#no one else is on their level (derogatory) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cheolism · 4 days

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OH, AGONY

✰ — teaching assistant & boyfriend!lee jihoon x f!reader ✷ — summary: when you both find out that your boyfriend, lee jihoon, will be the ta for your classic literature class, it is agreed your relationship will take a temporary pause . no public dates, no pda; and, most tragically, no sex. nothing that can give away the truth to your relationship. only, it really is easier said than done. or: four times you and jihoon totally didn't have sex plus one time you did. ✰ — wc is approx. 14.5k ✷ — genre: TA au, secret relationship au, forbidden relationship au, smut ✰ — warnings: spanking, pussy spanking. derogatory language (f receiving), pet names (baby (f receiving), hoonie). rough sex, unprotected sex. masturbation (f&m) and sex toys. penetrative sex. extreme levels of delusion as to what "qualifies" as sex or not; jihoon and reader bully one another. talk pertaining to the greek tragedy oedipus rex (self-blinding is mentioned as it pertains to oedpius but not discussed in detail). ✷ — rating: 18+ ✰ — note: this fic represents two delusional adults. they are both consenting to what is going on. this fic is not an accurate representation of what is and not considered sex. also the word count may be scary, but i promise it is pretty much all smut. this fic is part of @camandemstudios first ever collab, back to school with seventeen. please make sure to give the other works lots of love!

“we have to set up rules,” jihoon announced a week before classes were to start. he closed the zoom tab, which he had preciously been using to talk to the classics professor he was ta-ing for this semester, kicking back from his desk.

“rules,” you said, peeking over the top of your book. it was hotter than hell outside, the sort of heat that suffocated and made you feel as if you were being wrung like a wet towel. inside, however, you had a blanket tucked around your body and socks pulled up to your calves.

jihoon wandered over to the thermostat. he frowned, reaching and dialing it down once again. if he was going to pay for air conditioning, he believed, he was going to be cold in the comfort of his own apartment.

“it’s not fair to other students that you’re dating your ta,” he said.

“if this is literally you breaking up with me –”

“don’t be dramatic,” jihoon chided, crossing the room to you. he picked up the edge of the blanket, slipping under and pressing his toes against your feet. “i didn’t say that. i just mean that we shouldn’t advertise our relationship to everyone.”

you closed your book, keeping your forefinger inside to mark your place. “just keep it a secret then. can’t be hard.”

“we can’t let anyone know,” he enunciated. “for real. the professor doesn’t even know. if he did, he’d reassign me.”

“then we just don’t say anything.”

“you shouldn’t stay the night.” jihoon laid his arm over the back of the couch, inviting you to cuddle into his side without him verbally giving invitation. you abided, shifting to rest your head on his thick bicep. “and no dates.”

you huffed. “jihoon, i don’t know if it’s really that serious.”

he scoffed back at you. black bangs hid his eyes. “they could accuse me of favoritism, accuse you of academic dishonesty. we need to treat this seriously.”

“maybe i should just request to change to a different section.”

“too much work.”

“oh,” you laughed, reaching over and pinching at his side. jihoon flinched, instinctively slapping at your hand. “and pretending we aren’t dating isn’t.”

“that’s why we need rules.” you kicked out the blanket, pulling it from jihoon; he grumbled, snatching it back. “don’t be a hog. anyways. we need rules so we can stick to a strict routine. that way we don’t lapse in judgment or anything.”

“so no sleepovers,” you recited, “no dates. what else? no walking to class? no kissing?”

jihoon leaned his head back against the couch, exposing the length of his pale neck. you let your eyes linger. “sleepovers, dates. no meeting in public unless in a group setting.”

you let out a great sigh, pushing the blanket from you. snatching your bookmark, you stuffed it into the novel you had been reading. “so we’re strangers.”

“yes,” jihoon confirmed. “easy enough.”

you gasped, mouth dropping open. “easy!”

jihoon bit at his lip, and you could tell that he was already regretting his choice of words. but he wouldn’t back down – that wasn’t in his nature. “easy,” he said.

“fine,” you hissed. you left the couch, retrieving your backpack. you brought out your notepad and pen pouch. “no sex, either.”

“what –”

“if it’s so easy,” you retorted sharply, walking back to the couch while ripping out an empty page of your notebook, “then no sex won’t be a problem for you, mr. lee. i mean – it needs to be believable, right? no getting caught.”

jihoon grimaced, moving to a sitting position on the couch. “yeah. believable.”

“we write it down,” you said, taking back your spot next to jihoon. you opened your pen pouch, letting the pens and markers spill out onto the coffee table. “we write it down and shake on it. it’s a contract.”

jihoon hesitated. “this is a little severe, don’t you think?”

you shook your head. “nope. can’t let anyone know, yeah? otherwise i’d be academically dishonest, wouldn’t i?”

jihoon grabbed your paper, creating a bullet point. “i really don’t think this is necessary.”

“but you do,” you shot back. “i mean. you were the one to bring it up all serious-like. no kissing, no sleepovers, no sex. the whole five yards, lee jihoon.”

“but a contract –”

“oh? so you’re wrong?”

jihoon huffed, pressing his lips into a firm line. “fine. no dates, no marks, no pda.”

“and no sex.”

W E E K O N E

your eyes immediately catch onto jihoon as soon as you walk into the classroom, and while you really should’ve guessed that he was going to play dirty – because as hard as he tries to maintain an indifferent air, jihoon is just as weak of a many as any – you didn’t realize he would be playing this dirty.

he’s wearing black trousers that fit to his thighs and ass, cinched tightly at his waist by a thin leather belt. his white dress shirt is loose around his neck, the first button undone. your eyes, unwillingly, smooth over the silver chain that winks out from underneath his shirt, alongside the harsh lines of the white tank-top he wears underneath the dress shirt and you feel, horribly, a strike of want hitting you.

jihoon turns to you. “hello,” he says, voice perfectly neutral. his eyes don’t stray from your face despite the fact you’ve worn his favorite jeans, the ones that cling at your own ass and show off flashes of skin underneath rips strategically placed; rips jihoon has made worse over the months of being together, slipping his fingers underneath the loose threads to touch your skin.

“go ahead and take a seat,” jihoon instructs, gesturing about the room. the desks are all modern despite the discussion taking place in the historic – well – history buildings. the desk shifts underneath you as you try to slide in, bottom of your water bottle clanging against the hard surface, and wheels carting across the marble floor.

you stretch out your legs, staring at jihoon unabashedly. it isn’t a sin for you, the student, to be attracted to the teaching assistant. and so you look him over, watching as he turns this way and that way, trousers showing off the plush of his ass and shirt showing the wide line of his shoulders.

you are jerked from your admiration of your boyfriend-turned-teaching assistant by a large man hurrying to the desk next to you. he’s jihoon’s opposite in almost every way: he’s easily a foot taller, and his skin is a gorgeous dark bronze that seems to draw emphasize to the bulge of his muscles.

the man slides into the desk. it’s comically small for him, his knees hitting the underside of the desk. the desk moves as he situates himself, prompting his backpack to fall over from where he had propped it.

“shit,” he mumbles, reaching down with one long arm, biceps bulging rather nicely, to righten the backpack. “stay up, please.”

rather endearingly, to top it all off, he has a lisp.

he glances at you, eyes apologetic beneath his curly bangs. “sorry. not my day today.”

you huff a laugh. “i don’t know if it’s anyone’s day, let alone week.”

“true,” the man says, grinning. his teeth are white, his canines more pronounced than most people’s. “hey. i’m mingyu.”

you introduce yourself. “are you a classics major, then?”

mingyu wrinkles his nose. “no offense to classics, but i’m doing something interesting.”

“yeah?”

“business.”

you let out a loud laugh, startling not only yourself but the people around you. mingyu grins triumphantly, tongue flicking out to run alongside his teeth. you hide your smile behind your hand, trying to quiet your laughter. jihoon, you notice, is frowning at the two of you.

“so interesting!” you say. “definitely a major filled with the best.”

“the very best,” mingyu agrees.

the two of you continue chatting, conversation flowing naturally. he’s charming, you think, charisma practically radiating off of him. you don’t miss how your boyfriend watches the two of you more often than not, not engaging in conversation with any of the entering students who greet him so he could keep an ear open on your conversation.

jihoon starts class as soon as the electronic clock on the classroom computer switches to three on the dot, the projection cast onto the board.

“first thing’s first,” he says. he leans a hand against the table set at the front of the room, though it, too, is on wheels and skirts a little as he puts weight against it. “my syllabus, you’ll find, is stricter than professor burns’s. if you come in after the clock hits three, you’re tardy; you’ll contribute to all discussions in this class, and if you don’t you’ll forgo any participation points; if you miss three classes in a row, which translates to nearly a month of absences, your grade will automatically fall to a fail and you will have to take not only this discussion over, but professor’s burns’s lecture as well.

“if,” jihoon continues to say, voice a rasp, “you find any of this in contradiction with professor burns’s syllabus, you are more than welcome to email the both of us and address it.”

the class is silent as jihoon grabs a piece of white chalk. naturally, despite the gleaming projectors and furniture on wheels in the building, nearly every classroom is a remnant of the late 19th century: chalkboards; coat hooks; door and window frames made of real wood.

“remember to use proper emailing etiquette when contacting anyone in the college,” jihoon announces. he begins to write on the board, chalk tapping against the black surface as he decorates it with his chicken scratch. “and to address me as mr. lee. there is a pdf uploaded to our discussion course detailing how to address certain faculty members within the college for you to browse and keep.”

jihoon steps back from the blackboard. there he’s written the title of the course, ancient grecian dramas.

he runs a hand through his black hair, pushing back strands. “we’ll begin properly next week, once professor burns assigns the first drama for reading. i recommend printing out the reading and annotating, practicing close reading. that way when you come to discussion we can go over your notes as a group and analyze the text further.

“now. we’ll begin today by doing a writing exercise. i want you to tell me what you think of when you think of ancient greek dramas. this will also be how i take attendance – so make sure to do it.”

you rifle through your bag, pulling out your notebook. next is your pen pouch, though the surface area of the desk is hardly large enough to fit your notebook. pouch, and water bottle.

“you can email it,” jihoon clarifies after a moment of silence. “make sure you label it accordingly.”

hurriedly you pull out your laptop, pushing your pen pouch aside and setting it on top of your notebook. you shift in your seat as your laptop boots back up, and you can’t help but glance up at your teacher’s assistant.

jihoon, being a classics major and your boyfriend, has introduced you to ancient greek plays before. it’s not like you’re completely foreign to the subject; he’s dragged you to more than one play in order to get some assignment credit, notebook on his thigh as he jotted down notes in the dark of the theater.

sometimes he takes to reading to you different passages – especially those that move him or he thinks are particularly ridiculous. he pours over the text religiously, like a priest would the gospel; analyzing every line, drawing meaning from the colors of robes to what isn’t being said at all. he looks at these little black words on white pages, words written thousands of years ago, and is simply transported into another lifetime.

it’s endearing; it’s special.

the first time you had noticed him, jihoon had been surrounded by pages of a poem. later you’d learn it was by some jeffrey guy from the medieval period and was about a group traveling for worship. whatever it was, didn’t matter.

what had mattered was him.

he was disheveled. the white printed-out pages of the poem were scattered along the table in the university library, the uniform black-and-white pages interrupted by annotations written in colors of the rainbow. the highlighters and pens were scattered themselves, abandoned by post-it notes stuck to every page.

he had three empty energy drinks in front of him. the hood of his hoodie was pulled up over his hair, the black fabric matching the dark circles under his eyes that told you he had been at this for far too long.

you had gone and got him a water; brought it back to him. listened to his theories about color, about how he thought it meant something; how this poet had chosen every word so carefully there’s no way that color didn’t mean something.

you, a distinctly not literary fanatic, had not understood; you still don’t.

but his eyes always light up and his voice begins to carry this urgency that betrays his adoration for the art, and you just can’t help but let yourself get caught in his orbit.

so you open up an email and begin to write.

Mr. Lee,

My boyfriend is a Classics Major, so when I think of Ancient Greek Dramas I think of him. He’s shown me quite a few, and we’ve attended more than a handful plays

you shift in your seat, thinking. as you move, however, your arm knocks against your pen pouch and sends it to the floor.

the noise as it hits the floor isn’t as thunderous as it would have been if your water bottle had struck it, but it’s still loud enough for you to wince. it breaks the still of the room, your classmates shifting in their seats and throwing glances at you.

before you could move from your seat, mingyu is. he’s quick to grab your pouch, smiling gently at you as he offers it. his hands are so big they span the length of the pouch, a beautiful golden tan that only seems to boost his natural beauty.

“think you dropped this,” he says in a harsh whisper.

you bite back a laugh, teeth digging into your lower lip as you smile. grabbing the pouch from mingyu, you whisper back a quick thanks.

you glance up towards the front of the room as you settle back into your seat. jihoon is looking right at you, frowning, arms crossed over his chest. his white shirt isn’t fitted, and it struggles against his bulging biceps as he crosses his arms.

for a moment you just look at him, taking in your boyfriend’s form; how the shirt clings to his arms, trousers to his thighs.

there’s a dinging noise of an email landing in an inbox, and then jihoon is moving from the front of the room and around the table to his laptop.

you return to your email.

Mr. Lee,

My boyfriend is a Classics Major, so when I think of Ancient Greek Dramas I think of him. He’s shown me quite a few, and we’ve attended more than a handful plays. A lot of them are different than what I’ve expected. Some of them seem like they came right from Ancient Greece; others are more modern. I have noticed Ancient Greek plays seem to be more twisted than what a modern author may come up with.

Sometimes I don’t understand really what a play is about. It gets all muddled, especially when they don’t change the words for a modern audience. Still, my boyfriend is super sweet and helps me along.

you hesitate for a moment, and then you sign your name. opening a new tab, you pull up a bookmark and add one last finishing touch beside your name.

– °˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖°

you are more exhausted than usual.

it’s as if all of the good vibes and rest you had managed to scrape together over the summer break were eradicated in one day. as soon as you managed to get to jihoon’s apartment you were discarding everything; shoes at the door; backpack next to the couch; bra onto the floor.

his bed was perhaps the most comforting place you knew besides his arms, and so you slunk towards it. you made quick work of your pants, one knee pressing against the mattress as you shook your other leg, jeans flopping to the floor dramatically.

you followed suit on jihoon’s bed.

burrowing into his sheets, you couldn’t help but breathe him in. he was a hot sleeper, and so more likely to sweat during the night. his sheets smell like his sweat, though not the stinky sort he gains from his daily workout. instead, it's the natural musk of him that permeates your nose, deep and distinctly lee jihoon.

you allow yourself to drift. nothing exists besides jihoon’s bed and you.

then the door to his apartment is opening and closing, a voice with a slight rasp calling out to you.

“here!” you call back, voice slightly muffled by the sheets. you press your face against them again, eyes fluttering shut.

jihoon slowly makes his way across the apartment. he mutters something about your discarded clothes and backpack, but you pay it no mind. jihoon pauses when he enters his room, and you can practically feel his eyes on you; roaming the bare expanse of your back, the supple flesh of your thighs.

“good day?” you kick out a leg, wiggling your toes.

he makes a humming noise, and then he’s stepping further into the room.

“long one,” he says. “forgot how fucking awkward everyone is on the first day.”

you shift, moving your face so you could watch him. jihoon crosses to his dresser, fingers messing with the cuffs of his white dress shirt. you can see the moment he gets the button, the fabric sagging around his wrists.

oh.

sitting up on the bed, you watch as he begins to work on his other cuff. he peers out the window, chatting as he does.

“professor burns is the usual,” jihoon announces. “hasn’t changed in the – what? five years i’ve been here? i swear she rambles like no one’s business. if it wasn’t my job to babysit the students and not her, i’d say something – but fuck, you know?”

once he’s undone the buttons on the cuffs of both of his sleeves, jihoon begins to work on the buttons falling down the middle of the shirt. his fingers are deft and quick as he presses them through their holes.

you can’t help but think of his fingers on you. how nimble and skillful they are against your skin; how he dances them up and down your flesh as he presses kisses against your skin; how they seem to know just where to go and just what to do against your body, rubbing at your nipples and pinching at the undersides of your tits to get reactions from you.

because fuck, jihoon’s fingers –

sometimes even watching him write you can’t help but get horny. how his fingers grip his pen, how he spins it around his fingers absentmindedly. how they alleviate pressure on the pen as he writes and stops. watching him write, sometimes you can’t help but think about his fingers at your clip, a harsh presence as they rub down on you once moment and gentle the next, fingers skimming your clit as they massage the gummy area around it.

watching his clever fingers as they make quick work of the buttons on his shirt, you can’t help but yearn. your eyes see nothing but his fingers; ears hear nothing of his conversation. it’s just you and jihoon’s hands and the way your cunt clenches, pussy leaking into your panties.

then jihoon’s pulling off his dress shirt, and he’s wearing a tank top underneath.

you want to scream.

not to say jihoon doesn’t look good in a tank top. because he does. fuck, he does. you always find yourself admiring jihoon’s shoulders and arms when he’s in a tank top no matter what sort of mood you’re in.

(one instance in particular you had been full of energy, ranting about a coworker who didn’t know what she was doing and had been kept around for far too long. and then you had looked up at jihoon and let your eyes selfishly roam over the broadness of his back, the curves of his bulging arms as he cut up meat. all sense had abandoned you in that moment, and before you knew it you were grabbing at his shirt and pulling him to you, tongue running along his skin.

not exactly your proudest moment, but.)

maybe the combination of his trousers and tank top shouldn’t be as sexy as they are, you think hysterically. his tank top his tucked into his pants, and, torturously, his fingers reach down to pull the hem free. the hem of his tank top settles around his hips, showing off just a sliver of skin.

jihoon raises a hand, running his fingers through his black hair as he continues to talk about something-or-other.

and his white tank top rises up his stomach.

you can see the hairs that lead from his belly button down, down, down. you can see the pale expanse of skin that you know is soft and smooth to the touch. you can imagine your hands pressing against his skin and sliding underneath his trousers; can imagine the restrictiveness of his trousers as you tuck your hands into his underwear, fingertips skimming alongside the base of his cock.

you’ve never pretended to innocent when it came to lee jihoon; never pretended your mind didn’t run wild with salacious thoughts.

and you weren’t going to pretend now, because –

because in your mind your hands were rubbing at the base of his cock, mouth at his collar and licking along his collarbones. he was moaning in you ear, soft and breathy, and you were moving down onto your knees, your own fingers unbuttoning his trousers.

jihoon reaches down, fingers swiftly pushing off his socks. “hey, by the way, i sent you an email response to your attendance discussion for today.”

you don’t speak, eyes roaming over the expanse of his back, still covered by fabric, like a starving man before a feast.

jihoon peeks at you. “it was sweet.”

“yeah?”

he doesn’t say anything else. jihoon’s eyebrows raise, silently prompting you.

you let out a loud, horrible groan that tears at your throat. the insides of your thighs are warm as you move across the bed to grab your discarded phone, the wet fabric of your panties catching against your skin, cold and shocking.

jihoon begins to chatter once more as you swipe on the email notification. he’s quiet in public but you can’t help but treasure how talkative he becomes afterwards; how all the little snide comments he’s kept to himself are let loose.

you look at the email.

you furrow your brows. you look over it again.

I am glad to see at least one of the students in our discussion section will not be a complete novice to Greek theater. I hope after this semester you will be able to engage with your boyfriend in a more informed matter when it comes to his passions.

However, despite how sweet your email was, I do have to remind you to please stick to proper email etiquette. Your use of – °˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖° is highly unprofessional, and I urge you to not include such things when emailing any staff or faculty or teaching assistants. For this misconduct, you will be deducted a point from your discussion grade for today. Please keep this in mind for the future.

Well wishes,

Mr. Lee

your jaw drops open.

“you fucking deducted me for my emoticon?!”

“we agreed to be strangers,” jihoon reminds you. he removes his pants. you can’t even find it within yourself to be horny. the warmth of your cunt is overtaken by the red-hot anger that licks through your veins. “and it’s inappropriate to send your ta heart and sparkle emoticons.”

“it’s a fucking – oh my god,” you reach towards the top of the bed, fingers grabbing the corner of his pillow. you tug it to you. “it’s not that serious.”

jihoon steps out of his pants. his thighs are thick and pale, and when he turns towards his closest you can see how snug his black underwear is against the supple curve of his ass. fleetingly, because you are angry at his audacity, you allow your eyes to follow the curve of his asschecks and how the band of his underwear rests low on his hips.

“teaching assistants and students aren’t to have any sexual relations,” jihoon recites. “it’s contract. if something happens, your little not-that-serious emoticon is evidence.”

you grab the pillow fully, swinging it around your body and at jihoon. it hits him in the middle. he lets out a soft noise of surprise. “you’re such an ass.”

jihoon shrugs. “we signed a contract, baby.”

he tucks his thumbs underneath the waistband of his underwear, and then he’s pulling them down his legs. you don’t even have it in you to look away. you marvel at his naked lower half. his cock, thick and flaccid, hanging between his thighs. the dusky color of it; the dark hairs that travel from underneath the hem of his tank top to the base of his cock.

jihoon pulls on a pair of grey joggers, concealing his cock and thighs from your eyes. “listen. i don’t want to be the bad guy. but we really can’t be risking anything.”

his cock is covered and he’s talking about something entirely different, but you’re still thinking about his dick. you’re still thinking about his dick as he walks from the bedroom, bare feet softly hitting the hardwood floors.

you trail two of your fingers along your bare thigh. his dick, flaccid and thick in your hands. it feels like it’s been forever since you’ve had your hands or mouth or fucking cunt around his dick; forever since you last pressed your thumb against the slit of his cockhead, since his raspy, gentle groans were being pressed into your skin.

you skim your nails along the soft insides of your thighs.

it’s not like you’re sexually depraved. you and jihoon just had sex the other day. but there’s something about this, the situation, being strangers, that makes you feel as if you’re starving.

your fingers move to your panties. you let your nails delicately linger alongside the lips of your cunt through the fabric, little sparks – little pieces of glitter, almost – making your toes curl.

fuck lee jihoon, you think, and then you’re sliding your forefinger down between your pussy lips. you don’t move the fabric of your panties. leaning back against his bed, you let your finger drag down and push up, your wetness soaking your panties.

his bed envelopes you as you lean back. tilting your hips up and bracing your feet against the mattress, you add another finger to the stimulation of your pussy. you let your fingers grow rougher, let them dig in slightly to the sensitive area around your clit.

your fingers find your hole, stretching the fabric of your panties to reach in.

“fuck.”

your eyes flutter open – when did they shut? jihoon is standing at the entrance to his room. his long hair is pushed back from his face by a black headband. in one hand he holds a metal water bottle.

his eyes are wide, his sweet lips parted as he stares at that spot between your thighs.

jihoon shuffles further into the room, placing his water bottle on top of his set of drawers. you’ve begun absentmindedly petting your pussy, once again dragging your fingers over your clit lazily.

jihoon presses his knees against the foot of his mattress.

you hum, twisting your wrist. you press your thumb against the side of your clit, your fingers dipping once more to your hole. this morning you had chosen to wear a pair of pink panties. you don’t regret it now. you’re so soaking wet that you know jihoon can see the shape of your cunt through the fabric.

your fingers begin to contract. you massage your pussy through the fabric leisurely, rhythmically. you drag your thumb down from your clit to meet your fingers, press your fingers down to barely sink into your hole.

jihoon lets out a deep noise. he braces his hands against the mattress, makes a motion to crawl towards you.

“no,” you say, words slightly slurred. “no. one point, remember?”

jihoon’s brow furrows.

you reach down with your other hand, legs spreading wider. with your other hand you pull at the flesh of your pussy lips, offering your fingers more space to work with. you shift your hand, making sure to keep one lip in place. your other hand – the one with soaking fingertips – strokes up and down, up and down, up and down.

jihoon’s hand settles on your ankle. you kick out. “no sex, yeah?”

jihoon lets out a strangled noise you’ve never heard from him.

you let your eyes fall shut. you can feel the weight of his gaze on you. letting out a soft breath, your fingers begin to glide up and down your cunt more quickly.

you begin to focus on your clit more. your hand that was holding your cunt lips moves up, focusing on baring the area around your clit. with your other hand you begin to stimulate the direct areas on either side of your clit. you are still working through your panties, but you’re so wet that the friction is almost nonexistent; your fingers just slide, massaging into the flesh.

you begin to set a rhythm. you rock your forefinger and middle finger against the sensitive area around your clit. you rock once; twice; then you’re dipping your fingers down the length of your cunt, down to your hole; you drag them back up, and begin your elaborate play once more.

it’s somewhat treacherous. it would be easier if it was jihoon. you would be able to fully relax back into the bed, just have to lay there and take it.

but: no sex.

so you slowly build up a climax, toes curling and chest arching up. it’s not sudden, not unexpected. it’s a slow climax that has your cunt tingling, head dropping back against the pillow.

you continue to slip your fingers against your clit, dragging out your climax, continuing through it.

eventually you come back to yourself.

your wrist hurts; your fingers are cramping. discomfort takes over you more than lust, and so you relax your body back into the bed, hands moving from your pussy.

and you look at jihoon.

your boyfriend drags his gaze up from your pussy to your face. one of his hands is wrapped around his cock. he hasn’t taken it out of his joggers, just as you hadn’t taken off your drenched panties. you can see the thick outline of it through the grey fabric. the dusky head of it rises from the waistband of his pants.

his hand disappears into his pants. you can see his knuckles as he drags his hand down the length of his cock. you pay special attention as his hand reappears, thumb bullying the fat head of his dick.

you hum, stretching your arms above your head. you extend one of your legs, the other leisurely arching against the mattress.

you let your hands wander along your chest. you aren’t doing it to stimulate yourself but to draw jihoon’s attention. to help him along, you suppose.

his eyes follow the trailing of your fingers. one of your hands cradles a tit, the thumb of your other pinching a nipple against your forefinger.

eventually jihoon lets out a groan, dropping his head. short spurts of cum pulses from his cock, soaking his hand. jihoon continues to fuck his fist through it, hissing and letting out breath moans.

you feel sedated; satisfied. so does he. jihoon crawls up the length of the bed to plop next to you. he doesn’t cuddle against you. he just lays his body next to you, thick muscle of his arm against yours.

“no sex,” he breathes out.

“no sex.”

W E E K F I V E

you are going to murder your teaching assistant.

the halls of the history building are nearly vacant save for the lone straggler. lee jihoon has his office hours late enough in the day to where most classes are over. most everyone’s day is over.

but you are far from being done.

the ta offices are tucked back with the professor offices, closed off behind a heavy wood door that matches the old style of the rest of the building. you get to the door a few minutes before his office hours officially start, glaring down at the screenshot on your phone.

While your writing response over Medea is sufficient, I am loath to remind you to use proper citations in the responses. Otherwise it will be considered plagiarism. As a warning, your letter grade for this assignment will fall a whole grade.

again: you were going to murder him.

why couldn’t he just let you off with a warning? why did he immediately jump to taking your grade for the assignment down? he was being completely unfair and you weren’t going to stand for it.

the clock on your phone switched to a minute closer to his office hours.

still five minutes away.

whatever.

you reach out for the door knob, twisting the cold metal in your hand. the door is heavy to open, but you jam your shoulder against it and swing it open.

the teaching assistant office is a room with three desks pressed against the wall on each side. there’s hard, uncomfortable chairs; two sockets in the entire room.

and lee jihoon, sitting in one of the chairs with his cock in his hand.

immediately your boyfriend flinches, eyes wide as he looks towards you. once jihoon sees it is, in fact, you and not some poor student walking in to request help.

then, like you weren’t even there, jihoon turns away and begins fucking into his hand once more.

you hurry through the door, shoving it shut behind you and pushing in the lock.

all the while you don’t look away from jihoon.

his teeth sink into his lower lip, and his head tips back to reveal the long column of his pale throat. his black bangs fall around his face, not obscuring a single centimeter.

jihoon’s hand works quickly, furiously, over his dick. precum drenches the head. when he drags his hand down he hisses, face wincing.

you move across the room, shrugging your backpack onto the ground.

the assignment and grade having left your mind entirely, you kneel before jihoon. he peers down at you, eyebrows raised wearily. “no sex,” he reminds you.

