube that dropped into the river around the building, they bumped some sort of pirate captain too hard, and they fell. As soon as they hit the water they dissolved.

“Well, down you two go,” the bushy haired lady that seemed to run the place said, and then she pushed them done the tube.

“Jake, come on, there’s a blue light ahead,” Bella said pulling Jake along. She knew if Jake grabbed it, he’d wake up. She also knew, even if she wasn’t sure how that only one of them could get out that way. She also knew the only way Jake was going to wake up was if she made him.

Wait, why did she think they needed to wake up? Something was tickling at the back of her mind, but she shoved t off, she knew she had this one chance to save Jake and she wasn’t going to waste it.

“Why am I grabbing the light,” Jake asked, “You need to get beck too!”

“I can still get back, though I don’t know how,” Bella tried to explain, “You can’t though, this is your only chance Jake. Please, take it.”

They had made it to the blue light, it seemed like a handle to pull yourself out of the water. Water, that made the thing in her head tickle again. Finally, she made Jake grab the damn light and he was gone. Not sure where but she knew it was somewhere safe and away from here.

----------------------

Jake gasped and opened his eyes, “Where am I?”

Charlie practically jumped on him and hugged him while calling for a nurse. “You pulled Bella out of the water and you both collapsed. Then you must have woken up and tried to get help cause they found you in the woods.”

Jake remembered the water but he never left the beach. Then Jake registered Sam’s face at the same time he registered the smell.

“Don’t,” Sam said with the authority to make sure Jake didn’t do a damn thing. Ugh why had he given up the alpha role.

Then much more softly, “They came back to save you both. Carlisle hasn’t left you or Bella for more than five minutes. So, DON’T fight them.”

“Bella, what happened to Bella?!” Jake tried to sit up, but Quill and Embry held him down.

“No moving bro, doc’s orders,” Quill said.

“Wait, aren’t there nurses too?”

“Well, you only have one,” Quil said, “Remember, when I didn’t know what was happening and I went to the hospital out at the res?”

“Yes,” Jake said, though it sounded more like a question.

“I imprinted on a nurse that was out there. Apparently, the hospital in town is Anna’s main post but she picks up extra shifts out there. So, since she knows about us, Carlisle felt safe bring you here as long as she was his only nurse. He said it was to reduce strain on the hospital while he took care of you and Bella, and the hospital agreed.”

“Why is he back? Are they all back?”

“Yes, they are all back,” Sam said, “And you may not fight them, they have my permission to come and go from the reservation. We’ve called off the treaty, it’s more important for us to be allies.”

Before Jake could reply, a nurse walked by the door and looked in, when their eyes met it was like jumping into the riptide again. She looked like she felt the same way, she finally came in.

“Hey, you finally woke up,” she said, “I’ve been watching you for days. We were worried about you. Anna has been stressing, she’ll be so glad to hear you’re up.”

“Days,” Jake asked, then looked at her like she was he sun and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Yes, days, you don’t just wake right out of a coma,” she joked, “I’m Vanessa, but you can call me Nessie.”

“Oh, well, hello Nessie,” Jake blushed, “Nice to meet you. Wait, Bella’s still in there isn’t she?”

“What,” Sam, Quil, Embry, and Nessie all said together.

“Jynx, you all owe me pops,” Jake said jokingly, then much more seriously, “We were trapped in a boarding house or something, and Bella almost made it out. It was like she was being carried, then suddenly she was back in that place and her and I got shoved down a tube into the water. She said she could get out a different way but the only way I could get out was if I grabbed this blue light so she made me grab it and I woke up here.”

“Wait you shared the same coma space,” Nessie said with so much shock and excitement, “There’ve been theories about that when two people go into a coma at the same time due to a shared trauma. This is the first time anyone has seen it happen.”

“Yeah, it was weird cause I kept hearing her thoughts. ‘This isn’t like the nightmare.’ ‘He can save me but only I can save Jake.’ It was really weird. I’m assuming ‘he’ is that idiot that left. Is he here yet?”

“Yeah, he just left to get Charlie food, I’ll go get him and the doc,” Sam said, and he started to leave, then turned around and added, “Tell her while I’m gone.”

“Tell me what,” Nessie inquired.

“Well, I’m guessing you felt the universe reassemble itself a few minutes ago, just like I did,” Jake said with his signature confidence.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Well, you two are like soulmates,” Embry chimed in, “Anna and Quil are like that too. That’s why she was allowed to help because she knows about us.”

“I’m so confused.”

“We’re wolves, well shape shifters really. Most of us are wolves, however a few recent members of the tribe shifted into eagles,” Quil said.

“You’re joking, right,” Nessie sounded very disbelieving.

“No, they aren’t I’m afraid,” came the calm demeanor of Carlisle as he swooped into the room and started to look Jacob over, “Aside from out of it how are you feeling Jake?”

“Not bad doc, just worried about Bella.”

“Well, aside from the coma her vitals are strong.”

“She really saved you?”

Finally, Jake remembered he was hugging Charlie, “Yeah she did Charlie. You should be proud of her. She really felt like if she didn’t get me out first, I’d never wake up. I think I believe her too, it was like being trapped in her head.”

“Trapped in her head,” Edward asked as he walked back in the room with enough food to feed an army, “I heard you woke up and assumed you’d be hungry too. Dig in you all.”

Jake never thought he’d be so happy to see a blood suck…no vampire he corrected himself, “Thanks Edward. Now you need to pull her out of the coma. I think you almost got her out of it once, but she stayed because if she didn’t get me out I was going to stuck.”

As he finished, the doc pulled the last wire off Jake’s chest and said, “Well, you’re as good as new. If you want, you can head home and let your dad know you’re okay.”

“I think I’ll call in a bit, I need to stay until she’s awake,” Jake said easily, then seeing Nessie’s face, “No, not like that, silly. She’s my best friend I need to be here when she wakes up, so she knows she saved me. Now, come here so I can hug you.”

Charlie got up and moved back to Bella’s bed and Nessie took his spot, wrapping her arms around him for about two second and then jumping up, “Holy crow, you’re burning up. Doc, he needs ice!”

Jake grabbed her before she could get away, “No I don’t, I run at 108 because I’m a shifter. Once Bella is awake and you’re not working, I’ll show you.”

“He’s telling the truth, I checked all the shifters just to ensure I kept him at the right core temp,” Carlisle added.

Nessie calmed down and relaxed back into Jakes chest for a couple of minutes, “Shift, right I have to get back. I’ll come see you when I’m off.”

“Okay, I’ll be here,” Jake said as she went back to work.

“Geez, you’re a lucky jerk,” Quil said in a joking tone, “Anna freaked out when I tried to tell her the first time.”

“Do you know how I can get her back,” Edward asked as he sat opposite of Charlie on Bell’s bed, holding one of hers and one of Charlie’s hands.

“Um, she’s stuck in the place, not sure how you did it earlier, but it was like she was in a trance, she left the building and wandered off into the woods. She said they felt safe, that hey weren’t the woods of her nightmares?”

“Nightmares,” Edward also added questioningly.

“Probably from just after you left, she’d have these terrible nightmares and before the screaming would start, she’d say something about being lost in the woods,” Charlie said softly, pain showing on his face.

“Oh Charlie, I’m so sorry. She was in your yard when I pulled away,” Edward said, his voice flooding with regret.

“I’m not going to say it’s okay because it isn’t, but I’m glad you’re here now,” Charlie said with a fierce look on his face, “Now get my baby back.”

Jacob smacked Embry as he started to sing under his breath, “I want my baby back, baby back, chili’s baby back ribs.”

Quil hid a snicker in a sneeze.

“I will Charlie, don’t worry.”

---------------------

Jake was safe, she knew he was, but now she was stuck in the water, drowning again. It was worse this time because she knew what it felt like, and it terrified her. Plus, there were no Edward hallucinations to make the passing feel bearable. How did she survive this the first time? Did she survive the last time? Now, she wasn’t so sure, maybe this was limbo.

“Hey, want to come back?”

Bella would know that voice anywhere, she turned to it, “Edward?”

“Sweetheart, we’re all waiting for you, please come back.”

She felt something brush her forehead, she tried to touch where she felt it, but she couldn’t lift her arms, “How?”

Then there was silence. She tried to fight her way to the voice, but she wasn’t suer where it was. It seemed like ages before anything changed. Then there was a darkness and it felt like someone was scooping her up, it had to be Edward, she never felt this comfortable near something cold.

“Bella, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

“YES” she tried to scream, but nothing came out. So, she started to swim, or claw, she wasn’t sure, towards the voice. He kept talking thank fully and she kept getting closer. Finally, she felt her hands and tried to lift one.

“Bella,” Edward sounded relieved and much closer.

“Hm,” well that was a weak way to say hi.

“Oh, Bella we were so worried,” then he set her down. She whimpered.

“I know, honey, but we’re in the hospital and I need to let Charlie know you’re waking up, I’ll lay next you though.”

She must have sighed because he leaned across her for a moment, “Charlie, wake up. I think I go her. Quil, can you grab Carlisle?”

Why was Quil here? She tried to ask but words didn’t come out.

“He’s here because Jake’s here,” Edward said, then hearing her pulse accelerate, “He’s okay Bella, you saved him.”

“Yep, I’m good as new,” Jacob said from where ever she was.

Suddenly was covered in warmth, “Oh Bells, you scared me. Why would you go cliff diving with a storm rolling in? You’re lucky Jake could pull you out of the water.”

Bella satisfied herself by humming in what she felt was comforting, since she still couldn’t speak, or open her eyes. How long was that going to last?

Two days, that’s how long she had to wait until she could see again, and twelve hours until her grunts were words.

“Hey dad, I love you,” those were her first real words.

Charlie wept, “I love you to Bells.”

“How long?”

“The coma was a little over a week,” Charlie said.

“You been here the whole time,” Bella did better with short words.

“Yeah, honey, I even rode in the ambulance with you. Haven’t left your side for more than five minutes,” Charlie said squeezing her hand.

“Thanks dad. If you want, you can go home and get some real sleep. I’ll still be here.”

“I’ll call you if anything changes at all,” Edward reassured.

“Thank you, for helping and for pulling her out of that,” Charlie said softly, “I don’t think she’d of made it if you hadn’t been here.”

As soon as the door closed, Edward scooped her up and held her, “I’m so sorry I left, I’m so sorry I hurt you. I hope you can forgive me.”

“S’okay,” Bella mumbled.

“It doesn’t count until she is actually better, bro,” Emmet said.

“Yep, what he said,” Jake chimed in.

“Jake? Emmett,” came Bella’s response.

“Yeah, we’re here, Emmett is the one that got me out of the way before Carlisle showed up. Kept me from taking ice baths,” Jacob chuckled.

“I’m just glad I was able to get you out,” Bella said, “I really didn’t think you’d get back if I didn’t force you.”

“Well, you definitely saved me,” Jacob chuckled, “and I met my other half. Her name is Nessie.”

“Ah, Jake that’s great,” Bella said around a yawn.

“Get sleep hon. We’ll still be here,” Edward whispered as he leaned down and kissed her temple.

Bella was gone almost as soon as h said I, thought she thought she heard something about a funeral. Hopefully, she would remember when she woke up.

--------------------------

It had been a few months since the incident. Jake and Nessie were already talking about marriage though they would wait for a few years; and Leah was becoming fast friends with Rosalie, something about ball busters sticking together. Edward was over almost every day.

Bella hadn’t heard him get here so she was shocked when she saw Dad and Edward in serious conversation as she came down. She didn’t get much except he came to get permission for something. Oh man if he was about to propose she was going to lose it. She had told him time and time again that she wouldn’t get married for at least five more years. She has hinted at immortality again though she was also willing to wait a bit, if only to have more time with Charlie. Bella stopped emailing her mom and her mom never noticed. Bella wasn’t surprised.

“Bells!”

“Hey dad. What you two gossiping about like a pair of old hens?”

“We are not old hens.”

“Okay, no need to get ruffled feathers, Eddie.”

“I am going to wring Emmett’s neck for teaching you that.”

“No, you aren’t. Besides, I like it,” Bella finished, leaning in to give both gentlemen a kiss on the cheek.

Edward looked at dad conspiratorially, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

“Oh, let me tell her. I think it’ll be a bigger shock that way,” dad said laughing.

“Oh no, what are you two trying to wrangle me into now? I did prom and I’m not doing baseball ever again. So now what?”

“Ah, Bells, don’t worry. We were just talking about post high school life. You did decide to just commute up to Port Angels at first, right?”

“Well, yeah, why?”

“Since you seem so hell bent on trying to die every few months,” dad started to laugh like it was the funniest thing he every said, “Anyways, Edward just told me he bought a house just outside of the town so you two could live together. He also wants to see about making you a bit more durable before you start college.”

All Bella could do was sputter, she was so flabbergasted, she couldn’t even be upset that Edward had videotaped the whole thing just to show Emmett and Jacob.

And that’s how everyone ended up in a much better place and no weird shit happened at all.

