#maybe I could import this... only problem is that it's super rare for some reason.

[namcotdudeidk]

That one time Bamco revived Wagyan Land... on the DS???

Yes, this is "Hirameki Action - Chibikko Wagyan no Daiki na Bouken", a 2009 revival of the series, with the addition of touch screen minigames!!!! (Everyone's favorite...). It looks fun, however I haven't played it myself, so take my opinion with a grain of double supreme salt.

[howtofightwrite]

So in my fantasy setting, magic not only doesn't work on iron, but applying it immediately nullifies any spell upon contact. This means that iron, in a setting with a lot of beings made of magic, is the one universal weakness that can easily kill them. Naturally, considering the fact that we're talking about a world overrun with them that are not afraid to eat people, this means societies tend to form around veins of iron ore (that's the right word, vein, right?) and are naturally going to be much more inclined to crafting iron weapons to deal with the magical beings wanting to eat people.

However, it was in thinking through that only pure iron weapons are what give iron its power that I run into issues. Considering that means steel is effectively blocked off when it comes to weapon making and magical enchantments don't work on iron here (though they do work on other kinds of metal), how exactly might that impact the tech tree on weapons in my setting? As well as anything else I might not have thought of when writing this? Thank you!

I poked at a similar thought process awhile back, and there's some problems I never fully worked around.

The problem with, “iron, but not steel,” is that, when you really get down to it, steel is just purer iron.

Let me put this another way, you're wandering around in a fantasy world that is geologically similar to our own, with similar metallurgy to 12thcentury Europe. An iron weapon you find will be mostly iron with some trace amounts of other metals such as nickle, copper, and whatever else didn't get filtered out.

In contrast, if you get your hands on a steel weapon, that's going to be almost exclusively iron, with a little carbon, maybe some phosphorus or sulfur. (There's a fairly long list of elements you can find in trace quantities, but this is also true of normal iron weapons.) The important thing to understand is, iron weapons are made from iron, steel weapons are made from better iron.

Even as far back as the first millennium, some smiths were intentionally purifying their iron to produce higher quality weapons (including the first super alloys, such as Damascus steel.) But, it was still iron.

Really, the one kind of iron you're likely to find in that world that isn'talmost exclusively iron would be meteoric iron. This is, as the name implies, iron that came from a meteor strike. In these cases, you're actually looking at a significant amount of nickle (usually 5-10%), along with a bit of cobalt and traces of a mix of other elements.This stuff was used in weapon making, but was extraordinarily rare. As a weapon, meteoric iron isn't incredibly useful, it's still inferior to steel weapons, but it will resist corrosion, and can make for a very showy weapon. This, in turn, can result in a weapon that appears to be somewhat magical, and may be while, “starmetal,” “starsteel,” or meteoric iron is a semi-popular material for magical weapons.

So, if the issue is iron itself, then there's no chemical reason steel shouldn't also function. Of course, that does nothing to eliminate potential mystical or supernatural explanations, but if this is a magical vulnerability, you're not going to find an answer in chemistry.

This leads to two possibilities. I'm going to use orichalcum as an arbitrary example, if you're unfamiliar, this was a metal Plato claimed was mined on the isle of Atlantis, and was the foundation for their economy, but you'll frequently find this brought up in fantasy without any connection to that original context.

So, either your world is one where human on human violence is conducted with something other than (and superior to) iron and steel, for example: Orichalcum, and that creates a situation where using steel weapons could actually put fighters at a disadvantage against properly equipped troops.

Alternatively, it's possible that, while iron and steel are marginally effective against monsters, there are other, much rarer, possibly irreplaceable, materials that are far more effective. In this example, it's possible that there are no sources of raw orichalcum remaining in the world, and the artifacts that have been mined and forged are all that is left. To make matters worse, it's possible that no living smiths have the knowledge to forge (or reforge) these weapons, meaning that any damage to these items is irreparable.

For an amusing twist on this, if titanium was the metal needed to harm monsters, that would create serious issues. The problem is, you cannot mine titanium. It's impossible (at least on Earth.) This is because titanium does not naturally occur as a metal, and only as an oxide (a white powder), and it wasn't until 1910 that the first metallic titanium was produced in a lab. It would be over 20 years before  a process was discovered to produce it on an industrial grade. If your setting is built off of a distant apocalypse, it's possible there would be weapons produced from this material, but there would be absolutely no way to get more, while still having a veneer of chemical plausibility. (Alternately, it's possible some alchemist in the past developed a method to produce titanium in your setting... and they may or may not still be around, with the weapons being extremely difficult to produce, or signs of a lost technology.)

Actually, a fun side note, chemistry comes from the same root as alchemy, and it's a case where a pseudo-mystical field transitioned into a hard science over time.

Now, don't consider this part an indictment, but, a couple years back, I remember watching someone's, how-to: world-building on YouTube, and they blasted the concept of the, “trade city,” as semi-nonsensical. The issue is that basically any city will get its start based on trade, and really, cities live and die based on their economies. So, when you say, “this city started as a trade city,” yeah, that's how you get a city. It's the rare cities that are founded for some other reasons (like a massive fortress that gradually accumulated a civilian population of people fleeing from beyond its walls, and adventurers or crusaders using it as a last stop before moving on into the wastes, with the city, and its trade economy growing due to factors unrelated to its usefulness as a trade port.)

Now, if you're wondering how this is relevant to your question, this is about the distribution of iron. There's some discrepancies between the largest iron deposits in the real world and the distribution of people, but access to iron was a critical consideration in the development of Western Europe. Or, put another way, if you have iron mines in the hills, but farmland and a river in the lowlands, you'll probably build your city in the lowlands, on the banks of the river, and then export whatever iron and food you don't need in exchange for other goods that you do find useful. It doesn't, really, matter much if there are ravenous hellbeasts wandering the foothills, if you can dispatch them with iron weapons. All that really means is you'll have slightly less iron to export. This creates a situation where settlements may range pretty far the iron mines, if there are other economic resources worth extracting. Trade would more heavily favor access to iron than in real world history, but it's not a completely alien scenario. In some ways, this isn't that different from a continent in a permanent state of total war, the only difference is that the monsters don't need their own iron supply lines. Settlements would need to be guarded, mines, farms, and other resources would also need protection. Trade lines would need guards. The overall level of fortification may be higher than in real history (though, this isn't a certainty), but a lot of the same considerations wouldn't be affected.

Now, on a grand scale, persistent hunting by supernatural monsters would amount to a greater economic drain than witnessed in real world history. This would slow some technological, and economic growth. I'd say that cities would, likely, be more fortified, but when looking at medieval cities, I'm not sure that would be the case. I'm also not certain this would meaningfully shift the balance of power (assuming an alternate history), simply because those monsters would hit everyone roughly equally. (Though, if the monsters do play favorites, that could heavily skew the balance of power.) While access to iron would be critical, access to other trade goods such as salt, clay, grains, and other things would still be useful. The best iron mine in the world won't keep your troops fed on its own.

I doubt you'd see a situation where iron became the dominant currency metal, and too valuable to waste on coinage. You would probably still see gold and silver as the dominant metal coinage, and that would also result in some geographical skewing, as there would be some settlements built around mining gold or silver, and then selling those materials to others in exchange for iron. It's also worth remembering that for a large part of the middle ages, most coin based transactions took place at the upper echelons of society. The barter economy would still be going strong in most fantasy settings. When talking about roleplaying game settings, that does get a bit warped, as players tend to swing around extraordinary amounts of wealth.

The biggest changes I'd expect would be slightly more terra nullius. If the plains between two mountains have no mineral wealth, and the mines on either side are already well supplied, there wouldn't be much reason to settle there. You might also see a move away from river travel. Historically, this was an extremely efficient way to move large amounts of resources, but if there are monsters in the water that pose a real threat to brown water shipping, that could cause some significant changes. Settlements might be more isolated from one another initially, until technological development got to the point where overland shipping (by cart) became more viable. It might also reduce the scope of trade overall, meaning situations like the gold mining settlement above, wouldn't be able to import enough food and iron to be viable. This might also inflate the value of other, secondary, goods. For example, access to limestone deposits large enough to effectively quarry, might become a defining factor on where fortified settlements can be built. If there isn't enough limestone on site, there simply might not be a way to effectively transport more. Even if it was only 20 miles from the settlement.

At the end, how much would it change the world? I don't know. There's a lot of factors which could heavily skew how the world shakes out. It could be almost non-existent, or it could be an entirely alien world. It depends on how much pressure your monsters apply to the world.

-Starke

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[writing-whump]

This is super basic but I haven’t read one in a while, maybe you could write Matt getting food poisoning and feeling really bad, and throwing up a lot?

I'm combing this with a request from @pearlprompts to see more of Matthew's sisters, hehe.

Warning for emeto, scat, sickness stuff.

...

Food poisoning

"I told you not to eat those hotdogs on the street," Seline said in a scolding tone.

Matthew wished she showed more sympathy to his suffering. He knew the wolf meet/conference whatever presumtious thing it was called was important, that Isaiah inviting them to one was special.

But the breakfast they had was so basic and when he imagined waiting through those weird talks until lunch, he threw himself at the first hotdog stand he could find.

Around lunch, his stomach was hurting and gurgling so much he couldn't stand straight.

Isaiah and Seline promptly evacuated him from the oh so precious city hall of Salzburg. The city was basically build around a big mountain in the middle with very pretensious castles and important buildings on the river shore in the shadow of it. Very fitting, symbolically for a wolf meet.

Matthew was currently occupying one of the chairs in their small hotel room, bend over a trashcan and drooling into it, feeling positively miserable and pathetic.

"Seriously, just go-" he interrupted himself with a burp that turned into an empty gag. "Just go back. Don't miss out on the programm."

Isaiah stood in the hallway, suit and coat on, looking neutral but tense. When he was in his public Executioner mode, his emotions weren't as obvious. There was flatness to his tone, his posture was more rigid, the focus on his shadow and his mask.

There was a lot of networking to be done and Matthew felt more and more guilty he wasn't going to be at Isaiah's back. Who stood behind you and next to you apparently mattered a lot in these meetings, though Matthew understood more of it instinctively than intellectually. Half of the hints and meanings went right past his head, if not more.

Not only was he not being an asset right now, he was actively hindering the mission Isaiah came here for.

Isaiah didn't talk about it. He didn't say it out loud, make a speech or call them all in to make an announcement. But they have all noticed, one way or another, that something significant shifted about his attitude.

The Executioner mask came up more often. His shadow was more active, more visible, more on the nose. The power that radiated from him made wolves and humans turn their heads. Isaiah went form being inconspicuous to very present in a just a few weeks.

Matthew could guess most of the reasons. Shawn. Rip. Vienna was unsettled, filled with strays and mad wolves, and humans were in some kind of easy to anger mood, complaining about several world ending crisis left and right.

Matthew couldn't care less what humans worried about, their concerns very far away from survive, fight, eat. As long as you had that, Matt was glad for every new day.

But the general atmosphere seemed to matter to people who looked out for such things as wolf standing in politics. Isaiah was very good at picking up at such signs, for reading the room and identifying problems like that without trying.

And right now, he was trying.

Seline noticed that too or she wouldn't have come. Wolf meets and the wolf community issues seemed even less interesting to her than human community to Matthew. Maybe worse, she sported a certain disgust at anything pack or witch related, for a reason Matt and Isaiah had yet to figure out.

So when Isaiah asked them to come—which he did rarely if ever—they both said yes before they asked what it was about.

Matthew looked at his pack leader, thinking of all those reasons that left them here. "Man, for real. Go. Take Seline with you and do the networking shit or whatever it is." He spit into the bucket in his lap, swaying drowsily. "Nothing to miss out on here. I'll hurl some more and pass the fuck out."

His stomach was still bloated to the max, like he ate two lunchs instead of losing two breakfasts to the sewer system. It hurt too, at weird unpredictable timings.

Right now, despite the constant nausea, it was hurting a lot more down below. His intestines were having a glass shard party that involved breaking wine bottles over his cell's heads.

Matthew groaned and curled up around his middle, letting the bucket out of his grip.

Seline jumped at the sound and came closer, adjusting it so it was straight and close to the reach. "Think you could hold down some medicine? I have some pills-"

Matthew shook his head. "Nope. Will just come right back up." Even when he wasn't throwing up, the queasiness was constant and unrelenting. He felt like he was floating on a boat. Everything was disgusting and every swallow was dangerous.

He couldn't believe it was so easy to do something so horrible to oneself.

Seline stroked some hair out of his sweaty forehead. "You are such a moron."

He shuddered under her touch. There was new pressure building in his lower belly that was starting to demand his attention. He realized he might actually be better off without an audience for this one.

"You guys go. Seriously. Check in on me between events and be on dial, but otherwise, I'm fine." The red haired wolf forced himself to straight up a little, tensing as he counted the steps to the bathroom. They only had one and the room was rather small to get away from the sounds. "Please go."

Seline frowned. "First you are asking for sympathy and now you are kicking us out? What do you-"

Isaiah grabbed her by the elbow though, obviously picking up in Matthew's discomfort and it's source. "It's 20 minute with a cab. Check in regularly," he said, in a tone that very much felt like an order.

Matthew nodded, feeling the pressure to obey. It made him wonder if Isaiah realized how much of a power his voice carried, when his shadow was this close to the surface.

Switching between being a wolf Executioner and the Isaiah at home obviously needed some fine-tuning.

Matt let it slide, nodding in gratitude. When the door finally closed behind them, he sprinted to the bathroom at once, his bowls turning upside down with a vengeance.

...

Three more trips to the bathroom and two rounds of empty retching and Matthew was glad to fulfill his promise and pass out flat on the bed.

On the big double bed that was Isaiah's, really, and should have been Seline's too. He missed not having their smells linger and mix together, wanting to feel close to them both at once. Ah well.

Around four in the afternoon, he woke up to intense before-a-sundown-light glaring right into his face.

It was the last light of the day. The evenings came early and the cold lingers way into the morning.

Matthew sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes. His stomach gurgled, but it didn't actually hurt after six hours, half of that spend puking. Food poisoning was intense, but at least it was quick to pass.

He wasn't eager to actually return to the wolf party and try to figure out how his standing or manners whatever translated into shadow, dominance and power language. Just the thought made his head hurt.

Instead, he temptatively tried out a glass of water. It fell heavily against his stomach, but didn't increase the nausea too much. He took one of the powder bags Seline prepared for him that were supposed to calm the digestive tract or whatever.

It seemed settled. Maybe he could try to catch some of that sunlight.

Texting Isaiah and Sel in their common group that he was going on a walk, he got himself a jacket to not look suspicious to humans, though the cold didn't bother him at all and headed for the river.

Salzach was a big deal here, historically making the city the main point of bussiness with the salt, that Salzburg was named after. Now that he was alone, breathing the crisp air, Matt wondered if he could tempt Seline and Isaiah away on some kind of historical tour. There was a lot to sightsee here.

Matthew would have liked to do some running, but just getting to the river on his two feet proved to be a challange. He was ridiculously weak, panting for having to go down the hill. Every street following the river form one side seemed to he up a hill.

Maybe he would need Isaiah to come get him, after all. How was he supposed to climb that up?

Thankfully, he soon found a bench he could collapse on. With a nice view. He was sweating and tired, content to watch his breath turn into steamy clouds.

He almost drifted off a little, when a sudden crashing sound had his head turning. Honestly, outside, he really should be paying more attention. Especially when so many packs gathered in one town.

When he opened his eyes, he nearly fell off the bench himself.

It was a girl that fell down on the ground. Short dark red hair cut into a short bob. Round glasses with no rim. A face he could not forget.

"What the-Maddie?"

Madelaine Blackwell was his younger sister. Melissa was the oldest, Marcella the youngest. Meredith and Maddie were both in the middle after Matthew, as he was the second oldest.

But Maddie was not even a year younger than Matthew. They were born so short apart like his mother hoped that after a shadow wolf son, she was more likely to get another supernatural child.

It didn't work out. Maddie and Meredith were both failures. Until Marcie.

Neither of his sisters were a failure for Matthew. While Melissa was always trying to please their mother, Maddie was like a twin to Matt. They were always together, always playing, insuperable. He spend his childhood, before his shadow properly developed, playing tug and war with this girl.

"What are you doing here?" Matthew said finally, dropping his hands to his knees, leaning forward.

Maddie looked away self-consciously. Her eyes were a pale blue colour, almost violet. "There is a wolf conference. Blackwells are attending."

She kept her gaze lowered. That was the proper behavior for someone raised around shadow wolves. Look down, speak carefully. Suggest things, never order them around, never criticise them. Assist the control over their Shadow's bloodslust as much as possible.

Matthew knew that, but he had been apart from people who followed this for far too long. He was used to crowds, though he still didn't like them. Heck, he went to university and he was fine.

He tried very hard not to take his sister's behavior personally. But then she hugged herself around her chest, trembling a little and he knew this was very much personal.

Matthew was shocked, anxiety spiking in his stomach. But since she was there, he at least had a chance to look at her. He knew they went to the same faculty, that she was good at maths just as he was.

Her slim small built didn't change that much since she was 16. Never worse glasses before. Her favourite colour, by the looks of her neon orange jacket and beet red pants was still the same.

Matthew couldn't even feel any wolves around following her. She must have been able to move around the city freely.

He stood up, offering his hand. "Did you get hurt? Wanna... get up?"

When she closed her eyes and cringed in response, his heart fell. Quickly, he sat back down. That was a more submissive, less dangerous position for a wolf. It signalled there was no attack coming.

Matt slid as far away from Maddie on the bench as possible, something deep in his breaking at the idea he couldn't even touch her to help her up after a fall.

"Guess years of her talking your ear off do that to ya," he said quietly, not sure if he ment Melissa or his mother.

Maddie didn't seem eager to get up though. She pulled herself to her knees on the freezing pavement, so she wasn't touching it so much, but she didn't leave.

"At least you aren't cursing me outright," Matthew said into the awkward silence, when he couldn't stand it anymore.

He had hope somewhere inside that Maddie might have wanted to see him...that she was different than Melissa. Melissa hated him out in the open. Maddie might have wanted to visit, if mother didn't have her wolves watching, her phone controlled, the girls isolated.

"You look good, Mads," he continued. Maybe talking like a normal human, holding a conversation, would calm her down. There was no guarantee, but this was the first time since he could talk with her without interruption in years. "It suits you. The glasses too. You don't look all that much older. I like the colours."

But she was so much more frightened. Frozen. Why, then, when he wasn't even there? Why didn't she live boldy and happily, if fear was why they were forbidden from seeing each other?

Or maybe he should just leave. This was torture. And he would not inflict it on her, if his presence was the cause.

"See you around, Mads. Get inside before the sun sets." He hoped that couldn't be interpreted like a threat but a friendly, concerned recommendation.

Matt got to his feet, turning his back to her. For people who knew the language, it ment trust, letting someone at your back. Not that he had anything to fear from a human.

From a sister.

Out of view, he didn't push the anxiety back as much. It exploded in his chest with a sick sticky feeling...that he would have considered normal, if he wasn't throwing up just a few hours ago.

His stomach twisted. Not one to get sick from nerves, but the walk didn't exactly do him good either, shaking things up. A loud, menacing gurgle echoed through the street. He would have been emberassed, if it didn't hurt like a knife to the gut.

Matt groaned, doubling over his knees. The nausea returned at once, with dizzying speed. He reached back with his hand for the bench to stay upright and spit at the ground.

"M-Matt? W-what's wrong?"

