#just observing and realizing my own judgement

[claymoresword]

The Queen And Her Knight | Chp: 7

Alicent Hightower x Knight Fem!Reader

Summary: Alicent Hightower against her better judgement, falls in love with her sworn protector. Can she bear to fight her feelings or will she finally just give in?

Wordcount: 4.2k

Pairing: Alicent x Reader

Warnings: power imbalance, angst, fluff, smut, fingering, g!p reader, dialogue heavy, mentions of alcoholism

Note: you asked and after a year i finally delivered! this one definitely moves the plot forward but i also managed to get carried away with the smut somehow lol. if you wish to skip it just keep a lookout for the asterisks

enjoy!

Taglist: @blackbirdv98 @flaiire1805 @alicentfangirl @memarrymilf @thegayassbit-ch @vantestark @hauntedfictionland @livinginafantasysposts @baddie-on-a-mission-xx @evolutionsglory @darthtargnister @dxrewclf @rozmrazaradelfinow @wlwfanfictionss @karsonromanoff

You hold up the crown for all to see. The aged relic is a circlet of valyrian steel, set with blood-red rubies. Although only few remained, the squared cut gemstones were still a captivating sight to regard nonetheless.

The crown was once worn by Aegon The Conqueror – it seems fitting that it now be passed down to his namesake. 

The dragon pit is engulfed in trepidation enough to stifle, as you gently place the crown upon Aegon's head.

It fits like a glove. A reassuring and altogether unsettling prospect.

“Let the Seven bear witness, Aegon Targaryen, is the true heir to the Iron Throne.” A declaration that rattles the silence. Your voice travels far, it ricochets off the towering walls and high ceilings.

You watched as the High Septon assisted the King back onto his feet before bowing at him in respect. 

Your hand firmly resting on the hilt of your sword as you incline your head the same way when Aegon glances at you.

As he shifts his stare toward his mother, Alicent performs a curtsey. Followed by the same from Helaena. 

Aemond holds his older brother's gaze for a moment before inclining his head in respect as well.

“All hail His Grace, Aegon, Second Of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord Of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.” The High Septon announces as Aegon turns to face the mass of people watching the ceremony.

“Aegon the king!” You call out, and soon the crowd erupts, loud bursts of shouts and claps, all celebrating their new king.

═══════════════════════════════════════════

While you stood in the dowager queen's bedchambers, your expression twists incredulously as Alicent endlessly fusses at your breastplate. Soon, moving behind you to fasten your white cloak.

“Your Grace, I can manage this on my own, truly.” You insist once more, feeling rather queer. A queen should not be tending to you, in fact it ought to be the opposite. 

Alicent remains determined, and stubborn.

“Hush.” She scolds, and you say nothing else.

“There we are.” She says, smoothing out your green tunic. After accepting the post as Lord Commander, you have since abandoned your own house colors. 

Even the breastplate you have chosen for today was a foreign one, no longer the golden kraken, now intricately carved with the sigil of House Hightower instead. 

Uncanny as it may be, you could not deny that it was beautifully made, and generally easier on the eyes compared to your old armor, it also fits far more comfortably.

You catch Alicent's eyes upon you, now suddenly feeling exposed, by the way she was observing your frame. 

Shameless and brazen; you can't help the way it stirs something within you.

“Alicent.” You snatch her attention abruptly, forcing back your amusement.

“Hm?” The dowager queen replies, lost for a moment. It seems she only realizes she has been caught when your eyes meet. A visible blush rapidly creeps up to her face in a way that makes your heart flutter.

“You seem to be eyeing me like a meal to devour.” You point out, causing Alicent to avert her gaze entirely from embarrassment.

Gods, how desperately you wish to kiss her right now.

“You look exceptional in green,” The queen utters, her hand slips up your forearm.

In truth, her admittance doesn't surprise you. 

Fascinating how she can be transparent one moment and entirely unreadable the next. 

This notion alone draws you in beyond reason. With Alicent, you are always acting on pure desire and instinct. 

She has completely enchanted you.

“Is that right?” You ask regardless, moving closer.

Alicent nods, her bottom lip set in between her teeth. The sight of her like this always drove you mad with the urge to ravage her here and now. 

The older woman instinctively slips her arms around your neck. It takes all of your control to only place a hand on the small of her back and nowhere else, trailing tender kisses along her jaw.

“Do you enjoy seeing me in armor, Your Grace?” You whisper. 

As you part her hair away from her neck, you allow your lips to meet the shell of her ear. Relishing in the way Alicent trembles at your touch.

“I do, very much.” She answers, and as you pull away, Alicent does quite the opposite, leaning in to capture your lips with her own. 

Open-mouthed and eager, she kisses you with enough fervor and passion to leave you aching for more.

You can hardly help the way your hand slips lower to squeeze her rear, pulling her flush against your groin.

Alicent gasps into your mouth at the sensation, now feeling the bulge in your breeches. 

She kisses you once more before pulling away, nuzzling her face into the crook of your neck to hide her flushed expression.

“Lord Commander.. you are being terribly indecent.” The queen's tone betrays a playfulness, one that exhilarates you.

“I cannot help it, my queen. You drive me half-mad with want.” You remark, as your hand slides up her back in a languid manner.

Alicent exhales against your neck. She pulls you in even closer, welcoming your touch.

“Be safe today.. return to me in one piece.” The other woman utters, you meet her brown eyes, warm and enticing.

“If the Gods will it, I shall.” Your response is likely less than reassuring, but the dowager queen does not say anything to confront this.

Alicent merely occupies herself by tracing along your features delicately with her thumb. Your eyes flutter shut for a moment, unable to hide the smirk that tugs at the corners of your mouth, basking in the attention she is giving you.

“Kiss me again.” You ask, and the queen moves to do exactly that, but a knock on the door causes Alicent to abruptly pull away, resuming a proximity.

The suddenness of her action nearly knocks the wind out of you and your smile quickly dissipates. 

It aches, in truth, having to sneak around like this. You mislike feeling like a dirty secret– the queen's mistress.

Or perhaps her whore.

“Come.” Alicent calls, she composes herself as she straightens out her gown. A heartbeat before her father enters.

Alicent's demeanor shifts in a way you have been privy to in the past. It appears effortless the way her expression sets impassively, her hands clasped firmly over her stomach.

Now she is queen Alicent, again. No longer the woman you had been kissing just moments prior.

Otto has his jaw tightened in a similar fashion, studying you in a way that forces you to shift uncomfortably, despite yourself. “Lord Commander, it is time for us to depart.” He finally utters.

You nod, reaching for your sword belt. “Very good, m’lord.” 

As you fastened the belt upon yourself, you observed as Alicent retrieved what appears to be a piece of parchment from her bedside table. The dowager hands it over to her father, whispering something to him that is intelligible to your ears. 

Even as you move slightly closer under the guise of arming your steel, you are still unable to make out the sudden, and evidently secretive conversation being had between them.

You vow to sate your curiousity and confront Alicent about this later; after you have successfully delivered terms to princess Rhaenyra.

═══════════════════════════════════════════

Your arrival at Dragonstone was expectedly greeted with nothing but asperity– the threat of blood shed felt imminent as you stood on the bridge.

Your army, alongside Otto's, staring down the few men who remain loyal to the Rogue Prince.

Rhaenyra Targaryen has evidently fashioned these men to act as her newly appointed Queensguard.

The notion of an agonizing death looms over all of you as her large dragon remained perched a few feet away. 

Syrax is silent– as if she possessed the capacity to understand the situation at hand.

You could sense the ground beneath you rumble every time the dragon took a breath, sending a never ending chill down your spine.

“You all are traitors to the realm.” Queen Rhaenyra declares, her late father's golden crown perched upon her head.

“King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name, in his wisdom and desire for peace, is offering terms. Confess Aegon as king and swear obeisance before the Iron Throne.” Otto pauses, and Rhaenyra only acknowledges the statement with a scowl, before a hardened expression takes over her features once more.

You observed as Daemon scoffed. His grip on his steel continued to advise you to keep a firm hold on your own sword.

“In exchange, His Grace will confirm your possession of Dragonstone. It will pass to your true born son Jacaerys upon your death.” The Hand offers, generous in any other circumstance– if it was not Rhaenyra's birthright that has been stolen from her.

“Lucerys will be confirmed as the legitimate heir to Driftmark, and all the lands and holding of house Velaryon.”

“Your sons by prince Daemon, will also be given places of high honor at court. Aegon the younger as the king's squire, Viserys as his cupbearer. Finally, the king in his good grace will pardon any knight or Lord who conspired against his ascent.” Otto finishes, and the rogue prince is quick to retaliate.

“I would rather feed my sons to the dragons than have them carry shields and cups for your drunken usurper cunt of a king.” Daemon sneers, yet you notice Otto's resolve, he remains unfazed, confident.

One you utterly lacked, in truth. You kept an eye on a second dragon, red and much larger than Syrax, orbiting the sky.

“Aegon Targaryen sits the Iron Throne. He wears the conqueror's crown, wields the conqueror's sword, has the conqueror's name. He was anointed by a Septon of the Faith before the eyes of thousands. Every single symbol of legitimacy belongs to him.” Otto claims, unwavering.

This works to agitate Rhaenyra enough, her Lord husband appears more than prepared to behead any one of you currently standing before him.

“Then there is Stark, Tully, Baratheon. Houses who have also received and are at present, considering generous terms from their king.” The Hand adds salt to an already gaping wound.

“Stark, Tully and Baratheon have all sworn allegiance to me. As have your House, y/n.” Rhaenyra states, addressing you directly, taking you by surprise for a moment before you found the sense to meet her hard stare.

As you remain silent, Rhaenyra continues.

“I understand if you don't recall, you were still suckling at your mother's teats when your father bent the knee.” The Targaryen remarks, whether intended as a jab to your pride, it matters not, as you refuse to feel it.

“But he swore his allegiance to me, nonetheless.”

You shift your weight from one foot to another, hand resting on the pommel of your sword. “I am not here on my father's behalf.” You respond curtly.

“Then who are you here for?” Daemon inquires, he quickly continues before you can conjure a reply.

“Are you so cunt-stricken by that whore you call your queen that you are willing to abandon a sworn oath? Where is your honor?” He taunts, and this time you do feel it, like a lance to the gut.

You open your mouth to respond, but Otto quickly interjects before things get the chance to escalate further.

“Grand Maester.” He calls, extending his arm. Maester Orwyle then passes him a piece of parchment, the same one that you had witnessed Alicent give to her father in her bedchambers.

Your confusion sets in once more as Otto bravely advances forward, passing the same parchment to Rhaenyra.

The queen, in her fury, snatches it from Otto, unfolding it to discover its contents. 

It was only then you noticed that it was not a letter– rather, an illustration. A page torn from a book.

“What the fuck is this?” Daemon curses, ironically sharing your sentiment.

Rhaenyra remained silent as she stared at the page in her hands, her expression still unreadable.

“Queen Alicent has not forgotten the love you once had for each other. She eagerly awaits your answer.” Otto utters, and your face falls once you recognize the tears that escaped Rhaenyra's eyes. 

A sinking feeling that you've been trying to set aside all day, re-emerges, inexplicably, you reach for your sword.

“She can have her answer now stuffed in her father's mouth, along with his withered cock. Let's end this mummer's farce.” The rogue prince hisses, as he unsheathes his steel, you immediately do the same. 

In the next few moments the noise of metal scraping against scabbard charges the air as the rest of your soldiers along with Daemon's draw their weapons.

“Ser Erryk, bring me Lord Hightower so I may take the pleasure of killing him myself.” The prince consort's command is broken by the sound of Syrax shrieking, flailing her body violently.

You flinch, but do your best to ignore the incessant pounding in your chest as you gripped your sword tighter.

Then, by a miracle, Rhaenyra subdues her uncle with a single word. “No.” She declares, Daemon is forced to set down his sword. He does it begrudgingly, and you slowly do the same.

“King's Landing will have my answer on the morrow.” The queen utters sharply before turning away, disappearing through her guards.

You stand frozen in place. 

Somehow, no blood was spilled today. The simple prospect of Alicent's care for Rhaenyra seemed enough for the Targaryen to forsake her own claim to the throne.

It appears you shall return to Alicent safely, as she asked. You should be relieved, and yet you feel nothing of the sort. 

The thought of the dowager queen welcoming you home, with a warm embrace, doesn't fill you with a sense of joy like it usually would.

It only makes you ill.

═══════════════════════════════════════════

Since returning to the Red Keep you had chosen to keep away, sequestered in your quarters. Only your thoughts and a flagon of strongwine to keep you company.

You realize that you ought to visit Alicent, assure her of your safety, but still, you couldn't bear it, not today. 

Endlessly replaying the moment in your head, Otto's words pollute your thoughts.

Alicent has not forgotten the love she once held for Rhaenyra, that much is evident.

So where does that leave you? 

You are no longer certain you even possess a space in Alicent's life, let alone in her heart.

She loves Rhaenyra, and you are only a mistress.

You wipe away your tears, it is no use crying, you are simply mourning a fantasy. Queen Alicent is beyond your reach, she always has been.

As you continued to lose the battle to your anxieties, you fail to hear the main door of your bedchambers creaking as it gets pushed open.

Alicent catches you throwing your head back as you emptied the contents of your goblet. Her expression displaying palpable concern as she approaches you.

“Why are you drinking?” She inquires, and you scramble to your feet, perplexed in the way she somehow managed to enter your chambers without you realizing it.

“Your Grace.” You address her, inclining your head as you propped your hand against the back of the chair.

Alicent appears taken aback by your formality, nonetheless she moves to touch your cheek, but halts immediately when she notices the way you recoiled.

“What is the matter?” The older woman asks carefully, studying you with such concern that it weakens your very being.

How could she possibly place you above Rhaenyra Targaryen?

“I was convinced that I was going to die at Dragonstone.” Your voice breaks.

“But you did not, thank the Gods.” Alicent utters in relief, she grabs your arm, still unaware of your true grievance.

“The only reason my men and I were spared was because Rhaenyra commanded it as such.” You state, pausing for a moment to steady your breathing. 

“and, she only did so because of you.” You accuse, and Alicent straightens her back, retracting her hand once more.

You mourn her touch, but force yourself to look into her eyes as you await a response.

When nothing comes, you decide to speak again.

“Do you love her?” You ask boldly, prepared for any response, but the one Alicent gives you is barely anything at all.

“I–” She stutters after a prolonged silence, and you scoff, moving past her to sit on the edge of your bed.

Alicent takes large strides after you, eager to explain herself. 

“Rhaenyra and I, we were children together, we did everything together. She was my closest friend.” The dowager queen starts as she moves to stand directly in front of you.

“Perhaps I was in love, at one point. But that was an entirely different lifetime, y/n. A life I do not even recognize.” She admits, and you finally look up at her.

Alicent tentatively wipes away the tear that managed to escape your eye. 

Despite yourself, your lips meet the palm of her hand as you hold it close to your face.

The dowager queen smiles.

“I am in love with you. Only you.” Alicent reassures, and your heart soars. Whether it is a lie to spare your feelings or a vulnerable truth, you are still thankful she cares enough to utter the words.

For now, that is enough.

“I love you too, so much.” You respond, still gazing up at her.

Alicent's auburn locks fell loosely down her shoulders like liquid fire. Her white nightdress, although modestly crafted, still managed to highlight every delicate curve and dip of her body.

She looks utterly breathtaking. 

The queen snaps you out of your trance when she leans down to meet your lips with her own. A searing kiss that immediately leaves you breathless.

Alicent whimpers softly as your tongue enters her mouth, overcome with an urge to feel her, you place a firm hand on her waist, guiding her to straddle your lap.

The dowager does so with no protest, her knees quickly settling in between your hips on the bed. 

Her core snug against your clothed groin, she feels so warm, so intoxicating.

*

Alicent grinds against your lap instinctively, causing you groan into the kiss. The queen seemingly overtaken with desires of her own, pulls away to begin trailing open mouthed kisses from the shell of your ear, down to your neck.

Your breathing quickens.

“Fuck– I cannot believe how perfect you are.” You say, and Alicent leans back to look at you. She does so comfortably with your firm hand supporting her.

“I am far from it,” She argues, and you are quick to shake your head in disagreement, guiding her close once more by the nape of her neck.

“You have no idea how ready I am to commit treason just to prove you wrong, my queen.” You remark, and the sound of Alicent's giggle fills you with hope for the first time in days, before she connects your lips once more.

**

As the kiss deepens your hand wanders the dowager's frame, almost like second nature, you slip it underneath her nightgown, feeling goosebumps form on her thighs from your touch.

You squeezed her rear, indecently causing Alicent to grind on your lap once more. Swallowing her gasp of pleasure as she does so. 

“Y/n..” She utters against your lips, urging you on.

Soon you glide your hand towards her inner thigh, inching even closer to her core. “Can I?” Your ask is met with an eager nod. Alicent kisses you again, harsh and wanting.

“Touch me.” She says, and you do just that, finding your way to her sex. You begin to add pressure with your palm, causing Alicent's hips to buck against your touch.

She is dripping for you already– meeting your touch desperately. As you continue to move your hand against her sex, Alicent's gasps and mewls grow louder, she results in burying her face into the crook of your neck.

“Gods–” You marvel, kissing her shoulder before prodding a finger at her entrance. 

The queen grips your shoulder tighter, nodding profusely as words continue to fail her. 

You take it as permission to enter her. Doing so with two fingers, your breath hitches at the feeling of her walls contracting deliciously against your digits.

You would kill to feel her do the same around your cock.