#original work #fanfic #emmett cullen #the friendships we deserved

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bellaslilpapercut · 4 years ago

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Eclipse reread part 3 bewr bewr bewrrr! Covering the entire rest of the book in ONE post so buckle on in baybee:

1. Absolutely everything about chapter 15 (wager) is disgusting. To a certain extent I appreciate how successfully meyer captures how frustrating assault is as a woman, how futile it feels to fight against it. But at the same time the way she handles the aftermath is unbelievably disappointing and infuriating. Charlie doesn't get up to help his own daughter, Jake trails after Bella into the house and sticks around, there's just no relief or reflection that feels satisfying. Bella can ask where the justice is when she finds out Jake isn't aging but just ignores Charlie defending her assailant? And to some extent I get it, I've shut down after assault before to the point where it took years to recognize that some of the things that happened even were assault. But when there's a pattern within the series of men being narratively rewarded for assault and abuse and women being punished for reacting to abuse it feels like the narrative is reinforcing the status quo of women<men. I'm not stupid, I understand when a book is trying to make me uncomfortable and I don't need villains to be punished to know that they're villainous. This doesn't come across that way at all. Meyers handling of misogynistic abuse and violence lack the nuance to make me believe that she sees this violence as something to be critical of rather than something that just happens to women. And again, because it's a pattern in her writing, women getting no reprieve from gendered harm, I don't believe she's making a statement. There's just no self awareness and that's the key difference between a story like Brave New World or Lolita and Twilight.

2. Also this quote that precedes the assault is just so so frustrating:

Bella is not mean for setting boundaries! She isn't stringing you along! I would love to hit meyer in the head with a rolled up newspaper. Anyway.

3. Bella keeps saying things like "this would be annoying if it weren't so scary" in regards to having her clothes stolen by vampires that want her dead and having to lie to people around her, again because dozens of vampires want her dead. And y'know after the third time she said she would be annoyed if she weren't scared I'm just left to believe she isn't scared at all. I don't feel rising tension, the newborn army feels like a minor nuisance and even after they connect it to victoria (who still hasn't shown up at all) I'm just like...okay well get on with it then! Meyer makes bella "shudder" (I'm still tempted to make a comp of every time she shudders in this fucking book lol) instead of showing us her actual fear. I don't believe she's scared, I don't care about the "threat," and I don't believe anything bad will happen to Bella. There are Literally No Stakes here. I'm not invested in this story at all.

4. Alice is a bad friend lmfao

Girl, you're psychic you know she wanted to wear red why are you just dressing her up for your brother.

5. Okay returning to point 3 because I read chapter 17 and had an epiphany: Bella says she isn't scared for herself and I get that I do. But smeyer also hasn't shown us that she's selfless- just that she doesn't care if she dies. If bella actually cared for her human friends, in any way, I would believe that the newborn army was a scary threat because the people she loves might get hurt. But I don't believe that she cares about that I only believe that she- like Edward- has a weird martyr complex.

6. The Mirror chapter also reinforces this. I can’t stop thinking about how much more impactful it would have been narratively if it had been Angela in Bree’s position (because she’s the only human friend Bella seems fond of but if Bella showed interest in any of the other humans, honestly any of them would do). Imagine the moment where the newborn vampire first lifts her head to look into Bella’s eyes and it’s someone she knows. Someone she cares for. There should have been consequences for Bella beyond “Jake got some bones broken and now I feel bad :(” which was also a shitty punishment because smeyer is inflicting physical trauma on an indigenous character just to make Bella feel bad. Okay. Anyway, it would have built the tension I was missing for- quite literally- over 300 pages of this book if Bella’s friends and classmates and Fork’s residents had been going missing the whole time. Suddenly, at the end of the battle, there’s Angela. Or Jess. Or Katie fucking Marshall. Someone Bella knew should have been there and maybe I would have cared about this book at all.

7. Going back in time to this quote which comes before the battle:

UGH!!! SHUT UP SMEYER! She literally poisoned Jake’s character from the moment she made him a main character and she has zero self reflection to see the damage that she’s causing here. I’ve said before that I don’t think Jake’s actions were a romantic deal breaker and that stands out now more than ever after reading Eclipse. THIS is the moment that Bella realizes she’s in love with Jake too. Smeyer not only sees abuse and aggression as romantic, she also lacks the braincells and reflection to see that she’s playing directly into racist stereotypes. Edward got to grow up- marginally- but Jake had to remain aggressive. I still don’t think she ever once meant to villify Jake- I think that there was no way in a hell a racist woman could ever successfully portray an indigenous character. His tenderness is tainted by the aggression she forces on his character and in the end he never had a chance because- again- he was being written by a racist woman with fucked up views of indigenous people.

8. Okay, I get it. They’re like Cathy and Heathcliff. Fine. I buy it.

This isn’t even the last time she compares them to Cathy and Heathcliff. Kate Bush isn’t gonna write a song about you, meyer! Give it a rest! (Also lol at “like wuthering heights”)

9. Jumping right to the end here because to be completely honest the only actual event in the entire book was the newborn battle. Jane was a bitch, fine. Edward talked at Victoria and bored her to death (presumably) and the action never felt very action heavy. I knew if from the “best friend (and werewolf)” line that this book was presumably written for idiots given how little is left to the imagination at any given time. I can’t stand when books treat the audience like dummies and I especially can’t handle YA books that do this. Teenagers aren’t stupid!! Young adults can pick up on subtlety in literature!! AND young adults can handle suspense and action. smeyer doesn’t do either well and the editors never once said “hey you know teens aren’t stupid right? like your audience will pick up on hints that you scatter you don’t have to forcefully explain everything?”

10. Smeyer can’t stop interrupting herself even in the very last sentence of the book proper:

What, pray tell, is wrong with “Where it would stay for the rest of eternity.” Why did you have to sow doubt in the sentiment right after Bella made her For Real Final Decision???? And why the em-dash!? Again: the editors of the twilight saga are my nemeses but also my favorite conmen. What were they paid for?

11. Back to the editors real quick: if i was given a draft of eclipse I would instantly say: this story is almost 400 pages of nothing, you need to play with the structure of the story. You need to build suspense and if that means playing with POV like you randomly start doing in the epilogue, then do that. Or you can play with the plot. Nothing happens for 300 pages. It takes 300 pages to get to the newborn battle and nothing that happens before the newborn battle makes me feel worried about it. Again, kill off some humans, raise the stakes, do SOMETHING. This was so painfully slow to read because meyer tried to center this book on a love triangle that I didn’t even believe in myself. And even then, it took 14 chapters for the love triangle to get real action (as in an Event, not necessarily physical action).

12. The epilogue. Oh man. Was the r-slur really so acceptable in 2007 that not one single editor questioned its use? I won’t type the quote in full but Jake refers to his fake arm sling as r-word. Like??? What? And THEN smeyer has him call Leah a “bitter harpy.” Shut up.

In conclusion, nothing felt like a bigger waste of time than Eclipse. Genuinely, to be completely honest. Two (2) important things happened, at least in Bella’s narrative (I agree with Vinelle that the Volturi debacle was important from Carlisle’s perspective, it adds nothing to Bellas and Bella learns nothing important from it.): 1. Bella made a decision, she chose Edward. Who could have seen that coming? Whaaaat? 2. Rosalie told Bella her backstory. Not that Bella even used that to reflect on her decision to become a vampire but hey, at least it felt like an important moment. Jasper’s backstory only mattered for the newborn battle which didn’t matter at all (and it never informed his character and no one ever brings up that the confederacy was a terrible dark stain on US history (along with the rest of US history but that’s a full dissertation or two on its own)). I can’t imagine a way to improve this book as a standalone book. You could split up the plot (using that term loosely) so that New Moon and BD are both a little longer and BD a little more organized. But without completely changing the plot beats in Eclipse, its just pointless.

#eclipse reread #saga reread #long post #very very long sorry lolol

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since0202 · 4 years ago

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Chapter 34: Watch

Grace woke the next morning in her bed, groggy and hungover. She rubbed a hand down her face and let out a soft groan as she let the light bleed over her face. Sacred vampire wedding punch mixed with three shots of vodka were probably a bad idea.

She pulled herself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, turning on the shower and letting the steam settle her stomach. As Grace hopped in the shower, she wondered if any of the pack were there, sleeping on her couch or in her office.

She could feel their presence in the area, but within her home, their spirits quieted. It acted as a refuge, a place where their humanity was always first and they could be just boys, very feverish men who needed an escape from the responsibility that being a wolf warrior crowded in on them in their everyday life. There were no secrets under this roof.

The water trickled warmly down her body and she felt across the length of her abdomen. Her eyes got distant but she didn’t let herself get lost. The warm pang had returned with Jacob’s return and with that came complications. She wasn’t healed, but she was getting there. Ti’Hal had warned her that he would return and that his soul was being called by another’s. Did that mean his imprint had finally emerged? Grace needed to brace herself for the crushing pain that she knew would come at finally losing him to the imprint, but she wasn’t going to let the progress she had made with her pack suffer.

She had to focus. She was going to focus. A gentle knock on her bathroom door snapped her attention.

“Grace?” It was Embry. His soft, calming, even voice sounded muffled as it floated through the crack in the door.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Sam’s called a gathering at his place tonight...Everyone is supposed to come.”

“Okay,” Grace answered simply again.

“Jake’s going to be there.” Embry clarified. Grace felt a pounding in her ears as the heat waved a bout of nausea through her. She held around her stomach now, trembling softly, keeping herself together, desperate to remain this whole for a little while longer.

“Uh huh,” she managed. Embry didn’t move from his spot by the door.

“You okay?” he asked. Grace tried to pull in hair through her nose and out through her mouth as her stomach roiled. As her mouth filled with spit, she knew the nausea was going to win out and accepted her fate as she unceremoniously hurled in the shower.

She leaned her head back and let the water rinse over her face and opened her mouth to take in some water. After a solid few minutes she called out:

“Yup.” She tried not to look down at her feet.

“Okay,” he said weakly. “Do you need help in there?”

“No, Embry.” Grace said in pain. She heard a shuffling from behind the door and knew he had left her bedroom. She quickly washed up and threw on a robe before cleaning the mess at the bottom of her shower.

When she came downstairs Embry and Quil were posted up at the kitchen table scrounging over left overs. Grace rubbed a towel through her hair and plopped down at an empty spot as they continued to grub.

“How was puking in the shower?” Quil said nonchalantly.

“Shut up,” Grace said softly. “So what’s this gathering about then?” Embry looked up from his food and shot Quil a look before saying,

“We don’t know. Maybe a formal welcome back for Jake? Hard to say.” Grace nodded her head and picked at some bread on the table.

“Or, what about this?” Grace said after a long moment of staring concerned at her bread. “We blow off this mysterious meeting, go to Port Angeles, and sneak into that sketchy nightclub the...the Racket?”

“The Cricket?” Quil offered raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have a fake ID and you both look 40. We could totally get in. Sam hasn’t made it an order yet has he?” Grace looked at both of their faces eagerly. Quil’s face was alight with the thought that they were potentially blowing off some boring meeting for an outing that was definitely off limits. Embry didn’t seem so game.

“What if we go after?” Embry offered. Always the responsible one. Holding it all together, keeping her on track. Grace sat back and crossed her arms.

“Fine, but you have to promise.”

“Promise.” They both said in unison.

Grace showed up at Emily’s a little late to ensure she wasn’t stuck making small talk or awkwardly staring at Jacob from across the kitchen table. The house was lit up with laughter and light booming from the open door. Grace hesitated on the porch step.

In anticipation for completely bolting off this evening to Port Angeles, she had dressed a little better than she had in months—she wore a thin blue dress dotted with white flowers that clung to her body and was just a tad short. She wore a black leather jacket over it with brown boots that sported a short heel. She had even done her hair and hoped that if Jacob was here that he wouldn’t think she dressed up for him. Her lip curled at the thought and then she pivoted—fuck it, let him think whatever he wanted.

She jogged the rest of the way up the steps, stomping on the rainsoaked wood to help announce her presence and walked through the door with a smile. Her pack was crowded around the kitchen table joking and pushing each in the shoulder. Jared spotted her first.

“Heeeey! You made it. Bout time!” This resulted in a cry and holler coming from around the table to her appearance. Even Paul was in high spirits. Sitting just outside the tight ring of the table, on a high stool with his shaggy hair falling around his face was Jacob. Grace swallowed hard and gave him a curt nod. His eyes narrowed instantly at her, anger flooding his face, and then Sam came out, slapping him on the back and snapping him out of it.

“Good! You’re here.” He looked around the table and a hush fell. “The purpose for this gathering is to come back together as a pack. Jacob’s home. That means that whatever occurred in the past, we should leave it there. We’ve been making great progress and I want that to continue. That will only happen if everyone cooperates,” his eyes moved from each member of the pack, his hand gripped tightly on Jacob’s shoulder before finally resting his eyes on Grace. She only shrunk internally. Outwardly, hands still in her jacket pockets, she nodded.

“Got it,” she said. She glanced for just a second at Paul who had his eyes trained on Sam, suspicious.

“So! Let’s get it all out in the open now and move on. Rip it off like a bandaid so the healing can begin,” he slapped his hands together and Jacob looked shocked for a minute. Sam motioned for him to proceed but he opened and closed his mouth as if he was unprepared. Grace, outwardly looking cool as a cucumber, was screaming on the inside.

“I’ll start!” Quil raised his hand and then stood up. Sam gave him a surprised look and Leah chuckled. “Jake man, it sucked that you took off like that for so long. I get why you did it but you left us in the lurch and we were all really worried. Don’t uuuhhh,” he paused looking around at the stunned pack members, some wore incredulous grins, “Don’t do that again. Right guys?”