Her voice didn't help. Guilt, shame, anger and plain grief shot through him at once. His stomach twisted and jumped to his throat and he retched over his feet.

"Is it your shadow? Is it pressing you too much?" Maddie was on her feet now too, closing in on him.

"It's not-" he gagged and then a wave of vomit rushed out. He vend forward with the force, barely missing his boots. "Not the shadow-bad...bad food...urgh." His throat jumped with a burp.

"Sit back down," she said.

Matt listed, mostly because his legs wouldn't hold him much longer. The shakiness was back full force, reminding him that he was running low on liquids.

Another painful cramp had him balling his fists on his pants, bending forward. He burped another mouthful of puke between his feet.

Maddie was standing over him, a tentative hand on her back. Feather-light. Like she had forgotten her fear for a second.

Matt cleared his mouth, eyes flickering to her. He didn't dare look at her too long.

"You should lie down. I'll call you a taxi, yeah?" She got her phone out, but her hand still rested on his back. Finding him a taxi on an app.

"There. Will be here in 5 minutes. Hold on till then, okay?" She crouched down next to him, her hand sliding up to his shoulder and then his arm. Not breaking the contact once while she stood there, waiting for him.

Matt wanted to thank her. Ask her. Tell her something more substantial. There could still be a chance to fix this.

He spend those crucial five minutes biting back groans and drooling, saliva hanging of his mouth.

Maddie still held on to him, rubbing his arm. "You're gonna be alright, okay?"

He didn't dare move or reach for her. Scared to break whatever fragile balance was created here.

Where the cab got there and she guided him to the car, he wished she could go with him.

He wished he had said what he really thought.

I miss you...

[ragnar0c]

Part 2 of comparing my EO ocs to my Mage Prophecies ocs

Tank and Tankei

The similarities in their names is purely a coincidence. Also Tankei is pronounced T-awn -KAY vs Tank just being said Tank. Plus... is Tank reaally his name? 🤨

Tankei was such a big supporting chara she could be elevated to main status. Subplots in most arcs focused on some aspect of her. And she was the fan fav.

She was an asshole, my favorite asshole whose reckless actions get the main girls in and out of trouble.

She needed to be watched bc when alone she was always misbehaving-- she hates authority, and she REALLY HATES injustice/unfairness.

Tankei melded so well with Mio bc she was the more real version of her. One that knew not everyone could be her friend bc she learned the hard way. And the reason why she is so harsh to Mio is because she never wants ANYONE to be like her. To be taken advantage of.

She has one of the absolute most DRAMATIC backstories ever. And it's one that shapes the plot.

If anyone has a more dramatic back story than Tankei it's probably Tank BAHAHAHA.

He is also a drunk asshole who has the be watched bc he misbehaves (thank you for watching Enid.....). But unlike Tankei. He's super... meticulous about what he does 🤨

His back story also leads a few subplots I have in mind. Actually maybe like 3. He was supposed to just be a side chara but the more I characterized him? He's actually so much more intelligent than Tankei when it comes to people. (I think). And his arc is sweet too. Yeah that guy is an asshole but I personally think he says so to trick people.

If they met: also at a bar. (They both use alcohol to turn off their brains).

They would beat the shit out of someone who was rude at the bar and vaguely remember each other afterwards.

He'd call her "chick" tho. Different than how he calls Alope and Hana kids... he'd definitely view her as more adult than those too bc he knows that she has seen very much.

Tank when Tankei calls him old man (he is tasting his own medicine)

Enid and Kai + Kiemi

Okay so Enid... Enid is one of my only EO ocs that embodies a few ocs rather than just 1. I have like 4 ocs that remind me of him. But narrowed it down to 2... the other 2 are more closely related to other EO ocs anyway.

Anyway Kai is another OC's son. Lady Micah's son!

I don't have comics of them interacting but it's. Oddly in character. Lady is the leader of a like police force, the specialized knights of the nation, the Royal Guardians. Kai is the highest ranking RG member. He is so ridiculously talented, powerful and awesome. But none of this stuff means anything to him bc his self esteem is soooooOoooo LOW.

Yeah. He can control gravity in a certain location. Yes he's a skilled swordsman. But what if hes faking that? ☹ he feels like an impostor...

He has all these achievements, but since he's so... insecure people dont know and view him as some average guy. Most don't even know he's rank 1. Which reinforces his inferiority complex.

Enid... Well when I rewrote chapter 1 I wanted to make it more obvious they were similar.

Like. You see Enid but not really?? Like. WHOA. That's a person. But... then you look at something else. They are the most vibrant in the room but surpress most of their personality. So people just view her as some guy.

Can't get into all Enid's problems bc Enid is a rare character who's backstory isn't super important. Maybe like 2 notes of it are. But other than that, all Enid is in the main story.

If they met: I think Enid would see Kai having a bad time and give him a pep-talk. Only to find out bro is basically capable of killing demigods and get SUPER PISSED OFF.

It's okay Enid. Post game, you can kill demigods too.

The other MP character is Kiemi.

Also one of the Royal Guardians. One who dedicated her whole life to the king. She represses her emotions like Enid too. Acting regal when shes really really upset that she's spent her life this way. Kiemi masks it and usually just tries to make sure no one feels like her. Giving confidence to everyone else and supporting them. (Including Kai)

She reminds me of young Enid. Before Enid became a monk they were unhappy in the same way Kiemi was.

If they met: ENID WOULD NOTICE HOW MESSED UP KIEMI'S QI IS. Kiemi's energy is so out of whack. They are repressing so much more than Enid.

They would talk and be good friends. Also if Enid ever lost confidence Kiemi would gas him up SO HARD.

Also! Kiemi and Kai are the main two who baby sit Tankei. So Enidcore. You know with Joe they babysit Tank. (Though... who is rlly being babysat between those two????)

That's it for this one!

I'll do more charas once I actually introduce them. :3!

[marvel-mistress-padawan]

Sometimes it’s hard to know from my perspective if the things I experienced were actually as harsh as they seemed at the time. Maybe an outsider would see it differently.

When I was a kid I was super afraid of insects especially bees and spiders. If I saw one of those, I would most likely scream. I was uncomfortable with playing outside because that was where the insects were. I hated tall grass in the summer because walking through it felt like insects on my legs.

Anyway, this is all important for two reasons. My Dad insisted that I was not allowed to scream about insects. Screaming was for emergencies only, like injured and bleeding to death emergencies. Any screaming because a bee flew past me would result in a spanking. Secondly, my parents believed that kids needed to spend time outside each day so there was a time period each afternoon for a couple hours that my brother and I were not to go in the house. I did receive my share of spankings due to being trapped outside with the insects and to this day if a bee flies past me my internal reaction is “don’t scream” followed by nausea.

There was this one time that we were indoors in the living room watching a movie and somehow a spider had gotten into my clothes. I squeaked but didn’t really scream and when asked what my problem was, told my parents there was something crawling in my clothes. They basically said I was being dramatic and to sit down, be quiet, and watch the movie. Yet for ten minutes I could feel it crawling. I didn’t dare do anything because I knew a spanking was inevitable if I did. Eventually the spider crawled out onto my neck and face and my Mom was at least sorry she hadn’t believed me. Dad said nothing, as if it hadn’t happened.

Those were not the only things that could result in spankings growing up. In general any sort of disobedience could do that. For the most part I accepted it as a consequence of my actions if I were disobedient and very rarely disobeyed. Except there was punishment for getting caught masturbating a couple of times. It’s almost as if my feelings whether it be fear or self exploration didn’t really matter all that much.

Was this abusive? I keep second guessing it and honestly am not sure. Some parts of it clearly were. And yet, I remain unsure.

[lordrataxesofrhinoland]

been thinking a lot about coco lately

ok so here goes: I feel like the reason I find her so easy to dislike is because of something I call “the Tiff Effect” (named after Tiff from the anime Kirby: Right Back At Ya, whose writing suffers from the same issues). Basically, the people who write Crash dialogue are not confident in their ability to write female characters, so they basically just give Coco no negative traits and rarely put her in peril so as to not appear sexist. On top of that, she’s paired with a main male protagonist who doesn’t speak, so she kind of has to cover for the both of them, being forced into a somewhat parental role. It doesn’t help that she’s also supposed to be this super genius, so any kind of writing that reflects her age, especially with regards to life experience, is bound to feel incongruous when compared to her prowess at building and operating contraptions.

I don’t think anyone really understands who Coco is meant to be. Just look at the way her design has changed over the years, a reflection of the evolution of beauty standards for teenage girls. I get a sense that she is written according to the impossible standards set for this group, too- endlessly peppy, vaguely quirky, smart and yet considerate, goofy but never cringe, always undoubtedly femme and heterosexual. Still, I think this constant reinvention of the self might be a good starting point for understanding this character.

She’s 14. At 14, Coco doesn’t know who she is yet, but by escaping her life as a test subject in a lab, she has just been given a new outlet to try. She barely knows what a woman is, but she knows that she is one, and she has a budding, blossoming sense that she likes that fact. However, she has the same problem that the devs who created her did- too many men, not enough women. She needs a parent and a role model and neither Crash nor Aku Aku (nor Crunch, when he comes on the scene) are equipped to be one, so she kind of has to raise herself. It’s okay, she’s used to it. She raised herself in the lab after all. Coco falls headlong into her inventions and obsessions, things she knows it’s okay for her to like in this hellish 90′s media atmosphere- machines, computers, technology. She creates the- whatever that thing in Wrath of Cortex was, I don’t feel like looking it up- because she knows that it’s helpful, that it will impress her male relatives, which is important because she’s kind of young, and kind of needy, and kind of emotional, and kind of girly... and they never say anything to her about it, because truthfully they’re kind of scared of her, but Coco worries anyway that maybe if she just does the wrong thing once, they might leave her forever.

Tawna left her forever, after all. The only woman Coco ever could get close to, even though they were only really “close” for a few months and that was only really because Tawna was dating Coco’s older brother. But it was enough to show Coco what femininity was, what a beautiful woman was supposed to be, and it was enough to make her realize that she liked it. 

So she starts playing around with makeup. That’s why she has such wild eyeshadow in Crash 2 and 3. And Crash and Aku Aku can see it, but what are they going to do? Tell a girl how to be a girl? So they don’t say anything, and Coco’s free to try everything herself- she tries the kiddie look, she tries the trad look, she tries the sexy engineer with the crop top look (but not too sexy after all... she feels ashamed to act like that around her brother). And it feels really cool and freeing to do this, because she knows the other girls (you know, the ones on tv who go to school and have friends and crushes and) get yelled at all the time by their moms, and it’s cool that she doesn’t get policed on what to wear, but also it kind of doesn’t feel cool that no one seems to care. And she also kind of worries that they’re thinking about it but they won’t tell her for some reason, and she doesn’t know why they won’t care enough to tell her what they think of her. But whatever, she’s cool. She’s cool. She knows she’s cool. 

And Coco saw the way Crash leaned on Tawna like a crutch and she knows that Tawna didn’t like that and that was why she left but Coco still kind of feels a little bit like Tawna was being unreasonable, because picking up after Crash and talking for him and being there for him when he’s taking his lumps isn’t really so bad, and it’s actually kind of worth it, and it makes Coco feel good to be like a housewife and a mom, because Crash and Crunch and Aku Aku wouldn’t have anything like that otherwise, and they’re good people, and they deserve it. And Coco knows that Tawna left because she was tired of Crash and she was only really around because of Crash anyway but it still kind of a little bit feels like if Coco had been better- less annoying, less needy, less childish- then Tawna would have liked her enough to stay around. She knows it’s stupid but that’s what it feels like anyway. So Coco tries her hardest to be mature and feminine and cool and upbeat and helpful and kind and likable and unreplaceable because of that. Because Tawna never could. Because Coco was meant to replace her. Because Coco is better. 

[luna-rainbow]

However, can organisations with ulterior motives realistically use the mental health law to put him in confinement? Yes, but it takes a lot of collusion and there are a lot of safeguards against this happening in real life, which may not apply in Marvel’s universe. /

I'm curious about this, i personally think they could institutionalize him just because it's the government... the government hates Bucky and they could do that to him just to fuck him over. now, when you said bucky doesn't have a mentally illness which requires to out him in a mental ward.. what does that mean? just asking because at the end of the day Bucky is mentally ill. it doesn't mean he's out of control but he is mentally ill...

Thanks for the ask and the opportunity to try and destigmatise mental illness a little bit.

Firstly, people with mental health problems do not all need to be locked up!!

The role of mental health institutions is NOT to keep individuals away from society. It is to start treatment that stabilises their symptoms enough so that they can function safely. For most individuals, the ideal outcome is that they function as a part of society in a capacity they are comfortable with, with or without support. The only way for people to do that is to...actually be a part of the community while trying to work through their issues. (There are some practical issues with this because lack of funding for supports and social barriers mean some people are stuck in situations which exacerbate their mental health but that's an entire paper and a half on its own.)

In reality, mental health institutions are high in demand, which means they are very selective about who they take on. Institutions pretty much only admit for the following criteria:

They are at a high risk of causing themselves harm (severe depression/anxiety, suicidal/self-harm risk, hypo/hypermania, active psychosis/delusions)

They are at a high risk of causing other people harm (active psychosis/delusions, mania)

It is very rare to get people institutionalised for a personality disorder, who unfortunately often end up in the forensic (criminal) system or the medical system when they do act out from their mental health issues.

It is also exceedingly difficult to get people institutionalised for a diagnosed organic brain problem that causes symptoms similar to mental health disorders: e.g. brain injuries, brain tumours, certain types of brain disorders - these can give you strange memory problems that shifts your sense of reality and you may act like you have delusions/psychosis.

Sadly, drug and alcohol use is often an exclusion which is unhelpful as many people self-medicate with drug and alcohol to help underlying mental health issues. E.g. people with PTSD end up in the medical system when they overdose to get themselves over an exacerbation.

Important aside here that the mental health system tends to be separate from the hospital/medical system, and it is also separate from the forensic/criminal system. Patients can be involuntarily institutionalised in any of the three systems, but for different reasons.

Being a super soldier who aggressively bashes people up when trying to complete an undercover mission doesn't get him a mental health diagnosis. Otherwise Steven Grant "on va voir" Rogers would've been locked up ages ago.

Armchair diagnosis time: if Bucky has a mental health disorder, it is related to PTSD and depression (maybe with a touch of anxiety). But he is socialising, seems motivated to engage with the therapy program, and wasn't displaying any active suicidal/self-harm behaviours apart from jumping out of a plane without a chute. In the real world, he's not going to get admitted to a mental health unit. He has NOT shown anything that suggests a psychotic disorder. His logic in TFATWS is...uh, questionable, but within the limits of bad scriptwriting stupidity, and he has shown a fairly good understanding of cause and effect. This is not someone you can call "mentally incompetent" either. And definitely no sense of a personality disorder there either.

If I had to justify some of Bucky's behaviours in TFATWS, I would probably say he's acting like someone with brain injury, exacerbated by mental health issues of PTSD/depression. I suspect that’s what you mean by calling him mentally ill but I’m pedantic with semantics.

Now, coming back to the first part of the question. Can the MCU gov lock Bucky up using the mental health provisions? Well, the CIA locked up Isaiah and lied about his death for decades...so yes, you can definitely write it in a way that's possible.

[wraenata]

i was tagged by fellow raven enthusiast @redstringraven, thank you! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Oops I trauma dumped in some of these what a surprise

share your wallpaper:

My phone lock screen is a alternating picture of my cat Sally, or her sister Jenny who passed two years ago. In both photos they look like super models <3

My computer wallpaper is a alternating slideshow of like over 100 landscape and animal photos. Idk I got them from the microsoft store free at one point. They change every 30 minutes. I like the variety.

last song you listened to:

For some reason when I got home today I decided to watch the amazing Reverse animatic and then since I am finally using a new browser Firefox it started auto playing and went to the Roaring 20s animatic, and my brain decided to listen to that on repeat the entire night. I do not know why.

currently reading:

SO MANY FANFIC and I'm behind on all of them

On my immediate list to catch up right now are

We'll Meet Again Soon by chiangyorange

all the ashes in my wake by paperxcrowns

Change of Perspective by characcoon

last movie you watched:

Honestly have no idea. Probably the Rise movie. In two weeks it will be Spider-Verse and I will not be normal about it.

craving:

Energy to be alive

what are you wearing right now:

Yeah I get home from work at 3:30, finish dinner before 4:30, shower and in my jammies by 5 pm. This is how I live my life haha. It is a bit cool today so I opted for my big pink sweatshirt from a campground.

how tall are you:

5 foot 4 inches just barely, which is 162.56 cm according to an online converter. I'm short.

piercings:

So my ears were actually pierced when I was like 3 or something by my parents' friend. No I don't think she asked permission haha. Anyway I had to have an x-ray done not a year later so the earings came out and never went back in. My parents religion we converted into though actually did not allow piercings, so I never got them repierced. No jewelry was allowed. Some of the more strict southern churches didn't allow even wedding bands.

tattoos:

None. Tattoos were literally the reason my mom made us leave the normal church and go to the cult one. Tattoos were not allowed. Maybe I'll get one some day but it's not something I really think I need. But nothing is stopping me anymore if I wanted to.

glasses? contacts?:

4 eyes that's me :) Got glasses in 6th grade yay. I'm not super blind but unless I'm pretty close I'm losing out on a lot of details. Had to buy special prescription safety glasses for my lab job. When I'm at home I don't wear them. Details not important.

last drink:

I literally only drink water. And I drink a lot of it. Gave up soda when I was like 8 because I was afraid of wasps getting in the can. I don't drink alcohol or juice. Maybe a hot cocoa or tea but that is very rare.

last thing i ate:

Sugar snap peas! I love them <3

last show:

Lets be honest it was rise.

favorite color:

I like a forest green. But also I love pastels. I do not like red. You can thank my mom for that.

current obsession:

Rise of the TMNT. Also Spider-Verse.

unrelated obsession:

Nature related strategy board games. My favorites are Wingspan and Everdell but I have so.many.board.games. I got into the hobby because it was the only thing I could tolerate spending time with my mom with but now I don't want to do that anymore, so the games have gone unplayed since Christmas.

any pets:

My 19 year old tortie Sally! She is deaf and a box of rocks and so expensive with her health problems but I love her to bits. She's my baby and has been with me through everything.

do you have a crush on anyone:

I mean I had crushes in school but, oh shocker I was never allowed by my parents to date. And even then it had to be a fellow pentecostal and I sure as hell wasn't going to do that. I was too bogged down with family issues to ever consider it even after I left. I don't know if I'm capable of loving someone? Idk I have always had a huge identity crisis of who I am and what I want. But I also don't want to be alone forever. It's complicated.

favorite fictional characters:

Ninja turtles, Rise Casey Jones, Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Spider Gwen, Snoopy, Cinderpelt.

the last place you traveled to:

Ugh, the bachelorette party of my nightmares this past weekend. It was in a tourist town a few hours away. Unless work counts cause I went to work this morning.

tagging I'm not going to tag anyone because this is a lot, but if you would like to do it I encourage you to!

[katatonicimpression]

so, the other day there was another one of those "sam shouldn't be cap, they should make the most of him as the falcon" posts in the tag and some adjacent stuff has been legit straight up haunting me so I guess i'm going to write about it for some ungodly number of words

i) Concern Trolling (Part 1)

The obvious thing straight off the bat is that this is such a disingenuous take. It has all the trademarks of "here's a appropriate-sounding reason for me to take the same position as the reactionary racists without sounding racist myself". It's textbook. They're not opposed to the idea of a Black man leading the avengers and taking on this important title, they're just concerned that they're not doing the character of the Falcon justice. Like, come on. You can smell the bullshit from here.