“Yes, oh, Gods–” Alicent pants as you continue to pump in and out of her. Less than a minute has passed and it seems she is on the verge of release already, muttering incoherently against your ear.

She squeezes your fingers once more, pulling an involuntary groan from you, she is so wet you can feel her dripping down your hand, causing you to nearly soil your breeches.

“Come, come for me, beautiful..” You coax curving your fingers inside of Alicent, and that is all it took for her to fall apart completely.

She climaxes around your fingers with a cry, the sight of her writhing on top of you was truly the most captivating thing you have ever witnessed. You cock pulses with need, straining painfully against the fabric of your breeches.

Alicent's chest is heaving violently as she meets your gaze once more, her eyes dark amidst her pleasure. 

“Thank you, for that.” She mutters before kissing you deeply, and you can't help but chuckle.

“No, my love, I should be thanking you.” You insist, and Alicent cares not to argue at this moment. Her lips meet the base of your jaw, a confidence overcomes her when she touches your breasts before moving her hand further south, squeezing your cock.

She gapes at the sensation, with a look of palpable arousal that again, nearly causes you to finish right then and there.

“You are so hard..” Alicent remarks in awe, squeezing you harder, earning a guttural noise from yourself.

“Yes, all because of you.” You confer, and the dowager bites her lip to mask her delight.

The sight drove you mad, as it always does. Quickly grabbing hold of her nightdress, Alicent allows you to lift it over her head.

You toss the garment carelessly across the room. Alicent moans anew as your mouth makes contact with her bare and sensitive breasts. You begin licking and sucking as though your life depended on it.

Another shudder of pleasure nearly immobilizes the Alicent before she grips a fistful of your locks, harshly pulling your head back.

She ground her hips again, her weeping sex pressing down on your hard cock.

“Please, I want to feel it inside me. I want to feel all of you.” Alicent pleads, and the prospect alone makes you lightheaded.

You don't plan to deny either of you the pleasure any longer.

Alicent lets out a yelp in surprise as you flip your positions, placing her flat on her back as you quickly remove your tunic, finally fumbling with the laces of your breeches before removing them as well.

The queen's stare falls onto the large shaft in between your legs, she reaches out to touch your cock, but you quickly grab ahold of her hand, pinning it against the bed as you settle on top of her.

Alicent whines in protest, arching her back helplessly, causing your breasts to press up against her own.

“Please,” The dowager queen begs once more, and you smirk with a sense of triumph, in this moment, you truly believe that Alicent is yours to worship and love entirely.

“So impatient.” You tease, placing a chaste kiss against her cheek.

If Alicent aimed to respond, she was not given the opportunity to, as you thrust your hips forward, skillfully sheathing yourself inside of her. 

Alicent releases a strangled moan at the sensation, whimpering like a maiden as she grows accustomed to your size. Her nails dig into your back, she lifts her leg to wrap around your waist, inevitably pulling you even deeper inside of her as you begin to move your hips once more.

“Fuck– oh my Gods..” Alicent curses, motivating you to move harder against her, with every stroke, her cunt welcomes your cock eagerly. Squeezing your girth in a way you've never experienced before.

Alicent eagerly intertwines your hands, the intimate noises of your coupling filling the room. 

You groan with every thrust, feeling dangerously close to your release, you kiss her once before speaking.

“Alicent, I– I won't last much longer.” You admit, and Alicent moans at your words, anxious to witness your release.

“Don't hold back, darling.” She coaxes, letting her leg fall away from your waist, you pump inside of her again and then once more before pulling out.

Alicent continues to hold your hand as your entire body tenses, she watches your strained expression as you reach your peak.

She gasps as your seed spills onto her belly. 

Your breathing grows erratic as you ride out the shockwaves from your release. 

The feeling of Alicent's soothing hand caressing your forearm manages to coax you back to reality.

Alicent chuckles lightly as you collapse next to her, attempting to gain your bearings. 

The queen turns to face you, placing a lingering kiss on your stomach, before doing the same on your chest. 

You smile weakly, threading your fingers through her auburn locks, still feeling as though you are in a dream.

One you never wish to wake from.

“I love you..” You declare, just above a whisper.

Alicent beams, her thumb tracing across your bottom lip. “I love you too, y/n.”

[rveyjules]

A Second Chance

Part 1, Part 2

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x Prime Minister's Daughter! Reader (ft. Ada Wong)

Genre: Smut, Romance, Angst

Warning: cheating, Leon is obsessed with the reader, taking photos, the reader is cold but deep inside she’s a sweetheart, mentions of arranged marriage, pure smut (masturbation, foreplay, kissing, breasts fondling and sucking, markings,  p in v intercourse, virgin sex, penetrative sex, Leon is huge [I think it's at least 9 inches, sheesh], creampie, aftercare)

Word count: 6.2k

Summary: As the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister and one of the faces of the family, you received multiple assassination attempts. So, your father hired someone to keep an eye on you. And to your surprise, out of all people, it was Leon Kennedy your father picked for you. You and Leon had a secret relationship but soon did not last because another woman came into his life. Now that the both of you meet again, will it be the start of chaos or a continuation of romance?

author's note: This is the second part of my story. This story is entirely fictional. I do not know what the President and the Prime Minister exactly do for the country. Same with the occupation of being a prosecutor and the chief of the CIA. English is not my mother tongue so pardon if you encounter mistakes and grammatical errors. This is only for entertainment purposes only. And minors, please do your homework first.

—

“The jury found the defendant guilty.” 

               Joyful sounds were heard from your client, who was the victim, and from her family. You closed your eyes and a sigh of relief escaped your mouth, smiling at your performance today. You just won another trial. The suspect is proven guilty with the evidence you have against him and the jury was on your side. 

“The jury is thanked and excused. The court is adjourned.” 

               You turned to your female client. She’s a 22-year-old who was a victim of rape and sexual assault. You promised her that you will do your best to give her the justice she was longing for after being made fun of by her schoolmates, calling her such names, giving her judgemental looks, and earning a lot of hurtful words.

        It has come to the point where she almost took her own life on the rooftop of the apartment she was staying at. Being a victim of rape is traumatizing. It would take time before you recovered completely from what happened by going under rehabilitation and psychological observation. But today, justice is served.

“Thank you so much, prosecutor!” Her mom shakes my hand repeatedly. You can’t count how many times her family expressed their gratitude for helping the child. You giggled and patted the mother’s shoulder. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you hired me as your lawyer. By the way, how was your rehabilitation?” You asked the last part, looking at your client. She has a smile on her face, brighter than the times we met before the trial and you just realized how pretty the child is. 

“It’s all nice and okay. Prosecutor,” She took a few steps ahead towards you and held your hand. “I don’t know how to express my feelings in court. Our opponent came from a prestigious family in the town. I am afraid that we will not win because of how powerful their family is. I think I underestimated you a little and I’m sorry for that. I see how focused you were in every trial session. And now that it was confirmed that he was the bad guy, I felt so happy. So, thank you so much, Prosecutor L/n.” 

            You smiled at her and cupped her cheeks. “You’re a law student, right? I want to give you some advice that can help you when you become an attorney one day,” I paused. “I considered going into law. Not because of money, but for the thrill of problem-solving. And always remember, be an independent woman. You are what you are. Face them with your head high. Justice is served and the suspect is proven guilty.” 

            The girl nodded and gave you a tight hug. “I hope we will meet again in the future, attorney.” You nodded your head and hugged her back. “I’m looking forward to it, dear.” 

           From a distance, Leon watched how you comforted a girl after winning a nerve-wracking and intense trial in the court just now. He crossed his arms and smiled, seeing you being warm around your client. Leon received a voicemail from his earpiece, 

“Agent Kennedy, the Prime Minister, scheduled a meeting with Prosecutor L/n.” 

“Copy,” He replied before approaching you. 

               The mother of your client acknowledged his presence as Leon made his way toward you. The older woman smiled at him before looking back at you and asked something unexpected…

“Is he your husband? You two look great together.”  

                 Your eyes widened and immediately denied it. “No, we’re not. He’s not my husband. I’m still single.” You awkwardly replied. Leon was taken aback by the woman’s question and quite affected when you quickly denied the woman’s question. He felt butterflies in his stomach at the thought of you being his wife. 

“Sorry for misunderstanding but he’s only my bodyguard. He’s only with me for safety purposes.” You explain, smiling to ease the uncomfortable feeling you have. The woman nodded in understanding.  

“You’re too pretty to not be in a relationship but I respect your decision if you’re not into relationships.” She smiled and you thanked her for understanding. When your client and her family have left, you turn to Leon and shoot him a death glare. 

“Seriously? You as my husband? Hell, no.” You sharply claimed. Leon cleared his throat and replied, “I just want to say that the Prime Minister scheduled a meeting with you.” You rolled your eyes at him. 

“When you received a voicemail, I received a text message from the Prime Minister.  At least you should have waited for my client to leave before popping out of nowhere only to be misunderstood as my husband.” You snarled. Leon finds you cute, though. 

“Bet you feel the butterflies in your stomach, don’t you?” He asked flirtatiously, making you scoff. 

“Butterflies,” You scoffed and chuckled sarcastically. “I got headaches.” With that, you walked past him to the exit. 

—

“Papa, you know I don’t want to be in a relationship. How many times do I need to tell you that? I don’t even want to go on a date, why are they trying to put me up in an arranged marriage?!” You snapped, rubbing your temples. 

            The meeting your father scheduled is private and personal. Right now, in front of your parents and the Senator’s son that was supposed to be your husband in this arranged marriage, looked at you in disbelief. You declared your plan in life and that is you’re not going to get married to anyone. 

“Y/n!” Your father yelled angrily. “For our family’s sake! Senator Carter’s son is the right man for you! You know that this man has the potential to become a President in the future! I want you to become the First Lady of this country.” 

“But being a First Lady has limitations, Papa! And also, it will only give me more responsibilities!” You retorted back. 

“You’re already thirty-three, Y/n. A perfect age to prepare yourself—” 

“I am not interested in becoming a First Lady,” You interrupted. "Besides, I am not into politicians. Helping the government is enough for me but marrying a politician? No." 

          With that, you grabbed your bag and walked out of the room, leaving your parents disappointed and frustrated. You can hear your dad calling out your name but you did not turn back. Tears filled your eyes, and you couldn't bear the fact that your parents are forcing you to marry someone you don't love. 

           Leon noticed your expression and he knew something was wrong. "Y/n, what happened in–" He was interrupted when you snapped at him, “Shut up! This is all your fault!” 

        He was startled and the guards that were securing the area looked in your direction. Tears started falling down your eyes, and couldn't bear the pain. “This is all your fault.” You whispered before storming out of the establishment. 

            You get the keys from your driver and ride the car before driving on your own. You sobbed as you sped up on the highway but were still aware of the speed limit. You want some time alone. Betrayals, family pressure, arranged marriage… Goddamned it, why can’t you be free from this? The trauma of your past relationship with Leon did a lot of damage. You run your hand on top of your head, calming yourself down.  

—

            In your house, you are checking the report of the CIA. There are files that must go under your consent so you have a lot of papers to sign. It’s not new for you anymore. Being a prosecutor, a superior of a top security agency, as well as being a politician’s daughter has its pros and cons. When it comes to wealth and fame, you got the jackpot. But when it comes to responsibility…

“Goddamn, I need a vacation.” You sighed as you signed the last file and put them organized on the shelf. 

           And then, Leon popped into your mind out of nowhere. He has been working under you for three months now. You are secretly doing everything to make him leave. You mean it when you say you don’t need him anymore. But there are times where Leon would be so caring of you. He’d hold your hand secretly when the two of you are close to each other in crowded places. He’d take off his jacket and put it on your shoulders when he saw you shivering. Although you are cold and dismissive to him, he’s still caring for you and his love language was still the same as before. 

           Turning your heel, you went to the window and watched the city lights of Washington D.C. You want to take a break. You want to sleep all day,knowing that you deserved it for doing a great job. But you simply can’t. Even falling asleep in your room is sometimes difficult, especially when you feel something is not right. The President needs you to be active 24/7. The White House could call you anytime when an emergency occurs. Even if it was two in the morning, you need to get up and meet the President and cabinet secretaries. 

           You are so powerful that’s why there are people who tried to kill you. Imagine, surviving five assassination attempts. You may be looking cool but deep inside you are scared. Those moments where you were stunned when the assassin pulled the trigger of his gun and you barely dodge them. It makes you feel like a child, being scared when you are supposed to be brave. 

           Taking off your gloves, you looked at your scars and caressed them. You thought the pain was gone, thinking that your scars symbolizes your bravery despite being left out. But everythings is coming back ever since Leon came back. With that you remembered how you struggled just to survive.  

         Three days after Leon left with Ada, you almost lost your sanity thinking that surviving the apocalypse is impossible. You have no one to lean on. You barely make it to find an abandoned store with foods and drinks that can ease your thirst and hunger. The city was filled with zombies. Finding a safe place to stay is difficult. The device you used to track Ada’s identity was broken. It was your only hope to contact your father. 

         Every day, you’d cry while washing your wounds on your wrists to prevent contamination and easier access for infection. Being alone and desperate to survive scared you the most. You are asking yourself what you ever did to them to leave you in this state. As for your relationship with Leon, thinking about those times when you caught him with Ada, doing the unthinkable emotionally damaged you. 

“Leon– ahh!” Ada moaned as Leon pressed his half naked body to her, sucking her neck and leaving marks on her skin. “Y/n would get suspicious where did I get this,” Ada said but Leon didn’t budge. 

            Instead, he lifted the skirt of her dress and pulled her underwear out of her legs before undoing his pants and taking his member out of its cage. “Just be quiet. She wouldn’t know that we’re doing this.” He smirked before slipping his hardened cock into Ada’s aching hole. 

           They tried to be quiet to hide their secret affair while you were standing by the door, sobbing quietly. You heard how Ada moaned and praised Leon at how good he makes her feel. And then there was you, heart shattered into pieces. You felt numb and couldn’t feel or hear anything aside from the sinful sounds coming from them. 

           That piece of memory made you punch the mirror in front of you, breaking it. Your knuckles started to bleed. You covered your ears as you fell on your knees, traumatized and heartbroken. You knew that things would go wrong between you and Leon. But this is beyond your expectation. Never in your life you thought that he would do that.

          One day, you found a radio in the establishment where you are currently staying. It was functioning and you heard voices coming from the radio. You realized that it can connect to a military base. You grabbed it and spoke to the speaker. It says that the government will bomb the city to stop the virus from spreading. Hearing this increased your fear. You don’t want to die with these monsters.

“Is this the military? Please, help me. I’m a survivor.” You said, hoping that they will hear your voice. 

        After a few seconds of silence, the voice on the other line spoke. “This is Commander Valdez speaking. Please, state your name and current location.” Your hope was growing as the commander replied. 

“My name is Y/n L/n, daughter of Senator L/n. I’m a first year college student, studying Law. I am in a safe room of the high-rise hospital in Raccoon City. Please, help me. Zombies are surrounding the area.” You sobbed. 

         Hearing that you are the daughter of the Senate President caused the Commander to order to gather up his men and prepare to rescue you and also ordered the President to refrain from releasing an order to wipe out Raccoon City until you are completely rescued. 

“Miss L/n, listen carefully to my instructions. My men will be there in less than an hour. Now, I want you to prepare yourself to fight against the horde of zombies. The President has moved the time of releasing the bomb. They will nuke the city after we rescue you. I know you have limited resources to use as your weapon but I hope you can find some to defend yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The military is on its way. Go to the rooftop of the hospital. The military chopper will come to rescue you. Goodluck.” Then your conversation ended. 

             This is your last chance. You must make it out of this damned city. You went to the bathroom of the safe room and looked at yourself through the mirror. You washed your face to make up your mind and covered your injuries with a clean cloth. You wear your jacket and luckily found a baseball bat as your weapon. With a deep breath, you gathered all your strength and prepared yourself for a life-or-death fight against those monsters. 

            You walked out of the safe room quietly to prevent attracting the attention of the zombies. You held your weapon tightly, alert for any zombies to come to your way. You are currently on the 20th floor of the hospital. The rooftop is on the 25th floor. Of course, as you expected, zombies found you and chased after you. You run for your life, hitting those zombies who will try to grab you or block your path with a baseball bat. 

            Anger was rushing through your veins that you went on a killing spree with a single weapon. You looked out the window as you ran and found the helicopter coming to the hospital you are in. This increased your hopes in survival. Little by little, you made it to the rooftop. You closed and blocked the door with anything that you think can prevent those zombies opening the door. 

          The helicopter has found you from a far distance. You waved your hands in the air as you jumped to gain their attention. But the zombies managed to break in and it found you. You turned around and fear creeped out to your veins. A large horde of zombies are coming towards you. Then, you heard loud gunshots coming from the soldiers, shooting the zombies as the helicopter moved downwards on the edge of the rooftop.

“Miss Y/n! Hop on!” A soldier yelled through the loud sound of the propeller. 

                You ran towards them and jumped to the helicopter, feeling a little relieved to be rescued. The helicopter started to move away as the zombies were falling down from the building, mindlessly trying to reach for us. The soldiers check on you to see if you are bitten. The pilot spoke through the radio. 

“General, Y/n L/n is successfully rescued from the Raccoon City. She’s not bitten or infected, just some injuries that need medical attention. Aside from that, everything is cleared.” 

“Roger that,” You heard the military general replied through the radio. 

               After a few moments, when you are far enough from the city, you hear a loud, roaring, and huge explosion. You looked out and saw an atomic bomb explosion, destroying Raccoon City. You saw how wide the bomb reached to kill those who were alive or undead. You survived the chaos on your own. You make it out of the forsaken city. You are the last man standing. The city where Leon promised you that you build your dreams and goals has been wiped out into ashes.