There was a small echo of consent from the group.

“Good!” Sam said, looking back to Jake, but Jake’s eyes were on Grace again. She could practically feel the heat coming off of him.

“I didn’t come back for you,” he said. Grace swallowed and nodded. Stay composed. Stay here. She thought.

Paul scoffed and Jacob’s eyes turned black looking at him. “You have something to say?” Paul was shaking his head laughing a little. Grace tensed now.

“Give it a rest dude. We can all see right through that,” he challenged. Jacob was on his feet and Sam put a hand to his chest to steady him. Grace took a step forward but Seth touched her arm.

“What you did was absolute shit. Both of you! And if I had it my way, I’d have nothing to do with either of you ever again!” He shouted.

“So leave! We were doing just fine without you!” Paul was on his feet, all anger with Jared and Quil blocking him. Though Paul had told him to leave, it felt like anything else but that. Grace realized what he was doing—he was drawing Jacob out, letting him get angry so that he could say what he needed to say. A cathartic release.

“You KNEW what she meant to me and you still did it anyway!” Jacob yelled back bucking against Sam now his whole body shaking. His eyes glistened with what Grace thought might be tears, but the rage was unmistakable in his body language.

“It was a MISTAKE. And it’s not always about you Black!” he boomed back. “I apologized. She apologized. There’s nothing we can do to change what happened, but putting her through this unending painfest isn’t going to work out like you think it is.”

“Oh yeah? And why’s that? Because you’re still defending her? Still fucking her too I bet.” Jacob spat. Paul lunged, pusing past Quil and Jared and connecting his fist to Jacob’s face. A sickening crunch sounded and Jacob rocketed back, the stool behind him was reduced to splinters. Sam jumped in front of Paul demanding that he calm down as he shook violently. Jacob was holding his nose which was gushing with blood but nobody moved to help him.

Grace had never seen such blind rage come from Jacob. Paul? Sure. But Jake. Sweet, kind, benevolent Jacob that was like a walking sun never lost it like this. Seth was up and standing next to Grace now, his hand still on her arm. Embry hadn’t moved from his spot, and Leah was rocking back in her chair clearly enjoying the show.

“If you think you deserved her before, you definitely don’t deserve her now. She made a mistake. We both did, but that doesn’t mean that you get to treat her like shit for the rest of her life. That’s not what you want, I know it’s not,” Paul spat. “We’re pack, we won’t let you. Let it go and come back.”

He shook Sam off to show he was okay and reached his hand out to help Jacob off the ground. Jake gave him a confused look and then took his hand, still holding his now healed nose. Jake shoved him in the shoulder and Paul let out a barking laugh. It wasn’t reconciliation, but it was close.

Grace was frozen to the spot still. Jacob joined around the table, not meeting Grace’s eyes, intent on at least ignoring her for the rest of his life if he wasn’t allowed to hate her. Seth motioned for Grace to sit down in his chair and she took it, trying to hide how much her body was shaking.

At the end of their dinner they all spilled out into the cool air. As Grace walked down the porch steps after them, she heard Jacob call out to her. She turned, sucking in a deep breath and hovering on the bottom step looking up at him. He wouldn’t risk coming too close to her, the pull was too strong.

“I haven’t forgiven you.” He said simply. Grace nodded.

“I know.”

“And I don’t want to be your friend.” He continued.

“Got it.” she said, her voice aching. “You’re allowed to stay mad as long as you want.”

“Ready?” Quil was behind her, eager to get going, and Leah was straightening the newly adorned sequined top on her shoulders.

“But I don’t have to sit and watch,” Grace concluded with a small smile, an olive branch. “Ready.” She turned to Quil and looped arms with Leah as they skipped off toward Embry’s car. Jacob stood a little stunned on the porch and his face turned down into a frown before he phased and took off into the forest at full speed, letting his animal instincts take over and smashing into Paul’s shoulder as they took on rounds.

Port Angeles. Paul shared with Jacob. He briefly showed an image of the divey dance club they were headed to and with a laugh said, You’re welcome to go after her if you want.

Not a chance. Jacob growled running faster into the night letting the cool air pull through his fur and set him free.

Okay so maybe going out two nights in a row wasn’t such a great idea. Grace woke with another groan, experiencing a serious bout of deja vu. The sun sprinkled in through the gauzy white curtains and she took a deep breath assessing the level of pain she was sure to be in. Her limbs felt battered and her head was swimming. She had no idea how or when she got home last night which was never a good sign.

She stretched her arms out and heard a grumbled sigh coming from her left. Her eyes shot to the apparent sleeping form next to her.

“Oh god,” she whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Had she brought someone home last night!? She couldn’t remember much, just blue flashing lights on a crowded dance floor, a hand pulling her into a bathroom stall, but that was it. If the pack found out, she’d never live it down.

She leaned up on her elbows. She was fully clothed so that was a good sign. She kicked off her boots and pulled back the bedsheet to see who laid beneath. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the familiar pack tattoo on the forearm of the quietly sleeping form. She never let anyone sleep in her bed with her, why would she do this?!

As her eyes moved up the arm of the sleeping body, her gaze connected to softly cropped hair and smooth, peaceful face of Leah. Grace breathed a sigh of relief and flopped back on the bed. That was close.

She slowly changed out of her blue dress from the night before and pulled on some oversized grey sweats and a black t-shirt that was stocked for a pack member and stumbled down the steps. The sound of sizzling was coming from her kitchen and she yawned, assuming it was Quil or Embry. But as she landed on the bottom step, she saw Quil on the floor and Embry sprawled across the couch with a blankety haphazardly strewn across his body. Confused, Grace turned her head toward the kitchen to see none other than Jacob Black, working away at her kitchen stove and prepping breakfast.

He looked just as gorgeous as ever, loose strands of hair falling in front of his face, the rest tied in a bun. He was wearing a light blue shirt that stood out beautifully against his russet skin, light scars scraped down his right forearm from the incident, and his normal blue cut off jean shorts.

“Hey,” Grace croaked a little embarrassed.

He glanced at her quickly and said with little to no humor in his voice, “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.” she said, still glued to the spot, “Why are you here?” The sun was suddenly glaring in Grace’s eyes and she put a hand up over them.

“Came to check and make sure you all were okay after your little misadventure,” he said, a tone of disappointment clear in his voice.

“What are you talking about?” she rubbed her eyes and moved toward Quil on the floor who was clearly drooling. She slumped down and leaned her head against the back of the couch on Embry’s arm.

“Pretty sure you got dosed, there’s no way in the world you guys could afford enough alcohol to get that trashed.” He murmured, scraping a load of crisped hashbrowns onto a plate.

“Ugggh,” Grace groaned, reaching down to Quil and putting a hand on the back of his neck trying to pull out some of the sick that she felt stirring in his body.

Jacob scoffed.

“I didn’t realize roofies made you feel like you got hit by a bus,” Grace said quietly reaching her other hand behind her to place on Embry’s back to do the same for him.

“You’re probably the only one that feels like that. In your drunken glory, you decided to recast everyone back to the rez instead of, oh I don’t know, taking a cab back? You recast three people, blasted out of your mind, appeared too close to the cliff edge, slipped, and hit some rocks on your way down to the water.” He shook his head and cursed under his breath. “Absolutely idiotic, you could have died.”

“Thank you, Jacob, I get it.” Grace said as the dizziness caused her vision to go blurry.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They kind of deserve to feel the after effects of their mistakes if you ask me.” He said setting some food down on the kitchen table.

“Good thing I wasn’t asking you,” Grace grumbled uncomfortably. Jacob came over, chewing a piece of toast and shook Embry’s shoulder, ignoring Grace’s quip. “Em, wake up man, breakfast.” Embry mumbled something very close to ‘okay’ and promptly fell back asleep. When Jake came around to pat Quil on the face, he received a very mumbled and slurred, “Fuck off, Jake” from Quil. Grace let out a laugh and then flinched at the blinding pain swimming in her head now as she tried to relieve some of Quil and Embry’s hangover on top of her own.

“More for me.” Jake said resigned and walked to the kitchen table to dig in.

“Grum...py,” Embry muffled, his face pressed against the couch cushions. After a few minutes of groaning, Embry pulled his body up, grabbing Grace’s hand and pressing it to his cheek for a few extra seconds before stumbling to the table and plopping down next to Jake.

Quil also was able to pull his body up and stayed seated next to Grace as she continued holding onto and gently rubbing his neck. Leah nearly fell down the stairs, catching herself on the railing and letting out a laugh. Quil opened his eyes and looked wide eyed at Leah.

“You let her sleep in your bed?!” Grace laughed, her eyes closed now. “Hot,” he murmured.

“Shut up, Quil,” Leah grumbled making her way to the table. Quil took Grace’s hand off of his neck and said:

“Come on, breakfast!” He was clearly feeling a little better.

“Gonna sit for a bit,” Grace slurred. Quil patted her head and dug in with his pack mates as Grace leaned her head back on the couch. She only faintly heard what they were saying as she faded in and out of sleep, but she thought the jist of it was catching Jacob up on what they found on rounds these past three months.

Grace woke up, head still slung back on the couch sometime later and felt her mouth was exceptionally dry. She stumbled to her feet and earned the stares of the group at the kitchen table. Her head was pounding and she felt her heartbeat racing as she walked slowly toward the foot of the stairs.

“She’s gonna go puke in the shower again I bet,” Quil said.

“Shut–” Grace muttered as she put her first foot on the staircase and inhaled a deep breath. “Ookay.” She only got about four stairs up before she stumbled and came crashing down, but a hand caught her around the waist before she fell face first into the wooden staircase.

“Jesus Grace,” Jacob muttered, pulling her to her feet.

“Don’t touch me,” she slurred, slapping his hand away from her. “I go’this.” Jake let go of her but slowly followed her as she made her way up the steps, hands outstretched to catch her if she fell again. Once she made it into her bedroom and into her bathroom, Jacob stood awkwardly in her room not sure what to do. She turned the water on to the shower and started pulling off her sweats.

“You’re not going to fall and smack your head in the shower, right?” Jacob asked, annoyed this time.

“Go’way Jacob,” she said before peeling off her shirt now and stepping into the steam. Grace lost track of time, but the next time she felt herself coming to she was on the floor with her robe draped over her. The cool tile was a relief on her cheek and as she picked her head up and looked around, she realized she was next to the toilet. She stayed there dazed for a minute. The sun was setting and she felt immensely better. There was a glass filled with water placed next to her and she drank it down happily. Outside the door, Grace heard footsteps approaching.

The door swung open to reveal Leah, in her tattered sundress that she used to cover up after phasing.

“You’re alive.”

“I am?” Grace questioned rubbing her hand across her forward. Leah crossed the bathroom floor and grabbed a bottle of aspirin from the medicine cabinet and dumped some in her hand to give to Grace.

“Apparently. You still kind of look like shit.” Leah grimaced, squatting down with a cold wash rag and placing it against her face.

“Roofies,” Grace said quietly. “Hey why aren’t you...you know?”

“Flat on my ass?” Leah clarified with a smile.

“Yeah, I don’t remember giving you the whoosh,” Grace held up her hand as if to touch her but missed.

“Unfortunately, that’s not the first time I’ve been dosed. Must have built up a tolerance? Or just too stubborn,” Leah said with a laugh.

“That’s fucked up,” Grace whined. “Help me up.” She reached out for Leah’s hands as she helped her pull her up off the floor.

“You good?” Leah said. She wasn’t big into touching, but she was usually a little more open around Grace. Still, Grace could tell the touching made her uncomfortable.

“Good.” Grace said walking out of the bathroom and into her bedroom.

“There’s some leftovers downstairs. I got to a shift, but Seth is going to swing by and check on you in a few hours, okay?”

Grace waved her away as she pulled clothes down from her closet. She inwardly vowed to take a pause on the going out and drinking for awhile to get her head on straight. Especially since Jacob was back.

She paused and then let out an embarrassed groan at her recollection of the events earlier that day. His hand catching her around the waist, the searing warmth causing her to jerk from a phantom pain. His introduction back into Grace’s life presented her as much of a mess as when he left.

She vowed to do better. For herself mostly, but also to show Jake that she was okay. Really, she was okay. Maybe.

Fuck.

#twilight fanfiction #Twilight FanFic #twilightfanfic #twilight #new moon #eclipse #breaking dawn #smeyer #jacobblackxoc #jacobxoc #jacob black #paul lahote #edward cullen #bella swan #chapter 34 #a monster lives here #the pack #the cullens

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captainscanadian · 4 years ago

Text

Hope | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 6)

My Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Summary: Just when Bucky had thought he was hopeless, fate had other plans for the two of you.

Word Count: 2800+

Pairing: Doctor!Bucky Barnes x Patient!Reader

Warnings: A little angst, injury & pure dumbassery.

A/N: This fic was my entry for @wkemeup‘s 4K Writing Challenge. I would like to dedicate this part (and all others) to @dramadreamer14 because she just gets me, okay? I DON’T DO TAGLISTS!

As human beings, we all have an inherent need to experience some kind of physical contact with others. This could be a simple handshake, or the tightest hug that lasts a good minute.