Now, I don't know this person's mind, and it's likely that they believe what they're saying (weirdly enough, most concern trolls do, to some extent). Moreover, it's possible that they are the rare example of someone who genuinely just happens to have a specific belief that alligns with the reactionaries, but it's just this one thing and they have good reasons for it.

So... let's explore that possibility. What good reasons are there to object to Sam's time as cap?

ii) Is Being Cap Bad for Sam's Writing?

There is this irratating phenomenon from Sam's cap era where he'll be pushed into a role that was clearly written for Steve. This ranges from dialogue choices to physical roles in action scenes. Sam is not super strong - he's a super acrobat and friend to all the woodland creatures. Sam is not a military man - he's a social worker. Sam's politics are more cynical, and more radical than Steve's. Sam's more sarcastic, more of a complainer, but also more flamboyant and more "free-wheeling".

Many of his appearances as cap flatten Sam, make him honestly kind of boring at times. The writing is just whatever bog-standard captain america thing they thought of and Sam's own personality is absent. This is most common in Avengers storylines, where he's not the focus, but even Symbol of Truth - a series ostensively about Sam - ended with the villain monologuing about how Sam "thinks he's america's greatest patriot". And, like, no. No he doesn't. Even for a villain line it doesn't work because it's not just wrong, it's irrelevant. That line could work if directed at Steve (depending on the context), but makes no sense with Sam. He doesn't think he's a great patriot, because he isn't, because he thinks patriotism is dumb. Like, it's kind of his core feature when he's first introduced lol.

What's happening here is that Sam is being handed over to writers who don't know him well, and in some cases don't care about him and maybe even don't like him. This leads to bad writing, ooc appearances and a general sense of a wasted opportunity.

There's a point (made in the original post that got me started on this), that the captain america role is inherently limiting and maybe even inherently boring. I don't agree (see part v), but I would agree that in practice, the role has been limiting on Sam's character and, on multiple occassions, constrained his writing.

iii) The Two Caps Thing

This is something I've complained about before, but the obvious problem with samcap is the shitshow that has resulted from having him and Steve "share" the title.

There is nothing wrong with it in concept, the problem is entirely in how it's played out in practice.

Steve is in a new comic every week, often more than one, often plastered all over the cover. He appears in crossover events, and is often featured heavily in other hero/team's stories. On top of this he has cameos, ranging from small appearances to more meaty roles.

In this same time period, Sam was in Symbol of Truth, and now Avengers. No other series featured him. You'd see him once a month at most. He has cameo appearances in this time, but only a handful. These cameos have been often wordless appearances, or contain a line or two of generic dialogue.

This is ridiculous. It's embarrassing for Marvel. It's an absolute shitshow. They are not "sharing" the title. Functionally, as far as Marvel comics has been concerned for the last two years, Steve has been Captain America and Sam has been barely present.

iv) Concern Trolling (Part 2 - a.k.a. Why the last two points are redundant)

The obvious thing to point out, is that none of this would be any better if Sam was still the falcon, because it's been happening the entire time.

Sam being written badly? Been there since arguably the beginning. Sam being written ooc because the writers don't care about him? Since the 80s at least. Sam being a stock military tough guy? The 00s called and want their ideas back. Sam barely being featured in preference for more wanking over Steve? Yeah, that's literally the late 70s when Jack Kirby took over the series for a stint, and it only got more common from then.

Due to a combination of factors (let's be clear - Racism is the big one), Sam's been written terribly on many occasions since his introduction. And, for the same reasons, he also just doesn't get featured as much, and gets shelved and ignored a whole bunch. It ends up creating a vicious cycle, where Sam isn't around, so no one thinks to include him, and when they do, they don't read anything about him because they don't care, which then leads to them portraying him blandly or even ooc, which does him no favours and makes writers less willing to include him.

Obviously there is still plenty of good Sam writing out there, but my point is that all the problems we see in his cap era are the same problems that have been around for decades. The 00s in particular were bad for literally all marvel Sam's character.

Honestly, I personally think that if Sam had never become cap, he'd barely be in comics nowadays at all.

So, if someone says "i'd rather Sam was the falcon, so that they could explore his unique personality and backstory, and not saddle him with illfitting tropes and bland characterisation - and so they could really give him attention and focus on him" - yeah, that sounds great but it would never happen, and if you have any familiarity with this character's history, you'd know that. It was standard practice to ignore and under-write Sam as the falcon; what on earth makes you think that pushing him back to that (less prominant) role would fix anything?

I think that's why I find it impossible to take this position seriously. If you're a fan of the character, you'd know that the idea of the falcon being done justice by marvel is an unrealistic fantasy. It's hard not to assume that someone is being disingenuous when they suggest it.

v) Is Being Cap Good for Sam's Writing?

If we let this conversation get a little more abstract for a second, and not about Marvel themselves (and the decisions of writers and editors and marketers etc.), there's still a question of whether having Sam be captain america is a good creative decision in and of itself.

I mentioned before how Sam is not a patriot, and he openly derides the whole cap thing throughout the 70s. So, you could say that there's something ooc about him being cap... but I'd disagree. Sam's decision in 616 (and MCU while we're here) was made after Steve asked him to do this, leading to his own mixed thought process on the matter. I think that's good drama. Sometimes having a character be pushed into doing something they wouldn't normally do is good actually, because it puts them out of their comfort zone and gives us a story.

Similarly, his move to become cap again recently was also because of a push, a pressured decision - this time from Misty and the Avengers.

Sam's 2015 series is genuinely great. The art is great, the characterisation is strong, and it bridges the gap between Sam in the 70s and the present day in a really satisfying way - it feels rooted in him as a character in a way so much of his writing isn't. Is it perfect? No, but it is good. And I bring it up here to make a very important point: having Sam be cap opens up an entire range of storytelling possibilities that aren't there with him as falc.

It changes his position relative to other superheroes, it changes his relationship with Steve, it makes him more important in people's eyes - it's Sam in a different, more complicated stage in his life. A stage where he's beholden to more people, has different responsibilities. It's good, actually.

Like, I get that this is heresy in comic book world but yes sometimes changing the status quo is good, actually.

vi) Clinging Onto the Falcon

I do think that Sam's unique history as the Falcon should not be abandoned in favour of the cap stuff. He's a bird prince and a free wheeling flyboy and all of that. That past identity is still his, even if he's using a different title.

One thing that has bothered me in the post samcap era is that sometimes Redwing is treated like he's Joaquin's now. Like, Redwing is a full on person with human-level intelligence and one of Sam's closest friends, and sometimes he gets treated like an accessory to hand over to the new falcon. It's weird and dumb. In general, Joaquin has a different relationship to the whole bird thing to Sam, and his character isn't a one-to-one replacement for him. Just like how Sam is not anything like a replacement for Steve. Fundamentally, they play different roles.

Redwing is still Sam's partner, the bird thing is still Sam's schtick, the Falcon is still kind of Sam's identity - it's just shared. And I think remembering this - bringing all the aspects of sam's identity together - is part of the solution to the less than satisfying writing we've been seeing.

vii) Conclusion....???

There's nothing inherent to Sam being Captain America that makes him difficult to write well, and the premise is actually a great springboard for storylines that do centre him and respect him. Do they all do that currently? No, but the problem there is upstream of what superhero title he has.

What Sam needs is basically just more material - he needs a new solo (which I would assume he'll be getting between now and the film release because bRaNd sYnErGy), he needs other substantial appearances outside of that, he needs multiple writers throwing their towel in the ring and giving a more varied perspective, and maybe needs a couple of memos from editorial with some guidelines on characterisation (and art).

Like, ok I am basically saying that in order to fix unsatisfying writing, the writing needs to be better. But yeah. Whatever, it was like a one sentence post that set me off on this...

[whittlewillow]

media literacy and analysis is important and all but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as reading too far into something.

almost all the major criticisms i hear towards cottagecore make little to no sense. they'll be petty, they'll generalize, they'll find problems that don't exist, they'll miss the point or appeal, often they'll just lie, straight up.

it comes from people not realizing that it's ok to simply dislike something, so they have to find a way to justify anything they don't like. it's not media literate to think "how can i make this seem evil regardless of whether or not it actually is?"

i can't speak for everyone who likes cottagecore but let me explain why I like it. i think 3 of 4 of these are the same for most cottagecore fans:

number one reason id it's pretty. number two is that it's carefree and relaxing. it's not a realistic depiction of being a farmer 100+ years ago but it's not supposed to be. it's an idealized fantasy world. i think most people have dreamed about living with nature or only having to do fun work, that's what cottagecore is. all the work you see in cottagecore content is usually simple, sanitized versions of real and difficult tasks like animal husbandry or farming, but they're seen through rose tinted glasses that make them seem fun. and that's ok, because it's a fantasy about a fictional past that never happened. fantasies don't have to be entirely realistic, can you imagine how boring that would be? number three is that it's very feminine, and i'm a very non-passing trans woman who rarely feels feminine and that gives me a lot of grief, so of course hyperfeminine fantasies like this appeal to me... number four is that i like nature.

that's it. it doesn't have to be super deep.

we could read into that further, why those things are important to us. why do people think it's pretty? why is it important that it's feminine? whatever. that's a good thing to discuss, but what is NOT good and what is NOT an example of practising good media literacy is jumping to conclusions, making assumptions based on very little evidence, or generalizing all people who like this aesthetic into one misogynistic, racist monolith.

psychoanalysis is pseudoscience. you cannot make enormous assumptions about the minds of every member of a massive and diverse group of people based on their interest in low-stakes feminine fantasy worlds. also, side note but i just noticed, you rarely hear these complaints when it comes to more masculine fantasy.

also, so many people talk about cottagecore like it's some kind of organization?? weird. take like, 20 steps back. it's obviously a fandom. maybe a subculture sometimes.

-

i think a lot of yall just want something to hate.

but there are SO MANY THINGS more worth hating than this.

why don't yall try hating fascism or something? and like, ACTUAL fascism not the imaginary fascism that yall like to apply to anything you don't understand.

try hating project 2025, or the ccp's concentration camps for muslims, or russia's annex of ukraine, the anti-homosexuality act in uganda, the war in gaza, neonazis...

ppl want cottagecore to be evil SO BAD and it's weird

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Gus Porter Appreciation Post

I have been wanting to do gull analysis of the important characters in The Owl house since like 2/3rds of the way through season 2. Now that the first season 3 special is right around the corner It feels like a good time to make posts and get views again.

Gus is a character I find particularly interesting. In season 1 and for part of season 2 Gus is there, but he is secondary comic relief, very token, and almost never seems to move or affect the plot. He slowly grows as a character with and develops arc’s though, and whats interesting to me is that unlike with characters like Luz/Eda/Willow I cannot really say when his character hit the turning point. I mean I know when his character had shifts, or started to focus more visibly on certain aspects of his character, a lot of the big moments his character goes through and core aspects that come to spotlight in episodes like “Through The Looking Glass” and “Labyrinth Runners” on re-watch actually start more subtle in the back ground of season 1 episodes.

Warning very long post underneath

Things with Gus that could have been done better

Okay first lets address some of the weakness’s of Gus’s character. I want to get those out of the way so that I can spend more time speaking his praises. Up top I call him 3 things “Secondary comic relief” “token” and “unimportant plot wise”. I stand by all three being true (at least for a lot of the series) and all three can be problems with his character. For the “secondary comic relief” one... King is out main source of comic relief. King is voiced by Alex Hirsch, who many fan’s recognize as the creator and voice actor for many Gravity Falls characters. He is a very funny man. King himself is also a funny character, because he sees himself as big and ferocious, has a large personality, and all of this is wrapped up into a like 2.5 ft tall fluffy little dog body. Gus’s first ever job in the show was to come assist Luz on adventures and mishaps where she would be away from Eda and King. Unlike King though Gus does not have a large personality, and with his a main trait being “Self-proclaimed “Human Expert”, when actually everything he says is wrong” he just never seemed as funny. Also King despite being mostly comic relief had lore and backstory from the beginning, taught Luz about demons and life with Eda, and was able to come up with clever ways to help defeat foe’s. Gus... shares his food, and can do basic distracting.

I called him “token”. that is a word that I know gets thrown around a lot, and there is some argument as to when it is appropriate and what it means. So let me give the definition I learned for “token”: One or a few characters that are different from the main cast in a noticeable way, and are added in mainly to give the illusion of this show/book/game being inclusive.” You know how in 90′s and early 2000′s shows about super hero’s/crime fighting a team will have that one (or maybe two if its a big team) female character because otherwise the show writers can be accused being sexist “don’t you think girls can be hero’s too”? Plus without her they will have more trouble doing cliche romance tropes. Or how about in Christmas specials you always have at least one who is briefly stated or shown to be Jewish, because of course the show runners know that Christianity isn’t the only religion, and Christmas is not the only holiday. Gus would qualify as a token character for two reasons. One is that he is one of the only few boys at Hexside who is learning magic, and is also important enough to have a name. The score for that I believe is Girls 11, Boys 5. Of those 5 Jerbo and Barkus were intended to be one off characters and while we saw them again they got no focus and virtually no development (Barkus is in a hexsis holdum club, Jerbo flew for that jerk professors flyer derby team that one time). Edric only shows up spuraticaly and rarely is shown at school. Mattholomule also rarely shows up, and when he does it is to be a parallel foil to Gus (more on him and that later). So Gus is our only frequently occurring boy to actively bee seen trying to become a witch.

Secondly he can count as a token Black character. The Owl house has prioritized  including 3D characters of different sexuality, and learning types. Its disability representation has also gained positive notice and appreciation by its audiance as well. But is does have some problems and struggles in race. I will start by saying that I am white, and as such I do not notice as many things as a POC would when it comes to racial inclusion, and my word should always come second to a POC’s when talking about this. But even I can notice that Amity’s character seemed completely thought out and written with fluid direction when Dana and the crew were still throwing Mabel, Webby, Star, Anne, every other off-beat, family carton, female protagonist of the last 10 years, and multiple popular teen cliche’s all against the wall to see what stuck as character for Luz. Even I can note the racism on giving Luz a new White Mom when she already had a Latina Mom. Then treating White Mom as her main/better/more fun mom, because Latino Mom tells tries to change Luz (get her to tone down her more destructive behavior while at school) but White Mom lets Luz do whatever she wants, up to and including praising her for crime. And even I can notice how Gus got way way less screen time and focus than characters who had lighter skin than him. Now here I want the opinion of POC fans: in season 2 Dana and the crew added 3 more POC characters (Raine, Darwin, and Darius), brought back 2 existing characters (Katya and Mattholomule) and, admittedly more towards the end of the season 2, gave Gus and Skara more focus. Did this feel to you like Dana and the Crew noticing and correcting an issue, or did it feel more like the damage control?

Gus’s plot relevance in episodes is kinda self explanatory. In 1B he does not even participate in shenanigans and mishaps that Luz,Willow, and Amity do. He is the group cheerleader. Which would be fine if they let him do all the cool tricks, acrobatics, and full on routines cheerleaders do. Combining his illusion powers with all of that would have been really awesome. But instead of doing any of that they just gave him two small flags that he waved back in fourth from the stands. That was his whole cheer routine, and most of his 1B character... Okay now I am finally done with writing out the flaws/problems with his character, remember I do love this character, and can move on with praises.

Gus’s magic abilities

Gus’s learning trope is that he the “stressed out gifted kid”. He is a protege magician when it comes to Illusion magic, and have even skipped 2 grades. Okay We do not know that much about how different grades work at Hexisde (it’s an all grade school) since Luz our main character see’s the school for the first time at 14. Given that Luz enrolls during a Summer semester I am guessing that Hexisde is a year round school (how do grade levels work at those? I do not know) that does like 4 three week breaks during each season. But I am going to guess that Elementary level kids learn about the different coven tracks and opportunity’s in them, middle school kids pick their track and learn the basics/early lessons, then High school kids perfect their magic and take more advanced lessons. We have never heard Lilith or Raine or any of the Blights mention Colleges, so maybe its not a thing on the isles and kids only leave when coven recruiters come and take them away...

Gus again skipped two grades and “Labyrinth Runners” implies he does it pretty young, he looks like 9 or 10 in his flashback of his first week in advanced classes. If Willow’s powers came late, could Gus have developed Illusion powers early? We also see that he wasn’t then and still is not now in complete control of his powers. My guess is that when Perry and Bump saw what Gus was capable of they moved him up those grades because they believed the best thing for Gus was to get help from an experienced illusion professor who could help him learn more control and mastery of his powers. We can see how great the Illusion professor is in “Labyrinth Runners”, and how much she cares about Gus.

In season 1 Gus mostly sticks to what seems like advanced basics. He could sentences in the air, and make copies of himself, and he was amazing at it. He was not doing one letter at a time, or even one word at a time, he could magic whole sentences into the air at once with great theatrics. His can make multiple copies at once. His copies still remain fully functional when he is away from them, and they can all talk. For clones made by a child, they are very advanced copies. In “Looking Glass Ruins“ Gus makes an illusion large enough to cover a small grave yard, and then In “Labyrinth Runners” his school. In that episode he also pockets a powerful magnifier glass that lets him peer into foes heads and call fourth bad memories. This gives Gus a way to cause actual damage to Belos in “King’s Tide”.... But Gus may have been hit some recoil on that.

This brings me to another part of Gus’s character that I love: He gets progressively stronger through out the show, but he never reaches the ceiling of his potential. He can give his copies more advanced mobility and speaking skills, But when he does they are less likely to do what he wants. See the that only pretended to take notes for him when he skipped, and the one that he made when he wanted to interview himself who promptly told him “I would rather die than reveal my secrets”. He is not able to make large illusions in season 1, and in season 2 they tire him and he still loses control if they go over a certain size. He learns to use the magnifier glass quickly, but he can only us it on an already subdued opponent and using it may pose danger to him in the process. Gus has all the potential to become a mater illusionist, and the dreams and ambition to become even more. But all of this will be one day in the future. For now he is a kid who needs to keep studying and practicing so he can get better, smarter, and wiser.  This brings me to my next point about Gus

Relatable Fears

First off let’s look at the pressure Gus puts on himself. He loves to brag about getting to skip two grades. He can be a show off with his magic, and when mentioning that his dad wants him to become a master illusionist he laughs says “That’s easy”, and declares that he will become this powerful and new figure in relational politics and end a long standing feud between the boiling Isle residents and the Giraffe’s.

When tries to help Willow deal with a pixie infestation with an illusion and it doesn’t help at all, and she gets hurt anyway, He goes through a huge existential crisis and starts wondering openly questioning if the illusion track is even worth studying. Some bullies trick him into helping them clear a way to the graveyard for them, before revealing they do not want to be his friends and do not care about his feeling’s or opinions. Gus blames himself for all of this. Who was he kidding thinking Bria actually cared? Well it’s not his fault. HE thought Bria cared because she did a really good job of putting on a show of acting like she cared. Its pretty high key hinted that he does this all the time at Glandis and that’s how she keeps her three “friends” and probably others under her thumb. Heck its low key hinted that she got Mattholomule in so much trouble that his parents took him out of Glandis at least in part to get him away from her and the members of their group. Gus isn’t stupid, Bria is just a skilled manipulator.