            A sigh escapes your mouth as you caress your scars. For everyone who barely knows you, wearing gloves is your trademark in fashion. People never see you take them off or go out without gloves on. But your family and other important people in your life know what’s behind that piece of clothing. It’s not like you were ashamed of it. It’s just that it hurts you emotionally as you remembered that you went under hard and difficult circumstances just to survive as those people you helped betrayed and left you to die. 

            Your phone opened and rang, snapping you back to your senses. You turned around and grabbed your phone. It’s a call from your older brother, Judge Dylan L/n. You picked up the call and put the phone next to your ear. 

“Dylan? What can I do for you?” You asked. 

“Y/n, Papa called me just now. What was that behavior?” He asked calmly but there’s a lingering strict tone. 

“If you’ll scold me, I’ll hang up.” You scoffed. 

“Y/n, you are the only daughter of the Prime Minister of the country and has the potential to become a First Lady.”

“I know that. Among the Prime Minister’s five children, I am the youngest and the only daughter. But that doesn’t mean that I need to go under his order to marry a politician.”

“But the boy is the son of the Senate President.”

“Dylan, please. Don’t make yourself a problem for me. He didn’t even congratulate me for winning my case today. He just called a private meeting only to say that I am bound to marry the man and ended up scolding.” 

“Patience is a virtue, Y/n,” Dylan paused. “I know that your past relationship still affects you. But in this case, you are just proving to them that you haven’t moved on from your ex-lover. Y/n, it’s been fifteen years…” 

             You sighed, heading over the table to pour yourself a glass of wine. 

“Please, believe me when I say that I truly moved on from my past relationship. It’s just that…” You paused, trying to find the right word to say. “The pain was coming back. You know that feeling when you believe in yourself that you are completely free but the truth is you are still chained up to the past?”

“Did you and that guy cross paths again?” He asked and you hummed. 

“I don’t know if fate is fooling around with me. After fifteen years, why did he come back? I mean, I don’t want to see him or even cross paths again with him but then, one day he just appeared out of nowhere.” You explained. Your brother chuckled at your response. 

“I think I know the guy you are talking about. Leon Kennedy, right? Your ex-lover but currently your bodyguard.” You pouted as his response. “If Papa knows that Leon Kennedy is your ex, what do you think he will do?” He asked.

“He will fire him immediately, probably.” You replied. 

“Wrong,” Dylan quickly responded. “You and Papa never interact with each other that much, that's why you don’t know the possibility of his reaction regarding the issue.” 

“What do you mean?” You asked. 

“Y/n, please. If you interact with Papa, you will find the answer. That’s all for now. I have to prepare for my trial tomorrow. I just called to check on you.” 

           You bid goodbye to each other before ending the call. You received another phone call from the Senate President’s son. You picked the call…

“Let’s have a drink. The usual place.” He said.

—

        Leon can still hear how loud you were when you snapped at him earlier. He can tell that your meeting with your family did not end well. The way your eyes teared up when you yelled at him, gaining the attention of the people who were in the area at that time. Leon gulped down another glass of whiskey, slightly wincing at how strong the alcohol is as he ran his thumb against your photo, which he secretly took throughout the years. 

         Yes, he has been stalking you. After saving Ashley Graham from an insane cult in Spain, he immediately did some research on you. And there he found out about your success after leaving you in a hard situation in Raccoon City in 1998. At that time, you were a newly licensed prosecutor but you became one of the most influential prosecutors in the Supreme Court as you easily solved and won cases back then. Your father was a Senate President back then and having you beside him is a big asset. With that, your father managed to reach the position of Prime Minister. 

          Every event you need to attend whether it was a national or international, he was there. He camouflaged within the crowd so that you wouldn’t see him or feel his presence. He took a lot of pictures of you, keeping them in a secret room of his house. He was obsessed with you. He even finds himself masturbating in his room with your picture in his hand, looking so elegant in every angle, every outfit you wore, every look you pulled out, it drives him crazy. 

           For his latest mission, which was in China, he brought a dozen of your pictures as his motivation and inspiration. Weird but he did. There are times when he was in a tight situation and went through near-death experiences but he remembers that he needs to come back. For you. He encountered Ada again but this time, he was not her puppy anymore, who would follow her demands and manipulate him. 

“I heard that she’s the new Chief of the CIA aside from being a prosecutor. Seems like your ex-lover has already moved on from you.” Ada smirked as she looked at the photo of you in a black dress, holding a piece of paper while speaking in court. 

“Give it back,” Leon demanded. “What are you even doing here, Ada? Are you going to use me again?” He added and Ada chuckled in response. “What do you think?” 

             What Ada did not expect was Leon’s sudden attack. He disarmed her and took the photo out of her grasp, hissing when it was crumpled slightly. Ada noticed his unusual behavior and smirked. 

“You’re obsessed with her. What is she going to think when you two meet again? What will be her reaction if she meets the one she loved the most but also the one who betrayed her?” Ada asked, trying to provoke Leon.

           Leon got furious when Ada dug up the past. Without hesitation, he pulled out his gun and shot Ada in the shoulder with eyes full of anger and guilt, not for her but for you, who he left just to escape that damn city. The woman looked at him in shock. Never in a million years did she expect that Leon would do this to her. He was different from the one she used to order around. There were also times when Leon almost got down on his knees and worshiped her like a saint. But now, his eyes are filled with the flame of anger. Leon wasn’t hers anymore, but yours even without knowing it. 

         Five months after that mission, he was summoned to the White House by the President and they talked about the assassination attempts you had. His face remained calm but his hands were clenched into fists and his insides were burning in anger. When the President asked him if he could be your bodyguard, he immediately said yes. Your father, the Prime Minister trusted him the moment the President introduced him as a recommendation. That’s how he got into your life again. 

            He prepared a plan on how he was going to win your heart again. He thought it would be easy but it turns out it isn’t. You are colder than he expected. You never look at him the way you used to look at him before. It wasn’t easy to make a conversation with you as you always dismissed him. His top priority is to keep you safe away from assassination attempts you might encounter again in the future while finding a way to see a crack in your armor. 

           He believes that you will give in to him someday. He laid down on his bed, closing his eyes, and imagine how good it feels to be between your legs as he fucks you hard. The way you’d moan loudly or even scream, praising him for making you feel so good. You’d hold onto his shoulders as he pounds against your cunt, tip kissing your cervix that sends you crying. 

          His mind was filled with lewd images of you, wearing tight blouses and pencil skirts, teasing him as you walked. Your curves are perfectly fitted into the skirt and he will pounce on you and rip all of your clothing until you are completely naked under him. You and Leon never made it to take your relationship to the next level because you were just eighteen and in your first year in college back then. You two agreed that you’ll only do it when you are ready or wait until you get married. Although your relationship was a secret, you both gave pure love to each other until shit happens. 

            He believes that your virginity hasn’t been taken yet. For someone like you who focuses on studies and two professions as well as having trust issues, he’s sure that no one hasn’t touched or even kissed you. And the thought of taking your virginity sends him to the edge as he found himself masturbating. 

“Y/n… you feel so damn good. So tight!” He moaned, imagining how tight you are when he pushed his pulsating cock inside your wet, aching, virgin pussy. 

              Your moans ring into his ears as he fucks you. The way you’d ask him to be gentle or be careful of you, sobbing. And the best part of it is when he spilled his warm seeds deep into your cunt. In real life, his cock spurted his juices, staining his hands and abdomen as he trembled from his orgasm, groaning as he let it out until the last drop. 

             No, he did not feel guilty. Why not? He’s going to take you back. Now that he heard from his co-worker that you are bound to marry the Senate President’s son. No, he wouldn’t let that happen. Not even over his dead body. If he needs to go through hell just to win your heart again, he will do it without any hesitation. 

—

         On the other side, you are back in the VIP Room of the bar where you usually go. You are currently with the Senate President’s son. There’s an awkward tension between the two of you. David Carter is sipping on his glass of vodka while you are drinking wine. 

“Your outburst earlier is unexpected,” He chuckled, studying your expression. You glanced at him as he started the conversation. “A lot of women tried to catch my attention but then there was you.” 

“Is that a compliment?” You asked, sipping on your wine and he nodded with a hum in response. 

             David might be quiet and did not have a chance to explain himself during your meeting yesterday but he is one of the most respected and most influential men in politics just like you. He’s a congressman with the potential to reach the highest rank in the country. That’s why your father wants him to be your husband. 

“Yes. I rarely compliment a woman. You know I have a high standard when it comes to women and you passed.” 

“Because this is me.”  You rebutted, rolling your eyes, and smirked. 

              You two are good friends. You went to the same law school and passed the board exams together. When you were elected as the new Chief of the CIA, he was elected as a congressman. Coincidence? He would say no but you would say yes. David understands why you suddenly snapped at your father upon mentioning the arranged marriage. He knows that you have a trauma in love although he doesn’t know who caused you that pain to be so dismissive of love. But deep down, he wished that you would realize that he has hidden feelings towards you. 

“I noticed that you are not with your personal bodyguard today. Leon Kennedy, right?” He asked, causing you to scoff and roll your eyes again. 

“I don’t know. I don’t care though. That guy needs to breathe from my dark presence.” You joked. 

“I’m surprised that he’s not resigning yet when you are so cold and dismissive to him. In my perspective, men who manage to stay despite your bad side are the ones who have true feelings for you.” You paused and glanced at him. 

“I feel this agent knows you better than I know you. For the past three months of him being your bodyguard, I have never seen someone who's more patient than your father. I noticed that you throw your tantrums on him often but he will only look at you and give you your favorite coffee. Your former bodyguards never bring you your coffee without you telling them which one you prefer. But this agent, he will just pop out of nowhere with a cup of coffee you like. Is there something I don’t know about? Do you have connections with each other?” He added. 

“Oh, David. Stop the spectacle of yourself. Agent Kennedy is nothing but only an agent who saved Ashley from Spain and is currently my bodyguard.” You retorted. 

“But a bodyguard wouldn’t act so protective and caring of you. I mean, he’s crossing the line of being a bodyguard and you don’t notice. He’d protect you from the media, people who will tend to cause you discomfort, and bodyguards should keep an eye on his distance to his boss. But he will take off his jacket and put it on your shoulder like a man who cares for his lover.” 

“Enough!” You snarled. 

“You’re guilty because it’s true. A bodyguard shouldn’t look at his boss with stars in his eyes.” David added. 

              What's surprising about him, even though he has secret feelings towards you, it feels like he’s helping you regarding your issue with Leon which you never mentioned to anyone before. 

“Admit it already, Y/n.  You and Agent Kennedy had a thing before.” 

                   You looked at him, speechless. David is a very observant person but he takes that to another level that's beyond your expectations. He raised his eyebrow at you while you shook your head in defeat. 

“You’re right. We used to be lovers.” You admitted. 

—

             Leon was in his apartment across the apartment building you are in. He purchased the unit to keep an eye on you a few years ago. He knows that this is the place where you usually go to ease your mind rather than going to your own home. He brought his own telescope, not to look up in the sky but to stalk you. With his knowledge in hacking, he used to sneak into your apartment unit and set up small cameras that are difficult to see around your place to see what you are doing when you are out of his sight. 

            You just came back from your hang out with David. You are quite tipsy and tired after a long day. Leon watched you from his computer, your every movement is being captured by the  hidden cameras he put around your apartment. You kicked off your heels and put them on the shoe rack before heading straight to your bedroom to have a nice and cool shower. Undressing yourself, Leon watched your naked figure step into the shower. The sound of water running as you hummed a song sent shivers down to his spine. 

            He watched how you touch yourself as you scrub yourself with soap and wash your hair with shampoos. The way the water ran down your body is something he can’t ignore, but craves. Those perfect large breasts, slim waist, and thick thighs, ugh. He badly wants to go there and fuck you already. 

            After thirty minutes of shower and skincare routine, you came out of your bathroom, wearing nothing but your robe and drying your hair with a towel. Leon continued watching you. He observed you as he realized that you were looking out the window, staring at the apartment building where he was currently in. He looked out too and there he found you standing, seemed to be in a deep thought. He studied your face and he believes that you’re unable to see him because his window is tinted. 

         But for you, you can definitely see him. Since Leon has become your bodyguard, you were even more observant of your surroundings. You've always had a feeling that someone is watching from the shadows and the moment you meet him again, your questions have been answered. Earlier, you and David had discussed this without mentioning Leon’s name. 

“You know, obsessive people are usually more on body language, eye contacts, and sometimes, they use metaphorical words. They are waiting for the right time to have their way to their target. I suggest you give this man a little show. I believe you can do this easily. For a seductress like you, I think this is an easy task.” David smirks as he sips on his whiskey.

“What kind of ‘show’ are you talking about?” You asked. 

“A strip show…” 

            You glared at him at the idea he suggested. “But be careful. Don’t let your bodyguard know about this show you are about to pull out or else you’ll receive a severe punishment from your daddy.” He chuckled. 

            He doesn’t know that the obsessive man you are talking about was no one but your bodyguard himself… 

           Sighing, you untie your robe and let it fall to the floor, revealing your perfect naked body. Leon gasped as his eyes widened in surprise about your sudden, unexpected move. You looked like a Greek Goddess that came down on Earth to seduce men and fulfill their lustful needs. You smirked before getting inside, slowly walking, naked. You grabbed your phone and played soothing, yet seductive music. 

             You started dancing and closed your eyes, feeling the rhythm and the melody of the music. Your hair dances in the air as you turn gracefully. Leon watches you, smiling to himself. Seeing you dance like that felt like nostalgia but way different from before. You changed from a sweet teenager into a seductress. Leon smirked, crossing his arms. 

             After a few minutes, you stopped dancing and went to your closet and wore a silk nightgown, gloves, and a coat. You put on your sandals, dried your hair, and put on a light shade of lipstick. You left your apartment, leaving him wondering what the hell just happened. You just gave him a little strip show, unsure if you did it on purpose or was that just some naughty habits he had never seen until now. While Leon heaves out an unsatisfied sigh, you went to the apartment building across yours to confront him already. 

              David is right. He crossed the line of being a bodyguard. Though he is affectionate to you when the two of you are together, you did not expect him to be this obsessive of you. 

“...or just give in to his needs already if you find yourself attracted to the man. Confront him.”

                You remember David gave you another advice earlier before going home. You also thought about this while taking a shower. You are aware that there’s a hidden camera around your house. Yet, you don’t feel creeped out at all as if you know who’s responsible for this. All the dots are connected and the mystery is solved the moment Leon came back and got hired as your bodyguard. The spark you felt towards this obsessive person sparked even more when it comes to Leon. It’s always him. Every question you make about this emotional stuff always leads back to him. 

             The ding of the elevator snapped you back to your senses as the doors opened. You stepped out of the elevator and went to Leon’s apartment unit, Unit 2704. You pressed the doorbell and waited for Leon to open the door. 

            He went to the front door and looked at the peephole. He was surprised to see you standing on his doorstep. He opened the door, you looked at him and he was surprised to see you. 

“I need to talk to you,” You started in a stern tone.

—

To Be Continued...

[hxney-lemcn]

Should I? — Bryon (AFK Journey) x gn! reader

summery: Bryon saves you after you get into a bit of trouble, and you find yourself unable to hold back your feelings.

tw: none

a/n: this isn't the best but I had to get it out of my system. This is for all my Bryon lovers.

wc: 1.6k

Master List

You watched on in awe as a dark colored falcon swooped down and attacked the enemy in front of you. You knew the forest was getting more dangerous, but you refused to let that hinder your research. At least that’s what you wanted to believe as you had been researching the animals in the dark forest for years, yet you were quickly proven wrong. 

You had tried to walk around the hypo-fiend who had managed to get into the forest, yet it had caught on to your presence quickly and went to attack you, which led to your current situation. Your heart jumped for more than one reason as Bryon stepped up and stood in front of you, sending an array of sharpened leaves towards the enemy. 

He had managed to quickly down the enemy, sustaining some small scratches. Elona flew over to us, landing on his shoulder. It was hard to understand how Bryon felt (that is if he didn’t outright state it), his blindfold blocked the view to his eyes, and his face would tend to remain stoic. That was the only reason you’d ever feel anxious in his presence, as otherwise he was a sense of comfort for you. 

You had met Bryon the first day you arrived in the Dark Forest. You had been incredibly anxious as it was your first big step on your own, thankfully, the wilder’s had been extremely kind. You first met Lyca, debriefing her on your situation and she quickly brought you to Bryon. She explained how as a Windwhisperer, he could help you find the perfect spot for the animals you wanted to observe. At first you were intimidated, he was stoic and looked no-nonsense. Not to mention he was the most beautiful man you had laid eyes on. 

Quickly, you learned that he wasn’t as scary as he looked. Both him, and his falcon, you learned to be called Elona, were quite sweet. When he brought you to a river clearing where all kinds of animals stopped by for a drink, he had offered you an abandoned cottage just a few meters away. You were flabbergasted to say the least, as you hadn’t expected such an offer. You had fumbled, offering money or some form of way to pay for the place, but Bryon had merely shook his head. He simply stated, “No one is currently using it, no reason not to let you stay there for the time being.”

That had been three years ago, and you found yourself running into Bryon more often than not. He had checked in on you after a few weeks of your move, stating that “You are my responsibility.” You weren’t sure what he meant by that, as other lightbearer refugees hadn’t spoken of having wilder companions. Of course the wilder’s would help them if needed, but otherwise the two factions would just let the other be. Of course you weren’t opposed to making friends, but you weren’t sure how to react to such a statement. 