“no sex,” you agree.

you raise your hand to your face. it’s the easiest thing to spit into your palm, to replace jihoon’s hand with your own. as soon as you squeeze around his dick jihoon lets out a low, raspy noise.

his cock is thick and perfect in your hand, the heavy weight of it tempting. you want it in your mouth; want him to be fucking his cock down your throat.

instead you let him fuck your hand. you move your hand down. the slide is slightly rough, your spit and his precum not quite enough. jihoon likes it, though; you know he does. his breath is harsh and labored, his eyes squeezed shut.

you twist your wrist as you move your hand towards the head of his cock. you press your thumb into the slit of his dock.

“gonna cum,” he warns you.

then you think back to your letter grade.

meanly, perhaps even cruelly, you drop your hand to the base of his cock and squeeze, cutting off his orgasm. jihoon lets out a startled, irritated noise.

“my assignment.”

“fuck,” he grumbles, one of his hands raising to push back his bangs. “are you serious?”

“let me off with a warning,” you say. you keep one hand around the base of his dick, tight and trapping. your other hand goes to his balls. you hold them, thumb gently swiping over the flesh.

jihoon’s breath shutters in his throat.

“a warning,” you demand.

“fuck,” he says again. “fine. a warning.”

triumphant, you let a large smile take over your face. you begin to move your hand once again.

W E E K N I N E

“now that you’ve finished properly with oedipus rex,” jihoon begins, rounding the table at the front of the classroom, “let’s get some opinions. raise your hand if you enjoyed the play.”

more hands than not raise around the room, including mingyu’s. you shoot him a betrayed look. the past nine class weeks the two of you had been close, sitting next to one another during lecture and discussion. you traded conversation and thoughts more often than not, using one another to bounce ideas and theories.

and for him to have enjoyed the play?

jihoon moves to lean against the desk. he crosses his arms over his chest. this time he’s wearing all black. it seems to lengthen his figure, stretch him out, as well as broaden the line of his shoulders.

he looks good.

“let’s get some opinions on people who didn’t like the play.” immediately his eyes are on you, calling out your name. “you didn’t enjoy the play.”

traitor.

you shift in your seat. “uh. no, not really.”

“why?”

you were going to suffocate him in his sleep.

“it’s rather –” you break off, searching for words. you weren’t the literary student; he was. “i don’t understand him, i guess.”

jihoon tilts his head. “him? sophocles? or oedipus?”

“oedipus,” you clarify.

“can you explain a little further? what exactly don’t you understand?”

you bite down on your tongue for a moment, trying to gather yourself. the classroom is silent as you wait, unintentionally putting pressure on your shoulders as you realize they were all waiting for you to speak up.

“he – oedipus – he’s sort of stupid, isn’t he?” someone chokes behind you. you ignore them, looking at jihoon. despite him putting you on the spot like an asshole, he’s still your boyfriend. his face isn’t harsh, isn’t judging as he watches you struggle for words. for a moment he isn’t your ta – he’s your boyfriend. he’s your boyfriend and you’re having a plain, casual discussion. “i mean. he knows the prophecy. but he just does whatever he wants anyways? he’s just – he’s got no common sense.”

jihoon hums, tapping his fingers along his forearms. “so his arrogance has made him entirely unlikable to you. are there any redeeming treats, do you think?”

you shake your head. “it makes him deserve his ending, i think. he thought he was above it all.”

jihoon nods. “i see. remember that argument for your paper. that’s a big question that needs answered: does oedipus deserve his ending? you could analyze that further and get a pretty solid base for your essay.”

he begins to question other students about whether they liked the story or not, leaving you alone. the remainder of class flows as such, ending with jihoon gently urging everyone to write down their thoughts to revisit for the essay.

you gather your things and put them into your backpack. mingyu loiters next to you, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark jeans.

“what’re you doing after this?” he reaches down and grabs your backpack after you’ve zipped it up, slinging it onto his shoulder. “wanna hit the library? we could bounce some more ideas around.”

smiling, you begin to agree.

jihoon calls your name, having gathered his own things and lodging his foot in the heavy wooden door, keeping it ajar. “do you mind coming with me to the office for a minute or two? i want to talk about what you’ve said during class.”

you swallow back a sigh, throwing jihoon a firm-lipped smile. mingyu swings your backpack back off his shoulder, handing it to you. “good luck.”

you make a face at him. mingyu doesn’t know the true nature of the relationship between you and jihoon, but he does know that you’ve visited jihoon during office hours more than once. not a week has gone by without you setting foot into the little ta office, setting your printed-out versions of whatever classic the class was working on.

“print every story out,” jihoon had advised, voice carrying that air of superiority he always seemed to gain when the two of you were sat in the dark office. “mark it up. it’ll help you pay close attention to every line.”

jihoon leads you to the ta office, weaving through the throngs of students making their way through the marble halls. you sort of want to reach out and grab onto his shirt, just to ensure he stays visible. but you don’t.

another ta is in the office, steadily working away at their own homework. she throws a smile at the two of you as you enter. “hey, jihoon.”

“hey.” he crosses into the room, setting his laptop in front of the chair that he had, only a few weeks ago, received a rather satisfactory hand-job from you in. “your office hours are over, aren’t they?”

the other ta nods. “yep. just working now. never seems to end.”

jihoon settles into the wooden chair, flipping up the screen to his laptop. he had to change it from the selfie the two of you had taken during a hike, matching dandelion flowers tucked into your ears. now a mountain range greets him. “we’re gonna be discussing oedipus rex.”

“won’t be a bother to me!”

you push over a chair close to jihoon, the feet of it scraping against the floor.

“pull out your notes,” jihoon says. he pulls up his own version of the play on his computer; they’re scans of his own copy, scribbles and highlighted passages littering every single page. “we’ll go over what exactly prompted you to think this way about oedipus. it’ll help you get a real solid foundation for the essay.

“so,” he says once you have your notes spread out. “oedipus is a flawed character. there’s no doubt about it. the stage directions themselves reveal as much.”

as he talks, raspy voice droning on and words blending together in your mind, jihoon’s foot begins to slide across the floor. you can’t help but look at it, watch it. his black leather shoe moves from in front of him, slowly, silently, gliding across the floor to nudge against your own shoe.

“he does whatever he wants, that’s what you said?”

you nod.

“during discussion you mentioned that he knew the prophecy and ignored it,” jihoon says. his foot now fully rests against yours. it’s just one point of contact, and yet it seems to electrify you; warm you up. you can’t help but focus on it, like a cat watching a bird through the window.

“but he doesn’t,” jihoon says. “he thoroughly believes his parents to be the king and queen of corinth. according to oedipus, and forgetting the context we ourselves know, he has escaped his fate.”

his words fade out. jihoon’s hands settle on his keyboard, a single finger absentmindedly tapping at a key. it’s not hard enough to do anything. it’s just a simple tap, a fumbling gesture.

his shoe shifts. he presses his foot against yours from toe to heel.

the other ta in the room begins to collect her things. you listen to her as she moves about, closing her laptop and shuffling papers.

jihoon shifts in his chair. his knees spread out. his trousers strain, just slightly, against his thick thighs. the barest sliver of pale ankle slips out from beneath his trousers, his black socks hidden beneath the leather lip of his shoes.

the ta opens the door; closes it behind her.

“his character is one the citizens of greece would have identified with – at least the ones in athens,” jihoon says, and then he’s turning his face towards you. feeling rather caught, you meet his eyes. “so why do you think he deserves his ending?”

you furrow your brows. you’ve gone over this. “because he actively chooses it through his arrogance. he ignores the prophecy.”

jihoon sighs, lips pursing together. “you haven’t paid attention to a single word i’ve said.”

your mouth falls open a little. “i have!”

“haven’t,” he corrects.

jihoon stands from the chair. you miss being able to see the skin of his ankle. he crosses the room, hand falling to the door knob. he locks it. “i think we need to work on your attention span, don’t you?”

your mouth goes dry. he begins to unbutton the cuffs of his black shirt as he moves back across the room. he pushes up his sleeves, shoving off his thick forearms. “jihoon?”

jihoon sits back in his wooden chair, legs automatically spreading out. one of his hands rests on the armrest of the chair, while he set his elbow on the other, using it to prop up his head. jihoon raises his brows at you. “well?”

“what?”

he sighs, as if burdened. “take off your pants and underwear.”

you snap your head towards the door. after verifying no one had magically walked through, you look back at jihoon, hissing his name. “what are you going on about?”

“we need to work on your memory,” he explains matter-of-factly, voice taking on that arrogant lilt he so often gets when in this room. jihoon likes this, you think; likes being in a position of power over you. likes being able to boss you around; able to tell you what to do.

with one last glance at the door, you stand from your wooden chair. jihoon watches unabashedly as you work your pants down over your ass. you leave both your jeans and underwear on the hard floor of the office.

jihoon pats his thigh wordlessly.

you feel heat rush towards your cheeks. you’ve sat on his thighs before, have ridden them before. but it felt so fucking different to be lowering yourself onto the thick muscle in a university office, your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself, the backs of your hands lightly brushing against the wood of his chair.

you don’t do anything for a moment other than just sit on his thigh. the fabric of his pants is like silk against your skin, and you can’t help but slowly, hesitantly, rock your hips down onto him.

jihoon’s hands go to your hips. he tilts his head back, the curls framing his temples brushing against the corners of his eyes.

“now,” he says, “you think oedipus ignores his prophecy.”

you look down at your boyfriend, pouting at him. “you’re punishing me because i have a different opinion than you? about some old play?”

jihoon presses his lips together. then his hand is coming down sharply on your outer thigh, the sound acutely piercing your ears and reverberating in your head. he rubs roughly at the skin after, thumb swiping against the patch of skin as it turns violent with anger from his slap.

“because you’re ignoring the text,” jihoon says. his hand slides from your thigh around to your ass. his fingers dig into your asscheek, contemplating the weight of it. “it’d be one thing if you had actual evidence that wasn’t in conflict with what sophocles was telling us.”

“if you’re trying to get me wet,” you say, thumbs tapping against his shoulders, “i’m not sure this is the way to go.”

jihoon moves the hand that was on your ass back to your hips. he squeezes the flesh beneath his hands, and then he’s slowly leading you into a rocking motion. it’s not much, but there’s enough connection between your cunt and his thigh to have a gentle swell of lust licking at your pussy.

“don’t be smart,” he says.

“you act smart all the time,” you snap back. you keep rocking your hips. “why can’t i?”

he scoffs a little, nails slightly digging into your skin. instead of any pain, they send a little spark of heat through you. “i’ve got degrees in this,” he explains. “i’m literally allowed to talk about this.”

“now,” he says, “oedipus never ignores his fate. he says as much. he believes polybus and merope to be his parents. when he becomes doubtful, he confronts them: ‘. . . i went to mother and father, questioned them closely . . . so as for my parents i was satisfied . . .’”

for a moment you’re speechless. and then you let out a loud laugh despite yourself. “you little fucking nerd, reciting oedipus rex to your girlfriend while she’s rubbing herself on her thigh.”

jihoon’s jaw tightens. he moves, hands on your hips pushing you up and off of him. once you’re standing, he joins you. as soon as jihoon is on his feet he’s pushing you around, moving so your bare ass is against his front. then he pushes further, pressing your body against the table in front of you. the edge of your table reaches your upper thigh, and so it’s easy for jihoon to place his hand against the middle of your back and press you until your front is firmly against the surface of the table.

as soon as your chin is touching the cold table, jihoon is bringing his hand down sharply against your ass. you can’t help but let out a startled shout, body jerking from underneath him.

“be good,” he murmurs, hand now gentle as he rubs at your skin in apology. “listen to your ta. trying to help, baby.”

“you’re being mean,” you say, toes curling against the frigid office floor as his hand travels to rest against the curve of your ass.

“wouldn’t have to be if you’d be good,” he says. jihoon moves his hand down, the tip of his forefinger gliding against the area where your ass and thigh meet. “you gonna be good for me?”

you shift, moving one of your arms so you can rest your face against it. forehead pressing against your forearm, you nod.

“good. now oedipus believed polybus and merope to be his true parents. he was still desperate to avoid the prophecy, so he abandoned his princely title and corinth. he wanted to be free of it, baby.”

his fingers tip inwards. your entire body tenses as his fingertips press alongside your folds. he doesn’t do anything further; doesn’t insert them. instead he just keeps them there, absentmindedly shifting his hand.

“he is arrogant,” jihoon absconds, allowing you a single point. “we see that in the beginning. ‘. . . the world knows my fame: i am oedipus.’”

jihoon waits for a moment after quoting the play. when you don’t do anything other than let out a shaky breath, he rewards you. jihoon slowly moves his fingers against your cunt. he trails his fingers up and down your length. he maps out the full expanse of your pussy. his fingers slide up over your hole, which was now leaking and clenching properly. he brushes his digits over your clit almost clinically, giving it no more attention than the rest of you.

“but he doesn’t ignore the prophecy. he believes he’s foiled it until he forces the shepherd to tell his story. he refuses to stop; refuses to listen to reason. he’s arrogant, yes, and hurtles straight towards the horrid truth of his parentage and marriage without a second thought.”

jihoon slowly, tortuously, slips a single finger into your cunt. his finger isn’t so thick to cause any discomfort. instead your pussy welcomes it, clenching around the digit. you can’t help but bare down on his finger, hips searching for more.

later you’ll remember to be mortified by the fact your boyfriend got you wet while talking about sophocles.

but now you press your eyes shut, fingers lightly scraping against the surface of the desk.

jihoon pushes his finger all the way inside of your pussy. you can feel it when it’s fully in, his knuckles scraping against your flesh.

you cart your hips back, trying to get his finger to graze that special spongey place.

“be good,” jihoon says, and then he’s retracting his finger from your cunt entirely.

you let out a small gasp, brow furrowing. you turn your head to peer back at him. “hoonie….”

jihoon laughs at you, and then he’s lowering himself to press his chest along the line of your back. jihoon presses a kiss to the corner of your lips, one of his hands still holding tight to your hips. “you’re so cute when i’m fucking you,” he says, mouth moving against your cheek as he speaks. “you always get so cute. what is this?”

you pout at him. jihoon presses another kiss to your cheek, and then he’s standing.

this time jihoon slides in two fingers. you frown, insistently pressing your forehead against your forearm as the stretch of his fingers slightly burns. it’s not unpleasant, of course. just a gentle burn that signals the walls of your pussy stretching to accommodate him.

“there,” he says, satisfied. “now. where was i?”

he’s silent. you realize he’s waiting for you to speak, to prove you were listening.

you let out a strangled groan, trying to think back. he had a single finger inside of you and it wasn’t enough. you try to think. you try to think of a single word to say that isn’t fuck or more; try to think despite the way jihoon is slowly angling his fingers towards your front, pressing them up.

you can’t help but press your thighs together in anticipation.

jihoon clicks his tongue, and then he’s pulling his fingers out. you let out a whine, trying to push yourself away from the desk.

both of his hands go to your shoulders, keeping you firmly against the surface. “stay still,” he warns you. “i know you have a listening problem but i didn’t think it was this bad.”

there’s a rustle of clothing behind you. “don’t look,” jihoon says. “keep your face against the table.”

you can’t think of a reply, can’t think of anything to do other than what he says. you wonder if you should feel ashamed of how easily you become compliant for him.

“oedipus doesn’t ignore the prophecy,” jihoon restates, and then he’s pressing his front against your ass. he’s taken off his pants and is just in his underwear. you can feel the shape of his thick cock against your ass, can feel it’s hard length along you. “he just believes polybus and merope when they say they are his true parents. there’s no harm in that. anyone would want to believe it when the people who raise them say they are their true parents.”

jihoon rocks his hips against you. his hands are holding your hips still as he, essentially, humps against your ass.

“so in that regard your argument has a fallacy,” jihoon announces.

a fallacy?

you want to say something biting about how he’s able to even think about fallacies and arguments when he’s humping your ass, but then jihoon is returning two of his fingers to your pussy and you elect to keep silent.

“he is arrogant, though,” jihoon says. he pushes two of his fingertips into your hole. you clench hungrily around them as if your pussy was trying to suck them in. you wonder if you’ve always been so – so whorish for him, or if it was a recent development from not having been properly fucked in nine weeks.

“his pride is something that transcends time,” jihoon carries on. he doesn’t press his fingers any deeper inside of you. he rests the tip of his ring finger just barely against your clit. he doesn’t move it either; just rests it there, taunting.

“everyone can think of a political leader who is too arrogant for their own good,” jihoon says. “it’s a tale as old as time. sophocles set the precedent with this story. a king on top of the world who listens to no one, only to be brought down to his knees by fate.”

jihoon begins to slide his fingers in. he does it leisurely, slowly, as if he has all the time in the world.

“the evolution of his character is a fascinating one,” jihoon says, his ring finger leaving its place to instead rest against your hole. he doesn’t slide it in. you want to buck your hips back and force it inside. “arrogance to being humbled in every sense of the word. he is only wise until he can no longer see; only sees the truth once he is blinded

“do you remember,” jihoon says, “what he says after he blinds himself?”

you shake your head against your arm. his two fingers are nearly settled entirely inside of your pussy. you want them so deep inside of you that you can feel them in your throat.

involuntarily you clench around his digits.

jihoon clicks his tongue. his fingers stop moving in you. “what did i say? be good. none of this shit.”

you let out a little whine, your free hand curling into a fist. “sorry,” you say, unable to keep your voice from pitching up in desperation. “i’m sorry, hoonie.”

“say you won’t move,” jihoon instructs, voice seemingly detached. “say you’ll be a good girl for me and won’t move.”

your lower lip wobbles. you feel somewhat humiliated like this: your front pressing against the surface of a ta desk, shirt rucked up along your stomach and bare toes curling against the marble floors of the university history building. your boyfriend pressing all up against you, fingers stuffed into your cunt, telling you what to do as if you were some pathetic whore, desperate for a cock inside.

but, because you are exactly that, you repeat his words, feeling wetness trickle from your pussy. “i’ll be good,” you whimper out. “i won’t move. i’ll be a good girl.”

jihoon lets out a quiet, nearly-silent huff of laughter. he retracts his fingers from your pussy, and immediately you’re feeling panic strike you.

“be patient,” he chides you as you begin to press back against him. three of jihoon’s press against your hole. “be a good girl.”

jihoon pushes his three fingers into your pussy. you let out a high keening noise like a wounded animal, eyes squeezing shut and cunt eagerly drinking his fingers up. they’re nothing like his dick, aren’t as thick or delicious, but they’re something.

the stretch burns and you wiggle absentmindedly, relishing in it. the burn is acute and hot and you yearn to press into it, to take more and more and more.

“good,” he says once all three of his fingers are stuffed inside of you. “you look pretty like this, baby. you know that?”

you whine. you don’t move.

jihoon’s three fingers press up, and when they bump against your bundle of nerves you can’t help but wiggle back, searching.

“do you remember?” he repeats. “what’s the first thing oedipus says after he’s blinded?”

you shake your head. you don’t know how he expects you to think about anything. you feel as if you’ve been strung along, as if he’s been tugging at a chain and you’ve been stumbling behind him.

“‘oh,” jihoon quotes, and then he’s lowering himself to press against you. his mouth it against your ear, his fingers shifting within your pussy due to his change of position. when he speaks again you can hear his voice as clear as day despite how he murmurs, and it’s as if he’s wrapped entirely around you; as if he’s consumed you. “‘oh, the agony! i am agony.’”

jihoon presses his fingers back into you so the tips of them were pressing against your pleasure spot once more.

“he’s felt true agony now,” jihoon explains. he keeps his fingers still now. “he’s an icarus fallen to the earth. his wings of wax have melted. he’s a king with his word left in crumbles; with his queen dead and children made of sin. he’s nothing.”

jihoon’s nose presses against the shell of your ear. “his arrogance was his destruction. can you tell me more about it?”

you open your mouth to speak. you can’t. and even if you could, it isn’t as if your brain is working. there’s nothing inside of your mind. the lust, the desire, that takes over your body is so big it swallows up everything else and renders you dumb.

jihoon huffs out a laugh, mean. “fine. at least do this to prove you’ve listened to me: tell me the first thing oedipus says after becoming blind.”

you feel as if he’s surrounding you. you can feel jihoon’s weight along your back, can feel his fingers inside of your cunt, stretching you out. you feel so keyed up, so ready for something. not something – him. you want jihoon. you want him carnally. you want his dick stuffed inside of your pussy. you want his mouth on your neck; want his hands on your tits. you want him pressing your face into the desk and drilling into your pussy.

you open your mouth. an embarrassing noise comes out.

“come on,” jihoon says. “you can do it.”

“‘oh,’” you breathe out, trying to remember the exact words. “oh, agony! i’m — i’m agony!”

jihoon must judge your vague quotation as good enough. he moves off of your back, and you can’t help but whine, wanting his weight settled against you once more.

his hand shifts inside of you.

he slides his fingers out. you can feel your cunt resisting the slide, pussy clenching down on his fingers.

“hoonie,” you beg.

“be good,” he chides you. “remember. no sex.”

and then jihoon is thrusting his fingers so forcefully into your pussy that you can feel the sting as his knuckles hit your ass. the sharp noise of skin hitting skin rings out. you can barely process it before he’s withdrawing his fingers and fucking them back in just as quickly.

jihoon finger-fucks you harshly, as if it were his dick he was shoving inside. your ass jiggles with each thrust back in. you whine and cry, and you can feel your ass begin to smarten from the sting. but you still arch back and meet each thrust of his fingers eagerly, craving the pleasure-pain.

it’s rough and you can feel the orgasm, that string he had been messing with for what seems to be hours, begin to tighten.

“want,” you pant out, fingernails scraping against the desk. “want you, hoonie. please, please, please.”

“beg, baby.”

you let out a cry. there’s tears at the corners of your eyes. “please, hoonie. i want you. want you, want you. i want you, hoonie.”

your voice breaks off, tight with emotion.

jihoon lets out a curse, and then he’s dropping behind you. jihoon shoves your leg up, and you follow suit, placing your knee on the able and giving him access to your pussy. jihoon shoves a hand against your thigh, keeping it in place on the table.

his mouth licks a stripe from where his fingers plunge into your pussy to your clit, taking that aching muscle between his lips and suckling.

when you orgasm it’s harsh and loud, fluids gushing from your pussy and soaking jihoon’s face. he takes you into his arms, pulling you to the floor with him and pressing kisses to your face.

“good girl,” he murmurs, voice raspy and comforting. the office is drenched in the smell of pussy – of your pussy – and his nose shines with your release. he ignores it, his clean hand pushing back stray strands of hair from your face so he can press a sweet kiss to your nose. “good girl.”

W E E K T H I R T E E N

you think, fleetingly, that you’re not being fair.

but then you remember that girl – girl, because she can’t be any older than eighteen, fresh out of high school and far too young to be sniffing around your boyfriend – and how she pressed close to jihoon as she showed him something on her computer, and you can’t help but think you’re not being harsh enough.

with that in the forefront of your mind, you ease the hot pink dildo in your aching cunt. you can feel fluid gush from your pussy, a slick combination of your own desire and the generous amount of lube you had massaged onto the dildo.

the stretch burns, stretching the walls of your pussy. it’s a stark, acute contrast to the three fingers you used to stretch yourself, and you couldn’t help but arch your back up off of jihoon’s couch, toes curling and mouth dropping open.

you can feel the fluids leak down your pussy, sliding along the curve of your ass.

good, you think. sink into the fabric of the couch so from now on, whenever he sits here, he has to smell your cunt.

your hand stills once the base of the dildo is flush against your ass. you shift, hips tilting as you try to relieve some of the sting.

you stretch out for your phone, glancing at the time. the dildo is pushed from your pussy by the movement.

jihoon will be home any minute. your hand returns to the dildo, pushing it back into your pussy. your cunt sucks it in, eager and greedy.

clenching down on the dildo, you can’t help the thrill of satisfaction that shoots through you. you feel so delightfully full, as if some part of you was a gaping hole that needed to be filled.

well –

you suppose that line of thought isn’t too wrong.

you grab the dildo, fingernails digging slightly into the jelly-like texture. you slide the dildo from your cunt. despite how much lube you used, despite how wet your cunt is, the dildo still is slow to slide out, your pussy clamping down to try and keep it in place.

you pull it out until just the tip of the dildo is pressed against your hole. your juices glint evilly on the dildo, a long, thick string along the side of it.

slowly you ease it back inside. you tip your head back, foot pressing down on the cushion of the couch in an attempt to mentally steady yourself. it’s a dragging sensation that has impatience licking at your brain, trying to push its way to the forefront.

you pump the dildo in and out, in and out, until you are satisfied that the burn from your pussy stretching to accommodate it is no more.

you draw it out.

and then you force it back in, sharp enough for the gelatin balls to slap against your ass in a poor mimicry of the real thing.

your free hand goes to your tit, framing a pebbled nipple between two of your fingers. you massage it, pull it, as you harshly fuck the dildo in, soft pants escaping your mouth as your body begins to ignite with pleasure and the wanton desire for more.

you can’t help but want. it’s as if the desire is written into your dna, lining the fabric of your entire being. you want to be fucked, want to be thrown onto your front and taken from behind; want jihoon fucking his fat cock into your pussy in one swift motion, forcing your pussy to stretch around him.

you want jihoon.

you could devour him, you think as you crook the dildo up towards the front of your body, searching for your g-spot. you would devour him whole. you would take and take from him until he’s entirely yours, body and soul.

the lock to the door clicks. you hurriedly bring the fingers messing with your nipple up to your mouth, licking at them before taking the nub between them and rolling.

the front door to jihoon’s apartment swings open, your boyfriend stepping through. his eyes immediately catch on you, naked and wanton.

“what – fuck –” he shoves the door shut behind him, loud and firm. ��what the fuck are you doing?!”

you slide the dildo from your pussy, slow and torturous, ensuring he’s watching. jihoon’s eyes, naturally, flick down to your pussy. the dildo is still slick with fluid, and you can where the more dense of your fluids stain the pink of the dick.

“what are you doing,” he repeats, dropping his leather bag to the floor.

“taking matters – ah,” you moan out, massaging your gummy g-spot with the head of the dick. “taking matters into my own hands, jihoon; what else?”

his hands go to his shirt. jihoon hurriedly pushes at the buttons of his white dress shirt, letting it fall to the floor after he’s done. his trousers follow suit, and he leaves them behind with his shoes and socks.

“what are you doing?” you grin at jihoon toothily, echoing his words. “no sex, remember?”

jihoon moves towards you regardless. he had done his hair that morning, gelling it back. now a few stray strands frame his temples, giving him a perfectly disheveled look. his tank top does nothing to conceal his collar bones, the line of his shoulders proud and wide.

his hands find your thighs. he separates your legs, baring your pussy entirely.

you still your hand, just keeping the dildo snug inside of you, refusing to move it further. “what are you doing, jihoon?”

“looking,” he retorts, eyes dancing around your body as he takes you in. you think you look like some perverted creature, carnal desire and desperation written onto every centimeter of skin.

“don’t touch,” you chide him, moving an leg from his grasp. jihoon tightens his hold on the other as you press your foot against his chest, lightly pressing in a piss-poor attempt to push him back.

jihoon rolls his eyes at you, nose crinkling and mouth twisting into a sneer.

“oh,” you breathe out, sheathing the dildo fully inside once more. his eyes meet yours. you let a grin take over, unable to help but tease him. “‘oh, the agony! i am agony!’ isn’t that right, hoonie?”

for a split second you can see shock take over jihoon’s features, catlike eyes widening. a strike of triumph hits you, feeling as if you are the cat that got the canary.

but then jihoon is grabbing the dildo from your hand. he pulls it out, the slide making your mouth drop in a gasp and body arch up off of the couch.

