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jujutsukgojo · 3 months ago

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Sleepyhead

Dabi x Reader

Summary: You wished him good luck every time. Should you have kept them to yourself and let him die? tw: minor character death, major bnha manga/anime spoilers, implied abuse, attempted su*cide, tried to edit (pray)

Sleepyhead has finally woken up. He stumbles out of the room and looks at you. His eyes are crystal blue haloed with fluttery white lashes. Now that he’s awake, he’s prettier than when he was asleep even though Mr. Sunny disagreed with his looks. Mr. Sunny said something about him being beyond disfigured from the fire. To you, he’s still strangely handsome. You continue to chew on a bag of chips against Mr. Sunny’s wishes. “Hi, Sleepyhead. Nice to meet you.”

When he frowns, you immediately go on the defense. “Don’t tell on me, okay?”

He looks at you confused and nods. He hasn't talked yet, unfortunately; hopefully he can. It must have taken a lot for him to wake up and move around. It'd be a shame if he couldn't speak.

“They’re over there.” You point down the hall, and he takes off in that direction. You don’t know why Sleepyhead is so eager to meet Mr. Sunny and the rest. He’s never seen them since he’s been asleep this whole time. In fact, you came in at the same time he did and never has he woken up. It's a bit of a running joke. All of the kids draw pictures of him being sleeping beauty. Those drawings are even in his room, wishing for him to wake up. So, seeing him actually move is weird. You have watched him grow and now he's mobile. It's hard to explain why his open eyes throw you off.

You overhear that one girl be her own version of a welcoming committee. She calls for Mr. Sunny. You quickly finish your snack and put the wrapper in the band of your pants. Mr. Sunny walks by. He stops and looks at you. The saltiness of the chips stick to your throat.

“What’re you doing, little one?” His voice holds a fake sweetness. You curl your toes in your slippers, hoping for something to ground you. “Nothing. Sleepyhead just walked by.”

“Oh! Did you say hello?” You nod. His face looks like the sun but underneath is evil. Yet somehow, there is an even greater evil behind him, behind this whole operation. “What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“Hm. Open your mouth.” He looks at you like he's appraising you. You swallow and give a thin, shallow smile. The empty bag of chips becomes more obvious to you as it touches your body. Your sweat slightly sticks to it.

“Where am I?” The teenage Sleepyhead asks. He whispers a question of his voice and caresses his throat. Mr. Sunny turns his attention to him. “Todoroki! Nice to see you. Come with me and everything will be explained,”

Your hands are behind your back. He stops and looks at you. “Show me what’s behind you, my dear.”

You show him your hands then turn around in a circle. “Mhm. Open your mouth for me.”

Your heart rate speeds up. There are still some crumbs in your mouth. Sleepyhead interrupts him. “What’re you doing? I’m serious! I need to see my family. Mom, Fuyumi, Natsu, Shouto, my dad!”

As he says this, he makes eye contact with you. “My apologies, Touya Todoroki. You’ve been through a lot. I should prioritize that. Follow me.”

Sleepyhead walks behind him. In the distance Mr. Sunny asks, “What was she doing when you saw her?”

Fear settles in your stomach. “Nothing. Just standing there.” Before he goes in the room, Sleepyhead makes eye contact with you. You nod and leave the area, not wanting to be anywhere near Mr. Sunny.

Quickly, you dispose of the wrapper, take a drink of water then brush your teeth. Laying on your bed you draw another picture for Sleepyhead. There's no sun, sky, or a moon. Instead, there is a familiar building that you loved before you were swept up here. You color it with open doors and a red curtain in the back. On the stage is a small drawing of the familiar woman who sang beautifully. Sleepyhead will like this. You put him on a bench next to the building with a bag of chips in his hand. The next time you have them, you will give them to him as a thank you.

Suddenly, the building shook. You gasped and sat up in your bed. Dust from the ceiling falls. Not feeling safe, you get up and leave the room. The hallway is warm like when you open an oven. You head deeper into it, confused on why it’s so hot. At the end of it is a bright blue, consuming light. It eats away the walls and ceiling. There is only one person in the facility that can do this.

You gasp and head in the other direction as it travels in every way it can. At the end of the hall is a window. If you can get to it, you can jump out and be free. The problem is, is that you tried that once and it wouldn’t budge without Mr. Sunny’s permission or at least a strong enough quirk. You bang on it and try to open it. The building gets hotter and hotter. “Open, open, open!”

You hear people scream and Mr. Sunny yells for a straight line. His voice is hoarse, and he’s obviously hurt with the groans and hisses he makes. They’re going to leave you?

The banging, pushing, shoving, the window isn’t helping at all. Its steel frame refuses to let the window move. The heat increases and sweat pours off of you. Smoke surrounds the area, even the outside. They’re leaving you.

Suddenly, you hear footsteps behind you. You turn to see Sleepyhead walk through the flames. “Where’s the door, dolly?”

He stands on the fluttering blue light. You tap on the window behind you. Sleepyhead frowns but heads straight anyway. “Move.”

You follow his direction and shriek when the panel flies off the wall and the glass is melted off. Sleepyhead exits the window. You can’t make it across without hurting yourself. How is he able to? Ah, that's right. He cannot feel pain. Before he can leave, you lean and grab his shoulders. He looks back at you with furrowed brows and misty eyes that are not from physical pain. Without even asking him, you press your weight on his shoulders and jump out the window, missing the embers wanting to expand and the melted glass painted on the grass.

He growls and swings to pick you up. You're safely in his very warm arms. “Get off of me.” He puts you down on a safe spot and takes off. You run too and when he sees you follow, he pushes you down. “They’re over there!”

“You don’t understand…”

“Get away from me!” He runs again. You follow him much to his annoyance. Then, you see which direction he’s headed. “No, this way!”

He yanks his arm back. “I am not going back there. I have a family, friends, people that love and need me. I am not like you guys.”

It stings. “That way,” You point to his set direction. “Is where the doctor is and where the big boss goes sometimes. If they see you, they’ll grab you. I know a good way out.”

Interested, he follows you. There’s a buzzing noise over your heads. You gasp and grab his hand. You run to the trees. “W-why are you so fast?”

“Nomu! That’s what we’re gonna be if we don’t run!” Sleepyhead looks at the sky behind him. There are large bodies with their brains showing, flying around. They look under themselves and scout, no doubt for the two runaways. Your heart is pounding in your ears as a white one goes right above you, its eyes barely missing you.

Finally, you reach the edge of the cliff. A few tufts of grass surround the dirt. Beyond that is a river that gently flows. You’ve made it to this part before and know what’s at the end. “Can you swim?”

“Um, yeah? Not the best, though.” He looks down with fearful eyes.

You hold his hand tighter. “Hang onto me.” You grab his hand and jump. He screams as the two of you descend into the cold water. You hang onto his hand as you travel through the water. It chills you down to your bones but it is better than the alternative. If Doctor Garaki talks to Mr. Sunny and finds out that the two of you are gone, it could mean that the big guy, All For One, or something, could come.

The water pushes you two around and neither of you let go of each other. With grace, you dodge debris and pull him closer, encircling your arms around him as the rushing water guides you away.

Pebbles curl underneath your fingers when you pull yourself out with Sleepyhead’s hand in yours. He coughs and breathes heavily. “We have to keep moving. Down here is a street.”

“A street,” He coughs. “To where?”

“People that aren’t them. I remember seeing it.” You spotted it when you were pulled out of the water by a flying nomu. You have yet to touch the pavement of the street or smell the lavish perfumes from the boutique at the corner or get a good look in the pet store that is a few doors down. Colorful clothes and expensive cellphones have been next to the facility where children were held for years.

He gets up shakily and goes with you, his hand still in yours. The wind blows against you, chilling your body through your wet clothes. You gasp but keep on with the plan anyway. You and Sleepyhead have gotten far. There’s no turning back now.

You push the tree branches and leaves out of the way and show that you were right. The street is busy with people and life. The sun shines bright on the passing people who go about their daily lives, not once thinking that there is a monstrosity not too far from them.

“I…I know this. I know this! I can’t be far from home!” Sleepyhead yanks his hand away from yours and goes to the left. You follow him.

“What? No! Go away. This is my family. Go to your own.” He pushes you down to the ground, the pavement scraping against your palms. Someone scolds him. “Young man, control yourself! Now apologize.”

He growls and clenches his fists. “Sorry.” The old lady nods and helps you up then leaves. You notice how she didn’t even bother to comment on both of your appearances. Clearly, there is something wrong with the two kids in front of her, yet she walks away.

“Happy?”

You shrug. Sleepyhead turns around and continues to his home. Once again, you run behind him. At first he growls in frustration but ignores you in the end, except for running faster and using evasive maneuvers to lose you. Of course, they all fail.

The soles of your feet take a toll. Now that the adrenaline is wearing down, you’re beginning to feel the weight of everything. This is enough physical activity for a lifetime. Thankfully, you’re not the only one who feels that way. Sleepyhead slows down to a halt. He’s breathing heavily and has his hands on his knees. “Come on. If you stop, it’ll be harder to finish.”

He pushes himself up and jogs. The two of you come across a street that no doubt belongs to the rich. There are kominkas and modern homes next to each other, all different yet have a lavish quality. It’s something that you know you’d never be able to afford. It’s a miracle you’re even here.

“Are one of these yours?” You shake your head no. “You can’t,” He gasps for breath. “Come with me.”

“Where do I go?”

He cocks his head. “Fine, fine.” He grabs your hand roughly and limps to another house that isn’t quite as big as the kominka down the road. Sleepyhead brings you to the gate. “Knock on the door, alright?”

Before he leaves, you say, “Goodbye Sleepyhead, and I wish you good luck.”

“My name’s Touya.”

“I’m (Y/n).” He looks back at you. “Thanks for everything, doll.” He limps around the corner. You have a small smile and flutters in your tummy. Taking a deep breath, you push the button on the gate and it opens. Your legs are aching, and your feet are blistered. Whoever owns this house must be good if Sleepyhead dropped you here.

You knock on the door.

----

You walk home from work with the streetlights that are just now flickering on to guide you. Right as you are rubbing your shoulders, you hear voices to your right range in pitch and volume. You tread along the sidewalk and hope not to run into anyone unsavory. Suddenly, right when you come across an alley, it erupts into flames that create a woosh sound.

The heat is intense and consuming. People scream so loud it echoes on the brick buildings’ walls. There is nothing you can do for them except watch in horror. Some of the people move around frantically, and others roll on the ground. Lucky for them, their pain is soon gone as the flames ended them in seconds.

You are at the end of the alley, clutching your purse for dear life. Smoke blows your way as the assailant walks closer to you. His black boots don't melt and his trench flows behind him, letting him look like a true villain, even without his dastardly deeds

Now he is feet from you, you remember who he is. He has changed a little but looking at his face for three years straight lets you recognize him anywhere. His eyes are still jewels and have hardened, purple scars have spread, and his hair is dyed. He has staples rather than the bonded skin he left with.

And yet, you see him even though it’s been years. "Are you scared, doll?" His voice is deeper and smoother than it was last time you saw him.

You shake your head no. He doesn't smile but cocks his head to the side. He is letting you go. Before you can leave, you turn back to him and say, “Wish you good luck, Sleepyhead.”

Nothing else needed to be said between you two. Not even a nod or wave. There is a sense of familiarity, a camaraderie, a bond, that was created in a facility designed to abduct and trick children into nomus and spare quirks for All For One. There is nothing needed when it comes to you two.

-----

Lately, there has been a terrorist organization that has grown drastically. Among them is a blue flame user named Dabi. Without seeing him, you know who it is and have a feeling of what he is doing. He had dropped you off at his neighbor’s house and went to his family. He made sure you knew about them and how desperate he was to go back to them. If he has turned into this, it has to do with them.

On every screen is a shirtless Sleepyhead. He is covered in staples and scars. He talks about an unfair justice system and fake heroes. You look around and see everyone’s reactions to him.

He goes on about his backstory and doesn't bring up the facility, only Endeavor and his crappy parenting. You don't know whether to be offended or not. No, this is a wish for good luck. Because if he did, you'd be in deep shit. So instead, you nod and say, “Good luck, Sleepyhead.”

You walk away and head home, not paying any more attention to the man on the screen or even to the people who whisper the name, Dabi. There’s no need for any comments or corrections. At this rate, you may see him again.

This thought occurred again when he decided to attempt suicide. It was painful to see that because you saw Sleepyhead still and not Dabi. You saw Touya, who ran away with you and the one who didn't tell anyone about the potato chips, and the one who spared you from his flames twice. You can't listen to the fear and cries of others anymore. You sit on the bench with your hands in your lap, holding the wish of good luck. It is his if he wants it. And with this oncoming explosion, he doesn't want it this time.

In the fortress of U.A, you can’t do anything but have him on your mind, and the question of if your wishes meant anything.

---

Not too long after, you’re called to go to a special secured room. It’s one for the extremely injured patients or the dangerous. You knock first then open the door. Inside is a vault with a charred person inside. There is no one in the room but there were visitors before your arrival. You spot the vase with pretty blue flowers in it, a food tray with what looks like a single soba noodle lying in the trash, and a book on the table.

"Sleepyhead?" The machine beeps in response. In the doctor's notes, it says he is only able to speak for a few minutes a day. Since his family was here, those minutes are probably used up.

You enter deeper into the room and stand in front of Sleepyhead. "I'm only here to get your vitals, I won't be long." Another beep. You check the machine then gently touch him. He cannot feel pain, but it is still considerate to be careful. His skin is completely charred, his fluffy hair is gone. He may not be able to physically feel pain, however, that doesn't mean he cannot feel the burden of it. The fact that he knows his condition is painful enough.

After a few short minutes, a hoarse voice says, “Should’ve kept your wishes for yourself. They did me nothing.”

Sleepyhead's eyes follow you. “They were yours, nonetheless.”

There's a deep humorless chuckle. His voice sounds slurred almost. His tongue is probably burnt again. “You aren’t grossed out, dollface? Not even a little?”

You shake your head no. “I’ve seen worse,” You settle down on the chair that is to his left. “That one was you, by the way. When you first came in, you looked a lot like this but a little worse.” You hear a shuddered breath. “This is the most we’ve ever talked, ain’t it?”

“I think? When we were running, we might've talked more?” It's crazy how that is. You feel connected to him but have only spoken a few words to each other.

“(Y/n),” You don’t comment on how he remembers your name despite only telling him once. “I messed up, messed up badly. I’m dying.”

“Isn’t that how you wanted it?”

“Not now. Not when…everything is getting clearer.” You raise your brow. “Clearer?”

He takes a deep breath. "I hate him, that old bastard. But it cost me my life and siblings. Everything could’ve been different. There's still so much I hav-" He coughs.

"Don't waste your energy, Sleepyhead."

He sighs. "It feels good to talk about it," You nod, encouraging him to continue if he wants. Sleepyhead looks to the ceiling and continues. "His favorite food is soba, just like me. We have the same favorite color, too. Dollface, I messed up. I broke my family." You don’t know who exactly he’s talking about, but it isn’t Endeavor. Endeavor doesn’t look like the type to like soba.

"That wasn't just you, Touya. You were just the biggest crack in the glass house." You write down his numbers. "Honestly, Sleepyhead, I think this was bound to happen. Your home was built on glass when it’s not supposed to be, I think."

"So positive." He wheezed. You look at him, not moving from your seat. "No one can change the past, it’s set in stone and the future is just bare pages. That is how I think of it at least.”

He listens. “You can’t rewrite history but you can learn from it. Bear that burden in your current and write the lessons on the future pages. Endeavor made his bed and will lie in it. You can too, if you want."

After a few beeps, you speak. "I think it's evil of them to let you suffer though. You should die in peace. You got to say and do what you wanted." His eyes trail to you. "What would you like, Sleepyhead?"

"Bare pages."

"What if it ends up the same?"

His chest rises and falls. Sleepyhead lifts one finger to you. "It was you, right, angel?" You nod. He was bound to piece it together. It's just unfortunate that he figured it out eleven years later. Sad that on death’s door he figured out who you were.

"Can I still wish you good luck?" He can no longer talk today, so he'll blink.

You get up and walk to him. "Then I will see you later, Sleepyhead." You kiss his nose, just as you did last time. He looks shocked at you then closes his eyes. You will see him again, just like before. However, you are sure to piece him together right this time. With every wish good luck to pump his heart and organs again, every stitch to his skin is more careful. You don't have pressure or evil behind you, breathing on your neck.

Now, you can take your time piecing Sleepyhead together and hopefully, it won't feel weird seeing his eyes open.

#bnha #bnha manga spoilers #bnha spoilers #boku no hero academia fanfic #boku no hero academia spoilers #mha spoilers #mha #mha fanfic #dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #todoroki touya x reader #my hero academia #q #boku no hero academia

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gonzo-rella · 7 months ago

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You're Still You | Cameron Frye

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Pride Month 2024 #2

Nonbinary version

Requested by: @telfords-genderfluid-prospect

So....I gotta ask, how would you feel about writing a drabble of Cameron finding out his crush is genderfluid and still wants them?