Over time, you realized that Bryon seemed a bit lonely, and you had started to go out of your way to give him things. Whether it would be making a pie or giving him a sketch of an animal you thought he’d like (you only started doing this when he revealed he could actually see things). You both had quickly become friends, as when Bryon had free time, he would join you in your watch party and point out facts of the animals that you might’ve missed. 

You found yourself quickly falling for the reclusive man. You caught yourself thinking things you’d never thought of before, wanting things you hadn’t cared about before. It felt embarrassing, wanting such things with someone who showed no interest. He had been kind to you, he had cared for you, he didn’t judge you, and when prompted, he gave good advice. It felt wrong to care for him in such a way. He was a pillar of perception, someone who would listen to emotions and the facts to make correct judgements. Yet you couldn’t help yourself. The wish to tuck his hair behind his ears, the wish to hold his hand and hold him. It all felt wrong.

So the moment he stepped in to save you, you felt a mix of emotions. He had warned you of the dangers a few days ago, but you had foolishly ignored them. You felt ashamed, embarrassed, but also happy and lovesick. Bryon had gone out of his way to save you, even if you were being dumb. Does that mean he listens for you? Does he check in on you even if he’s not around? You felt yourself swooning at the thought.

“Haven’t I warned you to be careful?” Bryon asked, turning around to face you. Even though he had only lightly scolded you, you felt like you had done the worst possible crime.

“Yes,” You replied, looking down to avoid facing him. Once again you felt intimidated as his lips curved down into a slight frown.

“You could’ve been seriously hurt,” He continued to lightly chastise you. “You’re lucky I was coming to visit you today.”

You pouted, wanting to stand up for yourself slightly, “I thought I could sneak around it.”

“You’re louder than you think,” Bryon muttered.

“It’s not my fault you have such good hearing,” You replied back, crossing your arms. “Besides, I still need to do research, I’m close to a breakthrough!”

“Then I’ll be your guard,” Bryon concluded. “Lead the way.”

It wasn’t fair how easily he managed to fluster you. You weren’t sure if he did it on purpose or if he even realized the effect he had on you, but you hated it. You stumbled forward as his words kept repeating in your head. He’ll be your guard…that felt like such an intimate position. You weren’t a noble, you weren’t someone important, but Bryon had deemed you important enough to protect. Dura above you just wanted to kiss him to get these feelings out. 

“Are you alright?” Bryon asked as you both had walked a little. “Your breathing is rapid.”

How you wished the ground could just swallow you whole. One thing you found out rather quickly is that Bryon caught on to things quickly, but he knew when to back down thankfully.

“I’m fine,” You replied, feeling your face warm. Imagine him finding out your feelings now of all times…

“...” Bryon paused, contemplating his next words carefully. “Do not be afraid to come to me with anything. I’ll be by your side no matter what.”

He just won’t stop. The more honeyed words he spoke, the more you felt yourself wanting to confess. You had kept these feelings to yourself for so long, you were close to bursting. It didn’t help that the way he spoke towards you gave you an inkling of hope that he may reciprocate. You hadn’t ever heard him utter such things to Lyca or Solise. Of course he was friendly with them, but he was a bit more quiet with them.

“I know,” You replied softly, glancing at him as you neared the river bed. Dura, how did he manage to look at you so softly with cloth covering his eyes? You paused as the blue river came into view. The gentle tinkling of water was heard along with the cries of birds. A rabbit froze, before continuing to eat the leafy greens in front of it. A sudden longing filled you. The need to get these stupid feelings off your chest. To free your heart from the cage you entrapped it in. As always, Bryon seemed to read you perfectly, keeping his attention on you as you fully faced him.

“Bryon,” You called out, causing him to tilt his head cutely. “I hold romantic feelings towards you.” Not exactly the most romantic confession, but you didn’t want to say love so soon, as you needed more time to process your feelings. You had managed to catch Bryon off guard, as he wasn’t expecting a confession from you. He knew that people found him attractive, but they always ended up being put off by him somehow. No one really stuck around long enough. Yet you were different, you stuck by his side, you gave him your friendship, and now you were giving him your heart? 

Yes, he found himself liking you more than most. He liked the sound of your laughter (it sounded even better when he was the cause), he liked the warmth of your touch, he liked the smell of the berries you always carried on you. He liked your compassion, he liked your passion, he liked your stubbornness. Most of all, he liked you. Bryon isn’t completely sure when his feelings had shifted from friendly to more, perhaps it had always been more and he was just now realizing, but the fact remained the same. He felt the same way, and he was more than relieved to hear you felt for him in such a way. 

You, on the other hand, had become a nervous wreck the longer the white haired man stayed silent. His face gave away nothing as he faced you, Elona made it all the more intimidating. Perhaps you shouldn’t have said anything. He probably couldn’t even have a relationship due to his role as Windwhisperer. He was probably thinking of a nice way of rejecting yo-

“I feel the same way,” Bryon said softly. Oh what you would give to see the look in his eyes. 

“You know,” You started, shifting back and forth on your feet. “I could use a break from research, maybe we could go on a date instead.” You couldn’t see it, but Bryon felt like he was on fire. He was still wrapping his head around the fact that you liked him, and now you two were going on a date? He wasn’t prepared at all, but he couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. 

“Okay,” He agreed, a small smile taking over his features. “Lead the way, I’ll be right by your side.”

[cooking-with-hailstones]

The Legend of Zelda: stats of the kingdom

A Statistical Analysis of Popular Fanfiction in the Legend of Zelda Fandom on AO3

I like numbers and stats and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So over the past couple weeks, I’ve been making this spreadsheet!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the Legend of Zelda fandom on AO3.

Feel free to go explore the spreadsheet. My own observations and analysis under the cut.

TL:DR, Link has a lot of kinky sex. Sidlink and Zelink are vying for who’s the most popular ship. Also, this fandom has a shit ton of sub categories that are truly islands unto themselves and have their own conventions.

Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of AO3 results (20 fics per page) sorted by:

Hits

Kudos

Comments

Bookmarks

Anything tagged under the Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms tag that was in the top 20 most hits, kudos, comments, or bookmarks made it into the spreadsheet. This ended up including 51 fics in total.

I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!

Popular fandom subcategories:

Botw (41 fics tagged as such)

Linked Universe (9, including one mostly set in the world of BOTW)

OoT (2)

(I do wonder what it would be like to run these numbers on other fanfic sites, given the popularity boom of ao3 over the last 15 years or so. But also, Botw was an insanely popular game even by Zelda standards, so… who knows?)

Tags:

Character tags: Obviously, Link was by far the most popular character, but here are the characters that had a minimum of 3 appearances per category. Yay champions!

Zelda

Sidon

Mipha

Urbosa

Revali

Daruk

Story tags: Again, just going by sheer numbers, here are the story tags that appeared at least 3 times in every category:

Slowburn

AU – canon divergence

With honorable mentions to fluff, angst, double penetration, anal sex, amnesia/memory loss, and mute or selectively mute Link, who all cracked above 3 instances in 2 separate categories.

Relationships:

This was a tight race, but shoutout to Sidlink for eking out the win for the most highly rated ship in the Zelda fandom with 13 fics qualifying in my ranking. Zelink is close behind at 10 fics. (That being said, Zelink takes it by volume: 7,797 fics tagged as Zelink vs Sidlink’s 2,193)

Other popular ships:

Revalink (8) (this one surprised me! I didn’t realize my beloved birb was so popular)

Miphlink (3)

Link/Monsters (2)

Sidon/Reader (2)

Ganzelink, Ganlink, Malink, Miphzelink, and Miphzel all made single appearances.

(Pls don’t start ship war discourse in the notes kthanx)

All right, let’s deep dive into the numbers!

Fics in all 4 categories:

Interim - starkraving

Sands of time -tirsynni

Congrats you are officially the most popular Loz fics across all of ao3! at least according to my particular scope of analysis.

Fics in 3 categories:

Displaced - socksock

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

Popular authors (people who show up more than once in multiple categories sorry comments georg)

MarquesGillette

MaryDragon

SilvermistAnimeLover

ObakeAri

Hits:

Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:

Displaced - socksock

Interim - starkraving

To Save Hyrule - orphan_account

Sands of time - tirsynni

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

First page by hits:

Min: 117,917 – Sidon’s Epic Pining Adventure (ObakeAri)  

Max:  189,622 – Displaced (socksock)

Average: 145,385

Average wordcount for fics with the most hits:

140,909

Kudos:

Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Interim - starkraving

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

26 Minutes and 42 Seconds - T_5Seconds

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

First page by kudos:

Min: 4917 – Finding Link (Umbreonix)

Max:  10321 – Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy (Icka M Chif)

Average: 6981

Average wordcount for fics with the most kudos:

41,136

Comments:

Top 5 most popular fics by comment count:

Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes - KR5

This is an Adjuration - notfreyja

My Art - KR5

Sidon's Epic Pining Adventure - ObakeAri

Priestess of War - KR5

Woohoo! You all get to meet KR5 aka Comments Georg. Comments Georg has long conversations and RPs in the comments of their ao3 posts, which are usually fanart. TO BE CLEAR, THIS IS TOTALLY FINE AND COOL! I think it’s quite delightful! However, it does completely bork my ranking system because outside of comments, these posts do not have a lot of engagement (like, less than 100 hits and less than 20 kudos) and I don’t think they count towards my analysis of “what is popular in the Zelda fandom writ large”. But they qualified based on my criteria. Which I think speaks to the weakness of my criteria more than anything else tbh…

Anyways, shoutout to Comments Georg for truly showing off what it means to be a statistical outlier.

First page by comments:

Min: 1568 – The Quiet River Rages (MaryDragon)

Max:  43808 - Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes (KR5)

Average: 4131 (which goes down to 2042 if we exclude KR5’s impressive max, which is a full order of magnitude more than notfreyja in second place with 3470 comments. Very much demonstrating the power of a statistical outlier!)

Average wordcount for fics with the most comments:

275,593

Bookmarks:

Top 5 most popular fics by bookmarks count:

Interim - starkraving

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Sands of time - tirsynni

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

First page by bookmarks:

Min: 973 – Expatriate (thehoyden)

Max:  2984 – Interim (starkraving)

Average: 1468

Average wordcount for fics with the most bookmarks:

70,027

Fic Ratings:

G: 3 (literally all fanart from KR5)

T: 22

M: 8

E: 17

Unrated: 1

Observations:

I ran this twice. Once including crossovers, and once excluding crossovers. This filtered out a lot of large drabbles and things like “flash fiction fuckings” which, no judgment, you do you, they just weren’t super relevant for what I was looking for. If you wanna see these stats including all the multifandom stuff that shows up, here’s the link for that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DXDKXutIzVC-Iac93fFSDohAkphrn67yV-DmRt9xXmU/edit?usp=sharing

(I’m going to break academic professional analysis here and get on my soapbox for a sec – please don’t post big multifandom one shots where you tag like 20 different fandoms and every single kink that gets written about across 103 different chapters. This is literally what series are for. These kinds of things just clog up the tags, and it also makes it harder for people to find the things you’ve written that they want to read! I know this was a convention on ff.net, but this is not ff.net! We can make authors' lives and readers' lives easier!)

There were 38,427 fics in the tag “Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms” (including crossovers, that goes up to 41,634). I manually added one back in though because it was entirely a botw story, just loosely inspired by another game.

Linked Universe fans comment a LOT. Strong correlation between high comment and Linked Universe fandom subsection. Y’all are very involved and active, and you show support to your authors. I salute you!

Sidlinkers, y'all are horny and I respect it.

Zelinkers, dear god we do love a slowburn.

All the most highly kudos’d fics are very low in the comment count. It’s almost an inverse correlation.

Excluding crossovers increased the correlation between hits and kudos quite dramatically.

There were not very many au’s other than canon divergence. Only one modern au as far as I could tell from a cursory examination of tags.

Lots more clustering, far less disparity between min and max numbers than when I ran this with A:TLA numbers.

Far less consensus on a vibe. Way fewer big writers, but lots of little writers doing their own thing.

Truly a lot of E fics. We are horny bastards.

We need more stuff written for games other than BOTW!!

There aren’t as many fics that are like “oh everyone in the fandom has read these fics”. There are probably those fics in each subcategory of the fandom, or within the specific ships, but there aren’t as many general fics that have entire fandom-wide appeal.

Thank you for reading! This was a lot of fun, and I hope you found it interesting. Shoutout to the Hateno Hangout discord for helping me refine this mess :P

Further shoutout to my partner who helped with writing some SQL to help with tag analysis. Truly partner of the year.

If you want more of this kind of egregious nerdiness, I did this with the top fics in the A:TLA fandom a couple weeks ago: https://www.tumblr.com/cooking-with-hailstones/751749202663669760/statistical-analysis-of-the-most-popular-atla

[mistymisfit]

So long, Marianne III

Summary: Reader is a spy working undercover in Gotham when she meets Jason Todd, who despite her better judgement she forms a very close friendship with. This story follows their escape from Arkham asylum, their fall out and the times they run into each other as they get older.

Relationship: AK!Jason x Meta!Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of reader being at the beach and wearing unspecified swimwear, mentions of Jason being taller than reader, the shittiest vaguest smut you'll ever read (it's separated with ** in case anyone wants to skip it), mentions of past SA, and graphic descriptions of depression (like straight out of my psychopathology textbook). So minors DNI!!!!

Word Count: 6,5K

Read on ao3

Masterlist - Mobile masterlist

Years passed and you got better, better at handling your feelings, at smothering them down so you wouldn't make the same mistake again. Countless identities after and you haven't even been close to getting involved with someone the same way you did with Jason. Now you lived and moved under the name "Penny Lewis", a fake identity as a journalist that would allow you to move around countries to wherever they sent you.  You wouldn't lie to yourself, it was lonely and on some nights you wished you would've said yes to him. But you wouldn't have forgiven yourself if you let your life be defined by him. You knew the consequences of deserting and any happiness a life with him could've bought you would have been overshadowed by guilt. You heard of Joker's death from some people you walked past last time you were in the States, realizing he finally died of whatever disease he was making you slow down on the very same night you escaped. You also found out Batman was still alive and kicking, after that you wondered were Jason was, wasn't he hellbent on killing him?

Now you were stationed in Venezuela, the closest headquarters of your agency were in an entire different country so you were all on your own. Your only company being the agent who you got partnered with, a serious guy, with not much muscles but was a tech expert. The cover was that you were a regular couple on a holiday, but what you were really doing was investigating, someone was training people and forming an army there. You had to find out who and why. You've felt bad about certain missions before, especially when after getting the information you needed your bosses decided not to do anything about it because they deemed the situation was "not important enough", when you were there available and ready to stop a tragedy. What would be the reason for someone to form a secret army in a country under a dictatorship? Maybe they were just trying to get their rights back, free their country. But you sighed and pushed it all down, at least you get to enjoy the sea for a moment.

Unbeknownst to you, you were being observed from a distance . He was doing a routine perimeter check by himself, using it as an excuse to take a walk and be on his own, when he looked around and thought he saw you in the distance from the cliff he was on. He thought it'd be impossible but still presses on the side of his helmet to zoom in, so it was you. You had a different haircut, and hair color but he'd recognize you anywhere. He takes in the sight of you, now older and no longer the teenager he remembered. You were talking to someone, the other person stands up when you turn around to take off your dress and leave it on an arm-chair. He doesn't mean to but his breath hitches when he sees you in your swimwear, guess he didn't get over his crush like he thought. His expression under the mask changes when he sees who you were talking to, a guy, a very friendly guy who puts a hand on your hip and you kiss his cheek. What the fuck? Is the only thing he could think about. Until he feels a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Are we losing time spying on girls on the beach now?" The scoff he lets out in response is almost inaudible under the electronic voice the helmet gave him.

"Fuck off, Wilson" He brushes off the hand on his shoulders and moves along, clearly you were not who he remembered. You moved on when he couldn't, he was holding onto a memory and a moment of his life he knew would never come back. He had to force himself to see what you really were right now, a threat to his plan not an old friend.

Knowing of your presence and your line of work, he instructed his men to run more frequent perimeter checks and be more wary of any breaches or intrusions. So, a few nights after he first saw you, you find yourself sneaking into his base. You were good, stealthy and well-trained, light on your feet and fast- with the addition of being able to stop time. You avoid all eyes, and hide in the dark using the lack of lights to your advantage. Of course the secret military base would have the least amount of lights outside of it to avoid attracting any attention. It was close enough to the city in case anything was needed but also far away enough to go unnoticed. Whoever was running this operation knew what they were doing. You climbed to the roof of the main building, where you thought was most likely to have an office, which would have papers or a computer that you could use to find out who they were. Quick fingers work on picking the lock of a door on the back of it but as soon as you open it you are stopped.

A gun is pressed to your temple and you thought "fuck", you almost made it in.

"Don't move an inch, sweetheart" The man next to you speaks, and then moves your hair with the muzzle "I remember you, no powers, make a move and I'll shoot you"

You weakly nod in response, how did you even get caught? You've been studying their shifts, their patterns, everything. He was not supposed to be here. You raise your hands, signaling defeat, a bullet to your head was one of the things you couldn't heal. He opens the door and pushes you in, it leads to a dark storage unit. With the gun still fixed on your head he walks behind you, telling you were to go. Until you made it to the main room, a few gasps and whispers from the men there are heard, shocked to see someone made it past through all the security measures. You could feel the uncountable amount of eyes on you, the attention making you uneasy- not that your life being threatened didn't make you feel uneasy enough. But if he had orders to kill on sight, you would've been dead by now so you may still have a chance of escaping.