“h – hoonie –!”

“agony,” he hisses, and then jihoon is shoving his boxers down to his knees.

his cock bounces from his underwear, slapping against the fabric of his tank-top. it’s thick and angry, and when he runs his hand along it, rubbing at the head, a thick marble of precum leaks from it.

“no – no sex,” you say, voice hoarse as you subconsciously keep your eyes on his cock. you’ve been starving for jihoon’s dick for so long, and here it is, thick and pulsing in front of you.

and like a starving woman in front of a table overflowing with food, you eagerly welcome jihoon’s dick when he presses the tip against your hole. you spread your legs, knees knocking against his hips as he presses against you.

jihoon keeps his dick in hand, not entering you. he rubs his dick up between your folds, a soft curse escaping his lips at how wet you are. once he’s at your clit he stops, rubbing the head of his dick against you.

“fuck –” your voice is taking on a whining tone, and you can’t help but fleetingly wonder what happened to you showing jihoon who’s boss, making him witness just what he’s missing. but that thought is gone from your mind as soon as it enters, and instead you’/re pleading with jihoon. “please, hoonie – please fuck me, please.”

he sighs, the tip of his cock pressing against your hole. still, he doesn’t enter you. “i thought we agreed on no sex,” he says. “no sex until the semester is over.”

you cry out, hips trying to shift upwards and force his dick inside. jihoon pulls back. “please – put it in. it won’t count – won’t count if you don’t cum in me, yeah? won’t count if i don’t cum around your dick.”

jihoon lets out a loud, shivering groan that seems to release from the depths of his soul.

jihoon presses his dick into your cunt. the head pops past your entrance, and then he’s sliding home.

your pussy takes jihoon eagerly, sufficiently prepared by your fingers and the dildo. his dick is just slightly thicker than the dildo, and so there is a pleasurable sting that burns at your core. it’s not horrible, and you let out a moan as you cant your hips up.

jihoon doesn’t stop pressing into you until his balls are against your ass. his hands are on either of your legs, keeping you spread for him. jihoon uses his grip on you to push himself back, bringing his cock out of your cunt slowly. the drag of his dick is delicious, is everything you’ve been missing for months.

you’re not sure if this is just because you haven’t been fucked appropriately since august and it’s in the middle of november, but you feel completely overwhelmed by jihoon.

his cock feels so good inside of you. it’s thick and warm, and when he shifts his dick presses up towards your core. his blunt head presses against your g-spot, and you can’t help the little mewl of approval that escapes you.

“feels good,” he breathes out. his eyes flutter, nails digging into your skin. “you feel so fucking good.”

jihoon pulls his hips back, leaving your pussy save for the tip of his dick. he lingers, the fat head of his dick keeping you plugged.

when jihoon thrusts in, it’s rough and well-aimed for your g-spot. you let out a shrill noise, eyes rolling back. you don’t know if sex has ever felt like this before – if you’ve ever felt so overwhelmed just by a single thrust.

your hands scramble, grabbing at the couch. “hoonie!”

he slides out; fucks back in.

jihoon’s pace is rough, as if he’s making up for lost time. as if he’s determined to mold your pussy back into the shape of his dick. he uses your pussy, uses you. he uses your cunt in an almost detached way, as if you were some random fuck and not his treasured girlfriend.

eventually jihoon is pulling from your cunt with a strangled moan. his dick is drenched with your fluids, thick strings decorating it like lewd jewelry. jihoon palms his dick, and then he’s thrusting into his hand once, twice, thrice before he cums onto your stomach.

he lets out a moan, a gasp of your own joining. his cum is thick and hot. you want to shove it into your pussy.

jihoon’s hands go back to your thighs, and then he’s dropping to his knees.

“can’t wait to fuck you,” he groans, “can’t wait to fill you up. as soon as finals are over, you’re mine. got it? you’re mine.”

then his tongue is licking a stripe up from your cunt to your clit, and all other thoughts leave you.

W E E K S I X T E E N

the lecture hall, just like most of the rest of campus, is nearly deserted.

you had left your apartment as soon as the email about your final grade dinged your phone, delight and want immediately turning at your stomach. you had been looking forward to this day for months: the day you and jihoon were finally free to fuck (and publicly be in a relationship, but that wasn’t the most pressing matter at the moment).

jihoon was at the front of the large room, talking to the last stragglers of the exam he had to oversee. you rush down the steps, unable to help the broad smile on your face.

your boyfriend looks up as you thunder down the auditorium, and you catch the moment his own face breaks out into a wide grin.

he calls out your name as you step off of the last step.

the student he’s talking to waves goodbye, and you take the spot where he had been standing.

“hey,” you say, unable to keep your smile tamed. “how’s it going?”

jihoon rolls his eyes at you, folding his arms over his chest. this close to him you could smell his cologne, the sharp smells of amber and vanilla. he was wearing his white dress shirt again, though this time it was dressed up with a simple black tie.

“glad it’s over,” jihoon murmurs.

you glance around the room. there’s two girls at the back, talking excitedly as one of them packs up their things.

“took you forever to grade the exams.”

jihoon scoffs. “as if. you turned it in last night at midnight.”

you shrug. the girls begin to make their way out of the room, calling out good-byes to jihoon.

“all things considered,” he says, raising a hand in acknowledgement towards the girls, “this semester wasn’t so bad.”

you laugh at him. “it’s been agony to me,” you say, knowing how loaded the word is for the both of you.

the heavy wooden doors shut solemnly behind the girls. it’s as if a switch flicks off in jihoon’s mind. his eyes visibly soften before you, his smile taking on a gentler shape.

“i missed you,” he says. he doesn’t say anything else; that isn’t jihoon’s way. he’d write a thousand poems for you and keep them locked away. he’ll say three words, i missed you, and his meaning will include a hundred other things: i love you; i adore you; i want you close to me always; you bewitch me.

“i missed you, too,” you echo, hoping he feels the weight of your simple response.

jihoon keeps his face passive as he opens his arms, and you go easily into his embrace. you burrow your face into his neck, breathing him in. he wraps his thick arms around you, pressing you close to his body.

for a moment the two of you just exist in this little universe.

jihoon is the first to pull away, though he doesn’t go far. as if magnetic, you tilt your lips towards him, meeting his mouth halfway.

the kiss begins gentle and solemn. it’s the end of a sentence, finishing the semester, which had been filled with tension and desperation, with a sweet embrace and soft lips.

you separate your mouth from his. you skim your lips along his chin, following the edge of his jaw. you trace the edges of his face with your mouth, trying to memorize the shape of him.

“i missed you,” you say again.

jihoon is silent. he sinks a hand into your hair, cradling the back of your head. he guides your face back to his, his lips pressing a long kiss to yours.

this time when jihoon kisses you it’s firm. his mouth is insistent against yours, devouring you in a way that leaves you breathless. he presses you back, his tongue sliding past your lips.

jihoon walks you backwards until your thighs are bumping against the table. he keeps your head still, tongue licking into your mouth and exploring.

his free hand slides beneath your shirt, grabbing at the flesh of your hip.

“hoonie,” you say, pulling back from his mouth. jihoon hums, pressing kisses to the corner of your mouth. “want you.”

“got me,” he returns.

despite his gentle words, jihoon’s hands move quickly against you. he tosses your shirt and bra aside, mouth attaching to your neck as soon as you are bare. his hand slides down to the waistband of your pants, fingers dipping past it. jihoon presses open-mouthed kisses to your skin, eager to reefamiliarize himself with your body entirely. his nips at the curve of your tit, and then his mouth is suckling at a pebbled nippple.

you whine against him. you run your hands overh im. you feel the curve of his own pecs, feel the flat plane of his stomach, still hidden by his shirt. you tug at his tie, and then you’re molding your hand against his straining erection.

jihoon groans against you. “careful,” he says.

“we shouldn’t get too carried away,” you return. your fingers find the button of his trousers nonetheless. it’s the easiest thing to pop it through the hole, loosening his pants. “we should go home. anyone could walk in.”

“‘oh, the agony,’” jihoon says, and then he’s turning you around and pressing you against the table.

he’s quick to pull your pants and underwear to your ankles. jihoon helps you step out of them, leaving them in a discarded mess by the leg of the table.

he smooths his hands over your legs and thighs as he stands, his tough heavy and warm. jihoon positions you; slides his hand along your leg and pushes it up onto the table, foot dangling over the edge.

he slides two of his fingers inside of your pussy. you clench down on the intrusion, biting down on your lip.

“don’t –” you sigh out, turning over your shoulder to look at him. “i’m ready.”

jihoon blinks at you for a moment, and then he’s cursing. “slut,” he says, though his lips twitch up into a grin.

he doesn’t bother undressing all the way. you can feel the fabric of his pants bunch against your ass when his cock is buried deep inside. his cock stretches you so delightfully. you feel as if you’re finally whole after an eternity of missing something.

maybe you really are a slut.

jihoon slides his dick out slowly, making you feel every centimeter of his cock. the glide is nearly on the side of too-dry, but your eyes roll back nonetheless, nails scraping against the wood of the table.

“fuck,” he breathes out, and then he’s punching his dick back into your pussy.

you rock forward on the table, the edge of it digging into you. you don’t mind it. instead you push back, meeting his thrust.

“missed you,” jihoon says. you wonder if he’s talking about your pussy. you wouldn’t blame him if he was: you missed his cock, afterall.

you missed out his dick feels within you, heavy and stretching you out. you missed how he fucks into you, how his hips slap against your ass. you missed the sting of him fucking you, the sting of skin against skin coupled with the electric sparks of pleasure that shoot through you when the blunt head of his cock hits your g-spot.

jihoon fucks you as if you were reuniting. which, you suppose, you are. he fucks you as if he’s treasuring each thrust, as if he’s making sure each rock of his hips is perfect to make up for lost time.

you can feel the fabric of his shirt when jihoon presses his front against your back. his black tie dangles beside your face. he uses his weight to keep you against the table, his hips picking up pace.

he practically jackrabbits into your pussy, hips frantic.

“missed you,” he says, and then he’s grabbing your face to press another open-mouthed kiss to your lips. there’s no finesse: it’s just as messy as the way he fucks you. spit slides from mouth to mouth, tongues meeting and tangling.

he’s devouring you, you realize. he’s gobbling you up, owning you inside and out.

jihoon reaches down, his fingers finding your clit easily. he slips his fingers against your clit, the wetness of your pussy making the glide easy. his fingers against your clit are just as frantic as his hips fucking into you, and the combined sensation brings your orgasm crashing down around you more quickly than you would like.

he slows his hips to a stop as you cum around his cock, whining high at the back of your throat. it’s overwhelming. you haven’t cum around his dick in months. his cock stretches you still, and every minute shift of your hips back against him has his dick pressing against all the sensitive places.

“good?” his voice is raspy against your hair.

you nod.

jihoon pulls back, and you hiss at the feeling of his dick leaving your pussy.

he doesn’t stay gone for long. jihoon maneuvers you onto your back. he grabs each of your thighs, holding them up and baring you to him. you can feel the juices of your release as they slide down your cunt.

he thrusts back in. immediately you’re tossing your head back against the table, eyes rolling back. your toes curl.

jihoon hooks your legs over the crook of each of his arms, and then he’s setting a harsh pace once again. his grunts are loud againsts the quiet of the room, the slapping of skin against skin sending heat rushing up towards your face. you feel too high strung, feel as if your neurons and electrons are buzzing around underneath your skin. you want to move away from his cock and how it tortures you, pressing against your g-spot as sensitivity rears its ugly head; you want to fuck down onto his dick until you’re unable to walk.

when jihoon cums, it’s copious. it’s too much. you feel his dick throb within you as he spills, filling you with hot seed. it’s so much; you want more.

jihoon pulls his dick from your pussy only once he’s finished. he isn’t done with you, though.

he slaps his palm against your cunt, the sensation acute and electric.

you want to cry. you don’t want him to ever stop.

jihoon slaps your cunt again, and then he’s hooking three of his fingers inside of your pussy. he thrusts him inside in the same fashion he did his cock: harshly, roughly. the sting of his knuckles against your flesh isn’t unlike the sting of his hips.

when you cum, it’s with a loud sob. he presses the fingers of his free hand against your clit, rubbing it once more while his fingers keep pressing up against your g-spot, relentless in his mission of wringing you dry.

after it’s over, you hold out your arms.

jihoon gathers you into his embrace easily, pressing a kiss to your forehead. you know you should hurry and dress, know that it’ll be a matter of time before someone wanders into the room.

you don’t care.

instead you just bask in the attention of your boyfriend, forehead pressing to his shoulder.

#svthub #ksmutsociety #my writing #✏️— writing #lee jihoon x reader #lee jihoon fic #lee jihoon oneshot #woozi x reader #woozi fic #woozi oneshot #lee jihoon smut #woozi smut #svt #svt x reader #svt smut #svt oneshot #svt fic

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oceansblvds · 10 months

Note

I SENT THE ASK ABT TEACHER CORYO IM BEGGING YOU TO WRITE TA/PROFESSOR SNOW 😝

OKOKOK IM GONNA WRITE SOME HEADCANONS BUT I MIGHT HONESTLY EXPAND THIS INTO A FULL FIC BC im a whore!

warning(s): nsfw, obsessive behavior, lowkey an abuse of power

coriolanus, almost out of university, was selected to teach a higher level math class on the account of dr. gaul saying he needed a little bit more experience with teaching and leadership if he was to be head gamemaker. so, he was a TA, teaching under a professor but was basically given full rein with the class, as the professor seemed to focus more on research than teaching the class. the second he was in the lecture discussion, he saw you walk in. you were a junior, just a year under him in university and god were you beautiful. almost mouth wateringly so. it made him sick in the head at how pretty you were.

and gods above, you were smart, almost as smart as he was (though he wouldn't ever admit that) and it was clear that you liked him. you always smiled when he complimented your high scores on tests and quizzes, and would read the notes that he put in the margins of your essays with a glimmer in your eyes. he needed to talk to you, needed to be closer to you, and the only way that he could think of was to give you slightly lower marks on your essays and homeworks. never on a test, he would never want to drop your grade low enough for it to be concerning, but he did wait for you to stumble into his office hours. and you did. you asked him how you could do better on the material, and he told you that he'd help you.

he didn't have an office, only a classroom that he was lent during his office hours in the top floor of the math building. it was there that you would meet him, every tuesday and thursday, to go over problems. he liked the way that your lip would be bitten in between your teeth when you were looking at a particularly hard problem, or when you would look at him with your big doe eyes when you asked him for help. and whenever you asked him for help, he would lean closer, and explain it to you.

one day, he finally got the courage to make a move. you asked him for help and he placed his hand on your thigh, as if he was using it to keep himself steady as he leaned over. but instead of watching him explain on the paper, you kept your attention on his face. and then he pushed his hand further up your thigh, under your skirt, and you didn't stop him. your hand came to his and you pushed it up until it was cupping your pussy. he fingered you right then and there, hoping beyond hoping that no one else would walk into his office hours for help. the two of you made out while he fingered you, going as far as to press three fingers into you, with a squelching sound, your moans echoing through the room softly.

that became somewhat of a normal thing. you two always met during his office hours, until you decided to go to his home one day for some extra tutoring. it ended with you in his large bed with your legs spread, while he put his fingers in your mouth as he fucked you with such fervor that you were sure you were going to break.

sometimes when he was grading papers, you would slink under his desk and pull his cock out, spitting on the tip and bobbing your head up and down until he gave you the attention you wanted. he always fantasized about you doing this when he was teaching another class, with you working him with your mouth as he sat on his desk and no one else knew the wiser. he would have to try that with you one day.

lots of words like how dirty you were for sleeping with your teacher. "you're such a needy thing, aren't you?" "show me how good you've gotten" when you were riding him. "you probably fantasize about my cock in class, don't you?" it was all so derogatory. and other times he would praise you. he would tell you how smart and beautiful you were. he would let you cum when you got a problem right while he sat under the desk, eating you out. when you got a problem wrong, he would stop, and no amount of begging would get him to continue unless you continued your work.

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow smut #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus x you #tbosas #the hunger games #tom blyth #angelica talks!!

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space-atrium · 1 month

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Jiuyuan (scumcum) au where something goes wrong when the system trys to plop sy into sj body

(It arrives to early)

They end up in this mind-void space with the system; sy and sj start arguing with the system.

Somehow sj convinces the system to give him the protag Halo, but the system also has to shift around the other character halos to accommodate this.

(Something something pidw already happened as a written story there for this version of the world is different ect ect)

As a consequence, the system gives Sy a love interest halo because all others are fixed to characters or violate some rule about transmigrators, but there's plenty of li-halos to go around!

Unfortunately giving sj the protag Halo turns the story's genre into a tragedy, neither shen want this, they want a different genre.

But the system actually isn't in charge of classifying genres, it can give missions and change character classification.

So the system makes sy an oracle, his mission to aide sj if they want to change the story's genre. The system release them back into the world, sy is just tossed somewhere in a freshly new adult body, inevitably gets trapped somewhere.

Sj first mission from the system: find sy!

Meanwhile sqh gets an alert from his system for an account upgrade.

His options are; upgrade his account to vip admin* and lose all acquired b points, or Continue with current status

(*Conditions apply)

I don't see sqh willing charging his system status so something will have to happen to force him.

This stuff all happened while sy and sj where in the mind-void space.

So sj mission, he has to leave the sect to do it, the system is unhelpful in giving info on where sy is, sj has to search by himself. When he finds sy, hes been imprisonment by some rogue cultivators??(villain of the week goons??).

(Sy had barley been in this world for a week when he got captured for being an oracle, Sj finds him almost a month later) Sj discovers that sy has a first level golden core and of course gets pissed about it, sy never even worked for that while sj still doesn't have one.

Sy like 'chill I know where all the overpowered cultivation boosters are; the system gives a new mission: help sj advance to golden core level 1 with oracle powers!

(It's more complicated then that; getting the right booster depends on, time of day, faze of moon, time of season, type of cultivation- spiritual or physical, or even if you have demon ancestry)

What follows is a quest that takes much longer then it should, getting sidetracked, lost, attacked, kidnapped… Sj has been away from the sect much longer than he said he would (yes sj did get his cultivation booster eventually).

Funny thing, sy has this stat according to the system called: GODs favorite (derogatory). He's gods favorite hater.

Sqh after going through things on his updated account finds out there are other system users! And he can contact them through his system!!

(And that someone else has the protag Halo!!??)

Sj and sy randomly get a notification for "message from GOD" yelling ensures.

Yes sy is sqh's oracle

#svsss #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #shen yuan #shang qinghua #jiuyuan #scumcum #scum villian self saving system #scum villain #ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong #svsss au #protag halo sj au #atrium aus #the system did give sy actual oracle powers #he wont realize untill later when he starts knowing things that weren't in the book

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megaderping · 2 months

Text

Persona 5 fandom, I beg of you, please stop with the casual (and likely very unintentional) ableism. This is less about one specific person and an overall trend I see whenever people post bad takes on Akechi. Going "Akechi is a murderous psychopath" is harmful because it spreads an unfair stigma about psychopathy and mental illness in general as this "crazy" and violent thing, which has been normalized for far too long. And also, it's just not true. Anyone who thinks Akechi is this "remorseless psycho" (keeping in mind this use of the term isn't great) simply does not have more than a surface level reading of the character. His missable November texts make it abundantly clear that he is not happy with what he's doing under Shido. Which, granted, HIGHLY missable text. You have to basically delay Sae's Palace and not go in at all until mid-November. Engine room, 12/24, multiple times in third sem... his remorse is there, it's just subtle or not presented as shaking and crying and begging for forgiveness, because he's a guarded mess of a person (with deep psychological scars, make no mistake- this is not a healthy kid). But even without those texts, there are plenty of times where these feelings are conveyed. His sad reaction when Morgana explains changes of heart (if he had known sooner), his regrets in the engine room and lamentations about Joker's freedom, and I basically did a whole meta post breaking down the important visual and spoken symbolism to Akechi's character that gets boiled down to "hehehe crazy murder boy". Hate or dislike him? Cool, sure, but the normalization in fandom communities of just throwing around mental illness related terms in a derogatory fashion... really isn't good? Like even if Akechi was literally a psychopath or sociopath or had npd or other specific mental illnesses, that doesn't inherently make him evil, nor does it erase his victimhood, which is so integral to his role in the story.

He killed people, yes. That's not really up for debate, and yes he gets feral and over the top in third sem... but that's just over the top edgelord behavior directed at Shadows and focusing only on that ignores everything else he says and does in third sem, yet it happens so much (even though other Phantom Thieves, like Haru, have fun fighting Shadows too). Are we just gonna ignore all the times he's cool, collected, and reasonable in third sem to throw around this antiquated and hurtful idea of what the word "psychopath" means? ._. Just... blarg. I've made many Akechi rambles/rants, but the normalization of ableism surrounding him is not great? I think it's mostly down to ignorance and lack of media literacy, but yeah. Plus it's kinda fucked up how little weight is placed on Shido for teaching him how to do shutdowns (his own admission), the fact that the moment Akechi revealed himself to Shido, he was screwed, because this is a man who took a bump on the head as a reason to ruin Joker's life.

Idk. I think it's not just a P5 fandom trend, even, because it's so normalized the same way people think OCD is this funny quirky mental condition because of shows like Monk when it's an actual disability that can deeply affect people in horrible ways... Mental health awareness is good is all I'm saying.

#discourse #goro akechi #persona 5 #dorkvents #persona 5 royal #cw: ableism

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runningfrom2am · 10 months

Text

leveling the playing field XII

summary: with nowhere else to go after getting caught cheating to help lucy gray, you both make some desperately stupid decisions.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.2k

tags/warnings: capitol brat!reader, maybe slightly ooc coryo, idk i tried my best. do they love each other or hate each other? who knows (we do, kind of). use of a derogatory term (pr*stitute) implications and mentions of abuse, so read with caution!! also a little bit of swearing but that's neither here nor there. oh, and manipulation (both of them lowkey)

masterlists // nav // requests

a/n: nothing much to say other than thank you guys and i hope you like it :)

series masterlist

"Coryo!" You grin, running out of the house and down the front porch steps, throwing your arms around his shoulders as soon as you can reach him. It had only been a few days since you'd seen him, but you had to do what you had to do. Truth be told, you did miss him, though.

He chuckles as he catches you, carefully letting you down after a moment. "Hey, Y/N/N, how's it going?"

"I'm good." You grin, turning back at the sound of people laughing inside the house. "You have to come in to meet Ash. He's gonna come with us today, and Lucy Gray is packing a picnic! It's gonna be so fun."

"Who?" Coriolanus asks, but you're already gone, heading back up to the house. An uneasy feeling settles in his gut as he follows you, shoving his hands into his pockets as he enters the home. The kids are trying to gather things into bags, and Lucy Gray is packing some food to bring with the group out to the meadow.

You, on the other hand, are wrapped around the arm of a boy who looks like he belongs in the Capitol Zoo. "Coryo, this is Ash. We met at the Hob the other night." You explain, looking between the two of them as Coriolanus clenches his jaw.

"Nice to meet you." He says through gritted teeth, reaching out out of habit to shake the boy's hand. He's got dark hair, and somehow darker eyes. Immediately, he doesn't trust him.

"You too, man. Love the peacekeeper getup." He chuckles, shaking his hand briefly and Coryo quickly recoils to wipe his hand on his pants.

"Oh, Coryo is a peacekeeper." You explain, smiling up at Ash as he drapes an arm around your waist.

"We're in the business of trusting those monsters now?" Ash asks, somehow maintaining a lighthearted tone. Like it was a joke, like Coriolanus was nothing more than his position.

"Only a couple." You laugh, shocking Coryo completely. Not so much as a word in his defense while this district trash said such horrible things about him. He was back to not even being able to recognize you. "Coryo is my best friend. We've known each other since we were kids. Sejanus too."

Best friend... That's it?

"That makes sense then." Ash nods, and Coryo stands up taller as Ash not so subtly sizes him up.

"You know, Sejanus has been awfully chummy with Billy Taupe and his friends. Ash is one of them." You say to Coryo quietly, taking up the rear of the Covey as all of you walk out to the meadow behind the house. "Have you noticed?"

He hums in acknowledgment, thinking it over. "It is odd." He agrees. He has noticed your mutual friend sneaking away on any nights out they could spare, and just generally being more cagey than usual. And it makes more sense that his name would mean anything to your new friend.

"Have you asked him about it?"

"No." He shakes his head. "You should, though. He trusts you more."

"That's not true." You laugh. "You are his best friend, after all."

"As are you." He raises an eyebrow at you.

"Oh, please. He throws that term around too loosely." You roll your eyes playfully.

"And you don't?" He asks, obviously referring to how you called him your best friend earlier. It's working. This was evidence that referring to him that way was driving him crazy- you had him wrapped around your finger, and you loved the feeling.

"Nope." You grin, bumping him with your shoulder. "Have I told you the haircut is really working for you? Because it is."

"Thank you. It wasn't by choice." He explains, smiling at the compliment but shrugging it off.

"I figured." You laugh, reaching up to run your hand over his shaved head. "I miss your curls, though..."

"Y/N! Come here!" Ash calls from up ahead, walking backward now as he waves for you to join him.

"Coming!" You call back, immediately ditching Coryo to catch up with him.

Coryo cringes at how his boots sink into the dirt and how you let Ash yell at you like that. Like you were a dog. You'd hardly known the guy for a few days and he's already talking down to you, Coryo is appalled at your taste. You run up to Ash, immediately reaching up and sticking your hand in his unbrushed hair. If Coryo was a brunette and didn't shower ever, that's probably what his hair would look like. It made him nauseous.

The following night, after Coriolanus complained endlessly to you about the birds he had to spend most of his days trapping, you had a stroke of absolute genius. He really, really hates those birds, just as much as you can tell he already hates Ash.

As the sun is setting over the field surrounding the hanging tree, you tell Lucy Gray you're going for a walk, and off you go into the woods with only your mind to keep you company.

They'd set so many traps it was unbelievable, and a good amount had trapped some of the songbirds inside. They were beautiful creatures, timid, too, for birds who were typically so vocal. They were products of the Capitol, so that would only make sense. You were careful not to make a sound as you opened every trap you could reach. You could just hope that by the time Coryo and his group arrived in the morning, they hadn't been trapped again.

You knew this was likely considered treason, interfering with government projects, but you didn't have a whole lot to lose, and seeing the frustration on Coryo's face when he ranted about how stubborn these birds were made the risk well worth it. It wasn't the revenge you were used to doling out to people who had wronged you, but you had been working on changing, after all.

After setting free no less than twenty birds that blew your hair back out of your face as they shot out of their cages, occasionally thanking you by singing your footsteps back to you or clawing at your arms, you made your way back to the street to head back to Lucy Gray's home.

You sucked your teeth over the stinging in your skin from the small cuts and scrapes that nnow littered your forearms. You suddenly understood why Coriolanus hated the creatures. They were beautiful singers, but clearly so inconsiderate. They'd be trapped again anyways, you were just delaying the inevitable to piss off your friend. They got scratches on you, but your people would still win the war.

You lift the excess fabric of your skirt to pat the beading and drying blood off of your arms as you walk. The town was quiet, only a few people scattered around very rarely. Either homeless or drunk, minding their business as you silently made your way down the dimly lit streets toward the seam. You recognize you're almost home when you pass the Hob, through the alley where Coriolanus graced you with his subpar apology. Squinting toward that same back exit as the door creaks open, you move across the alley to hug the opposite wall as you walk, trying to mind your business.

"Yeah, okay. I'll arrange for that. Thank you, yeah. We'll work it out. I promise." Was that... Sejanus? Your theory is confirmed when the speaker steps out into the alley. It was quiet, a weeknight. If the Hob had been open, it was deadly quiet by this hour.

"Sejanus?" You call out, speaking without thinking.