Relationship(s): bisexual!Cameron Frye x genderfluid!reader (romantic)

Summary: Cameron has had a crush on you for years, but will your admission be enough to change that? (spoiler alert: no)

Warnings: Eating mentions. Barely proofread. References to transphobia. Coming out scene. Reader is implied to be AFAB if you squint (apologies; I couldn't figure out how to completely write around it), but it's not heavily implied and it's never stated explicitly. (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 1.6k

(A/N: This request, like most of my requests, is almost two years old, so apologies that it took so long for me to get around to writing it! Hopefully you're still interested in reading this, requester. It ended up being longer than intended, but hopefully that's alright! In honour of Pride Month and my ongoing genderfluid crisis, I figured I'd finally write out this one. I know that genderfluidity means different things for different people, so hopefully my way of writing about it works for you. Since I'm no longer a high schooler (which I was when I received this request), I decided to make the characters' ages ambiguous. And, since I work in retail and that seems to embed itself into a lot of my work these days, this version of Y/N is a cashier, the most exciting of Y/N's many professions.)

Today was the day. Cameron was finally going to ask you out. What sparked this sudden sense of urgency? This uncharacteristic courage? Well, when you had served him and Ferris on your Friday afternoon shift, Cameron had watched you scan his bag of Doritos with so much adoration in his eyes that it was a wonder you hadn’t picked up on it yourself. As they left the store, Ferris warned his best friend that he would tell you about his feelings on his behalf if he didn’t do it soon. Cameron knew that Ferris had made plenty of empty threats over the course of their friendship, but he didn’t care to find out if he would keep his word this time. After all, he was sure Ferris thought he’d be doing Cameron a favour either by making you aware of his feelings or incentivising Cameron to tell you himself. And, if Ferris was known for anything, it was doing favours, even unwanted ones. So, as to not appear like a bashful middle schooler, he decided he would bite the bullet and be the one to tell you himself. This delighted Ferris to no end, who clapped him on the back and offered him a, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

You had mentioned to the boys that you finished at 6pm, so he made it to the store at 5:52pm- he knew the specific time because he couldn’t help but anxiously glance at his watch. Then, he stood outside- out of view from the window- for the next four minutes trying to build up the nerve that seemed to have left his body with every step he’d taken to the place. When he finally managed to take that final step to the counter, he was sure his knees would buckle under his weight. Suddenly aware of your confused stare, he quickly realised that he should probably buy something, so he grabbed the nearest thing- a pack of chewing gum- and placed it on the counter.

“Hello again,” you greeted with a smile.

“Hey.”

A more nervous, but nonetheless sincere, smile crept onto his face. His cheeks burned. You looked at him expectantly, which prompted him to start digging around in his pockets for some change. He handed you a dollar bill, trying his best not to let his fingertips brush against the skin of your palm, and you handed him the change, unabashedly making contact with him. He pocketed the coins and the gum, and then he just stood there.

“Do you… need anything else?”

His eyes widened. The words he wanted to say wouldn’t come out just yet. You knitted your brows.

“Are you alright, Cameron?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he insisted in one of the least fine voices you’d ever heard. “I was, uh, I was wondering… if maybe you wanted to hang out, after you finish work.”

Your face softened, and its expression of confusion and mild concern morphed into one of surprise, relief and mild glee.

“Sure. I was gonna go grab some pizza. You wanna come with?”

Another smile broke out onto his face.

“Uh, sure. Should I just… wait outside?”

“You can wait in here if you don’t mind pretending to, like, browse our wares for the next five minutes.”

He chuckled and nodded.

“Alright.”

You watched with a smile as he wandered up and down each aisle, feigning an interest in confectionery by picking up a KitKat and studying both sides of its packaging intently. He stole a glance at you to gauge your reaction, and to his delight your laughter filled his ears.

As soon as 6pm rolled around and your replacement sluggishly made his way out from the back, you grabbed your jacket and bag and followed Cameron to the door.

The pizza place was down the street. On the short walk, you told him about how you went there after a lot of your evening shifts. Much to his relief, you were able to talk for the both of you, allowing him to get his head around the fact that you had agreed to hang out with him. Before he knew it, he was sitting opposite you with a cheese pizza between you.

“Do you normally not have any plans on a Friday night?” you asked him before you took a bite. “I wouldn’t have thought Ferris Bueller of all people would let his best friend not have any Friday night plans.”

Cameron chuckled. He finished chewing, then swallowed.

“He, uh, gave me the night off.”

“Well, I can’t promise I’ll be as good company as Ferris,” you joked. You paused, before continuing. “So, why exactly did you want to hang out with me? I mean, I know we talked in class, but the only time we’ve ever spoken outside of school is when I’ve been at work, or at senior prom. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be your second choice.”

He blinked, trying to formulate a response. Assuming that you’d said something to upset him, you cringed.

“Oh, shit, was that insensitive? I don’t really have many friends, either, so… Yeah, sorry,” you apologised. “You know, hanging out with you is way better than watching a movie at home alone in the dark. And, that’s really saying something, because I like watching movies at home alone in the-”

“I like you. A lot.”

You stopped rambling and stared at him, taking a second to process his words.

“But,” he added, clearly panicked by your reaction. “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same.”

“Uh, Cameron-”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted preemptively, no doubt out of habit.

“You’re sorry? For what?”

“For saying that.” “You don’t have to apologise,” you told him. “Look, I… like you too, Cameron. Really, I do.”

“You do? I swear you don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything.”

“I like you. A lot.”

You couldn’t fight the small smile that tugged at your lips. Once again, he didn’t know what to say.

“But, there’s something that you don’t know about me,” you continued. “And, I think it’d probably be a dealbreaker. So… I don’t think us being anything more than friends would work out.”

Cameron nodded slowly.

“Okay. Do you mind me asking what it is?”

You eyed him nervously.

“You don’t have to,” he insisted. “But… I don’t know what you could say that’d make me think any differently of you.”

You breathed out a small chuckle, then chewed on your bottom lip. You glanced around to check that no one was listening in, and it seemed like everyone else in the place was wrapped up in their own conversations.

“I’m… I’m genderfluid,” you explained, saying the word like you’d never had to say it aloud before. “So, to my knowledge, you’re a boy, and that’s how you are all of the time. But, that sort of thing changes for me. I’m not one thing- one gender- all of the time. But, for me, it’s not this fixed thing. It can change by day, by week or by month. Does that make sense? I haven’t explained it to anyone before.”

Cameron nodded.

“Yeah, I think so. Sometimes, you feel like one gender, and then other times you’ll feel like another, and it changes by itself, right?”

“That’s the gist of it.”

“Okay,” he hesitated. “For what it’s worth… I support who you are. Not that it should matter what I think about it, or what anyone else thinks about it.”

It was as though he knew you didn’t have anyone in your corner yet. Tears brimming your eyes, you sighed a breath of relief and allowed yourself to smile.

“Thanks, Cameron.”

His eyes widened a little when he noticed your tears.

“Are-are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Better than okay, actually. I’ve never told anyone that before. And, I never really expected anyone to be all that supportive of it. So… thank you.”

He relaxed and returned your smile, his heart melting at how happy you looked. The pair of you basked in the warmth of the moment.

Then, you spoke again.

“So, uh, do you wanna be, like, real friends at least, maybe?” you asked. “Not that you have to, just because you’re the only one who knows-”

He locked eyes with you, clearly hesitant and apprehensive.

“Actually… how I feel about you… hasn’t changed.”

You stared at him incredulously.

“Really? And, you’re not just saying that? ‘Cause I’ve always kinda worried that I’ll tell someone about this, and they’ll say it’s fine, but then they’ll just pretend like it’s not a thing, and that they’d just choose to see me as the one thing they’re okay with all the time. Not that I think you’re a scumbag or anything. I’d just rather you be honest.”

Cameron’s cheeks turned red. He reached up to scratch his neck. For a moment, he couldn’t look you in the eye.

“Well, I, uh, I’m not really a guy who… only likes the one thing.”

His gaze flickered up to meet yours once again, and you understood what he meant. You could also tell it wasn’t something he’d admitted many times before, if ever.

“Oh. Okay. Obviously, I’m fine with that. And, I hope you are, too.”

He let out a chuckle that was half-nervous, half-relieved.

“Mostly.”

You smiled at him reassuringly.

“So… you’d be okay with being with me? Even though I wouldn’t just be something easy like your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever?”

“Of course,” he said.

He finally gathered the courage to reach across the table and grab your hands, not caring that they were greasy from the pizza.

“You’re still you, no matter what. That’s all I care about.”

#ferris bueller's day off #cameron frye #cameron frye x reader #cameron frye x genderfluid!reader #x genderfluid!reader #x reader #genderfluid #bisexual #pride month #pride month 2024

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brights-place · 2 years ago

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A/N: Me when I first watched Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve and Every Man hybrid ^

Anyways these are some funny Headcannons for the cast of marble hornets that popped up into my head sooo hope you enjoy them!

Marble Hornets Head Cannons

Timothy Wright/Masky

Tim:

-he has a limp due to masky not wanting to rest when he is injured

-bookworm

-The mom friend

-gives big bear hugs

-trust issues

-likes taking naps

-has road rage

-socially awkward around strangers

-neglects himself

-makes really good pancakes

-likes to annoy his coworkers

-very ticklish

-has some bandages and bruises due to masky

-when singing karoke he rocks the stage

-Rollerskating on them haters

-the last thing Tim said to Alex as he stabbed him to death was "This is for everything you took away from us" by 'Us' he mean't Jay,Brian,Seth,Jessica,Amy and his alternate split personality Masky along with Brian's split personality Hoodie.

Yes Masky and Tim are two separate people stuck in the same body. Tim is the man being caught up in a crazy situation and Masky being his crazy murder version, thats why Tim forgets everything that happens when Masky is taken control.

Masky:

-major adhd

-usually pretty chill but when he gets angry, he gets violently angry

-throws tantrums sometimes

-likes climbing trees

-sneaky, but not as sneaky as Hoodie

-loves throwing stones and pebbles at Alex then running away

-jumps onto Hoodies back and clings to him to get on his nerves

-he changed the way his mask looked four different times before he was satisfied with it

-has a habit of tackling his problems (literally)

-hes ticklish, but not as much as Tim

-he was jealous of Jay at the start because Hoodie insisted on protecting him

-Competitive

-Also Roller Skates and flexes on the other proxies about it cause he can do tricks.

Brian Thomas/Hoodie Brian:

-egotistical

-social butterfly

-therapist friend

-sunshine boy

-good grades

-probably the most athletic of the group

-laughs at his own jokes

-always planning fun little road trips

-Mama's boy

-he makes sure to smack anybody who disses on there mother

-Is a Gentleman

-overprotective of his friends

-he once let Tim copy his homework in middle school

-pays for other people's things

-loves playgrounds. Like a lot. When he sees one, he HAS to play on it

-likes taking photos

-under his bed he has a nerf gun stash... Tim and Alex Have been victims when they come over to Brian's

Hoodie

-Serious

-has a BIG love for nature

-unpatient as hell

-does parkour

-sneaky

-secretly clingy

-easily annoyed

-quiet

-enjoys bossing Masky around

-insomniac

-listens to music while doing a job/task or just walking around

-has a habit of chewing on spoons

-His gloves where a gift from his mother...

-He's a mama's boy

-great at hide & seek

-breaks into Alex's apartment and moves stuff around to mess with him (once he rearranged the whole apartment while Alex was sleeping)

-Records the others doing random shit

-has blackmail of everyone

-Always plans everything out

-Hates when they rush in without a plan it pisses him off so after the mission he stares at the group intensely and starts signing in sign language to piss the group off.

Alex Kralie

-Listens to classic music

-Alex Understands and knows sign language due to his mother being deaf so when brian signs he understands whats he's saying

-Laughed when he called Tim 'A man Who's ass is even bigger then his fuck brain'

-Him and Brian have nerf battles when they feel like messing around

-Top student in his collage class

-Allows Amy to put makeup on him cause he loves his girlfriend but is annoyed when someone brings it up.

-Good with Computers

-Serious

-Theater Kid

-Equal rights = Equal Fights

-He has a video of everybody doing dumb shit

-A Rihanna Fan

-Sleep Talks & Walks

-Major Anger Issues

-Send Help to Seths Dog

-Hates dogs (Cause they loud)

-Knows how to play guitar

Jay Merrick/Skully

Jay

-Also A Theater Kid

-Keeps to himself alot

-Introvert

-Tired 24/7

-Doesn't eat a lot so the group have to remind him.

-He was on Set design

-Wrote some Scripts for other Projects

-There all in a box somwhere

-ADHD

-Stims

-gets cold easily

-Collects random stuff

-Wears lots of comfy clothes

-Likes Abba

-Sings his heart out to disney songs when they all are drunk

Skully

-Feral

-Jay's alter

-Fast Runner

-Introverted until you get to know him more

-becomes an extrovert when he feels comfortable -More annoying than scary but can be scary

-Jay doesn't know about skullys existence until years later.

-I feel like he acts like he's on drugs without actually being on drugs, you know?

-Like either crackhead energy or just really caffeinated (same with Jay sometimes)

-Tried Smoking once

-he was in a coughing fit

-Knows Basic Medical treatment

Jessica

-best delivery person

-She and Tim gossip alot

-Feels like she owes Tim & Hoodie for saving her

-The Cool Aunt

-BEST music taste

-Always brings extra stuff to wherever they go.

-Fights with everybody on who pays for dinner

-Can ROAST the shit outta you

-Her and Amy likes doing girls night

-Amazing Actor

-Paints

-Knows how to play Piano

-Played Rush E to convince Alex for her and Amy to go out

-AMAZING Dancer

Amy

-Did costume design in highschool

-Artist

-Loves Baking

-Did violin, piano, flute and drama in highschool

-Amazing Singer

-Knows how to multi-task

-In Med School

-Gossiping with Jessica and Tim makes her laugh

-Use to drive without a Licences

-Very Flexible

-Goes on picnic dates with Alex

-posts photos of her days on her social media's

-Alex was so shocked when seeing Amy do an Gymanstic trick

-Girl is SKILLED

-Likes pet sitting for seth

-Alex gets pissed due to Amy not letting him have a say

Seth

-Loves his dog -Best uncle figure -Has dozens of photos and videos from trips

-Did cinematography in high school, still doing it in collage -makes music -Met Jay freshman year in high school

-Knows how to make drinks

-being a Bartender was a side job

-Plays with his dog and wants to cry leaving his dog

-Seth has a smirk when dropping off his dog

-Knows how to play Instruments

-Was in the school band

-Fluent in English,German and Dutch

#marble hornets #timothy wright #brian thomas #alex kralie #jay merrick #masky #hoodie #skully #the operator #slenderman #jessica #amy #seth marble hornets #jessica marble hornets #amy marble hornets #Seth #slenderverse

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sadisthetic · 2 years ago

Text

jaya string of fate au

ive mentioned string of fate au a few times here. ive finally put it together into a post. okay so the reason why ive taken so long to transfer this is bc ITS FROM JULY OF LAST YEAR. i wasnt sure if i should lightly edit it or rewrite it. because it started out as me complaining about rebooted and then me fucking craving fanfiction and hurt (i do this 24/7) and then it morphed into this au that also doubled as character/relationship analysis and me fixing rebooted with my bare fucking hands in the context of this au

anyways. jaya string of fate au with emphasis on the heartbreak of s3. half of this was written half a year ago. man i was so mad about s3 back then lol

been thinking about s3 again. whats even more frustrating about the bad het drama. is that they didnt even give jay and nya a proper break up. granted their get together wasnt on screen either BUT IF YOURE GONNA OH SO RUDELY TEAR THEM APART LIJE THAT. THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS DO IT WITH MORE FUCKING PURPOSE. THE WRITERS JUST PITCHED A WRENCH INTO THE WORKS AT BULLET SPEED JUST BECAUSE! JUST BECAUSE THEY WANTED DRAMA. BUT FOR WHAT!!!!!!!!! MAKES ME FUCKING MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL IT DID IS DO JAY DIRTY AND NYAS CHARACTER DIRTY

nyas fucking integrity spit on. you didnt have to make her be like that. it just really fucking made her look BAD. god i wont say jay was a perfect boyfriend but he didnt deserve THAT.

anyways. i want a canon compliant jaya breakup fic set in s3 (present jem speaking: I STILL WANT THIS BY THE WAY.) im so certain nobody has written this. i think heartbreak could be a form of whump if you make it hurt enough.

well. technically. it would be more emotional hurt fic rather than whump. but im a guy who has his definitions twisted. this is whump to me. also im a guy who thinks unromantic things as romantic but also loves love thats void of romance above anything else. i can do both. anyways.

i want jay to feel absolutely crushing heartbreak. i want jay to be hurt. i want him to feel it in his chest. unfairness— rending, jealousy— twisting, want— squeezing. all he yearns for is to be with nya. because he loves her. but apparently... nya doesnt feel the same way. and it hurts

i want to consume heartbreak. i think itll be crunchy on the outside but soft and squishy on the inside. absolute chewable pleasure. lightly salty and bittersweet. i also wanna squeeze jays heart like a stress ball and maybe cause arrhythmia. scratch it a little (a lot). jay is my emotional and physical fucking chew toy

and so to make heartbreak a bit more whumpy tho... i thought up of red string of fate au...