"Someone call the Knight!" He shouts, getting somebody to bind your hands behind your back with a zip tie "this gun leaves her head and we're all fucked"

He was right, you'd go for him first. Maybe only for him and then flee, they wouldn't make a fuss over one casualty. You could still complete your mission. Then you see him walking towards you, a tall man, wearing a helmet- was it electronic? huh? You assume only the helmet is robotic because he moved like a real person, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing you've come across. A robot leading a secret militia, that's a funny story to tell. Everything from his posture to the way he walked and held himself made you think he looked like the boss of this place. His gloved hand holds your jaw and leans down, like he's getting a good look at you under the blue screen of his helmet. You debate for a second if it'd be a good idea to spit on it, you were already fucked there's no other way than down now.

"To think such a pretty face could take us all out before we noticed" You barely hear the whisper of the modulated voice. And you don't know why it angers you to the point all logic is thrown out the window and you decide to take it out on the --much taller than you-- guy in front of you. He acknowledged your strength, what you were capable of doing and called you pretty while he was at it too.

You headbutt him below his chin, figuring that might be a weak point in the helmet. Had he not worn that you would've gone straight for his forehead, it was his fault for putting himself so close to you. He stumbles a few steps back from you, and you could hear the "ohh"s and gasps from the men there. It feels good for about 5 seconds, then you start wondering why you haven't been shot yet. Wasn't the man who found you supposed to be a hit man or something like that? And you were also severely outnumbered, this could have been over a while ago. You hear a robotic chuckle, it probably didn't even hurt him, and then hes grabbing your arm tightly, pushing a gun to your side.

"Adorable" He mocks

"Fuck you" You whisper under your breath, still not ready to go without a fight.

"Party's over, go the fuck home" He screams , squeezing your arm so hard you'll think it will leave a bruise "I'll handle her myself"

He starts guiding you away and for a second you have trouble keeping up with his much longer steps. You huff in annoyance, sure that if you were to stop walking he could hold you up and drag you with how strong his grip was on you. You move quite a lot, you didn't expect the place to be so big, you even go up a set of stairs until he finally opens the door to what looks like an office-kind of. It doesn't look like the place gets much use, and the sole desk only has a few things scattered over it, you doubt any of them had any importance if he took you there. There wasn't even a computer on it and you noted the chair on the other side even had dust on it. What you didn't hear on your way out was the words exchanged between the men, which would definitely have let you guess who hid under the robot mask.

"They know each other?" One of the Knight's most trusted lieutenants asked.

"She's an old ex-girlfriend of his," He clarifies, remembering how you got away. "used to be a real pain in my ass once"

"He knew she was coming?"

Slade just shrugged and walked away, avoiding anymore questions. Of course the kid knew, that's why he had doubled the perimeters check, he wasn't stupid. But it wasn't until now that he put two and two together and realized you were who he was staring at the beach the other day.

He turns you to face the desk with your back to him and it makes you nervous. What was he going to do? You'll freeze him and escape if he tries anything weird, screw a cover. They already knew too much about you so it's not like your cover mattered much anyways. He takes out a knife, God knows from where, and to your surprise uses to cut off the zip tie around your wrists.

"Why are you freeing me?"

"Because I know you wont try anything funny" You recognize the now non-modulated voice, of course it's him. Who else would be running a militia like this? It almost makes you want to laugh, sure this is how you find each other after 5 years. You see the helmet dropped at the desk but you don't dare to turn and face him just yet. You had 5 years to think about everything, to make peace with every choice you took but you were still a little afraid to face him.

"This usual for you?" He asks when you keep quiet, you don't even look at him. He wants to say he's disappointed but he can't. He knows someone like you, pretty and perfect, won't dwell in the past like he does. "Getting caught?"

"No," you reply in a weak whisper "this is my first time actually"

"What about the time-"

"It was on purpose, I was ordered to let myself get captured" You cut him off, crossing your arms in front of yourself, as if trying to shield your body from something you were not quite sure what it was. This was one of the things that would be easier to tell him without looking at his face, not like you are not dying to stare at him and see if he's changed with the years.

"Of course," He scoffs, a gloved hand resting on your shoulder "you just happened to run into your kidnapped boyfriend, lucky me"

You blush despite the situation you were in, you never thought you'd live to see the day you heard Jason calling himself your boyfriend-even if he was using that tone. Even if he had an attitude like that, was he still pissed? even after all this time?

"Jason" You sigh, what now? You tell him about how you were ordered not to look for him any further? How you disobeyed and got yourself punished from insubordination? Though that is probably how you ended up with that suicide --let yourself be captured-- mission that led you to find him.

"What? Can't even look me in the eye?" He sighs too, ending the sentence by whispering your name. "You hate me now?"

"Don't ever say that" You quickly turn around to face him. Was he always this tall? And this huge? He's obviously gained a lot of muscle since the last time you saw him, and probably grew a few inches taller too. Do boys keep growing after they turn 18? Or did he always tower over you this much? You made yourself a mental note to look it up when it was safe. Yeah, you saw him moments ago, but he had the helmet on, you didn't know you were looking at Jason it was different.

He, obviously, still has the J scar on his face, and he looks even more rough than what you remembered. You still think he's handsome, though. And his eyes are just as pretty as you remembered. It feels like the world stopped on its axis when you look at him, your memory pales in comparison to the real thing. Even if his presence has changed, and he feels much more dangerous now, you still see the same boy who would sneak to your room to get his broken ribs fixed and cuddle you. You wanted to believe he was still in there, that all the trouble you went through to help him wasn't for nothing. He's staring at you too, he has been since you entered his view, but now he is not wearing the mask so you can see his eyes trained on you.

"I could never hate you" You wanted to reach for him, touch him, just to make sure it was real but you refrained from doing it. You didn't know if he'd be okay with it, you had to bring yourself back to earth and think about how much he could've changed in the past few years.

"There you are, looking prettier than the day I left you" He apparently has no problem grabbing your face and squeezing your cheeks.

"Oh so your memory is intact" you push his hand away, his words reminding you that you were supposed to be mad at him.

"Come on, baby" He's trying to butter you up with the pet name, and you're ashamed to say it's working "You promised me some answers"

"Then ask" You tease, leaning backwards to the desk and resting your palms on it to support yourself.

"Why Marianne? Why Penny?" He asks, your legs were caged in between his not allowing you to leave as he towered over you. Hot, you thought against all logic and reason. You are not surprised to hear him say your new alias either, he must've done his research too.

"They're songs from the sixties" Your head tilted to the side with your gaze still fixed on him. You were just trying to update your memory of him, for future reference.

"The Beatles?"

"And Leonard Cohen, you should look him up." You suggest.

"Who's the guy with you?" You chuckle at the petty question.

"Jealous much? Don't worry about him, it's all make pretend"

"What about your family?" Jason questions, not letting you linger on the fact that he was in fact very jealous of the guy he thought to be your boyfriend.

"My parents died in the accident that gave me my powers... or at least that's what they told me." You sigh, ouch sensitive topic, but you had promised yourself to tell him everything he wanted to know because of the guilt that ate you up when you thought he was dead. You never saw their bodies or any confirmation that this was true. All you had to go from was their word, and they could've killed your parents to secure you as an asset for all you know. "It also gave me amnesia, so I don't remember much of that"

"And you don't have a missing sister?" He follows up, remembering what you told him all those years ago. That you were not interested in fighting crime like he was, you were sneaking out at night to try to find your missing sister. Something you wouldn't tell him much about, and he didn't pressure you into giving out more information because he thought it was a sensitive subject.

"I have a sister," you look down and to the side, as if hiding your face from him "she isn't missing. She's got a normal life and it'll stay like that"

"Is she why you didn't leave with me?" His hand gently guides your chin so you look up at him again, this time you grab his wrist to stop him. Yes , you wanted to say.

"Lose the gloves," You try to change the subject, now holding the most intense eye contact of your life "touch me seriously"

He's taken aback by your request. You wanted what? Him touching you? He's not sure if he should do it, ever since his time in Arkham he's been keeping to himself. Jason's pretty sure the last time he felt skin to skin contact was the last time he saw you, when he grazed your skin pulling your hair back.

"How do your powers work?" He asks, changing the subject too. You were just two people trying so hard to avoid the other to step on their emotional landmines. If one of you got too close the other would be quick to push them away, not allowing yourselves to fully open up despite promising to be honest. It almost makes you want to sigh in defeat, you were still holding his wrist so you put his hand on the desk behind you as close to your body as possible.

"I control time to a certain degree, so when I heal you I just turn your body back to before it was injured," You explain "it wouldn't work on any disease your body was going to develop anyways, I can slow it down but your body will always progress to it"

"Like Alzheimer?" You nod "So when you stopped Deathstroke you...froze him in time?"

"Pretty much, yes"

"What about bullet wounds?"

"Can't do much if the bullet's still inside, I can only stop the bleeding so much"

"And what abou-"

"Jay" You cut him off with a plea.

And with the look you give him he decides to give it a shot, just for you. He roughly presses his lips to yours, to test if he'd be able to take it. It almost knocked the air out of your lungs, first he refused to take off his gloves to touch you and now he's kissing you like this.

"I want to..." He whispers, his hands holding your face to make sure you won't go anywhere. "I want to try"

"We can take it slow" You offer and he nods along, letting go of you to finally take off his gloves.

First he touches your face, taking in your soft skin and you let him. You've wanted to feel his hands on you for too long, he can touch you anywhere he wants for all you care. Then he moves them down to your waist, and pulls up your black shirt until it's not tucked in your pants and he can sneak under the clothing, your breath hitches but you allow it. The second he's kissing you again he's completely disregarding what you told him about going slow. If it wasn't for him holding you, your arms on which you were resting your weight would've given out.  

"Can I?" You barely manage to get away from him to ask, and he nods quickly before kissing you again.

Your arms go around his neck, just enough to push him closer to you but at the same time trying not to overwhelm him. What did slow mean again? He realizes how touch starved he is, that it's not that he didn't want to be touched at all, he wanted to be touched by someone he knew would never hurt him. He needed to know that said touch wasn't meant to harm him or didn't have any second intentions to do so. Jason understands, right in that moment, that he wanted you back as much as wanted revenge on Batman. He's lifting you up so you sit on the desk, a hand leaving your waist just to guide your legs to wrap around him. He starts to lift your shirt up, but you stop him. You couldn't bear the feeling of someone else's hands taking off your clothes, not again. It almost felt like you could hear her voice again, telling you all about how you were such a cute thing and you were lucky her and her homicidal maniac of a partner were looking out for you from other immates-- and staff members. Worst part was you knew deep down she wasn't lying about that. You desperately don't want to go back there, not now.

"I'm sorry-"you whisper, and he recognizes that tone and that look in your face. It's the same as his own "let me..."

He only hums in agreement and gives you some space so you can take your black shirt off. Your fingers curl trying to get a hold of the chest-plate of his armor when you drag him back to kiss you. You feel his warm hands on your waist again, lowering down and keeping you in place. There was no running away now, not that you wanted to. Jason was not letting go of you tonight, his hold staying the same as his kisses go from your lips to your neck, right over your pulse point. He guides your hand to where you could take the suit off, and you learn fast working on undoing buckles and belts to rid him of the unnecessary layer of metal right now.

"I missed you" he whispers against your neck, you were blushing now.

"I missed you too" You sigh, the chest armor dropping to the floor with a loud noise that almost makes both of you flinch.

You had your eyes closed up until that moment where he stopped. You caught him staring at the tattoo on your hip. They were numbers small enough not to draw attention to them, written in a way you could've passed it off as a date in case anyone asked but its real purpose was to serve to recognize you in case you died. That was if the tracker under your skin was taken out or your face was unrecognizable. It made you feel like branded livestock, as if you were just an object. You always avoid looking at it and he should do the same. Now it was your turn to grab his chin and lead his face to look at you. Jason wasn't the only one troubled in this relationship, you had your own issues too.

"Don't" you scold, setting a clear boundary. Which he respects, he won't ask about it and if you don't want him to stare he won't.

He evens you out by taking the black long-sleeved t-shirt he wore under the suit and you don't want to stare but good God... Your eyes rush from his abs back to his eyes and you catch him smirking, you let out a giggle at the thought of him teasing you for it. He was about to do the same to you, make you look up so you wouldn't pay attention to his scars but when he noticed they were your eyes looked he knew that's not what distracted you. It felt almost normal, like you were a normal girl and a normal guy about to hook up. Of course in the back of your head you knew it wasn't the case but you allowed yourself to cling into that sense of normalcy. He's grateful that you ignore his more visible scars, that you still see him as the guy you met in Gotham so long ago. He wants to think that in your eyes at least he wasn't a failure.

"I'm sorry," He whispers, both hands cupping your face tenderly as if he wasn't holding your entire skull in them "I get it now... why you couldn't tell me, and that I treated you like shit"

"Yeah, you were a bit of an asshole" You tease with a chuckle.

He presses a soft kiss to your lips and you almost paw at his wrists when you feel like he's pulling away from you. "Will you forgive me?"

"Jay-" You murmur, seeing the tears forming in his eyes, it's the softest voice he's ever heard "I already have"

*.*

His mouth only meets yours again for a few seconds before he pushes everything off the desk, dusty papers falling everywhere and all over the floor. He's pressed up against your core when he lays you down on your back. This is were he belongs, your legs wrapped around him as he plasters kisses all over your jaw, your neck and collarbone, just anywhere he could reach. How soft lips welcome him again and again, it's like a dream come true, and your warm skin against him which he can't get enough of. His hands are steady at your waist, making sure to keep you in place, yours busy themselves tugging at the short hair on the back of his neck.

"Jay" you moan, closing your eyes. Fuck, if he wanted to have you like this he could.

"My-my ro-room's over the-" He stutters, you've barely even touched the guy and he already felt like he was melting at your touch-you were making him soft and hard all at the right places. "over there"

"You wanna take me there?" You flirt with a pout and he nods with a weak uh-huh.

Soon he's dragging you up to pick you up, a giggle escapes your lips feeling his hands on your ass. You push away the thought of how much it was turning you on to be manhandled like this.Your hands slide down to his shoulders to steady yourself as he takes you to the well hidden room connected to this office. You don't get much time to appreciate the room decor--there isn't any-- before you are laying flat on your back again, this time against a mattress. He unties your boots so you can kick them off, then your pants come off with only a bit of help from him with dropping them to the floor and he takes a step back, getting a good look at you.

"I don't have any..." he hesitates, " 'm not really sleeping around here"

"You're not?" You tease, a feet reaching for him playfully and he catches your ankle to stop you rolling his eyes in the process, his gorgeous blue eyes. "I won't catch anything from you?"

"Fuck, no" Jason scoffs, as if he didn't test himself for every disease know to man when he got out of Arkham. Besides, like he said he wasn't sleeping around, he wasn't sleeping at all--in every sense of the word.

"It's okay"

"I won't catch anything from you?" He repeats the question, and you shake your head no with a smirk "not even a kid?"

"Don't worry about that," you blush, looking away "it won't happen"

He hums in acknowledgment as his hand slides down from your ankle to your knee, parting your legs so he can settle between them again. Your heart was racing at the feeling of his hand trailing higher up your thigh, until he pushed your underwear to the side. His eyes were fixed on you, watching every reaction you had to know what you liked. What made you feel better.

"Jay-" you moaned.

"Hm?" It was almost mocking how he hid his face on your neck plating wet kisses on your skin.

"Want you"

"Want me what?" He teases, and you can't take it anymore. You grab his face with both your hands to make him look at you again before kissing him.

"Want you to fuck me" The determination in your voice had him nodding and sliding off your underwear and his own remaining clothes.

He bites back whatever sound wanted to leave his lips when he slides inside you, he's too busy watching your mouth part in a gasp and your eyes shut. He takes it slow, letting you adjust-- and getting used to the overwhelming feeling of being so close to you. He's over you, he's surrounding you like he's the only thing that exists in this world. His heartbeat slows down, looking down at the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. Jason thinks that just like this he may as well eat you alive, at least that way there will be no more lies . That if he somehow managed to swallow you whole then he could know everything about you, the way you do about him. He's only pulled back to reality when he feels your hands at his shoulders, moving faster than what he could think he grabs your wrists to pin your hands over your head. His breath hitches and his heart skips a beat when your eyes meet again, only then he starts to move.

"I love you" he lets out after a few moments, letting go of your hands, his voice is low too low.

"I love you too" You nod, noticing the tears rolling down his cheeks and softly wiping them away with your thumbs.

He brushes it off, he's not ready for this-all of this intimacy. He doesn't stop though, he just moves away to stand upright, throwing your legs over his shoulders. You moan when you feel how much deeper he could go like this. He can't help himself around you, every wall he put up to distance himself from others disappear whenever you were around. It wouldn't matter how much you lied to him, or how much you hurt him, you took his heart and it would stay with you no refunds. I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm all yours, he wants to say but wouldn't bear the thought of you not saying the same so he'd keep it to himself.  

"What-what's wrong?" You ask in a whisper when his movement falters, your cheeks flushed. You are so close.

"Nothing, just keep taking me like that pretty girl" The nickname makes you go crazy, now? He used to call you that only because he knew how much it embarrassed you. Unlucky for you, he liked seeing you flustered.

" 'M close, Jay" you whine, and he lowers a hand right where you needed it, the added pressure throwing you over the edge.