In medical school, we were taught that touch deprivation could often lead to an indescribable loneliness among other mental health concerns - including depression, anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of attachment securities.

Physical touch helps with the release of happy chemicals in our brain, and we all end up becoming a little less hopeless then we were before.

When Ethan and I broke up, I found myself having a hard time sleeping at night. I was constantly tossing and turning through the night, barely getting any sleep and regretting it by the time I made it into morning rounds.

At first I thought it was because the bed was getting cold without Ethan being there. I didn’t miss him; he was a dick and I know I deserved so much better than that cheating bastard. But something just felt so wrong, and I did not know what it was until months later.

What I hadn’t realized though, was that I was just unbelievably touch starved. I was longing to be held in someone’s arms, preferably Ethan’s at the time since the wounds were still fresh. But I was still longing. I needed the attachment security.

Looking back now, I know that I may have had more than one reason for sleeping with Dr. Winston. Some people may assume that I slept with my attending to get in on a surgery, which is partially true though, I won’t deny it. My professional endeavors do take precedence over my personal benefits. But the real reason why I did it was beyond that. I just happened to realize that I was just so fucking touch starved.

Jake knew it too.

The moral of the story though… we all need to be touched, to be held in someone’s arms, to feel loved. I don’t know if what Jake and I have is love. The strings are not really attached. But I think it is safe to say that I no longer feel deprived of touch - all thanks to him.

After all, I guess I’m not as hopeless as I thought I was.

When Rosie Bender had entered her friend’s house that evening, she had half expected to see him to be out and about the house. It came as a surprise to her that Bucky Barnes had even taken a few days off of work in the first place, as she had always assumed that he was a complete workaholic.

But she understood that after what had happened at your ten year reunion last week, he needed to take some time off to come to terms with his own emotions. After all, he hadn’t taken it all that well when she had found him crying in that parking lot after you had driven away with Pietro and Wanda.

Karma, she’d thought it was, because she remembered how she had found you crying the same way in your high school’s parking lot after your final fight in the cafeteria. It served him right for the way he had treated you, but that did not mean she could care less about him. All she could do was offer him some comfort at a time like that, even though she knew that he deserved every bit of it.

Nevertheless, when she entered his home, she had assumed that he would have made use of his time off by taking care of a few chores around the house. He had always been productive with his time.

But instead she was greeted by the house that looked more like a pig sty, while Bucky was passed out on his living room couch with a hardcover copy of Hopeless with Benefits in his hands. The first two books, Hopeless Romantic and Hopelessly in Love, were sitting atop his coffee table, along with several empty bottles of alcohol and take out containers.

“Oh… shit.” She shook her head as she made her way over to wake him up, her eyes filled with pity of all things.

Damn, he was hopeless - no pun intended. Although a part of herself was feeling shitty for not anticipating that Bucky would voluntarily take days off from work and spend his time binge-reading your books, she could not deny that he was a bit more smarter than she had given him credit. Surely, she was aware of what you had told him. He had spit it all out to her after getting a few drinks in his system.

To think that you had told him that your writing had helped you express your emotions and he had taken to the time to read your books because he wanted to feel what you had felt. Hell, that was so fucking romantic.

But she wouldn’t place her bets on you ever coming to realize that. She knew that you had made it clear about what you wanted from him, and she agreed wholeheartedly with your point of view. Perhaps, Bucky was just too late - and he was an idiot.

Rosie was quick to grab her phone and speed dial her girlfriend, noting that he was certainly in need of an intervention. “Hey, babe… I’m at your brother’s.” She frowned at the sight of him. “You need to get over here right now. He’s… he’s hopeless.”

“I can’t believe you flew all the way out here because I drunk dialed you after my high school reunion.” You called out as you poured two cups of coffee before walking out to your porch, handing one of the mugs to your unexpected visitor who had arrived at your doorstep that morning.

“I didn’t come here because you drunk dialed me.” Harry chirped as he turned over to look at you, accepting the mug from you and taking a sip. “I came here because you drunk dialed me and told me that you wanted to sell me the movie rights to your books. Considering that you’ve had me chasing you around for those rights for years, I just wanted to make sure that you were going to hold up to that deal when you were sober.”

You rolled your eyes at his words before shaking your head. “Oh fuck off, Harry.”

“No, really… that’s why I came.”

“Wanda told you, didn’t she?” You sighed as you took a sip of your coffee. “That I cried to her about my ex and his baby.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. “She mentioned that you said something along the lines of… who gets to have a happy ending.”

“Well, I was drunk.�� You admitted, laughing softly. “And I had just given Bucky a piece of my mind. I was bitter about everything.”

“As I said before, rightfully so.” He repeated, leaning against the porch and sighing. “So, if you really were serious about selling me the movie rights, does that mean you’ve finally figured out how it ends? Speaking of happy endings and all...”

You bit down on your bottom lip before shaking your head. “I don’t know how it ends, at least not yet. But I think Hope’s in a good place now. She’s home, and she’s got herself a job at the local hospital. She might be far away from Jake now, but she was doing just fine without him… and she’s surrounded by old friends and certain unwanted memories. She just needs to figure out what she wants.”

“I think she already knows what she wants.” He pointed out with a smirk on his lips. “But she’s just too stubborn to admit it.”

You raised your eyebrow at Harry, shooting him a quick glare.

“Oh come on, you know I’m right.”

“And that’s what I hate about you.” You admitted, because you knew damn well what Hope Anderson wanted.

She might not need it, but she wants it. Just like how you might not need him, but you wanted him too. You wanted him so badly, because you were one hopeless fucking romantic.

As much as you hated to admit it, your writer’s block really was getting the worst of you. Sure, you had figured out what you wanted to write when it came to the plot of the final novel. But getting there was the problem. You just did not know how to get where you wanted to be, figuratively and quite literally speaking.

Having found a hard time writing the scenes between Hope Anderson and her first love, Jason Prescott, which was meant to make up a majority of the novel, you found yourself shutting down your laptop for the umpteenth time that week and retreating to paint the rest of the house.

You had certainly used up the time that you weren’t writing to paint the majority of the interior of the house, and it was safe to say that it looked much more vibrant now that it had been when you had first arrived. But as much as you had transformed the inside of the house, the outside looked just the same. So, you figured that your next mission was to paint the exterior of your childhood home before you get hit by the winter weather.

It was quite ambitious, really. Considering that your experience in house-flipping was quite non-existent, you were quite impressed that you had done something with the place. You had added your personal touches to the house that your mother had owned with pride. Perhaps this really was your way of honouring her.

Nevertheless, you wondered if it was possible to paint the exterior of the house, given that all you had was a few buckets of paint and a ladder that you had borrowed from Nick. Not to mention that there was only one of you. Was this really a one woman’s job?

You were not going to let this discourage you, so you found yourself dressing up in several layers and climbing up the ladder to start your next painting task. What the hell were you doing?

Nick Fury had noticed you drag the ladder out to your driveway after covering up the Porsche, which was why he had found himself watching you in utter disbelief. “Is it just me or have you finally gone bonkers?”

You rolled your eyes at the old man’s words as you continued to apply a coat of primer onto the wall. “I finished up with the inside of the house, so I thought I’d get a head start on the outside.” You responded with a shrug.

“Y/N, should I remind you that it’s the middle of November?” He scolded, crossing his arms against his chest. “Who paints the house in November?!”

“Why? Is there some cardinal rule not to paint a house in November that I don’t know about?”

You knew that the man had a point, but you were also quite stubborn… and bored. It’s not like you had any company, other than Nick.

You hadn’t been returning Rosie Bender’s calls ever since the reunion. Not that you had anything against her. You knew that she had meant well when she had invited you to the reunion, but you could not risk running into Bucky again because of her, knowing that she was dating Becca Barnes, after all.

Pietro and Wanda had left Shelbyville right after your reunion, as they did not plan on staying for Thanksgiving. You understood why they wouldn’t want to stay in this town for so long, neither would you… but what choice did you have in that matter? You had promised yourself that you would not leave town until you finished that bloody novel, and you were quite stubborn about that.

While Harry had paid you a surprise visit the other day, even he had only stayed with you for a few hours. He wanted to get back to Los Angeles and make the arrangements for you to sign off on those movie rights. He seemed very excited that you had come around, to be honest. Hopeless had been his dream project, as he had already had in mind who he wanted to cast as the leads.

“How about Anastasia Belle as our leading lady. I think she’d make a wonderful Hope Anderson.” He had suggested, causing you to raise your eyebrow at him. “I haven’t worked with her in recent years, but we do have history together.”

Anastasia Belle was now a well-known actress in Hollywood, but it was Harry who had casted her as the younger version of his leading lady in the film that gave him his big break.

“She’s like the real life Anna Scott now, isn’t she?”

“Comparing her to Anna Scott is a bit of a stretch.” He admitted. “But I do plan on casting Julia Roberts as the mother… if that tickles her fancy, of course.”

Once again, you hated this man for knowing you so well.

You had been pulled away from your thoughts when you heard the sound of a car pull up to Nick’s driveway, making the man let out a groan.

“I keep telling this kid that I don’t need him to make house calls, but Carol and Maria have got him by the neck.”

You turned over to look towards Nick’s driveway to see Bucky Barnes get out of his Mercedes, dressed in a pair of black jeans, a blue henley, and a bomber jacket. In his hands he held what looked like a medical bag and in his eyes, a twinkling smile as he leaned against his car and looked towards your driveway.

“Good morning, Nick.” He smiled at your beloved next door neighbour, his eyes curiously darting up towards you before he turned back to look at Nick in pure confusion. Why in the world were you painting your house in November?

It’s been a few weeks since he’d last seen you, and you had made yourself very clear that night. You wanted nothing to do with him, so he might as well respect your wishes despite the fact that he was longing so badly to make conversation with you.

He remembered the way you looked that night, in your jeans and your sweater, Your hair and make up looking simple yet beautiful, just like you. He could not deny that you looked gorgeous, in your denim overalls that were stained with paint, and the plaid shirt you had worn over it, he recognized it. It used to belong to your mother.

You were quick to return your gaze toward the wall and continued with your painting. You could care less about his presence, and it seemed that he was here for work. Who cared if he was standing in the driveway that was adjacent to yours, staring up at you as you did your best to avoid his eyes on you. You could feel his eyes on you.

“Dr. Barnes.” The old man cleared his throat, sensing the tension that lingered in the air as you began to paint rather aggressively in hopes of convincing yourself that you did not bother about Bucky being right there.

Nope, you did not care at all. You were just busy painting the outside of your house, and paying attention to whoever was paying a visit to your next door neighbour was none of your business.

But Nick knew you too damn well to know that you were trying to ignore your childhood best friend’s presence in your shared driveway. After all, he had heard the stories of your fallout and your resulting departure from your mother.

“She seems to be doing quite well on her own.” Nick noted. “Let’s head inside, shall we?”

Bucky gave him a nod as he followed him towards his house, but he had barely made it inside when he heard a loud thud that was followed by your shrill scream.

“Y/N!” He was quick to run towards you, seeing that you were now laying on your driveway as the ladder had toppled over.

“OH FUCKING HELL!” You cried in pain, having landed on your ankle. You had felt it twist. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” Your eyes glazed over at the pain, but as you laid there unable to move, you were greeted by the worried doctor who had come to your rescue.

“Y/N, are you okay?” He asked, frowning at the sight of you. “Are you hurt? How are you feeling? Talk to me…”

Perhaps it was his doctor instincts that had made him rush to your aid, but he could not deny that he hated to see you in pain.

“It’s… my ankle.” You winced, your hand clutching tightly onto his and squeezing it in hopes that the pain would go away. “I landed on my ankle and it fucking hurts.”

#kas4kwc #aj writes #hope #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes angst #doctor au #doctor!Bucky

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Amphibia Reviewcaps: Scavenger Hunt/ The Plantars Check In

KEITH DAVID IS HERE! KEITH DAVID IS HERE AND NOT IN SHADOWY STINGER BITS BUT FULL CHARACTER! And okay other stuff happened I guess. Anne deals with her insecurity over her girlfriend being way more smart and acomplished than her, then the Plantars meet King Keith David, followed by Sprig reinacting the plot of Home Alone 2 mixed with a bit of Blank Check. You know that forgetable disney movie about the white dumbass who uses his computer skillz to get rich and has to deal with the mob.. I assume. I really have no idea exactly what blank check was about and neither do you. KEITH DAVID, under the cut.

Scavenger Hunt

And with Marcy’s big intro out of the way we’re back to simplier problem of the week episodes, though this one does lead into the next which does have some solid plot progression, and the new setting and fresh injection of Marcy mean they do feel a bit newer after the road episodes. Like a good road trip after all that time you finally get to see the sights, enjoy the place and just relax. And also eat because your usally hungry when you first arrive, which is what the plantars and new addition Marcy are doing to start. Marcy’s treating, because she’s friends iwth the king and as we learn next episode the king gives his friends acess to the royal treasury because he’s a seemingly nice dude. Again, more on that in a minute. While Hop Pop marvels at Marcy’s smarts and analytics, a messag efrom the king arrives.. and yes I too have “A MESSAGE FROM THE KING A MESSAGE FROM THE KING’ from hamilton in my head right now.