in this version of this concept, the red string of fate is something that needs to be tied by the pair together. and the feelings behind it is what gives the string color. but sometimes if a love is fated to be, the red of the string is instantly, intensely vibrant, almost glowing

but you dont know who your soulmate is until you actually get together and tie the knot. it is not preexisting, the string does not connect people together for them to find each other before they even know the other exists. it only exists when two people make the decision to bind each other to themselves. most people dont find their soulmate but because its so often the case ppl are content with someone who isnt bc you dont need to find love in your soulmate alone, love is abundant in other places. but that isnt to say the red string of fate isnt romanticized in society tho. anyways. nya likes jay and their string is a pleasant warm red thats a little pink. its typical color for those who arent soulmates but its ok

jay is a little smitten in a slightly overbearing way tho. i think they are a couple who are a little bit mismatched in terms of showing affection. and also nya is very independent type so jays chivalrous tendencies grates on her a little but she lets it slide bc to her, jays positives outweigh his negs. hes cute and funny and they both can geek out and bond over tech stuff. thats a part of the fun.

but then the match maker thing happens and nya doesnt immediately start considering cole as a romantic interest. but she does start... considering things tho. why cole could be her match. and if he really is her soulmate. why isnt jay her perfect match? its less nya becoming interested in someone else and more nya examining herself to think about what she actually wants for herself and what she wants in a person and if jay really isnt the right guy for her in the end. she doesnt know if cole would actually give her what she wants more than jay does. but she does grow more aware of the mismatch between her and jay

but before anything could be done about her doubts and dismiss it all and just carry on with their relationship, jay finds out in the trailer and is devastated. and intensely jealous of cole.. because hes been a bit insecure about his and nyas relationship for a while now also. he jumps the gun too quick before nya could reassure him so then that Fight happens and things get messy and ugly really fast. jay makes himself look really bad in front of nya which unfortunately reinforces her doubts in jay and she thinks. maybe they shouldnt be together after all.

and so one night nya talks to jay alone. she explains herself. how shes been feeling about them. how she wants to focus on herself. and that hes too much for her and hes stifling her and she thinks it would be better if they cut things off and go back to being friends. and then she cuts the string that binds them together before jay could even object. it stings for nya but for jay it feels like his heart was sliced in two. literally. he feels a sharp pain that makes him clutch his chest. for nya, she had more time to process the severance. because she was sorta falling out of love for a while. her side of the string has become desaturated and dull. which is why she doesnt hurt as much

she doesnt realize how much jay truly loves her and how much it would hurt him when the string was cut. so when jay falls to his knees, tears falling, she just turns and walks away because she thinks its just from the heartbreak. she knew she was breaking jays heart

she doesnt realize how much hes literally hurting, how she left his heart bleeding. she knew but she didnt know. its most painful experience jay has ever felt in his life. a searing ache. theres a sudden painful void instead where there once was nyas love. its loss that was much too abrupt

heartbreak cant kill a person but it can leave them wounded. and with an abrupt disconnection like that, its why jay hung onto those feelings for nya for months after even tho he never acted on them. his half of the string refused to wither away and he didnt want to discard it either. how could he when he still loved nya. but he couldnt do anything about it though. nya made up her mind. and jay knew her well enough that she would probably hate him more if he chased after her. and so... he kept his feelings close to his chest and his sad, loose thread wrapped around his finger tight all the way until skybound...

—

okay. now present day jem speaking. that was the end of original story i had written on twitter... its meant to be a missing scene (inbetween seasons) fic + au. canon compliant except for the fact its set in this au. so skybound more or less carries out the same way. except minor details being changed...

such as nadakhan approaching jay. he tells him he cannot fix or create strings of fate. but he can give him other means of winning nyas heart...

although this isnt a part of the “fic” i do imagine at the end of their divorce era.... nya who had casted away her old string, remakes her string to tie to the end of jays (and her) old one where she cut in. the thing is making strings of fate is something anyone can do regardless of being fated to be or not. what the string of fate is in this au is more of an oath... an intention to be together to the end of time. the two people are choosing to bind their fate to each other. nya, who had felt stifled in a relationship and decided she didnt need to be in one back all the months ago, realized something in skybound.... the string of fate isnt a contract or a shackle. not like how she thought... its a sentiment of how much you care about somebody to want to be connected forever. till death do us part. and jay very sincerely wanted that. he wanted to be with nya forever. and nya realizes... despite all his flaws, she really cares about him. she does want to be with him forever. she wants to be together with everyone, all her friends, her family forever. i think she doesnt know the nature of her feelings for jay. they are a bit conflicted and shes not sure how to sort out her desires from her feelings. but i think she decides to give jay a second chance of sorts. when they tie the loose ends the color on nyas side is an ambiguous grey barely tinging pink

she tells jay she doesnt want to just get back together. she wants them to start over. and jay isnt sure what that means. and by the color of the string hes not sure if it means theyre dating again either. its a very ambiguous ground theyre standing on. but... jay takes the fact that nya retied their string to mean something. that nya isnt rejecting him anymore. that she cares. that he means something to her. it gives jay hope. his feelings for her havent changed... but he decides that to just be. and take things slow. hes happy even if hes confused by what nya wants. hes connected to her again.... and that means so much to jay

i think that their relationship from the end of skybound and onward is a bit more slowburn. well its a weird sorta slowburn. because theyre together but not really. its about them figuring their relationship out. and also nya falling back in love for reals. i love navigation of ambiguous relationships. i think for a while for nya the term “girlfriend”/“boyfriend” is more loaded than the term “soulmate”. thats how fucking weird their relationship got. whats not ambiguous is that nya does love him. she wouldnt have retied their string if she didnt. whats ambiguous is the nature of that love.... its not quite platonic but shes hesitant to call it romantic. whatever. they have time to figure it out

okay. that turned out so much more aro than i was intending. but i do like leaving it like that tho. feelings are difficult to navigate arent they sometimes? how they figure it out is up to whoever. love is love. they are more than “just” friends. but romance itself is a difficult and different beast than love. but jay and nya.... they meet halfway somehow. even if it takes a bit of work

ALSO. LOOK AT THIS ART BY DAN @rotten-dan he drew it for me several months ago when i first finished this au’s original thread which ended at the breakup skdjgthulkd. HEARTBREAK!!!!!!!!!!! YEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you again dan for drawing this for me

—

also. heres some bonus supplemental worldbuilding that doesnt pertain to story stuff but fleshes out how i picture the world in this au to work. most of this was written to answer dans questions about this au lol... not necessary to read unless if youre interested in my take of string of fate concept lol. or unless youre interested in the bit about bruiseshipping in this au at the very end

the string is often attached to the ring finger. so its a very romantic gesture when couples tie it together to each others fingers. like putting wedding rings on each other but its more of a cute fluffy thing rather than binding. not ceremony but its a Thing. its the same level of formality as asking someone out. and string is like. supernatural. its not completely physical but its definitely exists and can be touched. but not as if a literal string is tied to them if you know what i mean? like if the pair are far apart then the strings middle isnt visible but the ends that are tied floats towards the direction of their partner. the string is like. metaphysical. its a perceivable, somewhat tangible representation of love

but if desired the string can be cut if the parties want to separate. but it usually hurts. like a lot of breakups do.

okay so. the thing is with like. almost all soulmate aus. is that they know about their soulmate. or that the evidence of who it is is instantly visible. and like..... that sorta kills part of the fun? of falling in love?

so what if they dont know until they decide to try each other out first. thats the like. the thought behind the set up for this

like. theres sometimes the occasional dumbass whos going off constantly try to find their soulmate but ultimately a soulmate isnt someone you can simply Search for and find. so those kind of people end up being pricks who never will find a soulmate in their life because they dont want to work things out with ppl who arent their soulmate. the pursuit of a soulmate will usually end in disappointment

but sometimes. for the people who do find their soulmate. its because they gravitated to each other in the first place.

like they fell in love with each other naturally. they liked the person for who they are. and so they decided to get together because they enjoy the other person so much. so when they realize they are meant to be they laugh like oh of course! they were meant to be. theyre like the hallmark movie couple of couples and the few of the very lucky ones

not being soulmates doesnt mean you can only fall in love with your soulmate tho. you can fall in love with anyone. regardless of whether theyre your soulmate or not. and even if theyre not. why does that fucking matter? the important thing isnt that they arent meant to be, but that they love each other anyways. isnt that more romantic? fuck fate the one i love is you

usually nonsoulmate relationship take more work. because the instant perfect chemisty of fated couples isnt there. buuuut. isnt that how love is like in reality? love is work sometimes. love is sometimes hard. but love is also worth it. so making the decision to work for it is more easy the more youre in love. not always the case. but in the healthy couples its usually the case

previously that the feeling behind the thread gives it its color. so. the string can end up being a different color if the feelings felt arent romantic love. most people dont know this though bc ppl who usually tie it are couples. and also it takes both of them to tie the string. every single relationship has a theoretical string color. its just most people who actually want the string are couples usually couples. and so for example, most aros dont ever even think of trying to tie it with someone bc they dont want that kinda bind. but if a curious aro wants to try it out bc they are questioning about their best friend if the two of them agree just to see. their string could actually be a different color than red. because the feelings behind it are platonic

its also entirely possible for a string to be entirely black between enemies hfhjskl. but however those kind of pair would usually NEVER tie the string together bc you know hbghsk. enemies. but if they were. it would be that color. but maybe some insane enemies who are obsessed with each other would do it tho. you know fated enemies and such

..... i have thoughts about bruiseshipping in this au also. theyre best friends, they can bind each other if they wanted to. they have the mutual sentiment required to. but due to the culture surrounding the red string of fate specifically, they never think to. even if they did consider it once they didnt ever bring it up bc awkward!!!!!! the string of fate is the symbol of love. couples treat it a bit frivolously but it is a loaded thing. the string of fate is conversely isnt strictly about love but its just often the case when you want to connect the souls of two people for eternity its usually because of love. theoretically i think their string color would actually oscillate between black and their standard representative color (maybe ill go with light blue lol....) depending on if theyre fighting or not. because it would be funny if it did. also. i think they might try it only after jay and nya retie their string of fate. because then they see its an option to tie strings of fate nonromantically. so theyre like... hey.... do you wanna like... just see? and thats that. two besties bound. jay has two strings of fate now

hysterically it would be funny if all the ninjas did it to each other. it would be a mess. but a colorful one. you know those ship charts where ppl draw lines for their otps and notps. its like that but its not shipping its just relationships and also every single person is connected to every single other person. not saying it has to happen in this au its just that the image of it is so fucking funny to me i had to say it. it would be useful tho if they wanted to find each other wherever they are. practical

maybe they should do that. idk

anyways. thats the end of my au. the post is longer than my og thread of it hjhklkjlkghjf. anyways. thats my weird subversion of string of fate au for jaya. writing the endgame jaya part tonight made think again. damn. im so fucking aro. i think the way i write romance always turn out not so romantic because of it. but also. THIS IS PEAK ROMANCE. SUBVERT BORING ROMANCE TROPES INTO SOMETHING LESS AMATANORMATIVE AND MORE INTERESTING FOR YOUR ENRICHMENT. I RECOMMEND IT. ITS MORE FUN. thats my biased aro ass speaking tho. but for reals. subvert tropes. find out what makes something truly romantic. anyways thanks for reading all of this. i am very fond of this au..... especially for the breakup scene lol...............

#my concepts #jaya #jem.txt #ninjago talk #its shorter than hanahaki au at least #also this is THE MOST aro take on string of fate possible #there might be typos it is 5:30am #ninjago

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allsassnoclass · 11 months ago

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Say…two people break up, right? But Fate thinks that’s bullshit so it creates a time loop and the couple is forced to relive the day they broke up multiple times, in different alternate realities, until they kiss and make up. The universe’s version of couple’s therapy.

OH i read a pretty good buddie fic with a similar premise, found HERE for my 911 friends.

anyway!

On the 11th day, Michael runs.

He wakes up alone, of course. Ashton is an earlier riser, and Michael wouldn't want to stay in bed with him and the memories of the past 11 loops, either. The bunks on the bus are a tight fit on the best of days, but they're suffocating if you've just broken up and have to keep breaking up over and over and over again.

Michael checks the date on his phone, sees that it hasn't changed, and barricades himself in his bunk, covers pulled over his head and only offering grunts to anyone who checks on him.

The bus pulls to a stop at 12:43pm, just like it always does. Michael could time everything down to the second now, the comforting routine of tour made eerily exact by the loop. It means he knows exactly where he needs to be.

At 12:57pm, he exits the bus under the guise of unloading, turns left instead of right, and ducks into the first alley he can find before breaking into a sprint.

In the 11 loops they've taken, he hasn't been out to explore the city. It's easy to get lost, and it's equally easy to blend in to the crowds, head down and hat pulled low. No one is expecting to see Michael Clifford wandering around by himself, so no one does. He ducks into a coffee shop that looks somewhat interesting and nurses a mug in the back corner for a while, people-watching and steadfastly not making eye contact with anyone.

It takes 15 minutes for his phone to buzz, everyone too wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of unloading and setting up for soundcheck to notice that he's not where he's supposed to be.

It takes 20 minutes before someone calls, and another 5 after that for him to decide that he's still entirely too close to the venue and needs to keep moving.

Luke and Calum's name flash across his phone screen with equal enthusiasm, with the occasional call from someone else on the crew. Michael sends I'm fine to the band groupchat, but declines every call.

It takes 56 minutes and a trip to McDonalds before Ashton's name appears.

"What?" he answers, careful to keep his voice cool and level.

"You don't get to run away from this, you ass!" Ashton hisses. "Get back over here and play the fucking show like a mature adult!"

Right, because Ashton is the mature one.

"Why?" Michael asks.

"Because we have fans out here who have paid a lot of money to see us! We promised when we got together that we wouldn't let our shit impact the band or the fans!"

"They'll still be there tomorrow," Michael shrugs. "No one is going to remember this. I'm not impacting anything."

"It's impacting Luke and Calum right now!" Ashton says, sounding very close to exploding. Michael can perfectly picture him running a hand through his hair, jaw hard and eyebrows pinched in that one frown that he only ever brings out when Michael has seriously, catastrophically pissed him off.

"Tell them I needed some space after the breakup," Michael suggests, picking at his fries. They're getting cold, but Ashton hates when he chews while talking, even though he does it himself, the hypocrite.

"There hasn't been a breakup, dipshit! You never broke up with me this time!"

Michael hums.

"I think it's your turn, actually," he says.

"I fucking hate you," Ashton seethes, which. Duh. Obviously. That's probably at least half the reason they're in this mess. "Just-- Come back before Luke and Calum call the cops, okay?"

"No," Michael says. Ashton growls, actually growls at him. "At least it'd be something interesting to break up this monotonous hell we're in!"

"I hate you," Ashton repeats, landing just as hard the second time as the first. Michael tries to shake off the stabbing feeling in his heart and somehow misses Ashton hanging up in the process.

Michael eats a fry. It's cold and a little soggy.

He puts his head down on the beige, probably-filthy McDonald's table and desperately wishes for the day to end.

#my writing #mashton #anon #anyway. in this loop they're both in the anger portion of the grieving process #interesting concept to have them BOTH be aware of the loop! that's fun #i've always wanted to do a timeloop tour fic #i feel like the liminal repetitive nature of tour would interact with a loop in a really interesting way #bite sized au

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apocalypticavolition · 1 year ago

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Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World: Chapter 1: An Empty Road

Welcome back to my reread! As will always be the case but isn't usual yet because we're just getting started, this post has spoilers for everything ever and should not be looked at if you don't want to see those. In fact, just telling you that spoils this very post, so it's already too late!

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

A comfy paragraph that feels like home. Someone could literally plagiarize this and I wouldn't care because it's such a good way to start! More book series should try and have very consistent beginnings, it really adds a lot.

Oh, and I should probably mention chapter headers. This guy has the "Wheel and Snake" motif, which is a generic Plot kind of deal.

Note that I am skipping over a second prologue that was added to these books when they were (for some reason) trying to make a YA version of the series that cut each book in half. That prologue, "Ravens", is one I've never read (or maybe I have but only once) and features Egwene al'Vere a few years before the series begins. Maybe I'll circle around to it someday, but I'm very big on only accepting works as they initially were (barring fixing typos or outright plot holes) and not with a whole bunch of doodads attached.

...the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World...

Interestingly, the most likely body of water for this to be is actually the Mediterranean, not any of the oceans proper.

Gusts plastered Rand al’Thor’s cloak to his back, whipped the earth-colored wool around his legs, then streamed it out behind him.

Rand has a lot of associations with wind (Loial even notes it in-universe) and also the land, so it's appropriate that we get both here with the wind blowing through the earth-colored wool. Note as well that while the earth is protecting him (though not especially well), the wind has been turned by the Shadow into something hostile.

He felt a little foolish about wanting to reassure himself that Tam was still there, but it was that kind of day.

Considering his later thoughts about wolves and bears, it doesn't even seem that foolish. Take it from someone who just a few weeks ago was dealing with being separated from family on a Canadian highway that definitely had bears.

Without thinking he touched the nock of the arrow; it was ready to draw to his cheek in one smooth movement, the way Tam had taught him.