The way you feel around him is enough to push him over the edge mere seconds later, coming undone with a string of whispers of your name, again and again like a prayer. His head falls on your chest as you both try to catch your breath. Him wrapping his arms around your waist, holding himself closer to you if that was even possible as you pressed kisses to the top of his head.

*.*

"Hey, Jay" You call out to him in a hoarse whisper "are you awake?"

You get no answer from his sleeping form next to you, at some point you decide to trace his figure with your fingers, as if it'd help you remember him when you leave. You start with his jaw, then to his neck and his shoulders, feeling the rough skin under your fingertips. He really ought to buy some moisturizer, you scoff to yourself. You press a kiss between his shoulder blades before working your way down his arm. Your eyes got a bit teary looking at his scars, the carved out H+J in heart, the long slashes, the burn scar over his right shoulder. He had been through so much and he was still alive and kicking, sleeping next to you. You wish you could've come for him sooner, you didn't blame him for hating Batman. Hell you even had a few run-ins of your own with him because of it. Batman's own grief be damned he was supposed to be the world's greatest detective looking for his partner , the teenager he got to join him and the kid he was meant to take care of . He wasn't supposed to replace him that easily, it made you feel like you were the only one who cared about Jason. All this suffering he went through... it could've been helped, he didn't have to endure that. Your mind wanders to what that psycho did to him, if it was even worse than what you were put through, if he begged him to finish the job, the sight of him covered in blood- his own blood, beaten and branded, his empty eyes when you first saw him and then the flash of hope when he saw you which quickly washed away when he realized that you were there too.

You have to push back the images of what was done to you too, before you feel like you're outside of your body again or that you lose your grip on reality, again. You would never admit it to him but after he left the safe house you were brought back to the headquarters and couldn't get out of bed for almost six months, nothing felt real, your own thoughts felt too slow, your body too heavy too move. A major depressive episode, that's what your superiors classified it as. You knew it wasn't losing him that triggered it, it was the added of weight you'd been caring on your shoulders for too long and the fact that now you had nothing in your life that you even liked. Normaly they would've force-fed antidepressants to whatever agent that went through what you did but you wouldn't let anyone get closer than 2 meters, freezing more than one poor medic or nurse that was sent to see you. Or when they got to you and you reversed the effects of it, just out of spite. Eventually they gave up and waited as not even threats to your sister phased you. "Kill her and see how it goes for you," you said on a rare day where you found yourself able to speak "you'll have nothing to keep me here"

"What are you doing?" You don't even register him asking. He turns to face you and he notices you crying, only then do you realize he's awake so you wipe your tears as fast as you can. It is good for nothing, he already knows you're crying.

"I'm sorry, 's not the best thing to wake up to, huh?" You chuckle trying to pass off your own wave of sadness that just hit you.

"What's wrong?" He insists, was it him that made you so upset?

"Nothing's wrong, Jason" You lie, and he can see right through it.

"No, come on... keep going" He's using that tone again, the one that has you weakening every resolve and your knees giving out just to give him whatever he asked for, that whiny and needy voice that was reserved just for you. He also takes your hand and pushes it to his chest, wanting you to take off from where you left. Instead you move your hand underneath his to hold it, fingers interlocked as you leave a soft kiss to his knuckles. The feel of your lips on his skin, his harsh and calloused skin that has only known violence, has him blushing.

"I have to leave," you state, finally breaking the bubble you two were in since he took you to his office "I'd empty this place asap if I were you"

He steals a look at the watch behind him, the hours he spent with you are still on a single digit, that's all he gets with you. You get up, looking for your clothes that had been discarded all over the room mere hours ago.

"Fine" he scoffs, sitting on the bed and crossing his arms over his chest. Acting all tough and annoyed as the wound of you leaving reopens. He knows you'll never change your ways, he should've known you were heartache from the moment he met you. Jason knew nothing had changed, he doesn't know why he was even sad about you not choosing to stay with him. "Will I ever see you again?"

There's a beat of silence, you have your back turned to him so he can't see what kind of face you're making but he can see how you're pulling your pants up your ass. "I hope so, that was..." you puff and fan yourself with a hand.

He grabs your wrist when you get closer to the bed looking for your shoes, a sigh of your name has your gaze softening as you look back at him. Your lips pull up in a smile, caressing his face and sitting on his lap over the sheets."Bludhaven, find me there when you're done with whatever this is"

He nods, a hand of his going to your nape. He's trying to make you stay a little longer, even if it's just for a few moments and you know it so you give his scared cheek a sweet kiss. Find me when you're done with whatever this is, he can do that. He can wait a few more weeks for you.

"Where-" he starts, but you're no longer there. He felt your weight on him just a moment ago and now you were gone, he didn't even see your eyes light up before you made your way out of the place. You were probably on your way back, lying through your teeth about what you've been up to. And to that he sighs, getting up to get dressed and thinks "I've got to get my shit together, haven't worked this much for nothing"

A/N: not to copy paste all of my author's notes but I referenced like 3 songs so if you notice lmk :D

[justjenah]

Cowboyification as Harm Reduction

I find Michael’s cowboyification to be fascinating.

It would be incredibly easy to reduce his choice to embrace being a cowboy as simple machismo or toxic masculinity. But I would argue it’s much closer to a form of harm reduction.

When it comes to accusations of machismo or toxic masculinity, Michael’s own actions repeatedly seems to defy those claims.

When we see Michael and Mike in Latvia, in seasons four and five especially, Michael is incredibly open with Mike about the fact that he struggled and likely engaged in self harm.

See episode 58 for example:

Mike: This afternoon you mean. Why are we eating breakfast at 1 in the afternoon?

Michael: Because I waited for you, dipshit. Yes, I am always in pain, and I self-destructed just like you did and that’s how I know that it’s pointless. You can see the scars on my chest it’s not like I’m coverin’ ‘em up. Yes, I’m in pain, but I also grew the fuck up. You can look into the darkness, you have to it’s healthy to look, but you can’t stay there. There is no home there. There is only wilderness. My advice is come inside ‘cuz people are waiting for you there.

He doesn’t tell Mike to bury his feelings or to get over it. He tells him that it’s dangerous to live in your regret.

Michael is honest about the fact that he too felt crushed under the weight of the violence and tragedy he experienced. He’s perfectly willing to talk about it and willing to share his experiences.

There is an argument to be made that Michael’s cowboyification is harmful as it feeds into his tendency to be self sacrificial to protect those people he considers “his”. And while I think there’s some truth there I think it glosses over the fact that this is a trait that already existed.

An episode 46 Mikey runs into tier 2 without a second thought upon seeing a picture of Edgar’s corpse.

In episode 49, The Princess Daffodil Experiment, we learned that he is planning to be the first human at Base to be consolidated with the calculators and is later upset when he realizes that it will be Edgar who ends up testing that aspect of the technology on himself out of necessity.

I think in actuality, what the Cowboy identity does is give Michael focus, and helps him remember he has people to live for and to work in service of.

If we look at the Michael iteration from the 101 timeline, we find a Michael who is mostly unable to function. He sleeps most of the day, drinks to excess, and is overall deeply unhappy. He has very few if any enjoyment in his day to day except perhaps drinking with Boris. Mike makes reference to the fact that he half expects to find Michael dead, not from time travel murder shenanigans, but from excessive drinking. This is not a moral judgement of him but an observation that this looks like another form of self harm.

Given Mike experiences a similar period of heavy drinking and deep emotional distress that impairs his ability to function in seasons 4 and 5, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to assume that without his cowboy persona Michael likely would not be able to handle the demands of being alive, never mind corrections and unraveling time travel mysteries.

In fact Cowboyfication brings with it some real net positives. Michael may have a self sacrificial streak like all Mikes Walters (species) but as a cowboy he allows himself some selfish pleasures. He learns to hunt and goes out boar hunting with Boris. He learns how to cure meat and seems to take some pleasure in cooking. He cultivates a relationship with the neighborhood crows, and takes joy is developing a sartorial identity. He even allows himself to fall in love again, something that is difficult to imagine him doing for himself without becoming a cowboy. Loving Sly openly is a real act of self love and a recognition that he too deserves something in his life that is in service to no one but himself.

Cowboyification brings with it an ability for Michael to enjoy life while still acknowledging the hardships and tragedies that befall him.

It isn’t perfect by any means but in issues of mental health, it is often more important to find strategies that improve quality of life and reduce harm. Expecting a cure is not just unrealistic but often actively harmful.

When comparing 101 Michael to the cowboy we all know and love it feels clear that this is a great example of what harm reduction looks like: imperfect but meaningfully better than the alternative.

[aliciavance4228]

This is a very silly and cliché rambling, but honestly I think that out of all cartoon characters Princess Bubblegum resembles Athena the most when in terms of personality.

Both of them are very intelligent and lots of inventions from the universes they live in are credited to them. Both of them are authority figures in one way or another (Princess Bubblegum being the ruler of a kingdom, whereas Athena being the Patron of Athens) and both of them are beloved by their citizens. Lastly, both of them are connected to heroes. When Princess Bubblegum isn't the one to be saved, she usually acts as a wise figure/voice of reason towards Finn and either gives him weapons created by her or new tasks. Meanwhile Athena helped and supported lots of famous heroes, including Perseus, Heracles, Diomedes, Odysseus etc.

However, both of them have a dark side that many Adventure Time Fans and Greek Mythology Enthusiasts respectively either don't acknowledge or choose to overlook.

Princess Bubblegum presents a kind, good-hearted and polite personality at the very first sight. And yet, throughout the episodes her malicious and temperamental layer becomes more and more obivious every time someone is crossing her. She's a perfectionist, and every time she doesn’t manage to acomplish something she immediately gets frustrated. She's very competitive and over-confident, which makes her overlook the consequences of her own actions sometimes. Only when it's too late she starts to feel quily and criticize herself. The more pissed off she is, the more ruthless she could become, even if that means unnecessarily harming other people in the process. She also values logic and science over her moral code, which is the main cause of her low emphathy and even sadic sense of humor in disturbing situations.

Athena, on the other hand, is presented as a stoic, wise and just deity most of the time. She's supposed to symbolize civilization and the rational, learned aspects of the human psyche rather than the instinctual parts of the human nature. A very common take approved by many people also states that she's representing the strategic side of war, whereas Ares represents the violent war. For all that, she also proves in certain Greek Myths not only that even the wisest figures can make mistakes, but also that her wrath can become very visible (and very dangerous) every time someone is challenging or getting on her nerves. She's also very competitive, which is clearly presented either in the myth of Athens or in the myth of Arachne. She's insecure about her looks, which is why she threw her own invention (the flute) from Mount Olympus after the other gods started to make fun of her, or why she is present during the Judgement of Paris. Finally, she's secretely enjoying the brutal aspects of war just like her brother. The only difference is that she's better at hidding her aggressive, blood-thristy nature than Ares. But that doesn’t mean that she didn't show this side of her as well. She can become impulsive and merciless and would do anything to win, even if that means leaving hundreds of innocent people to die. My goodness, she's absolutely terrifying in the Iliad! At the same time, she also had her own moments when she realized her mistakes and regretted her decisions. The very first example that comes to my mind right now is one version of the myth of Arachne where she turned her into a spider out of pity after she tried to kill herself, or when she gave Tiresias the gift of augury after she blinded him.

So it's really intersting to observe that two seemingly different characters actually have way more things in common other than their intellect. I just wish people would stop erasing their complexity and be aware of their greatest flaws instead of portraying both of them just as quirky nerds.

[dreamlessimp]

— wallet

summary: you forgot your wallet, and a cute stranger does you a favor.

warnings: bachira meguru x gn reader, bachira is adorable, 0.6k wc

the first time you met bachira meguru, was embarrassing by all definitions.

but because it was bachira meguru though, it was also sweet and something you didn’t plan to forget.

you were standing in line, shopping basket containing food you planned to cook for dinner that day. bachira was right behind you in line, holding only a dirty soccer ball under one arm and a wrapped sandwich in the other hand.

when you reached the front of the line and dipped your hand into your back pocket though, you found it to be empty. in a panic, you checked the other only to find your phone—not your wallet.

you turned out your pockets as if your wallet had shrunk, and as expected, found nothing. “shit” you cursed under your breath. the cashier stared up at you, clearly judgmental.

“you have to pay for your stuff.” he said lazily. 

you inwardly cringed for a multitude of reasons, largely your own stupidity.

“right, yeah.” you were panicking. the only thing you could do was put your stuff back and leave, but you’d be leaving your pride behind as well. you had no choice though, so you prepared your nerves to apologize and leave empty-handed.

“i’m so sor-“ you began before being cut off by the stranger behind you. “oh you forgot your wallet?” he asked, voice without a hint of judgement.

you laughed awkwardly. “yeah…” your voice trailed off as he dropped the soccer ball he was holding onto the floor, freeing up his hand to reach into his pocket and pull out his wallet.

“well, here then!” he held out his wallet. 

you stayed still, confused by the odd man facing you, wallet in his still outstretched hand. “what?”

“pay for your food! you do want to pay right?” he spoke, eyes bright.

you were about to politely refuse before being cut off by the annoyed cashier. “just take it.”

he took the wallet from the stranger, and instructed the two of you to place your food down and he quickly made the transaction. he placed everything in two separate bags and pointed out the door. “thank you for coming.”

you waited for the stranger to walk, and you followed behind him. “hello?”

“hi!” he smiled. “what’s up?”

you quickly realized you liked his smile. “thank you, i’m not sure what just happened but you saved me.”

“no problem!” 

“can i get your name?”

“bachira meguru.” he stuck out his hand. “what’s yours?”

you smiled and gave your name, before accepted his handshake.

his smile turned into a look of disappointment. i’d ask for your number, but my phone is out of battery.”

his smile was back as he happily observed the blush grow on your face.

you pulled out your phone. “well,” you gestured at your phone. “do you know yours?”

he grinned and accepted, quickly entering in his number.

“i‘ll have to message you later!”

you wanted to ask what he was doing with a soccer ball and a phone without battery, but decided that was something you would ask the next time you spoke.

“and i’ll pay you back!” you called out to bachira, who was already dribbling away.

he trapped the ball under his foot before turning his head around to flash you a bright smile, and a thumbs up.

a week later, your phone screen lit up with a message from a certain unknown number.

> hey! i’m home now and my phone has battery!! want to meet up???

an smile unconsciously came onto your face as your typed back an acceptance to his invitation, and pulled out your wallet to count out exactly what you owed him.

[pickastitch]

i lied i do have a fic for @mcyt-yuri-week

day 3 qpr/aromance. hc s9 gempearl

words: 670

“Gem, what does romantic attraction feel like?” Pearl questioned in the middle of them building up their megabases. They have spoken about them both being aromatic before, and the other found out that Gem was frayromatic while Pearl was completely loveless when it came to aromanticism.

Gem took a minute to think before saying, “It's having the desire to kiss someone, the ability to spend an infinite amount of time and never get tired of them, the wanting to be a life partner, in my experience at least.” Pearl just hummed in response as they continued on working on Gem’s base but couldn't shake the feeling that she had some of those wants for her closest friend without it being explicitly romantic.

After a little bit, they went inside for a water break. Pearl was sitting on top of the dining table while Gem sat in a chair next to her, drinking from a simple glass. She felt herself observing her and took note of all the small details of her, opening her mouth to comment on one, specifically Gem's lips, but quickly closed it, realizing how awkward it would sound.

Gem must have noticed cause she looked over and gave a questioning eyebrow lift. Pearl was caught, so she sighed and answered, “This is going to sound weird, but I was just looking, as one does, and noticed how nice your lips look.”

In response, Gem just laughed, “Wh- wha? Thanks?” It wasn't judgemental or anything she was just caught very off guard. “Your lips.. look good.. too?”

“Okay this is going to sound worse, but-”

“Pearl, I think we've passed that point. That awkward ship has sailed.”

“I suppose. I don't know, just the concept of platonic kissing- is that a thing?”

“I mean, I suppose so,” thinking for a moment, “I guess that is how I would describe some of my older feelings for you”

Now Pearl was curious, “When?” Gem had confessed her romantic feelings when she initially had them and took the rejection fairly well, but they never really talked about it after.

“Well when I start befriending someone I have a crush on, my attraction just goes into this limbo for a bit between romantic and platonic. I've thought of that but never had exact wording for it.”

“Well why don't we try it now?” Pearl suggests as she guides Gem out of her seat and places her in between her legs. Gem stood just a bit taller compared to Pearl sitting, so Gem took her opportunity to hold her face and lead her lips to her own with a light experimental kiss. That only led to both of them wanting more as Pearl tilted her head a little and kissed her back even more intensely.

After they finally pulled apart from one another, “Woah,” was all Gem had to say. Pearl, out of breath, did her best to laugh at the reaction as she pulled her up on the table. “You should've brought this up earlier. That was amazing,” Gem muttered, laying her head down onto Pearl's shoulder.

“Thought it would ruin our friendship”, she admitted as she wrapped her arm around Gem, pulling her even closer.

“No point in friends if you can't kiss them every once in a while,” she joked.

Pearl took notice of the word friend, “Are we friends?” Not in a hurt way, but more so in a curious way.

“Well since I want to kiss you more than every once in a while, we could arrange something.”

Pearl couldn't help herself with an, “Oh?” alongside joking suggestive eyebrow wiggles.

Completely disregarding her usual antics, Gem moved on, “Like something between a friendship and actual romantic relationship?” she suggested.

“Well what would you call me, girlfriend, best friend?"

“I think I'll stick with Pearl. You're my Pearlo.”

Unraveling her body from Gem, she commented, “Alrighty, nice break, we gotta get back to base building,” Pearl said as she poked at Gem, “That means you gotta get up.”