Turns out the King likes to send Puzzle grams, basically sending marcy on scavenger hunts to tell her something because their both massive dorks. And it is taking ALL my willpower not to jump right ot the keith david of things, but for the sake of profesionalism I will stay here. So our party splits up: Marcy, Anne and Sprig go off to solve the puzzle and see the town while Hop Pop ends up staying because you can get free shit the more you eat, which yeah is a nice thing and all but is usually not worth what you spend. But it’s not his dime so fair enough. The king’s toilet’s are probably gold with gems and the softest seats in the land. I mean if I were king of the world I”d want the best toilet in the world. I’d also install free health care and other good stuff, but I’d expect a really nice crapper as one of the perks of the job.

Anyway the hop pop plot really is just him eating a lot to get free stuff and showing up at the end , so i’ll focus ont he main plot which is pretty standard: Anne is insecure about how smart Marcy is, and TRIES to out marcy her in solving the puzzle, while befrending various people: Resucing a girl’s cat/caterpillar from a tree, befreinding an old lady and doing her nails, and then bonding with the gnatcho cart lady.. which made me want nachos bad, who enocourage a dispondent anne to be herself and try anyway. But yeah Marcy suceeds instead, Anne gets depressed, then Anne tries TOO Hard on the last clue when Marcy is stuck and ends up in the sewer with the alligators.. which unlike real life sewer gators, were put there on purpose by marcy to eat garbage when she redid the sewer system.. because of course she did she’s the best. It’s a really nice gag. They escape the gator when the various people Anne helped form a chain, along with an exasperated hop pop and Polly. Then sprig blabs about Anne’s insecurity, and Marcy comforts her, pointing out that while she’s a genius and what not.. she dosen’t.. get people. Anne does, which.. I found a nice twist. The first thing she did,g etting the cat, made me think “oh their going to go with her physical skills”.. but instead in a nice twist that made me like this episode more, it’s her heart. And it’s not something they pulled out of thin air: While it hasn’t really come into play a lot this season, last season was all about Anne slowly connecting with the town and being suprisingly good with people.. she can be blunt, dosen’t think things through.. but she does have empathy, problem solving and a desire to genuinely help people who need it. It’s a hard trait to learn and it’s one she does with natural ease. It’s a nice bit of showing her character and what she’s good at. Also the message turns out to be “bring the plantars” which.. yeah the second the first clue was bring, even without next episodes description, I could’ve guessed. And they close the episode as all episodes should close.. feeding nachos to a sewer gator.

Final Thoughts I: As you could tell by how easily I sped through it, the episode was...eh. It’s not bad, but no episode of the series has been truly terrible. It honestly, and this kind of complaint is overused, feels like filler. And granted I rarely watch anime, I know cartoons work different.. but this episode feels like it’s just there to provide more Marcy before we focus primarily on the Plantars again, and before the plot turns them against her. Which isn’t a bad thing mind and she’s great as she was last week. The problem is Anne. Her feeling down about herself, while a normal human emotion.. just dosen’t jibe with her normal brand of overconfidence. It’s not entirely out of the blue for her not ot feel as smart as marcy, it’s just set up poorly. We could’ve easily used a flashback or something to the human world to help make it feel like a more longstanding issue, than one that just crops up because Polly said a thing after a full episode of her being totally fine with Marcy being way smarter than her. Even the intro has her entirely fine with it. It would’ve flowed better if she played off she was fine, but secretly was trying to one up her and did feel dumber versus that being spelled out so early, as it woudl’ve fit more with the character. So yeah this one’s more just forgetable, a stop gap between two plot important episodes. And I don’t mind catching our breath after the last episode given it was a huge one what with introducing a new major character and a new setting and having a lot of action set pieces, I just know the show can do that BETTER, as seen with HandY Anne following up , if a year after, from the emotionally draining season 1 finale, they just.. didn’t this time and it just flopped a bit, but still had enough nice moments and good bits to make it still enjoyable.

That’s something I do have to give the show credit on as I have been hard on it, as i’ve said reviwing more forgetable episodes is hard: Most shows don’t make it out of season 1 without at least one terrible episode. OK KO had “Let’s Not Be Skeletons”, Ducktales had “The Beagle Birthday Massacre” (And i’m a huge fan of Lena as a character, just to be clear, her debut episode was terrible for other reasons) , Steven Universe had Arcade Mania, Adventure Time had “Freak City” and Legend of Korra had “The Spirit of Compettiton”.. and really the whole love triangle plot but that’s a story for another day.. all of these are really..e xcept arcade mania that one’s just dull and pointless. But i’m not: My point is it’s still a really good sign the show hasn’t really flopped over in the span of two seasons, with even the annoying quarallers pass still having some really good stuff to it. I may be critical, because as a critic that’s my job no one pays me for, but I do love this show and want to make it clear it’s still excellent. I’d rather watch this episode again than any episode of “Hoops”.. seriously I have no interest in that show and I question why Jake Johnston thought signing on for it was a good idea. Then again, Keith David was in this

And this

And BOTH of these

So I can’t blame Jake for wanting an easy paycheck when Screen Legend Keith David has done far worse for one. Speaking of Keith David....

The Plantars Check In

IT’S TIME.

We’ve had a sample of keith david with the omnoius end from last week but now we get the full package. And i’ve made no secret how much I absolutley love Keith David or how excited I was to see him joint he cast. The main is a voice acting and regular acting legend. Sure he usually does bit parts, but he does the hell out of them.

The man also has a longer history in disney than I ever realized. While I knew he played Goliath and Dr. Facilier, I had no idea just how much minor voice work he’s done for disney over the decades, doing a LOT of minor roles during the 90′s and even vocing Mufasa in “House of Mouse”, subbing for James Earl Jones which.. yeah if anyone’s the next Jamers Earl Jones, it’s Keith. He’s the king of making a meal out of side rolls and on the ocasions he gets a big one he makes a damn buffet of it, as seen with Gargoyles and Community.

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So yeah, I love the guy and was excited for his first full apperance and pleasantly suprised. We open at what looks like a comibation of the temple of time and Hyrule Castle for Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and I swear that’s what their going for with the background music here. Anyways after Lady Oliva tries to keep things formal, and reveals King Andrias has been king for over a thousand years, which makes things even more interesting, he .. happily hops off the throne, gives the Plantars a friendly greeting and then a bear hug. I was expecting him to be stern yet nice, for now, but this is a nice change of pace and i’ts shown by the way Olvia acts towards this behavior, wishing he’d be proper because “Most unorthodox” and all that monocle popping nonsense, that this is normal for him. So it’s not ENTIRELY an act for their benefit. He is apparently nice to his immediate subjects, vistors and especially Marcy. It’s also lovely to see Keith David play such a diffrent character from his usual villian, stoic badass or hilarious grandpa rolls, instead playing a cheerful and boisterous king. He honestly reminds me a lot fo River from star vs the forces of evil. Which by the way I also love Alan Tuduk and regret not bringing him up in either review river’s been in so far.

Anyway, we then get some more plot stuff as he meets anne, and we get a nice bit of him doing the “thumb of approval” and marveling at anne’s awkawrd fistbump in response. But it’s down to buisness, he wants to send his loyal knight and new friend he just met home, but needs the box. While anne reveals she don’t got it, with Hop Pop acting nervous as he realizes “oh shit, maybe lying to my surrogate grandaughter about something this important when we’re ont he way to a place where people will naturally want ot see the thing, and STILL not telling her after meeting Marcy and knowing sh’ed want to know about it too has started to backfire!” And yeah while he has sympathetic motives, and clearly knows SOMETHING about the box, and I supsect King Keith David does too but give me a second, his not telling Anne what he did at any time is only going to make it harder to trust him later, especially if Marcy ends up betraying them. He also notices something I actually failed to notice , as did Anne: The colorful stones on the calamity box are drained of color. So the King’s going to have to reserach this for a bit, with Marcy helping obviously and since Anne’s usless at research, the king instead happily treats the plantars to a vacation on him while they sort thigns out: A stay at the nicest hotel in the city, on his dime, and acess to his royal credit card, which given he’s king of everything means he just gave them the unlimited funds code.

Before we move on, my thoughts on the king: He’s hard to read. I do think he’s genuinely that nice a person.. but he CLEARLY has a dark side, having subjugated the toads and the frogs, which had to have happened under him as he’s first in his line and both remember the status quo as only such. Hop Pop dosen’t even question the way things are or one god king ruling over all for over a thousand years. The question is did he do so because he didn’t know better, because he thought he had to, or because

I do n’t know what that’s from but expect me to be using it a LOT from now on. My point is it’s hard to tell what his game is here. He could be a cruel asshole masquerading as a fun loving king on the service to sugarcoat his shadier actions.. or he could be a well intentioned extermist, doing awful things for what he sees as the greater good and possibly having lost the plot, or his empathy over thousands of years. Or he genunley could have no idea what he’s planning is bad and see no harm in it due to a different set of morals, again due to being immortal. There’s a LOT of intresting directions they can go with this character and i’m curious to see just what sort of vilian, or possibly good guy all along though I doubt it, he will be and given both grime, more recently i’ll admit but still, and sasha have been complex villians instead of one dimensional assholes, the show will no doubt give us something spectacular. HOpefully i’m not tempting fate but if I am, screw it, i’m rolling those dice. This is going to be godo and I can’t wait. It’ll also be intresting to see if he genuinely values marcy or is putting on the good king act and puzzles and all that to manipulate her. After all we’ve seen with Sasha that she’s easily manipulated, as far as we can tell, and sees this all as a game.. it’d be easy enough to lead her along by playing int othe genre and her desires to get her to play his game the way he needs her to. Though it’s also a question of if Marcy will see it or back the wrong side... though she MIGHT. while she isn’t great with people, she does know games and half the time a benevolent ally will turn out to be a dick in sheeps clothing. Though i’m hoping that isn’t the case for Marcy. But we’ll see..

Anyways with the first third or so of the episode down, the Plantars Check in, TITLE DROP, and Polly, Anne and Hop Pop all put on comfy robes and relax, while Sprig being sprig wants to go exploring though hop pop refuses to leave him wiht the card because of course he does. And honestly having done a few road trips myself.. yeah usually when you get back to the hotel first you want to just relax and crash, maybe go out for dinner or something with your friends, which they already did ahead of time, and recharge before doing allt he fun vacation stuff. Though I also relate to sprig as I too have been in hotels with arcades and pools from time to time as a kid and a teen and wanted to go do the fun stuff while everyone’s tired. Thankfully I also liked to read or play my various game consoles, from the game boy advance up to the switch on my most recent vacations,so I understand his restlessness. The rest of the episode goes about how you’d expect, with Sprig taking the card once hteir asleep and adventuring around and getting into various hilarious one off gags via montage, before loosing the card and fighting over it with a Bellhop Named Belle, played byt he always wonderful and always talented Krstien Schal.. about two episodes late for the gravity falls homage but never too late to do some voice acting. Sprig gets the card thanks to futurama caffine bullet time, saves paige and then saves her from firing by talking like a rich kid asshole to save paiges job before collapsing and being woken by everyone else wanting to go do fun shit.

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Final Thoughts 2: This one was better. While again I sped through the recap section this time.. it was funny> While the plot was a simple: kid sneaks out and does something he’s not supposed to yet and gets into trouble and ironic ending and all that, it’s funny enough to be enjoyable, Kristin is game as always, and the gag of Sprig using the card to wave off the snooty man at the counter is great. While most of the meat of hte episode is with the king at the start, the rst of it is still an enjoyable come down episode after the plot heavy first third of this one and marcy at the gates and does the job way better thant he previous episode. While it doen’t have a lot of tie to character or what not, it dosen’t WASTE any either. I didn’t realize till this episode that while sprig certainly hasn’t been unterutlized, he really hasn’t had his own episode this season, sharing Quaraller’s Pass with poly and only having subplots in “A Caravan Named Desire” and “Marcy at the Gates”. Here he gets a plot to himself and while it does nothing for his overal character, it’s entertaining enough, with some great gags like the caffine bullet time, the aformentioned rich people gag and the hair bit being the best “Now to put on my hat!”. It just lets the character loose to have a fun side story. See I can dog on an episode for WASTING a good opprotunity, even if I understand the stress of production and what not.. but I won’t dog one for just having fun and letting a character have the limelight if it’s still entertaining which this was. The problem with say “Scavenger Hunt”, “The Ballad of Hopidiah Plantar”, “A Caravan Named Desire” and “The Ballad of Hopidiah Plantar” is that while their not BAD episodes, they had far more potential. This one knows it’s basically home alone 2 meets blank check, but actually entertaining, and justh as fun with it. Is it hte best episode ever? Probably not. But was it fun and a nice change of pace, as well as relatable to me and thus giving me a bit of the warm fuzzies, especially in this hellscape of our lord 2020? Absolutley. That does it for this week. if you liked this review i’ve reveiwed the rest of the season so far , just check the Disney tab on my blog, along with many other shows, and i’ll be covering the show weekly for the rest of the season, along with Ducktales when it comes back next month, so follow if you want more of that and random reblogs and such. You can also shoot me an ask if you have any things you want my opinon on, any episodes you want to request or you can direct message me to outright comission an episode of any aimated show for me to review for 5 bucks a review. Either way, till we meet again, bwahahahahaha.