After Bria Gus and the cast, unfortunately meet, Adrian Graye Venworth. Gus see’s through his first illusion and saves Edric and the other kids from being tricked into getting sigiled. But Later Gray and a member of the Emperor’s Coven trick Gus into almost going with them by casting an illusion to make the Coven Scout look like Willow. Hunter See’s through the Illusion and grabs Gus yelling that it is a trick. Gus is devastated that he could not tell the difference between his best friend and an illusion and concludes that he must be stupid and have something seriously wrong with him. A few things that I will point out here (and I am so glad Hunter points out to Gus in the episode). Gus is not at fault at all. The coven guard pretending to be Willow fooling him? They showed up when Gus was in danger, scared, and desperate to find help so of course he feels a wave of relief at Willow. Hunter saw through it because he has rained himself to never drop his guard (he has had to) But Gus has no reason to distrust Willow. Even if he was fooled it was never a fair fight. Gus is a gifted kid, but he is still only a 12 year old kid, and is still learning. The Emperor’s coven is made up of all the most ambitious students and highest scores AFTER they graduated school, past tons of vigorous recruitment tests, and devoted their lives to nothing but improving their magic and serving the Emperor. Adrian is a Coven head, a.k.a the top ranking Illusionist on The Titian. Him and all he guards are older and have both more training and experience than Gus. They were able to fool Bump and the Hexside teachers too, and none of them are fools. Gus’s only problem is the pressure he puts on himself.

To go a bit deeper into Gus’s fears, we see him began to work through his fears in season 2 but I think his arc with fear and overcoming it actually starts in season 1′s ‘Enchanting Grom Fight”. Remember at the end of it when Willow and Gus are helping with the clean up and that peace of Grom morphs into their fears. We see that Willow is afraid of ladybugs (???) and that Gus is afraid of clowns. Now Clowns are a pretty common, it would be enough to assume Gus is scared of their big red grins, yellow teeth, or giant stomping feet. But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” through that Illusions are not able to help solve his friend’s issues like Gus hopped he loses faith in them and himself. Then h starts calling Illusions “party tricks” and himself a “clown”. Which descends to “Stupid”, “Fool”, and “Kidding himself” in “Labyrinth Runners”. You add all this together and it equals Gus not being scared of clowns because of creepy make-up, oversized cloths, or how in-your-face some clowns are. We only see the clown image Grom used on Gus from the back but I am gonna gus its front looked kinda similar to Gus himself. “Clown” is the bad name Gus calls himself when he gets angry/scared/or frustrated at his own mistakes. Gus is scared that maybe he is destined to be a clown. Maybe his dad, teachers, friends, and himself are all fooling themselves when they call him someone special, and maybe everything he is good at is just stupid, unimportant, party tricks.

THAT IS NOT TRUE. Gus’s is a great friend and his support has done a lot for Willow, Luz, King, Mattholomule, and Hunter. He has been a real light and the dark for them all. While his illusions have limits, he starts finding knew things he can do with them throughout the season as he improves (and we thankfully say god bye to the Gus the uninspiring cheerleader and the two tiny flags that all he does is flick back and forth). Gus’s own magic feets even hit Heroic status on at least three occasions “Through the Looking Glass Ruins”, “Labyrinth Runners”, and “Kings Tide” where if not for him things would have gone much worse and potentially innocent lives could have been ruined or lost. Gus can, is, and will be great witch. He just needs to take some time, and come into it in his own way.

Gus’s development into a more empathetic friend and his growth and maturity through out the show.

Just a small heads up most of this will be about Gus’s relationships with other males. I know, I know Willow and Luz are his best friends. I am not trying to undervalue his relationships with them, they are great friends and very important to him. The reason I am not talking much about them is that his friendships with them start from their first meeting and remain really consent throughout the show. There is never really any change. They are all friends, Willow and Luz know he is younger by a couple years but they do not treat him any different for it. Gus loves this and is super protective of both of them, trying to jump on or “Gus chomp” any big kid who calls one of the Trio “losers’ or tries to give them a hard time.

Let’s start with the first time we see Gus in his element. Gus’s time as the President of the Human Appreciation Society (a school based club he started). This was Gus at his absolute worst, most jerkish, and it got him nothing. Gus says in the episode that he created the club because being the youngest kid in his grade he was always overlooked and wanted to create a place where that would not happen to anyone. When he says that it is the only time that he is either kidding himself or just being stupid. Because Gus is a tyrannical leader that and overlooks every other person there. No really he is. Gus calls himself “The President” but also made himself a crown, like he’s the king. He has a huge list of rules that he made himself and that no one else is allowed even comment on. He is the only person allowed to touch the objects, He is the only one allowed to make decisions (he legit see’s the group wanting to vote as anarchy), and judging by his reaction to Matty dumping out his backpack Gus may even be the only one who is usually allowed to bring in artifacts. Gus made himself a place where he would get to be in charge of kids older than him and they would have to listen to what he says. Well later in the show we see that Bigger Kids used to take advantage of Gus’s trust and trick him into doing their work for him. These are his worst memories.So seeing that I can see why Gus would want a place like the H.A.S., but that is an explanation for his behavior and not a excuses. He is acting like his old bullies and it is getting him nowhere. The bigger kids in his club must stay because they are interested in learning more about human culture, because they do not seem to care for or like Gus. When Mattholomule challenges him for leadership two kids support him and one just proclaims himself “an undecided voter”; none of them back Gus. When Bump kicks Gus out of the club none of the kids care or ever speak to him again.

Losing the club was painful for Gus in the short term because it was a club he cared about (and it led to 1b Gus and his boring obsession with two tiny flags. They really could not have also given him a horn, some lights, or put the flags on a baton), but after the way he had acted I cannot say he did not deserve to lose it, and he did grow from this. His relationship with King is the first one to show his growth. In “Really Small problems” Luz gets the day off from school and decides to take King to the carnival. While there she runs into Willow and Gus and asks King if they can join them. Gus is really condescending to King here, but King agrees to let them join for Luz. Willow and Gus do not listen to what King wants to do, gradually take more of Luz’s attention, and eventually fully exclude King. This drives King so crazy that he buys a potion to make Gus and Willow temporarily disappear. Which of course he bought from a con artist, its actually a scam that gets everybody in trouble, and King has to apologize and explain his loneliness to the other kids. He tried to make peace with Gus and Willow by offering them both pieces of broken friendship necklaces which they both take. Gus thanks King saying that he has always wanted “A jagged piece of cheap metal”. Willow gets on to Gus, I guess believing he is still being condescending, but I do think Gus was checking himself. Two episodes later when everyone is getting excited about Grom Gus gets to be the announcer and he goes to King to ask if he would like to be his assistant. When King gets stage fright Gus finds him and helps him through it in a much more tactful and friendly way. Gus is 3-4 years older than King, so to King Gus is a big kid. When King confessed the way Willow and Gus made him feel, I think this was the first time Gus was able to see his former bullies in his own actions. He did not like it and he makes steps in later episodes to be more friendly to King and treat him like one of the group.

Now Let’s go to Mattholomule. Gus was a jerk to the other members of his club, but when Mattholomule does his whole “scared and lonely new kid who just wants friends act (which I know was not completely an act)” Gus believes it and really does seem genuine in wanting to be Mattholomule’s friend afterwards. When Mattholomule turn on them and sends Luz to the detention pit, Gus goes to save her, and Mattholomule gets literally dragged along in the crossfire. Gus could have left Mattholomule to rot down there. There is a few options as to maybe why. Maybe Gus feels responsible since he kinda started this whole mess. Maybe since Mattholomule has the most experience with dentition pits Gus and Luz thought they could need him in the escape. What ever reason Gus shows genuine kindness in recusing Mattholomule as well as Luz. That is not an act that Gus gets repaid back to him right away. As soon as they get out and Bump see’s what they did to the pit, he tries to blame Luz. Gus takes all the blame, part of which should got to Matty, but Matty only speaks up when he see’s that he still has the opportunity to steal Gus’s club. Just to be clear on Mattholomule as H.A.S.P: He is a jerk, he will be just as tyrannical as Gus was, and like Gus the club made him no friends, no more popular, and any power he thinks the title gives him is in his head. Gus has to leave and become better.

But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” we get more back story on Mattholomule. We meet his old crew (whom his brother does not seem to like him hanging out with anymore) and see that they are all better than him at magic and hear how his lack of polished skill led to other kids making Glandis very difficult for him. Mattholomule essentially dealt with the same issues as Gus but on the opposite end. Mattholomule tries his best to keep Gus away from the other kids, and Gus thinks this is just him being mean. Only to find out to late that these other kids are just using them both. Because Gus was once kind to Matholomule, something that try as he might Matty has apparently not been able to stop thinking about or being grateful for, Matty goes back to help him. After watching Gus defend the graveyard from his old crew Matty finally makes the right choice for the right reason (reasons other than power or dept) and offers to help fix it up. Then, at hearing the illusion history may have to be hidden away, Matty suggests that he and Gus can build it a stronger defense system. Gus has a new friend now (who may one day also become more than a friend, they do share interests and passions) and has renewed faith in both that illusion magic matters, and that people aren’t all bad, and are capable of changing for the better.

These lessons all come to play during Gus’s relationship with Hunter. Gus does not really like Hunter when they first meet. Hunter or “Caleb Jasper BloodWilliams” is a strange, rude mouthed, big kid, who Gus has not seen before, but getting Willow’s flyer derby team approved suddenly depends on him... It turns out “Caleb” is really Hunter, a.k.a the Golden Guard, and he is here to trick them into the roughest coven of them all. Yes Hunter regrets it and goes back to save them (actually he may have done it more for their palisman than them, but he still helped them). He did the right thing, only after lying to them, scamming them, and putting all of them in danger. Gus is not obligated to forgive Hunter or try and be his friend the next time meet. When they meet again Gus half expects Hunter to try and pull the same crap, until he learns that Hunter is on the run. Then he offers him help and a listening ear. Gus did this because he knows that Hunter is not 100% bad, feels empathy for how alone/confused/scared Hunter is, and he knows people can change for the better. Gus has come along way from the bratty, vindictive, kid he sometimes acted like in season 1a. To him these basic acts of kindness do not seem like much, but to Hunter, who is going through so much, they mean the world. It’s because of Gus’s influence that Hunter finds the courage to come out of hiding and publicly supports the rebel side. This indirectly helps lead to all 6 kids (I included King) being together on the day of Unity and able to help each other against Belos.

Gus Porter All and All

Gus is a really great, well thought out character. He is in the background more than some others, and I wish the show had brought him to the forefront more (I do believe that if the show had run longer we would have gotten more of him and Matty protecting the graveyard, Matty introducing him to his favorite book series, and Gus meeting Steve. Grrr). But even when Gus is stuck in the background he still has some really interesting arc’s going on and you miss out if you just dismiss him. I also appropriate Gus getting to do important things and be a hero from the background, he reminds me of Codename: Kids next Door’s numbah 5 in that respect. She mostly stayed out of the spotlight by choice, but was indisputably the backbone of her team. Gus’s journey through school and the insecurities that he deals with remind me a lot of myself when I was younger as well as friends I had back then. I am willing to bet a lot of kids in school can relate to Gus and I like how so much of his feelings and situation are shown to us instead of told. Its nice that kids can see him, and have him to help learn to not doubt or be so hard on them selves, You are special, the right people will see you as such. IF the voices in your head call you names, then tell them to shut up because they do not know.

[peoplesgraves]

Could I ask for a yandere Neo alphabet? (RWBY)

Yandere Neo Alphabet

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Neo‘s love language is complicated. When it comes to her darling she’s not super touchy and she obviously can’t give words of affection. Her love mostly shines through with the way she’ll act a fool to make her sweetie smile The way she’ll change her appearance to be more pleasing to them or how she remembers every little detail they tell her no matter how unimportant. Basically her love language is doing anything for their sake no matter how difficult it may be for her.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Neo will drown in blood any day for them. Someone even looks at them wrong and she’s inside their house with her umbrella act their throat. Girl is loyal to a fault and will murder someone without even knowing the reason if her darling asks her too.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Treats them the exact same just confined to her apartment. She won’t purposely mock them but sometimes a roll of her eyes or pointed look will just slip out.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Neo would probably force them to at least try something once before deciding they don’t like or don’t want to do it. Like if they storm out of the room ever time neo comes in then neo will force them to hang out with her for awhile. Hopefully she’ll prove that most things aren’t as bad as they think.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

She is not. She doesn’t think most of her past or anything along those lines is important so she doesn’t bother discussing them. If it’s something relevant or something her darling seems curious about then neo has no problem sharing things even if they make her look bad.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

She doesn’t really have any strong feelings but she will fight back. Thinks it’s fair game if they thinks it’s ok to attack her then she doesn’t see problem doing the same. Of course she’d never go full out but will do just enough to scare them into compliance.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Once again she doesn’t have any strong feelings about it. She’d prefer they not try to escape but neo’s not that torn up by it either.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

When Neo fights back at them and goes a tad too far. It’d only happen the first time but once was probably enough to scar them for life.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Neo doesn’t have one. She’s a villain and villains don’t typically get happy futures so she doesn’t stress about it. If Salem wins then maybe she’ll start to consider it.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

She gets jealous frequently but it’s nothing knocking someone’s teeth out can’t fix. Once she’s calmed down she’s showcase some rare affection and prove to any onlookers that her darling is hers.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

More casual and comfy. Not afraid to let them see her in mismatched bunny slippers and a cheap clay mask.

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

She doesn’t do any of that. She simply appears in their life and then just never leaves. She’s like a cockroach, no matter what you try she just comes back even stronger and pinker then before.

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Neo is less ‘scary ice cream murder lady’ and more into chick flicks and takeout then she is taking over the world. Who knew that wanted criminals were just like us.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Neo will keep them in line with threats. Even though she can’t speak them aloud chances are they’ve seen her make good on her threats enough to be wary.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Besides their freedom really nothing. In fact they might even have more because now they don’t have a job or societal expectation to deal with. If her darling wants to spend all day wasted or baked then they can and if they want do nothing but online shop? Well luckily neo has a stash of stolen cards.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

If it’s something harmless like her darling won’t stop squirming when neo’s cleaning a cut then neo is very patient but if it’s like an escape attempt then neo immediately goes for the most aggressive options

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Neo would become a menace. Imagine what happened after Roman and multiply that by a million and that’s close to how bad it’d be. Until she either found them or avenged their death.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

You don’t do the things Neo’s done without permanently squashing any semblance of guilt. You’re stuck with her so you’d better get used to it.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Was already a bit loony for Roman due to a less then healthy existence before then but once Roman dies she goes full yandere.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

She feels empty. Not her usual vaguely angry empty or the warm emptiness she usually felt with her darling but just totally empty. Maybe the space was meant to be filled with the guilt she’d squashed.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Really tried to avoid corrupting her darling. She doesn’t want them to become like her.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

She doesn’t have exploitable weaknesses. The best they can hope for is for her to get caught and for the police or something searching her apartment.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Yes. She will knock them out and leave bruises if need be. Neo wouldn’t go as far as to leave scars or burn marks though.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

She won’t worship them. She definitely beloved they’re better than her but not to the level of like a deity.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Neo doesn’t do pining or flirting. She just appears and from then on you belong to each other whether her darling agrees or not.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Yes. If that’s what Neo thinks will be best for them then she’ll break them. Like if her darling is unable to come to terms with their new life and becomes depressed without hope of getting better then she considers breaking them better then the alternative.

[sweetbitterimpossiblecreature]

A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series

I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.

What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)

Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1

This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.

If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.

Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.

Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.

What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.

This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?

Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?

Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.

Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.

If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.

Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions

Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.

In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.

I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.

Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).

A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*

Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!

She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.

Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.

BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)

There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.

Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.

It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.

Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.

Rhysand: He Sucks

First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.

Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".

Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?

It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.

"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.

Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?

Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.

Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.

In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.

A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.

God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:

The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.

Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.

I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:

It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).

It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.

If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.

If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.

I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.

In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.

Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT

[westcoastrry]

Can’t Help If This Is Us

Hello friends. I’ve worked super hard on this fic. I’m not a fast writer so this took my while and I’m super happy with the way it turned out! Special thank to my bestie @harryforvogue​ . I wouldn’t know how to spell or about even write if it wasn’t for her so thanks you ugly fart face.

Also I wrote this entirely for free so all I ask is for feedback. I would really appreciate it and would love to hear your thoughts!

literally mate please let me know your thoughts. PLEASE. I beg.

WARNING: there is smut in this and mentions of the mafia.

I hope you enjoy reading Kiara and Harry’s story as much an I enjoyed writing it. 11.5k words

A fic about Kiara, a normal girl who works at a coffee shop in the upper east side of New York, where she meets Harry. A man who is caught up in a job he doesn’t want but is working hard to craft a better life for himself.

Fuck me like you wanna make love

Call me when you wanna stay in touch

Lie together just to gain trust

Say what you wanna say, can't help if this is us

Moving to New York was a fresh start for Kiara.

It’s only been a couple of months, but she has grown accustomed to the city.

She has an apartment in a not-so-great part of town, but it is close to her University, and the view from her balcony isn’t too bad. She is a coffee connoisseur, so when her pregnant friend and neighbor, Trina, helped her get a job at a cafe on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, how could Kiara truly not make the best of her newfound city life?

“An Americano please?” a deep British voice asserts.

Kiara’s cleaning off the steamer about an hour into her morning shift when the man with long chocolate curls speaks to her. Kiara has been working here for a month, and some very high profile people have come to the shop, but Kiara has never seen this man, but he sure looks important. He is in a suit, all black, and the only accessories are the multitude of rings he has on his fingers. The rose one catches her eye first, then the big gold H.S letter rings. Those are his initials? What is the point of that? Is this man obsessed with himself?

“Americano?” he says more lightly, snapping Kiara out of her thoughts.

“Sorry, I- Americano,” Kiara stutters.

Kiara isn’t one to get easily flustered, but how can she not be when this six-foot sexy man was towering over her in a suit, asking for black coffee.

Only real men drink black coffee.

She works around the machine expertly until the man’s voice interrupts her. “You’re new here?”

“Yeah,” she responds, swiping a curl off her forehead. Managing her naturally curly type four hair in the bipolar New York weather has been a challenge. Most days, she wears her thick hair in a bun, or when she can afford to get it done, box braids. “Started working here a month ago.” Kiara hands him the coffee in a brown to-go cup.

“Hmmm. I’m here all the time. I’m sure I would have noticed a new pretty employee.”

“Guess I’m not all that pretty then,” Kiara fires back, handing him a receipt with a pen to sign.

Harry doesn’t really know what to say to that because he actually does find Kiara pretty. He likes that her face is an even brown color with a few beauty marks. He likes the color of her light brown hair, and he really likes the sound of her voice. It’s sort of angelic, even when she is snapping at him.

Harry smugly hands Kiara his hefty card (the first indicator that this man has money) and signs the receipt. He drops some cash on the bill.

“That’s your tip. By the way, I do think you’re pretty.” His eyes flick down to her name tag. “Kiara.”

Kiara rolls her eyes at the man. He probably walks around life getting everything handed to him because he’s rich, white, and hot.

Screw him and his stupid cute dimple, Kiara thinks to herself. She goes to grab the receipt he signed and see’s two fifty-dollar bills stacked on each other.

Her mouth forms into an “o” shape. A hundred dollars on a three-dollar coffee? What sense does that even make? This had to be a mistake.

“Hey Kiara, are you okay?” Trina, who’s waiting tables today, asks. She has her brown apron tied over her baby bump with a few crumpled receipts and pens tucked in the pockets.