“Mmm, maybe for another kiss?”

[transylvanilla]

The worst thing about bpd is you almost never know if you should trust your own emotions. Am I experiencing a Normal amount of sadness in response to this? Am I experiencing an Okay amount of anger in response to this? Is it okay to cry right now? Should I be experiencing This Emotion instead of That Emotion? Is this emotional response appropriate or do I look/sound crazy/manipulative? Would a non-bpd feel this intensely upset in response to this, or is the intensity of this distress a bpd symptom?

When you can't trust your own emotions you can't trust your own judgement. This person hurt me, should I stop talking to them forever or is that Too Much? Does the Punishment suit the Crime? You might ask a non-bpd person what they would do if they were in your shoes, but theres plenty of non-bpd people who honestly aren't good at making these judgements either!! Theres plenty of non-bpd people who are so emotionally unintelligent that they basically are just as incapable as you of understanding What They Feel. It sucks.

A bpd person will be lucky to find someone they can place their faith in to help them observe and decide if their feelings and actions are appropriate. Most of my family have problems like mine so I've realized I can't turn to them for this specific thing. They can and will tell me I should feel evil and guilty if my emotions/actions are Inappropriate which is Unhelpful. I can, however, depend on the most mellow, level-headed person I know; my girlfriend, whom I'm very grateful for. A good therapist is probably another good option for other bpds.

Disclaimer, *I'm* not a therapist and I dont claim to have any real education or knowledge about bpd or emotional unstability or whatever else, I just wanted to talk about maybe the most important realization I've made as someone with borderline and has had to deal with borderline family for my entire life.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I have a really hard time on Tumblr sometimes and I have this issue with a lot of people and places so it's hardly tumblr specific, but it's also really hard to describe/convey to others. Let me try to scaffold it out

I spent my entire childhood being called an anxious person, and being forced to keep my anxiety internal, and this is overall really bad for me

The one useful tool I was ever given for BOTH reducing externally visible distress AND total distress is to pair anxious/distressing and "strengths based" thoughts. Whenever I say or think something related to distress, I take a moment to reframe the thought into a pair of thoughts - one non-judgemental observation of the need speaking through my distress/how I might meet it, and one non-judgemental acknowledgement of my feelings. It's energy intensive, and it takes a while to learn how to do it in a way that is clarifying rather than erasive. But it genuinely always makes me feel like I have a better handle on things, like I'm less inclined to spiral or end up with a disrupted mood or function, and also now consistently get **the opposite** commentary about being a very positive person who's good at conveying and opening up that positivity for others (at least in my professional life)

There are some people who take my doing this as an invitation to argue with me about why, actually, the distressing stuff IS VALID AND RIGHT AS A FRAMEWORK rather than understanding why I might be shifting away from it. You'd think this would happen most when I talk to other people and "reframe" something they've said, but actually this happens the most often after I have just finished expressing my own thoughts about a thing and someone seems to decide that "framed in a functional way" is equivalent to "hasn't thought enough about the problem areas" and start going off about all the "bad" or "hard" or whatever parts of a thing.

I cannot argue BACK with these people when they do this, because arguing back is dragging me back into a headspace that directly contributes to my suicidality, however side-stepping the issue by CONTINUING to insist on framing things the way I do often leads to them REPEATING their points in different ways in an attempt to "convince" me or "correct my misunderstanding" and I kinda have to be like. Not a misunderstanding. I know what you said and am simply not sharing that space with you. Why is it so uncomfortable for you that we are on different pages about this thing that you feel the need to force me into a distressing place for me rather than move on now that we've both shared our thoughts on the matter?

I can only spend so much of my time around a person rigidly reinforcing my own protective cognitions before I just. I can't talk to them anymore. I need to leave and do other things in other spaces with people who can talk to me about things from the same strengths-based perspective for a while

A lot of people use this to accuse me of spending time in echo chambers because they LITERALLY CANNOT FATHOM a space in which one can be critical of a thing without explicitly being "negative" about it, and assume that if everyone in a space is coming from a strengths based perspective that they're all uncritical fans or at least don't criticise in that space. This is just an objectively untrue assumption and I actually vastly prefer the constructive criticism of things within those strengths-based spaces

You can't ask people to stop doing this, or make them believe (if they don't already) the impact this might be having on your mental health, and if you try, people take it VERY personally and will start being MORE "negative" about EVERYTHING they say without even realizing it (saying "positive" things about one thing directly by "pulling down" something else, using satirical praise language like "fuck you" or "i can't stand it I'm going to die" or etc to refer to things they are happy with/enjoying/liking/etc, pivoting off your "positives" with immediate "negatives", etc) which makes the dynamic more intensive to cope with for me. Even when I try to convey this stuff to someone or point out examples, it quickly worsens the issue to the point that it's literally better for me to stop doing so and go back to quietly exiting when I'm overwhelmed.

A lot of people, when all this is discussed for them, will say something to the effect of "this is how I enjoy things I love!" And I get that. I do. But why? Why is the only way you are able to enjoy a thing by putting it or something else down? If it were ONE OF THE WAYS you enjoyed things, I'd 100% get that, and have no issue with it! I do wish that it was more common for groups of people to just enjoy things "unironically" tho, because it's a space I have a much easier time existing comfortably in, and those spaces being hard to find and maintain is part of why I struggle to socialize much. It's hard for me (literally, in terms of asking more effort of me, and emotionally in terms of the impact it has on my mood) to be around people whose only access to enjoyment is to insult, belittle, or point out the problems in something. It makes me sad not to spend as much time as I'd like to with people I like because of this incompatibility, and it makes me frustrated that I have never found a way of sharing with others what is happening in this dynamic in a way that has any concrete impact on the outcome. I have sort of learned to just NOT share it with others and instead do all the heavy listing of navigating the issue on other people's behalf and taking breaks when I can no longer do that so that I can keep relationships or spaces or conversations that are important to me.

Tumblr is, to put it mildly, almost nothing but this dynamic. So despite being a system I am most suited to in terms of posting options, conversation topics, access formats, etc, Tumblr is a space I feel best taking regular breaks from.

Tumblr is far from the epitome of this in my life. But it's a space where I see the most. I want to say etiquette? Social "respect" indicators? Built around this kind of behavior/framework. Like. Tumblr is a space of differing social contexts, but a lot of the connected ones across subcultures on the platform are informed by this framework because it is non-ideological and so gets conveyed as a more universalizably etiquette system I think. So there's a lot of like. Expectations of how you interact with others here that default this framework (for very functional reasons I think lol, i just don't know that it was done on purpose rather than sort of stumbled into?) are really normalized in a way that is especially risky for me given how much work I have to put into resisting this framework on a personal level

I often feel very lonely, because I have found a degree of distance that gets built into my dynamics with people. Throughout my life, there have been people who put me up on a pedastal, and people who set me far below them in capacity and cannot fathom my functionality, and of course people who manage both at once in different areas. But it's been hard to build and maintain relationships where I trust I am seen specifically as a peer and where this anxiety/complaint oriented framework is not one of the dominant cultural forces in play socially.

There are gaps in all this still in my brain, but. I dunno, I get tired sometimes. I wish I had a space in my life where I felt fully seen and where I could just sort of sit and build something up with someone for a while.

[treemaidengeek]

Hey, fellow spoonies! Got a min for a bit of writing that has absolutely transformed my relationship to my chronic illness?

This is from Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn, based on his experiences co-running (?) a clinic specifically for people with severe unmanageable chronic illness & chronic pain. Part of the book is exercises, which weren't hugely impactful for me. But this section I've listened to over and over. It's been a game changer for me. Maybe it'll help you too.

Below the cut bc it's long.

"First, a working definition of mindfulness so we know what we're talking about when we use that word. You can think of mindfulness as pure awareness. In particular, the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment or reaction, to whatever appears in the field of your experience.

You already have awareness. It’s as much a part of being human as our capacity for thinking or for breathing. So you can always ask yourself in any moment: is my awareness of pain, in pain? and then take a look and see. You can also expand this line of investigation to ask yourself, is my awareness of fear afraid? Is my awareness of anger, angry? Is my awareness of sadness, sad? Very revealing and liberating exploration, as we shall experience firsthand.

Of course being non-judgmental and non-reactive sounds like an ideal. But it isn't, really, not in the way we’re talking about it. It's a way of being in relationship to experience, a commitment to--as best we can–suspend our judging for a time, and suspend believing in our judgements as being true.

Of course, we judge everything, and tend to react automatically whenever things are not to our liking. And we can be very emotionally reactive, especially when we're hurting. So as we shall see further on, and in the practices themselves, we just observe the judging and reacting when they arise, and–as best we can–refrain from judging our judging, or reacting to our reactions.

A number of principles, attitudes, and perspectives are important to keep in mind when cultivating a mindful approach to working with chronic pain conditions or any other distressing elements in your life.

Here are seven that are fundamental and bear revisiting and keeping in mind, and listening to again and again, just as with the meditation practices. We will be making use of them every day, and even moment by moment throughout the day.

1. As we said, as long as you’re breathing there is really more right with you than wrong, no matter what is wrong. And our work will involve mobilizing those interior resources of your own inner landscape, of your body and mind, to work for you to improve the quality of your day-to-day and moment-to-moment life.

2. One of those interior resources is the power of the present moment. The power of “now” is enormous, yet mostly we persist in living in the past or in the future, in memory or in constant anticipation, worry, and planning, most of the time. And we never realize and never recognize how powerful and healing it can be to inhabit this moment, the only one we are ever alive in.

So strange as it may sound, it turns out it is very challenging to actually live in the present moment, even though it's the only time we ever really have to do anything: for learning, for growing, for coming to terms with things as they are, for expressing our affection and appreciation for others, for loving. All this takes ongoing practice.

3. Of course we are happy to show up more in the present moment as long as it's exactly to our liking. But it usually isn't anywhere near as good or as pleasant as we would wish it to be. That is true even if we don't have a chronic pain condition that we could see as the cause of all our troubles.

Have you noticed how easy it is to always want things to be different from how they actually are?

We certainly don't want to inhabit the present moment if we don't like it, and we certainly don't like it if we are in significant pain. So we can easily get caught up in trying to distract ourselves and escape from the present moment because it's not to our liking.

4. Our usual options when faced with situations we don't like and wouldn't want anyone to suffer from, are twofold. As we just saw, we can turn away from them and try to ignore them or escape from them as best we can. Or alternatively, we can get caught up in obsessing about our troubles endlessly and feel victimized.

Either way we might (as so many people do) turn to familiar resources at our disposal to dull the pain, such as alcohol or drugs, or food or TV, even if those coping strategies don't work, are addictive, or have terrible consequences that may make our lives worse in the long run.

We might also get into the habit of being irritable, gruff, and angry a good deal of the time, out of our own pain and frustration. Or emotionally withdrawn from others and from life, distant, cut off, in a state of perpetual contraction of both body and mind.

None of these coping strategies make for much happiness and ease of being. Grinning and bearing it isn't much fun. And blaming all our troubles on the pain doesn't actually make anything any better, as we usually come to see at some point or other. This can just further compound our frustration and even despair.

5. There is a third way of dealing with painful experiences, a way of being rather than perpetual doing and forcing. One that involves neither turning away from painful experiences, nor becoming overwhelmed by them. That third way is the way of mindfulness, the way of opening to and befriending our experience, however strange that may sound.

We do this by turning toward what we most fear to feel and opening gradually, over time, and only to the degree that you choose, to the full range of our experiences in any given moment, even when what we are experiencing is highly unpleasant, aversive, and unwanted.

You could think of it as putting out the welcome mat for what is happening. Because whatever it is, it is happening already. Any attempt to turn away is really a denying of your situation, which doesn't help much. And succumbing to resignation, a sense of being defeated, or to depression or perhaps even self-pity will clearly only make matters worse. If we take the turning-away route, we will be turning away from the opportunity to learn from what the pain has to teach us.

If we take the turning-away route, even though it may seem simpler when we are in a depressed mind-state, we may never find openings, new possibilities, new beginnings, new ways of being that are available to us right inside our own circumstances and our own mind and body. We might not discover that we can become stronger and more flexible in the face of whatever it is that we are dealing with, discover new options for relating to what we are carrying – which is the root meaning in Latin of the word “to suffer.” The approach of mindfulness, of turning-toward and opening to our experience – even when it is difficult – can readily lead to new ways of seeing including new possibilities for coming to terms with our situation in the moment, whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not.

This is called resilience, an interior strength we can cultivate through practice. A way to live, and live well, with what life offers up for us: “the full catastrophe,” as Zorba the Greek called it – the human condition itself.

6. This path of mindfulness involves learning to open to experience moment by moment with kindness and compassion towards oneself, whether what you are experiencing in any given moment is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And without judging the experience as good if we like it, bad if we don't like it, and boring if we don't have any particular feeling one way or another.

As we said earlier, that doesn’t mean we won’t be judging plenty. But we can form the intention to suspend our hair-trigger tendency to judge everything according to whether we like it or not, and also our tendency to react emotionally and fairly automatically in a similar way : with acquisitiveness, even greediness, if we like it and therefore always want it to last or want more of it; and with rejection, anger, hatred, or disappointment if we don’t like it and want it to go away.

So non-judging and emotional balance in the face of challenging circumstances will be factors we can cultivate in working mindfully with our moment-to-moment experience–not as ideals we try to impose on ourselves or strive to grab hold of, but as potentials already within ourselves that we can learn to recognize and bring into greater awareness when they do arise.

Over time and with practice, we may find that being less emotionally reactive and less harshly judgemental, and kinder and more accepting of ourselves and our moments–however they may be–becomes more and more our default setting, rather than anger, resentment, fear, self-loathing, and contraction in both the mind and the body. And since these kinds of contractions of mind and body usually increase the intensity of our pain, they just compound our misery and suffering. This is one easy way we can exert significant positive influence over our pain.

7. None of this has to do with making anything go away. We’re not trying to suppress our pain or “control” it, or suppress our emotional state. We’re not trying to fix anything at all–even though we may want to, or feel helpless and resentful that medicine cannot fix what we feel is the matter. On the contrary, we are just looking for a place to sit or to stand, a momentary refuge within which we can contemplate the present moment, and perhaps discover some respite right in the middle of things as they are, however they are. Amazingly, this stance of what I often call non-doing or just being can very quickly lead to things changing–since things are always changing, even our pain and our relationship to it.

But sometimes if we are too stuck in our thought-habits, in the same old ruts regarding our condition, desperate to get somewhere else or fix something you think might be broken, or else make it go away, our very desire and fixation may lead to its just staying around longer, as if we were actually feeding those energies, as if we ourselves are locking ourselves in and preventing our world from changing. The world and our bodies are always changing. That is a natural law: the law of impermanence. Everything changes. Why would we be an exception? So sometimes patience and forbearance may be called for, and good strategies for allowing things to change and even heal on their own."

[saras-devotionals]

Quiet Time 9/2

What am I feeling today?

I’m feeling overwhelmed and troubled but I know I can continue asking God for His wisdom and strength to be with me through this time especially in terms of doing His will for my life. Also, I had gone on a date a couple days ago and I found myself to really like him. I have a history of letting my emotions lead me and cloud my judgement and I don’t want a repeat of last year. I thought I had learned my lesson and want to operate in these feelings in a wise manner and will soon seek advice to make sure I’m grounded in the truth and not operating under delusion.

Bible Plan: Rethinking Love And Romance

What comes to mind when you think about romantic love? A bouquet of red roses? Physical attraction? Dancing in the moonlight or sharing a candlelit dinner?

Maybe romantic love means being so strongly drawn to another person that you cannot imagine a life without them. Or maybe romantic love is about finding your soulmate or “the one”—the person who “completes you,” as Jerry Maguire put it. But is that the essence of real love or just part of it?

Does truly loving another person mean we will experience a sense of excitement similar to discovering a treasure, a sense that I've found something deeply valuable for me? Or is real love about something different, something more?

The concept of romantic love as we understand it today isn’t directly addressed in the Bible, partly because the authors wrote and compiled it long before the Romantic era. We do have some racy love poetry in Song of Songs, and we have stories about loving relationships and marriages between people. But we don’t see relationships that look like modern dating—no boyfriends and girlfriends, no partners (in the way we think of romantic partners today), and no diamond rings and elaborate marriage proposals.

So what can we learn about romantic love from the Bible?

Let’s consider three stories of loving relationships in the Bible that will help us get to the heart of romantic love—not the popular expectations surrounding modern romance, but the essence of true love.

But before we do, let’s first explore the ways the biblical authors use the word “love” (ahavah), and how they depict God as the ultimate source and goal of all human love.

Jeremiah 31:3 NIV

“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

The greatest command that Jesus stated in the Bible is for us to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul. How can we begin to love Him in that way without first realizing how He loves us? Take this scripture: everlasting love, unfailing kindness. Let those words soak in - He will never fail us, He will love us forever. This is powerful! And it’s important to keep in mind as we love Him.