#King Andrias #amphibia #keith david #anne boonchuy #hopidiah plantar #hop pop #sprig plantar #polly plantar #marcy wu #lady olivia #reviews #recaps #reviewcaps

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jcmorrigan · 4 years ago

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I saw the tag- I am gonna ask you about the crossover universe- (omg I’m literally gushing about this)

OH, IT IS TIME!

So you can find a lot of this on the “What is the WHAM ARMY?” page on my blog – I’ll try to remember to link it; I’m drafting this in a word processor first so I don’t use it. Essentially, this is the universe I’ve created for my fanfic “Taking Back the Crown,” which is about…basically my favorite villains all moving into the same house and trying to take over the multiverse. And then it got lore. And more lore. Because I cannot write anything normal. The fic is nearing its 150th chapter and I’m nowhere NEAR exhausted of all the ideas I want to put in it – it’s just my big playground for hyperfixation fun. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the major points of it!

THE CAST

The main characters are the eight villains who are the founders of the WHAM ARMY. The faction name is an acronym of their first initials. They’re my ultrafaves, the villains I always get fluttery heart for, and probably the biggest collection of losers you can imagine. I’ll put them in order of the acronym and give you some background on how each entered the team.

Wuya (Xiaolin Showdown) – So the connecting factor between these people is that Mozenrath (his name is a few slots down) is their team leader and the one who decided to build a team in the first place. Wuya was recruited when Mozenrath found her puzzle box in an ancient vault. This is set post-series for XS (and Chronicles is not at all canon), so what had happened is in the big Showdown right after Raimundo was named team leader officially in the finale, the Xiaolin Monks won ALL the Shen Gong Wu to their side and stuffed Wuya in the box. So Mozenrath found her and let her out so they could be pals. A magic potion let her regain human form fairly early on, and her power isn’t even nerfed either the way Chase Young would’ve done.

Huntsman (American Dragon: Jake Long) – ADJL is also post-series in this timeline. Mozenrath has the power to resurrect people from the dead at will because he’s memorized an ancient and incredibly complex ritual that he can execute mentally (note that this means you can remove this ability from him by tampering with his memories). The Huntsman was resurrected so as to show Mozenrath around the old Huntsclan vault (which is where they found Wuya’s puzzle box). No other Huntsclan member survived the purge except Rose (and 88 and 89, but they don’t count and aren’t in this story), so the Huntsman is starting from square one.

Ayam Aghoul (Aladdin: The Animated Series): Basically just got sick of losing. He’d teamed up with a few other rando Aladdin rogues to try and pick a fight with Maleficent, and she sent him packing. So he ended up finding one of the few residents of the Seven Deserts who was powerful enough to match him AND had a similar grudge against Maleficent.

Mozenrath (Aladdin: The Animated Series): The man of the hour and the creator of the entire team. He starts the fic by crashing Maleficent’s KH Disney Villain alliance and trying to add himself to it, but…ends up being such a disrespectful nuisance that Hades just drags him straight down to the Underworld. That moment inspired him to get his OWN band of friends and start making a name for himself.

Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls): Met Mozenrath in the Underworld after his death in film canon. Annoyed Hades one too many times by claiming that he wasn’t actually supposed to die, seeing as he isn’t allergic to dairy (he is), so Hades threw him in the same cell as Mozenrath and…

Roman Torchwick (RWBY): I started writing this fic in 2016, immediately post-V3, so it’s canon-divergent after the last episode of V3 (but I got all the later-game characters to show up eventually). Which means Roman is ALSO dead at the start of this fic. He ALSO comes storming up to Hades insisting he’s not even supposed to be dead. At the same time as Snatcher is already pestering him. Which is how Mozenrath, Snatcher, and Roman end up in the same jail cell in Tartarus and get the idea that maybe they should break back into the world of the living and try to build something BETTER than what any of the three had beforehand.

Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone): Mozenrath, immediately after breaking out of the Underworld, attempted to take over Arthur’s kingdom by just walking in and throwing magic around. It backfired horribly when Merlin showed up. But then Mim showed up to counter Merlin and realized that maybe she had a potential friend here who was as blackhearted as she.

Yzma (The Emperor’s New Groove): Post-TENG, no KNG or TENS (but I reference things from TENS every now and again). Merlin turned Mozenrath into a rat, so Mim brought him to Yzma’s Secret Lab to change him back. There, they found Yzma as a cat, and she so desperately wanted out of her living situation that she added herself to the team. She was also restored to human form shortly thereafter.

There is a potential ninth member of the core in the form of Vexen (Kingdom Hearts). KH is canon-divergent after DDD and basically ignores almost every game that comes out after Fragmentary Passage. Vexen, as Even, was trying to integrate into life as a hero in Radiant Garden, except everyone annoyed him way too much, so he decided to go be with people that would give right back any insults he dished out. And then realized he was much happier being on the evil team and doing mad science with no ethics. However, he will not be promoted to the upper ranks because 1. it would spoil the acronym and 2. he is unanimously agreed-upon to be the biggest wet blanket of the group and nobody wants him at the founder parties.

(Imagine my disbelief when the actual canon arc for Vexen was THE REVERSE ONE IN WHICH HE JUST DECIDES TO GO LIVE AT RADIANT GARDEN AND NOT BE ANNOYED BY ANYTHING and that’s why JC doesn’t like Kingdom Hearts III)

Anyway, this crew is a bunch of silly friends who enjoy partying, singing, dancing, drag, indulging in vices, causing mayhem, taking over cities, arranging for mass murder, piecing together smear campaigns…but they’re all pretty much ride or die for each other. And that goes double for the ships of the set: Mozenrath/Huntsman, Mim/Aghoul, Wuya/Yzma, and my favorite ship to end all favorites, Roman/Snatcher (RedHatBlackHat is the ship name).

From there, you have a B-Squad of, like, seventy other people based on my faves. Nonnie, I know you saw this because of Vincent Edgeworth, Victor Blake, and Albert Krueger, and they are three of COUNTLESS examples. It’s a found crime family that keeps getting bigger as I get more fave villains and there’s hardly a rhyme or a reason. Currently, they live in a floating fortress designed when they stole Terra Cyclonia (Storm Hawks) and hefted it out into the aether between worlds with crystal technology.

They have a rival hero faction in the form of the Cinnamons: a gathering of people who they’ve wronged who turned out to make pretty good friends themselves. While the WHAM ARMY are the villain-protag team that you feel slightly bad loving the escapades of, the Cinnamons are the rainbows, fluff, sunshine, (secret crippling depression and anxiety), and pep-talkers of the multiverse. They’re the deuteragonist team as opposed to the “villains” of the story. They also have eight “leaders,” but they were picked up a little less quickly than the WHAM ARMY founders, instead coming together over the span of a much longer quest. These people are:

Sora (Kingdom Hearts): Heart of the team and the person who pulled them all together, because Sora loves everyone. He, Riku, and Kairi witnessed the WHAM ARMY wreaking destruction on both Radiant Garden and Disney Castle, and Sora decided no one gets to treat his homes-away-from-home like that and get away with it! Between Mozenrath and the still-looming threats of Maleficent and Xehanort, he’s now collecting pals from all worlds to fight against evil and do as much good as they can do! (While having sleepovers.)

Ruby Rose (RWBY): Before she, Nora, Ren, and Jaune could get into Mistral, Sora interrupted them on their path and directed them right back around to Vale with the news that Roman Torchwick was back in action. After an incident involving the Destiny Trio and Team RNJR having to team up and actually kill the massive Grimm unleashed in the V3 endgame, they all headed out to Radiant Garden together to continue their mission.

Papyrus (Undertale): Sora found him while exploring worlds and they clicked immediately as pals. Then the WHAM ARMY, who was living in Mt. Ebott at the time, sparked an anti-monster racist sentiment through the town, and Papyrus was advised to leave the world for his own safety, so he went traveling with Sora.

Stork (Storm Hawks): Maleficent, who is also an active player in this game, made a power play by destroying the Condor with the entire Storm Hawks team onboard while they were on the Far Side of Atmos (post-series). Stork, believing himself to be the only survivor, attempted to take his own life – only for Sora to show up just in time and offer him something better: hope that his friends survived, and new friends to tag along with until they could prove either way.

Jasmine (Aladdin): The Cinnamons came looking to Agrabah for more information on Mozenrath. When Jasmine heard he was causing chaos, she decided to get personally involved.

Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender): Post-ATLA, no LoK. Sora made a trip to the Fire Nation to see if he could head off the WHAM ARMY’s latest scheme, and ran into the Gaang along the way. After helping Katara, Aang, and Zuko protect the Fire Nation from a very near miss, Sora invited them to come travel with him. Only Katara accepted at first, the other two wanting to clean things up on their homeworld.

Kazuichi Soda (DanganRonpa): Post-SDR2, no DR3. Xehanort requested Izuru Kamukura be used as a vessel, and Kazuichi went in Izuru/Hajime’s place so his buddy didn’t have to. But the first chance he got, Kazuichi turned and ran from the Castle That Never Was…where Sora had just crash-landed. Kazuichi patched up Sora’s ship, and immediately became part of his crew. (Worth noting: in this AU, the Remnants of Despair were never brainwashed and were completely aware of what they were doing. Kazuichi is basically a redemption story, trying to be a better person to make up for the hell he caused. Also, while on the Despair side, he’d hacked off his leg to sew Junko’s in its place, disabling himself – that leg goes through an arc regarding what prosthesis is in its place.)

Rapunzel (Tangled): After the Vardaros arc of S2 of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. Rapunzel was targeted by the WHAM ARMY because she was essentially a living MacGuffin for one of their spells. Sora showed up, and Rapunzel decided to go along with him for safety AND fun, leaving Cassandra to continue the pilgrimage to the Dark Kingdom. (Wrote this before KHIII was out. And before the Evil Cass twist.)

And just like the WHAM ARMY, these folks have a huge B-squad that lives in the Radiant Garden castle and helps them deal with the various tragedies they have to clean up after. Riku, Kairi, and Jaune Arc in particular get a decent amount of stage time.

As you can see, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty/Kingdom Hearts) and her forces are another big set of chess pieces on the board! After she sent Mozenrath to gay baby jail and it didn’t stick, she’s been trying to continue plans for domination as usual but ALSO wipe the WHAM ARMY off the face of the multiverse. She, Jafar (Aladdin), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Hades (Hercules) all came straight here from KH. But I’m working to model that team’s inner circle on the team in “Quite a Glittering Assemblage,” the sister fic by gavillain (it’s basically this premise but Maleficent gets a team to start instead, but similarities end there, his is a whole different, fresh, and fun flavor). I’ve just gotten all these characters intro’d instory, but the other biggies are Loki (Marvel – I based him in the Cinematic Universe but he’s kind of just an amalgamation of Lokis), Dr. Doom (Marvel), Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time), Russell Edgington (True Blood), and Fish Mooney (Gotham). Currently, they operate out of the Forbidden Mountain in the Enchanted Dominion.

There’s also a very new addition as of the 140’s chapters: the Heathens. This is a squad of villains with moral lines in the sand (and some antiheroes or corrupted heroes). Basically, these aren’t your killers for fun. These are the people who steal candy from the gas station and think they’re slick, but the point is they’re enjoying themselves so just let it happen. The four founders of this one are Harley Quinn (DC – based on The Batman but an amalgamation of Harleys that leans sympathetic), Yang Xiao Long (RWBY), Giovanni Potage (Epithet Erased), and Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria). Currently, they operate out of the old mansion in Twilight Town.

The Xehanorts are here, and that team is largely who you think it is – though I stripped away Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia, Larxene, and Luxord in order to replace them ALL with Xaldin. More crossover shenanigans to come on this front. This team isn’t very active – they’re waiting for the Keyblade War – but they’re operating out of the World That Never Was.

There’s also another side villain faction: the Morbians, led by Mirage (Aladdin: The Animated Series). These are the demons of fear, the stuff that lurks in your nightmares, and…the villains I really like but who I don’t quite think fit in with the WHAM ARMY or any other more prominent group. But to give you an idea of what the flavor of this team is, she’s recruited not one but TWO Boogeymen – Pitch Black (Rise of the Guardians) and Oogie Boogie (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

There will be more villain factions to come, and I kind of want to splinter the Cinnamons to multiple bases as well. Obviously it’s easier to split villains up because they’re fun to write at war with each other – when I have hero teams come up against each other, usually they end up becoming best buddies instead of fighting, and that’s how I like it, but that’s why there’s just ONE BIG HERO TEAM as opposed to the many villain squads rattling around.

THE SETTING

So as you have probably gleaned, the multiverse setup is largely based on Kingdom Hearts, which is one of my favorite things (in the KH1 through Fragmentary Passage era anyway). There are many worlds that can be visited either by Gummi Ship or Corridor of Darkness. Basically any evil-aligned sorcerer can use Corridors in this ‘verse – they’ve opened their souls to Darkness and have magic, so they can do so.

The implication is that every world represents a separate “story” or part of one. As in if it’s a work of fiction HERE, it’s a world THERE. Some characters are actually savvy enough to know they’re fictional (e.g. Megavolt from Darkwing Duck, Xayide from The Neverending Story). Most of them aren’t built to handle the news, though, and just shrug it off if told. (No, really, the cosmic order prevents them from taking that news seriously if they’re not from something that regularly leans on the fourth wall anyway.)