The boy jumps, slamming the door behind himself and looking toward you quickly. "Y/N? What are you doing here?" You can see the panic in his eyes as you get closer, tucking your bloody and exposed arms behind your back.

"Just out for a walk. I wanted to look at the stars." You nod up to the unpolluted and clear sky to accentuate your point. The sky didn't look like this at home. "What about you?"

"Oh! Uh, same." He lies. "It sure is beautiful out tonight."

"It is." You agree, looking up at the stars for a beat while you cross your arms over your chest in the silence. "Who were you talking to?"

As he panics you try and tuck your arms back once more, the stinging of movement reminding you of why you hid them in the first place. "Just, uh, no one. Myself."

You hum in response. Sejanus made his fake story hard to believe. "Why don't you trust me?" You ask, tilting your head at him. "I feel like after all we've been through, you should trust me more."

"I do trust you." He replies quickly. "It's less about that, more about... I don't want you to get involved. It's better for you."

"Is Coriolanus involved?"

"No. No, he doesn't know anything. Same as you."

You nod slightly, looking him up and down. "Well... If you need help or you're in a tough spot, come to us, okay? There are few people you can trust out here. We have to have each other's backs."

"No, no, it's not like that." He assures you. "But okay. If I need help, I'll ask."

You smile. "Well, you better get back. Don't want to get caught out so late."

"You too, Sage."

You chuckle, giving him a quick wave as you walk back away from him.

Even in the dim lighting, he could see the marks across your arm that you tucked away with your turn, sauntering away casually in the direction of your current home on the Seam.

Coriolanus was walking a beat alongside the market almost a week later, the one his bunkmate usually took, but today he was too hungover to crawl out of bed. Coryo didn't have the stomach to watch you drool all over that district boy today, so he decided to just take the shift for his new friend instead of bothering to see you. Maybe, this would result in Beanpole owing him a favour anyway, and that was always nice to have.

It was a Thursday, so not all that busy at the market. It was mostly just mother's gathering food and supplies, which left him incredibly bored for most of the morning. He was wallowing in his self-pity when something finally drew his attention. Your laugh. He would know it anywhere. He scans the street again, posture straight as he tries to track you down, which doesn't take long.

Of course, there you are with your new friend, his arm over your shoulder as you hold his hand against your chest. God, Coriolanus hopes you don't spot him. He looks straight ahead, chewing on the inside of his cheek and wishing he could disappear. You were torturing him, the fact that you couldn't see that, or you just didn't care, was driving him insane. It was worse than if you had just stayed in the Capitol.

Now, he can't help but focus on your voice on the mostly quiet street.

"No, I know!" You giggle, looking sideways at Coriolanus who stood at the edge of the street. You're sure by now he had seen you. You didn't know he would be here, normally he wouldn't, but it makes the task of agreeing to spend time with Ash more bearable. At least it was for a reason. "I've never touched a mandolin before, how could they expect me to pick it up in one night?"

"Well, I'd sure be surprised if you could. No one learns that fast." Ash replies, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. You hate it, you want to shove him off and hit him where it hurts, but you can't. At least Coryo was here to witness it.

"True." You nod, walking with him slowly past the stalls, browsing at some of the small trinkets and goods they had. It seemed to be all random things, which was foreign to you. Back home, every store had a purpose, even after the war the Capitol held onto this sophistication. "This is so pretty!" You smile, spinning out from under his arm to get a closer look at a dress someone had made. It was shorter than your skirt, typically one that would be worn by a child in this region, but it was oversized enough that you could wear it and it would land mid-thigh.

"How much is this?" You ask the woman sitting behind the wooden table, holding up the dress that she had clearly made.

"Forty." She answers, nodding to you. "It's steep, but I put a lot of work into it. It'll last your daughter a long time."

"Oh, no." You giggle, shaking your head. "I was thinking for me." You say, lifting part of the fabric to admire the stitches.

"For you?" Ash asks, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Yes, what do you think?" You reply, holding it up in front of you. "I like the red accents. It's beautifully made."

"You'll look like a damn prostitute," Ash replies without missing a beat. "That's what I think."

You bite your lip, face going red as you look down at it draped against your body. You're not sure if it's from anger or embarrassment. You sigh, folding it up again and turning to the woman who looks shocked. "I'll take it." You smile suddenly, placing it back down while you dig out some cash from your pocket, handing her fifty. "And don't worry about making change, I just hate carrying coins around."

"Thank you, dear. You enjoy." She smiles gratefully, taking the money and tucking it away in her pocket. You nod at her, and before you even turn around with the new dress under your arm you feel a firm grip on your skin, yanking you away from the stall and into a side street.

"Hey! Let me go!" You shout, trying to peel Ash's grip from your arm where it's digging in so tight it's already flushing the areas and opening your healed scratches from the birds, smearing the drops of blood across your skin.

"No, you listen to me." He says, dropping your arm in favour of pointing a finger right in your face as you're backed up against the wall. "If you're gonna be my girl, I'm not letting you walk around like some kind of whore. Do you understand?" He says, clearly fumingly angry by now.

You laugh, rolling your eyes. "You don't scare me, you're a district-born loser with no fucking job! How dare you try and tell me what to do with my-"

You're cut off when he smacks you. You take a shaky breath, instinctively holding the side of your face where his palm made contact. You feel your confidence faltering with the heat pulsing under your skin, and with your eyes closed in this back alley, suddenly you're back home. But you're not. You're not home, and he's not your father, and here, you're free. You're gonna kill him.

You open your eyes and stand up straighter, looking him dead on as your chest heaves with anger. You shove him back, pulling your arm back in his moment of shock to take a proper swing at him as he scrambles to push you back up against the wall. In your rage, you failed to account for the fact that he was much bigger than you.

"Hey! Back off her! Now!" Coriolanus shouts, clicking the safety off his gun before Ash can lay another hit on you, gun aimed unwaveringly at the boy as he quickly walks toward the two of you.

Ash panics, and you feel this as the forearm he had pressed up against your throat, pinning you to the wall loosened its hold and you shoved him off just in time for Coryo to push his way between the two of you, the barrel of his gun now inches from Ash's nose.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Hey, we're cool. I didn't do nothin' to her."

Coriolanus is fighting every urge to just pull the trigger on the loaded weapon in his hands. For you. For this asshole hurting you, for touching you, for the crime of even looking at you, he should do it. He breathes heavily, every muscle in his jaw constricted so tightly he's sure it'll ache for weeks.

You watch over your friend's shoulder, watching the gears turning in his head. Do it, you want to tell him, but even in your anger you can see that's irrational, so you keep your mouth shut.

Coryo sighs, lowering his weapon to use it to gesture to the street. "Get out of here." He mumbles, deciding to let him go. "And never so much as look at her again, understand?" You're almost a little disappointed as Ash spits on the ground at your feet, starting to walk away when Coryo turns the gun faster than you can process and jabs the butt end of it into Ash's face. A chilling crack echoes out against the crumbling walls surrounding you and he hits the ground, unconscious with an obviously broken nose.

Coryo is panting as he turns back to you, quickly throwing the gun back over his shoulder. "Are you okay?" He asks, reaching out and holding your shoulders, hands running down your arms quickly to look over the injuries. "Did he do this to you?" He looks over the scattered cuts and scratches. He could tell they were healing, and they were inconsistent with what could be done with a blade or a man-made weapon, so he deducts quickly that you must have fallen into the wrong bush or something. Maybe when you were gardening.

You shake your head quickly, eyes locked on the boy on the ground.

"Hey, no, look at me. Are you okay?" Coryo asks again, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look at him. He nods expectantly, waiting for you to answer.

"Yes. Fine." You whisper shamefully, giving a slight nod under his gentle hold.

"C'mere..." He mutters, pulling you closer to hug him. He sighs, holding the back of your head and gently smoothing down your hair. It shocks him when you start to shake, trying to muffle your crying in the fabric of his uniform. He shouldn't have waited so long. He took his eyes off you for less than a minute to maintain his own sanity, and this is what happened.

You knew you were safe with Coryo, this was your fault for straying from that over some petty anger. He had betrayed you, sure, but he told you it was because he only wanted to help. If you had listened, none of this would have happened. You should have known he was right. At least he hadn't abandoned you, he'd even saved you. You were lucky he was even around.

"He hit me." You sniff through sobs, gripping tightly onto the back of his grey uniform. "I didn't, I don't know why, I-"

"Hey, hey, hey..." Coryo shushes you, pressing his lips to the top of your head. "I've got you. You're safe now. I'm here."

"I'm sorry..." You sniff, overtaken by the foolishness of your own decisions. For denying your feelings for him in a way that only resulted in hurting the both of you.

Coryo has to fight back a smile as he takes in the familiar scent of your hair. "Don't be." He whispers, kissing your head. "I'll always protect you."

You nod against his chest, locking yourself firmly into his grasp. Even as your blood dried and stuck to his coldly grey uniform, you found it hard to let him go.

taglist: @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @klplynn , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @gloryekaterina , @andrewgarfieldsbitch ,��@queenofspades6 , @pepperonipastas , @ladybug0095 , @lunamothwrites , @sbrewer21 , @mus-tbe-a-weasley , @splxtscreen , @unclecrunkle , @karmaswitch , @coconut-dreamz , @nekee-lilac02 , @ooooglymoooogly , @riddlerloveb0t , @lovedbalances , @notyourwildestdream , @snowlandson-top , @too-lit-for-fanfic , @utopiakys , @deafeningballoonnacho , @roosterschanelslut , @chmpgneprblem , @cosmoetik , , @urvampgfsworld , @carolanns-world @nan-nie , @shakespearseclipse , @iovemoonyy , @notyoursweetheart-honey , @xyzstar , @eatpizzasass, @slytherinholland , @queenofshinigamis , @elodiebeau , @soulessjourney

i've closed my taglist for coryo now!! sorry to everyone who wanted to be added, but unfortunately there was significantly more demand than i expected and i sadly just can't tag everyone. BUT! if you still want notifications when i post for this fic, please turn on my post notifs!!

#tbosas #tbosas x reader #ballad of songbirds and snakes #thg series #tbosas fic #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus fanfiction #the hunger games

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igotanidea · 1 year

Text

Bonding: Damian Wayne x sister!reader

Request: from the prompt list : 4: "Didn't know you liked being pinned to the ground this much

Warning: nothing, it;s just fun and fluff, most likely set in the WFA universe.

***

„What happened to you two?” Dick could barely hold back the terror in his voice upon watching his younger siblings. Jason however was not so considerate and straight forward started laughing at Y/N and Damian, the former with the nose swollen and red like a Rudolf and the latter with childish patches all over his forearms.

“Have you two escaped the circus? Sure as hell with such look you would fit there!” he let out a laugh so loud it captured the attention of no one else than Bruce, who became alerted in an instant. It wasn’t usual for Jason to be this happy and chuckling and it was …. suspicious.

Similar to Dick’s, his face dropped upon seeing his kids in such damaged state and just sighed deeply.

“What did you do?” he rubbed his forehead, looking up to the sky probably wondering what mistake did he make (well, the question should have been – what mistake didn’t he make?). Never before had he looked so fatherly, like when Y/N and Damian started their mischief.

Y/N was the middle child, younger than Dick and Jason, but older than Tim and Damian, but Bruce could swear that sometimes she acted like a literal five year old. Especially when any of her brothers started messing up with her things. Especially when Damian did. No one could ever tell what atrocities she could resort to when he grabbed something that wasn’t his.

“It was all his fault!” Y/N cried out, her voice muffled by the swollen nose and she sounded more like a wounded animal rather than a human being.

“I am beyond your level, Y/N and cannot be blamed for…..”

“SIT!” Bruce growled in desperation, but neither of his kids listened. If anything they started bantering even more.

“Not many parental successes on your account, right Bruce?” Jason mocked, but the oldest Wayne didn’t bother answering. Instead he grabbed Damian by the collar and yanked him back and in the air so his feet started dangling above the ground. Luckily Y/N was too tall to do that to her as well.

“This is derogatory” Damian crossed his arms and pouted, the funniest look of her brother making Y/N laugh loudly “put me down, father so I can kick her ass again and….”

“Again?” Bruce eyes focused on his youngest son “what do you mean, again?”

“Nothing!” Y/N chimed in, desperate to keep some kind of secret

“Oh, are you ashamed to admit you got beaten by me in the combat, dear sister?”

“Shut up you little rascal!” Y/N threw herself at him, but this time it was Dick who grabbed her and hold her back

“What did he do?” Grayson asked, knowing well enough how much of a menace Damian could be

“NOTHING!” the boy struggled against his father’s grip

“Who’s afraid to admit what now?!” Y/N smirked at him.

“Ok, that’s it” clearly it was Jason who lost patience first “talk or I’ll draw blood.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” His sister threw him a daring gaze

“Wanna try me, sis? You already got a swollen nose and I can bet that this guy you like…..”

“SHUT UP JASON!”

“wait, there’s a guy?” Bruce was confused “who is he? Why didn’t I met him? How much does he know about us?”

“Not the time, Bruce!”

“LET ME GO DICK!!”

“Sorry, sunshine can’t really do that. Unless you tell us what happened.”

“fine!” she hissed “fine! I’ll tell you!”

An hour ago

“DAMIAN WAYNE!” her voice echoed through the whole Wayne Manor and made the glassed windows shake. Honestly, how could no one in the family of vigilante hear that was beyond her. “you little piece of shit, where the hell are you!?”

“Have you called me sister?” Damian emerged from his room, looking nothing but innocent with the play-pretend smile. But Y/N knew better. She was fairly aware that he was skillful in using that Wayne gene trying to charm people. Too bad his eyes were glistening with mischief.

“You can’t play me, you demon.”

“Did something happened?” he titled his head in curiosity, observing his sister getting more and more angry. Oh, how entertaining it was to see her face get red, her fist clench. Fascinating how girl’s hormones worked.

But clearly, he underestimated Y/N. Yes, she was an emotional young woman surrounded by no less than four brothers, but she was also an adopted Wayne. And the realization of that fact made her calm down. Damian wanted her to get mad. Which meant he had some sort of plan.

“My little, sweet, wonderful, lovely brother.” She quickly changed the method of acting

“Huh?” Damian frowned, still not used to people acting nice towards him. This was…. unexpected. Y/N was clearly cunning and he had to be prepared.

“Tell me, did you happen to see my phone somewhere around?”

“No.” the answer was clearly too fast to be convincing.

“Really?” she smiled and looked over his shoulder inside his room. The perks of being taller and seeing more. “Then what is lying there on your desk?”

“That’s mine.”

“Damian…..” her voice became serious, her posture tensing “give it back to me. Now.”

“No.” he crossed arms, mimicking her position. Oh, they were both preparing for a fight, neither even beginning to consider the option of relenting. “does father know about your little crush?”

“YOU WERE READING MY TEXTS?!!?”

“Do you even realize in how much danger you put us because of your silly little….”

“AH!!” he did not get to finish the sentence when she went at him taking him by surprise. However, not enough of a surprise that he didn’t manage to step back. Instead of pining him to the ground she tripped and dashed into his room, immediately reaching towards the bed to grab her mobile, but Damian grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

“You little rascal!” she yelled, when they started a real Batman-style fight. “It’s mine!”

“it’s a violation of the rules!” he spat back “we’re not supposed to be in a relationship with civilians!”

“what would you know about relationships?!” Y/N blocked his punch, turning around and tripping him up. “you were raised by freaking assassins!”

“How bad we don’t get to choose family, right?” he hissed, falling on his back on the ground but immediately getting up and attacking her again.

Y/N was good, skilled and intuitive, but Damian was smaller and maybe a bit faster and that’s why she did not see it coming when he glanced off the mattress and landed on her back, trying to tackle her to the ground

“GET OFF ME!” she yelled trying to untangle his arms from her neck

“Not a chance!”

They were struggling so hard that at one point this fight moved towards the corridor and with just one wrong step they started falling down the stairs, still doing their best to damage one another. Damian was pulling at Y/N hair, while she covered his eyes in an attempt to blind him. It took a few minutes of weltering, grunting and dapping before they ended up at the base of the stairs.

“Auch…..” they both moaned in unison, their bones and bones already bruised and damaged. It really did hurt.

“HAHA! I won!” Damian yelled as he realized that the position in which they landed allowed him to sit on top of her sister, his weight holding her down.

“Get off me you idiot…..” she whined trying to push him away, but not succeeding at all.

“Didn't know you liked being pinned to the ground this much, Y/N” Damian laughed at her poor, week attempt to get rid of him.

“AH!” she cried out again and started waving her hands at him, Damian instantly started the same and now they were laying on the floor, with him still on top of her, acting like toddlers and emitting battle cries.

“MASTER DAMIAN! MISS Y/N!”

Shit.

Alfred.

The butler just sighed deeply, too used to many very strange views and behaviors around the manor. Too many to care and ask questions.

“Please get up from the floor. Miss Y/N, your nose is bleeding and as for you, Master Damian you got bloody scratches all over your arms.”

“Sorry Alfred.” They followed every word Alfred said to them and stood beside him with their heads hanging low.

“Let’s patch you two up.” Alfred motioned them towards the living room, gathering medical supplied on the way.

Now.

“And he gave you a animal shaped patch!” Jason laughed so hard he had to grab his belly, almost rolling of the couch

“Didn’t you hear a word, Jace? He took her phone! She had every right to be angry and act irrational…” Dick took his sister’s site

“Hm.” Bruce grunted

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but good job on being stealthy” Jason chucked towards Damian “normally it would be Tim to try and do such thing.”

“Are you taking his side now?” Y/N’s eyes went wide “I can’t believe….. ah!” sudden outburst made her nose bleed even more and she held the nearby cloth tighter to the bruised part of her face. “mhmmmhmhm” she mumbled grumpily

“Hm” Bruce grunted again

“Aren’t you gonna say something?” Dick turned towards his father in a bit of shock. Normally Bruce would be the one to punish them both for disobeying the rules of the Manor but now he was just sitting on the couch, his mind wondering elsewhere.

“no.”

“What?!” four pair of surprised eyes landed on him in pure disbelief of how he acted.

“Wouldn’t make any difference. Another day another fight. Just…. apologize to each other. I’m going to the batcave. Dick, Jason come with me.”

“The hell I’m going to ….” Jason started but the look in Bruce eyes made him relent. And that was how Y/N and Damian ended up alone in the living room, sitting next to each other, eyes on the floor.

“Does it hurt much?” he asked

“Not much more than yesterday. I’ll be fine. “ she shrugged like nothing happened “Do you think they know?”

“About what? Our secret plan to make them all crazy and take over the manor?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“Not sure. Might need some more observation on the matter.”

“So….. we do it again tomorrow?” she smirked

“Oh, absolutely” he smiled back at her, eyes sparkling. It was always fun to fight with her.

“Then can I have my phone back?”

“Sure, I’ve seen all there was to see. “

“I hate you, Damian.” Y/N grinned looking at him

“I hate you too, sis.” He replied with a smirk

And just like that, they bumped their fists. All was good between them.

****

Meanwhile, Tim was hidden in the batcave, glued to the computer, not realizing anything of the events happening upstairs. He only raised his head once he heard Bruce, Dick and Jason entering.

“Did they do it again?” he asked seeing Bruce’s harrowed face, being enough of an answer “Ha! Life never gets boring with those two troublemakers around!”

#damian wayne x reader #damian wayne x batsis #damian wayne x you #batfamily x batsis #batboys x batsis

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coffeecatcraze · 7 months

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The way Adam has never once used Charlie's name, even though she's the only one who properly introduced herself (with him just dropping his name in conversation like he assumed she already knew it), is actually a fun detail about his character. He's this "alpha male" stereotype: aggressively heterosexual, has to be in charge, "respects women" when it suits him (for example, using women's rights to get out of paying the check)...the kind of guy who would look at a woman's name tag and then call her pet names in a derogatory way regardless. Oh, and let's not even get into how the Exorcists are an army of women trained to be powerful...and all those powerful women are directly under his control.

Compare this to Charlie, who, even after interacting with him a little bit and realizing he's awful, tries to be respectful to his position and treat him with dignity. She uses his name, to and about him, because that's the decent thing to do, even though he has given her literally no reason to show him that respect.

She's trying her best to maintain some degree of professionalism and respect, because he does have a position of power, and she's going to acknowledge it no matter how little he deserves it. But Adam, both when talking to Charlie and about her, never uses her actual name. He doesn't even use a variation of her name to insult her; he doesn't bother with her name at all. The disrespect there is so fucked-up, because she actually ranks higher in Hell than he does in Heaven, yet he still never once bothers to use her name. Because she's a demon? Because she's a woman who holds a position of power above his level and far outside his control? Because he's an asshole? Yes. Yes to all of these things.

All of which makes this moment just that much more satisfying:

Now this dickhead who's been demeaning Charlie with pet names and insults this whole time is being told to call her by her royal title in the same moment that she finally throws out those shreds of respect, professionalism, and dignity he never deserved from anyone, least of all her, in the first place. It's a tremendously satisfying moment.

(Side note: does anyone else always shudder with creeped-out disgust at the "Lilith's little hottie" line? Because I sure do )

#hazbin hotel #adam hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar

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psychhound · 8 months

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d&d 5e languages and gender

i know this is already a very nerdy blog but please indulge me a moment,,

for my homegame i've been fleshing out how different languages in the game deal with gender / pronouns based on their cultures (some of them are canon languages but some are for our setting) and it made the little nerd in me very happy so i wanted to make some headcanons for the rest of the dnd languages and share it for anyone who'd like to steal / take inspo

feel absolutely free to use these in homegames but if you use for anything streamed or for your own ttrpg/homebrew/fics then crediting/linking back is appreciated :o)

disclaimer: this blog is run by a genderqueer trans man and any queerphobic interaction will immediately be blocked

common

common started off with the standard he, she, & they pronouns but simply Loves a good loanword and so its not uncommon to hear people using pronouns from other languages in otherwise entirely common dialogue. there is some Fighting about whether this is appropriative based on the individuals culture or whether its unfair to people who only speak common to keep up with them all

dwarvish

not too much variety in what most people would consider pronouns, it tends to be more one singular neutral pronoun for someone you don't know / don't know well, and then variations that are more like honorifics than anything else. their pronoun might translate more readily to "skilled with a hammer" than anything regarding a gender

elvish

lots of pronoun options that explore different presentations of gender but they are also age/experience locked. a feminine male elf would use different pronouns as a child, teen, young adult, young adult with job, middle age, middle aged with children, etc. using pronouns from a different life experience bracket from you is incredibly frowned upon and people just dont do it

giant

there is one pronoun for giants & kin and one pronoun for not giants and the one for not giants is not derogatory at all, its just used to differentiate who is part of the family or not (individuals adopted by giants tend to use the giant pronoun)

gnomish

LOTS of variation in pronouns. gnomes love inventing new pronouns. there are general grammatical rules that they follow to Signify that its a pronoun but hearing three new pronouns a day is like. not uncommon. lots of gnomish teens go through a phase of making up at least four new pronouns they want to go by. uncommon to only go by one set. typically introduced along with your name

(more under the cut)

goblin

no gendered pronouns, all pronouns are instead structured around relations between individuals. so one person would use brother pronoun with one person, son pronoun with another, best friend pronoun to another. the family pronouns are not locked to actual family, just what the relationship is like. if you don't know someone well, its "cousin", "niece/nephew", "auntie/uncle", or "grandparent" depending on their age

halfling

pronouns are split between public and private use. in general in the community or with outsiders, there's a single pronoun that translates loosely to "friend". actual individual pronouns are only known to and used with close friends and family. there's a small handful of them and only some of them have gendered connotations

orc

there are only four categories of pronouns: masculine, feminine, both/mixed, and neither. but there's a decent amount of variations because there are varying levels of formality for each of them. there are ways to conjugate them so they're more formal and respectful, but also lots of diminutives to make them more affectionate and closely-bonded

abyssal

no use of pronouns. lots of very specific derogatory terms that are used in place of them. i shant elaborate.

celestial

lots of variations in pronouns. they are not very closely tied to gender, but are tied to very specific aesthetics. instead of having individual pronoun words, in celestial you just use root words. so one person might use the root word for things that are soft and gentle and natural for their pronoun, while another person might use the root word for things associated with dark and murky and mysterious things for theirs. tend to be tied to domains

draconic

no use of pronouns, only names and titles. if you happen to share a name with another individual who speaks draconic, you would need a unique title to go after it. the full name and full title is said at every reference of someone

deep speech

deep speech has pronouns probably but hearing them for any individual you dont share a close identity group with makes you violently nauseous and then the word immediately leaves your mind so it's just really hard to learn them

infernal

there are words for "you", "me", "us", "we", "this one", "that one", "those ones" etc but no classic pronouns as far as individual usage goes. if someone really needs to be specific they would use whatever pronoun that individual uses in their native language. tieflings have introduced a Lot of neopronouns into infernal but theyre all borrowed from other languages and then reworked into infernal grammar and tend to be localized to communities

primordial

individuals are referred to their elemental type (or "none") rather than pronouns tied to gender. so it would be more like "the windy one" or "the rocky one" than anything like he or she

sylvan

no standard gendered pronouns, it's entirely nounself. so basically infinite amount of pronouns that are easily understood by anyone familiar with that noun. so you would have things like pebble pronoun, teapot pronoun, sword pronoun, with some general affiliations with presentation but less so with gender

undercommon

pronouns are based on level of respect and not gender, but there are also pronouns specifically used for children. like craftsmen would typically all use the same pronoun unless one was incredibly successful and respected, or had a very bad reputation, etc. there are pronouns used only for royalty and pronouns used only for deities

speak with animals

when translated into common, tends to just be translated as the animal's bio sex, but it can go a little screwy when speaking about creatures who have biological sexes so outside the humanoid concept of sex and gender that even magic dont fuckin know how to translate it. kind of just makes a weird bubbly noise in its place

if you read this far thank you thank you and if you end up using these in your campaign lore or fics i would love to know :o)

#5e homebrew #dnd 5e #dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd lore

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bloodmoonmuses · 3 months

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the weatherman's weathered heart | mark lee

genre: weatherman! mark lee x reader, enemies to lovers, slowburn

[series masterlist] [next chapter]

chapter one: coffee hit and run

This is the third time you’ve told yourself you’d stop drinking coffee, yet here you are again- preparing to do the literal opposite. Autumn has wrapped her fingers around summer’s waist, nippy morning air whistling through the crack of your bedroom window. Your cat, Luna, is napping on an armchair, making you jealous of her furnace-like warmth. You shrug on a denim jacket, a sturdy one passed down from your dad, then make your way down the block. Marnie’s, the ever beloved independent coffee shop in your hometown, is a seven minute walk from your house.

The conveniency of such is where you place blame for your lack of a backbone. It’s also on your way to work, Jagerman Printing Co., making the practice of scooping up your double americano (with a hefty splash of half and half) a staple in your morning routine.

A bell rings upon your entry and you shuffle into the short line. There’s three people in front of you: At the front of the line stands the town’s school bus driver. He gets a London fog, requesting half the amount of lavender syrup. Next is an artist type, struggling to hold a thick stack of photos in his hands as he orders his iced macchiato. You’ve seen him in your shop before, attempting to flirt with your coworker, Hongjoong, so he could get a discount on his prints. Finally, just in front of you, is a man in a suit. His hair is aggressively and artificially blonde, navy blue ensemble making it practically glimmer. He’s quite spiffy. Maybe he works at the bank, you think to yourself.

The alleged banker gets an iced americano. Triple. With an extra shot of espresso. The cashier, Marnie’s eldest daughter named Minnie, jokes that he must be really tired. The blonde man scoffs, but in agreement says, “You have no idea.” He tips generously, 4 dollars and some change, then side steps to wait for his drink.

Now it’s time to receive your poison. When she recognizes your face, Minnie says, “Your usual?”

To which you say, “Yes, please.” You tip as well, walking over to the side counter to wait. You pull out your phone, opening it to see that Hongjoong has texted you.

HJ (derogatory): This newspaper intern is clueless. Typo on the order for this week’s batch. Need more prints.