“I just got tipped a hundred dollars,” Kiara says, still shocked.

“You go, girl!” Trina enthusiastically shouts. “Who was it? A regular?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen him before. Brown curly hair, dressed in a nice black suit-”

“Oh, that’s Harry,” Trina smiles. “Everyone loves Harry. He is a cutie. Been getting coffee here for a long time. He owns the strip club down the street.”

“I’m sorry. The dude owns a what?”

“A strip club bar type thing,” Trina shrugs. “Very fancy. It’s pretty much only for the elite. He is super nice. Everyone loves him here! He bought me a crib and this fancy high-tech stroller when he found out I was pregnant.”

“Yeah, well, he is kinda a dick if you ask me,” Kiara mutters under her breath.

“He tipped you a hundred dollars, and you’re calling him a dick?” Trina curiously questions.

“He called me pretty! And he had this arrogant ambiance to his voice. And what is with all the rings? It’s tacky.”

Trina places her hands on her hips.“Oh, just say you find the man hot! It’s okay to admit you find Manhattan’s most eligible and rich bachelor hot. I don’t blame you. I would get on it if I wasn’t thirty and pregnant.”

“I’m not admitting anything. Besides, I don’t have time for men. Men just cause problems.”

“Oh, you're telling me?” Trina points to her bulging belly. Kiara snorts at her friend and starts to walk away to grab more coffee beans from the storage, and Trina follows closely behind her. “You need to have some fun! Loosen up. Get your head out of that textbook. You have been living next to me for three months, and I haven’t seen you invite not one boy over! I know that vibrator you use is tired.”

Kiara grabs the box of coffee beans and turns back around to face Trina. “My vibrator is doing me just fine.”

Kiara’s whole life has been centered around academics. She was a really smart kid growing up. She had a good start to life too. However, Kiara’s wholesome childhood took a turn at twelve when her Dad died in a car accident. The accident was horrific for her entire family, but it hit her mom the worst. Her mom went from being a well respected physician's assistant, to being a drug addict, and Kiara had to grow up at the tender age of twelve just to take care of her mother. Around the age of fourteen Kiara’s mom got shipped off to rehab, and she ended up weaving in and out of foster homes until she was eighteen. Kiara realized that she never wants that to happen to her future family. She has been working hard on her academics because she hopes to have a stable income, so she can give her future kid the life that she never had.

It’s not like Kiara didn’t want to go and mingle around. Meet a new guy, have a one-nightstand, maybe even possibly fall in love. However, the dating scene as a brown skin woman in a whitewashed part of the city isn’t as easy as it sounds. Kiara doesn’t teeter the line of looking ethnically ambiguous. She is clearly a Black girl. Caramel skin, tight curls, full lips, and wide hips. Kiara likes these traits that she carries. In fact, she loves them, but men don’t. Specifically, men that aren’t her race. Not to mention that Black men are hard to come by in this particular part of city.

The simple fact is most white men don’t like Black women.

It’s even arguable that Black men don't even like Black women.

And Kiara is okay with that. She doesn’t need to be approved by a bunch of white people, nonetheless ones with penises. She just wishes she had more options to date within her race, or at least find someone who genuinely liked her.

Maybe that’s the reason why Kiara doesn’t want to go out and find a man to have some fun with. She knows he’s going to be white, and she will have to endure hundreds of questions about her race and her hair or meet racist parents, and she has done that all before.

So, for now, instead of explaining this to Trina, her very white friend, she will just blow off her questions about why she isn’t sleeping around or why she doesn’t entertain the idea of going to bars to find cute boys.

+++

The next day Kiara is off work. She spends her day sitting in her bed, in red pajama shorts and her university sweater, studying for her midterm. She got through quite a bit but is still a little worried about not getting an A. About an hour into her studying, she hears bickering from Trina’s apartment.

“I don’t know what you are being so shy about. Just ask her! You are great with girls.”

“No, I’m great at fucking girls. Trying to establish a genuine connection, I haven’t done that in a while.”

“I believe in you! Now go!”

Knock

Knock

It’s another guy that Trina has been trying to set Kiara up with. Trina does this about every other month. Very rarely does Kiara entertain the idea and sleeps with them, because she is bored, but it usually doesn’t go further than that.

Kiara opens the door to her apartment and there stands Harry. He is holding a boutique of red roses in one hand, and his other is behind his back. The suit he is wearing today is slightly different. Same silhouette, but this time the suit is brown. Kiara finally gets a good look at this man, and fuck.

Green eyes, full bright pink lips. Wide shoulders and defined biceps that show he does work out but isn’t a gym rat.

Gucci loafers. Now, this is an interesting man.

“What are you doing here?”

Harry nervously gestures to the flowers in his hand. “I brought you this.”

“You just came here to bring me flowers?”

“I also brought you this,” Harry pulls his hand from behind his back and shows a bottle of wine he got when he went on a business trip in Napa. He was saving the wine for a special occasion, like the next time he would go visit his mom, but this is more than a special occasion in Harry’s eyes. He is trying to swoon this girl.

Kiara smiles at him and grabs the wine bottle. If it’s one thing Kiara has learned in her adult life is that she loves wine. She usually only gets the cheap stuff from the liquor store down the street, but Kiara has never seen this bottle before.

She walked to her kitchen, leaving Harry staring at her dumbfoundedly. She pulled out two wine glasses from her kitchen cabinet.

Normally Kiara wouldn’t entertain this. Especially since she has a test to study for. However, she can’t lie and say she hasn’t been worked up...sexually.

“Alright, you brought me wine. You are welcomed in.”

Harry follows her inside the apartment, feeling a bit awkward. Usually, Harry never found himself at a girl’s place. He always took his one-night stands back to his house and had his assistant, Trevor escort them out in the morning.

Harry was nervous because this wasn’t a one-night stand. This was him bringing wine and flowers to a girls’ apartment, which he barely knows.

Just like Kiara, Harry also hasn’t been in the dating scene in a while. He has been busy with work, and it’s not easy what he does.

“So why did you come all this way to bring me wine?” Kiara asks Harry, pouring some wine into a glass and handing it to him. “I know you don’t live in this part of the city.”

“I don’t.” Harry sits on the barstool by the kitchen countertop. “I told you I thought you were pretty. Nice place, by the way.”

Kiara looks for the sarcasm on Harry’s face when he compliments her one-bedroom apartment but doesn’t find any. Kiara’s apartment isn’t ugly. But it probably is nothing compared to what Harry lives in.

Kiara takes a gulp of her wine. “It’s kinda trash actually. This is the ghetto.”

“You go to Columbia?” Harry asked, noticing her university sweater.

Kiara takes one more gulp of her wine, finishing off what is left in her glass. She was going to answer Harry’s question. She really was. But she got a good look at his bone structure. The way his jaw is a perfectly angled line. The way his Adam apple moves when he takes a sip of his wine. Even the way his fingers glide against the glass.

She begins to wonder how his fingers would feel against her.

“Kiara?”

That was it for Kiara because she doesn’t think she can keep herself composed in front of this beautiful rich man.

Instead of pouring her wine, Kiara grabs the bottle and starts to chug the wine like she is a trucker drinking a Samuel Adams.

Her lips remove from the bottle with a pop sound. Harry is now staring at Kiara completely taken aback by her actions. “What are you really here for, Harry? Sex? Because we can cut the small talk part.”

“Maybe I actually like you, Kiara.”

“You don’t like me.”

“Who told you that,” Harry counters.

Harry watches closely as Kiara struts towards him.

“I thought you were into blonde models?”

“Where are you finding this information from?” he questions.

“Google.”

Harry smirks. “So you’re googling me?”

“You know, if you wanted to know more about me, you could have just asked.”

Kiara cut him off with her lips attached to his. She wanted him to shut up, but she also wanted to kiss him.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Harry’s lips move in sync with hers, and he places his ringed hands on her back, pulling her closer to him.

If Kiara is being honest with herself, Harry’s lips feel like magic. It’s been a while since Kiara has kissed a guy, and she feels butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

“Kiara, what are we doing?” Harry mumbles into her mouth.

“We are gonna go back to my bedroom, and you are going to fuck me. Hard.”

“A-are are you sure about that?” Harry stutters on his words.

“We both know you didn’t come here to take me out on some date. So let’s just do this.”

Harry should have confidently responded and said, “No, Kiara, that is not why I’m here. I’m here because I actually find you attractive, and I know you have been working at the shop for about two weeks now but I have been very nervous to ask you on a date.”

However, his mouth went dry because Kiara threw off her sweater and her perky boobs sat fully on her chest.

“Kiara-”

“You know,” Kiara rests the palm of her hands on his muscular chest. Kiara has the upper hand and she sees it in the way Harry was staring at her, gaping at her actions. She loves being this bold. Upper chest bare for a man who is practically drooling over her boobs. Kiara likes to be in charge, but only for a little bit. After a while she wants to be taken care of. In bed that is. “For a man of such little words, you are talking so much right now.”

Harry grabs both of her wrist, but keeps her hands placed upon his chest. He knows his heart is racing a mile per minute. Kiara feels it and for a second she thinks to herself that there is no way she is causing this man's heart to skip beats.

Kiara stands up on her tippy toes and lets her tongue dart out to touch right below Harry’s ear suckling on the spot until it turns a nice red shade. She detaches her lips with a pop.

“You want this,” Harry whispers.

“I need this,” Kiara responds back.

“Tell me what you need Kiara.”

Harry’s right hand brushes over her bare breast, causing her to buckle a bit and stumble onto Harry’s chest.

“Hold yourself up, love, and tell me what you need.”

“I need you to fuck me,” Kiara whines.

With that, Harry holds Kiara's hips and roughly turns her away from him. Her hands went out and to grab at the granite countertop, holding herself up as much as she possibly could.

“How do you want it, hmm?” Harry whispers, quickly shrugging off his blazer and undoing a few buttons from his shirt. He begins to place wet kisses along the back of her shoulder. “I can fuck you right here, bent over the counter top. Or I can take you to the bed.”

“Here,” Kiara choked out through a moan.

“Can you handle it?” Harry teasingly asked her.

“I can handle it.”

“Can I take off your shorts?” Harry asks in a more serious tone.

“Mhmm, yes please.”

Harry shimmies down Kiara’s shorts. He takes the time to run his hands over her ass. The contact of her hot skin and Harry’s ice cold rings feels good to Kiara. She wants him to spank her, but she isn’t exactly sure what Harry is into and now she wishes she was sober enough to vocalize what she likes in bed so her needs can be met.

“Let's get a good orgasam out of you. Can I eat you?”

“Yes. God Harry, you're teasing me.”

“Not teasing,” he reassures her. “Just wanna know what you like.”

Harry gets down on his knees and opts for pushing her gray panties to the side instead of taking them off. Her core is glistening in her arousal and the smell alone makes Harry’s dick twitch in his boxers.

“Stop staring at it and-” Kiara cuts her sentence off with a yelp because Harry has attached his plump lips to her clit, giving her small kitten licks.

Kiara doesn’t really prefer to be eaten out. Most men's mouths don’t really do it for her. However, Harry is doing a very good job at keeping her legs shaking. She wants to turn around and look at him, but everytime she tries he delves deeper and deeper in her core, until she can barely hold herself up.

“M’mmm. A little higher please?”

Harry smirks against Kiara’s core because the little please she added to the end of her request tells him that she is slowly letting go of the tough exterior she puts up.

“Here? Is this good?”

“Yeah. Fuck right there please.” Kiara grips at the counter harder until her fingertips turned white.

“Been eating your veggies, huh?” Harry talks against Kiara’s core, the vibrations making her shudder. “You taste good love.”

Kiara is unable to respond because Harry is really going at it. His hands tightly grip Kiara's hips. His face is completely buried in her cunt, and he feels a slight ache in his jaw from the motions he makes with his mouth.

He continues to lick over her swollen folds, and then wraps his lips around her clit, which makes Kiara arch her back and push onto him. She is a panting mess, mouth wide open, eyes pinched together. She begins to thrash around but Harry grips even tighter at her hips.

“Stay still love.”

“I can’t,” she whined. “I’m gonna cum.”

“Why don’t you ask to cum?”

Kiara chokes on her spit slightly when Harry pulls his mouth from her pussy, and dips a finger inside of her. “Am I not entitled to an orgasm?”

“You are if you wanna be good for me.”

“Well if you're looking for a good girl I think you have come to the wrong place-”

Harry adds a second finger to her, which shuts Kiara up. “Ask nicely and you can cum.”

“I didn’t know you were gonna be so-”

“So what?” Harry asks her.

“Dominant.”

“You're lucky I’m not spanking you.”

“What's holding you back?” Kiara challenged.

Harry gets up from off his knees, and his free hand reigns down a heavy smack on her ass.

“Ask me nicely,” Harry demands, slowly pumping his fingers in and out of her.

“No.”

Smack.

“Ask nicely Kiara. I can do this all night.”

Kiara snaps her head back to look at Harry. “No.”

Smack.

Smack.

Smack.

The three spanks that Harry had given to Kiara were much harder than the first. So hard that Harry started to see an outline of his hand print.  

It's when Harry gives her one more smack and pushes his fingers deeper into her, hitting a sensitive spot that Kiara gives in.

“Fuck, Harry please just let me come,” Kiara struggles to say with a couple tears falling from her eyes from being so wrapped up in pleasure.

“Say sorry.”

“I’m sorry. So damn sorry. Please, I'm so close.”

Harry laughed at how her personality has done a complete one eighty. She went from being a complete brat to now begging him for an orgasm. “You are?”

“Yes please.”

Once Harry feels her pussy tighten around his fingers he pulls them from inside of her. “I don’t think you are that sorry.”

Kiara let out a whimper at the loss of connection. Her legs are still shaking and she almost slipped off the counter but Harry was quick to catch her.

Harry's strong arms snaked around to the front of Kiara’s stomach, letting her stumble back into her arms. She felt Harry’s hard cock press up against her raw ass.“Easy now.”

Usually, Kiara would give Harry some witty comments, but right now she is too worked up from being so close to her orgamsm. She feels a bit fuzzy, not sure what to do next. Her core aches and all she can think about is getting off.

Her hands go down to rub at her clit, but Harry quickly smacks it away.

“That's my job tonight alright? You gonna let me fuck you? You're gonna be good so I can get you off properly.”

Kiara nods her head.

“Verbal consent Kiara.”

“Yes please.”

“Good girl.”

Harry’s smug voice echoes in her ear as he places wet open mouth kisses along her neck. Harry is really enjoying himself. She felt him smile against his neck when he started to coax soft moans out of her.

Kiara weakly pushes Harry's head away from her neck.

“Doll, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“No, I'm good. Can we just take this to my bedroom?” Kiara politely asks. “I think I will be more comfortable there.”

When Harry gets a good look at Kiara, he can tell he has pushed past the first layer of her tough exterior. He knows there is probably much more fight and sass in her, but right now she looks vulnerable.

“Yes of course we can,” Harry held his hand out and Kiara willingly took it as he led both of them to the bedroom.

When they arrive, Kiara sits at the edge of her queen sized bed, and Harry lets go of her hand. She whines a little at the feeling of Harry’s hands slipping away from her.

Harry chuckles at the girl. “Let me just take my shirt off darling.”

Kiara watches closely as Harry’s fingers undo the buttons one by one. His silk shirt gilded easily off his toned shoulders. He made his way to sit at the top of Kiara’s bed leaning against the headboard, and Kiara crawled on her hands and knees toward him.

“Christ,” Harry mumbled under his breath.

Harry spreads his legs wider, which allows Kiara to sit comfortably in his lap. She let her hands roam up and down his tattoos starting with the birds on his collar bone. She then notices the butterfly right above his tummy. When she places her left hand on it, tracing the wings, Harry sighs contently at her touch. It’s a comforting touch, one that he has never experienced with his one-night stands.

Harry breaks a sweat on his forehead when Kiara continues to trace his tattoos. His broad chest stops moving up and down because he begins to hold his breath. He isn’t really sure what she is doing, but it feels good. Good enough for Harry to exhale and relax into the bed.

For Harry, sex with girls usually got directly to the point. Of course, there was foreplay, but not to any extent like this.

Having someone else’s hands on your body is a part of sex. However, this feels much more intimate than that. He’s got that feeling of butterflies in his stomach when Kiara begins to run her hands all over his body. It felt like he was in high school again, having sex for the first time and being so nervous because you don’t know what to do. But in this case, the nerves and butterflies don’t come from a lack of knowledge of the female anatomy. It comes from being completely enamored by the beauty this one girl holds.

And for just a second, Harry questions if he deserves this to feel the way he feels right now. Warm and a little drunk on the feeling of love. He doesn’t love Kiara, at least not yet anyway. But he feels like at this moment, Kiara cares for him. And even if she doesn’t care for him, he wouldn’t mind existing in this false reality he has created in his head for a really long time.

Something about having his body touched in such a vulnerable way is making him feel things he has never felt in his life.

“You have a lot of tattoos,” Kiara points out, fingers still tracing his butterfly tattoo.

“Yeah, I have been collecting them over the years.”

“Which one was your first one?” Kiara asks curiously.

Harry brought Kiara’s delicate hands up to the swallows on his chest.

“These ones,” Harry’s voice shakily said. Kiara takes her index finger and begins to trace the birds.

“How old were you?” Kiara asks, keeping her eyes looking at the birds.

“Sixteen,” is all Harry says, trying to keep his past where it belongs. In the past.

“That’s young. You don’t regret any of them?”

“No, actually. I think they all tell a story. Sure, some of them are stupid, but they all got some meaning behind them.

Kiara innocently brings her hand up to his cheek, cradling his face. “You gotta tell me about them one day. You have so many.”

“Mhmm,” Harry hummed in response.

“Let’s kiss some more,” Kiara suggested, wiggling her hips in Harry’s lap to find a comfortable position.

Harry nodded his head in response letting his lips touch Kiara’s, but not yet giving in to her request. His hands find their way to her lower back, and Kiara’s hands now have made their way up to his shoulders.

“You look good. You know that?” Harry says against her lips.

Kiara now has a grin on her face and blushes at Harry as if she has never received a compliment in her life.

Kiara brushes a brown curl off of Harry’s face with her index finger, “You can’t give me compliments while I’m buzzed off of wine because you might make me fall in love with you.”

Harry smiles. “Why don’t I just fuck you like I love you?”

Harry realizes what he said and awkwardly takes his hands off of Kiara’s body, nervously running his hands through his hair.

Kiara see’s the worried look on Harry’s face, but she is just a tad bit too intoxicated to process the weight of Harry’s words.

“Or you could let me fuck you,” Kiara bodly suggests. “I just haven’t done it in a while, so you might need to take over when my legs get sore.”

Harry nods, his forehead pushed upon Kiara’s. He kisses her again, and is taken by surprise when she lightly bites on his lip. She then gives a quick kiss to the corner of the month, and then his throat. She leans over to kiss his collar bones, and Harry takes the opportunity to grab a handful of her ass.

He then slowly peels her underwear off of her. He drags it slowly past her thighs looking down at her soaking wet core.

“You’re wet,” Harry mummers into her ear.

Kiara cups Harry’s dick through his boxers, and slides them off of his hips.

Harry groans in pleasure when he feels her hand touch his hard dick that is leaking pre cum.

“Don’t get too cocky now,” her hand lazily pumps at Harry's length, which she finds to be quite impressive in size.

“Kiara, don’t forget who is in charge here,” Harry grits through his teeth.