But sometimes, things get AU’d in without their full worlds. I was inspired by how Final Fantasy is treated in canon KH, and once I started bringing in more FF stuff by the same method, I felt motivated to do that with MORE fandoms if I felt the characters could be divorced from their settings and histories easily. I’ve done it for most Disney Channel non-animated properties as well as Satellite City (ain’t that the worst combo you’ve ever looked at). I’m planning to do it for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn because I’m coming up on a location I want to delve into the civilization of but don’t have many canon characters for, so guess what, you get the FE cast now.

Major worlds or relevant locations in play are the Cyclonian warship, Radiant Garden, Twilight Town, and occasionally the Enchanted Dominion, but we move from plotline to plotline with journeys to many, many, MANY worlds of things I want to play with the settings and casts of. Also, the Cyclonian warship is about to get replaced with another WHAM ARMY base; we’ll get there.

THE STORY

For the first major “book” of TBTC, the WHAM ARMY has found a spell that they think will let them conquer the entire multiverse by giving them control over Kingdom Hearts itself. All they have do to is collect a bunch of MacGuffins that correspond to twelve elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, life, death, time, space, entropy, and aether. In order to do this, they visit the worlds of KH, RWBY, Avatar, Storm Hawks, Okami, Undertale, Wakfu, The Legend of Zelda, The Neverending Story, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and many many more. The Cinnamons catch wind of what they’re doing and start assembling. Meanwhile Maleficent is on the hunt for the Book of Prophecies and starts hiring villains on her team as well. After many madcap adventures and some devastating tragedies near endgame, the Cinnamons accidentally put the Book of Prophecies in Maleficent’s hands at the same time that Maleficent finally captures Mozenrath and gets him under heel. The WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons both launch attacks on Maleficent’s forces, and each walks away with what they came for. This is also the part where we slowburn up to the four major WHAM ARMY ships and many Cinnamon ships. In the end, the WHAM ARMY actually gets all the ingredients for their spell, but what they don’t know is it will actually cause the DESTRUCTION of the worlds. So an outside force intervenes (Discord from MLPFIM, who later joins the WHAM ARMY because he wants friends who actually appreciate him as a villain and won’t make him change) to stop them, and the next thing they know, they’re starting from square one.

We’re now in the second “book” of this story. The Cinnamons are gathering up all lost friends – the rest of Team RWBY, the Gaang, the Storm Hawks (who did in fact survive the explosion), the lost KH characters. The WHAM ARMY, on the other hand, is gathering up more villains to bolster their forces for a new evil plan: to conquer the worlds one by one, starting with Atlantis (Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and using portals to link to other territories of interest. While the WHAM ARMY is essentially working through a to-do list of what they need before they can launch such a massive invasion, the Cinnamons are finding strength in numbers because the writing’s on the wall that between Mozenrath, Maleficent, Mirage, and Xehanort, things are going to get worse before they get better, and as evil builds, good will need to rise to protect the innocent. As for Maleficent, she’s no longer able to chase the Book of Prophecies, and so, because she’s got Hades, Loki, and Salem (RWBY) there and they’re all like “Even though we’re pretty godlike, we are not that happy with how the gods we knew have run things,” Maleficent’s new goal is to slaughter the gods of all pantheons (minus those in her care) and replace them with her allies.

Anyway, as I had said in the post you saw, Anon – I basically take everything fictional I love and shove it into this AU for daydreams because it lets me imagine my faves having CROSSOVER INTERACTIONS and doing cool epic stuff on a multi-world scale. (But as much as I’ve talked up the epic aspect, a lot of it is just…like…people fucking around and hosting karaoke nights.) Anyway, I hope this gave you a good sense of the madness, and I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that they can and should just. Make a daydream and/or fanfic universe that’s indulgent as hell. Just do it.

#wham army #tbtc #long post #i considered a read more #but i hate the tiny text on my blog #i need a new blog theme

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autumnblogs · 4 years ago

Text

Day 13: Double Mobius Reacharound

https://homestuck.com/story/2073

Of all the characters in Homestuck, Sollux’s self-hatred is probably the most exaggerated, exacerbated no doubt by his role in the death of his girlfriend and his psychic brain. I like him, he’s an alright guy, and I wish I had more to say about him to be honest. I guess if there was one thing I was going to say about him, I think I said it already - Sollux serves as a mirror image of Dave, and Sollux’s decision to bow out early probably foreshadows the way that Dave will eventually decide that fighting is not for him.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/2082

How does Paradox Space know which angel to use? This is a bit of an odd moment. Maybe I’m missing the refrance, but I’ve never quite understood why Terezi reacts this way, with all of the additional periods. Sollux seems quizzical, but Terezi doesn’t react.

Also, this is the first in a serious of lines I’m going to be examining in relation to Aradia. Keep that on the back of your thinkpan.

https://homestuck.com/story/2085

Sollux and Aradia have a very sweet, tragic little relationship, and even though it doesn’t last into the longterm, I’ve always enjoyed these two together.

https://homestuck.com/story/2101

Whether retroactively, or intentionally, the sensual scantily clad fairies in Tavros’ room are a lot more noticeable on re-reads. Tavros has a pretty unassuming demeanor, and I’m not here to trash him pointlessly, but I think that Tavros has some pretty troubling patterns of behavior that can go unexamined because of the fact that he’s a victim. More on that as we go.

https://homestuck.com/story/2112

Far from a passing fancy, Tavros’ interest in animals does seem to be genuine. I wonder if he had a little farm with a bunch of these critters. We never get to see much of his other Fiduspawn if he has any.

https://homestuck.com/story/2114

Karkat and Tavros both do this, which I think is interesting because of the fact that they have opposite relationships with sleep and dreaming - Tavros spends most of his time in game asleep and dreaming of Prospit, Karkat has horrible insomnia.

https://homestuck.com/story/2122

Our very first conversation with Vriska has her tune in pretty much entirely to bully Tavros. The interesting thing is, while Vriska’s treatment of Tavros is pretty objectively bad, the way that she harasses him is actually pretty closely in line with the way that other trolls treat their friends, mutual aggression and nastiness. Vriska’s aggression isn’t addressed at someone who’s responding in kind though - Tavros is gentle where other trolls are vicious, deferential where other trolls are assertive. It’s this contrast that makes the shamefulness of Vriska’s behavior obvious to pretty much everyone but her.

https://homestuck.com/story/2123

Gamzee and Tavros are a ship tease that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but one of the things I think is interesting is the way Gamzee’s language goes from extremely lackadaisical and chill to kind of energetically violent around Tavros. Most of the time, Gamzee’s pretty laidback, but there’s a lot of language relating to murder in Gamzee’s enthusiasm here.

https://homestuck.com/story/2127

While Terezi’s Dragon doesn’t really have much of a choice in terms of its relative absence from her life, the sparse communication between the two and emotional distance is, I think, a parallel with Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/2128

Because of the fact that we don’t get as much of a look into the Trolls’ home lives, it’s less easy to narrow down what their “finer” anxieties are, but it’s clear that they follow the same pattern of having their sleeping selves wake up as a result of internal synthesis of some kind - confronting their subconscious anxieties, and consciously accepting a part of their reality that they’ve been deliberately shutting out.

There’s probably a number of things that were instrumental to waking up for Terezi, not the least of which is accepting that Vriska is not the friend that Terezi thought she was - waking up to the fact that she was being used by an abuser in a co-dependent relationship. Coming to terms with her blindness could represent growth into a healthier sense of self, one where she finds validation internally and in healthy friend and family relationships. All that being said, her relationship with Vriska is still her most important relationship, and realizing that a problem exists is only the first step in solving it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2134

Time to stop being cagey about it, I guess. I have long viewed Aradia’s story as being one that is about surviving depression, which I say as a depression survivor. I relate heavily to the language that Homestuck uses to describe Aradia’s lack of passion and lack of enjoyment of things that she used to enjoy - especially the way that she lashes out destructively to try and alleviate her boredom and frustration.

https://homestuck.com/story/2137

On an unrelated note, Aradia has the Crosbytop. I believe I’m starting to remember how it got into her hands.

https://homestuck.com/story/2139

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that Kanaya’s language directly mirrors Karkat’s from when he was harassing Jade, but their sentiment is almost precisely the opposite. She borrows another Karkatism almost immediately. So pretty much from the word go, we’re clued into the fact that Kanaya and Karkat have some relationship with each other that goes beyond the purely familiar, in the same way that Dave and John’s tendency to mirror each other’s language helps us to understand their friendship.

For a girl who doesn’t feel too many emotions, Aradia can be pretty sassy.

https://homestuck.com/story/2144

I have a friend who’s a bit of a Vriska kinnie (and feel like I’m pretty Vriska-esque myself), and one of the things that we both do that I’m seeing in Vriska here is fill dead air with chatter. I could be reading into it a little, but I think it should be a clue that Vriska is an intensely anxious kind of character.

https://homestuck.com/story/2145

In a parallel to Sollux’s introduction, we can’t immediately be Vriska. We couldn’t be Sollux because he was too busy stewing in his own self-criticism. There’s a push and pull going on between Vriska’s narcissism and her over-the-top self-deprecation.

https://homestuck.com/story/2150

I might be pulling this out of my ass, but I feel like there’s a case to be made for Aradia and Vriska actually being pretty strong parallels to each other - the only two trolls to get the tiger, faciliitators of destiny, devil-may-care grave-robbers. I don’t actually have a fully formed thought to really draw the two together, but I feel like there’s really something there. The way that Aradia puts Sollux to sleep here in order to ensure that the Right Disasters befall him is parallel to the way that Vriska puts people to sleep at clever points to make sure that Jack is created, and so on and so forth.

Maybe in the same way that Sollux serves as a parallel to Dave and helps us to understand what the right decision is for Dave, Aradia parallels Vriska and helps us to understand that roughly the same things are good for the two of them. Much later, (Vriska) basically chooses the same path of staying out of harm’s way and trying to enjoy the rest of her relatively eternal existence.

https://homestuck.com/story/2161

As soon as Karkat talks about Kanaya with anyone else, he further reinforces there is a friendship between the two of them.

Another quick note, as long as we’re here, I’ve kind of been putting this off, but I suppose with the one and only use of “autistic” as an insult in the comic, it’s finally time for me to bring this up:

Homestuck has a pretty problematic relationship with victims of abuse and people suffering from mental and physical disabilities. While on the one hand like, almost all of Homestuck’s main characters are disabled and abuse sufferers in some way or another, there are a lot of ways in which it’s not so charitable to them.

Some of it is stuff like this - early Homestuck uses the word retarded a lot as an insult, and has this single instance of autistic - all in all, that kind of language is problematic but in and of itself, not too egregious - Homestuck is a product of its time in that respect.

Stuff that I take issue with is more subtle - mostly stuff surrounding Jake and Tavros. I’ll have more to say on it later, but I wanted to find a good natural time to bring it up, and now seemed like a fine time.

https://homestuck.com/story/2162

Nepeta and Equius give us some information that helps grow our understanding of troll culture. We’ve already had some conversation about whose blood is better than whose from Sollux, but Equius starts to help us understand that some trolls take blood color extremely seriously.

These kids may not replicate the social anxieties of earthlings 1:1 but they still have plenty of things to be anxious about. The more I read Hiveswap the more I become convinced that most of these characters were never people we were meant to become terribly invested in - a lot of the function of the trolls, from a narrative perspective, is to give us parallels to the human main characters and insight into their lives, as well as to give us exposition on just how Sburb works exactly. And then most of them are pretty promptly killed off or put on a bus once their purpose is served (or in order to serve their purpose!)

Back to the subject of the social anxieties that the trolls have to deal with, Alternia is all about hierarchy baby.

https://homestuck.com/story/2173

Vriska may be a born cheater, but I’ve always sort of gotten the impression, based on the killer nature of FLARPING which is alluded to plenty in other situations, that if she’s cheating here, it may be the kind of cheating that is encouraged.

Between that and the way that Tavros and Aradia were discussing the “True Spirit of Flarping,” I can’t help but remember a description of the way propaganda works from some time ago. Propaganda doesn’t usually follow the story arc we are accustomed to, where we start with a character or characters who do not yet possess the tools or abilities they need to succeed, grow to overcome their weakness, and then overcome the problem that they couldn’t before.

Propaganda, instead, introduces us to characters who are already strong, facing enemies who are weak, or problems who are easy. They are strong because they are the heroes! Their enemies are weak. And the function of it is to intimidate the enemies of the person putting out the propaganda, and to rile up aggressive sentiment in those who are on the side of the propagandist.

We’ve already talked about how, in Homestuck “roleplaying” in both its more figurative and literal uses, is a way in which characters act out society’s expectations for them. In that way, I can’t help but view FLARPING as something of a propaganda tool itself, and one that’s pretty integral to Vriska’s way of thinking throughout the comic.

You’re either someone who is strong, or someone who is weak, and if you’re strong, you’re one of the victors, if you’re weak, you’re one of the losers, and you deserve whatever the victors decide what to do with you.

What I guess I’m building up to here is that there are real world societies that Troll Culture seems like an exaggerated parody of - particularly the more militaristic aspects of the Romans, and the Spartans. I’m going to wait for another time to write down all my thoughts about them, because this is turning into a bit of an essay, but suffice to say, it’s probably going to coincide with the one about Patriarchy whenever I get around to it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2175

There’s an interesting thing going on here between the way that Tavros is drawn (nearly identical to his imagine spot about flying around on Prospit), and the way that his erratic behavior isn’t actually all that different from the way characters normally do absurd and dangerous things here.