You: omw soon. Chat her up, can’t afford any negative reviews.

HJ (derogatory): No promises.

You rock back and forth on your feet, thinking about how many more newspapers the girl could possibly need. The most compelling news story you had read in the last year was about the town’s duck pond. This wasn’t exactly the New York Times. The error probably meant you’d be going into work a bit earlier tomorrow. Regardless, you liked your mundane job. Going into printing technology wasn’t the most glamourous, but where else does an affinity to paper and a concerning level of attention to detail lead you?

The menial admin work, e-mails and scheduling brought you comfort. You liked managing your little team. Some projects were more fun than others: birthday invitations, wedding save-the-dates, highschool yearbooks… Disdain only arose in you when people didn’t know how to do their job. Like this intern.

For some reason, the interns at the newspaper office across town were in and out like goldfish at a pet store. It felt like every other month you were having to explain to some poor kid how to properly put in a printing request for the coming week. Maybe you should do admin work over there. They’d probably think you were a genius. Or a magician.

You’re snapped out of your internal dialogue by the feeling of being shoulder checked. Hard. A few seconds pass, during which you register the sensation of liquid soaking through your shirt. The scent of espresso enters your nostrils and you scoff at the situation. Did someone just… spill their coffee on you?

You whip your head around, words caught in your throat, in an attempt to see who just ruined your morning. In a blur, you recognize the offender to be the blonde man who was in front of you in line. He’s running out of the door, half empty cup sloshing around in his frantic hand, while screaming into his phone.

“What?! I didn’t approve that poor excuse of a fucking article!” he says. “…Already in print? I said no, that journalist, she-”

“Hey!” You yell after him, looking at your chest in shock. “I think you spilled something!”

The bell above the door rings, signaling the alleged banker’s exit. The man doesn’t even look back, too engrossed in his argument to care.

When the adrenaline begins to fade out, you make eye contact with Minnie, who you assume saw the entire exchange from her spot behind the counter. She places your double americano on the counter, the side of the cup with your name sprawled on it facing outward. You walk up to the counter and take the warm drink.

While handing you some napkins, Minnie says, “At least his was an iced drink.” You look down at your cream colored top and the dark splotch that now adorns it. Fuck.

—

When you arrive at the printing shop, Hongjoong is beet red. The guy holds so much anger in that little body of his. He can be surprisingly intimidating, when the situation permits such.

“You do realize there’s a big difference between one hundred and one thousand, right?” Hongjoong says, voice laced with annoyance.

The mousy intern shakes. “Yeah, but– I just figured, y’know… since this is a weekly order, you might’ve realized it was a typo on your own.”

Honjoong chortles. “Oh, so it’s my fault? Newspapers are an antiquated form of media to begin with, and I’m not really sure why we continue to deal with this bullsh-”

You interject, shooting the intern an apologetic smile. “Take it easy, big man. You’re not scaring anyone in that vest,” you say. The intern stifles a scoff. “We’ll just print the rest tomorrow. No biggie.”

“Um, ‘yes biggie’. I don’t wanna work overtime. Gotta finalize the design for those marathon flyers too,” Hongjoong retorts.

He gives you the up-down, taking note of your frazzled demeanor and adds, “What’s with the stain on your shirt?”

“I’ll do it then,” you sigh. “I’ve got nothing better to do. And the stain? Don’t wanna talk about it.”

Hongjoong humphs.

Sliding behind the front counter, you place your satchel and americano down at your desk. Then, you head to the back, grabbing the boxes of newspapers you do have printed. They’re still warm from the press, the scent of the ink calming you down- if only slightly.

“Here’s a hundred copies. I’ll have the others by nine tomorrow morning. Just… be more careful next time,” you tell the intern.

“Got someone to help you carry these?” asks Hongjoong. The intern shakes her head. “I’ll carry them out. Which one’s your car?” The girl points and he promptly gathers the boxes.

“Hey, by the way,” you say to the girl, “do you know why they need an extra three hundred? The order is usually seven hundred copies a week.”

“Something about an interview with a weatherman. The moms here really like him-”

The door to the shop opens again and you think it’s Hongjoong, but when you turn, it’s the man from the coffee shop. He’s still on the phone. Great. The offender of your coffee hit-and-run is here to add insult to injury. What are the odds of that?

“Speak of the devil…” the intern says under her breath.

“I’m not exactly sure how the article got approved for print in the first place,” the man whisper-shouts into his phone. “I was told it was going to focus on my passion for meteorology or my down to earth persona. Not digging into my personal life. Whatever the intent, I want it scrapped. Entirely.”

Hongjoong now re-enters the shop, glancing at the suit-clad man, recognition flickering on his face. “Wow, we’ve got a small-town celebrity here in Jagerman’s? To what do we owe the honor?”

Finally, after hanging up the phone, the previously alleged banker says, “I’m here about the newspaper.”

“Just packed up the first batch of copies,” says Hongjoong. “Since when did you work for the newspaper?”

“I don’t work for the newspaper, I’m Mark… Mark Lee?” He says. Then, he looks at you expectantly.

Hongjoong simply laughs.

“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?” You ask, agitation rising in your chest.

“Channel 127 News? Beloved weatherman and meteorologist?” Mark continues.

Hongjoong laughs again. “A real big shot,” he says.

You shake your head. “Not ringing a bell.”

At this, the bank- weather…man scoffs incredulously. “Well if you crack open one of those newspapers, you’ll see my face all over it.”

“Ah. Popular with the moms. Well, as I told this young lady here,” you gesture to the intern, “we’ll have the rest of the copies tomorrow. There was a misunderstanding with the printing order.”

“That’s what I’m here about. I don’t want them printed.” Mark crosses his arms.

“Well, they already are,” you huff. You had cut the intern some slack, but this guy? He’s a grown man pouting over some paper. And he spilled coffee on you. Honestly, you were more upset about the latter- and the fact that Mark seemingly has no recollection of this. Are you that invisible? Forgettable?

Nevertheless, the weatherman persists. “Then I don’t want them distributed,” he says.

You cross your arms, mirroring Mark. “You have no authority over that decision.”

Mark exhales dramatically, pinching his nose bridge in frustration. “Are you always this rude to your customers?”

“Do you always spill coffee on unassuming printing technicians?” At this, Mark pauses, finally placing your face. As recognition floods his features you add, “Four shots of watered down espresso on my new shirt. It’s a shame really.” Mark’s face flushes.

“What could possibly be in this article that would make you come all the way here? The news station is on the other side of town,” you inquire.

Mark stammers. “It’s nothing-”

“An affair? Tax fraud? Oh my god, I’m the first to hear about Weatherman-Gate,” says Hongjoong.

You chuckle. “‘Small-Town Weatherman Commits Tax Fraud”. What a headline. I’d actually read that.”

“I didn’t commit tax fraud. I just… didn’t approve of the article. So that’s illegal, right?”

The intern tuts. “You undergoing the interview was the approval. No take backs.”

“‘No take backs’? Are you a toddler?” asks Mark.

“I’m 21,” she responds, chipper as ever.

“So, you are a toddler,” you and Hongjoong say in unison.

“Jinx!” exclaims Hongjoong. “Buy me a coke after my shift?” You wave off his question, returning to the issue at hand.

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t my problem,” you say.

“Look, I’m sorry I spilled coffee on you, I am, but this is my livelihood. I’d really appreciate it if-”

“You’re gonna have to go to the newspaper office,” you contend. “Like I said, this isn’t my problem.”

Mark goes quiet. As you turn to walk back to your desk, he whispers out a plea. The quiver in his voice makes you stop in your tracks.

“Please.” You spin back around to see that his eyes are now glassy. For a moment, you think he’s about to cry.

You look over to Hongjoong. He’s not having any of it. Knowing him, he probably thinks this Mark guy is full of shit. However, you (unfortunately) have empathy. Whatever’s in this article, he doesn’t want it to come out. You sigh. The admin at the newspaper isn't gonna like this one bit.

“We only have a portion of them printed,” you confess. “If you can get the editor to change the article by tonight-”

Mark erupts into a gleeful cheer, effectively cutting you off. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He engulfs you into an awkward embrace, jumping up and down like a little girl.

Hongjoong snaps a picture. “A lot of Facebook moms are gonna be jealous of you,” he says.

While in Mark’s hold, you remember the stain on your shirt. “One more thing.”

Mark immediately concedes, finally freeing you from his death grip. “Yes. Anything. I’ll do anything,” he says.

“You owe me a new shirt.”

a/n: feedback is always appreciated! thx for reading! <3

#the weatherman's weathered heart #bloodmoonmuses #mark lee fic #nct 127 #nct 127 fluff #mark lee #mark lee x reader #nct dream fic #nct dream #nct #nct mark #my fic #nct fanfic

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roadside-oddity · 1 year

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There is a Rampant and Vicious Cycle in the Online Left That Needs to Be Addressed

Every leftist needs to understand that not every proclaimed leftist is a safe person or one that is acting in good faith. Many people in this sphere --even if they are minorities themselves-- are Abusers. Let me be clear: they are Abusers REGARDLESS of --NOT because of-- them being a minority. Despite this, many of them have weaponized their standing as a minority in order to get away with their behavior and achieve what they see as some form of power and control over others. Let me be clear. I am referring to those that:

Manipulate and lie about pressing situations (especially when it's to harm another person or demographic)

Excessively use idpol to either elevate themselves to holier than thou levels ("listen to ___ people but only when it's something I agree with, which just so happens to devolve from constructive change to making others grovel and plead forgiveness endlessly before me") or belittle others (ie their skin color, gender, queerness, disability, neurodivergence, religion, age, etc.) in order to discount their point or not treat them as equal human beings; yes, even if their skin tone is white or if they are men, abuse does not have to be backed up by systemic issues in order to be abusive or at the very least harmful (sidenote: this does not apply to people talking about their experiences as a minority that is otherwise not experienced or understood by others, the issue I'm pointing out is when it's twisted to cover everything not directly tied to their identity and proclaim themselves as the only ones allowed to be the voice of reason, therefore shutting up everyone else and to avoid any constructive criticism or discussion)

Act on rage and at times even trauma to bring forth harmful ideals (ex: truly hating every person of a demographic, wishing for a genocide, making actual death or rape threats towards someone or a group, conversion, etc)(sidenote: I'm not discounting those that have trauma and even have harmful thoughts, just please seek help and understand that it is not healthy nor sustainable to paint or alter reality to be in line with what trauma makes you believe)

Actively try to get others they don't agree with to either permanently leave the internet or commit suicide and even celebrate when either happens

Excessively test others on their "purity" on unachievable standards to the detriment of everyone and Leftism as a whole (purity culture is fueled by christian culture in order to disguise doomerism, accepting defeat when change is not possible, of which is the very thing that will kill leftism)

Infight over weird made up issues (remember how divide and conquer is a war strategy? To split hairs and discount others for non-issues is to do the work of conservatives and nazis for them)

Shut down people or discussions over minor slights such as using an incorrect word/phrasing or any numerous perceived mistakes (example I've seen here: berating a person with schizophrenia (or a trans person or any other minority) for using a derogatory term for themselves when they're talking about how everyone else is speaking over them and not listening), ignoring the hypocrisy or not taking into account any number of mundane causes such as non-native english speakers, generational gaps, being in the process of learning (either recovering from harmful beliefs or simple ignorance), using those terms to prove a point (such as that example I mentioned above), neurodivergence, etc.

Not letting others talk about their experiences of oppression when those experiences don't match theirs, instead opting to call those people bigoted for contrived reasons

A rejection of nuance, intersectionalism, and even reality to better suit their goals (ex: claiming that every trans man benefits from the patriarchy and can never experience misogyny)

Misuse of therapy speak and terminology in order to water down those terms and render them near meaningless so they can weaponize them under the pretense of their original use (ex: gaslighting), or to cut off any need to connect or sympathize with other human beings and instead speak to them like a PR message (refer to this video by Zena and Poppy for reference)

They never speak on true leftist/progressive ideals or positive change, they only engage in destructive discourse or any behavior listed above

Making baseless dangerous accusations towards someone they don't like. Before you go harr harr you're doing that, I'm not calling out any specific person and am merely listing dangerous behaviors I've seen people here act out. What I am referring to are when someone casually calls someone specific a predator (or whatever else) with absolutely zero proof and expecting everyone to believe them no questions asked. This has been shown to ruin people's lives

Any other similar behaviors not included in this list (as well as classic logical fallacies), but what I've mentioned above should paint you a good picture

Every example I've pointed out were REAL EVENTS I've seen from people that proclaim themselves as leftists or even just progressive, and sometimes are even minorities themselves (some even infight against their own communities using the behaviors listed above, often out of internalized bigotry)(an example of a real event that happened here recently were when several people were making rape threats towards a trans man by the username of @a-faggot-with-opinions). To be blunt, I'm pointing out exclusionism in practically every form, asexual discourse, transandrophobia, TERFs/radfems, TEHMs, tankies, "cornbreadtube", nationalists and ethnonationalists, and all else I don't have the terminology for For many of the people that fall under that bullet list I would hesitate to even refer to them as leftist or progressive, as they never seem to actually show they act on it or even believe in it, only making an appearance in those communities for their own destructive personal gain; hell, often times they have ideals that directly go against what those communities stand for! Examples include TERFs with white supremacist beliefs, transandrophobes that are misogynistic, ethnonationalists that are antisemitic, puritans that are ableist, the list goes on forever. Once you know what to look for, you can see the hidden or overt bigotry behind their false "progressive" statements

No one is infallible No one is better than everyone else You are not immune to propaganda No one is immune from behaving abusively

These people are dangerous, whether they actually qualify as abusers --as I've been referring to them as such for brevity and impact-- or are people that are engaging in hurtful or fully abusive behavior (use this paragraph as a disclaimer, I of course can't know if someone is an abuser in real life unless there is documented evidence of such). Regardless, they are hurting the left and are letting the right win

If you see any of these behaviors either 1) take caution if you're unsure, 2) block them, or 3) if you have the fortitude, call them out. Either way, use your best judgement and think for yourself (or discuss with good faith leftists if you're uncertain). And remember, often times (albeit not always) they are actually fully aware of their disgusting behavior and are choosing to act maliciously, not ignorantly.

Stay safe, log off, do what you can to support your local community and leftism as a whole, don't let these people distract from the real issues at hand. Have empathy, if you don't have empathy then act in compassion, if you don't or refuse to do either please do not engage in politics. Misanthropy has no place in matters concerning humanity.

And remember: we have to stand together in unity so we can create a better future for all

#politics #leftism #online left #discourse #tw abuse #tw rape mention #tw genocide mention #tw bigotry #racism #transphobia #transandrophobia #purity culture #vent #this goes for several issues I haven't mentioned whether due to a lack of proper wordage or expertise due to not being part of those groups #I'm a non-native english speaker who is autistic be aware of that if I do misphrase something #Poppy and Zena: Wholesome Degenerates is an excellent youtube channel please check them out #if anyone argues here in bad faith feel free to use this post as a free block list #had so much to say but now I can get back to shitposting les go

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max1461 · 7 months

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I have this notion of "horror", by which I mean something like "badness which is inscrutable or not quite explicable; wrongness which can be experienced but not truly articulated, even in principle". In a horror movie, what do you think happens when a character is dragged away by the ghost? I think most of us do not just feel that they are killed. If we did, movies about ghost would not be much scarier than actuarial tables. I think we feel, on some level, that something worse happens. Something worse than any particular thing we can imagine. It's not death, it's not torture, it's something else. Something inexplicable whose badness cannot even be spoken or imagined. This is "horror".

One of my very core beliefs is the non-existence of true horror. I believe that all actually existing harms can, with enough thought, be put straightforwardly and mundanely. I believe that whenever something bad really happens, we can speak it, we can imagine it, and we can denounce it in plain terms, if we really try.

I don't like horror because I think it robs us of our power and of our basic dignity in the face of struggle. If we are suffering, we must be able if absolutely nothing else to say "here is what is hurting me, and setting aside all other factors, that fact qua that fact is an injustice". The existence of true horrors would, on a metaphysical level, rob us of the ability to do that.

I imagine this discussion will seem like pure navel gazing (in the derogatory sense) to some, but to me it's quite important. People invoke horrors all the time. I think it's a pretty frequent throughline in gender/relationship discourse. People see a bit of horror in sex, romance, gender dynamics and so on.

If faced with a true horror, very few lines of recourse (practical or metaphysical) are available to you. You must run and keep running forever or you must kill it. I think large swaths of gender discourse are mediated by this principle; I think both incels and radfems (wrong as they are about many particular issues of fact) are at some level both motivated by the belief in horrors, the belief that the injustices they have genuinely been faced with are horrors and not plain things, and therefore that they have only the options to run or to kill. Why this is bad for them and bad for the rest of us is clear enough.

I say: horrors do not exist. All harms are mundane harms, even the most heinous. All harms can be spoken, named, laid bare for any sober mind to see. We may be vulnerable to physical attack, but we are invulnerable to metaphysical attack.

#navel gazing

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fullmetal-scar-simping · 16 days

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Here's my fma 2003 (featuring Conqueror of Shambala) character tierlist. If I had to sum up my perception of the 03 cast vs the bhood one, it would be 1) 03 is focused and interwoven, and 2) quality >>>>>>>> quantity.

To be clear: because I feel that the 03 adaptation does not labour under a desperate need to pity and empathize with its war criminals and antagonists (though it does make sure its core antagonists are more than stock-standard villains), there aren't really any characters I vehemently reject the way I did for the Brotherhood tier list. Even the characters that don't particularly catch my interest or are fairly mundane in the grand scheme of the show I see more favourably than the characters in a similar tier level in Brotherhood. Where I find the 09 anime's character lows are abysmally low, 03 highs are imho astronomical.

There are some very, very minor characters that I didn't feel the need to include (my Broho tier list similarly eschewed equally highly minor faces too). I didn't feel like such inclusions would really be in the spirit of a tierlist.

Anyway, here we go:

Lengthy breakdown below the cut [not spoiler free]:

First tier: The SSS-tier. What do I even say about these two that I haven't already repeatedly expressed on this blog? These are the characters I can't stop thinking about. Whose stories, personalities, character arcs, and tragedies I've been mentally unwell about for over a decade+. They're my obsession and they're the highlight of every rewatch for me. Whenever they're onscreen I am rendered into a rabid howling ape (joyful).

Me @ 03 Scar and 03 Lust 5ever:

Scar: My sweetie-pie honeybear sugar-muffin sillymittens babygirl. Look at my damn username. Do you think I'm normal about Scar, especially THIS version of him? A character like him, handled the way the 03 team wrote him, is not only a rarity but a fucking achievement. In a media landscape that relies on regurgitated, jagged strawmen of the violent resistance of the oppressed, of revolutionaries/radicals who exist solely for the writers to strike down with great punitivity, 03 Scar breaks the mould. He manages to subvert every derogatory caricature that a character like him should have fully fallen into, and come out a nuanced, three dimensional character who never truly relents in the fight against the state military. Where Arakawa writes Scar to be yet another in a long line of fictional radicals made to heel at the boots of the military, the fma 03 writers wrote Scar to show why the people who are targets of imperial violence fight back to the bitter end. And, man, the sensitivity they imbue him with on top of that! They allow him to be vulnerable, to struggle with his place in a world that wants everyone like him fully eradicated while also experiencing what it's like to be a pariah amongst his own people; to grapple with his past and also have the capacity to feel for those who have suffered similarly as well. He grasps that there is no half-freedoms. If Ishbal isn't free than Liore isn't free and neither will anyone else be free. He witnesses numerous times that without direct violent action the system carries on its project of wanton human misery. And it often goes unacknowledged, but this Scar does attempt the route of (relative) peace. He renounces his homicide of state alchemists, he joins a group of Ishbalan refugees and follows his master. Yet without fail they are beset by tremendous violence: state-hired mercenaries enact a slaughter of Ishbalans and destabilizing the camp, they're accosted by a racist biker gang solely because the Ishbalans stepped out of their state-designated grounds, and Yoki rats the now-nomadic Ishbalans to the state, resulting in the feds rounding them up and carting them off to a concentration camp. At that point he can no longer stomach this ineffectual path. If the victims of this systemic oppression fail to bite the hand that beats them, then the perpetuation of their suffering never ends. If he must renounce any future he could have had, if it means he must suffer and relinquish his own life, if he must turn away from Ishbala, then he will. "My sympathy will not be spent on soldiers. Neither should yours," SIR. SIR YOU DROPPED YOUR CROWN. SIR. This line alone makes me INSANE.

We get glimpses of his adolescence, the loss he and his brother suffered, and we really get to understand what solidifies Scar's hatred of alchemy early on in his life. It's not just a cultural and religious dictate against the practice (seriously, can we blame the Ishbalan religion for being anti-alchemy), and it's not just the fact that alchemy is a lethal tool of mass destruction that can be used to wipe out an entire country: it's the fact that he witnessed a writhing mass made from the corpse of someone he and his brother cared for, and the loss of his brother's sanity as he pursued the philosopher's stone to undo this travesty he committed. And yet Scar is gifted that same detested alchemy by the brother he rejects, and he has to find some greater purpose that somehow straddles his previous beliefs. He's a resistance fighter struck down, aimless since barely escaping the massacre years ago. He would have died if he stayed back, should have died when Kimbly tracked down their particular group of fleeing Ishbalans, and in a sense [name unknown] has indeed long since perished. And for so long he was unable to face the pockets of Ishbalan refugees with any confidence due to the indelible taboo that is his right arm. He's displaced and homeless, wandering the streets of his oppressors, trying to find answers to the insignia of his sibling's arm, and finally he's snapped back into action upon encountering yet one more soul perverted into an agonized form by alchemy and the state. He's principled to the core, yet not as a flawless messianic figure. His final victory, his moment of reclaiming personal love alongside obliterating an armada, is also the endpoint of his tragedy. His triumph is his grave, and god. fucking. damn it. that is so---- !!! The way he connects, reflects, and contrasts with other core characters and the overall themes of the narrative too, I-!!!

Listen, I love the mangahood Scars even with the reformist liberal bullcrap tacked onto their arc, but when I say I simp for fma Scar, THIS is the fictional man I simp the hardest for. When I say Scar is right? All versions of Scar were right to kill state alchemists, but it's 03 Scar who was never once wrong. Accept no substitutes, because no one is doin' it like him.

Lust: My darling WIFE. I would make a Philosopher's Stone just for her and no one would be able to stop me. She was one of the earliest characters I latched onto during my first watch of this show 100 years ago. No matter who I introduce to fma 03, they all walk away having fallen in love with her. She's a treasure, my sopping wet meow meow who's also more than capable of tearing anyone to ribbons. Yet more than that, I wish she could have had the tranquil human life she deserved. She's everything to me. And no matter how many times I rewatch this adaptation, Lust and her arc, her internal struggles, and the philosophical dilemma of what constitutes humanity and what are the consequences of creating a dehumanized class of people leaves me on knees. And god, the way the writers very slowly develop this growing dilemma and her individuality is astonishing. From one of the first shadows we see stalking the Elric's journey, a mysterious and malevolent femme fatale pulling the strings, a woman whose face Scar can't shake, to her assuredness in her humanity and her goal to reclaim as such, a being whose patchwork memories of who she once was slowly upending her allegiances, her having a strong knowledge in alchemy even when she literally cannot perform it because she will stop at nothing to shed her shackles, to her rebellion against Dante and the other homunculi, and- ok, you know how we watch Lust gaze at human beings and ponder at their futile existence? Seeing them as alien, and to an extent lesser? And how she can no longer deny wanting to return to humanity as her memories continue to gnaw at her? To the point that she embraces people as people? How she counters Sloth's disparaging, dehumanizing remarks against Tucker's mindless Nina clones and states "She's his daughter"? She defends the humanity even in those that the world would write off as subhumans or objects? She was an Ishbalan woman repurposed into a tool by the very people who destroyed her homeland and she will no longer be their puppet. She was never just a femme fatal, she was never just a humanoid monster, she is never treated like just another villain to be annihilated for the benefit of the protags. Like. Do you understand? Do you understand the finesse with which the 03 team wrote this character? Do you understand why people go crazy for her? Do you understand why she's a platinum-tier baddie? God, Lust is just incredible and I weep just thinking about her! Her despair causing her to desire mortality, and connection to the one remaining person from a past that many could debate was never entirely her own? UGHHHH, my HEART. Is obtaining mortality a drawn-out suicide of its own? If for a homunculus the only way to become human is to die, then was that locket Scar dredged from the grave that never possessed her body his unintentional way of making her human after all? I wonder, as her consciousness faded away once more, if she felt relief. If she felt peace. I always hope that she did.

Second tier: S-tier. Our protagonists, and a worthy centrefold for this adaptation. They're phenomenally written: their journeys and inner demons are so compelling. The way love is the fount of their hopes and traumas, what keeps them clawing through the horrors of the world, to hang tight to each other. All the while this codependence being a self-imposed punishment. Shunting out everyone else and hurting themselves and others as a result. They so desperately want to do right, but their self-destructiveness and alliance with the military leaves pain in their wake. There is no comforting and morally convenient writing contrivances to shield them from the repercussions of their beliefs and actions. These boys grow and part of that growth into adulthood is understanding that the flow of everything, that inherent and unshakable interconnectivity of life and lives, of systemic violence via state and alchemy, means they cannot live as though in a vacuum, doing as they wish and remaining ignorant and, as a result, becoming wretched. If they want to rise above destroying others, they must take responsibility, and how that differs between them is fine-tuned to their idiosyncrasies. How each brother partook in committing alchemy's greatest taboo informs how they view violence and sacrifice.

Like the entire cast, Ed and Al are so human. It's both beautiful and heartbreaking, and one of the many reasons why I always come back to this anime. I couldn't ask for better versions of the Elric brothers and I'm glad that this version of them are the ones permanently embedded in my mind as THE Edward and Alphonse Elrics.

Note: I place the CoS versions in this tier not because I see them as different characters but rather to highlight that I do love what is shown of their outcomes, and that I appreciate the way it ties well with where we last see them in the show.

Ed: A boy steeped in the dogma of his father's science. His hubris and his love tears apart what remains of his dying idyllic life, and it's something he truly never returns to. And yet, it's not all his fault. He's an orphaned child alongside his little brother, with a mind too sheltered from the true ugliness of the world yet brimming with the capacity to perform feats that few can master. His circumstances and choices lead him down a rabbit hole he can only escape by moving forward and changing. He can't flee to the past, he can't remake the present into whatever he wishes, the world carries on despite what he and his brother go through, and if he wants to be more than the monstrous humans he encounters than he has to actually fucking reflect and reconsider his perspective constantly. And he's not perfect at changing either! Some part of him still clings to what could have been, that maybe it could be possible to at least restore Al's body. He's one of the most dogmatic characters in this entire show, and the narrative does not allow him to simply remain as such and parade it around like hot shit. It's not science vs religion, it's scientism and the hegemony of the state (which can include religious institutions and beliefs) vs those seen as subjects or material for the whims of those in power. Ed actually has to contend with his bigotry too! He shoulders a sisyphean grief and guilt, and you know deep down that he will never truly be rid of that curse. Yet he shows signs in the end that he understands that he can't eternally stagnate in it; returning to a world he struggled to see as real and getting on that caravan at the end with Al and Noah felt like he could at least adapt to the task of living, even if that dream of perfect redemption remains elusive. I could babble on and on, but this all to say: I love fma 03 Ed and no bog standard shonen-ass racist is ever gonna usurp his spot for me.