Tam's influence on Rand looms large over the series, which does set up the reversal in TGS and the breakdown it causes quite well.

Wolves raided the sheep pens and chewed their way into barns to get the cattle and horses. Bears had been after the sheep, too, where a bear had not been seen in years.

It's rather interesting to imagine what might have happened to Perrin if Moiraine hadn't taken him away. The wolves would likely worm their way into his head by about the time he met Elyas in canon anyway, only he'd be in such a different context it's not hard to imagine him going really off the rails. Someone who actually finishes what they started should write a fic!

With his thick chest and broad face, he was a pillar of reality in that morning, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream.

And Tam's being a metaphorical pillar of reality is of course set up for the fact that by the end of the series Rand himself will be a literal one. It's really impressive how clearly Jordan saw the ending of the series; the Slog in my opinion is likely a product of his uncertainty in how to get there.

[Rand's mother] had been an outlander, and Rand remembered little of her aside from a smiling face, though he did put flowers on her grave every year, at Bel Tine, in the spring, and at Sunday, in the summer.

It's terrible being a mom for a protagonist, even an adoptive mother. Death is the best you can hope for.

But Tam had given his word about the brandy and cider, even if he had waited to make delivery until the day before Festival. Keeping his word was important to Tam.

"Belief and order give strength." If Tam had accompanied Rand on this journey, the whole thing would have been over in five days tops.

As Rand watched his side of the road, the feeling grew in him that he was being watched. For a while he tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound among the trees, except the wind. But the feeling not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stirred; his skin prickled as if it itched on the inside.

This is of course Rand's channeler sense for Shadowspawn. Does this mean he's already channeled at some point this winter, or do sparks like him get the various gifts before they start because it's inevitable that they will anyway? I wonder if Nynaeve (and maybe Egwene if sparks do get the spidey sense before channeling) has spent the last few days being itchy as all hell and not having a clue why. It would add another reason to her bad temper over being asked about the weather.

Not more than twenty spans back down the road a cloaked figure on horseback followed them, horse and rider alike black, dull and ungleaming.

"You're in the wrong franchise! Hobbiton's on the other side of the shelf, between Rosewater and Sounis!"

I get that Jordan had to channel a bit of Tolkien because it was the 80s and that's how you got published, but I have to say that sometimes I think he leaned a little too far into it. At least Myrdraal get weirder as we go.

There was only shadow to see in the hood

If Sanderson had been writing the series from the start, he would have rationalized that a Fade being able to step out of any shadow means it could step out of the shadow of its hood and then repeat the process to gain altitude rapidly, allowing the Shadow to orbitally bombard its enemies when the Fades stopped and fell back to Earth.

Abruptly a stone caught his heel and he stumbled, breaking his eyes away from the dark horseman.

Rand was a shy, awkward, inwardly beautiful teenage girl, just like you.

(Seriously folks, plot-convenient clumsiness is not gender specific and we should call it out in our boy protagonists too!)

Tam shook his grizzled head. “If you say so, lad. Come on, then. A horse leaves hoofprints, even on this ground.”

More proof of Tam being a good dad that even though Rand's talking nonsense, he checks it out. Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if Tam had experience with Shadowspawn somehow. Probably not though, since he was mostly involved in Illian and the Aiel War.

The wind that beat at Tam and him had not so much as shifted a fold of that black cloak.

More on the earth/air duality, with air being the masculine half tainted by the Shadow.

once he had even gone to the very foot of the Mountains of Mist, him and his closest friends, Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara.

Two complete nobodies who we'll never hear about again, naturally.

Today, though, the Westwood was not the place he remembered. A man who could disappear so suddenly could reappear just as suddenly, maybe even right beside them.

Maybe even fall on you from orbit!

Though I suppose the earth half of things being unfamiliar now does cut against the symbolism I'm envisioning, but I'll leave resolving that as a Freudian exercise for the reader.

Rand managed a weak smile. Of all things he might want to think about right then, the Mayor’s daughter was far down the list. He did not need any more confusion. For the past year she had been making him increasingly jittery whenever they were together.

18 seems a little late to be hitting puberty, Rand. Seriously, if it weren't for the narration earlier calling him and Tam "two men", I'd assume he was supposed to be 14-16 at this point.

“Remember the flame, lad, and the void.”

This technique actually does kind of work! I've used it a lot during painful dentistry and stuff. Sadly, I'm no good at remembering it when I'm in an emotional state, which is when it would be most useful, but maybe someday I'll learn.

(Probably not.)

Some said the land was too rocky, as if there were not rocks everywhere in the Two Rivers, and others said it was hard-luck land. A few muttered that there was no point getting any closer to the mountains than needs be.

Having recently been exposed to the "The Two Rivers is contaminated with radioactive fallout from the Trolloc Wars" theory, I have to note that this feels a bit like evidence for it even though I don't believe it in general - in particular, the cats having a weird number of toes happens all over the place in real life when they start getting too inbred.

goodwife

This is an interesting word choice! Goodwife (masculine "goodman"; abbr. "goody", from which we get "goody two-shoes") is an archaic form of address that started in the 1300s and died by the 1800s, with the English and Scots using it first and the Puritans later. It referred to women of high social status but non-gentry in Europe and in America we have no clue what exactly the Puritans meant except that it was respectful. Here in EF, the term likely either descends from the days when there were gentry to talk about, or has arisen in the Puritan sense.

Whether or not leaves had appeared on the trees, no woman would let Bel Tine come before her spring cleaning was done.

And here we come to Jordan's worldview again. The Two Rivers folk are meant to be pretty gender egalitarian, but here we see that they have the exact division of labor that the idealized American town does, with women doing interior chores and men doing exterior ones. This is treated as being inevitable, even though of course it doesn't have to be and in most real societies gendered division of labor is only ever a sunny day ideal and abandoned in part or in whole in rougher times like we're supposed to be in now, with spring a month late. Hell, even in a culture with similar gender norms to the west, ("Women care about the house, men do rough work"), you could easily see them ending up dividing things the other way, with women expected to thatch the roofs to maintain their nes- I mean homes and men beating the shit out of carpets because their big manly muscles let them get it done faster. See how easy it is to use sexist logic to justify the exact opposite of what western sexism usually does? (Fun fact: That's because sexist logic is almost completely arbitrary.)

It would be rather nice to see a generic Arcadian farming village that has radically different expectations for men and women while still being superficially similiar to the ideal homestead, really. Jordan missed an opportunity.

Tam spoke of damage from winter storms, each one worse than the one before, and stillborn lambs, of brown fields where crops should be sprouting and pastures greening, of ravens flocking in where songbirds had come in years before.

As a big corvid fan, seeing them always be associated with evil when they're really quite social and intelligent makes me sad.

[Wit] never seemed ready to start over, or to finish what he started the first time. Most of the Coplins and Congars were like that, those who were not worse.

Kind of odd to transition from "Life is hard out here and people who aren't willing to work hard can't cut it" to "Meet the Shithead and Lazyfuck Clans, the inbred hicks." It's realistic to have shittier families in communities, but usually these families in the real world at least have something going for them.

“What are we going to do about Nynaeve, al’Thor?” Congar demanded. “We can’t have a Wisdom like that for Emond’s Field.”

Wait a few days and the problem will take care of itself, Wit. Ten whatever-kind-of-coins-are-legal-tender-here says that he was probably the first to bitch about their village not having a Wisdom the second Nynaeve crested a hill and disappeared from view.

“You try meddling in Women’s Circle business, and see how you like eating your own cooking. Which you won’t do in my kitchen. And washing your own clothes and making your own bed. Which won’t be under my roof.”

Guess Daise married from outside the clan, since she seems like a relatively decent sort. Also note again the 1950s division of labor; plenty of dudes knew how to do "women's work" across history because even if you were lucky enough to always have a mommy-wife (yes that's exactly how icky 1950s-lovers are) on hand and never had to go to war or a logging camp or spend a few years in early adulthood fending for yourself, sometimes Mrs. Mommy would be bedridden from all the exhaustion of being a brood mare with unrealized aspirations and then you'd have to learn how to keep the household going anyway because hiring (or enslaving) a dark-skinned maid to do everything for you wasn't an option.

When they saw Tam, the goodwives of Emond’s Field went on point like hounds spotting a rabbit.

I feel like this is another bit of Jordan's local culture being mistaken for human nature. There's definitely gals who will try to set you up if they know you're single, but there's guys who'll pull the same stunt and neither gender has a 100% attempt rate unless compelled to by their society. Then again, for all of it being presented as the ideal, the Two Rivers community is definitely all about meddling in each other's business and assuming you're too stupid to breathe because you don't have the right kind of genitals, so I suppose it makes sense the women feel like they have to.

Worst of all were those who paused thoughtfully at about that point, then asked with elaborate casualness exactly how old he was now.

Based on later books, Egwene would have been pissed to hear about this. It's probably not canonical in later books though, since the exact details of their relationship change quite a bit in the first three.

Outsiders sometimes found it funny that the road had one name to the north and another to the south, but that was the way it had always been, as far as anyone in Emond’s Field knew, and that was that.

I struggle to think what rock these outsiders must have been living under to find the idea of a road changing names funny. It's the sort of thing that happens when two separate roads are brought together, and I know that the west is slowly decaying, but still.

No one knew when the custom began or why—it was another thing that was the way it had always been—but it was an excuse to sing and dance, and nobody in the Two Rivers needed much excuse for that.

It's a dick joke, ya hicks!

Or possibly a reference to the queen blowing herself up. That seems more dignified.

And to top everything, if the rumors could be believed, a grand display of fireworks was planned for the Green—if the first peddler of the year appeared in time, of course.

Another moment that feels a bit too Tolkien, with the book opening on a celebration graced with fireworks, but hey at least the Illuminators end up having a lot of plot relevance in this story, so it builds well.

At the south end of the inn, away from the stream, stretched the remains of a much larger stone foundation, once part of the inn—or so it was said.

I would guess that the foundation was once the local garrison in Manetheren, or at least a more prominent building for the village mayor. Maybe even a place where Andorians of import might stay, since it would have to be relatively recently ruined to have not been torn apart by the tree roots in the last few hundred years.

“An ill omen,” a scratchy voice announced, “no storks nesting on the rooftops at Bel Tine.” Cenn Buie, as gnarled and dark as an old root, marched up to Tam and Bran and leaned on his walking staff, near as tall as he was and just as gnarled.

Narrative doesn't treat Buie kindly either (and not unfairly), but he's not wrong here. Things are only going to get worse, especially here in the Two Rivers.

Ask the Wisdom when the winter will end, and she walks away. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell us what she hears on the wind. Maybe what she hears is that the winter won’t end. Maybe it’s just going to go on being winter until the Wheel turns and the Age ends. There’s your point.

It's interesting that while Cenn thinks Nynaeve is too young, his fearmongering here is based on the assumption that she is perfectly competent. This double think is quite distressingly common in certain circles.

Rand’s smile broadened; it did not sound as much like fun to him as it would have a year or two back, but Mat never seemed to grow up.

Again, this sequence feels like it works better with Rand and Mat being 14-16, with badger pranks seeming like something more fun at 12-14. I wonder if, a bit like GRRM, Jordan assumed he'd have some time skips in his story that would get Rand into his 20s from a younger age, and then abandoned the concept as the plot continued to demand immediate action.

“Funny how being scared takes you. You think strange things. I actually thought—just for a minute, mind—it might be the Dark One.”

Mat's not too far off!

“The Dark One and all of the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, beyond the Great Blight, bound by the Creator at the moment of Creation, bound until the end of time. The hand of the Creator shelters the world, and the Light shines on us all.”

Note that it's not quite true: not all of the Forsaken are bound, none of them were bound by the Creator (arguably not even the Dark One), and the Forsaken are all about to break free. Over the past few millennia the Forsaken have really had a glow-up.

“My mother always said the Forsaken would come for me if I didn’t mend my ways. If I ever saw anybody who looked like Ishamael, or Aginor, it was him.”

Considering that Ish is currently serving flaming looks and Aginor is decayed as all hell, this is again not all that wrong.

Now his name came up whenever a washline dropped the laundry in the dirt or a loose saddle girth deposited a farmer in the road. Mat did not even have to be anywhere around. His support might be worse than none.

While I do think Nynaeve and Egwene are too hard on the boy, it's important to remember that this is Mat's reputation at the start of the series: his own best friend doesn't want his public support on a major issue.

Rand stared wonderingly. No one traveled beyond the village by night, not these days, certainly not alone.

Why did Thom come in the dead of night? Taren Ferry should have been a perfectly good place to stop, and with things being like they are you wouldn't think him in much of a hurry to wander among the wolves even though he can take care of himself. Do we get an answer to this?

That alone is worth the expense of bringing him down from Baerlon.

Oh and Thom's been close enough that he'd know all the environmental dangers quite well, so that really just makes me all the more curious.

“You have a head on your shoulders when you choose to use it,” Bran said. “He’ll follow you on the Village Council one day, Tam. Mark my words. He couldn’t do much worse right now than someone I could name.”

We can see here that Rand really is a political thinker, though of course he's going to rise far beyond a simple village council.

“Oh, why not?” Mat said resignedly. “Like your da said, the quicker it’s in the cellar. . . .” Picking up one of the casks of cider in both arms, he hurried toward the inn in a half trot.

And we can see here that Mat really is good to his friends, even if he is a rogue.

And that's pretty much chapter one! Rand and dad walk down a road, Rand sees an incarnation of evil, dad gossips throughout the village, local crotchety old man and scheming youth spread rumors. Like the prologue, this sequence wasn't really particularly adapted by the show. We instead have:

Moiraine giving us a really awkward summary of the plot thanks to executive meddling.

And it's here I should point out how many different reasons season 1 needed to make changes from the book. There's executive meddling, there's plague, there's the inevitable changes from page to screen, there's stuff that is clearly about appealing to the director, there's stuff that seems to be about keeping Rosamund Pike onboard, there's... a lot. And Rafe gets the blame for all of it which is really unfair because properly speaking we should only blame him for the stuff that's about appealing to himself. Blame Jeff Bezos for this one, folks. Anyway then we get:

Liandrin (who isn't even in this book!) and her posse of Rad Red Bad Bitches hunting down... let's pretend it's Gorin Rogad even though the timeline doesn't line up at all, and also Gorin's imaginary best friend. Moiraine and Lan watch from above and decide to go to Two Rivers.

Lots of people who want to make everything about culture wars complain about Obviously Evil Witch Liandrin being Horribly Misandrist In Ways That Sexism Has Never Been Done Before in this scene and I don't have patience for that kind of nonsense either. The scene's kinda rushed I think, and I am even more flummoxed by there being rumors of anything out of the Two Rivers, let alone four ta'veren, but whatever, plot's happening.

Egwene gets her hair braided for the first time (a practice mentioned in this chapter) and then Nynaeve tries to kill her to prep us for the saidar metaphor.

Frankly this is also rushed - a real problem in this episode because they wanted extra time for the premiere but were told to go feed their mothers to the Myrdraal while Jeff Bezos swam in a bathtub filled with 50 dollar bills - and because of all the cuts this episode had for time it feels a bit weirdly out there, but again we really needed to make surrender as literal and visual for TV watchers as possible so I know what's up.

Our closest scene to the books is Rand and Tam taking the old road to town and Rand freaking out about something that he assumes is wolves.

It's very abrupt and Rand is kinda douchey with his "I used to be a sap" line. It also used to be the first scene in the episode (I remember the outrage when people found out they were skipping the prologue) but the execs clearly forced it to be shuffled around. Probably would have been longer too.

Cut to town. People are setting up for Bel Tine and the air is generally happy instead of nervous like the books. Rand and Tam unload in the tavern and then Rand drinks with his friends, Mat, Perrin, and somebody else! She beats Mat at dice, Mat begs his friends for cash to keep carousing while bitching that Perrin is a good husband and accusing Rand of being a sheepfucker, and Egwene arrives with everyone very happy that she lived after the murder attempt.

Generally I think it's smart to trim down the parts of this chapter after the rider even in an episode that isn't desperately trying to fit into an hour, and introducing Perrin alongside Mat is something that works well for TV because it's easier to have interweaving conversations in real time. It also isn't a bad idea to age the characters up some (Rand and crew have to be about 20 now, per Moiraine's comments while watching Gorin get gentled) and abandon kiddie activities like badger pranks.

That said, the generic wholesomeness of the town is gone and that one lady who has spilled booze all over herself needs to slow down, like geez, you don't even know if Egwene is alive yet so why are you clearly already sauced? Hell, why is Rand carousing if he should be worrying whether or not his girlfriend was dashed against the rocks? Why is the mayor just chatting with Tam like nothing is up? That river initiation ceremony cannot possibly have a 100% survival rate and I suspect very strongly that its initial placement in the script was very different and only patched together like this because they didn't have time because seriously.