Kiara dips her head down to lick at Harry's heavy balls, she then continues her way up to his shaft until she makes her way to his tip and suctions her lips around the pink swollen flesh.

Harry looks down at the Kiara, who is giving him those innocent eyes, as if she doesn’t have his entire dick in her mouth

“Oh fuck me,” Harrys rolls his eyes, and lets his head fall onto the headboard.

“I will. But let me suck you off first.”

Kiara passes her thumb over his dick, and kisses all around the tip. She licks him up and down before taking him into her mouth entirely, making sure to make eye contact with him.

Harry places his hand gently over Kiara’s head, asking permission to touch her. She blinks at him signaling to him that it's okay.

He took a rough grip to Kiara’s brown curls, moving her head up and down in a steady rhythm.

“That's it,” he encourages as Kiara suckles on his tip. “Fucking hell.”

She pulls her mouth from Harry's length and gives him a few sharp tugs.

“Slow down,” Harry pants. “Want to be inside of you when I come. Can you handle it?”

Kiara swings one leg around Harry’s lap, her core just inches away from Harry’s throbbing dick.

“Yeah I can.”

“Well what are you waiting for?”

Kiara slowly slides down on Harry’s dick, and his hands cling to the sides of hips, coaxing her on her way down. Harry groans at how tight and snug she feels around him.

Kiara is about halfway down when the blissful feeling starts to hit her. She tightens her grip on Harry’s shoulders biting her bottom lip.

“What's wrong? Thought you said you could handle it.”

Bravely, in one push Kiara glides right down Harry’s dick.

Harry groans with pleasure as soon as she makes it all the way down. His hands go out to grip her ass, and help her bounce up and down.

“That's it. Good girl. You like it when I call you that?”

“Yes,” Kiara responds, picking up her speed so that her tits move up and down with her.

“What do you want me to call you? I can call you my good girl, a slut, or whore. Which one do you prefer?”

“A whore,” Kiara is slightly embarrassed at what this man is doing to her, but she is so wrapped up in the lust of the moment that she really couldn’t care less.

“You're my dirty little whore, hmmm?”

Harry cranes his neck down to place a kiss on her tongue, lapping his tongue over her soft skin that smells like a floral scented perfume. He moans softly into her neck and squeezes at her fleshy hips.

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I’m your dirty little whore,” Out of nowhere Harry thrust his hips up to meet hers. “Fuck, Harry!”

Harry placed a wet kiss behind her hair before speaking, “How about you get on your hands and knees for me. I can fuck you like that.”

“Okay,” Kiara withdraws herself from him with ease due to how wet she was. She props herself on her hands and knees and arches her back for Harry.

Harry places a hand on her lower back. He rubs the tip of his dick over her wet folds before pushing in.

Harry moves slowly at first, testing out the waters to make sure he isn’t hurting her. Her sweet moans are only egging Harry on, and he is sure he isn’t gonna last another five minutes inside of her.

“Please Harry. Fuck me faster please.”

Harry hands grips on Kiara's fleshy love handles. It is a little tight for her liking however the pain is quickly drowned out by the intense pleasure she begins to feel.

This is a dirty shag. Harry is pounding into her at such an extreme pace that Kiara can’t even get a full moan out. Her little “uhhhh’s” and “nggggs” only encourage Harry on.

Kiara’s orgasm hits her first and it's just as blissful as she thought it would be. Legs trembling, her arms are no longer propping herself up, instead her right cheek is pushed up on the bed, and a bit of salvia is foaming out of her mouth.

“I’m gonna, oh god Kiara. Just give me a sec- fuck!”

Harry’s orgasm shortly follows and it's just as euphoric for him as it was for Kiara. This was one of the most satisfying sexual encounters Harry has had in a while and he wants to enjoy every second of being buried in Kiara’s warmth.

Harry was about to pull out from her but when he looked down at where they were connecting he realized how fucked he was.

Not only did he not wear a condom, but he most definitely came inside of her.

“Fuck,” Harry mumbles under his breath.

How could he be so careless? This has never happened to him. Harry has had quite the extent of sexual partners and he makes sure to always use a condom.

He wants to blame it on the wine but he didn’t even finish his glass.

“I need a second,” Kiara tiredly whispers, panting.

“I didn’t use a condom.”

“I’m sorry?” Kiara says still coming down from her high.

Harry runs his hand through his tangled hair nervously, “I didn’t use a condom. I haven’t had sex in almost a year though. I get tested regularly too. I’m sorry it just slipped my mind. I can run out and get you some plan B.”

“It's okay,” Kiara responds. She turns her head around to look at Harry. “Do you mind pulling out now though?”

Harry looks down at his dick, and then looks up at Kiara. “Oh yeah shit uhh.” He grabs on to Kiara’s hips and slowly pulls out of her.

“I haven’t had sex in like six months by the way,” Kiara slowly turns herself around to face Harry who has now tucked himself back in his boxers. “It could be longer honestly… it's been pretty dry here until now.”

“Yeah, same. Busy with work and what not.”

There is a moment of uncomfortable silence. Kiara has the sheets up to her bare breast, and Harry is not only taking in the raw beauty of the girl in front of him, and still beyond shocked he forgot to put on a damn condom.

“Well, I can get you some plan B. I think there is like a Target down the block from your apartment.”

“No, it's fine!” Kiara responds way too quickly. “I mean like, Trina has a stash in her car. I can steal from her in the morning. You don't have to rush out if you don’t want to. It’s not safe to drive at night, and you probably have such a long way to go.”

“You want me to stay?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Harry shakes his head. “No...errr it's not. I would really like to stay.”

“Okay well I’m gonna pee. And clean myself up. I can bring you some water?”

“Water would be great.”

Kiara nods at him, standing up so that her white sheet is wrapped tightly around her body. She knows that there is no reason to hide from Harry. He just took her from behind and called her a whore, but Harry isn’t just any man. He is a man who looks like a greek god, and fucks like one too. So Kiara couldn’t help but be a little self conscious.

Kiara quickly comes back with two glasses of water. She has even changed into an old ratty T-shirt and a fresh pair of underwear.

Kiara hands Harry a glass and he takes a sip, “You know,” she starts, crawling into bed next to him. “If you told me you fuck like that maybe I wouldn’t have put up a fight at the cafe.”

Harry blushes, setting the glass on the nightstand next to him. “Didn’t plan this, you know. Not that I mind. Trust me, I like this.”

“I would be lying if I didn’t say I thought you were cute.”

“Oh,” Harry playfulls wiggles his eyebrows, scooting himself closer to Kiara on the bed. “Please do tell me more.”

Kiara pouts at Harry until he places a kiss on her bottom lip, another sloppy wet one on her cheek. He grabs at her sides, tickling her.

“Har- Harry! Stop, please!” Kiara begins to laugh uncontrollably. She even attempts to pull Harry’s enormous hands from her body but has no luck.

“Okay, okay,” she gives up, Harry pulling his hands off of her. “It was the whole curly hair, suit thing. I love a man in a suit, and you know you got an Americano. You have good taste in coffee.”

Harry smiles. “You make good coffee.”

Kiara hums awkwardly, not making eye contact with Harry, instead opting to stare at his mermaid tattoo with abnormally large tits.

“I like your hair too,” Harry speaks up. “It frames your face nicely. It was the first thing I noticed about you.” Harry’s ringed hands make their way to the top of Kiara’s thigh, rubbing her soft skin. “Then it was all the pins you had on your apron. You have a lot.”

“Oh. Yeah I’ve been collecting them over the years.”

“You had one that said, ‘Don’t be a damn.’ What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Kiara shrugs, breathing out a relaxed sigh. “It was like my third year of undergrad. I studied abroad at the University Of Edinburgh, in Scotland and this guy who had a jewelry shop said it to me. The next day I came back he just gave me the pin and told me to always keep it with me.”

Harry smiles at Kiara with adornment, “I have family in Scotland. I’m from London though. Grew up there with my mum most of my life.”

“What brought you to New York then?”

“School then work. I went to Columbia,” Harry says, giving her the shortest answer possible. “I noticed you had it on your sweater earlier…. You know before you tore it off.”

“Shut up!” Kiara groans, striking Harry’s chest. “But yes I do go to Colombia. Just for my teaching credentials. I want to teach history.”

There is a beast of silence. “Are you sure if I stay the night? I don't want to intrude-”

“I want you to stay the night.”

Harry’s heart warms because no girl has ever said that to him. The feeling of butterflies swarming around in his tummy has come back, and he knows his cheeks are heating up in embarrassment.

“Alright.” Harry pulls Kiara’s body closer to him which makes her squeal in surprise. “Only if you keep me warm for the night.

+++

Harry is awake before Kiara.

Harry is used to waking up early for his job, and usually, he would be on his way to get his morning coffee and then head on down to the club.

However, he just can't leave the girl he just fucked last night.

Her breaths are short, and he can feel her heart thumping against his chest. She was properly attached to him, and Harry really liked it. Having her this close to him.

He takes the time while Kiara was asleep to not only watch her sleep peacefully but look at all the artwork she has displayed on her walls. There are no family pictures that Harry can spot, just a picture of her and Trina on her desk. It looks like they are at some club. Trina has a drink in her hand that looks like she is about to spill and Kiara is downing a shot.

Kiara stirs a bit in her sleep and Harry watches as she slowly blinks her eyes open.

“You're warm.” She blinks. “Do you want breakfast?” Kiara offers, nuzzling herself in the crook of Harry’s neck. “I make a really good omelet.”

Harry laughs. “Kiara I really can’t keep up with you.”

Kiara begins to innocently pepper kisses all over Harry’s neck. “What do you mean?” she pouts.

Harry groans once Kiara sucks on a sensitive right beneath his jawline. “For starters, you didn’t like me at all when we first met. Then we fucked because you claimed I was here just for sex. And now you are offering to make me an omelet.”

“What are you here for then?” Kiara presses.

Harry sighs, looking down at the pretty girl all tangled up in his arms. Harry knows exactly what he wants. He is twenty-seven and he is really looking for love. A life-long partner who he can come home to after a hard day at work. A partner who makes getting up in the morning all worth it. Someone who he can take out on dates, maybe even take to meet his brother.

He wants to take a leap of faith with Kiara. He wants to ask her on a date, however, he can’t bring himself to do that. He doesn’t want to put this girl in harm’s way because he likes her.

And it's not even about Kiara getting hurt. He would never let anything physically happen to the people he cares about in his life. It’s honestly about the hurt she would experience if something happened to him.

“I-”

Harry is interrupted by Trina barging into the bedroom.

“We will be late for the train if you don't get your ass up! You always sleep in--” Trina pauses once she realizes her best friend is wrapped up in her other best friend’s arms. “Oh fuck.” Trina points back to the door. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

“Shit,” Kiara grumbles to herself. “I forgot I had work.”

Harry watches as Kiara frantically pulls her underwear up her body. When she realizes Harry is staring at her, she turns around to slide on her black lace bra.

Harry isn’t trying to be that much of a dick, staring at Kiara while she is getting changed. It's just that her ass is littered with marks from his heavy handy, and a light bruise on her loved handles from holding her securely on his lap, while he pounded into her.

The bruises were tainted with the memory of last night, and Harry notices how every little mark told the story of their rough and passionate sex. Looking back on it Harry doesn’t know if he was too rough with the young girl. He doesn’t like that it was possible that he may have hurt her.

“You need to go,” Kiara demands, pulling her jeans on, and then her white shirt.

Harry picked up his white button-up shirt off the floor and threw it over his shoulder. “Kiara, was I too rough? Maybe you should put something on the bruises--”

“I’m going to be late for work Harry,” she snaps.

“Are you mad?”

Tears well up in Kiara’s eyes and this is very unusual for her. She never cries. She is not even sure why she is crying. She pauses for a moment not answering his questions.

“I’m fine,” Kiara answers with her back still facing away from Harry.

“You’re crying, Kiara.”

“I’m not!” Kiara yelled, throwing her hands up in the air turning around. “I- I’m just a little overwhelmed.” Kiara’s breath gets caught in the back of her throat. “I have school, and I work full time, and I’m interning at this elementary school...and that…” Kiara points to the bed. “That was the best sex I have ever had, and now I look like a complete freak.” She wipes a tear with the back of her hand. “I look like a complete freak because all we did was have sex and now I’m crying. It doesn’t have much to do with you I think. I’m just a little stressed.”

That was a complete lie and Kiara knows it. At this moment, she could care less about school or the stress of work. Its that empty feeling you have after sex knowing that this isn’t a forever thing. Harry will go back to being Harry, and she will go back to being Kiara. It is simply just sex...nothing more.

Harry gets off the bed in just his unbuttoned shirt and boxers. He tests the waters by placing a comforting hand on her back. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just show yourself out please.” Kiara walks away from Harry’s hold, grabbing a scrunchie off her desk, and her purse. “I have to go.”

Harry doesn’t stop her. He knows that if he stops her he is gonna want to kiss her. Then he is gonna convince her to come back to bed with him, and he can’t do that. For her sake.

+++

“Are we not gonna talk about it?” Trina asks while she is driving her SUV.

Trina and Kiara usually take the subway together. It works out much cheaper for the both of them, but they can’t be late for work. Not during the Monday rush. Kiara is in the passenger seat pulling up her hair and frantically covering up a few hickies on her neck from last night. Trina is driving just a little bit above the speed limit, trying to make sure they both get there on time, and also worrying about her best friend who isn’t her usual bubbly self.

“There is nothing to talk about, other than I need some plan B,” Kiara replies dryly.

“You're joking.”

“Nope. Pass me your purse.”

Trina keeps one hand on the wheel and hands Kiara her purple purse from the back seat.

“Kiara you had sex with my best friend. Unprotected sex.”

“Exactly just sex,” Kiara shruged, digging up the pill from the bottom of Trina’s bag. “And I’m your best friend!”

“You are both my best friends!” Trina argued. “You know the poor boy actually likes you right?”

Kiara rolls her eyes. “Did he tell you that?”

“Yes! Actually, he did! More than once!”

“He is lying. I’m just a normal broke student. And him? He is a fucking rich man but he looks like a literal greek god! Trina you know I googled him. His past girlfriends are models! White, skinny blonde models. I’m not white, skinny, or blonde!”

“He was a party boy in the past!” Trina retorts. “He likes you, okay? He just has trouble communicating his feelings. I know you like him too. You just have this strange idea in your head that you are not good enough for him! Which is ridiculous.”

“It's whatever,” Kiara huffs, pooping the pill in her mouth and swallowing it, “It was a hook-up. A simple one night stand.”

“It’s okay to want something more Kiara.”

“He doesn’t want something more! It's so painfully obvious,” Kiara throws her hands up in the air.

Trina knows how stubborn her best friend is. It's why they get along so well. They both have this hot headed temperament. However, Kiara never really likes to give herself time to relax. She likes to be busy but it is clearly taking a toll on her mental health.

“Let me take you out drinking after work.”

Kiara turned her head towards her friend and smiled. “Thank you. Now we are speaking my language.”

+++

While Kiara’s working, a part of her secretly wishes that Harry would show up for his americano. She is trying her hardest to convince herself that he is not worth her energy or time, but the sex is still fresh in her mind and it doesn’t help that her body is showing evidence of what took place last night.

There is still that dull satisfying ache between her legs, the sound of Harry calling her a dirty whore plays on rewind all day. She is practically daydreaming about having sex with Harry again while making coffee.

Harry was the first man to meet her needs in that manner. Sure she has cum during sex a couple times, but it wasn’t anything mindblowing. In fact her orgasms were usually underwhelming, but with Harry he knew what he was doing. His dominance was a complete turn on.

And sure Kiara could be fuck buddies with Harry. But she thinks she deserves a little more than just casual hookups. She wants a relationship because at the end of the day, she wants to build a family. A family that makes up for her broken one.

Kiara has sat down and contemplated this before. Is it inherently selfish to want to fix her childhood trauma with a family of her own, but fuck. Can you really blame her?

+++

When Kiara gets home she quickly changes into a simple black dress. It hugs her curves nicely and it's the dress she usually pulls out when she used to go clubbing with Trina (which has come to a halt because of her pregnancy).

The subway ride to the club is filled with laughter and Trina having to help Kiara actually get on and off the train (because she pregamed at the apartment).

Once they got to the club, Trina walks up to the front of the line with Kiara.

The bouncer's eyes lit up as soon as he saw Trina, “Hi Trina. Umm, should I tell Harry you are here? James is also here too. I can let him know as well.”

“Harry is here?” Kiara questions.

Trina whispers in her ear, “Yes, this is his club.”

“I’m gonna need more drinks if I have to look at his stupid face again.”

Trina playfully rolls her eyes, “Yes, you can let James and Harry know we are both here.”

The bouncer pulls out his walkie talkie and opens the door for Trina and Kiara.

Kiara supports herself on Trina’s arm as they walk into the club, “You didn’t tell me we were going to Harry’s club?”

“I know, I thought you might put up a fight about it.”

She probably would have put up a fight about it, however she wouldn’t actually mind seeing Harry's stupid, beautiful looking face again.

The club itself is beautiful. The ceilings are covered with mirrors, and hanging down from them were stunning crystal chandeliers. The chairs are red, and glass tables are placed strategically in each booth. There is also a bar with some red stools, and a huge red door near it.

“What’s back there?” Kiara asks.

“The strip club. But we don't need to go over there. C’mon you wanted some wine, didn’t you?”

Trina and Kiara made their way to the bar and a heavily tattooed girl with a name tag that says Drew is working on the opposite side of the counter mixing drinks.

“Hey, Trina! What are you doing here? You can’t drink.”

“It’s for my friend, Kiara.” Trina gestures to her Kiara, who drunkenly waves back at Drew “She will take some wine, something sweet. I’ll just have some sprite”

Drew grabs a wine glass and puts it on the table before walking away. “Coming right up”

“James is that new guy you are seeing, right?”

“Yes. He works for Harry.”

Kiara has heard Trina mention James on multiple occasions. She even thinks he has come to the cafe a couple of times for lunch, but Kiara can’t put a name to the face. She is unsure if Trina and James are dating, but she is not sure how far she should pry. She does briefly remember Trina telling her that James does not care about Trina being pregnant. In fact Trina told her one day during their thirty minute break at work that James is just happy to be a part of Trina’s family.

“Mhmm. So Harry owns this club?” Kiara asks, taking a sip from her wine that Drew provided for her.

“Yeah. He owns a few more too. I believe it's a family business or something?”

Kiara sighs before downing the rest of her wine. “Just eat the fucking rich already.”

“Kiara? Trina?”

Kiara spins around on her chair, holding up her second glass of wine that Drew had given her and made eye contact with Harry.

He looks breathtaking. Hair neatly combed out of his face, tailored suit, ring decorated fingers that Kiara thought was repulsive, but now she can't stop thinking about how they feel against her heat.

“Trina, it's Wednesday,” Harry sternly told her, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, slowly breathing in and out, trying not to lose his temper at his best friend.

“Are you not happy to see me?” Kiara says, standing up. She almost trips on her heels but Harry grabs her arm.

Kiara places her hand on Harry’s cheek. “I know you have to be happy to see me. You don’t fuck someone like that unless you hate them or love them. And who could hate me?”

“Okay!” Trina chippers up, grabbing her friend and bringing her back to the barstool. “Maybe we should get some water in you, okay?”

Harry is flustered because way too much is happening at once. Harry has told Trina multiple times that Wednesdays are not a good time to show up at the club. He has his meetings on Wednesday, and dangerous people are always floating in and out of the club talking business with Harry. He just wants to keep Trina and Kiara safe.