Al: This version of Al is not stuck as a yes-man to his brother, and he isn't sidelined until it's convenient to wheel him back into the plot. Al's perspective on nearly everything tends to differ from Ed's. Whether it's on more inconsequential matters to, in time, major issues, Al often sees things differently from his older sibling. The 03 writers leaned heavily on the solitude and confinement of being the final vestige of a human's existence tethered to an inanimate object, and they explore this existential crisis and dysmorphia not just in the one arc everyone fails to empathize with (you know the one), but all throughout the show. There's a reason Al has an easier time understanding the perspectives of his fellows who have been literally and figuratively dehumanized. He's compassionate and sweet, and this trips people up. So many see him as a nothing more than a cinnamon roll when he's got a much harder edge than that. Far more so. Al suffers a waking nightmare 24/7, without break since he can't sleep. Though he doesn't allow that to destroy his capacity for kindness, it doesn't mean he handles every problem and obstacle with unceasing grace. He sees the utility in violence, he gets why people lash out, he wants to be fully human again and he still wants to preserve lives when he can. Al wants to think of others, but his memory is chipped in places, and his lack of bodily functions, flesh, and nervous system means he feels that others have lost sight of him too. It's a struggle to feel real when your current circumstances have you caged and alienated. You end up wanting Al's body back as badly as he and Ed do, that finally seeing him physically restored to the 10 year old body he last occupied is both a relief and utterly surreal. And without his memories, he was doomed to repeat the self-centered actions that he and his brother had to learn from over those many years. I can't see him regaining his memories being a wholly jubilous outcome for him, but having the one person who mattered more than everyone else back in his life is a trade I'm sure he would make time and again.

Third tier: The A tier. Love 'em to the bone, and even love to hate one in particular here (it's Dante. Of course). This anime has no shortage of excellent characters, and I love 'em to bits.

Rose: One of the bravest characters in this entire show's roster. An orphaned teenage girl who adheres to Letoism in the hopes that her faith and work for the church will lead to the miracle of her partner returning from the dead. After the curtain gets pulled back on Cornello, Rose has to learn to rise above the pain and live. All with the dawning riots and military invasion that will challenge her in ways most hope never befalls themselves but is a reality for the targets of imperial aggression. She doesn't back down to armed soldiers and generals, she helps plan a massive retaliation against the invading forces, and she goes on to care for Liore's orphans while working to restore a liberated Liore. (Unfortunately CoS does flanderize her. I know in my heart she would never accept the military or the Armstrong family colonizing Liore, and she wouldn't see Armstrong's alchemy as preferable to the plan she herself was a pivotal part of executing to stop Amestris.) For as feminist as everyone claims to be, post-2010 fma fans sure love writing 03 Rose off because of the horrific rape she suffers. This is not the be-all end-all of this character, and it's sus af that someone being a victim of this specific type of war crime means there is nothing else to her, and that the writers are simply racist misogynists. The story never reduces her to a "pitiable" victim, nor does it salivate at the very real sexual violence that militaries routinely employ. Fuck you if you look down on Rose. Rose is everything.

Noah: I will defend Noah to the death, and I'm taking her haters down with me. Her pain from a lifetime of being an outcast, used for her gifts and tossed into the clutches of fascists breaks me everytime. Her desperation to escape a racist hell to a fantasy world (that would have ultimately been no less cruel to her) makes sense. She gets confirmation of the impossible, of something that should have been nothing more than speculative fiction. Like the Elrics and so many others in this series, she learns the hard way that paradise doesn't lie behind fantasies. She's sullen and introverted, and this is no doubt an armour for having seen the most hidden secrets, darkness, and fragile dreams of everyone who pays the going price for her skill. How can she connect with others consciously and mutually when people pull away/avoid her once they learn she can peer into their truths? Facing the scorn of anti-Roma racism as well as the scorn for being a seer would tear anyone down. She's perpetually alienated from everyone, and she just wants to be free to exist in peace. Man, I just love her so much and want endless happiness for her. I've said it before and I'll say it forever: I love you, Noah fma!

Winry: Now this is my Winry! I never understood why the fandom pre-09 hated her so much (besides bog standard misogyny) but I was always in her corner. She has a great, balanced personality: physically and mentally strong, capable of being soft and caring, boisterous and contemplative, absolutely willing to shirk rules and laws, with a mischievous streak too. She's not a moralizing package deal to the Elrics, she's not reduced to ship fodder for Ed nor a future doting wife, she's an automail freak and she's damn proud of it. Her having her childhood friends pull away until they're no longer reachable is sad, but she has so many people in her life that she'll be able to carry on into the future. Whether the Elrics are in her life has nothing to do with the quality of her characterization here, and I stand by that forever. Also, her consistent gentle kindness towards Wrath? Providing him with automail and remaining calm even when it falls to disrepair? 03 Winry best Winry.

Sciezka: 03 Sciezka is a gift. This bookworm becoming close friends with Winry, the two of them teaming up to do some sleuthing for state secrets was some grade A stuff. She's bubbly, intelligent while still believing in the paranormal (can you blame her). I love how she stays in contact with Gracia and Elicia, and how she uses her photographic memory to continually help others. She'll trespass into a military facility, go on the run from the feds, crawl into an underground city all with Winry because damn it all, she might be terrified but she ain't spineless. Cheers, girlie. Cheers

Envy: The 03 homunculi and the necropolitics between them and the human beings who make them was the og hook for me the first time I watched Fullmetal Alchemist. And listen, who hasn't been entranced by Envy at least to some extent one time or another? Yeah, he/they/she is so gender, and we gotta recognize that. But what really gives 03 Envy their staying power imho is his far more intimate reason for being dubbed 'Envy' by his horrible mother. For 400 years they have been made a pawn, transmuted by scientist parents who likely never showed him the care and love one would want from their progenitors even when he was alive as a human being. For 400 years they helped sow misery and chaos, grew to reflect Dante's misanthropy and delight in seeing themself as superior to those who can die, those who are not banished to the underbelly of society, those who aren't seen as fundamental sins like he is. All the same, they desperately want revenge against a father who not only mistreated and abandoned them, but who then goes on to form a family he more obviously loves and humanizes. To be discarded when you wanted that love after all, and learn that the person who did this to you was indeed very capable of treating others with affection and respect, just not you! It was you who 'had' to be your father's roadbump to his own self-improvement. And that stings. Envy's anger issues make so much sense. And what I appreciate so much is that the 03 writers don't insult your intelligence here. They are not desperately trying to get the audience to forgive or excuse Envy for their hand in untold slaughter and atrocities. They present his tragedy without demanding you empathize with them at the cost of dehumanizing the victims of genocide. (I hate you forever Brotherhood). And bless the 03 crew for not making Envy a cackling, bumbling buffoon either (seriously, wtf was all of that???) Envy isn't an idiot, but they are barely able to withhold the fury that bubbles under the surface. Also leviathan-dragon Envy's design absolutely fucks and I will not entertain any argument to the contrary.

Sloth: Sho Aikawa et al, thank you. Thank you for taking the snippets of manga Ed's nightmare and making it so, SO real. And thank you, 03 team, for not settling on a one-dimensional interpretation of the definition of sloth. You gave us the perfect antithesis of the fridged mother, of the perfect martyred madonna who is nothing more than fuel for the boy/man characters and their pain. Sloth reveals the lack of autonomy and consent that comes with human transmutation. Creating a homunculus may often be done out of a despairing love due to death, but it is an act of exceptional hubris that disregards not only the pitfalls in that ritual itself but also in the desecration inherent to transmuting a being who can never be the one who died. Sloth's memories do not goad her into racing to reclaim herself, they are a toxin driving her resentment. If her previous self's love and flaws as a person led her children to pervert the rhythms of life and death, to defy the cycle of one is all and all is one and eject her from that belonging, and now she has to exist as a quiet abomination embedded in a racist fascist dictatorship? Then why should she ever accept and forgive her creators? She's one of the homunculi I grew to be utterly fascinated and awed by with each rewatch. And as a bonus, she's a solid reminder that fma 03 was doing it's own thing right from the very beginning: because we see her by Bradley's side. And we see Ed recognize what he has done the moment he spots her. Sloth's final words are some of the most haunting in this entire anime, and I will never be able to land on a solid interpretation of her intent. Her words take on just the right form to slip from your grasp, denying the Elric boys and the audience any ease of mind.

Izumi: Izumiiiiiiiiiiiii! Buddy, listen. If I can fawn over Scar who almost murders Ed and Al, I can fawn over Izumi even despite her having (non-lethally) beaten Ed and Al's asses. She has two solid reasons for being incensed by their actions since they parted ways, after finding out that the Elrics 1) joined a fascist militia, and 2) performed the one thing she hoped, taught, and demanded they never do. I'm not arguing that beating them to the extent she does is necessarily justified, but damn man, I get where she's coming from. And she treats them more sternly because, although she does see them as her children, she also understands that they have entered an adult world. If they're going to shoulder such power and responsibility, they must expect to be addressed as such. She's my imperfect acab queen. And that's another thing I love about Izumi! She repeatedly fights head-on against the state and shows them no deference whatsoever. She'll barge into a hospital and demand info from Mustang, she'll barge into the facility that kidnapped her homunculus child, hell she'll kidnap a state alchemist (Ed), and she'll partake in a coup too. All the while she never stops badmouthing the military. Izumi having performed human transmutation, training kids who go on to do the same, and having been trained by one of the alchemists who pioneered this horrid practice is *chef's kiss* storytelling. Her mangled viscera and its disabling effect on her life is never played for laughs, and we're not constantly encouraged to giggle at the "crazy strong & violent housewife". Watching her fight is also just so enjoyable, her moves are so fluid and succinct. She's a badass without feeling like a flat character. She deserved far better than to be die offscreen, but her embrace of her baby at the Gate gut punches me without fail.

Dante: Our absolutely rancid antagonist, inside and out, literally and figuratively. One of the world's most formidable alchemists who, in spite of that potential title, wishes to live a rather hermetic life. And why wouldn't she? She cannot stand her fellow humans, she believes herself to be above them while no less saddled with their qualities. Even when she can see the truth about alchemy and how it functions, she still lived a grotesque life of treating everything and everyone like pawns to be played. Lives are material and souls are fuel. Why shouldn't she get to do as she pleases when surely the human existence is too putrid to consider worthy of regard. If one is all, and people are a part of this equation, and they're so foolish and malleable, then what part of this world should she see as off limits? And the way the dead religion of Christianity becomes a decorative set-piece for her: how she views homunculi as sins of their creators, the mangled adams and eves of careless non-gods; they have the comparatively effortless immortality that she wants but she has the skeleton key to manipulating matter and energy that homunculi cannot possess. So she's their ring leader, the one who plants the seeds to ensure they continue to be birthed from The Gate. Surely she must have found in her studies of this extinct theology that apocalypses are a means of reconstituting flawed, sinful people and places. And surely she was behind the Mother Mary, Baby Jesus, and Joseph imagery that she manipulates from the 'holy' Lioran girl and her child, and the man who wasn't responsible for said child but arrives in time with a fury that can be made useful to her, who can act as a rallying zealot for the Liorans and play to a culturally religious predisposition. It's all one big, twisted morality play only she can see. Dante is obsessed with symbolism and oozes it herself. She isn't interested in the things that a woman seeking immortality normally would by your average hack writers either, and I love that! This is what makes her both so interesting to analyze and so fun to despise. And her main theme alongside songs that use her theme's motif are so fucking good! She deserves the demise she gets, a thousand-fold, but I'm glad she's the major villain this anime gives us.

Maria Ross: The one military officer I actually like with little to no reservations in this entire franchise. She takes the safety of Ed and Al so seriously that Ed, in his red water alchemic-surge state, mistakes her for Trisha when she embraces him. She goes to bat for Winry and Sciezka by helping them escape Sloth, she busts out Russell and Fletcher when they're arrested and sentenced to death, and she teams up with Izumi to fight her fellow military personnel and Archer. This Maria Ross is why I was losing my mind when Brotherhood sikes the audience out about Mustang "killing" her (though yhe Broho Maria Ross is. Eh. Nothing special). I really l love this character and her kindness. Now leave the military, girl.

Fourth tier: Yet more characters I love. These first four tiers are really for the characters that make me feel "Oh hell yeah, so-and-so is onscreen!"

Paninya: Fuck yeah, Paninya! I always want more of her, but what we see of her makes her memorable even beyond her single episode. Her appreciation for Dominic providing her with the automail that brought her back from rotting away in alleyways, and how she tries to prove the quality of his work to others makes me love her. As I mentioned in the Broho tierlist, I appreciate Paninya's mischievousness, agility, softness, and brazenness. Seeing her in the aftermath of the accident that killed her parents, with all but one of her limbs destroyed will always put my heart into a blender. There'll be times when I haven't touched fma for awhile, and she'll just spring to mind unprompted. If there's a Paninya-centric spinoff or light novel, then lemme know so I can get more of her! Thankfully in this adaptation Winry isn't some white chick berating her to follow the law, but instead a partner in crime and fast friend. If I got just a liiiiittle bit more of her in this anime, she would easily be one tier up.

Greed: Straight up the coolest homunculus. He doesn't get nearly enough time in the spotlight, but god does he leave a lasting impression. His care for the rejects of society will never not make his particular style of objectification of others oddly charming. I love how each of the English VAs for both fma anime play him, but 03's is the one I associate most with this character across continuities. I feel like Chris Patton best captures some of the skeeviness that clings to Greed's personality without making him an outright asshole. He comes across as just a bit more grimy, a bit sketchy, and it works so well with his contrasting earnestness. You can definitely feel that although Greed was never intended to be around until the end of the show, there must have been some time cut from his arc. If only his human self's romantic involvement with Dante had been a bit more expounded upon in the show, rather than being moderately hinted at and more outright stated in additional materials. But hey, what we get is so tasty that he still sits high on the list for me. Also, major shoutout to that legendary final fight between Ed and Greed. The animation, choreography, and artistry are magnificent and deserves a spotlight for being so downright addictive to watch. His death is a crater in Ed's psyche, and his melting form unforgettable to me.

Wrath: Man, I'll absolutely defend Wrath from the naysayers. Poor feral kid wanted to return to a mother, any mother, but most of all Izumi. The slim potential for Izumi, Sig, and Wrath to have lived peacefully together was there, so tantalizingly close to being realized. Then Envy and Dante catch up to him. His corruption via the red stones subtly points to what may potentially allow Dante to keep the minds of homunculi so malleable to her desires, and why she can lock and unlock their attributes and autonomy. Furthermore, Wrath highlights that to exist inside the Gate with a human(-adjacent) mind is a horrifying, inexplicable experience. He fears returning to it, he wants a mother, he has no malice until he's taught it, and he has the rare gift of alchemy he obtained from the same boys ready to tear it back from him. His propensity to wail given everything he went through and everything he lacks, with the mind of a child, isn't some "annoying" character flaw, it's an understandable reaction to a bizarre set of circumstances from one raised in hell and who escapes into the Yock Island woods for years. Wrath, you're cute as a button and I support you.

Hohenheim: Wow, this dude is mega fucked up. And I genuinely love that about Hohenheim of Light. He's an enigma, and unlike a lot of other characters whose time is brief in this anime, I rather like that he remains as such. We get hints towards the monstrous person he was for the majority of his 400+ years of existence, and the numerous atrocities and lives he extinguished in order to keep himself and Dante perpetually living. His original appearance being, as it turns out, that of the future design for Father has an interesting meta-textual crunch to it, but back before the manga even got to its own big bad, it seemed as though Hohenheim sought men who looked most like his original physical form to inhabit. Which has intriguing implications on his view of bodysnatching and what he wants of himself versus Dante's more flexible choice in new bodies. His heel turn towards trying to live as a normal person and raise a family, only to have to (poorly) come to terms that his newfound outlook means he has to accept his rapidly rotting flesh and his soul's depleting capacity to maintain a body. So he abandons his family, which sends his wife and two new children down the path of ruin. He's no angel even with this change of heart, as he sees no issue with working alongside fascist occultists on Earth to return to Amestris. We only get so much out of him regarding his acknowledgement of how he destroyed Envy's life/unlife, but the fact that he willingly forces Envy's fangs through himself as both an apology to a dying son of old, and in an attempt to reunite his two living sons makes me crazy. I love what a mess this scumbag of a man is.

Russell: The Tringham brothers are defo faves. I do have to place Russell above his little brother since I find his flaws and smarmy characterization quite enjoyable, especially as it bounces off of Ed's abrasive, equally smarmy ass. His struggle with the ethics of his studies crashing against his goals very nicely mirror the Elric's, just at a smaller scale. Love the fact that he continues to steal Ed's identity even long after moving on from Xenotime, and that it nearly lands him and his little brother the death penalty. If we could have somehow gotten more of him and his bro, they'd both be higher on the list, but hey. His plant alchemy and what that infers for all bio alchemies (chimeric vs human transmutation vs plants vs what little we get hinted at regarding non-human resurrection) makes my brain whir in the best way possible. As a plant lover myself, I gotta give props to Russell for his expertise in the area.

The Slicer Brothers: Where this homicidal pair fall flat for me in Brotherhood, they hit so much harder in fma 03. The entire Lab 5 arc shakes me to my core, no matter how many times I watch it. The quandaries on the prison industrial complex, on mass murder and the humanity of its perpetrators (which never reaches levels of maddening preachiness in favour of perpetrators ala mangahood), and the power states hold over those it incarcerates and what science is in the hands of the state were formative for me. Or rather, growing up as a teen already questioning why this world and its societies can wield so much power over people, even in circumstances where we're taught to see criminals (let alone accept such a classification) as worthy sites of state-backed torture, this arc in an anime of all things would be one of the many grains that would eventually lead me to understand why states must be opposed and prisons abolished. This pair of brothers are not ethical souls. They have done so much harm, and all the same they should never have been sentenced to an eternity of enslavement by the state. And how does their predicament mirror and contrast Al's purgatory? How does their predicament mirror Ed and Al's contribution to the deaths and suffering of others, especially as dog's of (and in Al's case, an affiliate of) the state? The suicide of the younger brother, and the murder of the eldest manage to evoke sympathy and heartache, even where they are certainly unsympathetic otherwise.

Nina: When it comes to Nina and the entire tragedy of the Tucker family arc, I am no contrarian. This poor girl, her dog, and her murdered mother, and what this does to the Elrics is a permanent point of sorrow. The memetic treatment of her story has some fma fans shrugging at her impact, but I was there when this was the version that people (outside of Japan) were introduced to her story for the first time. Her story fucking hurts. Nina was like a little sister to the Elrics, and they got to spend some time growing up with her. She was family! She was the only person in the entire world, in the entire series, nay, in the entire franchise, who could get away with calling Ed 'little' (Al was 'big brother', and Ed was 'little big brother'). The scene of the Elrics walking into Tucker's lab... The way the 03 team executes this hellish revelation is without compare. The manga's version is nothing, and Brotherhood's is a pale version to 03's. Ed, without recourse to the state's recuperation of chimera Nina, desperately releases her from the military van, only to have granted her a freedom that leads her into Scar's palm (and thereby setting him on his path to avenge the forsaken by killing those who destroy lives via the state and it's weaponized alchemy). She is liberated quickly and painlessly, yet the almost-sacred splatter of her long-gone body will forever haunt me. This story is pivotal in ways that I feel I cannot do justice describing. And her innumerable chimeric clones derived from a chimera-Tucker's pathetic attempts to undo the transmutation of his daughter, and how her philsopher's stone-rejuvenated body is truly, genuinely soulless and unmoving, unthinking, destined to rot- unlike the homunculi, unlike Al and other soul-transmuted people- speaks volumes on how the ideologies of alchemists is what actually informs their perspective on who possesses a soul and who doesn't. Nina (and the Elrics) being present to help Gracia deliver Elicia was also very sweet; she could have been Elicia's friend or even big sister, damn it! 😭 I hope that Nina, her mom, and Alexander get to coalesce into some existence of joy and peace.

Earth!Scar & Earth!Lust: Yeah that's right, a pair of cameo characters we see at the end of CoS, who have no names, no lines, and who we know nothing about beyond seeing them heading a caravan together are placed on par with major characters. Why? Because I am forever overjoyed that, in their own way, Lust and Scar aren't forgotten. Seeing alt versions who get to live together is so satisfying (especially if you're ScarLust-brained like I am). I certainly can't reasonably place them higher on the list, and any lower would betray how giddy I get when they cap off this fma continuity. So fuck it, it's my tierlist and I'll slap my 3 second fanservice characters wherever the hell I want lol.

Hughes: A character who, over the years, I have grown to have quite complicated opinions on. Long before even learning about the overtly-genocidal version of this character in the mangahood canon, I would eventually understand that even military bureaucrats and desk jockeys are required for states and their militaries to carry out their heinous projects. Regardless of his position Hughes, like all members of the state and the military, do not have clean records in the grand scheme of things. 03 Hughes never directly bloodies his hands, and thankfully we're spared from that noxious, insulting sob story about "[committing genocide] so he can live" ala mangahood. But that isn't enough to abdicate his class position against the subjects of Amestris' imperial rule. But where my bias lies, and where 03 succeeds in characterizing him, is that he manages to be interesting and lovable without being as detestable as those who were directly involved in the "Eastern Rebellion" (genocide). All the same, he is a bastard. But we get more time to cook with him, we don't get gags with this dude going cop-mode on fucking toddlers, and avenging his death is hardly a core priority to any of the central cast members when there are far, far bigger issues going down. Unfortunately I do like 03 Amestrian Hughes. But he is a fascist like all the military characters here. As mixed as I am on this dude, I can't completely hate him. Depending on the day I might bump him at least two tiers down, but that would belie my having been more positive about him for most of the time I have loved this show. The man is fun and charming! Sigh. My opinion here is a mess in part from nostalgia. At least he's fictional, but unfortunately the real world is run by millions of this exact person.

Martel: Pretty much the only true war criminal in any version of fma I just can't help but like. I can appreciate that she had no idea what it was that the state was cooking by lying to her and her cohorts about why they sent them all to Ishbal (to incite the 'right' conditions in order to manufacture consent and legal recourse to invade the country). And after realizing that they had been set-up, that they're the useful scapegoats for the state to clear itself of its political sabotage, thus earning a lifelong enemy of Amestris from her and her former colleagues-turned-chimeras is a quality use of her and the former military members of The Devil's Nest. Martel of course gets the lion's share of the spotlight compared to Roa and Dolcetto, let alone the other denizens of The Devil's Nest, and that gives the audience a chance to grow attached to her before she gets killed. I really love the friendship that grows between Al and Marta, as well as her and The Devil's Nest gang's dedication towards Greed. And the fact that she respects Greed's choice to return to the person who created him, and to accept that Ed having murdered Greed was also a choice in part made by her liberator is so mature and honourable. She's complex and fearsome, and I love her. Plain and simple.

Fifth tier: Like it says on the package, these are the people who are long gone, whose impact on numerous characters leads the living into so much suffering. What we make of those we've lost, our sense of ownership to those memories and that love, and what becomes of us in the march of time- if we could remake those we miss, they truly would not be our dearly departed. Even with alchemy death is final. And how do we respond to the agony of a death drenched in bad blood? Can we forgive them? Can we forgive ourselves? Can they ever forgive us?

I can't really slot these three higher up but without any of them this entire story would be nothing. Much like my appreciation for Hohenheim of Light being an enigma, these three remaining as such lends them a force that we have to experience through the characters left behind and the characters transmuted in the vain wish to create those you never owned. I'm compelled to want more of them, but the haze that cloaks them is an integral feature here.

The greatest lesson with these three is that alchemy does not make you a god in a sandbox world, it makes you a fool.

Scar Bro: I really respect the decision to widen the age difference between Scar and his older brother. Having him be the sole adult guardian to a young adolescent who relies on him to do right means that Scar Bro's foray into human alchemy is one of deep selfishness. It's a betrayal that irrevocably sends him into spiralling isolation, exiled yet without care for the world beyond his studies. This singular mindset and his taboo act obliterates his little brother's trust in him, their relationship basically shredded down to a single frayed thread that, only once a genocide is enacted, does Scar try to tug at to rescue him. Scar Bro is smart enough to decipher the Grand Arcanum, and his hubris so deep that he inscribes it upon his flesh. His despair that, perhaps on a grander scale, Ishbal's fall was his own doing for going against the order of the world and seeking the philosopher's stone speaks to how far he has sunk. A portend for what becomes of alchemists who seek the legend and lose perspective on the world around them. But no matter how deranged by his pursuit he had become, he still tried to save Scar. Sacrificing himself was his final apology, his right arm was both his final gift and slight against his little brother. Scar Bro is everything Scar never wants to be, the very figure of all that he rejects, and much of it for good reason. This man is intriguing as hell to me. I'm glad that Scar's final moments, his time with Lust, and what he experienced around the Elrics, ultimately helps him to reclaim his love for his older brother.

The mysterious, alluring woman whose body Lust is constructed from. She haunted Scar Bro, she haunts Lust, and she haunts Scar. We are forever left wondering what we the audience would make of her if we got to experience her beyond the perception of a pair of brothers, and the dappled perception of her undying doppleganger who would become her, or closer to being her, if she could. Would Lust have become 1:1 with this woman if she could be reconstituted into a 'True' human? Can anyone ever inhabit the outline of a progenitor, an ideal, a corpse? All we know is that she was loved. If you step into the shoes of those who knew her, it's hard not to somehow feel a little bit of that love too.

Trisha: The beloved mother of the Elric boys. She's almost angelic when we look into their recollection of her. And still, we can pick out the subtle ways that she was human all along. She is stuck in her heartache for Hohenheim, forever wishing for his return and rewarding her children for emulating his prowess in alchemy. Trisha was a young woman who had to balance raising a pair of younglings while nursing a broken heart. I don't want to see her as merely the perfect mother archetype nor the "abusive" mother simply for failing to restrain her own humanity from intermingling with how she tended to her children. She was wholly human, with all the attending layers that constitute our beings. Like Scar Bro's fiancee, she was dearly loved. And for that she is desecrated. Her homunculus wants nothing to do with her and those who would create her to become this dead woman. Her boys gave her so much happiness but that didn't save her from languishing in her own solitude. Her dying words are a testament to that perpetual depression. The gorgeous track, Bratja, is just as much about her as it is about the sins of her sons.

Sixth tier: Not much preamble for this tier. Let's get into it:

Pinako: All around cool-ass granny. I dig her design, I dig her no-nonsense demeanour, and I dig the tiny peak into the bombastic mechanic babe she was in her youth (younger Pinako was cool in mangahood too but 03's funky light hair is such an eye-catching design choice). She too hates the military to some extent, and I respect that. She opens her home to the extended family Winry brings in, and it warms my shriveled soul that Rose, her little boy, and the Lioran orphans she tends to are a part of that family too.

Psiren: Okokok, listen. Here me out. I know a lot of people shit on the Aquoroia ep (I like it, dammit) for being "meaningless filler" (it's not, it allows the Elric's journey some levity before things deepen, and it also explores grey morality and how the law cannot save people from impending disaster, AND that illegal actions can provide more relief than lying down and quietly suffering in denial). And Psiren gets hate for being a fanservicey character. People accuse her of hitting on Ed and like- yes, she does. But she's a conwoman! She manipulates cops, investigators, and little state alchemists who are actively trying to get in her way. She can see plain as day that her appearance, with a played up sexuality, can trip up the men pursuing her for her crimes. It's no less effective against a pipsqueak teen boy. Personally I never took her actions at face value; it never felt like she actually intended to do shit with Ed, she just wanted to prevent him from thinking clearly. (I don't fault anyone for still not liking that part of the ep tho, but I see this get flattened to "Psiren is a pedo" which imo is silly.) I love her conning and thievery, her design is great especially her cat burglar fit, and that she's a not-quite Robinhood figure (she steals from the rich, but she's not really giving it back to anyone more destitute). I appreciate that despite some of the good she has done for the city itself, she's quite inscrutable in her motivation. Cheers to her for evading the cops to the end. Hope she robbed the police force's coffers repeatedly too.

Rick & Leo: Love these two kids. Having them pop up throughout the show to weave in more Ishbalan perspectives into the story, while serving as yet another thematic exploration of familial dedication and forgiveness was a smart call. Contrasting their ableism with Ed's racism was also interesting, and I appreciate that it's not done as a way to neutralize Ed contending with his own bigotry at all. (This isn't mangahood; we're not playing that ridiculous fucking game where Ed wins a conversation by going "You guys suffer racism? Well my village was affected by the racism you suffer, which is your people's fault actually. Checkmate, Ishvalans.") It's sad when they learn to reject Ishbalans who partake in alchemy, thereby telling Scar to fuck off from the camp. But seeing them help the elderly Exiled Ishbalan at the end of the show was a nice way to show their growth.