I’m by no means excusing what Vriska is doing here, but I think that between the fact that Tavros already wants to fly anyway, and the fact that again, characters do this kind of self-destructive thing in Homestuck all the time anyway, although to less of an exaggerated degree, Andrew is drawing a parallel between the narrative prompts from the Exiles, Vriska’s manipulations, and the intrusive thoughts that we already have on our own anyway.

Vriska manipulates Tavros the way that Doc Scratch manipulates her, although considerably clumsier, by getting him to do what he already wants to anyway.

https://homestuck.com/story/2177

That’s really all there is to say on the matter.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

In the same way that Bro manipulates Dave by imposing an idea of what it means to be a man on him - someone who can be beaten within an inch of his life, or beat someone else to within an inch of his life without batting an eye - Vriska tries to manipulate Tavros throughout his arc, and this kind of so-called “tough love” is just the start of it.

There’s a lot of supplementary material that delves deeper into Vriska’s rationale for her mistreatment of Tavros, but she makes it clear herself as we go through the comic that she at least justifies her mistreatment of Tavros by telling herself that the purpose of it is to toughen him up (so he can be one of the strong people, a winner who gets the girl.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2178

As he often is about what’s going on with other people when he’s distracted from thinking about himself by his own agitation, Karkat is probably right about Vriska - girls like her are a dime a dozen in the upper classes, and that’s the point. The point of troll society is to produce people like Vriska amongst the highbloods.

https://homestuck.com/story/2195

Let’s dig into Vriska’s self-stylization as an apocalypse buff for a second because it’s not something I think gets talked about a lot.

Apocalypticism is, in my estimation, kind of a form of generational narcissism. There are doomsayers in every generation, who claim that this is it - this new catastrophe, this new social situation, is the most important thing in the world to ever happen. The end is here. All of world history culminates in this.

I don’t mean to downplay the actual existential threats of our generation of course; climate change, late capitalism, that sort of thing. But I think Vriska’s Apocalypse Buffery fits pretty well into her need to be the most important person in Paradox Space all the time.

On another note, Luck in Homestuck is very closely related with a few concepts like Agency in Homestuck through the Aspect of Light. Terezi will later assert that luck doesn’t matter at all. What’s up with that?

Maybe Luck and Karma are two sides of the same coin (ha!) Both of them are pieces in the puzzle of Theodicy, that is to say, the metaphysics question of why there is bad in the world.

Someone like Vriska (at the beginning of her arc) would say that it’s happenstance - bad things and good things can happen to bad and good people, there’s no greater meaning behind it. Vriska has a hard time taking responsibility for her own actions - her locus of control is external, for the most part.

Terezi on the other hand mostly attributes everything to a person’s actions, hence the need to punish bad people, and reward good ones. Terezi would say that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Her locus of control is internal.

Maybe the answer is both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/2202

Just as Vriska’s introduction is through a conversation with her victim, so Doc Scratch’s introduction is through a conversation with his victim. Or at least, his most immediate victim.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

https://homestuck.com/story/2204

Kanaya pretty well sums up here what I was getting at when talking about Terezi and Vriska’s different locuses of control.

There’s no real good or bad luck here. Good luck for someone is bad luck for someone else, often enough. What “good luck” means to Vriska is that events go down the way that she personally wants them to.

And so, by seizing control and power in situations where she is helpless, the Thief of Light ensures that she always has all the luck.

Kanaya might not be right, by the way, not 100%. I’m not a stoic. You can’t just magically wish away suffering by deciding that actually, you’re 0k with it, anymore than Aradia can. Like I said, the truth probably lies somewhere between Luck and Karma.

https://homestuck.com/story/2207

While the terrifying violent monitor and the emotionally abusive manipulator are bifurcated, Vriska has a lot of the same emotional responses to her guardians as Dave does to his singular guardian - notice the similar, self-soothing language that Vriska’s narrative employs compared to the way that Dave self-sooths when trying to convince himself that the way Bro treats him is just fine and normal.

https://homestuck.com/story/2211

Equius to me is a super interesting character, because on the one hand, he’s a joke character Andrew uses to antagonize the audience by being gross but Andrew also uses him to say the quiet part loud - Homestuck is already, to begin with, a pretty lewd webcomic full of horny characters whose emotional hangups and destructive relationships with societal norms sabotage their chances at happiness. That’s all Equius is. His entire function from start to finish, aside from a source of ribald humor, is to draw attention to the fact that everyone in this comic is looking for comfort in someone else’s body, comfort from the way that unrealistic societal expectations and their attempts to live up to them don’t match up to what’s inside of their heart. Equius is a parody of Homestuck inside of Homestuck. Absurdly overpowered, ridiculously horny, all twisted up inside.

https://homestuck.com/story/2220

The language here that Equius uses - degenerate - is evocative of the sorts of right-wing authoritarian hate mongers that Equius’ ideology stands in for. Equius, of course, has doubts about said ideology, which he starts to express through transgressive relationships pretty much as soon as we meet him, like the one with Aradia. The fact that he can’t make sense of the warring ideas inside of him almost literally kills him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2221

Except that what kills him literally is a shitty clown.

I think what’s going on here is interesting, because if you want to read Equius as like, Homestuck in a nutshell, Equius’ ideological hangups are co-morbid with his sexual hangups, and resolving one set would probably go a long way toward resolving the other set. Equius is, for lack of a better term, a deviant. The sorts of things that excite him (here, viscerally) don’t match up with his idea of how troll society is supposed to be.

Equius and Gamzee are confronting each other with a different vision for what Troll Society is supposed to be like.

https://homestuck.com/story/2222

In stark contrast to the shallow and insincere hostility of Trolls who are actually friends with each other, Vriska and Equius maintain a veneer of social grace as they mutually plan to backstab each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2237

Vriska is pretty clearly projecting here, but she’s also 100% right. I guess when you know somebody, you know them. Or it could be happenstance.

Her view of redemption is also transactional. “I will make things the way they were before, and things can go back to being the way that they were,” she seems to say. It’s a very legalistic view of it, and while it might have a place in a justice system, even the extremely legalistic Terezi can tell that that wouldn’t actually fix anything. Maybe the physical and emotional damage could be repaired in theory, but if the actors in the situation don’t change themselves in fundamental ways, this is all just going to recur in the future.

Forgiveness isn’t something an abuser can earn - nobody has the right to claim that they have restored a relationship that they destroyed in the first place by demonstrating token repentance.

https://homestuck.com/story/2238

If Andrew already had in mind that Equius should in some way be a part of the gestalt of souls that is Lord English, he’s foreshadowing it early here by comparing Equius’ voyeuristic habits to Scratch’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/2244

I’ll lay my cards on the table and say I think that Doc Scratch can present the facts 100% and still be dishonest. I’m a compatibilist - I think that Free Will and Accountability are compatible with the idea of a deterministic universe. Doc Scratch doesn’t have to talk anyone into anything, but the material conditions that led everyone to the decisions that they chose to make were orchestrated by Lord English. Scratch may not be making any decisions here that effect the outcomes, sure, but the game was rigged in his favor from the start.

Again, I’m not excusing Vriska’s actions here. But for the same reason that we wouldn’t blame Tavros for jumping off of a cliff just because trying to fly is something he already wanted to do to begin with, I think it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Doc Scratch is at least partially responsible for creating this little monster.

Vriska’s complicated. Let’s move on so this whole post doesn’t turn into more Vriskourse. That’s the last thing anyone needs.

https://homestuck.com/story/2258

You know you’re going to anyway.

I guess what intrigues me so much about this section is the gradation between manipulation and coercion.

https://homestuck.com/story/2263

Vriska might be a born cheater, but Doc Scratch is a sore loser.

She’s pretty easy to root for when she’s against him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2269

Man, Act 5 Act 1 is just absolutely lousy with conversation about choice and luck.

https://homestuck.com/story/2276

Part of what creates ambiguity in terms of how much Vriska’s choices are her nature versus the conditions that shaped it is on display here in her conversation with Aradia.

Vriska doesn’t really know how to interact with people positively, like, at all. Nobody’s ever taught her. She doesn’t know what it means to be a friend to someone. She doesn’t know what it means to help someone. She doesn’t know how to be loved or forgiven.

Is this like the scorpion and the frog? Or does she have free will? (I’ll give you a hint, it’s the second one.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2280

This whole sequence is just a delight. The trolls are really just such disaster people, and if I can be excused, it’s easy to put more emotional distance between myself and say, Equius, than it is between myself and Vriska and Terezi. Like I said, Equius says the quiet part out loud, so there’s really nothing much to analyze there.

Aradia’s inability to control the ribbits is part of a general mood of a lack of control that she has as a character. Vriska’s lack of control causes her to rage at the heavens and lash out at the people around her. Aradia is just 0k with it, and neither is a healthy coping strategy. The result is that the two of them break a lot of shit.

https://homestuck.com/story/2305

For the first time in his life, Karkat is not alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/2319

I could really be mistaken here, but the way this whole sequence is presented here really feels, on an archival reread, to be telling me, “You do not need to care about these characters.” Certainly they serve a function in the story, but with the exception of a few of them (literally only a third of them), they serve as tools in an authorial toolbox to help flesh out the setting - not so unlike the Carapacians actually, but with a lot more personality.

https://homestuck.com/story/2323

Kanaya is threefold one of the few of her kind, making her extra special. While she is closest with Rose, she’s a clear parallel to Jade, who if memory serves, suffered frequent accustations of being a Mary Sue early on. Kanaya’s level of specialness (in terms of combined rare factors) outcompetes even Jade’s. Probably a part of the playfully antagonistic style of Homestuck in general.

https://homestuck.com/story/2338

It slipped my mind earlier that the honey on Sollux’s hands was being directly juxtaposed with Dave’s blood on his own hands, and here Kanaya’s. All three of them are, to some extent or another, contemplating their mortality. As Kanaya said just a few panels ago though, death is confusing without the finality. Just another way that Homestuck plays with the nomenclature of endings and beginnings and intermissions and brings into question the usefulness of those categories.

https://homestuck.com/story/2343

I have always enjoyed the dynamic that Kanaya and Eridan share with each other, and I wish there were more conversations of her just dunking on him.

Also of note in this little conversation is the way that Kanaya and John mirror each other’s language. This is an example though where they could not possibly be mirroring it the way that Dave and John might be when they’re talking about Bec, or the way that she and Karkat might be. They have, it seems, the same penchant for mischief.

https://homestuck.com/story/2345

Like her counterparts from Universe B, Kanaya’s preoccupation with relationships and personal contact is made manifest through her Squiddle Lunchtop.

https://homestuck.com/story/2350

Both of the main Pages in Homestuck are characters whose primary usefulness is seen through their ability to make friends and broker alliances. I suspect that being a Page in Sburb is to some extent a bit like being an ADC in League of Legends.

The ADC or Attack Damage Carry, if you’re not familiar with the nomenclature, is a character who starts the game weak, and remains vulnerable throughout such that the whole team has to play babysitter. If you think that sounds unappealing to play, you’d be right - it can be pretty hard to find someone willing to play ADC, especially with the popularity of high-risk high-reward Asassins (not so unlike a thief!) who are their direct counter.

In spite of their relative vlunerability, the ADC has absolutely dominated the meta of League of Legends for the past ten years for the simple reason that there is absolutely no substitute when it comes to controlling objectives.

Maybe Pages are a little bit like that. Frustrating to be one, frustrating to have one around, but extremely rewarding to invest in. It’s too bad nobody can be arsed to give them the emotional support they need to flourish. Too bad they have such... intractible character flaws.

https://homestuck.com/story/2356

Kanaya’s inability to stop mothering people sabotages her chance at winning Vriska’s affection - no doubt because Vriska has misread the situation as Kanaya being her romantic rival for Tavros’s attention. For the better, I guess, since Rosemary is my shit.

Trolls sure are weird.

https://homestuck.com/story/2369

Vriska has already figured out the point of Sburb, and perhaps the ultimate riddle, although she clearly hasn’t figured out the ramifications of it yet.

In any case, it should be clear how she has interpreted Sburb’s directive - authenticate your own existence through reproduction.

Being a winner, having self-worth, being able to justify your own existence means being strong enough, smart enough, pretty enough to shape the rest of existence in your own image.

She’s missing a critical detail, and its absence means she has it completely backwards.

https://homestuck.com/story/2370

We already know what is on the other side of the portal. Vriska is making herself out to be the final boss.

The final boss and the treasure are the same thing, in her mind.

The struggle is the objective.

The fighting is the point.

https://homestuck.com/story/2374

Just wanted to take a second to say that this whole sequence is so unnerving and horrible that I was sure she was going to murder, violate, and/or eat him, not necessarily in that order, the first time I read through this.

The sad reality is, this is the fucked up courtship ritual of a girl who has no idea how to be intimate with other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2391

And that’s where we’ll pause for the night, having finished nearly 300 pages as promised.

Hope I wasn’t getting too lazy there at the end.

I’m enjoying my weekend.

Hope that yinz enjoy yours once it rolls around.

For now, Alive and Not Sober, Cam signing off.

#commentary #liveblogging #luck #choice

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