“Drew put all their drinks on my tab,” he tells the dark-haired bartender. “Trina, did you drive here?”

“No, we took the subway,” Trina answered.

Harry sighed frustratingly. “Okay. I'll take you two home. Just don’t leave here until I come get you.”

“Harry,” Trina starts. “I'm sure we will be fine. It’s not that big of a deal. James is here anyways--”

“Trina please.”

It's the crack in Harry's voice that caused Kiara to stop drinking her wine and look up at him.

Trina shoots Harry a look of sympathy. “Okay fine. We will stay here until you're done.”

Harry exhales the air he was holding in, a nervous habit he is still trying to break. “Okay. I will be done soon.”

“What's got his panties in a twist?” Kiara snorts as Harry walks away.

“I’m not sure actually,” Trina responds. “He is always stressed at work. I’ve been trying to get him to take a break for ages, but pulling that man away from his job is an impossible task.”

“He always seems so tense.”

Trina laughs, “Yeah maybe you can help him with that.”

“Well I see you have been helping his fellow associate...James.” Kiara wiggles her eyebrows at Trina.

Trina dramatically sighs. “Don’t even get me started on him.”

“What? I thought things were going great!”

“They are!” Trina assures Kiara. “But I’m still not sure what he wants. I’m pregnant and thirty. I really don’t want to fool around anymore. I want to settle down. The baby is coming soon and I won't have time for hookups and flings. He says he doesn’t mind that I’m pregnant, but he hasn’t said he wants a relationship with me.”

“Why don’t you just be upfront with him and ask?”

“Because I don’t want to scare him off!”

“You deserve someone who is upfront with their feelings, Trina. You are never gonna know until you ask.”

Trina sticks her index finger in Kiara’s face. “I’m not doing shit until you figure out what's going on with you and Harry.”

“Fine I’ll admit. The dick is good.”

Trina squealed. “I knew it, you filthy whore!”

“I'm just a little nervous. What if he is just hooking up with me for some weird black girl fetish? What if he is a racist?”

“I can tell you that's not Harry.”

“Am I ready for this?”

Trina takes a sip of her sprite. “I dunno. You know the answer to that question, not me.”

“Well I don’t know, and you don’t know. So that's my cue to keep drinking.”

Trina rolls her eyes and is about to tell Drew that this will be Kiara’s last glass of red wine until she makes eye contact with a man walking towards them.

“Fuck,” Trina grabs her purse then grabbed Kiara’s wrist. “Don’t talk to him okay? Just don’t look at him and maybe he will go away--”

“Trina... Haven’t seen you in a while.” The man's voice is heavy and dark. When Kiara looked up at him the first thing she noticed is that he is extremely well dressed, with a bling out watch on his wrist. “Who is the lovely lady you brought with you?”

“Leave her alone Dorian.” Trina says.

“What's your name?” The man reaches out to touch Kiara’s lower back but she flinches away.

“Don't touch me! Who do you think you are?”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Feisty. Pretty too. You are one of Harry’s girls?”

“Excuse me? One of whose girls?”

“Are you not a dancer for the club?” the man asks in a condescending town that sets Kiara off.

“Oh hell no. You know damn well I’m clearly not stripping so what is it that you want from me?”

Trina leans into Kiara’s ear. “Kiara please leave it alone,” She grabs her wrist but Kiara quickly pulls it out of her grasp. “Let's just go.”

“No, let the girl talk Trina. She has quite a mouth on her anyway. Maybe she can put it to a much better use.”

Slap

Kiara’s hand connects with Dorian’s face before Trina could stop her. Trina knows her friend has a temper but so does Dorian. The slap slightly echoes over the music and gains a few people's attention including Drew, who stops mixing her drink and keeps her eyes on Dorian, who clenches his jaw and fixes his suit on his shoulders, trying to regain his composure.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he mutters quietly.

“And what the fuck are you gonna… Ow!” Dorian roughly grabs Kiara wrist and drags her towards him.

He holds her hand above her head. “You don’t know who you are messing with. Do I need to show you?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Kiara begins to squirm. “Let go of me before I kick you in the crotch--”

“Hmmmm. Maybe I should teach you a lesson. Don’t think Harry would mind if I borrowed one of his girls.”

“Refer to me as one of Harry’s girls one more time and I will do more than just slap you.”

“Dorian. Let her go.” Kiara’s eyes float from the man holding her wrist to Harry who is stalking up to her with a man right next to him. His voice was deep and assertive. Something Kiara never thought Harry to be other than when he was in bed.

Dorian lets Kiara’s wrist go and she stumbles back a bit towards Trina.

“Harry!” Dorian loudly greets. “I was just telling one of your whores she needs to watch that mouth of hers.”

“She is not a dancer, Dorian.”

“Oh, is she not? Such a shame,” Dorians eyes shamelessly rake Kiara up and down. “With a body like that I’m sure she could attract some clients for you.”

Kiara launches at Dornian but Harry is quick to grab her this time pulling her into his chest.

“Behave. Please,” he whispers in her ear.

“Dorian, you need to go.”

“Harry, you know better than that. Came here for my money. Come here every Wednesday to get my payment.”

“Well, you're not getting it today. Come by tomorrow.”

“Funny you say that since you know the history between me and your father--”

“I don't give a fuck about the history between you and my father!” Harry seethes stepping closer to Dorian. “You don’t see him here do you? I made you a deal. You will get your money, just not tonight. You don’t get to threaten my friends and then just demand money.”

“You don’t want to test me boy--”

“No, you don't want to test me. Not tonight. Leave.”

Dorian smirks at Harry before raising his hands up in defeat. “I’ll be here tomorrow. If you don’t have my money there will be problems.”

Harry watches Dorian walk fully out the door before turning to Trina and Kiara. “Both of you. My car now.”

“What just happened?” Kiara questions.

“Trina just take her to the car.”

+++

The car ride back to Kiara’s apartment is silent. Kiara sits in the back confused as to why Trina and Harry kept whispering to each other. A whole conversation is happening and Kiara’s trying to keep up, but she can only get bits and pieces of what the two are saying.

“I might be still drunk but I can hear you know.” That is a lie.

Harry’s eyes glance up to the rear view mirror. “Are you okay Kiara? He didn’t hurt you right?”

“No but I did hurt him. Slapped him. And if you didn’t come and interrupt I was about to kick him in the balls.” Kiara hiccups at the end of her sentence.

“She is right,” Trina agrees. “She is more of a fighter than she leads on to be.”

“Exactly!” Kiara yells. “So if you would have given me the chance I would have fucked him up.”

Harry, who was clenching his hand at the wheel during the whole drive, lets go and smiles. “I believe you Kiara.”

+++

Harry makes sure to walk Trina into her apartment safely, before helping Kiara to hers which was a challenge in itself because she can’t even walk in a straight line.

“Woah,” Harry says, wrapping his strong arms around Kiara’s waist trying to keep her balance. “How about you sit down on the bed?”

Harry helps Kiara walk into her bedroom and he slowly sits her down on her bed. Her hair is completely ruined, her dress slightly bunched up at her hips and her lips gloss slightly smudged. Harry thinks she looks beautiful. He is staring a little too long before he realizes he should help her take off her heels.

He gets down on one knee and his fingers begin to work on the claps of Kiara’s heels until she wraps her leg around Harry’s neck and pulls him closer to her thigh.

“Wine makes me horny.”

“I know,” Harry pushes himself away from her, no matter how tempting she looks, and goes back to undoing her heels. “But I think it would be smart if I get you to bed.”

“Why was that guy asking you for money?”

“Asking me anything but that.”

“Okay. Did you mean it?”

Harry slides one heel off her foot and looks up at her. “Mean what?”

“When we met.” He grabs Kiara’s other foot. “You said I was pretty. You meant it?”

Harry is silent for a couple seconds, his voice low. “Of course. Why would I be lying about that?”

Kiara shrugs as Harry glides her shoe off. “Guys are assholes. Well most guys are.”

“Mhmm. Where can I find some clothes for you?”

“Top drawer.” Kiara points at her dresser right in front of her bed. Harry walks over to get some clothes and places them on the side of her bed. “When I moved here I hooked up with this one guy from my class. I thought there was something going on between us ya know? He was nice at first. So I was gonna ask him if he wanted to go on a date because well, at that point we were hooking up. Turns out he had a girlfriend.”

“Sounds like a dick. Can I unzip your dress?”

Kiara nods her head and stands up hastily, turning around so her back is facing Harry. “I feel like I’m never good enough to be the girlfriend.” Harry listens closely as he zips Kiara’s dress slowly. Her delicate skin has goosebumps on it. When he gets all the way down to the top of her butt he pushes the dress off her shoulders, and allows her to step out of it.

“I’m good enough to hook up with. But never good enough to meet the parents or keep around longer than a couple weeks.” She turns around to face Harry, and grabs the shirt he picked out for her, throwing it over her head, and ignoring the pair of sweats he brought her, opting to stay in her underwear.

“So do you find me pretty in a fuckable way? Or do you find me pretty enough to keep me around longer than a few weeks?”

“Do you want me to answer that? Because you are really drunk, and my goal isn’t to scare you off.”

“Yes please,” she hiccups. “If you want to fuck around lets just be up front about it. Think I’ve gotten my hopes up about too many guys and I just wanna know.”

“Well I always think it's time for me to settle down,” Harry explains to her. “I’m twenty seven and my mum will not stop bugging me about it.” He laughs but Kiara stays silent. “I guess dating is just a bit confusing for me.”

“Confusing?” Kiara questions, tugging at the bottom of her shirt to make sure it is covering her butt.

“I really didn’t expect to be around this long. I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff Kiara, stuff that I really shouldn’t have done because it put my life at jeopardy. I think I never settled down because I didn’t think I was able to.”

“And what about now? Do you think you can settle down.”

Harry inhales and exhales quickly. “I’m not sure.”

“Okay.” Kiara turns her back to Harry and walks to her bed. She is definitely disappointed in his answer, but she knew she shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep seeing you Kiara,” Harry quickly responds, breathlessly. “I want to take you to dinner.”

“You don’t have to pity me Harry-”

“I’m not pitying you,” Harry cuts her off. “I like you Kiara. You're a nice girl, beautiful too, and I mean that. My life can be… menacing to say the least. I like you enough not to drag you into my bullshit.”

Kiara tiredly rubs her eyes with the back of her hands. “What exactly is the bullshit?”

“It's my family business and my family… Well, they are interesting people.” That is all Harry could tell her without explicitly saying, “Instead of going into finance with my business degree from Columbia, I had to join my dad’s mafia and fix all his mistakes while he lives in a mansion, even though all I have ever wanted was to have absolutely nothing to do with the “‘family business.’”

“You seem like you don’t want to talk about it.” Kiara is now sitting with her knees up to her chest on her bed and Harry is towering over her small frame.

“No. I’m not a big fan of my past. But I want to get to know you, and you can get to know me. I’m busy with work, and sometimes it's hard for me to open up, but I’d really appreciate it if we took this slow.”

Kiara pouts. “So that means I can’t convince you to stay the night? Even if I suck you off?”

Harry smiles at her. “No.” He places a kiss on her forehead. “But I will come get you tomorrow at seven for dinner. Does that work?”

“Yes it does. Thanks for bringing me home tonight.”

“Anytime. I mean that.”

Kiara flips over to her side, hands resting underneath her head. “Drive safe.”

Harry is unsure about his life. In fact he is unsure about leaping into this with Kiara. He knows they aren’t dating, and that's good for him. He needs time to figure out his life. He knows if he wants to be in Kiara’s life, he has to pay off his fathers debt’s and get out of the mafia, or else he will never truly have the life he wants.

Right now, he can see a future with Kiara. He can see himself waking up next to her, making breakfast. He can see himself enjoying a domestic life with her.

He knows he can’t have that right now. But he sure is gonna work like hell for it. For her.

[atalho-s]

Light Up The Dark

Part 2 | We are accidents waiting to happen

pairing: bartender!tom x famous!reader

warnings: smut +18 miniors dni, swear words?, drinking, let me know if anything else!

words: 5.0 k

a/n: english it’s not my first language, so i’m sorry for any mistake! I don’t have a taglist yet, but if you want to be tagged in the next chapters let me know!! 

PART 2 if you want to read part 1 click here! 

It was already Saturday. The day Y/n took for herself. Writing was extraordinary, but she loved having a day off to take care of herself. She spent the day doing things she enjoyed, whether it was lying in bed watching a movie or trying to cook something.

After the fateful day of writer's block she started writing like crazy, so she didn't feel guilty about taking a day off without thinking about her characters and how they would get out of the challenges she had created for them.

The fateful day. For some reason she kept thinking about that damned Brit with that accent. For a moment she'd been scared that she'd been seen by paparazzi hanging out with the mysterious bartender, or even some picture of him leaving her apartment. But nothing came out in the news on the gossip sites, which made her relieved.

As much as she deserved to have fun once in a while and wasn't doing anything wrong, she still didn't want to bring attention to herself and even less to a guy who wasn't even famous. She was afraid to put anyone who wasn't famous in the media. Fear that one day suddenly, this person might be persecuted because of her.

Anyway, it had just been a crazy night. Nothing much. And she didn't intend to see him again. So she had nothing to worry about.

Sitting down in the kitchen counter with her familiar cup of coffee she got lost in some thoughts. Why hadn't she stopped thinking about him ever since? It had been a great night, but that was all. She didn't even know him well.

Maybe it was because her creative block had been broken after being with him. But obviously it was just a coincidence. She had just felt inspired after a distraction.

She shook his head away from the thoughts and placed the cup in the sink. She took a deep breath and thought about what to do next. But before she could think of anything else her cell phone started ringing on the counter. She was almost jump by the sudden sound, seeing the screen indicating that it was Milla, her agent, who had become one of her best friends.

- Hi Mil! - she said after sliding the screen.

- Good morning baby. - she said on the other end of the line. - Ready for the party?

- Party? What a party? - Y/n asked confused starting to wash the small amount ofdishes she had soiled.

- How you don't know? I thought I sent you the invitation on your email and I even sent you a message!

- Bestie, I haven't seen my email or message for days. I was super focused on the book, my writer's block finally went away.

- Really? I knew that would go away! You were worried for nothing. What did you do to go back to writing? - Milla asked and Y/n smiled a little.

- Well... I just went out to chill out a bit...Nothing much.

- Y/n getting out on weekdays? And even on the days you're writing a book? That's what I call grow. - she said and Y/n rolled her eyes laughing. - I'm even afraid to invite you to parties, because I know when you're writing you hate to go out... But it's good to know that you're getting out of your routine a little...

- Yeah, sometimes it's good to breathe new air. - Y/n replied drying his hands on a towel. - But what party are you talking about?

- A party of none other than Emma Brown. - Y/n snorted. Emma Brown was a great actress who to tell the truth she didn't know much, she only knew her from a couple of her movies, but other than that she didn't know much about her.

But what she did know was that she had some also famous friends of questionable taste. They were those famous people who only knew about money, women, cars and mansions. But she was tipped for a theatrical adaptation of one of her books and she wanted everything to come out perfect. She was very afraid the movie would end up ruining her work.

- Do I really have to go? - She asked in a tearful voice.

- Yes you have! It's going to be a really fancy birthday party for her, all the famous people in the industry are going to be there. You know you have to socialize with these people. Who knows, you can make some important friendships...

- Milla... I don't know... I don't need important friendships. I don't need anyone to stand up or approach others for interest.

- I know you don't need anyone for that... I just meant that you're very isolated, you need to make connections, understand? I know it's hard because you hate all that fame and stuff. But if you want the adaptation of your story to be good, there's no way... Besides, one of the great directors you left me on the list to research will be there too. So it would be really cool to kill two birds with one stone. - Milla said and Y/n sighed. She was right, if she wanted everything to work out she had to at least have a conversation with these people. It would be weird to refuse Emma's invitation to her birthday. It would just show that she was uninterested.

- Okay... You won ok? - She said and Milla gave an excited squeal. - But I won't stay long!

- Okay, okay... Just for you to go is great! Andrew will be there shortly for you to choose a dress. -Andrew was her stylist and she practically jumped every time Y/n had an important event, because it was rare for her to go. Good thing he didn't just have her as a client, because otherwise he'd be bored out of his mind for a long time.

- Okay Mil, thank you... I love you! - She said and Milla said goodbye hanging up the phone.

It was late afternoon when Andrew arrived at her apartment with several suitcases and bags in both hands. He really had brought up thousands of options. But Y/n ended up choosing a slightly shiny black dress that went just above the knee with a V-neck. Something cute, but nothing too fancy.

He did her makeup. Which wasn't too heavy either, as she hated things that were too heavy on her face. Finally she put on a mid-heeled sandal in the same color as the dress and her sparkly earrings. Before Andrew left her apartment satisfied with the result.

It was almost 7:30 pm when a black car that would take her to the party location arrived in front of her building and she got out enter the backseat right after. She was apprehensive. She hated socializing to tell the truth. Large crowds and cameras really made her anxious.

After almost 20 minutes the car stopped in front of what appeared to be a large gate. Several paparazzi showed up and started taking pictures of her car surrounding her or even tapping on the window a little, asking her if she could talk to them. Which she obviously ignored. The driver introduced himself to the doorman and he opened the gate letting the car pass and stop in front of a luxurious mansion.

Some people were coming in and others were standing in front talking. She saw that there were some familiar faces of the media. Actresses, actors, singers, famous people of every imaginable type.

She opened the car door and walked out towards the large entrance. She smiled at a few people, nodding her head as she passed and found herself in a crowd of people as she entered the place. There really were a lot of people, despite the place being even bigger inside. Many with fancy drinks in hand and chatting. A song playing on the background.

She walked deeper into the room and took a quick look around trying to find the birthday girl. After a few minutes she found her near one of the sofas. Y/n walked over and stopped beside her, causing Emma to stop her conversation with two more people and look at her.

- Happy Birthday! - Y/n said in the friendliest way possible and Emma smirked and hugged her lightly afterwards.

- Thank you! Glad you came! - she said, breaking out of the hug after a few seconds.

- Your party is very beautiful, I loved the decoration. - Y/n said looking around. Indeed Emma had decorated the place in a simple way, but at the same time fancy and beautiful.

- Oh thank you... - she said, still smiling. - I'm very happy that you accepted my invitation, we have a lot to talk about since maybe we'll work together, right?

- No problem, obviously I would come... - Y/n said and almost punched herself because she was very fake in saying that. - But we really have to talk!

- Well, I was talking to Jim just now... I can give you his number later... He's a great director and I think it would be great for your adaptation... - Emma said and Y/n thought that she was really interested in that adaptation, because she was even talking to the possible renowned director, which surprised her. She thought Emma was a little more oblivious to her books and even movie stuff. She thought she was one of those famous actresses who expected others to come after her, not being interested in the work itself, but only on the fame and money. - We love your book! I think it has great potential for a grand adaptation.

- Wow, that is good to hear! Thanks a lot! - Y/n said sincerely this time. - I'll love talking to him too...

- Sure! - She looked behind Y/n and motioned to someone from far away. - Hey Jim! You can come here? - She asked speaking loudly for him to hear and Y/n turned around watching the director approaching after saying goodbye to someone. He wasn't much older than she thought, maybe in his early thirties, he wore a small beard that fit his face and short hair, but with curls that jutted out around his head. -That's Y/n... Y/n that's Jim...-Emma said when he got in front of her and Jim held out his hand with a smile.