Fletcher: Just such a sweet little kid. He has a good heart, and he desperately wants to save his brother from Mugear's corruption. He can't pretend like Russell wasn't poisoning an entire town so he reaches out to the alchemists they had been impersonating. I'm tickled that the Tringham brothers are inverse heights to Ed and Al. Fletcher's just a little guy!

Sig: Top tier husband material. He never blames Izumi for what she had done to the remains of their baby and he won't ever leave her simply because she can no longer bare children. This man loves her so much. Soft spoken, doting without being overbearing, what's not to love? And hell, Meat Day wouldn't be the same without Sig's spectacular form.

Armstrong: A war criminal who, mercifully, does not have some bullshit arc about needing to learn how to be a more obedient genocider. If we focus only on the anime and not CoS, we're shown a character who does regret his involvement in the Ishbal Massacre, but we're not drowning in some perpetual self-aggrandizing pity. Unfortunately how he's written in CoS, "helping to restore" Liore (read: colonize Liore via philanthropy) is a massive backslide on his character. They thought this showed some sort of atonement and reparation, but given his visage getting plastered all over the new city, ignoring the input of the Liorans, and his continued involvement in the military, this is anything but. At least I like him well enough in the show only (CoS Armstrong would be firmly situated in the final tier). Also, of all the military officers in fma, Hughes, Ross, and Armstrong are the only ones I can reasonably buy as caring for the Elrics. The others being far less friendly/'familial' makes sense, and Armstrong having this nosey gentleman's disposition maps better with his time escorting the brothers. Still wish Scar managed to turn his brain into slush when he got the chance, but whaddaya gonna do.

Fritz Lang: This was a pretty funny move on Studio Bones' part. Make an actual well-known real man a mirror to one of the fictional characters in another universe takes some gall. I can understand why some critique Bradley's Earth version being a Jewish man as being in poor taste (that it can be read as antisemitic to imply that a fascist non-human would be Jewish in another dimension), but, for what little it's worth, I interpreted this to be an attempt to contrast class and political positions rather than imply that Jewish people are non-humans in a convincing human disguise (which, ironically, mangahood stumbles assbackwards into playing that trope straight). Earth!Bradley's portrayal managed to feel grounded enough, and given the movie's condemnation of antisemitism and Nazism, it does appear to have been done with good intentions. (This doesn't quite eliminate the bigoted trope being both present and worth acknowledging.) Where Bradley is transmuted into a homunculus (let's recall that whoever Bradley was when he was alive was, in fact, a human and not a "humanoid pretending to be a person" all along) and used to help run Amestris as a fascist dictatorship, it feels as though the writers wanted to show that this isn't some inherent characteristic of every version of this person. I won't dictate how anyone else, let alone how a Jewish person, interprets and feels about this choice. As for myself, I enjoyed his discussions with Ed, and seeing the more introspective, softer, and more artistic representation of someone who looks like Bradley. Hope Ed checks out one of his films someday.

Alfons Heidrich: Unlike a lot of the fandom I never latched onto Heidrich, but I like him well enough. He's so blinded by his passion for rocketry that he doesn't care about working for fascist benefactors. Picture perfect example of the 'apolitical' citizenry who treat their lives and goals as without consequence in the schemes of their society's exploitative machinations. What a great example of what Ed and Roy discuss in the end of the show! The themes of the sciences as institutions that reimburse societal ills and military hegemony are crucial here. As Ed had learned in the show, an apolitical scientific lens only serves to oppress the downtrodden and treat people as obstacles or mere resources for 'progress'. Heidrich is yet another exploration of this issue. The fact that Ed finds someone who looks eerily like Al to latch onto in his Earthly purgatory is some solid mindfuckery for the severely depressed young man and the audience alike. Their dynamic is interesting for that reason. Also he's friendly towards Noah and shows her hospitality when she has nowhere to turn to. Rip, you foolish German boy.

Gluttony: This homunculus gets the least character development of all the homunculi, despite being the longest lasting member of the Seven Sins. We see him from the very start all the way to the midpoint of CoS. Just before Dante lobotomizes him she reveals that she transmuted him specifically to serve as a philosopher's stone refinery; was his human self someone she felt would be useful for such a thing? If we're to believe Dante, it's unlikely that Gluttony had been a wayward homunculus ala Lust, who escapes/is abandoned by their creator and eventually found by Dante. Because then she wouldn't have made him for that express purpose, she would have merely aligned him to be so. And that doesn't seem likely, given that the philosopher's stone is her key to an unnaturally long life, so she would indeed learn to craft a homunculus who can properly act as a factory for stones once fed the real deal. So, was she running experiments across societal derelicts, people who were either already on death's door, or those no one would miss if they disappeared, until she was satisfied at her success? Or did she know his human-self and found something she could exploit to that end? Gluttony appears to have a simpler capacity for understanding the world: is this Dante's doing, or was his human-self a person with a cognitive disabilities that Dante preyed upon? Unless there's supplemental material or interviews I'm unaware of, we will never know and can only infer what skeletons are in his past. I do really love his friendship with Lust tho. That she almost always had him by her side, that she feels hurt that Gluttony was too scared to join her in helping Scar and disobeying Dante, how much he hates Scar for paralyzing Lust with the blue locket, and how distraught he is when Lust is missing- god, when he's told that she's dead? My heart actually aches at his pain. Dante wiping his capacity for conscious thought (disturbing Envy in turn) being the misstep that finally ends her life? Perfect. Also Stone Refinery Gluttony's design in CoS is SO GOOD. It's both fucking terrifying and manages to make me feel even worse for Gluttony (and Wrath, holy shit that fight was rough). And all along, Dante had indeed succeeded in her experiment. Good thing she wasn't able to reap the benefits.

Gracia & Elicia: Not much to say about these two. I appreciate that Ed, Al, and Nina help Gracia deliver Elicia when she goes into labour while at her house. She has an open door for the Elrics, Nina, Sciezka, and Winry, which is delightful. You can understand a little bit of Hughes' enthusiasm for her. And Elicia's an adorable toddler. Can't go wrong with that.

Barry the Chopper: I for one prefer the fact that Barry terrorizes Ed and Winry as a flesh-and-blood human before getting detained, given the death penalty, and used as a soul-tethered guard for Lab 5. That episode is intense, dark, and highlights just how dangerous Ed's journey will be. Without the use of his right arm and thus alchemy itself, Ed is completely helpless: which is excellent foreshadowing for the future. Surviving Barry is when Ed really closes himself off from everyone except Al, and pushes Winry away as well as anyone else he feels is endangered by his quest. And then of course armour-Barry plucking at Al's dysmorphia, which almost tears the brothers apart, means he's managed to traumatize these boys in ways particular to each's darkest fears. However we really didn't need the transmisogynist bullcrap ala the "deranged serial killer who feigns being a woman to lure in his victims" that the writers threw in there. That's a serious blunder on the part of the showrunners. Fuck that noise. But I love how he gets offed: after helping to kidnap Rick and unwittingly leading to the Elric's reuniting and making amends with one another, Barry runs in to kill Ed. Al steps forward to protect his brother, and in swoops Scar to end the fight altogether. Having someone who nearly murders the Elrics but who has sworn off pursuing them after seeing their potential to resist the Amestrian regime, step in to murder a different serial killer who has repeatedly attempted to murder those same boys? Ooh that's good.

Denny: Maria Ross' kinda-simping sidekick lol. He's friendly enough, if not a little innocuous compared to Ross. He's goofy, which is fun. Thankfully it's not overdone either. Poor guy gets cucked by Hohenheim though lol

Lujon: This man's bargain with, and deluded love for, the devil only bought the village doomed by her master's foul play some time and nothing more. The story of his village is one of fma 03's gems. Lust herself never once entertains the sexual desires of others, and in Lujon's case, his attachment to her reads both as too familiar ala her scant memories of Scar Bro, and perhaps insincere on his part. He would abandon his own fiancee and almost-wife at the alter for someone who has been manipulating him into creating a philosopher's stone. Killing him is Lust's way of severing what others project onto her, now that she is growing closer to reclaiming herself. It may even be argued: this is her rejection of Scar Bro and what he did to her. Lujon could not save his village, he could not cure Dante's utterly horrific contagion, and so he becomes a symbol for the limitations of alchemy in most people's hands. And he could never have cared for Lust for reasons outside of himself. That's why I find him so interesting.

The Exiled Ishbalan: The man who tears open the Elric's unexamined racism. I wish he was given a proper name, but in this case, where he is rejected by his fellow Ishbalans for practicing a forbidden science, it thematically fits that he is simply known for being a pariah. He reveals to Scar the Grand Arcanum, its Ishbalan history, and its use in creating a philosopher's stone. I'm glad he gets re-integrated with the Ishbalan refugees as they're all freed to rebuild Ishbal.

Claus: I have a soft-spot for this one-off character. She's a brash little butch kid who leads the local gaggle of boys, how could I not like her? She's trying to figure out why girls and young women are going missing, and what's behind the strange sightings of ghostly women around town. Motivated by her desire to find her older sister, her bravery and cocksure attitude are a treat. It's the rare instance of familial sisterly love in this show, which slots nicely with the focus on sibling bonds overall. Though Claus must live with the terrible revelation that her sister had indeed been murdered, unlike the Elrics she will not drown in grief forever. She moves forward, at least with the knowledge that there won't be any further losses for the other villagers. Really wish her arc wasn't concluded by having her adopt a "properly" feminine presentation thanks to Ed's goading (stfu Ed, your effeminate ass does not get to lecture others about conforming to gendered expectations). Claus, get that crew cut, don that paperboy cap, vest, and pants again, and don't let anyone shame you for living the way you want.

Belsio: I like his design. And he's a pretty chill dude all around too. Smart of him to not embrace Xenotime's philosopher's stone mania as a plague sweeps through the town. He's willing to provide shelter to travellers even when they may be frauds (they're not, but he doesn't turn away the Tringhams either once he learns who they are). Solid guy all around. But woe! Lemon stealing whores upon thy.

Seventh tier: Once again, critters! And although these pups certainly aren't characters comparable to the entire human and homunculus roster, they still get to rep the middle tier. A more lateral tier to the tierlist than anything else, but they'll sit here. Den is the goodest girl, Alexander is our tragic best boy, and Black Hayate is the cutest almost-meal.

Eighth tier: Ok so. Mustang. He's in a category of his own due to my very, very mixed feelings about him. I forever want to punt this man into the sun, but where mangahood makes me want to do so with exceptional viciousness, I can actually appreciate 03 Mustang's character and where the narrative takes him. I don't think he's a crap-quality character in this anime at all (this is not the same as arguing whether he's moral or not; he's not). Where mangahood Mustang feels so performative, plastic and convenient for gaining the approval of an audience despite his prowess in ethnic cleansing and rewarding himself for feeling """sufficiently""" sad about it, this Mustang isn't depicted as the Golden Boy Colonel who gets his government leadership dreams granted. He isn't the "doting father figure" many want of him based on their perception of the mangahood version. He's cold, calculating, a conniving ladder climbing fascist who can't square his dreams of power with what power actually does to its subjects. I can actually believe that this guy is actually internally hounded by being one of the most effective individual genociders amongst genociders. And this doesn't absolve him either. Within the 2003 anime we get no false promises about Mustang doing 'right' once he sits as the head of the nation. He also never leads Amestris, period. By his own hands he wipes away this possibility, rejecting the system altogether. His smaller scale, more clandestine coup actually does help loosen the military's grip on the state (though let's remember, a state is inherently oppressive and is not cleared of its ability to wage war and violence simply because the military is not officially running it). Of course, for reasons I can only speculate about, Conqueror of Shambala retcons this ending and tries to shove Roy back into the still-functional military. It's a shit decision, even where it's left to interpretation just how far he's willing to go back within the military ranks. One of CoS' big negatives. Setting that aside, I appreciate his final convo with Ed. It's a fantastic thesis statement on both Ed and Roy's arcs, as well as tying a bow on fma 2003's themes. Best thing I can do with this guy is to imagine he forever avoids the military and state after he renounces it all post-killing Bradley.

Ninth tier: Hey, they work as villains. I wouldn't change them since we need them as is. What more can I say?

Bradley/Pride: If the 03 team had been allotted more funds and time to continue the anime, I have no doubt they would have given Bradley more time to cook with a firmer backstory. As is though, he works well as the dictator trained in juggling the affairs of a ruthless state while aiding his creator's goals. His seemingly easy and affable demeanour always felt suspect, making himself seem approachable to his subordinates while keeping an eye on useful alchemists. The subtle evidence of the iron hand he wields under that facade kept me intrigued all those years ago. So once we finally get to the revelation of what he is, and when we hear him espouse his fascist beliefs during his showdown with Mustang, it hits! Bradley highlights the hideous ideology underpinning Amestrian governance and its society. And he's not the only character who is shown to believe in their "superiority" over those they deem lesser. Fascism doesn't begin and end with Bradley, or Dante for that matter. I much prefer that we get the reveal of him being a homunculus in the latter half of the show and, imho, him being granted the title of Pride makes a bit more sense given his dictatorship and nationalism. Also, I'm glad we don't have this Bradley characterized as a wife-guy. I'm sorry but I don't need yet another example of the 'redeeming' qualities of normative cishetero nuclear coupling. He strangles his (very human) adopted son to conceal himself and would burn his mansion down around his wife without a second thought if it meant he could settle a match and keep his hold over Amestris.

Cornello: So Cornello isn't some big shot villain but his place in kick-starting the show and the fantastic execution of those first two eps really lays the groundwork for the political and philosophical tensions 03 works with. The start of the show, and the payoffs in plot, character, and world development absolutely would not have hit as well if we didn't begin this odyssey with a white Amestrian theocratic puppet installed to lead Liore. And bless the writers for not having injected 56 different fucking gags smack in the middle of the serious moments and the standoff between Ed and Cornello (or that stupid Hulk Cornello that got tossed into Brotherhood). The chimeric avian abomination he makes and then looses on Rose left a lasting impression. He was well utilized, and his story harkens towards the real life actions of major empires like the USA and its global sabotage in supplanting American-backed leaders into target nations. So I really appreciate the role this colonizer conman (a redundancy in terms but hey) has for all of fma 03.

Tenth tier: There are interesting bits to these characters, but not enough to really propel them into the higher ranks.

Lyra: A hardcore state bootlicker who dreams of becoming an enforcer someday. She never improves as a person, but that's in some ways the point. I would have loved to get a little bit more out of her, but what could be more fitting for someone who gleefully wears her patriotism and love of mass oppression on her sleeve than to have her life snuffed out by a rotting body-snatcher who plays a role in maintaining that very systemic oppression? Also her character design slaps.

Havoc: Like most of the Amestrian soldiers in this adaptation, we aren't fed some version of Havoc who is noble, nor doting or kind to the Elrics. He's (say it with me now) a dog of the military and we accept that as his role. His personality is amusing, as is his eternal failures in getting laid. There really wouldn't have been much point in developing his character tbh, even if the show got a few more episodes to cook. He works as is. And thankfully he isn't injected into Lust's story whatsoever (she is infinitely better than him and would never fail to actually kill his ass <3333).

Riza: Tbh I just don't have much to say about 03 Riza. I could easily compare and contrast her to her mangahood counterparts (as I've done with many characters so far), but I'd rather convey that she (like 90% of Mustang's entourage) never stood out to me. Her actions in rounding up the Ishbalans so that the state can maintain them again in its refugee (concentration) camps is the most despicable thing we see her do. Despite what a lot of 03's promo art may lead some to believe, she doesn't have much of a role within this adaptation at all. Her biggest moment was helping Mustang infiltrate Bradley's mansion and killing Archer. And after finally seeing the absolute Royai-obsessed genocidal angsty-romance shit that is apparently the lifeblood of the mangahood canon (and much of the fma fandom too), I'll take this less relevant, less detestable use of Riza instead. I don't hate her, I don't like her, but she's juuuust interesting enough for me to plop her (slightly) above the neutral tier.

Eleventh tier: Don't take this as a "hate" tier. I don't dislike these characters. This is a collection of characters that are either too brief and simple to gain my attention beyond what they serve in the story, or they serve their role well and are memorable for that particular episode but lack the staying power or charisma to make me think more highly of 'em.

It's a bit of a grab-bag tier since I could make a sub-tier of everyone pictured:

I prefer Rick and Leo's mom, Lujon's fiancee, the mining town dad and his son, Mason, Dominic, the Devil's Nest crew above -> Scar's master and human!Selim, who in turn are above -> Majahal's "long lost" sweetheart, the remainder of Mustang's underlings, Grumman, and Bald.

For the characters I simply didn't even put on this entire tierlist you can feasibly toss them into the neutral pile as well.

Twelfth tier: Characters I would gladly shank to death if given the opportunity. Not because there aren't others in the above tiers who I wouldn't want to stab, but this lot don't click for me as standalone characters. However, I don't begrudge their existence in the show and their utility for the tone, themes, and progression of the show/movie. Thankfully we're never berated over the head to somehow sympathize with these guys, let alone feel for them on par with or above the genuinely more sympathetic characters. We aren't made to eat the military's shit and call it gourmet here, and that's why I still appreciate what these characters bring to the table. I wouldn't remove them from the story, but I'm glad they all get theirs eventually.

Yoki: A perfect example of the class benefits of statesmen and their enforcers, and how the bureaucracy of the state is itself oppressive. It will exploit resource-rich locales, extracting wealth from a captured labour force. Ed knocking him down from his cushy position, and Lust puncturing his cranium were some quality moments. Of course, fuck Yoki for alerting the state to round up the Ishbalans. At least it made his death that much more satisfying.

Majahal: The episode we encounter this acquaintance of Hohenheim's was one of the very, very few I would agree to call a mess, but it foreshadowed some very important truths about alchemy and alchemists through the vehicle of this aging serial killer. Although he does not perform human transmutation, he does kill young women and girls to tether them to mannequins sculpted after his 'lost' love. Despite the ep's problems with pacing and wonky storytelling (it really feels like the writers were still getting a hang of things), I like how awful this alchemist was. Majahal's actions and his beliefs helps cast some serious doubts on alchemists as a class and alchemy as a practice, on Hohenheim's connections, on what seeing people as objects for you to mold to your exact liking leads to, and that the scientism of alchemy should indeed be questioned. And hey, he gets the dubious honour of being Ed's first manslaughter! Woo!

Mugear: A piece of shit mayor who willingly poisons the populace of his town in order to create red stones at the behest of the homunculi. He wants more power than what he gets from his station, and has no qualms with how many people suffer and die. That he wants to use the placentas from the increased miscarriages that are occurring because of the red water is some next level evil. Yet another example of science wielded by power in order to exploit the masses.

Marco: A war criminal who defected from the military here too, but one who isn't given the opportunity to aid a future Fuhrer with yet another war crime. He was better off quietly living as a doctor for a small town who had no other medical professionals to tend to the townsfolk. Even though he reveals the truth to the Elrics about what the "Eastern Rebellion" really was (an invasion and a massacre), there's a certain poetry to Dr.Marco having been party to the Rockbells' murders. This version of him doesn't infuriate me the same way mangahood Marcoh does, but I'm not mad about him ending up as a solid meal for Gluttony either.

Shou Tucker: To reiterate what I said in my Broho tierlist: He's a monster (in this anime, figuratively and eventually literally too), everyone rightfully despises him, and he still performed fewer atrocities than the average soldier, let alone the war criminals in this series. Seeing him used as a secret scientist in Lab 5 as a warped chimera, and slowly growing mad from his desperate urge to, like the Elrics, undo his desecration of a family member is poignant and disturbing. He is truly what Ed could have become. If not his father or Dante, or any of the state alchemist war criminals, Ed could have become Tucker.

Earth!Hughes: For fuck's sake. Yes, he's a Nazi. No, this isn't some massive departure from what Amestrian!Hughes was. The nexus of the 03/Cos/Mangahood Hughes' are a fantastic litmus test for whether or not any given person has the political acuity regarding what the material realities of fascism, nationalism, and ethnosupremacy are versus a basal reliance on optics (bad to be a Nazi, fine to willingly join the institution of an imperialist state whose purpose is to capture land and people, and commit ethnic cleansing). Unfortunately the mass of fma fans (regardless of preference for any given media or continuities) absolutely fucking fails this test in spectacular fashion. In a sick bit of irony, Earth!Hughes hasn't done any genocide yet (as the Nazi party hadn't yet gained a solid foothold in German governance), but mangahood Hughes? Oh boy. Wow, does that beloved piece of crap mass murder Ishvalans. Mangahood!Hughes literally performs more overt fascist/imperialist violence compared to Nazi!Hughes. So I'm glad this specific, extremely relevant alternative version of this character exists. Because he lays bare the gaps in people's understanding of what fascism even is, and what societal structures create the foundation for said fascism to develop, and how none of you understood Fullmetal Alchemist to begin with. Which, shockingly, includes the original mangaka too lmao

Eckhart: CoS' Nazi big bad. I can't really say I feel anything particular about her as a character since she's more a cumulative picture of a ring leader to a fascist occultist subgroup than a character in her own right. She's the exact piece of shit one would expect, and for the purpose she serves in CoS that's all well and good. There isn't any time to really develop her further than that, but I will say that her breakdown into despising and fearing the people on the other side of the Gate was entertaining. Some may say it's a bit on the nose, and they're not wrong, but it flings back into Ed's face that all people have full lives and interiority; they're all real, and as always your actions ripple far beyond your little inner world. That, and the fact that deep-seated societal racism has its roots in governance, and that it will rear up into full scale destruction. It's everyone's responsibility to fight against this. So Eckhart is a useful tool for reiterating this topic. Oh, and the way she dies, covered in the mass of beings who inhabit the Gate, causing her to appear as though she walked out of a scifi horror flick? Love it.

Hakuro: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Hakuro, man. I'm glad we get to see him as some peaceful family man before witnessing his hand in the Lioran invasion and, likely, the instigator of Rose's gang rape. Why do I appreciate that framing? Because it undermines a common and often very successful propagandistic framing device that encourages people to humanize genociders and soldiers. It's a counterbalance to Hughes being the "military family man, so how bad can any of this really be?" This thematic tension reveals that propaganda: "Soldiers have families too! They're just trying to protect the most important and innocent assets members of the nation! Join the front to shield loved ones from the [foreign] scourge! All militarymen are people with grand ideals and pride in their people! How can you fault them for that?" It's a consistent way to embolden a nation's populace to not only sign up for service, but to rabidly defend their troops. Look at the very real fma fans who do this, pavlov style, for both their military blorbos and real life militaries! It works! But what I think is quite clever with what 03 does with him is two-fold: 1) he is not held up as a uniquely ~evil~ member of the military, in fact he's quite average. This is what the military is. The banality of evil is that it is carried out by people who join these institutions for xyz reasons and carry out their orders without qualms (and in fact he's just as much a rank climber as Mustang). And 2) We don't focus in on him as one of the select military/government officials that, if taken down, will suddenly render the military into an ethical, positive entity. Bradley is the closest to falling into this trope, and even then this show doesn't center that thinking. So Hakuro, and all the nameless scum who fill out the military ranks, are not an extra special breed of awful. They are human cogs of the machine, and anyone can be Hakuro. Not because "all humans are evil" (thereby equivocating genociders and their targets/victims), but because signing up to be a cog means you will grind people in your gears.

Basque Grand: The brigadier general who oversees much of the military's branches in Eastern and Lab 5 in Central. He made good use of the red stones to obliterate enough of Ishbal to propel him to his current (and final) rank. The man cares only about keeping everything running accordingly and securing his standing. After everything he does to Ishbal, to Nina, to the Elrics, and learning about the experiments run in Lab 5, seeing this jackass get his brain splattered by Scar, in public, in broad daylight, while moments before gloating about the stone he was going to use to kill Scar? Absolutely one of my fave moments in this show.

Archer: A proud war mongerer thrilled by every opportunity to send an armada in to stamp their boots over a populace. He's a scumbag through and through. Having half of his body disintegrated into the Liore philosopher's stone did give us a great shot of him screaming in pure agony, and on the other hand it gave us Terminator Archer. Granted, I can absolutely see the Amestrian state scientists and alchemists toying with mechanizing human beings (it's no less horrific and unethical than all the other bio-alchemical atrocities they routinely perform). And I can see them taking the opportunity to use any of their barely-surviving military personnel as fodder; if they could roll out even more dangerous pigs why wouldn't they? But the execution of this was haphazard. The design alone is a mess, but I can see what they were going for. If anything, his design should have been pushed into emphasizing that grotesque, industrial melding of metal to flesh. Like a dehumanization of the automail artisanship, have Archer be less cognizant, have us question if he can even be said to be human/alive/the same person, hell, have him be largely incapable of speech due to having half his throat missing. Let his communication be dictated by the sounds of machine functions, with a guttural, tortured noise as a subtle backdrop to each attempt at speech. So much potential for some quality machine-human body horror, unfulfilled. Though by this point the show was in full throttle to the finish line, so there wasn't much time or money left to flesh (heh) this out in such a way that it lands. I can't totally fault the team for having this be wasted potential. And not like it would have made me like the guy, but that's the point. He serves his narrative purpose well. Get wrecked, Archer.

Kimbly: Fascist supreme, but unlike in mangahood, he isn't positioned as a strange outlier to your average Amestrian citizen, militarymen, or statesmen. He's more violent insofar that he's willing to harm his fellow soldiers (and even that's not unique given what we're shown of Archer and Basque Grand), but he's not held up as an example of the "few bad apples poisoning the jackbooted bunch". I didn't know how good I had it with 03 regarding this version of this character! He doesn't get a ton of focus, he isn't made to be an "evil badass" to the extent Brotherhood does, and we don't get this douchebag having a moment in the spotlight to help Ed defeat a homunculus after giving his version of a friendship speech. Best of all, Scar gets his revenge against the man who maimed him and murdered his brother (let alone countless other Ishbalans). Fuck this dude, but I'm glad I can stand to see this asshole in this version thanks to far less insulting writing choices!

God, I love this anime. Everytime I rewatch this show I find so many new things to appreciate. Ruminating on the subtle characterization, politics, and storytelling that each watch-through uncovers really lets me savour the passion that Studio Bones poured into Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. And as my own perspectives on the world and my political philosophy itself matured I become all the more impressed with what they cooked all those years ago. I adore stories that make me feel, and it's all the more fantastic when its done with sincerity. They weren't afraid to tell hard stories. 03 doesn't try to run it back or serve you easy outs. Yet it never feels cynical, at least not to me. Not because cynicism would be unwarranted, but because this show truly feels for the strife of its world and characters.

I'll always come back to this adaptation. Even if most people forget it exists, I'll have something truly wonderful to remember and revisit for many more years to come.

#phew i'm doooooone #i hope i did some justice for my love of fma 03 here #writing the breakdown for each character had me really sit with each of them and appreciate them even more than i already did #had to maintain some level of restraint or else i would have ended up typing even more word vomit (pos)#mine #fma #fma 03 #cos #meta

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undead-supernova · 9 months

Text

HIGH TOLERANCE

Live Resin / Masterlist

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

warnings: gay disasters, Steve (derogatory), a bit of angst but that's a given for pining best friend!eddie so enter at your own risk, weed consumption (but what's new in a series about weed consumption)

pairings: modern!bestfriend!Eddie x fem!reader (both bisexual bitches)

plot: let's go sing some karaoke and feel like we're dying, shall we?

wc: 6k

p.s. I listened to "Watch" by Maisie Peters the entire time I wrote this and I just cannot for the life of me let The Good Witch go. Anyone else in a chokehold from that album? Anyways, here you go!