Leviticus 19:18 NIV

““ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

Oh this is so timely! There’s a brother in the church I’ve been having issues with and I had to work through forgiving him and trying to treat him with love as I would anyone else in the kingdom. It’s been proving a bit difficult for me but I do want us to reconcile. I need to keep these words on my heart: don’t bear a grudge - LOVE just as the Lord commands. I will aim to have a conversation with him this Wednesday and Lord willing I will have the confidence and proper words to discuss with him and put aside our past issues.🙏🏼

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 NIV

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”

This is really all we’re called to do. It’s quite simple (although, incredibly difficult). Satan does not want it to be easy for us to obey, love, and serve. In fact, he is truly working against us because he holds absolutely no love for us. In comparison to our Father, He loves us so dearly and wants what’s best for us which is why we have these commands in the first place♥️

1 John 4:18-21 NIV

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

TIMELY AND POWERFUL! I love 1 John 4 so much and it’s a powerful reminder of God’s love for us and how we are able to love because He loved us first. However, as mentioned before, there’s a issue I have with a brother and neither of us are showing love to each other in the way we should. Additionally, he makes me fearful, I avoid him due to past hurt and held bitterness in my heart towards him and I don’t want that. I want us to be resolved but I can only do so much as relationships are a two way street. I pray that we are able to talk and get past all of this so that we can further be secure in God’s love and express it to everyone we encounter!🙏🏼♥️

[lunion]

To be a writter is to drown in endless drafts and honestly, I can see now why finishing something is much harder than starting it.

I planned to write a multi chapter fic and built the skeleton for it. Ok. Turns out that I got a paid internship and I won't have as much time as I hoped I'd have for this, so instead I decided to just write a oneshot.

Now I'm having trouble finishing this oneshot and I can't seem to find a way to write the next scene and I started going over it to see what was wrong and why I couldn't get it to feel right.

Well, turns out I wrote my way out of the desired conclusion,

Context:

This chapter is set in a work place and they have a new hire who's failing spetacularly on every task they give her due to misaligned expectations. Basically, she has a unique skillset because of her abilities, but because they're putting her in "regular" job positions, she's not up to the task because these don't play to her strenghts.

I wanted the conclusion of the chapter to be of the characters realizing the unspoken qualities of new hire and having things improved after they stopped trying to get her to do her job like everyone else and instead using her strenghts to achieve what others couldn't do before.

The problem comes from how I structured the chapter. It was split in 4 scenes.

1: New hire being introduced to the work place 2: New hire shown to be struggling. Lazy colleagues see her failing and are later assigned by their boss to show the ropes to the new hire so she better adapts to the new place. 3: A week of problems later, the colleagues are complaining and discussing convincing the boss to fire the new hire. a third party listens to the conversation and brings attention to how despite the colleagues owns shortcomings, the boss still keeps them because they're resourceful and the boss trusts they can become better employees if given the chance (things which are true) and that they should probably give the benefit of the doubt to the new hire and actually help her better utilize her strenghts to everyone's advantage. 4: The boss and the third party are chatting and observe in the distance the new hire and the colleagues, now having a blast as they creatively solve their previous problems and are now bonding and becoming friends, content at the resolution and seeing everyone thriving.

nothing wrong until you factor in a few hardships I accidentally put myself through.

a) On scene 2, the boss, because they're meticulous and thorough in their work and words, explicitly tells the older employees to keep a close eye and help the new hire to learn the ropes. This causes a problem on scene 3 because then the only way of having the older colleagues still haven't noticed the new hire's qualities now would be willful neglect, be it out of actual disdain for the new hire, which makes the scene much more mean spirited than I'd like, or out of actively ignoring their task, when their laziness is closer to "I'd rather not have to do this" than "I'll ignore work given to me", because the boss would have certainly fired them at this point. The colleagues are meant to be capable, but somewhat uncommited workers, not actual burdens and especially not so self centered that they'd leave a newbie who they had the explicit task of helping to fend off for themselves.

b) On scene 3, they have this talk with the third party, which is meant to help the older employees to realize that they don't know the new hire's skills and that they should give her a chance. The problem is that the third party, at least based on the original draft of the multi chapter story, the third party cannot have (or at least would be weird) to have the insight of "different people can achieve things through different means", because one of the core personality traits of said third party is being very judgemental about their own shortcomings on more "traditional skills", their main character arc revolving around the fact that despite him not being skilled on the traditional skills other people have, his resourcefulness allows him to achieve what others don't.

The reason that's the case it's because this chapter was meant to foreshadow this third party's (who is the main character of the main arc of the story) journey about realizing that even if he isn't capable like the others, he's no less capable than others, because there are many ways to make a meaningful change in the world besides the more obvious, ableist ways. Having him tell other characters of the lesson he's supposed to learn at the end of his own journey sounds a bit weird to be.

So this whole situation leaves me in a conundrum. I like how my characters are characterized and the only way to make the draft work right now is by removing the boss's meticulousness, which breaks characterization, having the older employees be too lazy or mean, which also breaks characterization or having a character be way more insightful on a life lesson he has no business being this aware of.

Of course, technically, I could scrap this scene and start it from scratch to solve these problems so I'm not confined to the chapter planning I already made, but at this point, the reason I quit the multi chapter idea was not having enough time for that. if I had to start over, then I might just scrap it.

Not sure if I'm looking for solutions or venting, but I thought it'd be interesting to share.

[shadowqueenjude]

Nesta ends IC part 11

Nesta woke up the next morning in Eris’s arms.

She let her fingers wander across the broad planes of his bare chest, and it was at that point that she realized she was naked.

They were both naked, actually. And what had happened the previous day came flying back into her memory.

Holy shit-

Relax, she told herself. It’s just sex. It’s not a big deal.

But that was the problem. It was a big deal, to Nesta at least. She had no idea how he felt, but she knew it hadn’t been mere desire that had drawn her to him.

She was afraid. The feelings were coming too hard, too fast. They hadn’t even known each other for very long, yet it felt like Nesta had known him her whole life. But she had trusted Cassian. And he had broken her heart. He had helped them chain her to that bed. How did she know Eris wouldn’t be the same?

She went to leave the house before he woke up, but hesitated. Against her better instincts, she found herself hesitating to leave him. It felt as though if she left now, she would be ending something before it even began. She cursed her stupid heart for wanting to be with him so badly. The timing might be bad but… he was so right for her. It just felt right to be with him. She wanted him so badly it hurt.

So, against her better judgement, she walked back to him. She found he was sitting up in bed, blanket over his legs, hair mussed up just the right amount, so he looked rakish rather than shabby. He smiled lazily at her, and Cauldron help her, but he was the most beautiful male she had ever seen. And she came up close to him and whispered seductively in his ear, “You are going to kill Beron. And I am going to help you.”

Eris shuddered. “You should’ve led with that, sweetheart,” he crooned. “If you had, I’d have been on my knees in seconds.”

Her core heated, but she laughed against his ear. “You can always get down now.”

His eyes glimmered as fire rose to his eyes in feral delight. “As the lady wishes.”

Lucien’s POV Lucien had a headache that came and went.

That headache also had a name: Tamlin.

Lucien was getting really tired of trying to get his former friend to pull himself up by his bootstraps and do his goddamn job. He understood he was heartbroken about Feyre, but by the Cauldron, Lucien had not been this pathetic when his Jesminda had died. A sharp stab of pain always followed the thought of the faerie who had conquered his heart all those years ago. It was his fault she had died. His fault his fault his fault.

The female that he had loved with all of his heart- but was not his mate. Even though he had no control over that, he still felt guilty about it sometimes. And wondered how his mate could be someone who could barely stand to be around him most of the time as opposed to the woman who had seduced him so thoroughly, he hadn’t wanted anyone but her. Seventh son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court and a whole lot of nothing. Not even a legitimate son of his. Just the son he had been forced to raise as his own, to hide the fact that his wife had cheated on him with another High Lord.

A part of Lucien had always known he was different. He had always felt out of place, wherever he went. And when he had broken that spell in Hybern, he had known for sure. As for Tamlin, Lucien had no idea if he knew. He guessed that with his warrior instincts and observational skills, he might have some idea, but…Lucien had always been Tamlin’s one braincell. So, it was difficult to know.

Cauldron boil him, he was tired of being patient. His head was about to explode with the amount of restraint he had been showing: controlling himself around Feyre, who was recently traumatized again, controlling himself around his mate, leashing all the instincts that urged him to claim, controlling himself around Tamlin, who was about one bad meal away from killing himself or killing Lucien, whichever he thought was easier. Oh, yeah, and around Eris, his vicious older brother who had somehow wormed his way back into his life. One of these days, Lucien was gonna throw hands. At whom was going to be decided at the moment he lost it. “Why do you even stick around?” Tamlin grumbled. “You’ve made no mistake you hate it here.”

“Because somebody has got to make you do your job,” Lucien said. He knew he was pushing it. One time, Tamlin had been ranting about Feyre and Rhysand and Lucien had finally had enough and told him to get his stick out of his ass. Tamlin had punched him, giving him a black eye.

Lucien knew he could fight back. But Tamlin was emotionally broken. He was this close to losing it entirely, and Lucien fighting back might just push him over the edge. Lucien blamed Rhysand. He had come over and rubbed everything in his face, making his job so much harder. And now Rhysand was dead, and Lucien’s mate was essentially ruling the Night Court.

While he was essentially ruling the Spring Court.

Everything was so complicated now.

Tamlin abruptly stood up. “You know what, Lucien? Since you want it so badly, why don’t you become High Lord, hm? I never wanted this stupid job, anyway. You were always better at this shit than me.

Lucien blinked. “That’s not how it works. The land chose you, and-“

“The land chose you too!” Tamlin shouted. His magic rattled the house. “How else do you think you were able to complete the Calanmai rite! You’re a High Lord! You know it! You’ve always known it!”

So, he did know, at least to an extent, about Lucien. He expected so. He knew him very well, having lived with him for so long.

“Well?” Tamlin said. “Do you want it? My job?” He snarled at Lucien.

Lucien didn’t back down an inch. “It would certainly be easier than this back-and-forth thing we have going on.”

Lucien expected more aggression, but instead, Tamlin slumped in his seat. “Then take it.”

“What?”

“I’m abdicating the throne. You can rule this court. I don’t want it. I just want to find peace. And in this position, I’ll never find peace. Never.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t abdicate. Not unless you die.”

Tamlin said quietly, “Are you sure about that?” He shoved a mirror under Lucien’s nose.

And a familiar ring of power surrounded him. The aura of a newly crowned High Lord.

“You were always the better of us, Lucien,” Tamlin said. “You deserve this.” And then he walked away. Simply strode right into the forest. His shapeshifting abilities were gone; Lucien could feel it. And he wondered if this meant that Lucien could now shapeshift. So, he tried to. Simply willed himself to turn into a different form. He watched as his fingers turned into claws, his hair into fur, his arms into forelegs. He looked at his reflection and found a beast staring back.

Not just any beast. A fox.

Elain’s POV Elain instantly knew something was different when she saw Lucien again.

She couldn’t pinpoint why exactly, she felt that way. But she did. Perhaps it was the fact that his hair shone a little brighter, or his eyes simmered a little more. Perhaps it was the way he carried himself, taller and prouder. Perhaps it was the slightly deeper timbre of his voice, or the slight aura she could’ve sworn she saw surrounding him. It was subtle, but for Elain, she felt the difference as starkly as black and white.

So as Lucien was giving updates for all the courts, Elain found herself asking him, “Did something happen to you?”

Lucien raised a brow, unnerving metal eye narrowing on her. “Why do you ask?” “Nothing. You just seem…different. Stronger.”

Lucien sighed. “I guess there’s no point of hiding it. If you haven’t heard it yet, you surely will soon. After a tumultuous series of events, I am now the High Lord of Spring.”

Elain sucked in a breath. Her mate…was now a High Lord. Oh my god. But did that mean… “Is Tamlin dead?”

Lucien shook his head. “He abdicated. Practically shoved his throne down my throat.” He offered a weak smile, which Elain returned. “I didn’t even know that it was possible to give up the throne like that. Without dying.”

“Neither did I,” Lucien said. He was definitely stronger. Elain could feel the power rippling off of him in waves. “But I’m a bit relieved, to be honest. He was a serious pain in my ass. Would you believe me if I told you, it’ll be easier to be High Lord than deal with him?”

Elain laughed lightly. Lucien smiled, more genuinely this time. And damn if it didn’t make Elain’s heart flutter a little. But Lucien only bowed and said, “Now that the news is out that Tamlin is gone, the Spring Court is becoming more populated again. And now that I’m a High Lord…well I will no longer be able to serve as emissary to the Night Court. So, I won’t be seeing you as often.”

Elain’s heart sank. She couldn’t deny the crushing disappointment that just shoved into her. She wanted to go with him so badly. But how could she leave her sister now?

He lifted her hand to his lips then smiled sadly at her. “Farewell, my lady.”

Elain watched him walk away.

“I was sure you would go with him this time,” came a voice from behind her.

Elain turned around to find Feyre looking at her, eyes clear, Parikshit in her arms. “Why do you resist? I know you want to.”

“You need me,” Elain replied.

Feyre snorted. “No, I don’t.”

“But-“

“Elain, you have done a wonderful job. You’ve kept this place together. You’ve even helped find suitable replacements for the vacancies that were left. You looked after my own child for 2 weeks. You’ve done more than enough. I can handle this. Go with him, if that’s what you wish.”

“Are you serious?” Elain scrutinized Feyre and found…purpose there. Something she hadn’t seen in a long time.

“I’ll be ok,” Feyre said, smiling. “I’m not alone.” And to Elain’s surprise, three or four ladies she recognized as Valkyries came around and stepped next to her. It was answer enough. So, Elain turned and ran to Lucien.

“Wait!”

Lucien stilled, turning to look at her. “Elain?” he said quietly.

“Take me with you,” she said.

Lucien blinked. “You wish to go…with me?”

“That’s what I said.”

Lucien snorted. “Well, you can’t blame me for being skeptical.”

“Well consider this confirmation, My Lord.”

Lucien shuddered. “By the Cauldron, don’t call me that. That makes me sound so old.”

Elain laughed. “Aren’t you? Old?”

Lucien winced. “Shit, Elain. I’m not that old.”

“Still old, though.”

Lucien rolled his eyes. “You Archerons are all the same. The first time Feyre had a civil conversation with me, she asked if I fought in the war.”

“And? Did you?”

“What did I just say? I’m not that old! Oh, you’re teasing,” he realized suddenly as he saw the gleam in Elain’s eyes. He laughed. “I’m going to get you back for that.”

“We’ll see about that, My Lord.”

Nesta’s POV

“Did you hear about your brother?” Nesta asked, hand absentmindedly wandering up Eris’s arm. Eris’s youngest brother, Lucien, had recently taken over as High Lord of the Spring Court.

Eris snorted. “Of course, I did. What do you take me for? A peasant?”

Nesta rolled her eyes. “And if I were to say yes?”

Suddenly, Eris was hovering over her. The breath whooshed out of her as she took in his heat and closeness. “I must be really good at sex if a queen is willing to sully herself to a peasant like me.”

Nesta smirked. “Isn’t that all you pretty boys are good for?”

“I think you’ll find that I’m a male of many talents, Nesta Archeron.”

That he was. But she would never say that. Nesta only stared him down. Then she shoved him off her. “So how are we planning on killing Beron. Just waltz through the front door?”

Eris chuckled. “As if. He’s so paranoid, there are enough soldiers guarding that house to form an army. And they’re highly trained, too.”

“Ugh. Well, if you wrong that many people, I’d be paranoid too. I imagine he has many enemies.”

Eris smirked at that. “Yes. I’m his son, and he doesn’t trust me. But he trusts you even less, so you need a really good reason to be there, especially by my side.”

Nesta raised a brow. “I’m assuming you have a plan?”

Eris grinned. “How do you feel about playing my fiancé?”

[november-rising]

The Bear: Season One, Episode Six Ceres - Last Train Home

As I said in my last post, John Mayer's "Last Train Home" has crossed my mind many times. I’m realizing now why this song means something to me. Original or Ballad, this song plays right after Tina talks to Richie who has reached his limits. 

Richie is feeling on the outside. He’s the old guard. Everyone is changing. Sydney and Carmen are “kids, you know. [...] This is a delicate fucking ecosystem!” 

Everything is coming to blows with The OG Beef, Carmen, Sydney, staff, new OG Beef…

It’s all changing. And, as he says, he doesn’t need this shit right now. The warble in his voice as he says this, pointing towards the building - it’s heartbreaking.

For Richie, the restaurant started to become out of sync when Carmy came ‘roud. It stumbled with Syd’s guidance. But it’s this point, right here, while venting to Tina, that Richie realizes that the “delicate ecosystem” has begun to evolve and stray from his (and Mickey’s) vision of the shop. What’s the point in staying if it can’t be like it’s always been? Thus, Ritchie threatens to quit. And Tina reminds him:

Yeah. Where is he going to go?

Then “Last Train Home” starts to play. It’s soothes the transition back into the "new" kitchen. To me, it is an intro into the start of a clear, functioning kitchen.

Sydney is running expo. The OGB Crew is responding with exacting attention and action. Carmen, as this viewer observed, didn’t seem so rushed. There seemed to be a breath moving through the kitchen. There’s not the pressure of urgency, in a matter of speaking. There is a flow within and between the staff. 

Carmen is focused on his craft, creating and executing dishes while Sydney orchestrates the flow. Unlike the Carmen in the flashback at the start of this episode, this time, he isn’t being directed or in awe of someone (something) else. He’s crafting something using his own staples, comforts, and tried-and-true methods. The chicken and peppers dish is homestyle just like Sunday braciole. He patiently (as one can) cooks this dish, passes it off to Sydney who clears the plate for service. Sydney evaluates, corrects and/or approves dishes. Her judgement is trusted.

All of this shows the process of purpose.

Carmen is making meaning while Richie is shown, time and again that he’s stuck. Richie is living in a past that Mikey carved out. He’s trying to find his place which is why, I think ,he called the cops on the homies eating sandwiches Syd made to keep the peace. This is the moment that led to the Season 2 Episode 1 basement conversation Richie has about purpose.