Oh and this is as good a place as any to talk about the elephant in the room to clear out the wrong sort of people before they get any ideas: no, the Two Rivers is not the bastion of Racial Purity it is in the books (we'll discuss that more in the reread when it starts coming up beyond a single acknowledgement that Rand doesn't look like most other folk here), and fuck no that is not remotely a problem. Even ignoring the sheer difficulty of getting enough extras of any ethnic group (and guess what people, "white" is too broad a group in this context and does not constitute a distinct "look" like the Two Rivers people have, you'd have to do "Polish" or "Irish" or something and then you're still making casting everything else a pain in the arse), the simple fact of the matter is that Zoë Robins is perfect as Nynaeve, Madeleine Madden is perfect as Egwene, Barney Harris was perfect as Mat, and maybe someday Marcus Rutherford will grow on me as an actor or at least get a subplot that isn't stupid or both! Together they cover a very broad range of human ethnicity and getting rid of any of them (let alone *most* of them) for racial reasons would be pathetic and would hobble the show even more than Amazon and COVID already managed to do. Shame on you for suggesting it and good day - good here being a word meaning "I hope you achieve some semblance of enlightenment about how wrong you are, which would be very good indeed, now begone!".

And on that note, I really want to go and play video games now, so I'm off as well. See you next time with chapter two: Strangers!

#wheel of time #robert jordan #let's read #rand al'thor #tam al'thor #mat cauthon #wot spoilers #wheel of time spoilers #wot on prime #racism is stupid and you should feel bad

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sorcerous-caress · 1 year ago

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lol you get it with the name thing Jubilee, is sort of tragedy who is trying really hard not to look like one. She’s got a happy loving family but that family is so poor her mothers rely on her to take care of her siblings leading to her having a very limited social life outside of them, people she knows from helping her mom work in the bakery, the homeless people she gives the pastries that have gone bad too, and people from the church of Bahmut attempting to take advantage of her magic. While some of those are genuine friendships they are mostly transactional relationships and Jubilee dosen’t really realize she’s unfulfilled because these aren’t entirely healthy relationships she just assumes there is something wrong with her so keeps taking on more things to try and “fix” whatever is going on with her. She’s got cool magic powers but the strange physical traits like the scales isolate her even from other tieflings and training for them can’t be afforded so she just repress them in hopes of not hurting anyone and leads to her being taken advantage of/lead on by an assimar of Bahmut as well as they are likely why the mindflayers targeted her. (Which side note i think Dame Alyin personally fights that assimar over the situation at some point). While she’s very optimistic and dose her best to be cheery all that burden is very, very bad for her. Eventually she gets to have a proper emotional breakdown in like mid act three and the companions help/rally around her in my version of the story.

That was angsty I originally started writing this ask to tell you how she got her virtue name but went off on that tangent. Jubilee chose her name after the first time she was ever allowed to run a pastry stand for her family at a festival, she was about 16/17 and insisted on it so her mothers and younger sisters could enjoy the holiday. She sat through the festival and while of course she was upset about not being able to party in the party she still really liked seeing how happy people were when they ate the pastries she was selling so chose to focus on that and then her family came back and they were so happy and Jubilee realized that’s what she cared about more than anything else making others happy and also it’s very common for festivals where I’m from to be called a ____ Jubilee so the name not only represents Jubilee’s core desire to make others happy but serves as a reminder of when she realized that.

This also creates a really fun Parallel to Shadowheart who also chose her own name for practically opposite reasons. Most of the companions find that story cute but Minthara and Lae’zel are booing (also probably sol if she was there)

I really enjoyed reading this <3

It's also poetic in a way to be named after festivals, because to the naked eye they appear all cheery and effortless, constant laughter, food and kindness.

The average person doesn't realise just how much effort is put into the underground works of festivals, how much coordination is required and how fragile the system is, how everything is held together by tape and chewing gum and could easily crumble after too much pressure much like Jubilee breakdown in act 3.

Also festivals are built on transactions in a way, the same thing a lot of Jubilee's past connections were built on. Even if her intentions were kind, by the end of the day she was still being useful to everyone around her in some way or the other, even if she didn't ask for anything in return she still offered a service.

So that name really fits her, it also tricks you into thinking her core is as soft and untainted as her surface when she has suffered a lot. Especially with how festivals are usually thing that people in poverty are kept out of, how the rich celebrate in grand gestures that could feed millions of people just so they could impress their other rich friends.

While Jubilee's meaning of celebration is different. It's where eveeyone gets a plate, where everyone gets to have fun and feel safe and loved.

And I really like how she chose her own name and everyone accepted the change immediately, how freeing it is to have people who love and respect her identity. Even if it's just a name change and nothing else, it's still really comforting.

I can definitely see Minthara booing, miss grumpy face never liked happiness or bright colours much.

But not Lae'zel, she is very curious about Faerun cultures and I doubt that gith have festivals. She would want to attend one just to judge for herself if the name Jubilee chose is actually a worthy virtue to persuade.

While Minthara chalks everything to her jaded world view, Lae'zel actually tries to understand things and peoples better, tries to look at your views and understand your motives. I think she would find Jubilee's names similar to how gityhanki give each other formal titles.

Sol wouldn't boo but they wouldn't cheer either. They're more busy being hit with the realisation that a person can change their own name and holy fuck why did they never think of that before-

They might ask Jubilee about it afterwards, wondering how the people around her accommodated to her new name. I don't think Sol would change their name but it'd make them feel better knowing it's an option.

They've never been to a festival before, they have heard their family planning celebrations or grand parties but they were never allowed entry really. They mostly stayed in their room as a kid while the orchestra music and chatter of people could be heard from the lower floors.

Sol respects people who follow their own principles, be it evil or good, be a hypocrite and they'll lose respect for you. If Jubilee breaks her virtue, even by accident then Sol would use it against her whenever they need to win an argument or be harsh. But if Jubilee never breaks her virtue, Sol actually admits their own respect for her in act 3.

They'd love to see a festival one day, with so many people. But they'll never admit it or ask Jubilee. They'll just stare from afar with a glare until someone invites them over. Then they'll go sit somewhere near water or the table with the drinks just so they have a plan B if they got too excited inside and some flame slipped out.

Pov: Jubilee leaves Sol near the drink stands to go say hello to someone else, then she comes back and Sol has dunked both of their arms into the fruit punch bowl which is boiling by now.

#♡Jubilee #♡OthersOCs #♡anonstavs #♡Sol #♡myocs

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according2thelore · 6 months ago

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OH MY GOSH???? HELLO!!!!!

WAITTTT 🥺🥺🥺 that is so incredibly kind of you to say!! you don't know how wonderful this was to read--i'm always so worried about my characterizations/if i'm misunderstanding the characters/their mannerisms/their thoughts. so thank you so much!!!!! this made my week! i'm so glad that you enjoyed my silly little rants about these four, and i'm so unbelievably honoured and blown away that you liked them enough to add on!!!! like WOW!!!!

THIS IS INCREDIBLE!! i took a few days to write this bc i wanted to make sure i was able to respond to everything!

i agree with everything you said!!! and i wrote little responses to each point because your analysis scratched my brain! everyone read their points rn!

the low hum?? UM YUP YUP. i love that metaphor, because it's so true! your analysis of the sam & john dynamic is spot on! i agree/have mentioned once or twice that i think LS!Sam is a lot more sympathetic towards john because he has had those moments where he's put in his position (avenging jess and dean). but there's also still so much resentment there (justifiably!) which he 100% turns inwards--you nailed it, and i've never been able to put that into words! and haha! the daddy/good boy dynamic is factually accurate. in my head this probably takes place in season 2 for the ES!Boys, and sam immediately clocks dean's preference for/deference to father figures (in the case of gordon), so this is literally just a canon dynamic.

HOLY SHIT you're so right. seeing himself whole and alive and full of conviction would absolutely trigger him, because this is what lucifer wanted--this is what he took from him. because here is a tangible landmark of how much he's changed, and how much was taken from him. ES!Sam doesn't even know what's coming, and this is the version of sam that lucifer wants the most, because he's so fun to break. just GRRR--love this point.

THIS! LITERALLY ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!!! i love the way you wrote this and also your brain! ES!Sam sees LS!Sam as a brow-beaten, pathetic man who won't stand up for himself, and caves to the pressures of the life. he cannot imagine a world where he CHOOSES this, over and over again. but YES! EXACTLY! framing this take on my wall.

i'm shaking this point between my teeth like a chew toy rn. YES!!!!!! honestly, when ES!Dean starts swinging, LS!Dean 100% lets him get some hits in because LS!Sam has thought dean said this the whole time. it doesn't matter if it's fake, it's dean's voice telling sam that he's worthless and evil, and LS!Dean is too shocked and horrified to put up much of a fight. LS!Sam has to literally pry ES!Dean off of him and put him in air jail (hold him up) because ES!Dean is still screaming and spitting and furious. lucifer used to wear dean and whisper those words to sam over and over and over again, until LS!Sam knows it by heart, knows it in his sleep. sometimes, when he has panic attacks, you can hear him panting the voicemail under his breath. the last paragraph of this sent me to the hospital. I LOVE A HAPPY ENDING (we know this) and THIS IS SO DELICIOUS 2 me!! LS!Dean comforting LS!Sam over the voicemail (and LS!Sam hearing the original) is SO GOOD!! i need this projected onto the inside of my eyeballs.

nothing to add to this! can't improve on perfection! i need everyone to read this RN!!!!! you took the words straight from my brain. strategic jealousy and strategic pronoun confusion (he vs you)/flirting is exactly how they would approach this! LS!Sam is talking to ES!Dean like, "gosh, he (ES!Sam) couldn't stop looking at you right after you picked him up from stanford. you can still see some of it on his face when he looks at you. for a long time he thought you didn't care enough to. he was never so glad to be proven wrong." and this activates all kinds of weird stuff in ES!Dean, namely, the need to reassure or comfort or deflect, and because LS!Sam says "he," ES!Dean is like "EuHEuEH i'll be right back i gotta go talk to sam real quick" and LS!Sam--the dastardly fiend is like ":) yeah :) i think you should :)" lol--i love the constant upping! it's getting to the point where LS!Sam will just fall to his knees in the library to give LS!Dean the most insane head of his life or LS!Dean will demand to be fucked in the laundry room and lit's like...guys...please...fellas...come on now...

YUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thank you so much for writing these!!!!! it was so fun to go through and read!!! you are so SPOT ON!!!!

us rn agreeing about how delightfully awful these four would be: 🤝

i hope folks never stop sending asks/chatting with me about them, because everyone is so creative and correct and i love screaming with y'all about them!!!

@whoopsitswincest

-lizzy

Okay hear me out

THIS dean -

- with THIS Sam

#ES/LS verse

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riddle-me-ri · 2 years ago

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A/N: No real explanation for this, it’s just a super, super self-indulgent piece for me to do a character deep dive into Jervis Tetch. Don’t mind me! Lol. I was stuck between doing this with either Arkhamverse or BTAS Jervis(pls request btas jervis i only have one idea for him and its meh to me rip), but decided to just do a general overall version of him. I bring up a lot of familiar character beats and woes so this can really fit most Jervi anyway. There’s a hint of smut but nothing crazy, cause it’s not entirely what it’s about.

and I guess a wee late b-day gift for @mischievous-marchie they’re mostly to blame for this anyway given the few deep discussions we’ve had in general lmao.

Trigger Warnings: depressive and anxious thoughts, venting, explicit sexual content (handjobs all about Jervis here sorry not sorry), mentions of violence and criminal acts, and strong language

Word Count: 3.4 k

General Mad Hatter x Reader - Love and Suds

One of the most dangerous places for anyone to go is the deep recesses of their own brain.

People often spend many years trying to repress their horrid anxious inducing memories of their shortcomings.

Jervis found himself lamenting his very life, in the cold solitude of his tiny living room in his tiny apartment.

On his lucid days, he's aware…he's there in reality, painfully aware of everything; past and present.

Jervis sees what he's done, and it shudders his whole body in shame. He doesn't mean to hurt anyone. He doesn't mean to take away their free will…well most of them anyhow.

It's just how else can he be noticed? Be respected and be shown an iota of love? That's all anyone really needs right? That's all everyone wants.

Suffice it to say, people want things from Jervis…they want them all the time. But never the man himself.

Fellow rogues and evil masterminds constantly come to steal or bargain for a smidgen of his technology.

He hates to admit the times he agreed to such dealings, whether it was for the money or just a shot at actually developing some kind of alliance.

Only for it all to be spit back in his face. Nobody wanted Jervis the person…just the genius and what he could provide.

No, Jervis was always too freakish, too awkward, too…creepy to some.

Jervis could feel the walls slowly caving in on himself.

All his atrocities from his raging escapades to find companionship only to find someone wasn't the one or only to be taken for a fool and used all this time.

Which caused him to lash out in the most violent ways…

All the times he was used, chewed on and spit back out, no longer of use to them or anyone really.

His fingers raked through his hair. Nails scratching at his scalp, fingertips pulling at his hair strands.

He just wanted to make his Wonderland a reality. He wanted to find happiness in reality but it just wasn't possible so he had to resort to desperate…horrible…measures.

"Didn't want to…I didn't want to…wanted company, wanted to feel loved, respected…h-h-heard…"

Heard…heard..what's that noise?

Someone was knocking at his door.

Jervis blinked rapidly. Trying to come back into the external after spiraling into his internal conflicts.

Who could it be? He debated just staying quiet and staying put and continuing his downward spiral.

Yet, much like Alice of old, he was curious.

Jervis slowly, almost reluctantly approached the door. He looked through the peephole.

Oh, it was you. What're you doing here?

"Jervis? Are you there? I haven't heard from you…"

Guilt welled up in his gut like bile in his throat he wanted to puke. In all his damning thoughts, you were completely void of them. Probably because you're one of the only few people in the whole world that seemed genuine.

You…actually seemed to like him for him. Something so rare there were many days Jervis found it hard to believe you existed.

Yet, he knew he didn't have any chips on you. Jervis has looked you over a time or two to ensure he didn’t plant one on your during any of his stupors.

There you were though. You were a free roaming person…that willingly came to see him.

Jervis slowly unlocked the door and was greeted by your bright relieved smile.

"Oh my god, Jervis you're okay! I-I haven't heard from you. You haven't invited me over in awhile…umm, can I come in?"

Back in Jervis' days before his Mad Hatter escapades, you were the only one that showed him any friendly camaraderie.

You, of course, being the only one wasn't enough to prevent Jervis from succumbing to his last resort for more connections and more semblance of respect he lacked.

Many times, Batman and the psychiatrists at Arkham called upon you to help him, but it was like talking to a bunch of brick walls when they asked for your opinion.

Jervis nodded and stepped to the side and let you in.

You looked around at the clear disarray of his living room. Blankets and comforters were scattered on the couch and floor. Lamp shades torn off. Cups and saucers littered and stacked on the table and floor.

You hung your bag up by the door and took off your shoes, before looking back over to Jervis.

He had definitely seen better days as well.

His hair was coated in grease, his face sweaty and paler than usual. He looked like he had been wearing the same forest green bathrobe for days if not weeks.

Jervis was rocking on the heels of his feet as he let you take in the outer representation of his inner turmoil and depression.

"I…um…" Jervis tried to speak up. His heart cracked as you waited on him to continue with sincere ears.

"Wasn't planning on having company…" He scratched behind his ear, nervously.

"It's okay, I did pop in unannounced but…I was worried–" You began to explain your motive but was cut off.

"Why? W-why bother…"

You quirk your eyebrow at him for a moment. "Because I care about you…I know I haven't been around much and I feel guilty for it but I just wanted-"

"Don't waste your time or breath on me…I'm far from forgiveness and beyond help…"

You walked over and attempted to grab his hands in yours. "Jervis, that's not true, who told you that?"

Jervis looked down at his feet, as his hands rested in yours but didn't return your endearing grip.

You had a tight smile as Jervis decided to stop responding to you. He tended to shut down when words became too much, swirling in his head between the rhymes, his thoughts, and what he wishes to say.

"It's okay, you don't have to say anything. But I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry it took me so long to come back."

You started running some water into the bathtub. Occasionally putting your hand through the water until it was warm enough to start filling the tub.

Jervis was still in the living room. Too exhausted to really argue with you to leave him be. Plus deep down he supposes he was glad to see you, before things got too dark again.

"Hey, Jervy!"

His heart skipped a beat, you hadn't called him that in…years.

He turned his head down the corridor and saw your head sticking out of the bathroom.

"I ran you a warm bath, you don't have to wash or anything, just relax, yeah? I'll pick up a little in the living room in the meantime…" You offered.

You, you did what? You're going to do that?

Panic softly set in, he knows this feeling.

Something he's always felt for you, but reserved it. Pushed it down. Not wanting to hurt you after so long…or worse, like he did to most…

He hopped off the couch and made his way to the bathroom. Your smile almost made him smile back in return.

"Just take it easy, I'll be back in a bit with a change of clothes. Just yell for me if you need anything." You pat him on the shoulder, before closing the door and you start cleaning up the living room.

Jervis had to admit, it did feel nice being in here. The water felt like an engulfing warm hug, slowly rinsing off the grime, sweat, and dirt off his skin. The warm water caused his skin to redden a soft pink.

His swarming thoughts from before still lingered but they were much fuzzier. Hidden behind some weird mental fog.

The weight remained however as he fought on how to conduct himself with you. He could hear you moving around just outside the door. The clinking of dishes, the roaring of a vacuum.

A knocking sound broke him once again from his reverie.

"Are you doing okay, Jervy?"

No response. Jervis tried to move his mouth and conduct words but nothing came out.

"I'm coming in, okay? So…hide yourself." You chuckled softly.

You entered the bathroom and were happy to see he at least got into the tub. You wanted to ask how he was, but felt it would fall on deaf ears. You set his change of clothes by the bathroom door.

"Here, you don't need to do anything, but…" You walked over to the side of the tub, making Jervis slightly jump.

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you, but, we gotta do something with this hair, okay? Will you let me wash it?"

Jervis hated to admit it but that sounded splendid right now. He was sick of his hair sticking to his face and being everywhere. He nodded.

You smiled brightly, excited for the positive response. "Thank you, I promise I'll be gentle."

"N-no…uh…thank you…" Jervis mumbled.

"Don't mention it. I just wish I got here sooner. Looks like you had tea parties without me." You joked, giggling softly.

He softly mustered an amused scoff in return. You were always one to entertain his Wonderland fixation. You didn't question it or ridicule it. You understood and encouraged it. Even made a claim to being The March Hare (or The Dormouse on days when you were particularly sleepy and longed for a nap.)

You got behind Jervis' head with the bottle of shampoo and conditioner by your side and a couple of rags. You put a generous amount of shampoo in your hand and began scrubbing his strands.

The contact was really nice and felt amazing. Better than all the beatings from Batman or the Arkham Asylum wards he was used too.

He almost whined when you stopped. "Jervis…I'm gonna need you to breathe for me, okay?"

Jervis didn't even realize he was holding in his breath as you scrubbed his scalp. After a moment he slowly exhaled and began breathing in and out. You continued washing and rinsing his hair before repeating the process with conditioner.

You two sat in comfortable silence with the occasional sloshing of water whenever you had to rinse Jervis' hair.

The swelling panic deep in Jervis' gut was throbbing at this point…along with something else.

You weren't under his mind control.

You were still your own being. How were you so nice? You know better than anyone what he's capable of, but you choose to come anyway and you chose to stay. No matter how much distance he tried to keep from you so he didn't result in his usual…antics.

There was no denying his feelings for you anymore, in this vulnerable and intimate state. He loves and adores you. His only friend, his March Hare…he just didn't know how to respond or react…how they say…appropriately.

"Y-you don't have to stay here any longer. You're free to leave." Jervis came back up from rinsing the rest of the conditioner out of his hair.

"Jervis…if you want me to go. I can, but I don't want to. I've missed you and I wanna help you." Your hands were still on either side of him in the water.

"Why? Why do you wanna stay? Knowing very well what I can do…what I do to…what I've done."

You took your hand out of the water and cupped his chin in the palm of your hand so he could look at you.

"Jervis, I've known you for a decade…and you've never not once offered or tricked me with any mind control whatsoever. And you want to know why?"

Jervis nodded, but you still answered anyway.

"Because you don't need to. You know you don't need to. And you never will need too. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to explain that to that dark dingus." You rolled your eyes at the mention of Batman.

You could count on both hands and then some the nights that Batman was literally breaking and entering into your home to ask about Jervis and what made you special.

It's because you were fucking kind to him. You liked Jervis. He's quirky, intelligent, and can be kind but you could only be so kind anymore after the world kicked you down so many times.

You wondered just how small Batman's so-called "rogues gallery" would be if people were kinder to others and didn't seek to take advantage of other human beings.

It saddened you immensely to see him go down the path he did when there was no way for you to interfere but you couldn't say it surprised you either.

You looked back into his eyes, your hands moving from his chin to his cheek. "I'm aware of your past…transgressions. Your m/o but I'm not scared or worried. I do mean it, and you can quote that it's actually me…"

You turned and rotated your head around to show the lack of headgear, microchips, and any other cranium influences.

"...I care…no…I do love you Jervis Tetch. I'm not going anywhere…not anytime soon."

There was a beat of silence as Jervis took in what you said.

You saw his lower lip start quivering as they fought to speak or keep in the growing pressure in his eyes and throat to cry.

You smiled softly, and with zero care for getting wet; you wrapped your arms around him and embraced him.

It took a minute but he slowly returned the gesture. You could feel him press his fingers down into your lower back and his arms tighten around you.

"T-thank you…" He whispered softly in between sniffles.

"Don't mention it." You let him go and sink back into the tub only to realize you're just as soaked as well.

You couldn't help but laugh as Jervis looked at you nervously when he realized he had gotten you wet.

"It's okay. It'll dry, I figured it was a good idea to pack an overnight bag." You chuckled.

Jervis felt guilty now, not for any reasons before, but for the way he kept stealing glances at your skin that was see through the wet white shirt.

"Do you think you can clean yourself while I go change?"

He could, he absolutely could. He wasn't a child. But damn it if he wasn't just the tiniest bit selfish for your touch and attention now. He didn't want you to get away.

As if you possessed mind powers of your own, you jokingly rolled your eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll just finish what I started and then change, how is that?"

You laughed in disbelief as for the first time that night Jervis actually gave you one of his signature giddy grins and an encouraging nod.

You got back down on your knees beside the tub and grabbed one of the rags and lathered it with soap.

Before you began washing his body, you playfully plopped the rag onto his face, causing you both to laugh. You did take the chance to clean his face and head but being mindful of his eyes.

You were relieved to see Jervis start feeling better but it was even more satisfying to feel the tension in his neck and shoulders finally disappear. He was actually relaxed and loose.

When you got lower under the water however, something stood at attention that you didn't think about and Jervis forgot to mention.

Jervis gasped as you got closer to his groin and grabbed your wrist. "I-I can take it from here-I…I'm sorry." He ruined it. His one chance of true companionship was dashed because of stupid primal responses and desires.

"It's fine, Jervy, really." It really was fine, you didn't mind one bit. You were kind of flattered more than anything.

"Y-You mean you don't mind?"

You shook your head, "not at all, in fact if you allow me too…"

Jervis gulped. He would love it if you did, actually. You caused it after all.

"Y-yes, please."

You leaned in and kissed his temple as your hands dove back into the water. You let your hand trail up his leg, occasionally groping his thigh as you got closer to his cock.

Jervis gasped when your hand finally gripped the base of his cock. You slowly began stroking and tugging at the base, just to start the pace slow. With every pump you went higher and higher up until you finally got to the head.

Jervis was a flushed red panting mess as you continued your gentle but steady strokes, occasionally squeezing his head in a way that made him whimper louder.

Above the water's surface, you continued to peck sweet, endearing kisses along his face. His forehead, temple, cheek, nose. Everywhere he was comfortable with for now.

You were still somewhat shaky from your confession and Jervis' lack of reciprocating or response of one, but you knew he would say it when he’s ready in due time. The fact he’s letting you stay, treat him, and “help” him…that was enough.

You began picking up the pace, with faster and tighter strokes from his base to the tip. You saw Jervis slightly convulsing and his breathing became more raggedy and heavy. You were so focused on getting him to the precipice of pleasure that you almost didn’t feel his hand come up to your cheek.

“C-can I…can we…k-kiss?” He managed through his groans and whimpers.

The elation you felt as you happily leaned in and pressed your lips gently with Jervis’. You felt the quick intake of air through his nostrils. Your lips vibrated slightly as he groaned into your lips, before sighing contently. When you pulled back and broke the kiss, you smiled at the look of pure bliss on his face.

A complete opposite of the stern, tensed forlorn expression he had when you first walked into the door.

You removed your hand from the tub and got up and began actually drying off your hands and arms.

Jervis was about to finally get out of the water that has already gone cold a long time ago, but was taken aback by your next actions.

Without so much as a second thought you removed your top and bottoms right there in front of him and changed into the light blue puffy shirt that he was supposed to change into.

You didn’t notice how you absolutely stunted the neuroscientist as you quickly made your way out of the bathroom. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back with a change of clothes for you!”

When the door shut and you left. Jervis was left alone again, to really let it all sink in what just transpired.

The way his heart was skipping beats but with love and elation more so than anxiety and guilt. The smile on his face wasn’t turned up, crooked and mad. It was natural and it felt nice for once.

Jervis quickly got out before you could shock him again and began drying himself off. His back was towards the door as you opened it with a fresh shirt, pants, and underwear. You slowly crept behind him and put your hands over his eyes.

Jervis gasped slightly from the shock, before chuckling at your playfulness.

“Guess who?” You whispered sing-songy in his ear.

“Hmm…oh is it the Cheshire Cat? The Carpenter? Or-or the Walrus?”

You laughed softly. “Nope, I’m actually invited to the Tea Party.”

“Dormy?”

You shrugged. “On my more sleepy days, absolutely.”

“Oh, I know.” Jervis reached up and grabbed your hands and removed them from his eyes. He turns around and smiles at you. “It’s my darling March Hare.”

“But of course.” You smiled as you pulled him into your arms. You gave him a kiss on his nose and reluctantly let him go.

“I’ll let you get dressed, its not too late and I doubt you’ve eaten anything. I’ll make something quick and then we can head to bed, how does that sound?” You opened the door, about to head to the kitchen.

Jervis smiled widely, beaming with happiness and love he hasn’t felt in such a long time. “That sounds splendid, my dear.”

“Perfect! See you soon!” With that you left the bathroom again and began whipping some stuff up in the kitchen.

As he changed, Jervis couldn’t help but smile in pure delight. All his memories and thoughts that were weighing on him and suffocating him finally dissipated like steam from a tea pot. He had someone that cared for him, not just for what he could do but for who he is.

The notorious Mad Hatter of Rogue Gallery infamy. The lonely wretch that is Jervis Tetch.

When he is with you. He felt he actually had a chance.

#ri writes #dc mad hatter x reader #dc jervis tetch x reader #jervis tetch x reader #dc mad hatter x reader smut #dc jervis tetch x reader smut #jervis tetch x reader smut #please don't let this bust #rip

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rayshippouuchiha · 4 years ago

Note

I read “[Naruto] made budgeting and math his bitch” and all I want to say, to ask, is to consider the possibility that he’s the one in charge of Team 7’s budget? Please and thank you for your time.

It takes Naruto a bit to notice it. Takes a while for all the pieces to line up just right for him to see it.

His team, as talented as they all are, are absolute shit with money.

They're up north, huddled together on the roadside just inside of Tomi, the capital city of the midsized island that makes up Gold Country, when the truth comes out.

Their mission had been long and draining and they're all looking forward to a ship back to the mainland and a stop at an Inn for a night before they start the trek back to Konoha.

The only problem with that plan is the fact that everyone is flat broke.

Everyone, that is, except for Naruto. Which the other three would know if they'd bothered to ask him instead of assuming he was just as broke as they are.

Because Naruto's wallet is basically still as fat as ever despite the length of time they've been gone and the fact that he's done his definition of splurging at the shops in Tomi. He'd put the few hours where they'd split up before meeting again to start looking for a ship back to very very good use.

Supplies were always cheaper for him outside of Konoha proper where the shopkeepers don't know him and he's actually allowed to haggle. Plus their contractor, an ancient silk merchant named Kaede, had taken enough of a liking to Naruto to put in a good word for him at the local shops.

A courtesy that she, apparently, hadn't offered to the rest of the team or maybe just one they hadn't bothered to take her up on. Naruto isn't sure which it is exactly.

But if it's the second option then Naruto's not sure what to think. He'd never turn a discount or chance to haggle down, no matter how small it is. He knows better.

"Well," Kakashi-sensei says brightly. "Looks like we'll be running to the mainland and camping until we're back home. Let that be a lesson to all of us to bring more money next time."

Sakura looks like she's on the verge of either tears or a tantrum and Sasuke looks as blank as always except for the slightly displeased curl of his mouth.

Naruto finds himself a mix of both of their reactions because what?

Bring more money? That was Kakashi-sensei's solution? Just bring more? Like what Naruto knows was in each of their wallets before they left Konoha wasn't a good six months of Naruto's regular budget?

And they've got relatively little to show for the fact that they spent it all?

How??

It's in that moment that the truth hits Naruto directly in the face.

He's the only poor person on this Team. He's the only one of them who has ever had to actually worry about money.

Sakura has parents who actually love and house her, all her mission earnings are pure profit. Kakashi-sensei is probably the shinobi version of rich with his rank and all the high-level missions he's taken. And Sasuke is absolutely the shinobi version of rich with the wealth of an entire Clan at his disposal.

When they run out of money they just ... go get more.

Naruto, with his crumbling apartment and trap-wire thin budget, lives an entirely different kind of life.

They can probably just walk right into the Konoha bank he's sure they all use, the same one Naruto's never been allowed into, and just withdraw more money.

Not Naruto. All of his money, whatever he's scrimped and saved for, has always either been on his person or hidden away in a hollowed space beneath his bed.

For a long moment, Naruto debates with himself. Considers not saying anything and just following along with Kakashi's plan.

But, well, he does have the money and they are his Team.

So ...

"I got this," Naruto huffs out as he holds up his still bulging wallet. "But we're doing it my way and you'd all better pay me back if I spend anything."

He doesn't bother to listen to their protests or whatever they might say or do. Instead he turns on his heel and stalks off towards the docks, intent on finding them a ride to the mainland that doesn't make him want to gouge his eyes out at the price.

Half an hour later finds them settled on the deck of a small fishing vessel, warm pork buns in hand, and Naruto not missing a single yen.

The hoard of shadow clones he has practically crawling over the ship ended up being payment enough for the weathered-looking woman who'd given them passage.

He ignores the way the others stare at him and focuses on eating his lunch, mind already ticking over what Inns he remembers them passing and what he could do to get them a night's stay for the lowest cost possible.

With him in the lead, they manage to make it all the way back to Fire Country without having to pay for much of anything at all. Naruto had bartered everything from his shadow clones to Kakashi-sensei kissing the back of some woman's hand to his own help modeling a kimono while waitressing in his female form at a restaurant in Blouder City for food and lodging.

He'd actually like that last job the most since Tsubame-san had not only let him keep the kimono but he'd made a small fortune in tips as well.

It's not until they stop at the Black River Inn, the last waypoint before they reach Konoha proper, that Naruto finally steps back. Much to the puzzlement of the rest of the team, he lets Kakashi-sensei step up and rent them a room instead.

Tatsuyomi, the man who runs the inn, is the brother-in-law of the woman who runs the Tree Bud in Konoha.

He knows Naruto on sight.

It's not until they're settled into their shared room that night, the others eating a hot meal from the kitchen and Naruto eating the last of meat buns the cook Akira had slipped him before Naruto left the restaurant in Boulder, that someone finally asks.

"How'd you get so good with money, Naruto?" Sakura is the one to break the ice. "Figured you'd blow it all on ramen or something by now."

"He didn't actually pay for much," Sasuke points out quietly. "And nothing full price. He traded and haggled for everything instead."

"Still," Sakura presses. "He's the only one of us who isn't broke and he managed to get us a stay in every Inn we came across on the way home. Kind of weird."

Naruto stops, stares down that the cold meat bun in his hand, eyes squinted almost closed and shoulders tight.

He forces himself to breathe, to let the tension flow off and away.

He takes a bite of his bun.

Chews.

"I've never had parents," Naruto finds himself saying.

Around him the room goes absolutely silent.

"Don't have a Clan or a guardian or anything either," Naruto's shoulders shift restlessly, nails biting into the soft flesh of the bun in his hand. "Been living off the orphan's stipend since I was four. The pay from that is ... there's never been a lot to go around. There's always bills and supplies so I had to learn to make what I had really count. Being hungry for a long time sucks you know? Never want to do that again, not after the first few times. Not unless I have to."

"Y-You get mission pay now though right?" Sakura says, voice low and eyes wide.

"Don't get the stipend anymore though, that stopped when I got my headband," Naruto shrugs again, uncomfortable in his skin for a reason he can't properly name. "And mission pay gets split so ..."

The quiet is thick around them. Sasuke is practically glaring at his bowl and Kakashi-sensei's knuckles are white around the edges of his book.

"But yeah," Naruto finally says as he pushes himself up onto his feet, half eaten bun in hand, and turns to hop up onto the windowsill, "I learned money stuff real young. Probably the only school thing I was ever really good at."

A flex of muscle has him out the window and sitting on the edge of the roof, feet dangling and conversation officially over.

The rest of the night and the journey back to Konoha proper is quiet.

The next time they go on an extended mission outside of the village it's Naruto who's in charge of any and everything even remotely money-related as soon as they pass the border.

And if their mission pay starts getting split three ways instead of four, well, Kakashi-sensei doesn't say anything so Naruto doesn't either.

#RayRambles #Naruto #Naruto Budgeting Drabble #CREAM AU

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iceeckos12 · 3 years ago

Text

A time travel au. angst and h/c. inspired by this post

Warnings: jon’s very low self-esteem

“What do you think of him?” Jon suddenly asks, staring blankly at the wall of the breakroom.

Tim pauses in the middle of chewing his sandwich to give him a long, considering look.

He’s mostly decided to suspend his disbelief until further notice, simply to keep from losing his mind. What else is one supposed to do when future versions of Jon and Martin, who are also apparently dating, tell you that your workplace is currently involved in a plot to end the world? Ideally he would’ve processed one big revelation at a time, but apparently they don’t have time for that, so goodbye grip on reality, it was nice knowing you. I’ll hit the restart button as soon as things start making sense again.

Tim wipes his hand across his mouth, swallows, and asks, “You mean Jon II?”

Jon rolls his eyes, like Tim’s being obtuse on purpose just to annoy him. “Yes, I mean...him. Me. Jon II.” Then his nose wrinkles amusingly, the same way it always does whenever he says the moniker. He’s hated it since the beginning, but it was a battle he quickly lost, what with all three of his assistants opposing him.

Normally, Tim wouldn’t have thought twice about shrugging and answering, but...Jon’s been uncharacteristically quiet lately. Oh sure, he’d blushed up a storm upon learning that his future self and Martin were dating, and he’d expressed his own misgivings at the beginning, but...since then he’s been eerily, silently watchful. In Tim’s experience, when presented with this sort of puzzle Jon generally buries himself in research, and doesn’t emerge until he’s good and ready to do so.

There’s something else on his mind.

So Tim puts down his sandwich and gives himself a moment to think carefully through his response. “I mean...he’s a lot like you, obviously. But he seems…” What’s a polite way to say, the trauma and the boyfriend seems to have made him a little more easygoing? He certainly smiles more freely than he ever has, which...honestly, makes Tim want to cry sometimes. How horrible, that so much abject cruelty had just made him more kind. “...tired. A little less high-strung?”

“I see,” Jon says, turning his mulish gaze to his curry, dragging his spoon through the thick sauce.

Tim waits a beat longer, but when nothing else seems forthcoming he prompts, “Why do you ask?”

Jon’s reaction is only to press his lips into a thin, tight line. Tim knows this mood; he’s weighing how insecure he’ll look if he says whatever’s actually bothering him out loud, versus how much he wants someone else to hear it. Pushing him now will only make him clam up, so Tim just waits.

Tim’s patience is rewarded when Jon blurts, “But you like him. You...you all do.”

“Yes,” Tim says slowly, because it’s true. Martin’s so enamoured with a Jon that actually likes him that he keeps bringing him tea just to get another glimpse of that gentle, thankful smile, just to strike up another conversation about nothing. Sasha has decided that he’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to her, and insists on consulting him whenever she reads a new true statement.

Tim’s personally a little unnerved by the awful, sad way future Jon looks at him sometimes, or the way he flinches back whenever someone tries to touch him without warning. But he’d taken Tim aside and quietly explained everything he knew about what happened to Danny, so.

Oh, Tim thinks, feeling like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Jon may be an old hand at fooling others with his grumpy persona, but Tim knows that he’s just using it to hide his massive inferiority complex. “Wait, are you jealous?”

Jon ducks his head, and his ears darken. Gotcha, Tim thinks.

“Jon, you know that that’s still you, right?” he explains gently, quietly relieved that it’s not something more complicated. “We like him just as much as we like you, because you’re the same person.”

“But he’s not the same, is he?” Jon protests. “Look at the scars on his neck, on his hand. And he has panic attacks, and he flinches at loud noises, and, and—”

He breaks off, biting down hard on his lip, threading a hand through his hair.

Tim stares at him, feeling off-kilter, like he missed a step coming down the stairs. That doesn’t sound like jealousy. “...Jon?”

Jon shakes his head, his breath escaping him in thready, devastated gasps.

He can’t tell what’s going on in Jon’s head, and it’s starting to scare him. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Jon just sits there for a moment long, tugging at his hair, staring sightlessly at the middle distance. Tim gently untangles his fingers, giving him something a little more solid to hold onto.

“You all like him,” he says at last. “You all...he’s so kind, and he’s funny, and you like him, because someone hurt him first. He’s different—we’re different—because someone cut our throat and burned our hand, and you like him better.”

Tim’s horrified. “Jon—”

“Should I accept that?” he continues, the words flooding from him like a dam finally exploding in a shower of groaning wood and weathered stone. “Do I—how do I carry on knowing that I could be the person I want to become, if only I give myself to monstrosity, if only I let myself be hurt like that?”

“Of course we’re not going to let that happen to you!” Tim interrupts, voice higher and more frightened than he meant it to be. He’s applying duct tape to a raging river. He has no fucking idea how to fix this. “You don’t deserve—”

“Don’t I?” Jon demands, whirling on him, eyes flashing. “Don’t I deserve to be happy? Or am I unworthy of even this kind of improvement? Am I doomed to be like this forever?” Tears well in his eyes, spill over. “Don’t I deserve it?”

And then he slowly, inevitably, dissolves into tears, his slim shoulders shaking as he curls over and buries his face in his elbow. Tim drapes an arm across his back, angling his body so he can gently tuck Jon’s head against his shoulder. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do. Even if Jon were in any shape to hear it, he has no idea how to fix this.

Tim could tell him that he and Martin and Sasha all think that he’s fine the way he is, and it’s the stress of an apparently eldritch job that’s causing him to push people away, but he doubts Jon would believe it. Words mean nothing when actions have been screaming something entirely different all this time, and Jon’s always been more observant than they give him credit for.

“Oh, Jon,” he whispers when the tears finally start to slow, dropping a kiss onto silver and black hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you felt that way.”

Jon pulls away and shrugs, averting his reddened eyes. Tim squeezes his elbow to prevent him from retreating entirely. They sit like that for a moment, Jon going very still and very tense under Tim’s hand, settling into the vulnerability like an open wound.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says finally, sniffing heavily. He’s aiming for his usual brusque, dry tone, but his voice is shaking, and he’s not fooling anyone. “That was unprofessional of me.”

Before Tim can stop himself, an incredulous laugh rips out of him. “Jon,” he says quickly, “We’re well beyond professional. You know that, right? You don’t have to hide from me.”

Jon flushes. “Yes, well—it was unfair for me to put this on you, as your fr—as…” His expression goes all fragile and uncertain, and Tim’s heart aches.

“It’s not unfair,” Tim corrects gently. “As your friend,” and here he pauses for emphasis, “I want to know when you’re feeling like this.”

“Oh,” Jon murmurs, then straightens and scrubs the teartracks from his cheeks. “Oh.”

Tim nods reassuringly, takes a deep breath, and makes an educated guess. “I know you’re scared, Jon. We all are. This place is...horrible, and seeing what you went through is...terrifying. I can’t imagine how that must be for you.” He lets his eyes flicker up. Jon’s still watching him, rapt, and good, good. I haven’t lost him. “I won’t deny that he’s getting along with Sasha and Martin quite well, but...but that’s not because of what he—you—went through. It’s because….right now, you’re pushing people away because you’re scared, but he’s already done that. He knows that pushing people away just means you end up alone. It doesn’t mean he’s a better person, just that he’s a little wiser.”

“But how can you be sure?” Jon asks, leaning forward, eyes big and desperate.

“I mean, I wouldn’t have become your friend if I didn’t like you,” Tim admits unashamedly.

His bold honesty is rewarded by Jon flushing and ducking his head.

“But even so,” he continues, sobering, “Even if you were the worst person on the planet—and you’re not—you wouldn’t deserve to be hurt like that, no matter what the outcome. Does that make sense?”

Jon looks thoughtful as he says, “I—yes. Yes, that makes sense.”

He can tell though, that Jon doesn’t quite believe him. That’s okay—honestly, it’s what he was expecting. Tim’s been running headfirst into the wall that is Jon’s terrible self-esteem for as long as they’ve been friends. This problem is going to take more than one half-assed pep talk.

That’s okay, though. Jon’s worth the effort.

#tma #my writing #iceeckos12 writes

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lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 1 year ago

Text

oh this looks fun!

Last song listened to:

this is a really sweet piece of Australian/American history actually! during the war a lot of Australian women married American navy men, some had kids together even, then the war finished and they all had to go home and it split their families apart

so the US navy offered to ship them all over to America for free on one big trip

a train ran through the whole country picking them up to take them to the ship, they called it the Bridal Train, I saw this band sing this song live and the singer actually had to stop for a minute because she started crying, it's a really sweet and melancholy song about saying goodbye to your country and family to be with the one you love

Currently watching:

What we do in the Shadows (the show not movie although I have watched that so many times), my roommate has Binge so I finally get to watch it all the way through, it's so fucking funny

Currently reading:

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett, a Discworld novel, been slowly working through them, I've been excited to get back to the Night Watch characters!

Current obsession:

okay so there's this very particular My Hero Academia fanfic trope, where Hawks is trying to infiltrate the league of villains by order of the hero commission

but he is actually being heeeella abused by the hero commission and he finds the league of villains like, way more supportive and humanising and actually starts liking hanging out with them

and they're like, horrified by how he's treated, even though they're villains, they still think what he's been through is horrendous

so he defects and joins them for real

(and also makes out with dabi a little maybe sort of kinda I LOVE SEEING DABI BE SOFT DAMN IT THEY HEAL EACH OTHER AND IT'S GREAT)

actually I made a meme for this to send to my sibling

so this has taken a hold of my brain and I have been chewing on it and mentally writing fics I'll never actually end up writing for days

okay who do I tag?

@hauntingyourself @letswonderspirit @ghostly-shenanigans-in-progress @ghostiiiee @melancholicmarionette

feel free to ignore this is you aren't up for it or if you've already been tagged ~

Nine (or so) People You'd Like To Get To Know Better

I've been tagged twice in this game, so I should probably finally go ahead and do it. First by @drivingthesehillsaway like a week ago. Sorry I didn't reply sooner! I was in the middle of something and sent it to my drafts and then forgot about it. And I was tagged again today by @stealingyourbones. Both threads had a lot of replies, so I figured I'd just make a new chain.

Rules: Answer the 4 questions and tag 9 people you'd like to know better.

Last Song You Listened To:

youtube

It's a fantastic song. Everything by this artist is amazing and I cannot recommend him enough.

Currently Watching: I'm part of the way through a rewatch of Good Omens Season 2 because holy shit.

Currently Reading: Excluding fanfic, I'm most of the way through an audiobook of Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I took a break to watch Good Omens, though, but I think I can go back to it. A lot of exciting things are going down.

Current Obsession: Well, it should be pretty obvious that the main one is the DPxDC crossover fandom. But there's also Good Omens. And my hands are itching to pick up my crochet hook and finish the second panel of the blanket I'm making. It doesn't take much to rekindle my obsessions for Jane Austen, Newsies, and the Bandstand Musical, either.

And 9 people I'd like to know better! I'm gonna tag people I don't talk to very often (or ever) because this is who I want to know. (No pressure, though.) In no particular order, and this in no way encapsulates all of you:

@gremlin-bot, @addie-lover-of-stories, @sangotori, @sjrose1216, @vythika96, @thederpclub, @georgelight, @foxachu, @serasvictoria02

#tag game #Spotify

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zhongliologist · 4 years ago

Note

Shibari + Zhongli canon compliant nsfw

Pairing: Zhongli x Gender Neutral!reader

Genre: SMUT SMUT SMUT!!

Words: 3.9k

AN: Hi anon!! Sorry this took a while! THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING THIS ONE!! I’m glad I had experience writing something like this before skajdha I decided I can’t fit this into a small drabble, so here’s like a really long version lmao my two itty bitty braincells are now in no-brain mode, so this might be full of typos or errors.

*WARNING!! THIS IS PURE SMUT. IF YOU ARE A MINOR, IT IS UPON YOUR DISCRETION. PLEASE READ RESPONSIBLY*

***

When Zhongli first heard the word while on a stroll late one night, he had realized that there was indeed an artform he had yet to encounter or at least heard of. His curiosity peaked, it was only a matter of time before he finally had to give in and ask you what it was.

“YN, if I may,” he began, settling the cup of tea to the table. “There is something I wish to know.”

Attention caught, you raised your brows at him—surprised that there was actually something Zhongli has yet to know—as you took a mouthful of wonton noodles.

“Sure, ask away,” you replied, chewing.

“Well, this was several nights ago,” Zhongli recounted, his deep voice serious. “I was passing by a group of shipbuilders and I couldn’t help but over hear their conversation.”

You hummed, prompting him to continue while stuffing another serving of blackened bass in your mouth.

“Their discussion involved an artform popular in Inazuma, and apparently has spread all over Teyvat as well,” he continued. “Unfortunately, I have yet to hear about this certain artform. Could you care enlighten me please?”

Leaning your head to the side, you wondered what it was. There wasn’t any popular art trend nowadays which Zhongli doesn’t know, so you became to grow curious as well.

“Did you catch the name of it?”

Zhongli nodded. “Yes. It’s called shibari.”

You almost choked on the food you were eating.

“Are you sure that’s what you heard?”

“I believe it is what I have heard,” he replied. “Is there something wrong?”

Sighing, you were going to have a lot of trouble explaining it to him. It was painfully obvious how Zhongli is so out of touch from the pleasures of mankind.

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you decided it was best for him to know, before he does something unexpected.

“It’s kind of a sexual play,” you told him, but despite your words, Zhongli only glanced at you, eyes blinking.

Watching him, you noticed he had placed his hand over his chin—a habit he had whenever he was thinking. Whatever comes out of his thoughts, you were beginning to become nervous.

“I see. So, performing art during intercourse…interesting,” he mumbled to himself. “It is not too far off considering the fact that intercourse could also be deemed as a form of art, wherein it takes specialized honed skill to elicit a pleasurable result. To take two art forms and combine them in one act…I am astonished at the inventiveness of man.”

You took a bite from a dumpling, eyes jaded. “It’s not that grand, you know.”

“Now that I am aware of its existence,” Zhongli continued, paying no heed to your comment. “I wish to experience it myself. YN, I must request for your assistance.”

The dumpling you were eating fell back to your plate. “…what?”

“This…this shibari. I wish to partake in this now popular art form,” he repeated, but you only became more flabbergasted.

“Didn’t you hear me say that it’s a sexual play?!”

“I did. That is why it must be you,” Zhongli replied, taking your hand and placing it over his smirking lips. “You are my lover after all.”

Flustered, you had no choice but to agree. You knew of Zhongli’s immense curiosity and nothing is going to stop him from finding out what he wants to find out. Moreover, you wouldn’t really want him to experience it with someone else.

“F-fine,” you conceded, still nervous. “But give me a month to prepare. You should also ready yourself.”

Wondering why he had to wait and ‘ready’ himself, Zhongli leaned his head to the side. “Very well, but why a month?”

You scratched your nape as you averted your gaze somewhere. “I don’t have the right stuff, and I don’t have enough knowledge to do it properly. So give me some time.”

It had been a month since that conversation had occurred, and Zhongli began to feel a little bit antsy as the day drew near. It wasn’t common for him to feel this nervous energy, always maintaining his calm and composure. But it was different this time.

Since that discussion with you, you had banned any sort of sexual act from sex to masturbation, all except from small kisses; and as someone who had gotten used to your presence in his arms at night, Zhongli instantly felt withdrawal symptoms cloud his dignified countenance.

Zhongli inhaled sharply as soon as you entered his room, anticipation deeply running in his veins. You took a shower right after him, making him wait and allowing his imagination to run rampant inside his head.

“Sorry, did I make you wait?” you asked, making your way to the bed in nothing but a bathrobe.

“No, it’s alright,” Zhongli replied, his long hair now freely flowing after he had taken off his ponytail when he was taking a shower.

Running your hands through his dark hair, you admired the way they slipped against your skin as if they were made of silk. Absentmindedly, you began to braid his hair in a lose coif, making him relax underneath your touch.

“Um…er…YN, are we going to—”

You hummed, interrupting his words as you smiled. “Eager, aren’t we?”

“I fear that I may longer be able to contain my anticipation,” he confessed, feeling your hands on his back through the thin robe he was wearing.

Grinning, you knelt down and embraced him from the back; giving his temple a small kiss. “It seems like I don’t have to ask you if you’re sure about this.”

Loving how you felt so warm around him, Zhongli smiled as well as he intertwined his fingers between yours. “I do feel nervous, but it was I who wished to know; thus I must see it to the end.”

“Well, that settle’s it then,” you replied as you removed yourself from his shoulders. “Before we start, I need to remind you that we can always stop if you can no longer handle it, ok?”

Zhongli sighed. “I am confident that I can handle something like this.”

“Please stop being so stubborn,” you retorted back, annoyed that he really has to insist he wouldn’t need it. “Since it will take you forever to decide, I’ve picked one for you. It’s Rex Lapis. Say it when it gets too much.”

He scoffed. “You retaliate in the most absurd of ways, yet very well, I’ll keep it mind. Nonetheless, that does not mean I will use it.”

You grinned. “You’ll take that back soon enough.”

As you said those words, you shifted from your seat and faced him; hands cupping his chin. There was a look of surprise in Zhongli’s expression as soon as you tilted his head up to meet your eyes—too slow to react at the situation.

“Now, from here on out, I’m the one in charge. Any misdemeanor will warrant due punishment,” you began, voice firm and authoritative. “Are we clear, Zhongli?”

It took him some time to adjust at the sudden shift in the air; stunned at the tone you were giving him. This was probably the first time he had seen you take the lead, and it might’ve given him some sort of whiplash.

“Answer me,” you demanded, which made him jerk his attention back to you.

“I—uh…yes…”

“Very good.”

Smiling at his response, you removed yourself before him and sat just beside him with an easy expression. “Well then, why don’t you take off that robe? Just the robe though, leave your underwear on.”

Brought on by the awkward situation and the fact that you just ordered him to strip, Zhongli’s face immediately heated up to a few degrees. It was strange that he was feeling it for some reason—was this the actual appeal of the performative art form? Or was this simply one of your whims?

As he removed the silk tie tying his robe shut and slid it on the floor, you instructed him to quietly kneel down on the bed before you; hands neatly placed on top of his lap.

“Y-YN…? What is this…?” he asked, confusion marring his youthful face. It was embarrassing to sit on the bed that way, wearing nothing but his underwear, his dick beginning to form a tent.

Yet you only smiled at him.

“Don’t worry. We’re getting to the actual act,” you replied, crawling towards him before placing your hands on his bare chest. “If you can hold on till then, I might actually award you, you know?”

Leaning down, you immediately captured his lips in a deep kiss, moving softly yet sensually against his. Cupping his cheeks, you pushed your tongue inside and easily played with his. For some reason, this felt way hotter than the kisses you previously shared, with Zhongli unable to keep his hands to himself and began to wrap his arms around your waist.

You broke off the kiss with a click of your tongue; your thumb still on his swollen lips.

“YN…”

“What did I say about touching?” you asked, eyes holding nothing but pure mischief.

As soon as he heard you, Zhongli knew he had made a mistake and instantly rescinded his embrace; eliciting a chuckle from you.

“I—uh, forgive me…” he hurriedly told you, his voice beginning to lose their strength as he stuttered and tumbled at the words he used to be so eloquent with. As someone who has prided of his calm demeanor, Zhongli felt a surge of embarrassment at how he easily succumbed to your touch.

It was so adorable to see him like this; all flustered and nervous, making you want to see more of those reactions you have yet to see.

“Stay there. I’ll be right back,” you told him and stood up; an idea forming in your thoughts.

The moment you left; thoughts of things he might’ve done wrong kept repeating inside his head. He was scared that he might’ve crossed something which he shouldn’t have—the sounds of you rummaging through your belongings only exacerbated the nervousness that was already in his system.

However, you were not gone for long. He could sense you behind him, daring not to move or look back, and as soon as you draped a cold silk cloth over his eyes, he instantly realized what he had eagerly signed up for.

For one, as the Geo Archon, it was unimaginable for him to be in such a position, but for some reason, Zhongli found it incredibly arousing to have him at your mercy—to be restricted and ordered around; to be at the other end of the spectrum from what he was used to?

This is strange indeed…

“Don’t you agree that everything feels more vivid when you’re blindfolded?” you asked, now back on his lap; and despite being robbed of sight, he could tell you were smirking. “Does it feel good, Zhongli?”

“I…I cannot be certain…” he replied, the feeling of your intense stare sending shivers down his spine. “I haven’t experienced something like this before…”

At his hesitation, you could only giggle and gave him a small kiss. “Well, there’s a first for everything, but this one here…”

Your voice trailed off, your hand effortlessly finding his half hard dick and pressed on it harshly; eliciting a strangled moan from him. “It’s been feeling good for a while now, don’t you think so Zhongli?”

“I…I—!” He was at a lost for words; the pleasure he felt intoxicating his mind. You were right, the blindfold seemed to heightened his senses to such degrees of vividness.

“I can’t blame you really,” you told him, still toying with his member with your finger but not fully committing on pumping it up and down. “I did tell you to hold off for a month, of course, you’d be unusually sensitive and horny.”

If Zhongli thought his face was hot enough before, he hadn’t anticipated for it to feel full out burning as if his blood was set on fire. He tried holding off the sounds he was making whenever you pepper kisses on his shoulders, but to no avail. He was gradually becoming heady at the immense pleasure your hand was giving. By the time you continued talking, he was already panting heavily, skin flushed and hands balled so tightly into a fist, his knuckles turning white.

“Y-YN…” He wanted to say ‘too much’, but he didn’t want to stop you either.

“I’m impressed you can keep your hands to yourself,” you remarked playfully, rewarding him with a love bite just underneath his jaw. “Why don’t we move on to the actual thing itself?”

Even with the blindfold, Zhongli could feel you standing up; anticipation once again beating wildly against his chest. What were you going to do to him this time?—that was a thrill he had never expected to feel pleasure from.

You returned once more to his side, now with the appropriate items you needed, and brilliant grin on your lips to top it off. It was weirdly exciting for you as well, finally doing something as erotic as this to a dignified gentleman such as Zhongli. Which is why, you couldn’t help but talk him through it.

“I did tell you that shibari some sort of sexual play, right?” you began, as you seized both of his hand and pinned them on his back. “It involves tying someone up with rope, in patterns that are not only visually pleasing but are also designed to make you feel good.”

Zhongli could feel the roughness of the rope cling to his skin as soon as you tied his wrists together before doing various knots up his torso and down to his legs. It was incredibly strange—you were only tying him up but for some reason, he felt so exposed and so turned on.

“The reason why it’s so popular is because it gives a sense of security if you will,” you continued, remembering the patterns you had religiously practiced over and over again for the past month. “As if you were surrendering everything to that one person, trusting that they can give you security, give you pleasure. That is what this art form is.”

Every time he felt your soft hands brush against his damp skin as you tightened the rope around his body, he would control a shudder that kept on surging through him like a multitude of waves. This was beyond the ordinary, a situation Zhongli had not anticipated—you were right when you told him to prepare himself. He definitely did not heed your advice, and it came to him with a price, especially when you finally wrapped some rope around his dick as it stood straight and hard between his legs.

“If only you could see yourself right now, Zhongli,” you told him, pressing firmly on the ropes around his member before nibbling on his earlobe. “Aah, I just want to eat you up.”

With your sultry voice directly sending shockwaves down his lower parts, he could only dig his fingernails on the palm of his hands as the hemp ropes dug deeper in his skin. Even though they were not too tight, the restrictive sensation enveloping his body, plus the way you were touching him now was making him lose his mind.

“YN…YN…p-please, I—!”

He spoke between gasps as he felt your lips suckle on a sensitive point on his neck, his dick twitching as he tried to jerk up.

You hummed amusingly. “What is it, love? Where do you want me to touch you?”

Raking up your fingernails up his toned chest, you smirked as he groaned, unable to find any sort of friction he had been seeking for some time now. The way his long dark locks stuck to his skin because of how much he was sweating, or the way he trembled and shivered at every touch of his skin—you loved them all. As much as how Zhongli was intoxicated by pleasure, you were also heady with the power you had over him.

Not waiting for his answer, you crept your hands up and suddenly pinched his nipples—making him jolt straight up at the abrupt stimulation with a loud moan.

“Do you like it here?” you asked, now lavishing your tongue over a hardened nub; relentless and teasing.

“Ahh…! YN…! Wait, please!”

All of his thoughts had already vanished, replaced only by the sensations of your tongue on his now sensitive nipples, of the ropes wound tightly around him, of how painfully hard his dick was. It felt good, he had to admit it. It felt incredibly good.

“Do you want me to stop? I can always stop,” you asked, smiling. “If not, tell me where else I should touch you.”

Breathless as his chest heaved, Zhongli tried to find the words he wanted to say even as his lips trembled.

“Um…please touch….m-my…”

He was blushing furiously, the word seemingly unable to pass through his lips.

“Your what, Zhongli?” you asked him again, almost cooing but inwardly laughing at how he just can’t say the word ‘dick’.

Biting his lip to stop it from quivering too much, it seemed like he really has to throw every sense of dignity he had in him just to relieve his arousal.

“M-my…pe—ahh!!"

You pinched one of his nipples, pouting. “Don’t you dare call it penis, or else I won’t let you cum. Now, as you were saying?”

If only his head wasn’t too hazy from all the sensations stimulating him simultaneously, he would’ve made a mental note to make you suffer at a later date, but right now, his brain was being ran by his dick.

“P-Please…YN…! My—my…d-dick…I can’t…” he forced between pants as his sweat made the ropes feel even tighter and his underwear feel even more sticky.

Smirking at your victory, you pressed a kiss on his lips, your hands finally removing his dick from the constraints of his underwear. You could feel him groan on your lips as you began to move your hand up and down, and making sure to reach his most sensitive spots.

“Look at you, getting this hard after being tied up,” you whispered to his lips, a grin plastered on your face. “I didn’t know you were this dirty, Zhongli.”

“I-I’m…not!”

He tried to deny it but you kept his mouth shut by squeezing his cock tightly.

“Really now?” you asked, voice low as you kept on pumping him, his voice becoming nothing but dirty noise. “Are you about to cum?”

“YN…!” he growled, the ropes keeping his legs folded biting on his skin. “T-too much….! I’m…!”

Mercilessly, you continued to jerk him off as he crept closer and closer to climax. However, there he realized that the ropes around his member had gotten tighter, and the painful throbbing he felt was because he couldn’t cum.

“Oh? Did you find it out?” you asked, chuckling at the look of desperation so evident in his face. “If you can endure this in a few more minutes, I’ll reward you. How about that?”

“N-no, no….! YN…p-please, I c-can…no longer….” Most of his words were incomprehensible, affected by the pleasure and the pain on his cock.

You hummed playfully once more. “Do you want me to stop then? You can always say the safe word, you know?”

“No! W-wait…please! I n-need…I can’t…!”

“Then endure,” you replied, an idea blooming in your head. Your free hand then reached for the blindfold covering his eyes and unraveled it, allowing him to finally see.

However, he did not have time to recover when you immediately caught his attention.

“Look how hard you are, Zhongli,” you told him, his amber eyes blow wide by his current state. Yet strangely, the thought of him so aroused and at your mercy, only made him harder.

Laying down on the bed with your chest on the mattress, you looked up to him, his dick on your hands; your eyes reflecting mischief. “If you can hold on for a few minutes, I’ll let you cum, alright?”

Zhongli only gazed down on you, face as hot as the sun and as red as beet. He watched as you took his dick in your mouth and began sucking him off. At the sensation, he instantly threw his head back. This was totally different from your hands. This was just incredible.

With lustful eyes, you watched him convulse before as you assaulted him with your tongue—sucking and licking at every sensitive point you knew. The underside and the tip were particularly sensitive and that was where you concentrated.

“A-ahh…! Oh…shit…YN!” he groaned, his deep voice and the way he was now cursing sent you reeling as well. “T-too good…I’m…f-fuck…!”

You chuckled, the vibrations on your throat making his dick twitch as you kept on bobbing your head. Gazing up, you both exchanged glances as you kept on sucking the tip; his eyes tightly closing at the intensity.

“Are you going to cum?” you asked before diving in once again, your hands secretly making their way underneath his underwear and finding his hole. “I’ll help you.”

“W-wait…! T-that’s!” he jolted up yet unable to do anything but feel your fingers brushing around the rim.

Prodding at his hole, you enjoyed watching the pained yet lustful expression he was making on his otherwise stoic face. His eyebrows furrowed, his cheeks flushed pink, his mouth ajar as drool poured down his chin. It was fascinating, addicting. You can’t help but tease him endlessly, relentlessly as he kept on moaning your name again and again as if under a spell.

“P-Please….let me…I can’t…I’m going to….Y-YN…!”

Deciding that this was finally the limit of his first time, you cleverly untied the knot on his back which kept the rope around his pelvis secure, allowing it to loosen.

Still sucking him off and poking on his hole, you could feel him twitch inside your mouth, an indication that he was close.

“YN…! I’m….ughh…c-coming!”

In a few pumps, Zhongli climaxed in your mouth; his warm cum on your throat. It was a bit too much, and a little thick so you were unable to swallow everything, allowing it to drip down your chin.

Released from his high, Zhongli couldn’t believe he just had his biggest nut of his life after being tied up. It was in every ounce, shameful and embarrassing but it just felt too good for him to resist at all. Maybe it wasn’t too much of a bad thought to do this once in a while.

Eventually, you loosened the ropes that were still on him and took note of the rope markings on his skin, reminding yourself to give him that special balm you got for this exact purpose. As soon as you released him, you pulled him to a deep kiss which he gladly reciprocated.

Unlike your previous ones, this kiss was one of concern and care—asking and answering questions that were difficult to convey. As your lips moved against each other, your chest began to warm and float, glad that you were able to deliver his request. When you both pulled away, the normal Zhongli was back; his eyes warm and lively.

“I’m glad it felt good,” you told him, cupping his cheek. “I was afraid I might hurt you or something.”

He only chuckled and gave you a pat. “I did tell you I can handle it.”

You sighed in relief, loving the way he was touching you. “So, how about we sleep—"

Zhongli however interrupted you, pushing you down the bed, pinning your wrists. He was smiling but you definitely knew you were screwed.

“I reckon it is time for me take my revenge,” he gazed at you, eyes turning feral. “No one will be sleeping tonight.”

#genshin impact #zhongli #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact x reader #zhongli scenarios #genshin impact fanfiction #zhongli fanfiction

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gatoplanet · 2 years ago

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What would be your ideal storyline for klaus in s4?

ahhhh this is a good question - i don’t wanna get too invested in any one prediction and disappoint myself, and also s3 was vastly better than any of the possibilities i had floating around in my head lmao BUT!! even if i don’t have a lot of specific events in mind, i know what emotional beats i’d like his story to hit, if that makes sense? like, from how i’ve read klaus’s arc so far, what would feel like the most cohesive ending to me

in my mind tua as a whole is about overcoming maladaptive coping mechanisms and reclaiming agency, but also it’s got bants and superpowers to keep it from just being agonizingly depressing all the time. every sibling has a different way of dealing with their shared trauma, and imo klaus is very much the avoidant one - he dulls the world, distracts himself, occasionally fucks off to the jungle for ten months and falls in love, Just Klaus Things. idk how much of this is in the text and how much is just me rotating it in my brain for three years, but i see klaus’s original dave side quest as a) a necessary grounding element for what is otherwise a difficult character to run a thread through, and b) whatever the opposite of a stress test is?? not that being in vietnam wasn’t stressful, obviously it was a nightmare, but it was a self-contained nightmare with no connection to the main plot or to klaus’s history. there was more than enough going on to completely consume klaus for the time he was there. he got to exist separately from his usual self for a while, as well as the circumstances that cultivated that version of him, and i think of dave as a symbol of that, i guess. good narrative shorthand for ‘klaus went off by himself and got to do some growing, and then it got taken away and he’s back where he started with extra bonus sadness’

klaus getting sober to contact dave’s ghost and making long-term plans to help dave in the 60s are both him trying to reclaim part of the peace that he found and lost. but because he’s back in the environment that shaped him (aka the main plotline lmao) it’s not working. which is a big part of why i didn’t mind the lack of dave in s3 - klaus has to find a way to bring his peace into his actual life, and to do that, he has to face his life instead of avoiding it. he spends the season looking for his mother, learning about his powers, trying to bring his family together to get things done - all much more active things than we’ve seen from him in the past, and very believable ways for him to start to take the reins a little bit, i think!! except he’s not actually taking the reins, reggie still has the reins and is letting klaus pretend to hold them like a toy steering wheel in a grownup car. klaus isn’t confronting the source of the trauma, he’s confronting the symptoms. and then reggie turns on him, and it’s a testament to how much klaus’s character has already changed over the series that luther was able to talk him out of reverting back to full avoidance mode again

so klaus, god, what. backburnered his problems for 30 years, completely skipped out on his problems for ten months, liked what he found there, got dragged back unwillingly, and tried to face his problems for the first time only to have that backfire spectacularly thanks to the same person who gave him the problems in the first place. he’s somewhere unfamiliar without his power, which was both the source of a lot of his trauma and the thing that let him avoid further trauma (ie losing ben forever) for as long as he did. absolutely insane character situation. i’m chewing on my bluetooth keyboard. when robert said he wants to see klaus lose it a little without his powers, this is the shit that flashed before my eyes - yes, it would technically make his day-to-day life easier to not worry about ghosts all the time, but also his power was his failsafe!! the thing that caused him so much pain, that he’s been running from his whole life, is also literally what kept him alive in the first place!! it took his childhood and gave him his brother back!!!! and now it’s gone, both the bad and the good that came from it, and all that’s left are some gnarly addictions and the vague memory of being happy for a while. literally don’t look at me. fuck

all of that being said, to me a satisfying end for klaus would be some sign that he’s at least on the path towards reconciling his self-contained escapist happiness with his actual non-escapist life. i think his relationship with sparrow ben is gonna be a big part of that, since og ben was arguably the ‘good’ part of klaus’s powers-centric bad coping strategy, or at least the part that he was occasionally getting something positive from. i do also want to see him get his powers back, because i feel like ‘the trauma is solved by making the source of the trauma go away’ is not that great of a bow to tie on a series about the lingering effects of trauma lmao. i think there’s also space for dave in s4 to reprise his role as ‘symbol of the time klaus was happy but only because he Won At Avoidance’ - that could either mean klaus getting meaningful closure for the relationship, or bringing dave into his future in a healthy way as shorthand for him finally metabolizing the growth he did in ten-month jungle emotional rehab and incorporating it into his life

that is so many paragraphs i’m sorry. that’s a fucking essay. tumblr is gonna readmore me whether i like it or not

#kat planet’s klave hour

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