“For you, my good sir!” you exclaimed, feigning a British accent as you got down on one knee and presented Eddie with a joint like it was a sword. And it was an immediate scrape to your knee, your black crop top and miniskirt riding up. You tried to save yourself by planting your maroon Converse on the ground, but it was met with instant failure. Eddie chuckled, grabbing your arm to try and stabilize you before he continued the bit.

(Leave it to Eddie Munson to commit to a bit.)

“For me?” he asked, feigning a gasp as he threw his hand over his chest, his rings clinking together. “You shouldn’t have.”

You exaggerated a wink as you stood back up.

“Sure, I did.”

“Wha’da we got, Weirdo?”

You repeated what the guy at Jailbait Hemp told you. It was a THC-A pre-roll that was covered in live resin (which technically has a higher concentration level than just the THC-A alone). It burned differently than other joints, a glaze lining the paper to burn like honey.

Let it in slow and watch it go.

“She sure is a pretty one,” Eddie said, lightly running the pad of his pointer finger along the resin. It didn’t flake off or leave any residue on his finger. Incredible.

You smirked. “I know, right?”

“Kinda like you.”

You swallowed immediately, nearly choking as the spit went down wherever the wrong pipe was located.

Panic, panic, panic.

“Oh, whatever,” you said, waving him away. You distracted yourself with wiping the gravel off of the scrape on your knee that showed promise of blood but stayed put. The most embarrassing thing you could think of was having to ask someone for a Band-aid because you were too busy doing a bit with a joint to remember that you weren’t wearing pants. Eddie would love that a little too much and you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction.

“You’re right,” Eddie said with a nod, causing you to look back up. “Doesn’t come close to you, m’lady.” Without another word or time for you to even remotely process, he held out his hand and made obnoxious grabbing gestures. “Alright. Gimme, gimme. Wanna light her up.”

With shaky fingers, you handed it over. Eddie took his black Bic lighter and ran the flame back and forth against the twisted end of the paper. It took him two or three tries to keep it lit, but he finally got it, moving it around in circles to let it burn as evenly as it could. The air instantly thickened with the smell. But to be fair, you smelled weed wherever you went in Atlanta. Even on the highway somehow.

You could hear the music from Go Ask Mary from two blocks away, the bass of Madonna’s “Vogue” booming through the walls. It was almost time for karaoke to start and, to be honest, you were excited. Eddie had picked up some extra shifts at the car dealership and your shitty retail jobs at the Lenox Square mall had been draining. Especially when you were surrounded by stores like Chanel and Tiffany & Co. It was always your dream to work at a Sephora where all the pretentious rich people complained about needing a new Balenciaga bag before arguing with you when their sheer Tom Ford lipstick was out of stock.

This was the first time you’d seen Eddie in a week, despite him practically begging to come over at 2am to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie on a Monday. The extended edition to be exact, all three hours of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin being the most iconic couple of the fantasy realm. It was embarrassing to admit, but you nearly considered calling out just so you could.

Tonight, you couldn’t wait to let off some steam, especially with the person who made every day worth it. Eddie looked as he usually did with all his chains and rings and pretty face and attitude. It was disgustingly unfair that he could wear variations of the same outfit every time you saw him and somehow looked better and better every time.

“There you guys are,” Steve sighed as he and Robin walked over from the bar.

Steve was still in his suit, just without his tie and blazer. A few buttons of his white button down were popped with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Robin wore an oversized cotton button down, white with navy stripes and a loose navy tie. She looked like she was going to the beach for the day, even going so far as to wear jean shorts and checkerboard Vans.

“We should’ve known you were smoking,” Robin said, nose wrinkling before she pulled out her flask from her back pocket and took a few sips. “Did you know that one joint is, like, the equivalent of five cigarettes? I heard it on a podcast the other day and, believe me, that sounds bad. Like, really bad.”

“What else is new?” you joked, taking the joint from Eddie and filling your lungs with a few hearty drags. “At least we’re not vaping. That’s, what, the equivalent of a hundred cigarettes?”

Robin shook her head. “Actually, I read that a thousand-puff vape is the equivalent of five to six packs.” She paused, moving her fingers through the air as she solved the problem in her head. “So…about one-twenty?”

Eddie hummed, nodding. “Aren’t you glad I stopped smoking cigs six months ago?”

“Well, yes.”

“So smoking weed should be the least of your worries, Buckley.”

“You have a point. But honestly—"

“Rob!” Steve interrupted. “Rob, listen. I have exciting news.”

“What is it?” you asked.

“I’m getting the first round,” he said proudly. “I got a bonus at work.”

“Thanks, Steve,” you said, genuinely touched by the offer. “That’s awesome, though. You’re literally moving up in the world.”

“Bringing in the big bucks, this one,” Eddie teased with a big smile as he took the joint from you. “Always a generous giver.”

Steve glared at Robin. “She thinks I should quit.”

“No, I do not!” Robin argued. “I just think you’re in a weird environment with weird men—"

The high was already making its way through you, causing you to not-so-subtly stare at Eddie again. His eyes were trained on yours as Steve and Robin rattled on, entering some bickering fest that you were positive he wasn’t listening to. And the way he was looking at you… Well, it didn’t seem that platonic, did it?

His eyes were doing that thing again, that slow gaze down your body before reaching back up to your eyes. Your fingers inched just a little bit closer to his and you almost swore you could hear his rings again as they fluttered towards yours.

Robin cleared her throat, causing you to look back at her. She was eyeing you specifically, not even bothering to look at Eddie.

Could she see it? What did she know? Was there anything to know?

“Well, we’ll be inside,” she said, grabbing Steve’s arm. “Have fun with the extra cancer!”

Eddie chuckled. “Thanks, Buckley.”

You watched them walk away, right back in their little fight. It was nice to be around them again. Truly, it was. You didn’t have too many friends outside of Eddie, always working during the week and never truly finding time to go out unless Eddie dragged you along. You could engage in small talk with strangers at Go Ask Mary on the weekends, but it was different when you got home and found your phone void of anyone to tell those stories to. Zero messages, not even from your parents or your sister. No Instagram DMs of cute animals or Tumblr messages of photography and memes. Just a phone that looked more like a coffin full of wires than access to the whole world.

Except for Eddie.

As he turned back to you, he lifted the joint and let it hover just above your lips.

“Want some more?” he asked.

You looked up at him, nearly startled by how close he was to you. God, what was it about him? Maybe it was the dark color of his eyes, still illuminated in the warm sunset, nearly glazed over with a golden sheen. Maybe it was the way his hair was doing that thing after a fresh wash where the ends were slightly curlier than the rest. Or maybe it was the way his tips of his sneakers were meeting yours and the smell of tobacco and car air freshener was wafting off of him.

“Come on, you can’t deny you want it.”

“Um,” you stumbled. “Yeah. Yeah, I want it.”

“Yeah?”

Nodding, you felt his fingers grazing your mouth as he placed it in between your lips. You took a long, slow drag while your eyes never left his. You wanted to look away. Really, you did. If anything, the sparks settling in your stomach were starting to pop and sizzle unlike ever before.

You just couldn’t help yourself.

And if anything, he didn’t seem like he could either.

Tonight was going to be interesting.

The bar wasn’t very crowded, but that’s why you liked to go as a group during the week. Even if there weren’t many people looking to do karaoke on a Tuesday, it didn’t matter. There were four of you ready to tear up the fucking stage.

You went in rotation for solo performances, Robin singing “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac followed by you singing “Love Is a Stranger" by Eurythmics (despite it technically not being from the Eighties) followed by Eddie doing “The Stroke” by Billy Squire and finishing with Steve’s off-key rendition “Africa” by Toto.

When Steve returned from his noteworthy performance, the three of you congratulated him. He did a little bow before wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Eddie patted the table and said, “Alright, I’ll go get the next round.” As he was about to leave, he looked at you. “Still want a vodka Redbull?”

“Of course,” you said with a smile.

He gave you a quick wink. “Just checking, Weirdo.”

“Thanks.”

You turned back to Steve and Robin, watching Steve dab his face with a napkin. He was mostly definitely inching towards being drunk, always starting to turn red and sweaty whenever he was getting close. That, and he started to run his mouth.

“God, he’s dreamy,” Steve said, leaning his head in one hand. You followed his line of sight, all three of you watching Eddie walk to the bar. “It’s almost annoying how hot he is.”

Robin snorted. “Yeah, okay. Keep dreaming.”

Maybe it shouldn’t have stung the way it did. Anyone was allowed to find him hot. It didn’t mean anything. Just a bit of flattery, that’s all. But then it was like you couldn’t stop yourself and suddenly you were unable to keep yourself from asking the one thing you never ever should have.

“Do you have a crush on Eddie?”

You watched Steve laugh pitifully. “I mean, maybe?”

“Maybe? What does ‘maybe’ mean, Steve?” Robin asked.

“I mean, he’s hot, right? But I don’t know if he’d even go for me.” As he talked, he popped open another button of his shirt, showing off a bit of his wife beater and chest hair. “Like, okay, he’s just so pretty and he fixes cars and plays in a band? It’s cool as hell. But I don’t think we even have that much in common, so I don’t know. He likes metal, I like pop. He likes D&D and I like, uh, I don’t know? Poker? Anyways, I don’t even know what kind of guys he’s into. Do you know, Rob?”

Robin shrugged, meeting your eyes before saying, “I don’t know, Steve. Ever thought about asking him what his type is?”

And you shouldn’t have asked. Really, you shouldn’t. Because now you were here, sitting at a table while Steve moaned and groaned about his chances with Eddie, like it was some statistics problem. And then someone was doing an awful cover of “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, the shrill sound mixing with Steve’s whining. And you? You were sulking.

You looked over and watched Eddie wait for your drinks at the bar, wondering if Steve had any chance and whether you were more likely to get the guy in the end. Surely there was a silver lining in there somewhere. You enjoyed metal music and even convinced Eddie to listen to other genres. You enjoyed listening to Eddie talk about Dungeons and Dragons and showed him board games you liked, like Catan. Relationships weren’t built off of just similarities and differences. Steve was wrong.

Right?

As if Eddie heard your thoughts, he caught your stare, his lips pulling back into a large grin as he waved and moved his hips a little bit along to the grating karaoke. You couldn’t help but laugh at how awkward he looked, in turn doing the worst arm wave in history. He immediately started laughing.

Eddie was looking at you, wasn’t he? Steve wasn’t even bothering to look at the object of his desire. He merely talked about the guy, putting his head in his hands and panicking as if Eddie wasn’t in the same room. But you were looking at Eddie and now you were in a makeshift dance battle, embarrassing yourself by doing an awful robot while he did that shopping cart move.

Could Steve have this kind of relationship with Eddie?

And what were the odds of you winning?

What were the odds of you losing?

After a good bit of chatter, Steve and Robin headed towards the other end of the bar to set up a game of darts. Eddie went along, but you decided to stay behind. He found it odd, asking if you were sure and you’d nodded, telling him that you wanted a moment to yourself.

But Eddie didn’t believe you. Not one bit. You’d started acting weird merely seconds after he came back with drinks. It was strange. One moment you were dancing with him across the room and the next your shoulders were slumped, falling out of any and all conversation. Even when he nudged you and tried to be playful, you seemed to pretend you didn’t notice. Instead, you focused on your straw and nodding along as if you were paying attention.

He knew you hadn’t. He knew there was something wrong and, of course, he wanted to respect your privacy but there had to be something else there. Had Robin let anything slip? Did Steve act like an asshole? Were you upset with him?

Robin and Steve were in the heat of a tie when Eddie finally decided to walk back over to you. He didn’t like seeing you so sad, so vulnerable. And with the addition of the high, he knew how scary that could feel. If something didn’t feel right, it could get extremely uncomfortable. And you couldn’t just be alone in that hole.

“Hey,” he said as he approached you. “Are you feeling okay?”

You put on one of the fakest smiles he’d ever seen before replying, “Yeah, I guess I’m just tired from work.”

Lie.

“Is the high getting you down?”

You shrugged. “A bit, yeah.”

“Um,” he said, gulping as he held out his palm. “Do you need to hold my hand?”

You looked down at his hand before looking back up.

“No, I think I’ll be okay. Thank you, though.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure,” he replied, placing his hand on top of the other.

He squeezed it to elicit something resembling comfort for the rejection he felt. It was like your hand was some kind of phantom feeling that made his chest ache with want. And that want was slowly but surely starting to burn.

“Well, uh.” He gulped. “I’m gonna get myself another beer. Want anything?”

You shook your head. “No, I’m okay.”

Eddie nodded before turning away.

“Hey, Eddie?”

He didn’t think he’d ever spun back around that quickly before.

“Yeah?”

You smiled weakly. “If you need me to drive your van back tonight, let me know. I don’t mind if you want to get a little drunk with Steve and Robin.”

And just like that, he died a little inside. Again.

“Will do, Weirdo.”

Steve was back on his bullshit.

“Oh my god, do you guys think I should try to sing with him? Get the sparks flying, you know?” He moved his head from side to side. “‘Do a little dance? Make a little love’?”

Robin smacked Steve’s arm. “You did not just do that.”

You let out a tiny sigh, looking away from his hopeful expression. Steve genuinely thought he’d cracked the code to Eddie’s heart. And you couldn’t blame him. Who wouldn’t want someone like Eddie?

But really, you wanted to put your head on the table and bang it over and over.

Over. And. Over.

Eddie had gone to get a third beer and Steve had wasted no time before bringing this shit back up. You were seriously starting to dislike him for the first time in three years. Three. Years. He was obnoxious when he was drunk, sure, but it was never like this.

Or maybe you just hadn’t paid attention until tonight.

You shook your head, desperately trying to get the feelings out of your body. The blunt was starting to get the best of you, fogging your brain while your limbs felt like they were vibrating. This was killing your high. No, it was more than that. It was magnifying all the feelings you once swore to be dormant.

You looked over to find Robin staring at you, her eyebrow quirked up. Noticeably, you might add. You and Robin weren’t that close—you were one of Eddie’s best friends to the rest of them. You had fun whenever the group would hang out, whether that be at Eddie’s shows or unwinding at Go Ask Mary, but you never truly hung out alone.

Steve, Robin, and Eddie had moved to Atlanta three years ago, after they wanted out of their small town in Indiana. Steve’s dad had gotten him a job at a big boy law firm in the heart of Downtown. It wasn’t the best way to get into the business, but it was the best way to get all of them out. To start over somewhere bigger, somewhere with more opportunities. Steve convinced them to save up for the summer before driving eight hours to their shitty new apartment. He swung Robin a waitressing gig at a nice restaurant he had a business lunch at—charmed the owner and everything. Eddie had worked at a local gay bar in Decatur and played there sometimes on metal or punk themed nights.

And here Robin was now, staring at you like she was trying to figure out how you were feeling, as if you’d ever be phased by Steve’s confession. Confessions. And she was making eye contact, all bold and unashamed. Like she was some freakishly keen hawk, two steps away from letting out a ca-caw. And if Steve paid just a fraction, just a millimeter of attention, he’d notice.

It was all quite unnerving.

“Don’t you think sparks would already be flying after years of knowing each other?” Robin asked, eyes flickering from Steve’s to yours and then back again. “I mean, I think you would know by now. If there was something between you.” She gestured over to you. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

What was her deal?

“Pfffft.”

A bit of Steve’s spit flew out and hit your cheek. You would’ve laughed three hours ago. Now? Now, you were seriously considering bashing his head against the table.

(It was a big night for head bashing.)

“Last call for karaoke!” one of the bartenders announced.

“Wish me luck!” Steve said to you and Robin before raising his hand. “I’ll do it!” he exclaimed loudly, pointing to Eddie who had just finished closing out his tab. “I’ll do it with that handsome man over there!”

Eddie looked surprised but shrugged, a pleasant smile reaching his lips. “Yeah, sure, Harrington. Show me what you got.”

As they moved towards the stage, you swallowed the words resting on your tongue.

I wanted to sing with Eddie tonight.

“I hope he doesn’t embarrass himself.”

You couldn’t look at Robin. You just couldn’t.

“What song did he pick?” you asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“‘Under Pressure’.”

Oh, fuck. You’d sung that in the car with Eddie plenty of times, always with a silent acknowledgement that whatever conversation you were having would cease and the volume was to be turned all the way up. You went for Freddie Mercury's part while Eddie took the lower octaves in David Bowie’s verses. Eddie sounded amazing when he sang it, confident with his range and feeding emotion into the song. And you melted. You just melted.

And when the song started and Eddie’s eyes drifted away from Steve and landed on you, well, you couldn’t help but feel seen. He thought about those times, too, didn't he? It was something you both held special. Right?

But Steve took Eddie’s hand and started trying to dance with him. Eddie laughed, trying to follow his complicated rhythm. Steve was stumbling and nearly fell of the stage, but Eddie caught him, stabilizing him. Just like he’d done with you in the parking lot.

Things were going downhill for you. And they were going down fast.

Eddie cleared his throat dramatically before starting the first verse. “Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you. No man ask for.”

You let out a sigh at the sound of Eddie’s voice, all gravely and husky and soft all the same. It felt even better tonight with whatever was in this joint. You could feel it inside, like it was somehow spreading through you. There was a part of you that was sure you’d never get over it for as long as you lived.

Steve pulled Eddie closer, grabbing at his waist and slowly moving it down.

Oh my fucking god. Eddie knows what he’s doing, right? you asked yourself. Can he tell? Does he like this?

Eddie cleared his throat before belting, “It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about. Watching some good friends screaming—”

“Let me out!” Steve shouted.

They stumbled through a laugh at the ridiculousness, and you began to feel like you were slowly dying. Again.

“I’m…going to go to the bathroom,” Robin announced before scurrying off.

And you tried to keep your eyes off of them. Really, you did. You made yourself look around the room, scanning the face of a drag queen who was currently walking around and engaging in animated conversations with the few other people here. Her eyes were coated in pink glitter and tall eyelashes; nude lips perfectly lined and wrapped around the straw of a cocktail. She was absolutely gorgeous, as most Atlanta queens were. Plus, how could you ever look away from a drag queen? They were angels, truly. Archangels.

But it was Eddie’s singing that brought your attention back, as effortless as Bowie himself. Like there was nothing to it. Like he was always on the track to begin with.

You found yourself thinking about the night you met Eddie, right here in Go Ask Mary. It was the five-month anniversary of their official move to Atlanta, the three of them wanting to go out and celebrate not completely fucking up. They’d gotten out and they were doing pretty okay for themselves by the look of it.

And you? Well, you were a native to the south. Grew up in Tennessee, moved here when you saw the opportunity for college somewhere that wasn’t Tennessee. Found your way through college and realizing you were bisexual and, well, found Go Ask Mary. At the time, you came here with friends, but there was a period time after losing some of those friends where you preferred coming by yourself. It was an accepting atmosphere, one where everyone seemed friendly. You could have a six-minute conversation with a queer stranger and never speak again. But it would be fond and unforgettable. It would be transcendent.

You’d gone up and done a dramatic cover of “I Miss You” by Blink 182, mimicking the singer’s voice rather than being serious about it. A few people laughed—and Eddie was one of them. He’d even let out a few whoo!s and yeah!s. When you’d gotten off the stage, he approached you immediately and asked you if you could be best friends. You laughed at that, thinking then that neither of you were serious.

But then you’d spent the whole night talking and watching Robin and Steve perform.

And then they tapped out and decided to head home.

However, Eddie wanted to stay.

And you told him you could call him an Uber.

And then you stayed until closing, just talking. Nonstop. Like you were seeing an old friend for the first time in decades.

(Is there a joke in there somewhere about three disaster bisexuals and one tragic lesbian walking into a bar?)

“Is that your man?”

You looked behind you, noticing the queen from earlier standing with her hand on her hip as she tapped her acrylic nails along to the beat.

“Which one?” you asked.

“The crazy haired one over there with the wallet chain.”

You could feel your chest start to ache. “No, no. We’re best friends, but we’re not dating.” She let out a hum. You looked at her again, feeling hot all of a sudden. “Um, why? Why do you ask?”

A smirk formed on her lips as she touched your shoulder, leaning down to speak softly into your ear. “Baby, that man’s only looking at you.”

“He is?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you sure?”

The queen looked at you again, her eyebrow raising. “Oh, so you’re jealous of the other one?” She laughed as you gave a defeated shrug. “You ain’t been lookin’ hard, have you?”

“I’m not sure—"

“Honey,” she started, tapping your jaw. You looked back at her. “I know that look. But you ain’t gotta look hard to see what he feels for you.”

“Really?”

She patted the top of your head and stood up straight. “Girl, look harder. Oh, and don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”

And then she was waving you a goodbye and walking away.

You looked back to the stage to watch Eddie. You didn’t know how to believe her. Couldn’t. He was right there, leaning in and sharing a microphone with Steve, their faces practically touching. Lopsided grins coming from the two as Eddie hit a high note perfectly and Steve butchered the harmony. Eddie’s voice was dark and angelic. Steve’s eyes were red and perhaps they were sparkling in the purple and blue neon lights. They were having fun.

They’d be a cute couple, a voice in your head said bitterly. And you can sit and watch and be okay with it. Swallow all your emotions like you always do. Let yourself fade into background noise as you watch someone take the spot you want the most. It’s normal at this point, isn’t it? You’re going to be that pathetic and weak, aren’t you?

You looked down at your drink, riddled with those incessant voices in your head telling you that you weren’t good enough. Because you weren’t as forward as Steve, or as brave as Eddie. You couldn’t just say the words or say anything at all. Eddie said everything he thought and made it clear how he felt. It was so simple for him.

Besides…where would the friendship go if Eddie rejected you? Would it remain firm, the foundation solidified enough to keep you where you were before? Or would it start moving away, returning less and less frequently before the inevitable crash?

And how could you ever fathom surviving the implosion?

Eddie began to belt the final chorus, leaving Steve in the dust while secretly trying to get your attention. Maybe he was trying to impress you with his strengthened vocals and (pathetically) wanted you to notice.

But you continued to look down at your drink, scowling and swirling your straw around. He wanted to know what the hell was going on, why you were acting so strange tonight. It’d started out so well when he picked you up, letting the music be the only thing moving you forward. Even in the parking lot, with the jokes and a longing look that felt like it lasted for hours. And now you were…well. Whatever you were.

And the song ended, alongside the minimal applause and stage lights being turned off.

Steve patted Eddie’s shoulder as they got off. Eddie nodded at him before turning towards your table.

But Steve pulled at his forearm.

“Munson, wait.”

Eddie looked back. “Yeah, dude. What’s up?”

Steve smiled and Eddie could tell that he was utterly drunk. It was one of Steve’s goofy smiles, always seeming cartoonish with the way his lips curved into a wave. Eddie always thought it was kinda weird how he did that. Even a little creepy.

“Listen, I’m just gonna come out and ask you a question.”

“Okay…” Eddie trailed, now facing Steve completely.

“Would you ever want to go on a date?”

Eddie’s eyes widened, scanning Steve’s face to try and see if any of this was a joke.

But there was no punchline. He was serious.

“Like, together?” he asked slowly.

Steve laughed, having to lean on a nearby table to stable himself. “Yeah! I don’t know, I just kinda thought we had some chemistry or something. I’m drunk so I can’t articulate it very well, but I’ve wanted to ask for a while.”

Eddie raised a hand to scratch along his stubble and thought about it. Had he really not noticed that Steve was into him? He thought he’d made it clear to Robin his affections for you. He’d just assumed she would tell Steve but, clearly, she hadn’t.

It was all Eddie ever talked about when him and Robin were alone, holed up in Eddie’s bedroom with a couple of beers and When Harry Met Sally playing on his TV. She told him over and over how he should just say something to you or even drop hints here and there. And to be fair, he thought he had. Even tonight with the joint in your mouth and the comment about it not being as pretty as you. And you’d just waved it off. Acted like it was nothing. Moved on so quickly and so suddenly.

But.

Well.

Was there such harm in saying yes to Steve? You certainly hadn’t said anything and maybe it would be good for him to explore something with someone who he knew for sure wanted him. It could be simple with him. Steve was fun to be around. He could be happy with him if it went anywhere. Because it could go somewhere…

Right?

He stared at Steve for some time before he responded.

You tried to leave with Robin and Steve, but Eddie pulled you towards his van instead. That meant two blocks of walking together and he didn’t waste any time before he started talking.

“Where are you going, Weirdo?” he asked, throwing an arm around your shoulders and pulling you into a side-hug. “You know you live closer to me.”

He was right. After Eddie had snagged his current job as a mechanic at a nice dealership, he’d gotten his own place so that he could have a space for himself. He really liked his alone time as much as he liked being around you or any of his other friends. One of the main reasons was because he needed complete silence when planning his campaigns and, well, Robin and Steve weren’t necessarily quiet people.

You chuckled, but it sounded forced. “Yeah, sorry. I guess I’m crossed or something,” you replied. “You’ve always had a higher tolerance than me.”

Eddie gave you a concerned look. “You okay?”

You nodded and tried to keep walking.

But he didn’t.

“You’re not holding my hand right now.”

His voice was soft, hardly above a whisper.

“Oh, I guess I just wasn’t thinking about it tonight.”

Or you’re not actually cross-faded, Eddie thought to himself. But he didn’t say anything, just bumped your shoulder with his and tried to bring the energy back. You hadn’t smiled since you’d all left and there was no way you’d leave tonight without one. So, he turned around and started walking backwards, shimmying his shoulders. He cracked the code, watching as you began to snort. Thank God.

“So, did you like my killer vocals?” he asked, his playful tone raising the energy back to its rightful place.

Until your smile faltered.

“Ohhhhhh, yeah,” you said, hardly sounding sarcastic or playful. And it certainly didn’t meet your eyes. “You and Steve looked like you were having fun.”

Eddie hesitated, wanting to tell you about Steve’s…proposition. Should he casually drop it into the conversation? Would tonight be the night that he admitted how he felt? Or would he continue to rely on you doing it?

“He asked me out,” Eddie said before he could think further, heart racing.

“What?”

“Yeah, right after we got offstage. Crazy, right?”

“What did you say?” you asked, stopping in your tracks. You were only across the street from his van now. Only twenty steps.

But you’d stopped.

So, Eddie did too.

“I told him I’d think about it,” he replied.

“And have you? Thought about it?”

He tried to read your expression, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

So, he pushed.

“I don’t know. Hadn’t thought of it before he said anything. I mean, it’s kinda out of nowhere…”

“Do you like him?” you whispered.

Eddie thought about lying, to try and elicit some form of jealousy from you so he could start the conversation. Gamble and see what happens. But he couldn’t lie to you like that. It wouldn’t be right. It’d just be shitty.

“Not really. Like, Steve’s pretty and all and he’s a really good friend or whatever. But I just haven’t really thought much about it and then suddenly there he was, poof, asking me out. And, I don’t know, I just thought it was a bit weird.”

You nodded along, looking away. “Yeah, that’s weird.”

Eddie couldn’t help himself. “Do you think I should say yes?”

“You’re asking me?” you asked, your eyebrows pinching together.

You looked…upset. Why did you look so upset at the question?

“Absolutely,” he said, nodding.

“Why do you want my opinion? I mean, you’ve known him longer.”

Eddie shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I value your opinion or whatever.”

You scoffed. “I don’t think I should be the determining factor on who you should date.”

You have no fucking clue.

“And if I wanted you to be?”

The words left his lips before he could save himself and, God, his heart was banging on his flesh, like it was trying to escape. Like it wasn’t able to handle it any more in his wired brain.

You hesitated again.

“Well, I don’t know.” Before Eddie could ask again, you sighed. “Do what you want, Eddie. Just…be careful.”

He shut his mouth again and nodded.

“Yeah, alright. Sure.”

Eddie spent that night analyzing your hesitation. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe you were thinking about how stupid he was or, even worse, maybe you were just too scared to say anything. Like him.

Your lips had quivered slightly. You were holding back those words again, the ones that felt like they’d already been shared and were waved off by the time you spoke again. And it drove him absolutely crazy.

And instead of asking you, he texted Steve.

About that date… When and where?

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