- Nice to meet Y/n, we finally met... - he said and Y/n shook his hand also smiling.

- Nice to meet you Jim! - She said and Emma sat in one of the armchairs indicating for the two to sit, which they did next.

- Do you two want something to drink? Champagne?- Emma asked and they both accepted as she motioned for someone from far away to bring them.

- Well, I found your book very intriguing Y/n... I can say I haven't slept for a while... - Jim said laughing a little and Y/n smiled. - It's a very well written story, I loved the plots and it has a great resolution. I think I would make a good 2 hour movie with all this material... - he said and Y/n paid attention until something took her a little out of focus. Something not. Somebody.

It was the waiter, and not just any waiter. It was Tom. He came into her vision and she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Maybe it was a mirage or she was mistaking him for someone else. But when he approached she was sure it was him. He came with a tray with drinks in one hand. He was wering a white dress shirt, with black pants. The typical pattern of a fancy party waiter. But he was beautiful. Y/n felt a shiver for a moment and tried to hide it by looking back at Jim who was still talking about his plans for the possible movie.

Maybe Tom didn't even remember her. She was just a one-night stand, he should do that with a lot of girls out there, so it wasn't something new to him. As soon as he arrived, he handed one of the glasses to Emma beside her and Y/n felt her breath quicken a little. She didn't know why she was so nervous. It was just a waiter she had slept with a few days ago.

- Excuse me... - he said and Y/n looked up at him quickly seeing that he was right in front of him. -Here it is miss...-he said looking her in the eyes and then winking at her, wich almost make her shrink in her chair. He held out the tray for her to take one of the glasses and she did, looking away at Jim.

- So, what do you think? - Jim asked taking the glass from the tray and Y/n took a sip of his surprise drink.

- Sorry? - She asked guiltily for having been distracted.

- About us meeting and having a meeting next week? That way I can show you my idea better. - he said and Y/n smiled.

- Of course, that would be great! - she said and Tom walked away not looking in her direction again, which left her disappointed for a second. She would going to love looking into those eyes again.

- Perfect! - Jim replied excitedly and started talking about other things as well as Emma.

They talked for almost an hour, until Emma went to talk to other people and Jim said he was leaving as he had some work in the morning. Y/n sat for a while and finished drinking the last of her champagne and placed it on the table in front of her.

She thought about leaving. She had already done the important interactions for the night. So, she had no reason to stay there. But she kept thinking about the damn waiter. Would it be weird to go talk to him? Maybe just say hi? But she doubted he would want to talk to her. Besides, he was working. She didn't want to get in his way.

Getting up from her chair and straightening her dress, she forced her steps towards the exit, but stopped midway as she saw Tom walking into what appeared to be the kitchen with the tray tucked under his arm. She looked at the exit door and sighed. Okay, if she went to him just to say hi, it wouldn't hurt would it?

Y/n turned and headed in the direction that Tom had gone. She couldn't even believe she was doing it this. She would looked ridiculous in his eyes. But she choose to ignore the little voice of reason again. Passing by a few people, and walking out into a empty hallway, she opening a single door at end. She closed in behind her and turned to see that Tom was on his back piling some boxes in a corner. His muscles in that outfit made her feel tempted somehow, so she swallowed hard. He turned at the sound of the door closing and looked at her with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

- Looking for something madam? - He asked with a smirk.

- Actually... - Y/n thought of some excuse, maybe it would be better, so it would seem that she was there for something else and not for him. - Yeah... I was looking for the bathroom, I think I take the wrong direction...

- Yeah...Actually, the bathroom is on the other side of the hallway... - he said leaning against the kitchen counter and looking her up and down, making her feel completely vulnerable. After his eyes roamed her legs and bust, they came to her face and he grinned.

- Okay, I'll... - Y/n started saying and turned around taking a few steps. But she stopped midway, closing his eyes, tearing himself apart from the inside out of embarrassment. She turned around again seeing that he was still watching her, now with his arms crossed over his chest, wondering what she would do next. - You remember me don't you? - She asked fearfully.

- Of course I remember darling... - he said, practically intensifying his accent in that nickname that was so perfect in his voice. Y/n took a few steps forward also crossing her arms. - How could I forget the famous writer Y/n?- He raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes with his last sentence.

- It really was an...- She looked at her feet trying to find a word. - Interesting night… - she finally said and he chuckled, making her look up.

- Very interesting indeed... - he said putting his hands in his front pockets, pulling himself away from the counter and heading towards her. Y/n wanted to say goodbye and leave, run away as fast as possible. But she couldn't, every move he did was too tempting, so she just stood there watching him get closer and closer to her. He stopped in front of her and looked into her eyes, smiling slightly.

- What are you doing here? Do you work as a waiter at parties too? - Y/n asked curiously.

- My boss sometimes receives proposals for us to work at these rich parties... - he said with a shrug.

- Oh... Nice... - she said crossing her arms. - Well...Now I really have to go... - she said trying to get away from it one last time.

- Why did you really come here love? -Tom asked tilting his head a little to the side and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

- I told you, I was looking for the bathroom. -Y/n looked at his face trying to be firm, but saw that he still wore that smirk. Why did he have to be so confident like that?

- Oh sure... Just like you also looked for some excuse that day for me to leave, but failed miserably?- he asked making a thoughtful face and she still hadn't decided if she wanted to slap him or kiss him.

- Why did you leave without saying goodbye tho? - She asked ignoring what he had said.

- So that's why you came after me? Are you hurt that I didn't leave you a goodbye kiss? - he said pouting.

- Of course not, I just... I don't know, it would be nice to say that you were leaving and that you wouldn't stay for breakfast... - Y/n said looking to the side, avoiding those brown eyes that intimidated her.

- Darling, I'm not that type guy, sorry...

- What type of guy? - she still avoided looking at him.

- The type who stay for breakfeast. -he said taking a hand from her pocket and taking her chin gently, making her look at him. - But if you want some fun I'm at your disposal. -he said and she bit her lower lip lightly making him deviate his eyes towards her lips. - Do you want darling?- he asked quietly and Y/n seemed to be transfixed by her touch. She was surrendered, she couldn't deny it. Maybe even hypnotized.

- I...- she said with a little shaky voice. - I don't know...

- Yes or no?- he asked looking from her lips to her eyes and she felt her breath getting heavy.

- Yes...- she just spoke as a whisper and he smiled satisfied.

- How about you meet me in 15 minutes in the bathroom of the pool house? - He said and she just shook her head slowly. Tom released her chin and backed away slowly, not taking his eyes off her, and then walked away leaving her alone with her heart racing.

Y/n took a deep breath and tried to place herself in what had just happened. Did she really want this? Her mind could try to hear the voice of reason, but it was drowned out by her body's reaction. She wanted to feel him again.

She walked away quickly, passing several people who were talking loudly or who were already drunk. She looked around and saw the door that led to the back side and sneak there, getting out and feeling the slightly chilly night air, closing the sliding door behind her.

She saw the pool that had some people around it and a little further to the right a door that opened into another closed space. Probably the pool house. She walked over there, trying to hide it so no one would see her, and went inside. She closed the front door slowly and headed towards the bathroom.

The place was dark, with only the lights outside. So she was holding her hand into to some stuff until he found the door. She went in and turned on the light. The bathroom was spacious, with a large sink and a huge mirror in front of it. She closed herself off and looked at herself in the reflection.

That was crazy. She had never done that at parties. Not even when she was drunk. And now she was there, looking forward to what might happen. In fact she knew what was going to happen, just as she knew when she invited him up to her apartment that night. But even so, she felt butterflies in her stomach in anticipation.

After almost 10 minutes of waiting she heard the bathroom door open and she turned in the direction, feeling extremely anxious. Tom came in looking over his shoulder and closed the door soon after, looking at her with an opening grin. He locked the door slowly with one hand and came towards her in a hurry.

The next thing she felt was his lips pressing against hers urgently. He kissed her like it was the last thing he would do. Running her tongue over her lips asking permission and Y/n opened it slowly letting him explore her mouth with his burning tongue.

She ran her hand around the back of his neck pulling his hair and he responded by holding her waist tightly. Tom walked forward and she leaned her back against the sink counter. Making him lift her with agility, sitting her down on the cold surface and getting between her legs. She grunted in surprise against his mouth and he broke the kiss for air. Kissing from her neck to her collarbone and she closed her eyes feeling his touch.

- Tom... - she said in a low voice. - You won't get in trouble if you disappear like that? -he now kissed her neckline and squeezed her thigh with desire.

- Not if we're fast darling. -He spoke a bit husky, moving his kisses to her earlobe, biting lightly and she moaned low. - And despite loving your sounds, you will have to be silent. - He looked at her smiling maliciously. - Promise? -He spoke touching her nose with his lightly, looking at her closely, and she nodded making him attack her lips next.

Still kissing her he pulled the hem of her dress up a little and she bit his lip making him smile against the kiss. Her fingers reached her inner thigh and then moved up to her panties. Tom put the fabric aside with one of her fingers and passed one slowly at her entrance feeling her wetness.

- Always ready for me aren't you darling? -He said pulling his mouth away from hers, staying just a few centimeters away from her. She moaned softly again and he smiled as he pulled her fingers away and replaced them around her thighs pulling her closer to the edge of the sink.  He started to finger her really slowly and she bite her lips, trying to control her moaning. Tom keep his pace just watching her face squirm with pleasure. After seconds he removed his delicious fingers making her almost protest out loud, makind him smile even more. If wasn't for the rush he would definitively make his time with you.

Y/n then put his hands on the collar of his shirt and opened the first buttons. Kissing his neck with desire, making him squeeze her thighs in response. Biting her lips he unfastened his belt and then the buttons of his pants pulled them down along with his boxers, revealing his cock. He pulled her in for one more kiss before taking the condom package from his pocket and opening it, meanwhile Y/n was kissing uncovered place she could reach, from his face to his chest, opening more buttons of his shirt.

Tom adjusted the condom on his cock before taking a few thrusts. He moved even closer to her, if that was even possible, and gave her a peck.

- Ready? He spoke softly against her lips and she nodded almost in despair, wanting to feel him inside her more than anything.

He smiled once more and slid his cock easily as she was completely wet. Tom growled low against her ear and Y/n bit her lip so no sound could come out. He started to move, after she was more adjusted to his size, at first slowly and starting to increase his pace with each second.

-Fuck... - he cursed softly against her ear and she pulled the hair from his neck with one hand, while the other squeezed his shoulder. The more he increased the pace she felt as if she were coming off the ground. - So tight darling... - he said between small grunts. - Feels so good...

- Tom... - Y/n spoke and he increased the pace even more making her moan with the sudden sensation of pleasure and he muffled her sounds by sticking his lips on hers.

-Shh… - he said after moving his lips from hers and Y/n tried her best to keep the sounds to herself, but he filled her perfectly and made her feel so good that she couldn't help it. Tom smirked and put his hand over her mouth, covering her moans. - Can't contain yourself? -he said and kissed her neck giving light bites and hickeys. -You're so easy for me, love... Look at you...- he spoke in a low voice, while still holding his hand firm in her mouth and kissing below her ear. - So easy...- he said going faster, as if it were possible, and bit his lower lip trying to contain his own moans this time, touching his nose to her cheek.

- Please…- she managed to speak muffled against his hand, feeling her orgasm quickly building.

- I know sweetheart... - he said making her feel his heavy breath into her cheek. -I got you ...-he finally said and that was enough for her orgasm to release with force, making him also come right after her with one last muffled grunt against her neck. He continued to move slowly for a few more seconds, before coming to a complete stop. The two of them with their breaths out of control. Reaching their high.

After a few minutes Tom took his hand from her mouth and soon after took his member out of her slowly. The two were silent the entire time. Y/n felt empty as  soonTom walked away to clean up, still half dazed from all the pleasure she just felt. He cleaned himself up and discarded the condom, zipping his pants and turned around, buttoning his shirt right away. Y/n didn't take her eyes off every move he made and he smiled approaching her.

- Want some help darling? - he asked standing in front of her and she held in his arms before he helped her getting down from the sink. She felt a little dizzy and if it wasn't for him holding her she thought she would fall. - You're right? - he asked still holding her on her waist.

- Yes...Thank you... - she managed to say.

- Well, I have to go, before they notice that I'm gone... - he said, releasing her.

- Of course... - Y/n said. - Tom… - she didn't know what to say. It might be the second time they'd done this, but it still felt like it was the first and she felt somewhat embarrassed. Maybe because she wasn't used to casual sex.

- See you soon? - He said giving a quick kiss on her cheek, fixing his hair in the best way he could and winking as he walked away, going to the door and unlocking it. He got out and closed it behind him while she back staring into the mirror.

She took a deep breath and was trying to figure out what to do next. After cleaning her up she finally got out of there. She crawled to the door and managed to get through the party without the weird looks she thought everyone would send to her when they bumped into her. For some reason she thought everyone would know, but obviously not. She felt weird doing that at an party, it really wasn't like her. But why did she feel so good?

She looked around before heading out of the house, but she didn't find Tom in her vision and she didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She wanted to look at him one last time from afar, but at the same time she didn't. Maybe that was the last time they were going to do that. She didn't think she'd find him like this anywhere else, and she didn't intend to go to the bar he worked at just to get another night with him. Besides, that's what she was, just one night, just a "quickie" in the bathroom. And everything was fine. He was that for her too, so what did it matter?

For a moment she felt his head fill with ideas. Y/n had a perfect plot for her story now. She had to go home and get back to writing right away. Calling the driver from a distance, she practically ran towards the car.

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 320 Short Spoiler Analysis: The Power of Friendship

The battle between Deku Vs. Class A has begun!  Well, it’s technically a battle, but more so a “Catch-A-Deku” situation.  Everyone is trying to use their cool Super Moves and words of friendship to try to convince Deku to come back home.  They’re all reminding him all of times he helped them, so they’re trying to return the favor.  So far, I think half the class was featured here including Shoto who I thought would be saved til the end.  Maybe he will be featured again since he’s one of Deku’s closest friends.  What’s interesting is that the trio that was shown at the end of last week’s chapter, Bakugo, Ochako, and Iida, didn’t have their heart-to-hearts with Deku this week, so I bet you they’re being saved for the end.  Anyway, my left hand is still on the mend, so I’ll keep this one short this week.  I hope it heals soon.

The 2nd Color page is shown this week!  It’s of Froppy this time around!  I think it’s been a while since we’ve seen Froppy featured in a color page, so this is cool to see.  She looks really good here too.  Horikoshi’s art rarely disappoints.  Next week is going to be the 7th BNHA Anniversary color page and the 7th Popularity Poll announcement, so I’m excited for that.  Apparently we’re going to get a lot of BNHA things next week including things for the WHM movie, Team-Up Missions, and the WHM one-shot manga.

I love how at the beginning, Bakugo breaks the 4th wall here by commenting on how Deku’s “art style” underwent a complete change.  It’s both a good taunt on Bakugo’s part and some acknowledgment from Horikoshi-sensei on the change of Deku’s design in general since this arc began.

So, Bakugo did tell the rest of 1-A about Deku’s other Quirks which is good.  I thought that would be the case after remembering that Bakugo read All Might’s OFA archive book.  Bakugo would still look over the other Holder’s Quirks, so he would have knowledge on the 4th-6ths Holders.  Problem is that none of them know of the 2nd and 3rd’s Quirks, so dealing with Fa-Jin will be troublesome.  None of us know what the 2nd’s Quirk is yet though, but I have a feeling we’ll see it in this battle.

Quite a few new Super Moves debut in this chapter!  

Katsuki Bakugo: Shockwave Landmine: Looks like Bakugo creates a blast on the ground so that the blast blows away anything around it like Deku’s Smokescreen.  It’s a big blast too, so Bakugo’s got a lot of range with this thing.

Kiyoka Jiro: Heartbeat Wall: It’s hard to tell, but I think it’s a move where Jiro uses her sound waves to block or stop whatever comes her way.  It could be really effective to stop anyone who can hear I’m sure.

Fumikage Tokoyami: Ragnorok: “Womb”: It’s a like a capturing move that traps anyone within Dark Shadow.  It kind of looks like one of the moves Tokoyami uses in The Strongest Hero Game.  Unless someone has a light Quirk, I can see this move being very effective in capturing villains.

Really, everyone is doing their best to remind Deku of all the good times they had with them. They’re using the power of feels and friendship to bring their sacrificial idiot home.  I like to believe it’s working given how Deku is finally shown crying tears of sadness as he pushes his friends away.  God, please let this kid have a good cry.  How they’ll be able to catch Deku though I still have no idea.

Deku is able to overpower pretty much everyone this chapter.  Even Tokoyami, who is considered one of the strongest in the class, and Momo who created this insanely complex machine to try to put Deku to sleep (how the hell did she make that anyway???).  At the end he’s captured by Shoto’s Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall (which he’s standing on btw and looks so damn pretty 💙☺️), but I doubt that will last.  Deku’s probably going to break right through the ice next chapter.

Speaking of Shoto, since I’m such a simp for him 😔, he has the least amount of dialogue out of everyone having heart-to-hearts with Deku.  But what he says is significant: he basically asks Deku if he can still truly cry and for Deku to share the responsibility with his friends.  I think this is calling back to when Shoto reassured Deku that heroes are allowed to cry back in the Overhaul arc and when Deku meddled with Shoto’s life to save him.  Which is essentially the philosophy everyone’s running on.  Meddling in Deku’s mission is the only way to save him now.

Side note, but I love that Kaminari is the one to tell Deku to take a freaking bath 😂!  Like, we’ve all been telling Deku that, but it’s good to know that Horikoshi and his characters are thinking the same thing.  Now someone has to tell Deku to eat a good meal and take a long nap.  

Also, small detail, but Sato comes in at one point and reminds Deku that they won’t be able to make candied apples for Eri anymore if Deku doesn’t come back.  Deku tells Sato that Eri will be fine without him 😭.  No, Deku, you dumbass!  Eri needs her big bro in her life!  I can’t imagine how sad she must be if she already knows about Deku’s disappearance 😭❤️

I’m also glad to see pretty much every student get some kind of spotlight especially the ones who are more minor characters than the others.  Koda actually gets a mini-monoluge this chapter.  Also, Froppy’s got a lot of focus at the end along with the color page this chapter.  Which, I’m glad to see.  It’s been a long time since Tsuyu got some spotlight.  Really, all the girls need more spotlight.  I assume everyone else will get their shine the next few chapters.  

It’s small and I’m still trying to find the meaning of it, but there’s one panel after Deku escapes from Tokoyami showing him flying through the air in the background and you can see the All Might statue at the forefront.  I want to say this symbolizes Deku being All Might’s successor or something, but I’m not sure.  This one just stood out to me for some reason.  

But yeah, like I said, the last half of the class will probably be featured next chapter.  I think Bakugo will be the last person to talk to Deku since he’s the most important one here.  Remember: Bakugo knows Deku better than anyone.  He will be the turning point I’m positive.  Iida and Ochako will definitely have an impact on Deku, but Bakugo will truly HIT DIFFERENT!  I won’t be surprised if that last conversation leads up to Deku Vs. Kacchan Part 3.  I wouldn’t be mad if that will happen tbh.  Part 2 was about understanding Bakugo and letting his feelings out.  Part 3 could be Deku’s turn.  And of course you gotta have a trilogy to cap it off.  I’m really excited to see what happens next!

Me seeing all my adopted children come together to save my green broccoli boy 💚🥦: