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and-claudia · 3 months ago

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Against All Odds pt. 12 (Joel Miller x fem! reader)

General Warnings for later on: The main story will have an age gap between Joel and the reader (Reader will be 25 once we get to the main storyline), this will also be your warning that it will eventually be an x pregnant reader (if that’s not your jam, I’m sorry) there is also going to be more graphic/trigger parts later on so please always to be sure to read the warnings BEFORE reading. This story will also be 18+ and TO BE ON THE TAGLIST YOU CAN NOT BE AN AGELESS BLOG (i do actually check that) also there first hand full of parts are all prologue so Joel won’t actually be in it for a bit

warnings for this part: mentions of suicide, mentions of coming out (it's not all super heavy, I promise!!)

ALSO!!! I am making a decision that kinda contradicts an earlier part... I am adding this note so you know, earlier I was going off Joel's age based off the show, I am now changing it to be his age in the game just to make a few things work a little better... SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION!!!!!!!

word count: 2800+

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gif not mine

Ellie’s PoV

Once I was sure Yn was out of earshot, I turned to Joel.

“I want to talk about what happens after we find your brother in Wyoming.” I said seriously.

He gave me a weird look, “Okay…”

I took a deep breath before starting, “What’s your plan for me once we get there?”

“Well… Marleen didn’t exactly give us the address of where you were going. So I was gonna ask Tommy if he knew where those Fireflies might be. Get you there… then… I don’t know. Timeline really depends on how long we’re out here, how close Yn is to havin’ the baby.” He explained.

I nodded and was quiet for a moment.

“What if I don’t want to go to Fireflies…” I asked quietly.

“Do you not want to?” Joel asked.

I took a deep breath, “I don’t know…I didn’t want to tell Yn because I don’t want it to stress her out in any way since she’s already pregnant… but I don’t think I want to find the Fireflies anymore…” I watched him to gauge his reaction, but he gave none, “It’s just… I’ve been told I am special, that I am the key to the cure… but I don’t think I am… not anymore. I tried to save Sam… it didn’t work. If I can’t save one person, how am I expected to save thousands?”

I paused.

“And I know this sounds selfish, and I know I am not anything really to either of you, but I don’t want to leave you two behind… you three behind. I want to be here when Yn has the baby and watch it grow into a tiny person.”

I looked at him, trying to fight the tears brimming in my eyes. All I could do was give a small nod.

“That’s not selfish, Ellie. It’s human.” Joel said after a moment, “Yn and I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. And you don’t have to decide anything right now. Trust me, we will have plenty of time before now and Wyoming for you to think and make up your mind.”

I nodded before whispering, “Thank you, Joel. For everything.”

He only nodded back, “Go get some rest. I’ll nudge you in a couple of hours to take a watch shift.” he said, nodding off to where Yn had fallen asleep against a tree.

I nodded and stood up. My mind was still reeling with what the hell I wanted to do. But Joel was right, nothing needed to be decided tonight. We were still far away from Wyoming, I would have plenty of time to decide by then… right?

Yn’s PoV

The following days were fairly uneventful. We walked for hours on end and would rest at night. The sun was setting on our fifth day of straight walking. To say that my feet hurt would be a severe understatement. Joel had said something to me the other day about how I should start showing here soon since I was around 15 weeks now, but currently, the only getting bigger were my feet. I tried not to say anything, though, because I knew their feet must be getting sore, too. But every step we took sent a jolt of pain up my leg.

“Shouldn’t we stop soon?” I asked.

“Eh, the sun’s just now starting to set. We can probably go another hour.” Joel said.

He was a few paces ahead of me when he said it, so he couldn’t see the sour face I made… but Ellie did.

“You okay?” She asked quietly.

“Hm? Yeah, fine.” I said.

She nodded before speeding up to be in step with Joel.

“Damn it, Ellie.” I mumbled to myself as I watched her talk to Joel.

They both stopped walking, which allowed me to catch up with them.

“On second thought, let's just stop for the night. This is a decent clearing. There’s a creek nearby to get some water from. We can stay here for the night.” He said.

“Joel, I’m fine. Let’s go another hour, then stop. It’ll let us get another mile or so under our belt.” I said.

He said nothing but glanced down to where I had undone my boots earlier. They were completely undone to where they would come off, but they were clearly loosened.

“Why’re your boots undone?” He asked, standing with his hands on his hips.

“Forgot to relace them… pregnancy brain. Let’s go. We’re losing daylight.” I said.

“Nope, sit.” He nodded to a large rock beside a tree.

I sighed and did as he said. He followed me over and squatted down in front of me. Once I was sitting, he began undoing my boots. I winced slightly as he pulled the first one off.

“M’sorry.” He said, grabbing the second one and sliding it off gently.

“How long have they been like this?” He asked.

“Started about halfway through the day yesterday. I didn’t want to say anything and slow us down.” I explained.

“You need to speak up when you’re in pain. We’re not traveling tomorrow. We’ll take a day to rest.” He said.

“No, I don’t want to slow us down.” I tried to argue.

“Not resting will slow us down even more. Tomorrow, I want you on your feet as little as possible, okay?” He said.

I nodded, “Can you go fill my water for me?” I asked, leaning over to grab it out of my pack that I had dropped beside me.

“Yeah. Ellie, give me your water, I’ll go fill them. When I get back, I’ll set a trap to try and get us some dinner.” Joel said, standing up and walking over to her.

Once he was gone, Ellie came over and sat down beside me on the ground.

“You didn’t have to say anything to Joel, you know.” I said.

I wasn’t actually mad at her in any way; I was more just frustrated with myself for being the reason why we were taking a break. Deep down, I knew it was out of my control, but it still didn’t help make me feel any better about it.

“I know. But I also know you weren’t going to. Plus, I could tell you were in pain.” She said.

“Thank you… sorry that I’m slowing us down.” I said.

“Eh, it’s not your fault, it’s the rugrat’s.” She said, making me smile.

“I guess you’re right. I just want to make sure we can get you to the Fireflies as soon as possible. I don’t know if they’re on a timeline or something.” I explained.

I noticed that she stiffened up slightly at the mention of the Fireflies.

She let out a nervous laugh, “About that… I talked to Joel a few nights ago… I am having second thoughts on finding them.” She said, looking at me clearly trying to watch for my reaction.

“Okay… any particular reason why?” I asked.

“I am not certain that I am the cure… I just don’t know if it’s worth leaving you and Joel… and the baby for something that’s not a guarantee. And I know I at least want to stay with you until the baby gets here… but then thinking about leaving after that doesn’t feel right either. I just don’t know what to do. I told Joel that part of me feels guilty for even considering staying because I could be potentially saving thousands… but I may not even be the cure.”

“That’s a decision only you can make, Ellie. But it doesn’t have to be soon. We’ll have plenty of time before we even get to Wyoming. Only you know what is best for you… I will say that I would love to have you here when I have the baby. I want them to meet you for sure. But if and when the time comes that you decide to go find the Fireflies, I won’t hold you back. I’ll support you in any decision you make. Come here.” I said, scooting over to make room for her on the rock.

She got up and sat beside me. I hugged her to my side.

“Thank you.” She said.

I only nodded.

“You know, you’re pretty good at the whole mom thing.” She said suddenly, making me look at her.

“What?”

“I don’t know… you just have something that makes me feel like I can share anything with you… like I don’t have to hide anything.” She explained.

“Well, I’m glad. And you really can tell me anything.” I said.

“Okay, well… do you remember how y’all mentioned a boyfriend when asking if anyone would come looking for me?”

“Yeah.” I nodded for her to continue.

“Well, truth is, I’ve never had a boyfriend… and I honestly don’t see myself ever having a boyfriend. If you know what I mean…” She said, glancing over at me.

“I get what you mean.” I said, smiling and nodding.

“You’re okay with that?” She asked, almost shocked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? You’re not the first gay person I’ve met.” I said with a small laugh.

She nodded as she let out a breath, “Do you think Joel will be okay with it?” She asked.

“Oh yeah.”

“Really, even at his age?” She asked, making us both laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Joel asked as he walked back up with our water canteens filled.

“Nothing.” Ellie said.

“Okay…” He said, clearly not convinced, “I am going to go try and trap something for dinner.”

He collected some supplies before heading off once again.

“So… if there wasn’t a boyfriend, has there ever been a girlfriend? Sorry if that’s too personal, just curious about your life before all of this.”

She hesitated, and I was scared that I had crossed the line. But then she began to speak.

“I don’t know if I would call her a girlfriend… but there was a girl I liked… Riley.”

The way she said told me everything I needed to know at that moment. Riley was dead, and she clearly wasn’t over it yet.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I shook my head, “You don’t have to talk about if you’re not ready. I get it. I lost the last of my brothers years ago, and I still don’t like talking about it. It’s okay.” I said, hugging her close once again.

“I miss her… does that ever go away?” She asked.

I shook my head sadly, “No… it gets easier. Eventually, you get to where you don’t even think about it anymore until something reminds you of them, then hurts again, not as bad as it originally did, but still hurts. Then again, you eventually stop thinking about it until you get reminded again. It hurts, but it's even less than last time. And it continues. It always hurts just a little bit.” I explained the best I could.

She nodded.

“Whatever happened though, it wasn’t your fault… and neither was Sam.” She snapped her head to look at me, “I don’t know what happened with you and him, but Joel mentioned you tried to save him, and it didn’t work… that’s not your fault. I know it’s hard, but don’t blame yourself. And trust me, I know that’s easier said than done. Hell, it’s been over ten years, and I still blame myself for my brother’s death…”

“What happened?” She asked.

“He hung himself… I am the one who found him. He had just done it. I tried to cut him down. I just wasn’t fast enough… My father blamed me for it until the day he died… and I still carry that with me. Like I said, the pain never fully goes away…”

“How old were you?” She asked.

“Doesn’t matter… no one should have to experience that… I was younger than you were.” I said, staring off.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t pry.” She said.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll share more about my brothers later if you want. Some of the better memories.” I offered, and she smiled.

“I’d like that. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have siblings, even just one.” She said.

I couldn’t help but think about how if she chose to stay, then she would definitely be getting one. Although I wasn’t much older than her, just around ten years, I could see her becoming like a daughter to me. And I had a feeling the same was happening to Joel.

small time jump

Within the next three days, we finally found ourselves entering Nebraska. We hadn’t gotten the chance to clean up in a while because the creekbeds were too low, so when Joel informed us of a creek that was deep enough to rinse off in, I was overjoyed.

“You two go ahead and go. I’ll try to trap a rabbit or something.” Ellie said, nodding us off towards the creek.

Joel had recently shown her how to trap things, and she actually gotten pretty good in the couple of days she’s been practicing.

As we walked, I turned to Joel, “As much as I love you, I have only one thing on my mind, and that is to scrub the grime off of me and go sit down and get off my feet.” I said, making my intentions clear.

“Got it. Give me your clothes, and I’ll rinse them with mine.” He said as we got to the creek.

I nodded as I slipped my boots off and then peeled my socks off of my feet. The ground beneath me was cool to the touch and felt like heaven against my swollen feet. I finished getting undressed, tossing my clothes over to Joel, and soon I was in the cool water.

As great as it felt, I was soon getting out and getting my “clean” clothes from Joel. Once again, I was forgoing putting my bra back on for the night and was just about to pull my shirt over my head when Joel stopped me.

“Hey, wait, turn back around.” He called out to me.

I turned to face him, “What?” I asked, confused.

“Just turn to the side again…” He said, staring at me intently.

“What?”

“Just do it, please.” He wasn’t being pushy. Instead, he seemed oddly curious.

I did it and looked at him expectantly.

“When did that show up?” He asked, in slight awe.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“That.” He emphasized, nodding to my stomach.

“Joel, it’s nothing. I’m just a little bloated. I don’t think it’s what you think it is.” I said.

“I don’t think so… no offense, but we haven’t really eaten anything that would be making you bloated. I think you’re starting to show.”

I honestly hadn’t really considered that as a possibility. My mind just jumped to it being bloated.

“Really?” I asked, looking down, it was just barely there, but there was definitely a small bump forming.

“I mean, I’m no doctor, but that’s what it looks like to me. Here, come sit while I rinse off, and we can talk about it more afterward, okay? I’ll be quick.” He promised, standing up and beginning to undress.

Once he was done, he rinsed our old clothes, and we began walking back to our camp. Ellie had managed to catch two squirrels that Joel quickly prepared and began cooking. Then he came and sat by me.

“Sorry if I made you self-conscious or anything… I just wasn’t really prepared for this part of all of it.” He explained.

“Were you not…” I trailed off, knowing that his daughter was a touchy subject for him.

He shook his head, “No, her mom and I were like an on-again-off-again type of thing. Then, at some point, we were off again for a while, and then she showed up at my door out of nowhere with a baby. She was gone the next morning. So, I am a little inexperienced in this part of things… I do vaguely remember my mom being pregnant with Tommy, but that’s about it.” He said with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood from when he started talking.

“Well, you got more than I do. I was the youngest, so…” I said, and he nodded.

“Also, you really remember your mom being pregnant with Tommy… that was so long ago…” I teased.

“I am only 52. I’m not that old, you know.” He shot back, nudging me with his shoulder.

“I know, I just like giving you shit.” I said, looking over at him with a smile.

“You’re lucky I love you. You know that, right?” He said.

“Yeah, I know. I love you too.” I said, leaning over to kiss him.

“You better not be letting those squirrels burn.” Ellie’s voice made me jump slightly.

“They’re not.” Joel said, rolling his eyes, though he wasn’t really upset.

He finished cooking them before dividing up the small amount of meat from them to all of us. After we ate, we settled in for the night. We had one more day of traveling before we would rest for a day. It was slow progress, but it would work. I knew the cold would set in soon, and the cool breeze that blew through the trees just as the thought crossed my mind only confirmed that.

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#joel miller x reader #against all odds #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller tlou #joel tlou #joel x reader #joel the last of us #joel miller x pregnant reader #joel miller x reader fluff #hbo the last of us #the last of us hbo #the last of us

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bitchesuntitled · 30 days ago

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This is Halloween

Pairing: Frankie x F!Reader Summary: Frankie can't stand zombies but Nora wants to watch a scary movie. Warnings/Tags: Parents to Lovers universe but can be read as a standalone, Nora's a little shit, cussing, zombies, Frankie may be a little paranoid, Frankie hates zombies, scary movies, Goober gets her own Halloween costume, Humor, teensy bit of fluff, I think that's it. If I'm missing anything let me know! A/N: Everyone thank @whocaresstillthelouvre for letting me steal her idea. She unleashed one sentence and my brain went "OMG. NORA AND FRANKIE!" Thank you @beefrobeefcal for your eyes and for making me a moodboard! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Masterlist||Parents to Lovers||AO3

divider by @saradika-graphics

Goober perks her head up from your lap, hearing the garage door open.

“Are they home?” You ask her, scratching behind her ears. She gives a soft bark before using your thigh as a backboard to bounce off the couch to the back door, meeting the girls as they enter.

“Mom!” Nora says excitedly, digging into her bag, “Look what we found!” She pulls out a costume, proudly showing it off.

“A zombie?” You ask, “Since when do you want to be a zombie?”

“Since she saw it at the store,” Missy laughs, “She had to convince my dad to buy it.”

Nora having to convince Frankie of something isn’t anything new, but a halloween costume? That’s weird.

“What’d you get, Miss?” You ask, waiting for her to dig into her bag to present you with her costume.

“Beetlejuice!” You laugh, clapping your hands together, “That’s amazing!”

“Dad’s gonna be Bob!” Missy giggles, admiring her new costume.

“Oh Goober!” Frankie sings, laughing wickedly as he enters the living room, “We got you something!”

Goober wags her tail, listening to Frankie talk, flopping onto her side, showing him her belly.

“Missy wants to be Beetlejuice and then said I should be Bob,” Frankie says, kneeling to scratch Goober’s belly, continuing to talk to her like no one else is in the room, “And then guess what we found, Goob!”

Frankie looks to Missy who pulls out a Lydia dog costume.

“Poor Goober!” You groan, “You’re seriously going to put her in that?”

“Duh,” Frankie snarks, “That’s the whole point of buying it! Speaking of which, you need to think of a costume too!”

“I’ll go as a pregnant lady,” you huff, sticking your tongue out at him, rubbing your hand along the prominent bump of your belly.

“No!” Nora wails, falling to her knees, gripping her costume in both hands, shaking it, “You can’t just go as yourself!”

“Yeah!” Missy agrees, eyes widening with an enthusiastic nod, “You gotta dress up for Halloween!”

“I know!” Nora shouts, scooting towards you on her knees to the couch, “Frankie we should go back to the store and get Mom some of those fake zombie bite things and she could go as a zombie like me!”

“A pregnant zombie!” You laugh as Frankie stiffens beside Goober, “I think I’ve seen some of those costumes online.”

“Please Mom,” Nora begs, clasping her hands together and poking her lower lip out.

“Fine,” you smile, poking her nose, “Just for you, kid.”

—

“What do we wanna watch?” Missy asks, trading Nora the remote for the popcorn.

“What about this?” Nora asks, stopping her scrolling on the tv to some zombie movie.

“What’s up with you and zombies now?” Frankie huffs, laying his arm around behind you on the couch.

“What’s up with you and zombies?” You ask, smirking at his hesitance.

“Nothing.” Frankie quickly protests, shrugging, “I just think they’re dumb.”

“Dumb?!” Nora shrieks, whipping around to glare at him, “You’re dumb!”

“Nora!” You scold, “That’s not nice.”

“Yeah,” Missy scowls at Nora, “My dad’s not dumb.”

Things between Nora and Frankie have been less tense and they’re more civil now but they still have their moments. Nora’s sass and Frankie’s stubbornness like to buttheads every once in a while.

“Sorry,” Nora mutters, gently handing the remote to Frankie, “Here. You pick.”

“Thanks.” Frankie mumbles, taking the remote and scrolling through the selection of movies, “Any suggestions?”

“Maybe we should watch something scary.” Missy comments shyly, “It is close to Halloween.”

Frankie lets out a breath, “Okay.” He scrolls back to the zombie movie that Nora had found. “Do you guys really want to watch this?” He asks, clicking on the title to read the description.

“It’d help me and Nora know how to be zombies,” you nudge him with a small laugh. Nora nods her head looking at Frankie with those big round eyes of hers.

“You’re not gonna get scared?” Frankie asks, tapping against Missy’s shoulder with the remote.

“Nah,” Missy shrugs, “Zombies aren’t real.”

“Alright,” Frankie sighs, pressing play on the movie.

As the movie plays out on the screen, you can’t help but feel Frankie tense up every time a zombie is shown. His leg bounced as the growls and groans of the zombies intensified.

“You okay, babe?” You whisper in his ear, rubbing your hand on his thigh.

“Yeah,” he grunts with a nod of his head, leg stilling instantly, squirming as he watches a zombie bite someone, “Peachy.”

When one of the main characters of the film gets bit, Nora lets out a little cheer.

“That guy was mean!” She explains, when Missy gives her a funny look, “He deserved it,” she adds with a shrug of her shoulders.

—

Frankie jumps awake, breathing heavily. He glances over at you lying peacefully asleep, taking a deep breath. It was just a dream, he thinks, rubbing his palms against his eyes trying to rid himself of the images of you and the girls being torn apart by zombies.

He’s been on several tours fighting alongside his friends in wars he didn’t want any part in, seeing first hand what the government is capable of. His friends think he’s crazy for thinking the possibility of a zombie apocalypse happening is real.

He fucking hates zombies. Unpredictable, terrifying bastards. It’s the worst kind of horror Frankie could imagine. The helplessness on what to do, keeping the girls safe, keeping you safe, the list goes on.

The red numbers on the clock read 12:30am when Frankie glances over. The beating of his heart was not settling anytime soon. Half asleep despite what his heart decides to do he decides to get up and go get some water, making his way to the kitchen, he hears noises. Ticks of the clock on the wall, the breeze outside, Goober snoring from her dog bed, and a weird scratching.

Frankie grabs a cup from the cupboard, filling it with water before leaning against the sink as he takes a drink of the cool liquid. His heart rate starts to settle as he focuses on his breathing and drinking more water.

“Fraaaankie,” he hears a soft growl coming from the dark corner.

“What the fuck?” Frankie murmurs, squinting his eyes to see what’s there, the moon casting shadows in through the window of the kitchen, a lone figure is standing in the corner. His heart rate speeds up again, what the fuck is that. A snarl comes from the creature as it reaches its hand out.

Frankie lets out a high pitched scream, dropping the plastic cup in his hand to grab the towel laying next to the sink, throwing it at the creature. Goober starts barking and howling, hackles raised, with all the commotion in the kitchen. With the towel lying beside the creature on the floor, it starts to let out an ear piercing giggle.

“What the fuck?!” You boom, waddling into the kitchen, flipping on the light, “What the hell is going on?!”

Frankie stands next to the sink trying to catch his breath, while Nora continues to laugh, dressed fully in her zombie costume. Goober looks relieved as she registers it’s Nora, tail between her legs as she walks closer to her sniffing the fabric of the costume.

“Mom,” Nora laughs, “Did you hear his scream?!”

“Nora,” you yawn, trying to catch up on what possibly could have happened, “What did you do?”

“I thought it’d be funny.” She shrugs, taking a breath to try and calm herself, “Didn’t know he’d be such a baby about it.”

“I am not being a baby,” Frankie says, glaring at her. “I was half asleep and you scared the shit out of me, Nora.”

“What’s going on?” Missy mumbles, coming behind you, “I heard someone screaming.”

“I scared Frankie with my costume,” Nora giggles, twirling around so the ripped fabric of her costume flew in the air around her.

Missy starts to laugh, “That was you?!” She asks, looking toward Frankie. His ears and cheeks turning a bright red.

“Alright, everyone to bed,” you announce, ushering the girls out of the kitchen. Goober quickly followed behind.

“I cannot believe that happened,” Frankie admitted with a shake of his head, bending to grab the cup off the floor and swiping the towel over to soak up the water he spilled.

“It’s okay, baby.” You smiled, gently rubbing your hand between his shoulder blades, “Everyone’s scared of something. Yours just happens to be zombies.”

Frankie stood rolling his eyes, “Yeah, fake things that aren’t real.”

“Mmm,” you hum, making a face, grabbing arms to loop around your waist, “I don’t trust it.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, giving you a cautious look.

“You don’t think something like that could happen?!” You ask, flailing your arms.

“You think it could?” Frankie asks under his breath, squeezing your waist.

“Duh,” you laugh, “Anything could happen!”

Frankie smiled, leaning in to pepper kisses along your face as you let out soft giggles, he knew you were the one for him.

Tagging some people who I know like the series if you don't wanna be tagged just let me know!

@jay-zzle @soft-persephone @casa-boiardi @pastelpinkflowerlife @amyispxnk @desuidesu @yxtkiwiyxt @pinkypromisepascal @merz-8

#fic: parents to lovers #bitchesuntitled #pedro pascal characters #frankie morales fanfic #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #francisco morales fanfic #francisco morales x reader #francisco morales x you

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juunobox · 1 year ago

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──★ ˙ ̟ "PERFECT TIMING!"

you're nikolai's intimate friend (nikolai gogol x gn! reader) and he wants to 'free' you

summary : you're nikolai's friend and he wants to give you a taste of freedom (which of course means, he wants to kill you) ur like fyodor to him in this fic, kinda warnings : implied mental disorders, graphic depictions of violence, suicidal ideation, assisted suicide. you have a complicated relationship w him please do not take this seriously, fr i wrote this for coping purposes lol and sorry if it's kinda OOC this is the first ever nikolai x reader i wrote... dont beat my ass and english isnt my native i suck at grammar

Your days has always been mundane. You woke up and work on your laptop all day, then go back to sleep. However, there was a moment when your days became a bit more colorful, thanks to Nikolai's presence. He's an eccentric man who dressed like a clown and spoke theatrically. How did you meet someone like him in the first place? That's a story for another day.

With the time you both had, usually in the evening, he had developed a habit of visiting your place. By that hour, you'd be done with your day job, and you'd have the time to focus all your attention on him. It started as something casual, but as time went by, the two of you realized just how much you understood each other, at least to some extent.

His philosophy about freedom. The belief that being human itself is akin to being in a prison, it speaks to you. And the moment you expressed to him that you too shared the same belief, something changed between you two.

“Because you’re my…

Dear, intimate friend.”

He was fun to spend time with, so much so that it made you forget that he's a terrorist, a member of DOA. He brought colors to your uneventful, colorless life, and you didn't understand why.

“I guess you're sane in an insane way, Kolya.”

The clown laughed at the way you worded it. “Hilarious way to put it, [y/n]! You’d make for a talented comedian. You shouldn’t let this talent of yours go to waste! Don’t you think so?”

You sighed at his remark. “I’m way too anxious to do that. I can't stand in front of the stage and speak in theatrics like you do.” You eyed him playfully, and he giggled at that.

“Is that so? My dear friend can't handle the stage? How adorable, you’re intimidated by your own kind!” He scooted closer and cupped your chin in his hand. Your cheeks warmed up a bit at his touch, and you attempted to hide it. “You talk as if you're not a human yourself,” you said in return.

Nikolai’s grin grew even wider at your comment. “But I am one, I am a perfectly sane human being.” He tilted your head slightly to the side as he leaned even closer, his hot breath caressing your cheek. You swallowed nervously and darted your gaze away, unable to bring yourself to meet the silver haired clown's mismatched eyes.

And then he kissed you. It was a tender, loving kiss. Nikolai attempted to deepen the kiss, but you managed to push him away. He didn't try to force himself on you; however, he simply stared down at you with a smile. A smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

“Did you just kiss me? What was that even for?”

“Because… I’m looking for an answer.”

“What?”

“I’m looking for an answer.”

You didn't quite understand what he meant at that moment.

This wouldn’t end well, you knew it. Yet, you couldn't resist him.

The relationship between you two was something that words couldn't quite explain. You two weren’t exactly lovers, but you weren’t exactly friends, either. An undefined one, dancing between the lines of friendship and romance. But did you want it to end? Of course not. You never questioned it, despite the uncertainty gnawing at you.

You had always been good at hiding your emotions after all, or at least, that's what you think. Good at fooling others into believing that you were okay when you were not, because you felt far too shameful to express them freely. You beat yourself up inside your head. You couldn't feel things normally, you either feel nothing or everything at once. It's too much. Nauseating. You hated those feelings. But one day, at the worst possible moment, the clown appeared before you. As you were grappling with your breakdown, you found yourself pouring out your thoughts and feelings to him. Nikolai was present with his vacant facet, silently listening to every word.

"I just want to be free. I hate feeling things. I hate this. I hate everything. I want everything to stop!" Your voice was laced with desperation, and you continued, "If I had a gun, I probably would've done it already. I'm so tired of all of this. My mind is telling me to stop, but I can't do it! I keep doing it, I can't stop myself. I wish my body would just give up. All the things I've done to my body, I've tried inflicting all sorts of damage to it, yet somehow, the heart still tries to beat, and so I remain alive."

In the midst of your distraught state, Nikolai's face held sympathy for a moment. He approached you and pulled you into a tight embrace. He didn't say anything, he kept silent— only his grip gradually tightening as if he wanted to crush your pain away.

—

Just like any other evening, you were in your room with Nikolai. He had brought you something new - a small variety of Ukrainian sweets. He said he wanted you to taste a piece of his homeland. It was unusual because Nikolai had never brought you food before despite his frequent visits, but he seemed eager, so you decided to show your appreciation by giving it a try.

In mere minutes, your stomach began to twist and turn, forcing you to curl up in pain at the edge of the bed. “Aren’t you going to help me?" you cried out, struggling to make sense of the situation.

"...."

"Oh, wait." "You're not going to help me because you intended to do this, right?” You managed to say as you writhed in agony.

Nikolai seemed momentarily disconnected from reality but soon snapped out of it and burst into laughter. “Oh, dove! Does it hurt? Yes, you’re a smart one, aren’t you? I did slipped a liiittle bit something into this dessert,” he placed his own food aside and peered over you. “But I didn’t use enough to kill you, what do you think!” He exclaimed loudly in his usual antics. You always thought you understood him, but there were moments when you couldn’t quite wrap your head around his thinking. This was one of those moments.

“After all we've been through, you’re trying to kill me now?”

For a moment, the silver-haired man appeared taken aback. “Why do you ask? That's precisely why I want to kill you. To prove my freedom. Don't you yearn for the same?”

"You wish to be liberated from your emotions, don't you?"

It didn’t take long for you to grasp the meaning of that. You both shared the same understanding, after all. That emotions made you feel imprisoned, but you never thought Nikolai would express it this way. Before you could respond, he continued.

“Because you’re my... intimate friend… it pains me to witness your struggle to break free, just as I am.” He mumbled, his eyes empty and distant. “You’re my dove. My dearest. My angel.” By each words spoken, his voice turned softer, and he sounded genuine for once.

After a trail of endearment terms rolled off his tongue, you spoke. “Perfect timing,” you whispered, managing a grin despite the aching pain in your stomach.

“Then, why don’t we find freedom together, Kolya?”

—

"Nikolai,” you whispered, caressing his cheek. You knew this would be the last time you'd see him. “How do you feel right now? You look happy. If you were to look in the mirror, your grin is so wide I didn't even know someone could smile like that.

“Hahahahahaha! I am indeed feeling ECSTATIC!” He pulled colorful balls out of his coat, along with a couple of knives, and began juggling them in his hands. “Now, it's time for a quiz! Which weapon will I use to end your life? I have knives, guns, bombs, oh, a wide variety of choices! This is going to be super thrilling! So exciting that words couldn’t do justice!” You could only manage a faint chuckle at this. “All of those weapons, because you like torturing people to death. Right?”

Nikolai took a couple of steps closer to you, continuing to speak in his theatrics. “Ding dong! You are—” He reached for a small knife and aimed it at your throat. “WRONG! You're wrong! Thought you answered that right, didn't you?! Gotcha!” He giggled to himself, his eyes not leaving your figure as his other hand reached into his overcoat, pulling out another knife.

“Because you are my dear friend, [y/n], I will grant you the honor of receiving special treatment. I'll make it quick for you because I want you to be free as quickly as possible!”

You had agreed to Nikolai taking your life.

You saw it as a two-way street, a mutual exchange. He could attain the sense of freedom he so desperately sought, and you could be liberated from your thoughts, emotions, and feelings.

Your miserable existence.

“Ready to take off, my dear?” Nikolai questioned, his grin stretching from ear to ear. He was smiling, but it appeared more like a manic one, instead of genuine happiness. It made you wonder what sort of expression you were wearing. A whirlwind of emotions are surging within you.

You are going to die. In Nikolai’s hands.

Slowly, you nodded. “I am.” Nikolai's grin widened even further, it appeared almost unsettling. Before you could utter another word, Nikolai had already plunged two knives deep into your chest. Your eyes widened, and you collapsed to the ground. Nikolai swiftly straddled you, and he didn't cease his stabbing. “Scream! Shout! Let me hear your cry of freedom, granted by the great Gogol himself! Hahahaha!” Laughter consumed him as he continued to relentlessly stab your neck and chest.

The pain was unbearable, but you couldn’t quite scream properly. Everything happened so quickly. Only disjointed sounds escaped your lips, drowned out by Nikolai's increasingly intense laughter as he continued to stab you.

"Freedom! Oh, this is what I've been searching for! I feel nothing!" He yelled hysterically. His mismatched eyes locked onto yours, your vision starts to blur, yet you could still see Nikolai wearing the same grin and glaring eyes. "My dear friend! Tell me! You feel free as well, just as much as I do right now, correct? Don't let my effort in killing you be in vain! You are free! Free from that prison you've been in! Say yes! Say yes!" He continued his rapid speech, almost matching the rhythm of the stabs.

Feeling your body growing cold, you could only muster a faint smile in response, sensing your blood seeping from your chest and neck. It felt oddly calming. The pain had lessened. Your body turned colder and colder, but the blood oozing from your wounds felt warm.

With the last bit of your strength, you managed to touch his cheek. You weren't sure if it was a hallucination or not, but Nikolai appeared to flinch in surprise when your hand made contact with his skin. Your body temperature was plummeting rapidly.

“...Kolya..” you managed to croak out, before closing your eyes and falling limp.

The floor was now painted red. The silver-haired clown’s once monochrome attire had almost turned crimson; stained with your own blood. There was a moment of silence, so profound that Nikolai could hear his own breathing. But then his breathing quickened, and his smile broadened once more.

“Hahaha!” He laughed out loud, “Oh! My dear friend is finally free now!” He picked up his knife again and lunged over your lifeless body. You were no longer breathing, but Nikolai continued to stab you. “The freedom we've desperately sought! Liberated from this thing called brainwashing!” The clown's eyes remained wide with trembling irises, an impression of madness. Unlike before, his voice now bore a subtle crack, as his gestures also became unsteady.

The same expression remained on his face, but tears started streaming down his cheeks. Nikolai seemed unaware of his own tears. “My dear friend! Tell me that I've achieved this freedom! You can confirm it because you understand me, right? You're the only one who understands me, after all!” His tone grew almost frantic, and his voice continued to break with each word. He pulled the knives from your chest and threw them aside, squeezing your cold, lifeless hand tighter in his warm ones.

“Because you’re… my dear friend… and you’re the only one who understands me…”

#vent writing #nikolai gogol x reader #bsd x reader #bsd x gender neutral reader #nikolai x you #cw violence #nikolai bsd x reader #nikolai gogol bsd #nikolai bsd

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kathlare · 8 days ago

Text

please please please

Lando Norris x Amelie Dayman

Summary: Amelie’s new music video shoot is full of energy, but it’s the undeniable chemistry between her and Lando that steals the show. As they navigate playful tension and flirtatious moments on set, their connection becomes more than just professional.

Wordcount: 0.9 k

Warnings: smau, fluff

request over here!

June 8th, 2024 - Los Angeles CA

liked by landonorris, zendaya, and others

ameliedayman: heartbreak is one thing, my egos another!

link in bio💋

View all 10,485 comments

landonorris: The video was hot, but I was the hottest part. 😏🔥 → ameliedayman: @landonorris You wish, babe. I was the one burning up the screen. 😘

f1gossiper69: Lando really out here living every man’s dream 😩

fashionfreak24: Omg the chemistry between you two… more than I can handle. 😍🔥

lilnorrisfan22: Can we talk about how Lando’s acting skills went from 0 to 100 real quick? 😂 → landonorris: @lilnorrisfan22 Had to step up for my girl. 😜

maxfewtrell: Song’s fire but y’all need to tone it down with all the PDA. 🤢

landonorris: PLEASE can you stop looking so good in this video, babe? 😵‍💫 → ameliedayman: @landonorris I told you, you can’t handle all of me. 😉

hayesgrier: Acting or not, Lando’s got some serious simp energy in this vid. Respect. 😂 → landonorris: @hayesgrier When it’s her, it’s not simping, it’s dedication. 😉

f1fanatic69: That was way too much, I almost passed out watching it. 😳

keeganpalmer: Damn, the way you two look at each other... I felt that. 😳🔥 → ameliedayman: @keeganpalmer Told ya, we’ve got that special spark. 😉

thisisrozzi: Y’all seriously made the whole music video a masterpiece. Proud of you, babe. 💖 → ameliedayman: @thisisrozzi Couldn’t have done it without your support, love. 😘

minniemills: Okay but how do you make heartbreak look so… chic?? Obsessed. 😍

aaliyahmendes: Queen behavior!!!

stelladayman: I don’t care what anyone says—Oscar-worthy performance, sis. 👏 → ameliedayman: @stelladayman Coming from you? High praise. I’m crying. 🥲

consarroyuelo: ¿Cómo le haces para estar TAN diosa siempre? Quiero tu secreto. 🔥👑 → ameliedayman: @consarroyuelo Solo me dejo llevar por el drama, amiga. 😉

francisca.cgomez: Obsessed with the video, the song, the vibe… EVERYTHING. 🔥 → ameliedayman: @franciscacgomez You’re my vibe. Love you. 💋

fan3: This is giving main character energy and side-eye to all the exes. Iconic. → fan4: @fan3 Bet they’re crying in their bedrooms rn. 😂

emiliamernes: Esta canción es ARTE. Ya quiero escucharla en vivo🔥 → ameliedayman: @emiliamernes Siempre un show para ti, reina. 💋

madisonbeer: Obsessed. That’s all. Obsessed. 🔥 → ameliedayman: @madisonbeer Takes one to know one. 😘

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

Months before...

The set was buzzing with energy. Crew members darted back and forth, adjusting lights and setting up props, while Amelie adjusted the fit of her outfit in front of the mirror. The air smelled faintly of hairspray and perfume, the low hum of chatter mixing with the faint sound of music playing from a speaker nearby. Today was the day: the shoot for her new music video for Please Please Please, and things were about to get real interesting.

She stood in front of the mirror, her hands running over the satin fabric of the dress, a subtle mix of elegance and seduction. The song wasn’t out yet, but the buzz around it was already building. The video was going to be something special—something fun, a little cheeky, just like the song itself.

—Amelie, we’re ready for you,— the director called out, waving her over to the set.

Amelie’s heart fluttered. She had been looking forward to this all week. And she couldn’t help but feel a little extra excited because today—of all days—her boyfriend, Lando, was here with her.

—Ready, babe?— Lando’s voice came from behind her.

She turned to face him, her lips curving into a grin. He was dressed in black jeans and a slightly oversized, well-worn graphic tee that only added to the effortless charm he exuded.

—I was born ready,— she said with a wink, slipping her arm through his.

Lando smirked. —I’m sure you were. But this time, you’re not getting all the attention.—

—Oh, please,— she teased. —You’re lucky I even agreed to let you be in my video.—

He leaned in close, his lips brushing against her ear. —You’re not the only one who can pull off a look like this,— he whispered.

Amelie gave him a playful shove, her smile never leaving her face. —You’re such a dork.—

But even as she said it, she couldn’t help but admire how good he looked—how good they both looked together. She had to admit, this whole idea of putting him in her video had been a bit of a wild thought at first. But now, with him by her side on set, she was excited for it.

—Alright, Amelie, Lando, you two ready?— The director’s voice cut through the playful banter.

Both of them turned to face him, ready for action.

The video concept was simple but effective. Amelie would be in the spotlight, of course, singing her heart out to the camera, but the dynamic with Lando was what would make it really special. The video was all about chemistry—about flirtation and tension—and who better to share that with than Lando himself?

The first few scenes were just her. She sang the opening lines of Please Please Please, the camera following her as she moved through a minimalistic, yet luxurious set. The lighting was soft and seductive, casting shadows in all the right places, making her look like she belonged in a dream.

Lando watched from the sidelines, his arms crossed and a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Amelie could feel his eyes on her, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t make her pulse quicken.

When the time came for him to join her on camera, the atmosphere shifted. Lando stepped onto the set, looking effortlessly sexy as he leaned against the bar that had been set up for the scene. The chemistry between them was undeniable from the moment their eyes locked. The director had told them to play it cool, to keep it casual—but it was impossible. Their connection was too strong to pretend.

As Amelie sang, she moved closer to him, her body swaying to the beat. Lando’s eyes tracked her every movement, his lips curling up in that way he always did when he was amused—or aroused.

Amelie couldn’t help but tease him, letting her fingers brush against his chest as she danced around him. The playful touch sent a jolt through both of them. She knew exactly how to get under his skin, and he was loving every minute of it.

—You’re distracting me,— he said, his voice low, the hint of a growl in it.

She grinned, biting her bottom lip. —You like it.—

—Damn right I do,— he muttered, his hands sliding from the bar to her waist as he pulled her closer.

The cameras were rolling, capturing every moment, but Amelie could barely focus on that. Her breath hitched as she looked up at him, his eyes dark with that familiar hunger. He was making her feel things she probably shouldn’t have been feeling while on set, but it didn’t matter.

—Lando,— she whispered, her voice a breathy tease. —Stop looking at me like that. We’re supposed to be working.—

He smirked, lowering his face until their lips were almost touching. —Who says we can’t mix business with pleasure?—

She was just about to respond when the director’s voice came through the intercom. —Okay, you two... let’s keep it professional, yeah? We don’t want to break the camera.—

Amelie let out a laugh, pulling back slightly to catch her breath. She couldn’t deny how intense the moment had gotten, and from the way Lando was looking at her, he was feeling it too.

—I think they want to see us be professional, love,— she teased, her fingers brushing through his hair.

Lando groaned, clearly frustrated. —I swear, you drive me insane.—

Amelie shot him a knowing smile. —Maybe you like that.—

The director called out again, snapping them both back into the moment. —Alright, let’s pick it up from where Lando pulls Amelie closer for the kiss. Remember, it’s playful, flirty, but no full-on makeout. We want tension, not a porno.—

Amelie and Lando exchanged amused looks before Amelie grabbed his shirt and yanked him closer. —Let’s give them a show, then,— she whispered before capturing his lips in a teasing, yet heated kiss.

It was a brief moment, just enough to get the shot they needed. The cameras zoomed in, capturing every little detail—the slight smirk on Lando’s face, the way Amelie’s body molded against his. The tension between them was palpable, and they both knew it.

As they pulled away, Amelie couldn’t help but laugh. —So much for ‘keeping it professional.’—

Lando chuckled, his hand lingering on her waist. —Who says we can’t have a little fun while we’re at it?—

They didn’t need to say anything else. They both knew that when the cameras stopped rolling, they’d have plenty more to discuss. But for now, they were in their element—flirty, fun, and undeniably hot together.

And just like that, the day was over. The last take was wrapped, the crew began to pack up, and the set slowly emptied out. But as Amelie and Lando stood there, the energy between them hadn’t died down.

—You really do make everything fun, don’t you?— Amelie said, looking up at him with a smile.

—I try,— he replied, his hands finding her waist again as he pulled her in close. —You make it too easy.—

And with that, they walked off set together, ready to face whatever the night might bring.

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b4mpyre-k1zz3s · 1 month ago

Note

Can I request a ghostface duo! Bam and Dunn??? They’re chasing after their final girl!reader but they’ve actually grown fond of her throughout the killings so they just keep her as a third. Thanks!!

Murder and Deception

Folowing a rash of murders in Westchester, Y/N learns a chilling truth about the man she loves and gets looped into something she couldn’t begin to comprehend

Ryan Dunn X Fem!Reader, Bam Margera X Fem!Reader

(Fluff, angst)

3.4 Words

Warnings: Highly suggestive content, graphic content, violence, murder, serial killers, make outs, implied sexual content, vouyerism, knives, public sex

An: Thank you so much for the request! Truth be told, I e never actually seen the Scream movies outside of little clips here and there, so I had to have a friend of mine (who’s very passionate about these films) explain the premise to me! Some of my stories I visualize as a film before I write them, so much so I could probably direct them if given the chance. This was one of those stories ;) anyways, thank you for the request, and please keep sending more!

When two people wind up dead in a small town, it’s a given that people are going to talk, especially given the ongoing police investigation. It seemed that this was the only thing on anybody’s tongues, but the fact that your boyfriend and his burnout friends could talk about this while they ate is what baffled you. “I mean-“ Ryan, who sat snuggled up next to you in the booth, kept his voice low so as not to be heard over the chatter and clinking silverware of the diner, “how do you even gut a person? Like- who does that?”

Bam took a bite of his burger and shrugged, “S’easy.” Swallowing, he explained while vaguely gesturing, “Cut ‘em dick t’neck. Can’t be that hard.” He wiped a bit of ketchup off the corner of his mouth, and even Dico, who was the de facto provocateur of you four, looked shocked at the way he was casually talking about disemboweling a person like you’d tell someone how to change a tire. Putting down your fork, not that you had much of an appetite for your disco fries at this point, you stared at that glint in his eye you’ve seen kids get when they try to rile up their older siblings. “Y’know, there's a little something called tact, Bam.” But that malevolent grin on his face only seemed to grow as he rebutted, clearly trying to get a reaction, “Hey! Dunn asked. Everybody’s thinkin’ about it. Only difference is I got the guts to talk about it.” Thats Bam for you- all about shock…

That night, you were supposed to go out with Ryan, but you mutually decided to take a rain check given the obvious. You settled for a phone call- one of those lovey dovey, ‘you hang up.’ ‘no, you hang up!’ coupley things that go on long into the night. However, as soon as you hung up your landline, it rang again. Confused, since your boyfriend just told you he was going to bed, you picked it up only to be greeted by a voice you didn’t recognize. “You’re alone...”

“Who’s this?” Ignoring you, the person on the other end of the line chuckled, “In scary movies, that kinda stuff’s bad news. You’re just askin’ for it at that point…” Safe to say, you didn’t think very much of it, and assuming this was a prank by one of Ryan’s dumb little buddies, you rolled your eyes as you laid back in bed, staring up at the shapes the window made on your ceiling as the light filtered in, “Ha ha. Very funny, Dico.”

“So you think Dico would watch you through your bedroom window?” At first you were mildly annoyed, but you were starting to get a little freaked out. Not wanting to admit this, of course, you tried to keep your voice level as you explained, “Seriously- whoever you are, I don’t have time for this tonight. I’m meeting my boyfriend for coffee tomorrow, and I-“ Standing up, you went to lock your door as that anxious, sick feeling in your stomach tightened.

The voice, growing progressively more and more menacing, cut you off with biting sarcasm, “Really? You’re gonna go lock your door? Standing there, in your bra and underwear…” The playful, flirty tone made your skin crawl as whoever was talking to you continued, “Oh yeah…look at you. You’re scared now, aren’t you?” Nerve worn down beyond desire to resist, you were no longer in the mood to call bluffs. “Listen, I don’t know what you want, but this isn’t funny!” The only noise in the otherwise silent room was the sound of the line going dead, leaving you in a cold sweat as your pulse pounded in your ears.

It was like a weight was lifted off your shoulders when you saw Ry. The first thing you did when you sat down with him at that cozy little booth in the coffee shop was debrief him on that odd call. His grip tightened around the cardboard takeaway cup, replying stiffly, “If anyone did it, It’d be Bam...” Realizing the implications of his words, Ryan quickly corrected himself, “Called you- I mean.” You were relieved at a plausible explanation for what happened, deciding not to question your boyfriend’s strange behavior. And you took him at his word, because you trusted hun. Ryan gave you this inexplicable sense of safety no matter what was going on around you.

Sighing in relief at the plausible explanation, you took a sip of your coffee to soothe your frazzled nerves, “Yeah, you’re probably right….” Shaking your head, you sighed as you tried to shift the topic, “ I am exhausted…didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

While comforted, you couldn’t help yourself from thinking about that phone call. Maybe Bam, or whoever it was, had something right about horror movie logic. “Hey, uh…do you think you could sleep over at my place tonight? Just for a night or two till he lets this shit up.” You realized how paranoid you must sound, so you added, “I know- it was a stupid prank call, but It’s- it’s kinda freakin’ me out a little.” Seemingly startled by the concern in your voice, Ryan’s expression softened before he replied, “Yeah, of course.” Intertwining his fingers with yours, you couldn’t help but feel a bit more relaxed at the feeling of his warm palm. There he goes, being all sweet…He assured you, “You’re my girl! I should be lookin’ out for you.”

After work, Ryan came over to your place with Chinese takeout, and for once you felt at ease- perfectly at ease. The scene was really cute: you, sitting there on your bed all snuggled up with Ry’s arm around your shoulders as you idly watched whatever was on cable. As the night wore on, you mentally were kicking yourself for letting Bam’s stupid prank get to you so much. However, you couldn’t exactly complain about having an excuse to spend the night with your boyfriend…

The TV’s warm glow cast soft shadows on the walls as Ryan traced little idle circles on your back, ni,blue fingers gradually slipping under the hem of your shirt. Unable to hold back a giggle at his bold touch, you nuzzled against his neck with a sigh, “And I thought you were here t’make sure I didn’t get murdered…” The fact that you could joke about it really was a testament to how much you dismissed the threat. Ryan smirked at the teasing tone in your voice- and maybe more than that- as he pulled you closer, murmuring into your ear“I can multitask…” Charmed, you leaned in to press sweet kisses to the side of his neck, your fingers threading into the blond curls at the back of his scalp, eliciting a low groan from his lips. Yeah, this would be a night well spent

Sure, the fucking helped calm your nerves, but before you could drift off to sleep you felt the urge to check every curtain and door just to be able to say you did. I mean, isn’t it kinda a thing for people to get murdered in horror movies right after they screw? Ryan sat up in bed with a goan, his pale, muscular shoulders glowing softly in the dim light, “Y/N, please…” his voice was heavy with concern as he stood up, walking over to where you were triple checking a lock. Standing behind you, he took your hands in his, “Nothin’s gonna happen…just relax for a little. Please?” That pleading tone in his voice made you realize how much seeing like you was hurting him. Must be breaking his heart… Sighing, you faced Ryan, “Yeah, it just…it rattled me, y’know?” Following him back to bed, you laid down on his chest and you felt your body physically relax. You took the opportunity to ask, “You think you can stay another night?” Knowing Ryan, you knew the answer was yes before you even opened your mouth. “Sure. I don’t give a shit either way…”

Ryan was supposed to be here by now. Well, he was supposed to be here at six, but presently it was nine, and neither him nor that idiot friend of his were answering their phones- that shows how desperate you were getting. All logic pointed to the lot of them getting shitfaced drunk or getting caught up doing something idiotic with the shopping carts in the ACME parking lot, but you couldn’t resist the nagging sense that the house was too quiet. Lunging for the remote, your first impulse was to flick to some random movie to drown out your thoughts. But as much as you wished it was that simple, the tv was silent against the eardrum bursting thrum of your own heartbeat.

You nearly leapt out of your skin when your phone rang. Every ounce of logic was ushered from your mind by panic, but you tried to reason this out. It was probably Ryan calling to let you know he got too swept up in video games with the guys or that he was out running errands and that he’d be over in ten. So, you picked it up- like an idiot.

“Home alone again?” You couldn’t resist the fear that gripped your heart when you heard the raspy voice that slithered through the receiver. Low and teasing, whoever was on the other end of the line seemed to be taking a distinct, sadistic pleasure in this. Trying to stay relaxed and rational, you muttered, “W-what the hell do you want?”

“How’s the movie?” For a moment, your attention was brought back to the horror flick on TV: some gothy vampire movie from the ‘80s. The voice continued, “I’m a fan’a the whole vampire thing…Watchin’ someone get sucked dry? That’s hot.” Desperately, you tried to brush it off as some shitty prank and play the badass chick card one last time, but the words escaped you. For a moment- a long, hard moment, the line was completely silent, the air surrounding you feeling far too dense.

From somewhere a few doors away, you heard a thud. “Hey, you know what’d take your mind off all this?” With a chuckle, the voice was drenched in mirth as he proposed, “Let’s play a game. C’mon…” Heart pounding against your ribs, you got to your feet and panickedly checked every door and window in your room as you spoke through gritted teeth, “You are sick! You’re- you’re fucking sick, whoever you are…” Another bang, this time much closer than you would like, made your knees so weak that you nearly hit the floor. Shuddering, you started to look around for things you could use as an improvised weapon. “What would you do if I was in your house?”

Grabbing a chair, you jammed it under the door handle and took a good few steps back to stay out of striking distance as he continued, “Maybe you’d use that lamp on your desk? Or go for the closet…yeah, you seem like that kinda girl.” He spoke with fanaticism, the way a guy would suggest having public sex with his girlfriend. The door was shaking now, threatening to give way.

Rattling violently on its hinges, the door splintered into a thousand little pieces as a dark arm reached in and shoved the chair away. With a shriek, you scrambled backward and your legs caught on the foot of your bed, sending you careening backward onto your mattress. You were running on prey animal instincts, heart jackhammering in your chest and mind far from rational. But you still had that lamp. Mind working surprisingly quickly, you swung it as hard as you could and it connected with that stupid Halloween mask, sending shards of glass and cheap plastic spraying out flock of pigeons style. Staggering for a moment, he lunged to grab for your hips but you took advantage of his distraction, slipping away in the nick of time before tumbling to your bedroom floor. Adrenaline coursing through your veins, you fiddled with the lock on a window you so diligently locked just a moment before, and you could’ve sworn that you could feel him breathing down your neck when you finally got the thing open. Narrowly avoiding his grasp, you landed on the roof of the garage before tumbling down and dashing off barefoot into the pitch black of Pennsylvanian suburbia.

After calling the cops from a pay phone, you spent the whole evening at the police station giving your testimony, but since they didn’t have any leads, all you were left with was another sleepless night. This was really starting to take a toll on you. In fact, you were so exhausted that, when you saw Ryan at Dico’s place after he invited you over for some pizza and Atari, the first thing you commented on wasn't him ditching you. Shooting him a nod, you sat down next to him and asked, “What’s with the eye?” Trying to look self assured, he bounced the question back with a hollow grin, “Got into a fight. What about you?” Ry was referring to your dark circles, which were nothing in comparison to the proud shiner he was sporting on the left side of his face. However, his answer did confirm your suspicions as to what he’d gotten up to…

With Bam and Dico off in the kitchen, you thought this was a good opportunity to bring it up. “Where were you, man?” Mumbling, your fingers felt like they were made of lead. Sitting next to you, Ryan shrugged as he mashed buttons, fixating his eyes on little beeping aliens, “Out with Bam. Why?” That idiot friend of his had apparently heard part of your conversation as he walked in with, plopping down next to you with a paper plate of pizza, “We’re at Rex’s-“ “Duffers.” Ry cut him off. And the worst part of this was probably the fact that you questioned none of it; The idea that they got into a fight after a night out drinking wasn’t unbelievable, but somehow you saw nothing weird about the fact they couldn’t get their story straight.

Feeling that maybe you were beginning to catch on, they had to come up with a plan, but Since they couldn’t talk about this sorta thing at Dico’s place, they were having this discussion in front of the slushie machine at Wawa; really a fitting location for talking about murder. Rubbing the back of his neck as his eyes darted around as if he’d already been caught, Ryan confessed, “Listen- I feel like such a dick right now…” This was all Bam’s idea in the first place, and now that his girl got involved, he wasn't sure how much longer he could tag along.

“Little late for that...” Grinning, Bam filled up his big cup with no less than five different flavors of slurpee. Ryan grabbed a bag of Doritos and a monster energy as he followed on his heels, lecturing him, “Don’t be a pussy. Y/N is fine, you’re fine- we're all fine! Just stick t’the plan and don’t fuck it up.” Ironic that he was calling Ry a pussy given that he was too scared to do anything besides make those calls. Dunn turned arround to stand nose to nose with him, “Y’sound like some…cult leader or some shit when you talk like that.” Pausing to take a deep slurp of his Frankenstein concoction, Bam continued with a malevolent little glint in his eye, “it’s a game! We’re in control.”

Pushing open the door, Bam left him with some sage advice. “Chicks love the hero thing. Y’should lean into it more.”

Back in highschool, a mutual friend of yours and the guys kinda had the hots for you. The only problem was you very clearly had a boyfriend. It was pretty clear that this devastated him, but you didn’t pay much attention to it, however Bam still had the guy’s number, so it wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary if he dropped him a line and let it slip that you were newly single. Maybe you had your eye on him. Later that night, he called him up and concocted this elaborate lie in order for this set-up to work the way he intended. “She lost her phone, like- a week ago.” Bam had to hide the fanaticism in his voice as he slammed that last nail in his coffin, “She’s home right now. Y’should go over there!” In all fairness you were probably sleeping with a butcher’s knife under your pillow. Prolonged sleep deprivation and intense paranoia are a deadly combination that little good can come from.

Whoever was behind those killings from last week didn’t seem content with stopping at only two. In fact, in the time since, a small soccer team’s worth of people had been murdered under progressively grisly circumstances, so could you really be blamed for trying to defend yourself? That night, the timid knocking at your door courtesy of that poor, good natured guy sounded more like pounding to your stress-addled mind. Nerves frayed to bits, you stood with your back against the wall, eyes bugging out as you clutched your weapon like a lifeline- yes, a knife. Heart threatening to leap out of your chest, you found yourself unable to hold your nerve a second longer and you lunged for the door handle. Before the consequences of your actions could sink in, it was already done.

Your boyfriend was the first person you called, “Baby- baby, what happened? What’s goin on?” Ryan had to try his hardest pretending he didn’t have a hand in this as you practically toppled into his arms, sobbing so hard you struggled to get your words out. You were so distraught that you barely noticed Bam decided to tag along. Sputtering, your shoulders trembled as you explained frantically, “He just- I thought he was gonna…I swear I was…!“ Smoothing your hair, Ryan held you close to the warmth of his chest as he soothed your shaking, guilt heavy in his stomach. He knew about Bam’s plan, and he did nothing to stop him. Wiping away your running mascara, he cradled your face in his hands as he reassured you, “Nobody else knows about this, okay Y/N? Only we do- nothin’ to worry about.” Bam had been silently watching this and enjoying how pretty you look when you’re scared. He spoke up, self confident as always, “C’mon, we’re here! Chill out a little. We'll take care’a this…” Now reassured, you felt more capable or managing this. Sniffling, you wiped your eyes and reached for the house phone.

Bam grabbed your wrist, his voice suddenly more serious than you’d ever heard out of him, “Wait, wait- we're not callin’ the police.” You stared at him with confusion before he explained, “You just killed a man. We’ve got the weapon. If you tell the cops-“ he sputtered for a moment before repeating like it was obvious, “You killed a man, Y/N! You’re fucked.”

Cut to an hour later, and you were disposing of a fucking body in the woods. Well, they were- you were waiting back in the car. Trembling, you sat back against the leather with your hands between your knees as you tried to stave off the dark suspicion that was nagging at you. Ryan told you not to worry; he would take care of this, but you couldn’t help yourself from panicking a little as you watched- this was like a horrible dream you couldn’t wake up from.

As Ryan opened the driver’s side door, you couldn’t help yourself from asking, “Why’re you so calm about this?” Turning around, the glowing, red tip of your boyfriend’s cigarette was the only light in the bitch black car as he asked a question of his own, all traces or sugarcoating washed away from his words, “Y’think this is the first time?” Before you could say what you were thinking- what anyone would think when they found out their boyfriend was a murderer, you remembered why you were there in the car with them in the first place; you killed somebody. Sensing your apprehension, Bam added, making the tension in the car even thicker, “Listen- you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us…”

#jackass #bam margera #ryan dunn #brandon dicamillo #jackass fanfiction #jackass fanfic #fluff #jackass x reader #bam margera x reader #ryan dunn x reader

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missacidburn928s-heathenhideaway · 8 months ago

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The Perks Of Being A Fiend

Alpha!Jax Teller x Omega!POC!Reader "LuLu"

Summary:

Alpha!Jax Teller x Omega!POC!Reader "LuLu" There's no in-between, we only do extremes. He can get on my LAST nerve, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Warnings:

Smut, Fluff and Smut, Light Angst, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Jax Teller, Accidental Voyeurism, Oral Sex, Sex, Rough Sex, Marriage, Pregnancy

Notes:

Hello Heathens! This is my first Jax fic although I'm a massive SOA fan. So be kind. (This was my first Jax fic 😊) Happy Reading!

Banner by @cafekitsune Divider by @firefly-graphics

5 Missed Calls from JT 🐺

🌖Little Moon🌔 : I'm working Jackson. Why on earth are you blowing up my phone? JT 🐺 : I'm Sorry LM: Okay JT: Just okay? That's it? LM: What do you want a medal or something for doing the bare minimum when you did wrong? JT: C'mon dont be like that darlin'. LM: Don't. I know you're bored at the club house. So what is it you really want? What are you trying to sweet talk me into? JT: Just wanted to see my pretty Omega and since I'm stuck here I thought a picture or two might tide me over. LM: Seriously? JT: You know I’m serious. LM: Find some Beta crow eater to feed your need to see flesh. You’ve always been good at that. JT: That won’t satisfy the craving. I’m fiending for you. Always you. LM: I don't have time for this. JT: Just one picture. Take a bathroom break. JT: Where did you go? JT: I just want to see my Omega. Please, darlin’. I’ll do that thing with my tongue later. LM:

Now leave me be. And you would have done that thing with your tongue anyway. I set up the couch for you tonight if you decide to come home.

JT: Damn. It’s like that? LM: It’s like that. Balls in your court Teller. I’m not the one needing to earn forgiveness.

“I know that face.” Opie said with a smirk. “Someone is in the doghouse again. What’d you do this time?”

“Terra stopped by the house this morning to thank me for helping her with her flat tire last night.” He mumbles out as he lights up a cigarette.

“And?” Opie asks.

“And I may not have told Lulu about it when I got home late because of it.” He exhales a breath of smoke.

“Ooh.” Op winces. “That was a really dumb move man.” He shakes his head. “She’s the chillest woman you’ve ever been with it. But that only works when you don’t blindside her. Tara knew what she was doing showing up this morning like that. What’d Lu do?”

“She’s the one that opened the door and let her in when she asked for me with damn coffee and donuts in her hand.” He stomps out his cigarette. “She stayed calm and went about her normal morning routine while Tara thanked me and I escorted her out.”

“She was calm?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck man. What happened when the door closed?”

“She sat at the table with her coffee and grabbed a donut. She then told me ‘Such a gentleman and a baddass. Lucky me to have snagged such an Alpha. If only he knew to keep me up to date on happenings with his crazy exes.’ Gave me a kiss and then rushed off to get ready for the day.”

“Why the fuck are you here then?” Opie Inquires.

“She’s working. Told me the couch is ready for me tonight if I come home.”

“Damn I do not wish I were you right now. You have some groveling to do Prez.”

“Don’t I know it. Thankfully I know just how to diffuse her.”

You're getting ready to leave work and head home when your besties number shows up on your phone. You pick up and before you can even say hello she's going a mile a minute.

"You're still coming tonight. No excuses. Dress hot as shit too. Get Jax back for that Tara bullshit. I know for a fact that Ari is in town."

“Hello to you too Diamond.” You finally get out as you climb into your Chevelle. “I wasn’t going to bail on you tonight. I just wanted something low key but if you have a plan in mind I’m all for it. You know petty is my love language.”

“I’m thinking, O’ Sheas.”

“We always go to O’ Sheas.”

“Duh. But tonight Ari will be there. I’m sure he’ll be looking for an Omega to get lost in.” She remarks. “He is the idiot that let you get away. If he spots you I’m sure he’ll be begging for another piece.”

“I know you didn't forget that Jax is in fact my Alpha.”

“Of course I didn’t.” She replies. “I’m just saying give the Prez a taste of his own medicine. You don’t have to sleep with him. Just be your charming self is all.”

“I’m only agreeing to go because a drink is just what I need to forget this day.” You say as you pull into your driveway. “I’m not entertaining this Ari nonsense. If he’s there, then he’s there. I’m just looking to get inebriated enough to just knock straight out when I get home. Lord knows I sleep like shit when I’m alone.”

“Jax not coming home tonight?”

“More like I relegated him to the couch.”

“Understandable. I’ll let you get ready. Pick you up in like an hour or so.”

“Sounds good.”

You’re leaning over your built-in vanity, applying highlighter to your cheeks, clad in an olive green lingerie set, your favorite thigh high knit stockings keeping you warm, singing along to Mary J Blige. “My whole world’s, Up. Side. Dooooown.” Your hips sway to the beat as you really get into the song. You glance up into the mirror and spot Jax leaning against the door frame, just admiring the view.

“Singing ‘bout me, little moon?” He husks out.

“I plead the fifth.” You deadpan, turning your eyes back to your reflection.

He steps up behind you, ghosting his fingers along your exposed skin. “Got plans tonight, Omega?” He whispers into your ear.

You swallow but attempt to hold your ground. “Just hitting O’ Sheas with Diamond. Nothing special.” You shrug.

“Hmm.” He takes a step back. “I better get to it then.”

“Get to what?” You turn on your heel towards him as he cages you in.

"These panties have got to go.” He tugs on the waistband against your hip. “Hold on to the counter and lift your ass up for me." You instinctively follow his command.

Not wasting a second Jax practically rips the fabric from your skin. “Much better.”

He sinks down to his knees so that his handsome face and your glistening folds are level with each other. Eyes hooded, pupils dilated, he scents your arousal in the air, licking his lips. “Fuck. Look at you Omega. Perfect little pussy leaking all this slick for me.” He licks a stripe up your folds to your swollen clit, moaning in delight at the sweetness flowing onto his tongue. “God, I missed the taste of you on my tongue.”

"It hasn't even been a day since your last meal." You whimper out.

"Too long. Plus I have an apology to make." He growls out.

You find yourself threading your fingers through his golden locks for balance as he begins to really go to town. Feasting on you as if he’ll perish if he does not consume every ounce of you. He sinks two fingers into your center. You can’t help but grind against his face, fucking yourself with his fingers. He curls them just so, hitting that sweet spongy spot that has you seeing stars. Eliciting a long guttural moan as your sweet nectar spills, making quite the mess all over the lower half of his face.

You release his hair as he lifts his face from between your thighs, lips shining and beard covered in your juices, looking like the cat that got the cream. You wanted to allow your anger to persist, but the endorphin high with an oxytocin chaser that you just experienced is wavering your resolve.

You place your palms on his cheeks, pulling him up to grace him with a deep kiss, enjoying the taste of yourself on his tongue. “Get up Alpha.” You speak against his lips.

Once he is standing between your open thighs you undo his belt and zipper. You reach in, wrapping your hand around his base, giving him a slow pump, granting you a low groan, before pulling out his beautifully thick cock.

"Turn around ‘mega. Hands on the sink. Eyes on me in the mirror. I want you to watch me ruin you baby." You turn around, taking your time placing your hands on the counter. He smacks your ass once, in warning.

You push your hips back as you lean forward. This is when he chooses to tease you, rubbing his dick up and down your soaked folds. Tapping his head against your clit several times before sinking in slowly until his tip kisses your cervix, giving you a moment to adjust to his size stretching you out.

Feeling full of your Alpha you subconsciously begin to undulate your hips, looking for friction, as you lock eyes with him in the mirror. "Alpha, please. Fuck me. I don't think I can stand this much longer. Feels too good when you're so deep inside me."

He growls at your plea, fisting your hair and pulling. Forcing you to arch you back further to keep your eyes locked in the mirror.

He pulls back, slamming in as he begins a punishing pace, fucking you hard and deep. His balls slap against your swollen clit with every thrust making you see spots from the pure ecstasy of it all. Your staring into the mirror, watching his face as he grunts, swears and groans while he fucks all the tension and anger from you from behind.

You watch as he throws his head back, letting out a growl you can feel vibrate against your skin. "Fuck Omega, your pussy is just so damn tight. Feel so good wrapped around my dick. Ready to cum for me again? I need to feel ya squeezin’ me, trying to pop my knot and milk me dry."

"Yes.” You whimper out. “Please, Alpha. I’m close. So, so close." You’re uncaring of how needy you sound at the moment. The man really had a knack for turning you into a hormonal mess whenever he felt the need.

Your plea’s add fuel to his need to consume you, driving him to fuck you even harder. You know you'll most likely be sporting bruises on your hips from the counter, but you’ll deal with that fun little reminder later. Hand still wrapped up in your hair, his grip tightens, the pleasured pain sending you head first over the edge into the bliss of another orgasm.

"Don't close your eyes, ‘mega. Look at yourself.” He grits out. “See how gorgeous you look when you come undone for me." You let out a primal wailing moan as your pussy clamps down on his cock and your legs begin to shake. He smacks your ass with his free hand before taking hold of your hip, continuing to fuck you as you ride the waves of your orgasm.

When your walls stop their rhythmic suffocation of his cock, he slows down, taking his time to fuck you nice and deep. Hitting all your sweet spots. Cresting into the zone of overstimulation you begin to squirm against him again.

He watches, as his cock sinks in and out of your swollen and dripping folds. Hypnotized by how well you take his dick and still remain so goddamn tight. His hips instinctively pick up the pace, once again. "I'm close, Omega. Gonna fill ya up so good, you’ll still be leaking for days" He grunts out, accompanied by harsh thrusts.

"FUCK!” You shout. “Yes. Please, yes. Want all of you Alpha." Is all you can manage to mumble out as you arch your back deeper, preparing to take his seed deep into your womb.

He continues on, setting a pace that just makes your brain go fuzzy and every nerve-ending sing in pleasure.

“Fuuuck.” He grunts out. “My cock drunk little omega. Pussy’s gripping me so damn tight baby. She doesn't want to let me go.”

You just nod and whisper out. “Please. Full.” Lost in a sea of sensation, your mind is not able to formulate more than two words in your current state, other than moans, whimpers and wails of pleasure. You’re flying a serotonin high you are not ready to come down from yet.

That was all the validation he needed to hear to stop holding back and pop his knot, releasing his seed deep into your waiting womb. Painting the walls white with rope after rope of his spend.

Locked tight on his knot, time seemed to stand still, it felt like he was pouring everything he had into you, his cock gave it’s final twitch and he collapsed onto your back. Caging you in as he rains kisses along your shoulders.

That’s when you hear a round of applause come from the doorway. “GOTDAMN Girl! Now I get why he gets away with so much."

You burst into laughter at the situation. Unashamed over what they caught you doing in the comfort of your home. No one told her to let herself in with the key you gave her for emergencies.

“That was the hottest shit I have ever seen and we produce porn.” Juice blurts out.

“Hope you took some notes than, Juicy.” Jax snarks. “Now get the fuck out of my house so I can fully finish apologizing to my woman. Sorry Diamond but she’s staying in tonight.”

“Come on Juice.” Diamond turns to the still gawking biker. “Looks like your my date for tonight. I’m not wasting this outfit cus my girl is so easily dickmatized by her Alpha.”

She latches on to his Kutte and drags him back down the hall out of the house.

Jax knot has gone down enough at this point for him to tenderly slip out of you. A trail of his cum begins leaking down your thigh. He collects it on his fingers and pushes it back inside, making you moan and push back against him.

“I’m going to keep you full until I am fully forgiven for my stupidity.” He pulls his fingers out and places them before you face. You open your mouth and clean them of your combined essences.

“I hope you carbo loaded at the Club then Alpha.” You tease. “You have a ways to go to remain out of the dog house.”

He lifts you up into his arms and walks into your bedroom. “I’ll be sure to do my worst.”

That night took a turn you could not have expected. You want to blame it on the hormone high but that would be a weak cop out when in reality you always would have said yes.

While recovering from your escapades, enjoying all the lovely chemicals coursing through your veins, Jax asked you to be his old lady in every way. “You’re already my mate” He runs his fingers along the freshly renewed bite along your collarbone. “Let’s make this all the way official and head down to the courthouse and make it legal.”

“You’re serious.”

“100%”

“Okay. We’re going to need witnesses though.” You reply

“Easy. Op and Diamond.” He reaches for his phone and calls Op. You pick up yours to text D to meet you at the courthouse in the morning.

That’s how you found yourself in a sundress with a newly signed marriage license cuddled up with your now husband in the kitchen, waiting for Happy to show up to tattoo your ring finger.

“Gemma is gonna flip when she finds out.” Opie states calmly as he takes a puff of his cigarette.

“Who cares what Gemma thinks.” You shrug. “She was always on team, not me, anyway. This was for us not her.”

“She’s just going to have to get over it whenever the news hits her.” Jax adds.

“She might have forgiven you Jackson. But your still on shit list. I’m not so easily swayed.” Diamond declares. “Though this move has given you some points. Making her glow like that will always get you points with me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jax responds.

Twelve weeks after your Alpha’s apology and your subsequent nuptials thereafter, the club was dealing with some backlash from a new MC trying to make a name for themselves in the streets. Wanting to keep his men and their families safe, Jax has called a lockdown.

The compound and clubhouse was filled with families, children trying to find a way to deal with the boredom, running around making nuisances of themselves. The volume of so many voices alone was overwhelming, not to mention the haze of cigarette smoke that permeates the air. You’d been feeling queasy for days and the stench of bad perfume wafting off the crow eaters as you tried to make lunch had bile slowly rising up your throat.

“You doin okay there Sweetheart?” Gemma asks, watching you waver slightly on your feet.

“I’ll be fine.” You reply. “Just not feeling my best today. It’ll pass. I think I might go lay down for a bit though if I’m not needed here.”

“We got it Sug.” Luann blurts out before Gemma could give you the third degree. “These crow eaters need to learn to be useful for something other than sucking dick anyway.”

“Thanks.” You give her a tight smile. “If you need any more help, please don't hesitate to come get me.” You rush out of the kitchen before anyone can object and head down the hall to Jax’s room. You’ve unbuttoned your tight jeans and are in the process of sliding the denim down your legs when the door opens.

“Everything okay ‘mega?” Are the first words out of Jax’s mouth. “Op saw you booking it pretty fast out the kitchen.” He closes the door behind him, walking up to you as you're stepping out of your pants.

“I’m fine now.” You wrap your arms around his shoulders. “Just needed to get away from the stench of Crow Eater.”

He places his hands on your hips, pushing up your loose shirt, one of his old beat up SAM CROW’s, thumbs tracing your lower stomach. “They still given you a hard time with smells?” He asks.

“They are.” You nod your head. “It’s mainly the perfume that sets me off. Thankfully it’s supposed to ease up soon. I don’t think I could handle a full nine months of feeling like this.”

He lowers himself to his knees, where his head is in line with your non-existent bump. “Listen here pup. You’re already causing your mama problems and I can’t have that. I’mma need ya to calm your shit down or we’re both gonna be in for it when you get out.” You chuckle at his antics as he reprimands his progeny growing in your womb.

He has been nothing short of amazing since you found out last week that you were expecting your first pup. His apology sure left its mark. It’s a bit sooner than you both were expecting but it’s exciting nonetheless.

“Such a big strong Alpha, on his knees, pleading with his unborn child. Whatever shall I do with you.” You run your fingers through his hair as the door is slammed open. You both turn to find Gemma standing in the doorway, Opie behind her with a look of defeat on his face.

“Sorry guys. I caught her snooping near the door and before I could get a chance to shoo her away she gasped and threw open the door.” He shakes his head.

“You're pregnant?!” She hollers at you. “I knew something was up. That why you marked her?”

“Mom.” Jax stands up. “I’m gonna need ya to calm the fuck down. That’s not only my Omega, but my wife and the mother of your unborn grandchild, your screeching at. She’s already feeling like crap. I’m not about to have you stressing her out too. Either accept this and be happy or get out our faces.” He huffs.

Stunned not only that her son is speaking to her like this but that somehow he got married and didn't even inform her. “You got married? Was that before or after you knocked her up?”

“Watch it.” He growls. “Not that it is really any of your business but we just recently found out she was pregnant. Must have happened around our wedding day. Not that it matters. She was always going to be mine. Knew it from the moment her scent hit my nose.”

“Why didn't you tell me you were getting married?” She asks.

“Because I knew how you’d act and I didn't want you pulling any of your tricks.” Jax deadpans.

“I know what you think about me Gemma.” You speak up. “And you're wrong. I have only ever wanted what was best for your son. My Alpha. Now that we’ve started our own family, you can choose to let your misconceptions of me go and be a part of this little pups life when they arrive. Or you can double down and miss out on all the wonders a new life brings to a family. The decision is yours.”

“Damn.” You hear Opie mutter out.

“If you think for one second I’m risking not being in my first grandbabies life, you're sorely mistaken honey.” Gemma states. “I’ll behave. I’d say welcome to the family but you’ve already been here awhile apparently.”

“See that wasn't that hard.” Jax teases before turning to you. “Can we tell everybody now. I think they all could use some good news.”

You sigh. “Fine. But can I get a nap first.” You negotiate. “I know they’ll want to celebrate and chit chat. If I don’t get some rest I may just snap at the first person to try and touch my belly.”

They all laugh. “Alright, little moon. We can take a nap.” He kisses your forehead, then turns to his mother. “Don’t say a word until we come out later. I mean it mom.”

“I’m not gonna blab.” She relents. “Wouldn’t want to deal with your wrath having upset your Omega. Been there with your father when I was pregnant with John. Wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

“C’mon Gemma.” Opie pulls her out the room, slowly closing the door. “I’ll keep an eye out Prez.”

“Thanks Op.” He pulls you close, giving you a loving kiss. “I love you Omega.”

“Love ya too Alpha.” You kiss him back, pulling him towards the bed where you had previously made a haphazard nest, so you could cuddle up and get some much needed rest with your perfect pain the ass Alpha.

#poc reader #jax teller x reader #jax teller smut #alpha jax teller

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neptuniadoesstuff · 6 months ago

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Introduction Thing Ig... So.. Welcome to the Basement?

(Update due to imbox spam: While I do support Palestine, I DO NOT HAVE ANY MONEY TO SEND! So please do not send me any requests to donate, I don't have a job nor have money (as im just a random kid. All I can say is "I hope you can have a better life than now". So plz dont fill my inbox with donate requests as its only used for art requests & OC based asks/QnA Trash)

(Plz click the read more to see all of the text)

Btw I'm a MINOR, someone who is UNDER 18! SO PLAESE DNI IF YOU ARE A 18+ ONLY OR MATURE ACC!

(Yeh this is a remake of my introduction post, but we don't talk about that-)

So yeh, welcome to this.. place... This is where I store all of my art & whatever I can think of. So, you will expect:

Art (Usually Fandom-based or OC based)

Art WiPs (That of ATs, DTs, & Character Refs)

Meems (Except I'm not funny so don't expect many)

& Stoopid Garbage like my rambles & crud.

(Although reminder that my art can & will be 13+ as it will contain things like g0r3, Cannibalism, & even death, I'm just uncomfy with anyone under 13 actually interacting with me due to my past experience back on Screb... But if you are kind enough maybe I'll let you talk to me, I'm pretty friendly but I do have some problems irl so keep in mind..)

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My Bio (Full):

|| Name: Bubs | Aliases: N (If you know me irl), Neptunia | Gender: Female, She/Her | Age: 15 (I'm a minor, so leave me alone if yur an 18+ only/mature acc) | Height: Blob-Sized, May be a bit chonky lol | Pride: AroAce | Other: Big fan of MO: Astray & an avid enjoyer of Blobs ||

Birthday: December 26.

Zodiac: Capricorn. (I don't take zodiacs seriously though tbh, I just think they're a bit neat to say.)

IQ Level: Moron.

If you know who I am, I'm BuggoBlobs from Scratch (Sadly due to the whole banning fiasco bcs of someone mass reporting me for calling them out on their bs.... Lets say things didnt end well for me..)

So yeh erm... that's why I'm here....? (Well not rlly, I have known about Tumblr for a long time, except I only made an acc this year due to a frend of mine (REDACTED) making an acc on here, so I thought "Let's do the same thing" & here we are)

(Funfact: I'm quite anti-social irl & only have like... 2 irl frends but I only talk to one-)

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My Mascots/Sonas ig-:

Neppy ◆/♠︎/♣︎ (Main Mascot) (You will see her... A LOT, so be ready) (Her Ref & TH Page)

Bubs (Design coming soon) ◆ (This is my persona/irlsona btw)

JJ Sam Green ♣︎/♠︎ (Mascot) (His Ref & TH Page) (TW: Can contain sensitive info) (You can also see his full ref here)

Jayden/Greeny ♥︎/♣︎ (Mascot) (His Ref & TH Page)

(Symbol Meanings: ♥︎ = Comfort. ♣︎ = Favorite. ◆ = Sona. ♠︎ = Just think they're neat lookin.)

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Content warnings!

G0r3/Bl00d

Cannibalism

Death

Sometimes horrifying imagery

Semi-graphic descs of charcters.

OC with Scars

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My Socials ig:

Screb (I have 2 accs on there.but one got murked... At least i have a back up ig? Welp. The one that got murked is a archive now so yeah...), Tumblr (Your Here lol), ToyHouse (Where all of my OCs whom I created/put on there exist)

Or you can use my Carrd here. I don't mind tbh. (+ Having a Carrd is much easier to link than all of my Socials.)

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Fandoms (I'm in ig):

MO: Astray (Fave Game)

Hollow Knight

WoF

Pokemon

TES ig? (Idk I barely ever played it-)

(Reminder: Just bcs I sometimes make content about smtn I'm not a part of doesn't mean I'm actually a part of that thing's Fandom, like example, some of my OCs in Fandoms I used to be in/aren't apart of.)

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Some of my original trash (In no actual order bcs I'M NOT NEAT & TIDY!):

Mortal's Curse/Terminal Archina/PoL (Same Universe as AoE/A2P)

Egolandia

Endoterr's Vail (Project Cata nka Oblivion Monroe &

RoTG (Realm of the Gods)

BloopTopia/LoA (Land of Ackezelle) (Aka World of Eeross)

Silver Valley

Soul Seekers

Noirvillah? (A part of a universe owned by my frend Ashe)

KR1T4.EXE

A Stargazer's Diary

MonoVista

And whatever else I have

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My TOS (You will see it a lot in my art-based posts)

Bubs' TOS: Plz don't repost/steal, trace, or recolor my art WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! If you do, I'll take yur femur and pelvis.. SO, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! (The PNS on my blog's pinned post clearly means "Please No Steal" plz follow that rule.) If you do post my art on anything like yur blog or somewhere else (With my permission) PLEASE CREDIT ME!

So yeh, if you my any see a PNS in my drawings, that means it says, "Plz No Steal". DO NOT SEAL MY ART!

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DNI If you do any of these:

Taking my art w/o permission (This includes Tracing, copying, recoloring, or just straight up saying it's your art. Bcs I take lots of time making art & you taking my art w/o permission hurts me) (It will not only matter if it was made for you & only you but plz frikin credit me if you post it)

Being weird to me or my characters/designs. (Just... don't... I'm AroAce (+ a Minor) & that makes me uncomfortable tbh... Look even if I do make a character with a certain body type/looks that's kinda "sus", does not allow you to make weird comments about them at all)

The average hate comments, harassment, bullying, & spamming/threats thing. We all know those 4, right? Just be a frikin decent person for crying out loud. (You can dislike me & my art all you want, idc tbh. Just don't go harassing me on multiple levels to the point IT WILL MAKE ME HAVE A MENTAL BREAKDOWN!) (Also, these 4 count for my frends here. Again, be a decent person. I'm watching you..) (Also, this rule includes nor respecting me, just plz respect everyone with kindness... Thanks.)

Pestering/threatening me to draw you smtn. (I work hard on my drawings + I have a life outside of here, so don't expect me to draw you smtn since I only draw for my frends & myself. If you really want art from me, pay in art, idc how bad the art is, art is art & I have no biases when it comes to it as everyone has their own style.)

LGBTQ-Phobes/Menaces to certain groups of ppl who did nothing wrong but exist. (This is a LGBTQ+ Safe place)

Creeps, Weirdos, & ppl who ship problematic ships. (Like don't be any of those plz... Especially the weirdos who like children or animals WAY TOO MUCH.)

(Edit) Making false accusations/hateful comments of my friends. Be a goddamn decent human being for the love of God or ill have to report you.

(Not strictly but I do get uncomfortable) following any adults only/18+ acc on here. Yeh I just don't really interact with anyone who is currently following a 18+ acc bcs it just.. weird..

Breaking any of these DNI Rules can get you blocked BY ME! So be careful...

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My Mutuals/Friends:

@oregon-or-the-grave (Ashe/Oregon), @mor-meowcat (Abi), @viellohi (Vie), @somepersonyouknow (Mia), @spiasshdown (Splesh).

(4 of them are literally from Screb & only one I know IRL- It's a whole bag of worms lol-)

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Anyways my side blogs bcs I said so:

The Official Mortal's Curse Blog (Ask/RP OC Blog)

My Species Storage Blog (Lore QnA/Original Species Blog) (Originally a Ref Sheet storage Blog)

My MO: Astray AU Blog called Timeline-Breaker (Ask/RP/AU)

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So yeh... Thats its rlly for this post... Hope you enjoyed yur stay, & remember, always stay a goober! Even in the toughest times.

(Art is by me btw, Plz don't take. :( )

#neptuniadoesstuff #blog intro #introduction #Welcome lol #Bub's Basement #Bub's Writes Stuff

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thevtuberconfessional · 2 months ago

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HIIII CHAT ☆ !

Hi there, everyone! I bid you all welcome to the vtuber confessional with wide open arms. ♡♡♡ here, you can vent all your thoughts regarding vtubing and vtubers, of every kind! However, please proceed below the cut for more information before submitting any confessions!!

☆ RULES! ☆

While this is a safe place for everyone, since this is a confessional booth, feel free to express any unpopular opinions you have as long as they don't involve any of the following: racial slurs, homophobic slurs, nazism, zionism, extremely excessive and detailed thirsting (you'll know it when you see it), or detailed gore. It's hard to keep a confessional blog both a safe space for everyone AND up and running, but it can definitely be attempted!

You can shill for your oshis, too! It's in fact encouraged. The only thing that isn't allowed is shilling for the same vtuber multiple times in a row (especially in short amounts of time, that's just spam), or excessive self-promotion. Additionally, all vtubers you promote MUST be over the irl age of 18. This is a confession blog, not an advertisement blog-- but you can throw in some shilling too. You ARE here to express your thoughts!

You can only send in one ask/confession at a time, sorry! This is to avoid spam.

Yes, you can talk about Vtuber drama. This is actually one of the main things I expect this blog to consist of. That said, since I want to encourage positivity in the vtuber community, please no excessive doomposting or negativity. A little negativity is fine (this is what you'd expect to see in some confessions, of course!) but not too much. I'll close asks or make a post detailing it if it gets too overwhelming.

I'll add trigger warnings to confessions mentioning certain, potentially triggering content. That said, if possible, you can do me a favor by including trigger warnings with your ask. It seriously can help me and is a lot less stressful!

6. Please don't start fights with other confessers. You can comment on their confessions within another confession once, but don't get in a full back in forth with them. Again, in-fighting is one of the things that causes the vtuber community to get so toxic.

7. Thirsty confessions are allowed, but PLEASE nothing graphic. If I allow graphic stuff, this blog will become a dumpster fire faster than you can type tskr to your kamioshi having a cute sneeze /j. But seriously, nothing graphic at all.

8. I'll delete asks I'm uncomfortable with by making a post that briefly states the first few words of the confession (not the full confession), and explain why it wasn't allowed. ((EX: "Attention Confesser! One ask was found in the pile that was against the rules: 'I want Marina to...' this ask was deleted for being overly lewd and graphic. Try and tone it down next time, please!))

9. I might likely comment on or reply to your ask instead of just posting the ask itself! However, if you would rather not me respond/take the chances of me responding, please specify that you would not like me to comment on it!

10. I'll change this as I see fit. For now, if you need to submit a confession, you might want to skim the rules every time to make sure nothing has changed.

~ ☆ ~

MOD INFO!

You can call me, the mod, "Iris !" I go by any and all pronouns, so use whatever.

My Oshis are currently Rin Penrose, Nanashi Mumei, and Rosco Graves. ✨️

I might occasionally post about vtubing stuff and post some positive vtuber spotlights!

(If the vtuber I spotlight is caught in any controversies, please let me know. I will take them down if I see fit)

~☆~

I'm super excited to hear what y'all gotta say! I hope you all have amazing days. :] See you!

#vtuber uprising #Vtuber confessions #Vtuber #Vtubers #Vtubing #Hololive #Holostars #Avallum #Idol EN #VShoujo #vtublr #vtubr

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linklethehistorian · 26 days ago

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Linkle’s Fazbear Frights & Lore Insights #2: To Be Beautiful

[Read the general disclaimer and important notes for this series of articles here.]

[View the Masterlist of all completed articles here.]

Some To Be Beautiful specific notes:

I will be discussing the graphic novel version of this story to a limited degree, which as per ‘Frights Fiction’, would be a graphic novel in the in-universe canon, based on the book by the same title, just as it is in our world. If you don’t want spoilers, stop here.

I will also be discussing, to an even more limited degree, the Silver Eyes trilogy, but the things I will be talking about are major spoilers, so this is also your spoiler warning for that.

I will be briefly talking about one of the mini-games in the game version of Into the Pit which revolves around To Be Beautiful, and in general, discussions about the book version and my thoughts on it in my previous article are quite likely to come up during one particular part of my lore relevancy section, so if you want to completely avoid Into the Pit spoilers, maybe hold off on this one for now.

Apart from where I feel it relevant, I won’t be doing a deep-dive into the changes between the book and the graphic novel, since they are both fictional media within the FNAF universe, and thus the retcons and changes mostly have no value in the discussion of the lore or canon. If someone else wants to scream about how they got so much wrong because they feel the book was done dirty or something, I absolutely encourage you to go write your own article! But this isn’t about that.

My takes on William as a father, in regards to the games, may ruffle more than a few feathers of people who still insist on holding onto some of the old fanon stuff/do not believe in Frights Fiction. I will be briefly discussing why, but seriously if you don’t like it and won’t go into it with an open mind, please just don’t read it; I’m not really in the mental state to go through a thousand comments trying to convince me of a notion that I simply don’t personally feel has any logical evidence behind it.

Now with that out of the way, let’s get below the cut and get talking! This is your last spoiler warning for all forms of To Be Beautiful, so if you want to turn back, do so now.

Has everyone who wanted to leave yet left? Yeah? Good. Okay, let’s get going, then.

Overall Impressions

The Book:

I know that in my last post regarding Into the Pit, I said that some of the writing style choices made definitely weren’t for me, and that’s still true, but honestly, as I’m listening to this story a third time to make sure I haven’t missed anything I want to cover (and have read several other stories in between doing so), I have to admit I’ve gotten very used to the formatting by now, and it really isn’t as much of a pet peeve as it used to be — which is undoubtedly good, since I have a good many more volumes to go through in order to catch up to date in covering them all.

As for To Be Beautiful’s plot, as much as it pains me to say this, I honestly like this one a little bit better than Into The Pit, and I’m not even completely sure I can put into words why, except perhaps that, while I was very glad Into the Pit did have its surprisingly happy ending with both Oswald and his Dad’s survival, the original book version also felt very anticlimactic in terms of anything actually happening after the initial glimpse of the Yellow Thing’s murders, all the way up until the abrupt point where Oswald’s Dad was immediately pulled out of the pit as soon as Oswald arrived back at Jeff’s Pizza, and the Yellow Thing attacked and was hanged.

With To Be Beautiful, the slow buildup of suspense and horror, to me, is much more compelling and ultimately pays off much better when Sarah’s decisions have finally their tragic and irrevocable consequences. I think that if Into the Pit had had that same kind of buildup or at least a longer and more suspenseful struggle at the end before the payoff, I might have actually preferred that one more, as the backdrop of that one is much more up my usual alley, but it didn’t, and so To Be Beautiful has to rank higher on the list.

I do find it odd that, even with how strong the seemingly implied message is that you shouldn’t waste time trying to appeal to people who will only like you if you meet superficial criteria, Mason Blair is strangely given a complete pass for never noticing Sarah until she was hotter, as the story never gives any indication of him being shallow in any way after that initial bit of shallowness and presents him as a good and wonderful person through and through in all other scenes that we see him (unlike the Beautifuls), but I suppose maybe that isn’t a flaw in the writing so much as a realistic acknowledgement that sometimes people who are good overall can just make bad judgements and be a bit petty — I just wanted to mention it nonetheless.

That observation aside, the characters seem to suit the roles they are meant to fulfill well enough; they’re definitely far from my favorite characters in the FNAF series as a whole, but they’re serviceable enough, and I’m sure there are many people in the world who can empathize with Sarah’s struggles with loving or even liking her body.

The Graphic Novel:

Well, first of all, I will say right out the gate that between this and the book, I definitely by far prefer the original book; for as much credit as I tried to give this adaption of the story whilst reading it, I really couldn’t see more than a single upside to viewing this version of the story instead of the book, and that single upside — the ability to see a possible glimpse at what the characters looked like — did not in any way make up for all that was lost in translation enough to warrant viewing it as a viable alternative, or even all that much worth seeing as a supplemental piece to the book, since it contradicts it so much and lacks such an incredible amount of the punch that its source material had.

To name just a few of the changes I caught onto while reading it:

The characterization of Abby, Sarah’s best friend, is slightly different here, as while during the conversation of what Abby used to do to her Barbies when she and Sarah used to play with them felt slightly more like a testament to Abby’s unique fashion sense and tastes in the book, in the graphic novel, Sarah outright states that Abby tortured her Barbies instead of describing the unconventional ways she styled them that didn’t adhere to normal beauty standards. Maybe it’s just me, but that felt like a swing and a miss, when we consider the overall implied message of the story.

Several events were skipped, like Sarah’s ice cream date with Mason, completely re-ordered or just completely altered, like Eleanor waking up immediately by accident when Sarah first takes her home and looks at her, Sarah not tipping her hand that she knew who Mason Blair was when he introduced himself to her, or just being honest with the Beautifuls about what her Mom does and getting disapproving looks.

Perhaps the worst change of all, though, in my opinion, was the change at the very end of the story where, as Sarah is falling apart into a pile of junk, instead of just the narration of her regretful thought, she laments openly that “Abby was right”, and Eleanor turns to her and agrees, “Abby was right about a lot of things”; to me, this unanimous commentary happening between both characters is far too on-the-nose about the ultimate moral of the story, and that lack of subtlety in a story that is already quite clear enough about its message without needing to have both its main characters say it aloud is actually rather detrimental to its overall integrity and enjoyability.

A good story should not have to slap you in the face with its message completely verbatim in order to be able to get that message across; the story should not feel like it stops and makes every character on-screen break the fourth wall to stare you in the face and tell you directly and heavy-handedly what you are supposed to take away from it, and that is what this version of the ending feels like: an open bout of preaching — and, whether they agree with the message wholeheartedly or not, almost no one particularly likes being bluntly preached to by a piece of fiction.

And, on top of all of that, the fact of the matter is that the one upside this medium had wasn’t even really taken advantage of in the way that it should have been:

Despite all the muss and fuss about how ugly and obnoxious of a green Sarah’s hair was when she dyed it, it doesn’t even really look that way except for in the panel(s) at the hair salon — mostly looking a very pale and hardly noticeable slightly greenish yellow in the majority of panels after her escapade.

Sarah’s chest, for all her complaints of it being completely flat, doesn’t really come across so in the artwork of her before her transformation into being more shapely, and instead just makes it look like she wanted it bigger than it already was rather than wanting it just noticeable at all.

The colors and designs of many things, too, seem quite different than how they are described in the novel, with the most noticeable example being that the necklace Eleanor gives Sarah is now gold instead of silver, and that, for whatever strange reason, Eleanor’s eyes don’t seem to be green at all and rather mostly look a plain empty grey until the fifth day, instead of starting out as such as they did in the book.

All in all, although the artwork itself is certainly serviceable and cute enough, there are just a lot of strange choices I don’t really appreciate being made here, and losing Sarah’s inner monologue, when the book is practically written from her point of view (albeit in third person), is such a detriment in combination with all of these things that it really wasn’t worth the trade-off.

Lore Relevancy

Well, having long since read the entire book, I quite expect this to be the longest entry I have in this particular volume of Fazbear Frights, so let’s not waste any time mincing words and just jump straight into it, shall we?

The Lies and Half-truths

As always, before we can get into what the book is trying to say, we should start by trying to rule out what it definitely or at least almost certainly isn’t; now, unlike Into the Pit, which was so closely tied to the actual main game series’ canon that we could easily rule out what could or couldn’t be true, To Be Beautiful, unfortunately, does not have any overt one-to-one tie to any canon mainline game continuity events, so this process is naturally going to be a little bit harder and take a lot more guesswork, but still, I do feel that we can make at least a few fairly educated assessments.

Firstly, unlike with Into the Pit, the game version of which gives me pause to consider that Oswald and his Dad might to some extent actually be based on real people that exist within the FNAF universe, even if what happened to them was entirely or mostly made-up — what with the Freddy Mask implying Oswald’s Dad might be “Freddy Bully”, one of Michael’s childhood friends — I am fairly confident, at least at the time of writing this, that Sarah and everyone within her story do not actually exist beyond potentially being a metaphor and/or stand-in for someone else already well-established within the main games’ canon (more on this later).

My reasoning for this is mostly that, well, not only is it unlikely and way overcomplicating things to say that every single character in every Fazbear Frights story must have a separate counterpart in the real world of FNAF, even when they don’t seem to have anything particularly hinting at it, but also…I simply don’t believe that Eleanor truly exists, either, and I know that may be a hot take for some but, hey, there it is.

At the time of writing this — and granted, that could change at some point in the future, since I know she’s going to return several times — I believe that Eleanor is nothing more than a) a stand-in for Circus Baby/Scrap Baby/post-death Elizabeth in general, b) a convenient method by which to further explore the concept of the Power of Wills and Wishes™️ (there is a better name for this in the future, but this is just my placeholder name for it until we get to talking about Fetch), and c) the main antagonist this in-universe fictional series focuses on instead of William/Springtrap (+ variants).

Now, did the method by which Eleanor kills Sarah actually claim someone’s life somewhere in the mainline canon? Does her seeming “magic” actually exist in some form? …Well, sort of, yes; it’s a half-truth, really, with enough details changed to distance itself from the actual happenings while still being able to use some of the most horrific and mystifying parts about them — exactly as you’d expect from a company trying to discredit and make light of real-world events.

But, seeing as those very things tie so heavily into the things I want to discuss regarding what I think the book is trying to say, we’ll get to the nitty-gritty of that later in the next section.

For now, I think we’ve covered everything that can be covered here, so let’s move on.

The Truths and the Likely-Truths

So…from now on, though obviously this section will continue to be where I discuss all things that I think were borrowed in-universe from the real life events of the main canon and/or which could have some relevance there, I will be more properly splitting this up into two sub-sections: The things that I know are true — which are themes and topics that I feel, without doubt, are definitely and most obviously what the story was created to establish and/or bring up relating to the lore, from an out-of-universe perspective — and then the things that I think are true, which are what I personally believe the book could be trying to establish and probably believe with a fairly high level of confidence, but which may not be as obvious at a first glance and do have more leeway for other interpretations.

It should be noted, however — and this is probably something I will retroactively add to the “Disclaimer and Important Notes” page, as I feel it’s quite important to all of the books — that, as Scott has confirmed in a decently recent interview with Dawko that he just writes down the basic plot of his stories and all the important points he wants to cover and then lets the other author flesh it out more fully, we have no way of knowing outside of the main plot exactly what details were his ideas and which aren’t; therefore, there’s a good chance that a few or even multiple of the things I bring up are just massive coincidence and have no meaning whatsoever in reality. Nevertheless, I do think there’s value in discussing it, but that fact is also why I will often try to provide far more than just one detail to back up most of my more elaborate interpretations and ideas — because we can’t be sure that any one single tiny detail within the books has value, unless of course it’s something Scott has specifically said is important.

Now! With that in mind, let’s take a look at what we can glean from this tale.

The things I KNOW are True

So, approaching this from the angle that, according to Frights Fiction, every Fazbear Frights story must contain some measure of truth hidden within the lies — some event Fazbear Entertainment is attempting to discredit (or further discredit, if it’s something that’s come up before) and monetize — what do I believe are the things To Be Beautiful is definitely riffing off of?

Well, there are four things here I am absolutely sure of:

1: Eleanor is absolutely derived from and supposed to be the Fazbear Frights version of Circus Baby — but more specifically and very importantly, she is Circus Baby after killing and being possessed by Elizabeth.

How do I know this? Well, there are a number of indicators throughout the book which tell us this:

It is stated very clearly in the book that Eleanor has green eyes — the color we know to be Elizabeth’s eye color, which Baby absorbed after killing and being possessed by her, according to Sister Location — not Circus Baby’s original blue.

In general, appearance wise, Eleanor looks very much like the version of Baby we see in The Silver Eyes trilogy, and said Baby was also possessed by Elizabeth and had the same duality in thoughts and nature that Circus Baby did during the main events of Sister Location, rather than being just an AI.

Her name is Eleanor — a name that is not only strikingly more human than Circus Baby, but also begins with the same two letters as Elizabeth.

She is stated in the books to have “a young girl’s voice”; now, what precisely this means, I suppose, is up for interpretation, but usually, if you refer to someone as a “young girl”, it means they are a child. In other words, she sounds younger than she looks; she sounds like a child. If I had to guess, she most probably sounds like Elizabeth — like Ennard sounds in the secret ending on Night Five, after Baby’s AI has been removed and all that remains of Baby is Elizabeth. Now, we could say that she has Circus Baby’s voice, as that could also be considered one of a young girl, but I feel the intentional draw to the fact that her voice sounds like a young girl, when Eleanor is described to be more of a proper woman, has to be an intentional dissonance, and using it just to say “oh, she sounds like Circus Baby” seems a bit pointless and redundant when it is already so clear that she is a stand-in for Circus Baby and practically no one is going to try to dispute this. In my eyes, this was done to draw attention to the fact that she is more than just an A.I. She is, just like in The Silver Eyes, both a girl and an AI who wants to obtain a more perfect and human-like body to inhabit. Something real.

The reason why I feel that this distinction is important is several-fold, and we’ll get to some of the reasons later, but for now let’s focus on the most important one, which is:

2: The events that happen in To Be Beautiful because of Eleanor are largely (with only a few caveats) meant to mirror and appear drawn from Sister Location.

Feeling skeptical? Here’s some evidence to back it up:

Throughout a vast majority of the story, ever since their initial meeting, Eleanor is largely portrayed as a kind and caring individual who longs to be good and only wants to help Sarah and keep her safe; this is a point that is brought up many, many times throughout the book — sometimes from Sarah, and sometimes even from Eleanor, herself. (To give one choice line from the book among the many examples: “Somehow, Eleanor being there made Sarah feel safe, as if Eleanor were standing guard.”) This is also true in Sister Location, as Circus Baby takes the role of protector and guide for Michael throughout many nights, keeping him safe and ensuring that nothing can hurt him, to the point where Michael (in the true, regular ending) steadily grows to trust her nearly completely and put his life in her hands, as Sarah does the same with Eleanor.

However, just like in Sister Location for Michael regarding Circus Baby, there are brief moments here and there as time progresses where Sarah gets the slightest hint of something just being “off” about the situation, or even times when Eleanor does something outright creepy, like leaning over and staring at Sarah while she sleeps, but she gives an innocent explanation for it, and Sarah, while upset, still seems to shrug it off in the end and forgive, excusing it by some means and telling herself it’s nothing to worry about (AKA just like when Circus Baby kidnaps Michael after Funtime Foxy attacks him, and stuffs him inside a Springlock Suit, claiming she did it to save him, but at the same time demanding he be quiet until the workers leave the room and wait until morning to be rescued), shortly before she inevitably seals her own fate the next day.

Eleanor really only awakens at night (“mostly nocturnal”, as the book puts it) in most cases, putting an emphasis on Sarah’s visits with her always happening at these times, much like with the night segments in Sister Location being the time that Michael interacts with Baby, and it also being the usual time that the animatronics go into free-roaming mode, and seem to start actively “coming to life” in their supernatural way in the mainline games’ canon, in general.

Sarah and Eleanor ended up meeting when Sarah found her in an old scrap yard and took pity on her condition, deciding to save her and fix her up. Michael met Baby because he had gone to Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental specifically to find Elizabeth and fix her, saving and freeing her from the AI that allegedly controlled her and made her do bad things, and “putting her back together.”

Eleanor’s ‘helping’ of Sarah — or rather, slowly working towards taking her entire body and getting Sarah to willingly, though albeit unknowingly, help her do it — takes place over the course of four nights, with the fifth day being the time that the transformation is finally complete; this much probably doesn’t even need saying, but this is a direct parallel to the four nights of Baby helping Michael along the way and ensuring his body would be preserved until he finally came around again on the fifth, when Baby and her fellow animatronics’ preparations were finally complete.

Both Eleanor’s and Circus Baby’s ultimate goal in helping the person they’ve met and keeping them safe for a period of time was for the explicit purpose of stealing their body and identity to use as a disguise and escape where they were being kept, so they could freely roam the world and go where they pleased.

There is actually a lot of clear symbolism and parallels for Ennard inhabiting and at times even controlling Michael’s body post-scoop, especially during the scene where Sarah loses her necklace and begins to lose her seemingly soft and human outside appearance to transform into a literal mass of tangled parts that she was underneath, detailing how people around her slowly went from expressing joy or amusement to absolute horror and fear, describing her struggling to walk down the street to her house and considering what people must think seeing her, describing the odd feeling and sound when the necklace first fell off, the clanking and clunking inside her, the slow horrific realization of what had happened, how she struggled to move and her body no longer was under her control, and lastly, how, “She was falling apart. Collapsing into a hideous trash heap. She didn’t resemble a human of any kind.” (Quite similarly to how Michael was falling apart in spite of the remnant in his body trying to repair him and barely resembled a human by the time Ennard finally left him.)

A little detail, maybe, but as Sarah is searching for Eleanor, she eventually begins to lose control over her ability to speak well, and calls out to her as “Ena”…which is quite similar in sound to Ennard.

These are definitely much smaller things by comparison, but I also feel that both Sarah notably staring into the mirror a lot and the mention of her eating spaghetti dinner at one point in the story are also meant to be small little symbols and metaphors for Sister Location, as Michael notably is seen staring into his mirror at the end of Sister Location, and Sarah consuming spaghetti — whose noodles are like Ennard’s many long tangled wires he is comprised of, and whose traditionally red marinara sauce resembles blood — could be seen as a metaphor for Ennard entering into Michael through his stomach after he is scooped.

Not only that, but there are also a few things in the story that only make sense if you think about them from the perspective of it being a fictional story in-universe that is meant to be borrowing a lot of events from and using symbolism for Sister Location; for example, and perhaps most notably, an ‘issue’ which GiBi’s Horror Homestead brought up in his video analysis of To Be Beautiful: the fact that instead of having Eleanor directly wear Sarah’s old body parts, she instead transforms her appearance using some sort of technology (more on this in a moment), and Sarah winds up finding the body parts just uselessly lying in bags which fall onto the floor.

It may seem counterintuitive, at first, to have Eleanor not wear the body parts when Ennard quite literally wore Michael’s body as a skinsuit, but I actually feel that this was very intentional; having Eleanor not do this not only allowed for the body parts — arms, legs, noses, and torsos — to be splayed out on the floor in front of Sarah when the sickening realization hits her, reminiscent of all the body parts of the animatronics in the Scooping Room when Michael arrives there, but it also leaves room for the book to specifically mention her entrails and organs slopping out onto the floor as well — giving the image of what would have happened to Michael when the scooper finally got him.

We could also say that Eleanor singing was meant to be reminiscent of Ballora, though I’m not quite as certain of that much, just a thought I wanted to put forward as, otherwise, I admit, I’m unclear on the purpose of it existing — unless, of course, it has some sort of hypnotizing and/or calming effect that basically worked as the anesthetic before Sarah’s surgery, and we’re for some reason supposed to draw absurd parallels between the Puppet being soothed by the music box and this in order to come to that conclusion, but I highly doubt that for a multitude of reasons.

3: Sarah’s necklace and Eleanor’s matching button are, without doubt, meant to be another play on and reminder of illusion disc technology, making this the second time within this book that it’s brought up.

Now, why Sarah’s body fails when her necklace falls off, even though there is no such mechanic involved in illusion discs, is another matter entirely, and while yes, we could easily say that perhaps the necklace was also connected to her new body in some way and kept the parts “running” (acting like a key to an engine), I also honestly really don’t think that it matters one way or another — not if we believe in Frights Fiction, at least.

Occam’s Razor dictates that the simplest answer is usually the most correct one, and saying that things in the books don’t entirely follow or fit the logic of FNAF’s known main canon because they’re sensationalized fiction and that the shock and horror elements of the story (and the ability to use, alter, and discredit various real world events) are always going to come before any real world logic is definitely the simplest answer here.

Sure, we can come up with complex potential explanations like this on why something is the way it is in these stories when it doesn’t make sense, but why waste that time and effort when we know that they’re fictional to begin with, and doing so might lead to missing the actual in-universe reason why the in-universe creators of Fazbear Frights would want to include certain story elements?

4: And lastly, once again, we circle back to the (at least as much as I’ve read thus far) ever-ongoing theme of the Power of Wills and Wishes™️ — the constant and seemingly very emphasized implication that within the FNAF universe, the mind/spirit is a very powerful thing that can — to at least some degree — control, cause, and/or contribute to the shape of reality and what happens within it.

Now, as I believe I said earlier in this post, I do want to hold off on discussing this on a grander scale until I reach the article where I talk about Fetch, but I will say that this theme is even stronger and more front and center in To Be Beautiful than it was in Into the Pit, with this time not only Sarah longing to be the conventional standard of beautiful and then ultimately getting her wish, but also getting to do so through Eleanor, who explicitly talks about and promises wish-granting.

Again, just something to bear in mind for the future for now, but it absolutely needed mentioning.

—

So, we have a whole list of things that I invariably believe are key parts of the book from an in-universe perspective, but what out of all of this, if anything, do I think that, out-of-universe, was undeniably something Scott would have wanted to communicate with this book?

Well, maybe this is a bit of a boring answer, but to be honest with you, unlike with Into the Pit, where I would have at least said that I think getting the year of the MCI — 1985 — out there was definitely a goal in the book, and that the game version also added a most likely game-canon design for Henry and William and a heavily implied connection between Oswald’s Dad and Freddy Bully, I don’t think that there’s actually any one thing that To Be Beautiful exists specifically to fully, uniquely, and unquestionably establish — at least not that isn’t mentioned elsewhere in other stories to some degree as well.

Rather, I think that To Be Beautiful — both in terms of the things that I think are utterly undeniable, and the things in the next section that I just believe in very strongly and think are backed quite well by various evidence, but aren’t as easily confirmed — just exists to further expand and place further emphasis upon certain points that have already been, and will continue to be, brought up in other Fazbear Frights books.

And in the case of the things that I feel are utterly undeniable, those points that I think emphasis is being placed on are illusion disc technology, and the very intriguing concept that is genuine willpower within the FNAF universe.

“But why the illusion discs?” I can hear some of you asking even now, “I know you said the other thing comes up again, and you have a theory on that to share later, but what’s so important about these?”

Well, like I said in my Into the Pit article, I think that Scott wants to remind people that technology like this is a thing in the FNAF universes, and that we shouldn’t rule it out of existing in the main canon, too — and not just because of FNAF 4, either; we’ve actually seen something akin to illusion disc technology not just hinted at, but actually shown to us in the main universe already, within Ruin, when we’re not using the Vanny mask. There are many things that Cassie can see and feel right in front of her so realistically that she is utterly convinced she can’t pass through until she wears the mask to take the illusion away, or removes it by some other source, like finding and removing ‘anomalies’ on the camera in a certain order (AKA using a hidden passcode to deactivate the illusion).

I’m not sure just yet how important this technology is going to become, but I do wholeheartedly believe that even if you are still utterly intent on just believing that FNAF 4 was a bunch of nightmares and nothing more, illusion discs are nevertheless clearly an integral part of the series either way, and a relevant thing that is intentionally being discussed and going to continue to be important to understanding how certain things in the mainline FNAF universe work.

The things I FEEL are True

…Well, putting all of that absolute certainty and undeniable truth behind us, let’s now wade a bit deeper into the pool of analysis, well-backed theories, and plausible personal interpretations, and finally ask the burning question:

What do I think To Be Beautiful could be trying to say about the main lore and/or its characters, on a deeper level?

Well, to start with, one thing is for sure: it’s certainly carrying on this entire book’s clear but unstated secondary theme of its main characters feeling unlovable, unwanted, utterly invisible in any possible positive context, and like life is meaningless in its current state.

But…why is it like that? It’s not as if this is the running theme which is mentioned on the back of the volume itself — with said theme being identified as the fulfillment of wishes and their unfortunate consequences — and yet, it is still undeniably there.

Oswald feels like his Dad doesn’t really care about him, feels invisible to him, and is generally unhappy and bored with the way his monotonous, unpleasant life is in their dying town. Sarah, as we’ll further discuss soon, hates her own body and feels ugly, undesirable, and utterly invisible because of it, thinking that there’s no happiness to be found in life unless she fundamentally changes herself to be more in line with what’s considered conventionally pretty. And lastly, Millie — well, Millie’s plight we’ll get around to later, when we discuss Count the Ways, but trust me when I say that she is absolutely not the exception to this rule, and if anything, is actually even more extreme than the others in a lot of ways.

I know some people might say that it probably just lined up that way because the characters being unhappy was the necessary motivator for them to even have wishes in the first place, but that isn’t necessarily true; yes, they would need to be unhappy in some way with their current life, but that discontent didn’t have to stem from those precise, very specific troubles.

As a matter of fact, Oswald’s wish itself — the one that was “granted” to him through his discovery of the ballpit — had absolutely nothing in particular to do with his struggle of feeling ignored and not cared about; rather, it stemmed mostly just from the fact that he was feeling bored, and while yes, that boredom was technically because of these issues, he could very easily have just been bored without meeting any of the criteria here, so it seems very intentional that he was nevertheless written so that he did meet them — just as it does with every other main character in the book.

The fact that they all met every single one of these points has to mean something, it’s just a matter of what…and, honestly, if you’ve read my previous article, then I think you probably already know where I’m going with this.

But, for now, let’s reel it back in and just focus on Sarah’s story and who I think she and her struggles represent individually, since I think it’s easier to build a case up for something like this if you first take it one step at a time.

I’m sure you’re well aware where I stand on it, but I’ll go ahead and say it plainly anyway: I think that the character of Sarah is a stand-in for Michael, potentially in more ways than just as far as it relates to fulfilling his role in the story’s intentional bastardization of Sister Location.

Yes, I realize that there are probably plenty of people who are going to disagree with me on this, and I can understand why; at a cursory glance, Sarah and Michael don’t really seem very alike beyond what happened to them, and, if anything, I’m sure Elizabeth is probably the first canon character to come to mind when people see a story involving a girl and Circus Baby-like robot — especially one she looks up to and views as extraordinarily beautiful and perfect.

Combine that with the fact that a great many people borrow from the explicitly alternate universe Silver Eyes trilogy in their headcanons for how William was to her as a father (as well as other, equally dubious sources of information), and I’m sure that a fair number would be quite convinced that the Afton girl just meets every criteria on the board necessary to be an obvious parallel to Sarah and all of her troubles and concerns.

…She’s really not, though — not in hardly any sense of the word.

Let’s review the smaller bits of evidence that could be used to support this theory, and see how they hold up to scrutiny:

1: “Sarah is explicitly mentioned to have an older brother in college who is majoring in computer science and might know about [the concept of something like Eleanor] — a clear reference to Elizabeth having an older brother, Michael.” …Not…really. Sure, Sarah and Elizabeth both have older brothers, and with Sarah being 14 and college having the potential to accept students well into their 20s or even older, you could really stretch it to say that they have a similar age gap, but there’s honestly no proof of this whatsoever; talking in terms of statistics and probabilities, the gap they have is much more likely to be closer to what Elizabeth would’ve had with Garret than what she had with Michael.

As for the brother’s profession, this…actually has no connection to Michael whatsoever; yes, he’s familiar with the animatronics, but that’s because his father makes them for a living, and later on — long after Elizabeth’s death, I might add — he works around and perpetually deals with them as a night security guard at Freddy’s, too.

A lot of people have brothers. A lot of people in this franchise have people who in some way know something about technology or animatronics; this is not a smoking gun in any way, shape, or form. The details just don’t match up enough to make for a compelling piece of evidence. They don’t even mention a name.

2: “The story makes mention of frozen yogurt/ice cream a few times, and has Sarah eat it; this is meant to be a reference to Circus Baby, and the fact that a vanilla ice cream cone was what she used to lure Elizabeth to her death. That makes Sarah Elizabeth.” This is an even bigger reach than the mention of Sarah having a brother.

Yes, ice cream/frozen yogurt is mentioned in the book a few times, very passingly, but the purpose of its mention is less about the treat itself and more a means by which to discuss the fact that the Beautifuls seem to be able to eat whatever they want without gaining an ounce, and Sarah feels like she can’t (as well as potential symbolism for the fact that the Beautifuls are cold and self-indulgent). At no point is Sarah mentioning how much she loves ice cream — and she does talk at decent length about foods she is actually partial to, like pizza — or even picking a flavor that would have a hint of significance towards that tragic canon event, explicitly choosing swirl over the option for vanilla. At no point is the ice cream relevant to the plot, or in any form connected to her death at the end of the book, which it absolutely should be if this was truly meant to be a parallel between those events.

The graphic novel does feel like it puts a little bit more emphasis on the inclusion of the food, but this is ironically only because it does a poor job at explaining the reason it was brought up in its source material in the first place, and it entirely skips over Sarah having a date at an ice cream shop, too — oddly making it stand out even more, simply because it feels like an almost pointless inclusion, whereas in the book it makes perfect sense. It’s not a deliberate choice, it’s just another meaningless point of contention that says nothing other than that the graphic novel is really bad at conveying, even with the help of visuals, what the book easily conveys with just words alone.

3: “Sarah wants to have blonde hair; Elizabeth is (strawberry) blonde.” Yes, correct…but an emphasis should be placed on wants; Sarah is not blonde, nor does she become blonde even when all her wishes are otherwise granted. Sarah is a brunette. If Scott wanted to make Sarah a parallel to Elizabeth, having her share her hair color — or at least succeed in obtaining her hair color later, when her wishes were granted — would have been an easy way to help nudge readers in the direction of viewing her as a metaphor for Elizabeth despite a great scarcity of other solid evidence, but he deliberately chose instead to give her the brown hair and blue eyes of Elizabeth’s brother Michael, instead of the near instantly recognizable (strawberry) blonde and green eyes of the one some allege that he meant to portray.

Yes, in the To Be Beautiful-inspired mini-game of the Into the Pit video game adaption, Eleanor does make Sarah blonde, but this was clearly done because if it wasn’t, it would be unrecognizable in an 8-bit artstyle that Eleanor had changed her head much at all. I don’t particularly like the change exactly because I feel it muddies the waters in this way and has the potential for causing confusion, but I do understand why it was done, and it wasn’t because Scott wanted to retcon how Sarah looked; it was because it was the only simple way to convey the change in that part of her appearance — the same as changing her clothes was one of the easiest ways to convey a lot of the change in her body.

4: “Sarah likes soft pink, as evidenced by her nails and lipstick post-transformation; Elizabeth’s room in FNAF 4 was decorated all in pink.” …Well, for one thing, we don’t know for sure that that room belonged to Elizabeth; I certainly agree that it is Elizabeth’s room, I 100% believe that that is the intended interpretation, but it should be said that it’s not actually been confirmed, and there are people out there who choose to believe it’s Michael’s.

For reasons that should be obvious if you know my semi-controversial stance on FNAF 4, I pretty strongly disagree with the interpretation that that room is Michael’s, unless we’re assuming a change of houses (and decor tastes) happened by the time the night sections of FNAF 4 rolled around, but it is an interpretation that exists, and so it does bear mentioning.

Even if it is Elizabeth’s room, though — and again, I agree that it is — a girl liking pink isn’t really some groundbreaking thing, given that at this current point in time, that is the well-known stereotype (and many girls do, in fact, like pink, though it has little to do with gender). Saying, “this girl likes pink, so she must be this other girl who likes pink” is just….not really the best argument I’ve seen, if we’re being honest — especially when one of the main plot points of the story is that Sarah wants to adhere to the conventional beauty standards for her gender.

—

Well, even if we don’t have any of that, we at least still have the fact that Elizabeth clearly felt pretty much everything Sarah did about herself, right? In the Silver Eyes trilogy, Elizabeth was constantly neglected by her Dad in favor of his inventions — with that universe’s equivalent of Circus Baby being his main focus at the time when she was alive — longing to be loved and wanted like Baby was, to be perfect like Baby was, and even after dying and possessing Baby, neither she nor Baby were ever happy or content with themselves because he immediately moved on to just trying to use her to get something better, leaving her to feel like she wasn’t enough and grow jealous of the current object of his interest. That’s a perfect fit for the secondary theme I keep mentioning in this volume, and not a bad comparison to Sarah by any means, isn’t it?

I mean, yeah, it’s not too far off the mark, but…we’re not talking about The Silver Eyes’ Elizabeth here; there would be no point in Sarah being a parallel for an alternate universe version of Elizabeth, just to tell us what we already know about her — and despite fairly popular opinion, the Elizabeth from the main games’ canon, whom this would be about if it was about any Elizabeth, isn’t canonically like the one in the Silver Eyes. Neither is William, in regards to the way he largely treats his kids.

Look, I know that people can have their different interpretations of characters wherever the blanks aren’t filled in, and that’s perfectly fine, but there comes a point where you have to be able to look at canon and distinguish whether what you choose to believe about a character is a headcanon (something that doesn’t conflict with official canon, but also doesn’t necessarily have anything backing it), or an alternate universe interpretation (which is something that conflicts with canonical information in a way that renders it impossible to reconcile with official canon, no matter how cool or fun the idea may be).

It’s perfectly fine if some of you like the idea of a William Afton who is abusive and/or neglectful of all of his kids, and I 100% encourage you to play around with that in your creations, if that’s what makes you happy, but canonically, in terms of the mainline games, it needs to be recognized that as far as any 100% confirmable canon is concerned, that is not what William is; William did not neglect or abuse Elizabeth. William did not neglect or abuse Garret. There is nothing confirmable in main canon which suggests this, and everything that suggests otherwise.

If William did not care about Garret or Elizabeth, he would not be on a mission to “put them back together”, to the point of temporarily enlisting the only child whom he does canonically resent to help him do it.

If William did not care about Garret, he would not have sat at his child’s bedside and begged him to wake up. If William did not care about Elizabeth, he would not have tried to protect her from Baby. The entire point of mainline FNAF — and what makes it so compelling — is that William is shown to just have originally been a father who lost himself when he lost his child and went progressively more and more mad in his grief as his refusal to let go just kept causing him to lose more, until he had truly become a monster (in more than one sense of the word) practically beyond all recognition. It is the contrast between him, Henry, and Michael in how they deal with their grief that makes them all such good characters.

There is no point in confirmable canon in which Elizabeth says or implies that her father mistreated her prior to her death, and she even goes so far as to say in the end of Pizzeria Simulator that she believes that the entire pizzeria and Michael taking the job was all a gift for them (his children) from their father, which I can’t imagine her saying if she thought he didn’t care about her or them. By all accounts, she speaks very lovingly of him.

So no, as far as we know, the actual main canon Elizabeth does not fit the bill for the running secondary theme of this volume, which means that she does not really fit Sarah.

And as for the Silver Eyes’ interpretation of Elizabeth, I do feel it’s very important to just draw attention to one thing: in that alternate universe, William did not have multiple children; there was not a Garret or a Michael through whose fates we could mark his complex descent into madness through grief. This was intentional; there was no Garret in William’s life because in the Silver Eyes, if William had a Garret to mourn and to obsess over returning to life at all costs, he would not have been the antithesis to Henry, who instead took his role with his grief over his late daughter, Charlie. If William had had an Elizabeth he loved, he would not have been the contrast to the loving father that Henry was, and Elizabeth/Baby would not have had a reason to be jealous of Charlie, who had a father who loved her so dearly, and that was very clearly what they were going for.

As a result, the Silver Eyes Elizabeth was not just Elizabeth — she was a unique-to-that-universe creation who fulfilled a role that was a mix between her mainline canon counterpart and the mainline canon Michael — a little girl born of William Afton to die tragically to Baby, but also a child for William to neglect and then act cruel/cold/disdainful towards and make suffer in the name of his endeavors.

Trying to compare anyone in the Silver Eyes in a straightforward way to their main canon namesakes and expecting everything (or even most things) to transfer over is a fruitless endeavor, because no one there is entirely themselves; they’re what the narrative needs them to be in order to work the way it wants. That’s why it’s an alternate universe.

And finally, as we’ve discussed in the previous section, Elizabeth already has a main character counterpart in Eleanor, when it comes to To Be Beautiful; Eleanor very clearly represents Circus Baby after she’s been possessed by Elizabeth, and the overall plot is meant to mirror the events of Sister Location, so why would she need to also be represented by the character who happens to be the stand-in for Michael in every other instance?

It’s much more sensible to assume that Elizabeth is represented by the main character who parallels — well, Elizabeth, and that Michael is represented by the main character who is an obvious stand-in for him.

Besides, Michael has so much more in common with Sarah, to begin with. Think about it:

1: We already know that in terms of the main plot and how it relates to Sister Location, Sarah is meant to be filling Michael’s space, so it would hardly be a leap of logic to say that it would make the most sense if the person she is meant to parallel in other ways is also Michael, rather than some random other character whom we aren’t already thinking about.

2: Sarah and Michael both share the same mousy brown hair and blue eyes, making for a compelling argument to an intentional physical resemblance despite the difference in gender.

3: Furthermore, going by both the descriptions in the book and the artwork of the graphic novel, apart from characteristics brought on by age, Sarah bares a strong, almost uncanny likeness to her Mom — perfectly paralleling how Michael and his father, William, are canonically near identical in appearance, as well.

4: Given that there is a certain passage in the story, during the point where Sarah is having her first ‘interview’ with the Beautifuls, where it is explicitly stated, “Sarah tried not to bristle at the word ‘Dad’.”, I think it is safe to say that both she and Michael have issues and/or an overall adversary — or at least strained — relationship with their fathers, as well. We know from the mainline canon that Michael definitely does, for as much as there might have been a part of him that once wanted to win his love and attention when he was young.

5: Throughout the book, Sarah has a best friend named Abby, whom she has been so close to for most of her life that she basically grew up with her; Abby can occasionally be used as a nickname for ‘Elizabeth’, and in the alternate universe FNAF movie, Michael’s sister — who is very clearly meant to be Elizabeth — is called Abby, as well.

I don’t think that Abby is necessarily meant to be Elizabeth in the story, by any means, for reasons that should already be clear, but I do think that this is supposed to be yet another attempt at making parts of Sarah’s life mirror Michael’s in a way.

6: In one part of the tale, Sarah remarks how Eleanor is definitely “more alive than the stuffed Freddy Fazbear she’d had on her bed since she was six”, and again makes reference to said Freddy plush later on, when she picks it up to hug it, while telling Eleanor about her day.

If you happen to subscribe to the same belief that I do that the night sections of FNAF 4 take place in Michael’s bedroom, and that Michael is the one being terrorized by animatronics fitted with illusion discs by his father, then you’d know that Michael very notably has a stuffed Freddy Fazbear on his bed that this could be a reference to, as could the vague suggestion that Sarah’s stuffed Freddy hadn’t “come to life”, as appeared to happen in a sense to young Michael during this time.

7. Not exactly a smoking gun by any means, but Sarah and Abby both very openly love pizza in this, even if Sarah stopped eating it for quite a while out of a desire to avoid carbs, and Sarah even seems to be something of a connoisseur in the way she narrates the fact that the pizza at the cafeteria isn’t that bad for what it was, making an implication she’s had better, more fresh pizza.

Michael is also quite familiar with pizza, given that it’s his family’s business, as would his sister Elizabeth be, and in the Security Logbook, one of the perks of the job of working at Freddy’s that Michael mentions is “employees get free pizza”, implying that he does quite enjoy it — even enough that it could be considered a perk of an otherwise extremely dangerous and largely unpleasant, generally low-paying job.

8: Despite knowing full well how they can be, Sarah seems to nevertheless idolize and greatly want to be a part of The Beautifuls, who are ultimately just a glorified group of spoiled, wealthy bullies. This is, truthfully, not very different at all from the fact that Michael used to hang out with what appeared to be a group of bullies when he was a young teen, also around Sarah’s stated age.

9: A lot of Sarah’s specific complaints about herself and her life have a lot of potential subtle symbolism relating to Foxy, and the various versions of the character that have been made over the years — and I don’t think I have to explain how important Foxy symbolism generally is, when we’re talking about Michael.

Here’s just a few of the notable examples I’ve picked up on:

Sarah’s obsessions with the faults of her physical appearance are, and I quote, a “bulbous nose”, “prominent ears,” and the fact that “all her parts seem stuck onto her body at random” — over which she then compares herself to “Mrs. Mix-n-match”. Both the bulbous nose and prominent ears are some of the very defining features of Foxy in nearly every iteration, and, of course, although I know Mrs. Mix-n-Match was meant to be a parallel to our world’s Mrs. Potato Head, I can’t help but feel that the way Sarah describes herself and even the name of the toy itself strongly bring to mind the image of Mangle, too.

Although this game came out a year later, I also find it important to note that Roxy — an obviously related character and later a replacement for Foxy during Security Breach’s era — shares many of Sarah’s self-worth and self-image issues, which can often lead her to act like something of a bully to compensate. She also mentions that “nobody likes a loser”, and Sarah in this book plainly states that she doesn’t like to sit at the “loser table” and refuses to do so anymore. This may not be an intentional parallel on the book’s part, as Security Breach obviously did not much exist at that time (if at all) even in the development stage, but it is certainly possible that it could be the other way around, and Roxy could be designed the way she is exactly because of Sarah/Michael, and the fact that she is technically an iteration of Foxy. Just food for thought, I guess.

—

Above all, though, as I began to explore in my previous article, Michael and Sarah’s very biggest common-ground that they share is that secondary underlying theme that pervades this entire book and all three of its full stories — that same feeling of being unlovable, unwanted, invisible when it comes to anything good, and feeling that life in its current state is empty and meaningless.

And if there’s still any doubt of that — still some lingering question of if that could really be an accurate reading of Michael — let us put that to rest immediately, because out of all the iterations of Michael that exist thus far, there is no iteration in which the canon of that universe does not at least show it to be perfectly fitting to his personality — if not blatantly showing and stating it.

In the alternate universe FNAF movie, while avoiding as many spoilers as possible, Michael very clearly carries the weight of guilt over his past mistakes, feels unwanted and invisible to the person he cares about most — not to mention undeserving of being in that person’s life, and later, even shows signs of not particularly caring what happens to him anymore and that life isn’t worth living if he can’t change how it is.

In the mainline canon, through both the games and the Security Logbook, we can see that Michael is deeply regretful of what he did to Garret and, after doing all he could to help his sister who technically died because of that action, as well, states, himself, that the only thing left for him is to continue to live on long enough to right all the harm that he inadvertently caused through a domino effect resulting out of Garret’s death, and find and stop his father. It is very clear, especially through both the Security Logbook and heavily suggested in Pizzeria Simulator, that he feels life beyond this is meaningless and longs to die once it’s all over.

And for the final nail in the coffin of every clear and undeniable Michael interpretation strongly lending to all of the aforementioned themes applying to and being true of Michael in the mainline canon of the games, there is even also a story that comes later in Fazbear Frights — called Lonely Freddy — which is much more undeniably directly about Michael as a person, in which his very obvious stand-in has almost this exact mindset (though that will have to wait, as I don’t want to give out spoilers for future books and tales here).

…But what can we really learn about Michael from To Be Beautiful? Even if what I say here is true, then what could this tale possibly have to contribute that the rest of this volume and that aforementioned later book don’t? If anything, wouldn’t this just be echoing that same general theme and sentiment?

…Well, yes, it would — but that doesn’t mean that examining the specific ways that theme manifests in this story and Sarah’s unique attributes can’t contribute anything new to the conversation. I absolutely think it can.

So, without further ado — as I think this article is getting incredibly long already — here are some things that I personally find to be quite interesting and potentially very revealing when applied to Michael’s character, and why:

1: First of all, to start this off strong with my most robust dissection of Michael's character, there's the parallel between the bullies he used to hang out with as a teen and Sarah's Beautifuls.

In To Be Beautiful, Sarah very clearly has an issue with idolizing bullies and bullying behavior, using her own self-hatred and body image issues to justify the behavior of those she deemed better than herself in some way. It's a sad but interesting thought process to examine — the way that she felt that those who possessed what she herself wanted had the right to look down on her and others simply for not having it, and that she should be honored to even be in their presence for a moment, if they happened to entertain her.

She kept pictures of models on her wall, but not as inspiration in any positive sense of the word; rather, she ended up allowing it to be yet another way to make her feel worse about herself, and even imagined these "goddesses of beauty" mocking her and telling her she had no hope of ever being as pretty as they were.

In Sarah's mind, the supreme, inherent beauty of people like this — especially the Beautifuls — magically shielded them from all of life's pain and embarrassment, and to be accepted by them meant to be covered by that same forcefield, and given status, meaning, worth.

They had high status not because they were rich or had influential parents who could afford to give them anything they wanted and remove any obstacles placed in their way, but because they were beautiful — or at least, that was how she viewed it.

And she wanted that more than anything else. She wanted that, and she wanted to feel valued, and if the Beautifuls — who judged practically everyone but the ‘best’ — valued her and let her run with them, then she had the undeniable proof and reassurance she desperately sought and needed, even once she was already ‘beautiful’, that she had ‘true’ worth.

Applying this philosophy to Michael has an…interesting effect and implication.

While we’ll get into discussion of whether or not there’s anything potentially to be said about Michael and how he feels about his own appearance later, I think it’s very safe to say that, regardless of the answer, that’s obviously not what motivated him when it came to him joining the bully group he was a part of in his teens.

Still, it doesn’t have to be about beauty to tie back to Sarah and her philosophy; if we look at it logically, then like with Sarah, Michael’s reason for looking up to and joining the bullies must have been based off of three things: his own lack of self-worth and a need for that to be validated, the ability to gain status that helped him feel above life’s pain and embarrassment, and them having something he doesn’t, but wishes he had.

The second reason is very simple to work out and requires no pondering at all, as we know for a fact that obviously, being a bully in any capacity does grant you freedom from a lot of life’s inconveniences, as many people will be intimidated enough by you that you gain a certain level of status and free pass to do whatever you want without consequence. Despite Sarah’s (and hence, Michael’s) initial beliefs, it obviously does not truly protect you from all pain or humiliation, no, but it does grant you a significant edge, even if through rather unfortunate means.

As for the first reason, that is also very much tied to the third, so to answer one is to inevitably answer the other, but if not beauty, what was Michael’s greatest insecurity and desire?

Did he want to be wealthy, as the Beautifuls were? Obviously, the answer is no; looking at what little we can observe of Michael’s bully cohorts in his teens and what we can gather of some of them in their present lives, they didn’t particularly appear to be wealthy, and more than likely, given how successful Fredbear’s Family Diner was, Michael’s family would’ve been the richest out of all of them, even if they did appear to choose to live fairly humbly.

The only possible choice, then, is — as I posited in my previous article, and as is backed up by a later story — Michael’s greatest insecurity was in feeling that he was invisible to and largely unloved by his father and/or family in general, compared to his siblings, and, whether or not he originally particularly liked the power the bullies had and flaunted (something of which we cannot easily say one way or another at this point in time), he nevertheless looked up to them for how unaffected they were in life and potentially how their parents spoiled and loved them, and he simultaneously satisfied his loneliness and further fed the beast by choosing to be around them so that he could feel wanted and accepted by at least someone, feel power over at least something when he felt powerless elsewhere, and (as posited previously) act out more and more in an attempt to get the acknowledgement from his father or family that he craved so desperately.

And yet, this also raises a question; if, like Sarah, Michael perhaps believed that the bullies had the right to do what they wanted because they’d earned it through what they had (even if, in their case, it was mostly just power over their lives and the support of the parents), why didn’t he feel the same way about — as we know happened, both according to UCN and the later Lonely Freddy story I keep speaking of — Garret pranking him or otherwise (usually unintentionally) making his life harder? Wouldn’t he feel like he deserved it?

Actually, no, because Sarah was equally a hypocrite about it, when it came to those closer to her, for, despite expressing several times in both narration and dialogue that she believed Abby was beautiful and just didn’t flaunt it (and thus, should have gotten the same level of excusing as the Beautifuls did ), the moment that she felt judged by Abby, Sarah became angry and lashed out at her, because “friends were supposed to be the people who didn’t judge you”. — even though the Beautifuls were, in fact, allowed to judge her and set a standard for her even after they were supposedly friends.

I suppose, in their minds, it’s fine when it’s people who are consistently judgy or cruel to others from the moment you’ve met them, but not fine when it’s someone you grew up with and who is usually supposed to have your back.

2: And now, for probably the most burning question, does Sarah’s emphasis on body image issues have any potential to carry over to Michael, based on what we know of the mainline canon?

Well, going into this, I was fairly certain the resounding answer was just going to be ‘no’, but…after thinking it over and reviewing what we know is canon, I actually think there might be something to it, in a more mild sense.

I obviously don’t think that Michael feels he’s ugly; with the game version of Into the Pit giving us a new and unique, likely canon photograph of William and Henry, and with Sister Location blatantly confirming that Michael looks almost just like his father, I think it’s pretty safe to safe that Michael Afton is likely very conventionally attractive by most standards.

Now, that’s not to say it’s impossible that Michael could think he isn’t, regardless — it very clearly is, since Sarah hates her own appearance and thinks she’s ugly despite her looking just like her Mom, who she clearly thinks is pretty — but given canon, I think it makes more sense to say that if Michael does hate his appearance, it’s less because he isn’t attractive, and more because he looks just like his serial killer, child murdering father.

It would not surprise me in the least if, like Sarah, the mirror we see Michael staring into in Sister Location is indeed his worst enemy, because every time he looks into it, he’s reminded of his Dad, and what he himself did that caused all of this bloodshed in the first place.

It may have even sent him into an existential crisis now and again, as both he and his dad are technically both murderers in their own right. Did it perhaps make him spend hours wondering if, like their physical appearances, they really weren’t as different as he would want to believe?

And if there was a point in time pre- or during Sister Location when he wished to distance himself from that, then I’m sure that just like Sarah, there was eventually a moment of regret for that wish, when he finally looked into the mirror some time after being scooped and could barely recognize the mangled and failing (even if attempting to mend through remnant in spite of Ennard’s intrusion) body in front of him.

There’s clearly no way to know at this point in time, but I do find the implication rather interesting.

3: Going back to the Beautifuls and the bully symbolism for a moment, I do think there is a certain point of interest in some of the symbolism surrounding them and Sarah’s desire to join them.

The way that Abby compares the Beautifuls to a type of animal (penguins) because they are not varied or unique enough in appearance to truly be distinguishable from one another and the fact that Sarah had to get an entirely new face — more or less putting on a non-removable mask — to be acceptable among them, brings to mind, for me, the bullies that Michael associated with and joined around her age, and the concept of both having to wear a both figurative and semi-literal mask to be a part of them, and the comparison to animals in their lack of recognizable features definitely brings to mind the way that those bullies all wore masks of the Fazbear animatronic animal gang.

That could just be me, though.

4: I do think the fact that Sarah deciding to try to improve her life circumstances by buying the hair dye and just ending up more literally green (with envy) in the process has symbolism for something about Michael that is later revealed in Lonely Freddy, but as that would require spoilers for that story in order to explain it, I’ll just list this here for now as something to remember, and we’ll get back to it in that post.

5: Although, I don’t believe Abby is actually meant to be a stand-in for Elizabeth in any meaningful or lasting capacity beyond adding another similarity between Sarah and Michael in who they have a sibling-like dynamic with, there is at least one or two bits in the story that may have some relevance to either Elizabeth or Garret’s relationship with Michael.

In the book, it’s explained that Abby and Sarah grew up together and used to have a very close, sibling-like dynamic where they played together, but that Sarah eventually changed as she grew older and that she more or less had taken the attitude that she had “outgrown” Abby’s world and was now too focused on “fixing” her situation and obsessing over the Beautifuls (despite them being bullies) to hang out with her as she once did — feeling that Abby just didn’t understand her plight because she isn’t mature enough to get it.

For reasons that will become clear in Lonely Freddy, I’m not completely convinced this can apply to Garret, so I’m going to say that it’s Elizabeth this is mirroring, as not only is the character’s name a nickname for Elizabeth, but the dialogue from Scrap Baby in Pizzeria Simulator seems to hint that she and Michael may have had a slightly closer and more innocently playful relationship, but it’s open to interpretation.

Either way, the point is still the same: if applicable to Michael, this information would imply that once Michael began feeling invisible, the distance between him and his sibling(s) grew greatly, as he isolated himself from them more and more, feeling that they didn’t understand or care about the situation he was in and the fact they contributed to it. (Which is, intriguingly, information that UCN seems to partially back, at least in regards to Garret — minus, as far as I can recall, the implication that they were ever extremely close.)

Not really a big revelation, but still worth bringing up, I think.

6: In general, I think that Sarah getting to feel better about herself each of the four days of the transformation and getting closer to her ideal self while (unintentionally, in her case) helping Eleanor out could easily be very symbolic of the fact that helping Elizabeth — in the form of Circus Baby — was clearly Michael’s very first major act of self-redemption, and most likely did help him to feel at least a little less of the self-hatred he would’ve still felt over his other sibling’s tragic death, and gradually brought him one step closer to what he believed at the time would be making up for his mistakes.

7: While not really big or deeply significant enough to warrant their own separate little points in this list, there are just a few little lines from the book that I’d like to highlight as particularly capturing my attention when thinking about the subject of how Sarah relates to Michael:

“She might as well get used to being alone. She was always going to be alone.” Just more potential symbolism for how Michael felt in his day to day life growing up (and potentially even after, when it became clear that his father had only chosen him to help Baby because he knew he would agree). Nothing mind-blowing — the line just stood out to me.

“She felt sad, then she felt scared, and then she felt nothing at all.” Probably one of the saddest lines in the book, and even sadder when you realize that this is likely how Michael felt in the moment of being scooped, before his body was taken over. Sadness over being betrayed by his own sister and even his father, fear over what was clearly about to happen, and then nothing, once the scooper had done its job, until he eventually regained some form of consciousness to find his body being used.

There are a few other smaller things we could potentially examine in this way, but given there’s no major evidence towards those at this present moment other than that they’re true of Sarah, and Sarah is a stand-in for Michael, I think it’s better to leave it here for now.

Instead, as one last small topic that I don’t put half as much heavy stock in, but would still like to highlight anyway, for those of you in search of the elusive Mrs. Afton’s name (it almost certainly isn’t Clara, since the Security Logbook confirms that Michael in particular is the one who relates to Clara and her plight, and makes no mention of it being his Mom’s name), there may be something worth examining here — at least if you believe that Ballora could have been made to represent Mrs. Afton.

If you’d like to hear a more in-depth explanation of this, you can (and should!) check out this little video here by another smaller FNAF creator, but the basics are that the name Eleanor has ties back to the name “Lora”, which Ballora’s name could very easily be a combination of the word “Ballerina” and the name “Lora”. Meaning that it is possible that Mrs. Afton’s name is actually Eleanor, and because this story’s version of Circus Baby is more like an adult woman, she is using her mother’s name instead of Elizabeth, as a cover name.

…And with that, I believe we are actually, finally done here with this analysis of To Be Beautiful; it certainly ended up much, much longer than I expected it to be, despite my having already expected that it would be one of the longest I would write, but I hope that it was worth it to read.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one, when we’ll talk about Count the Ways!

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georgiapeach30513 · 2 years ago

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Misguided Ghosts, Part 7

Summary: It’s time for little Rosewyn Penelope Jensen

Pairings: Jake Jensen X Reader, Jake Jensen X Charles Blackwood

Rating: mature

Warnings: language, childbirth, mentions of going mad, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 2.5K

Series Masterlist

*dividers by @firefly-graphics

Strawberries. It’s all your little Rosewyn wanted to eat. Strawberry anything. Jake had made sure that there was a fresh stock of strawberry ice cream, strawberry yogurt, strawberry lollipops, strawberry wafers, strawberry Kit Kats, strawberry jam, strawberry preserves, and of course all the strawberries you could want. Varying different sizes, and colors, and something called pine berries that definitely looked like pink strawberries to you. Rosewyn Penelope loved those the most.

You stop your cutting of the pine berries to rub over your belly, “You better quit it,” you warn her. “I know you want a bite to eat, but if you don’t stop hurting mommy, you’re not getting anything,” your little angel quits kicking for a moment, and you pop one of the pink berries into your mouth.

“I’m making a strawberry, er, pine berry pie for us for tonight’s dessert. We’ll have some whipped cream, and…oh,” you grab at your stomach again, “Rosewyn, darling, please, the oven is nearly preheated.”

She won’t talk to you, ya know? Charles rolls his eyes, but still watches you curiously. There was a beauty to the way you moved around with just you and your bump. You loved the thought of being pregnant. Adored her already. I just don’t understand why you do the things you do. Even when she comes out of you, she’ll be dumb.

Your head perks up, and you turn to look behind you, staring directly at Charles who freezes. Did you hear me? Rosewyn, I apologize, but babies are dumb.

Taking a deep breath, because you felt yourself going crazy in this house. You swore you heard something. You start humming Brahms lullaby, ignoring whatever it was you heard. You have heard more voices since being pregnant. More reason to think you and Jake weren’t alone. That portrait had to go. You didn’t care if it was burned or taken to a museum, he had to go.

“Ugh,” you squeeze at your stomach again, slamming the knife on the counter, “Little lady if you don’t…oh shit,” trickles of liquid start drifting down your leg, and your lip starts to tremble. “J-J-Jake,” you squeak out, knowing that there was no way that he heard that. “Shit, ahh!” Crumpling up from the pain that lights up your body.

Charles stares at you dumbfounded for a moment, about to curse you for peeing on the floor. Oh shit! Your water broke.

“I’m seriously going crazy. Ahh!” You scream, starting to sink to the floor.

Jake! Jacob Jensen! Charles jumps from the counter, ready to find your boyfriend who was still sleeping away.

“I wanted to surprise, daddy!” You cry out, getting upset that the pie was most definitely put on hold. “Rosewyn, you love the pink strawberries.”

“Jake!” Charles materializes, starting to shake Jake awake. “Jacob!”

“Only my mother calls me that,” he mumbles, flopping over on the other side. “Go away. I’m mad at you.”

“Be mad, but,” he didn’t have to say anything when you scream again, and Jake jolts awake on the bed. “Yeah, she’s in labor.”

“You could have said something. Damn…how long?”

“That mucus plug you two were talking about is in my kitchen.”

“Really? You’re going to complain about something like that?” Jake asks, grabbing at his glasses. “These are dirty.”

“Jake! Jake, I think the baby is coming!”

“Damn. Shit! Fuck! Asshole,” he points a finger at Charles. “I’m putting clothes on! Uh,” Jake didn’t have time to think as he grabs up what he wore yesterday, and Charles turns up his nose, “I’ve got clothes in the bag beside the door…did I put it beside the door? Is it in the car? In the closet?”

“That monstrosity of yours, hers, and my daughter’s clothes is beside the door. You tripped over it, remember? Because it’s too big. Why do you need so many things?” Jake nods his head, slipping on some boots, without tying them. “Wait?”

“A baby is going to be coming out of my girlfriend, and you’re asking me to wait? Seriously? Timing, dude.”

“I’m not your dude. I just…” Jake’s eyes go wide, urging Charles to hurry with whatever he was wanting to ask, “Can I try and enter your body, and leave? There is a strong possibility she’s mine or at least both of ours. I want to be there.”

“Huh?”

“I know I’m an ass.”

“Yeah, threatening us. That’s my girlfriend, and my daughter, and you…you’re a meanie.”

“Jake! Hurry!”

“But I did help you land your girl, I should be there. I want to be there, and it might not even work,” staring with an irritated face, Jake holds his hands open wide, lifting his head to the ceiling. “Is this an invitation?”

“Are you a vampire? You have my permission to enter my body.”

“Jake!” You growl as Charles steps into Jake’s body, and Jake runs down the stairs, and into the kitchen where you were doubled over, trying to breathe steadily. “What. The. Hell. Took you so long?”

“I was…breathing?” You look up at him, and if looks could kill, Jake would be as dead as Charles. “I’m sorry, I’m kind of a…new man right now, and…wow, honey, you were making us a pine berry pie? Rosewyn would have been so happy.”

“Rosewyn is clawing her way out of my vagina.”

“Really?” He quips; his voice going up an octave.

“No, not really. But your daughter is also…ugh…” your eyes roll into the back of your head, as you grunt through the contraction. “She’s impatient Jake…can we?”

“Yeah, right. Right…oh can I look?” Your head jerks up to look at him so fast, and you curl your lip up at him. “Like, am I allowed to look when she’s playing peek-a-boo with your vagina?”

“Are you going to fuck me again?” You ask, directing Jake to walk you out the door.

Why would you want to see that?

“I like seeing your cunt stretched out,” he shrugs.

I worry about you. This is weird.

“It’s not weird. It’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s sexual, but this is beautiful. Our daughter is going to be squeezing out of your vagina. Yes, I’ll continue to have sex with you, Giggles, I’ve wanted this since we became friends.”

“You have?” You sweetly ask, stopping just to look up at him. He nods, smiling and gives you a kiss, “Jake, we’re about to be….ah! We gotta go. Let’s go.”

“Wish us luck,” Jake mumbles, hoping that he doesn’t feel Charles get jerked out of his body after he walks out of the house. Or leaves the property. Or…Jake wasn’t exactly sure where Charles was going to be cut off. He was thankful that for once Charles was quiet. Letting Jake fully be present with you.

He tries to flip his eyes to the back of his head, wondering if he could spy Charles. Would he know if he was still even with him? Would Rosewyn pop out of your body, and she glowed like how Charles sometimes did? He was starting to worry. He had too many questions.

“Yes!” Charles screams through Jake’s voice, and both you and Jake jolt at the scream. You turn to look at him confused, as he straightens the car back out.

Sorry. Just thought I’d let you know, I’m still very much present. And I wasn’t poofed back into my chair. Is it because that really is my daughter and I’m able to be with her.

Could you enter into the baby?

What?

“Well, wouldn’t it be neat to feel birth as a baby, but you were conscious as an adult,” trying to breathe through another contraction, you glare at Jake. “I mean, imagine seeing the vagina from the inside out.”

“Our baby is not interested in my vagina, Jake!”

“Oh,” he sheepishly says, apologizing to you. “I’m going to drive a bit faster.”

You’re an idiot. I’m not going to enter into the baby. It’s gross. The only part of me I want in her pussy is my fingers, my tongue, or my fat cock.

Or just use me to fuck her while she’s awake.

Are you ever going to tell her?

Are you?

Both men sit quietly, and Jake offers his hand over to you, and you grab it immediately. Squeezing the life out of his hand, while he grimaces. He didn’t even know what pain was. Didn’t know that you were enduring this for your precious angel.

Is she going to glow?

Who?

The baby. Let’s say the baby is in fact yours or at least a mix of us, will she glow?

I have no clue. I’ve never done this or even know if it’s possible. I saw her looking like a fucking goddess and she was flirting with my portrait, and I wanted to fuck her. Mid fuck I got the bright idea of knocking her up, and then YOU came into the picture. You were never meant to be there.

But…you have no idea what you’re doing? What if there’s like ghost STIs or…

I don’t have a disease! My cock is clean.

But…you just…you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re testing out a theory.

That’s how all good scientists do their research.

Are you a scientist?

No.

I hate you.

I abhor you as well.

“Jake! Slow down, there’s the entrance to the damn hospital! Jake, are you freaking out because you’re about to be a dad?” You were starting to get worried. He was so distracted. It was weird, and made you nervous.

No, he’s just having a conversation with me in his head. Maybe I’m not even really here. Maybe you have descended into madness, and this is all a figment of your imagination.

“I’m so happy about being parents, and more happy because it’s with you. Our Rosewyn Penelope Jensen is going to be so spoiled,” and I hate you!

Ehh, I do think you really have gone mad.

“Oh, she’s…she’s giving birth right now,” the doctor lifts up your blanket, giving an awkward laugh up to you and Jake. “You weren’t lying dad. Look,” he smiles back at a nurse pointing towards you, “Hair.”

“Could you maybe fucking deliver our baby?”

“No need to cuss dad. We gotta wait on a contraction. Yep. There it is,” you hated this place. The doctor was a fucking weirdo. The nurses even looked at him like he was a pariah in his own hospital. They were disgusted by the way he was acting. “Dad, you want to watch?”

You give him a head nod as he steps down to you. His eyebrows go to the top of his head, and he looks back up with an awkward grin, “You feel that?”

“I feel everything,” you groan, pushing again. “Is she out yet?” You pant, getting a moment of rest while you wait. And here comes another one.

“She’s…uh, that’s my baby’s head. Oh! Giggles, keep going, baby. Keep…oh,” he looks up at you confused. And then back down to the doctor fully pulling Rosewyn out of you.

“She’s not crying. Jake, why isn’t crying? Is there something wrong with my baby,” the tears of pain were now worried cries, but then you see her fingers start to bend, “Why isn’t she crying?”

“She’s breathing,” Charles makes Jake turn to glare at the doctor. He had kept his eyes closed inside of Jake. He didn’t need to see you pushing out a baby. But then the doctor brought up the fact she was breathing. She looked a little blue to him. Blue meant ghostling. He was sure of that. “She’s just…she’s very calm. Rosewyn.”

“Don’t you pinch my baby!” Jake screams at him, ready to grab the baby and hold her close to his chest.

“I squeezed her arm,” he gives Jake a shrug, and looks over at you, “Overprotective dad, am I right? So…you guys live at Blackwood Manor?”

“It’s a castle!” Charles shouts through Jake, and Jake retches.

Man stop doing that. It’s making me sick.

“Yeah…so is that where you two live?”

“Can you give me my baby!” What was wrong with this man? You just wanted to hold your daughter, and he was asking about where you lived. “Once I have her, then we can discuss my place of living.”

“Doctor, the baby, she needs her mom,” a nurse looks between you and the doctor. “The mother and baby need each other.”

“Oh, yeah. Won’t have to pinch her anymore. You got a, um,” he stops talking long enough for the nurse to get you situated. “Yeah, uh…my mom always told me that my dad was the illegitimate son of Charles Blackwood.”

What did he just say?

“For real? Like, you’ve got Blackwood blood in you? That creepy…handsome portrait of Charles is in our formal living room,” you couldn’t stop staring at this precious baby. Her eyes blink up at you, and you can't stop your tears. She was perfect. So soft, so beautiful, and she was yours and Jake’s.

“That’s the rumor. Oh, here comes the after birth.”

Please, don’t watch that.

I’m going to watch my baby.

“Jake,” you whine, picking up your daughter who was wide eyed and sight looking around the room. “She never cries. Have you heard her cry?”

“No.”

Because she’s a ghostling. You see a bit of blue in her skin color? Haunting blue.

“She’s fine,” he squeaks, reaching out to hold her. “Are you sleeping?”

“No,” you admit. You couldn’t relax. “I’m afraid that she’ll starve to death. Am I nursing her too much? And then I think she’s always got a dirty diaper, but she just doesn’t cry. She doesn’t whine, doesn’t make a peep. And…something is wrong. Rosewyn, won’t you cry for mommy?”

Oh, my god, Charles rolls his eyes. He walks over to Jake, leaning over Rosewyn, and she sneezes. Looking directly at him, before her mouth turns up into a smile. Most parents would kill to be in your position. A baby that never cries sounds like a walk in the park. And she smiles at me.

“I just feel that there’s something wrong with her.”

“She doesn't look blue,” Jake says too loudly. “She’s perfect. Look at her. She’s a little princess. No! A little angel.”

A little ghost.

“A perfect little angel,” he repeats, pulling you over onto his arms. “And I got the best girls in the world.”

And you're the best delusional step father I’ve ever met. Have you figured out if I’m a ghost or if you’re just going crazy? It’s kinda funny to get into your thoughts, replying to everything. Maybe Jakey Jakey is a bit crazy? Haha…you don’t even know what is real.

“She’s real, Giggles. And she’s really ours.”

You’re going to pretend I don’t exist now aren’t you? Have me in your thoughts for the rest of your life. But ignore me. Ignore my every word as you sink further into your darkness. Your little blue tinted baby that’s really mine, saw me. Do you even know what’s real anymore? Are you even here? Is she even here? Have you created this reality because you couldn’t face the real one? Weren’t you captured in war? Can you be sure what’s real?

“I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted. Right in my arms.”

Live in denial. You and I both know what’s really going on here, don’t we?

Don’t we?

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @sstan-hoe @infatuatedharleys @peaches1958 @pono-pura-vida @feyfantome @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @seitmai @stronginawayjbb @smile1318 @avengersalways @toozmanykids @elrw24 @lavender-annd-lilac @xcaptain-winterx @redbloodedgurl @andydrysdalerogers @bambamwolf87 @cjand10

#misguided ghosts #jake jensen #jake jensen x reader #jake jensen x fem!reader #jake jensen x y/n #jake jensen x you #charles blackwood #ghost!charles blackwood #charles blackwood x reader #charles blackwood x fem!reader #charles blackwood x y/n #charles blackwood x you #jake jensen x reader x charles blackwood #jake jensen fanfiction #jake jensen fics #jake jensen fic #charles blackwood fanfiction #charles blackwood fics #charles blackwood fic

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nekoannie-chan · 2 years ago

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Secrets Chapter 2: The Beginning or The End of Everything? part I

Pairing: Steve Rogers X OFC, Brock Rumlow X OFC.

Word count: 1095 words.

Summary: Sometimes keeping secrets can be dangerous or a heavy burden, which is what Kathleen has been doing for years. She will also be in charge of guiding Steve Rogers into this century; meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be looking for a way to kick-start the Avengers Initiative by integrating her as one of the superheroes, but that won't be the only danger they face.

Warnings: Mutual pinning.

You can read it on Wattpad and Ao3 too.

A/N: After long time working on this longfic, I finally post it. If you wanna be added to the taglist, let me know.

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics to be posted on other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other's people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

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You can read it on Wattpad and Ao3 too. Secrets masterlist. Previous chapter. Next chapter.

The first thing Brock taught her was how to pilot one of the organization's ships. Kath was very surprised at all of his skills.

"After you set the coordinates, you press this button," he explained.

"Brockie, is there anything you don't know how to do?" she asked curiously.

"Create energy fields, move things with your mind, open portals, and read your mind," Brock replied, making her laugh.

"I think we make a good team," Kath said, doing what the other had instructed her to do.

Brock nodded with a smile and turned to see her. He liked that she was happy; he thought she was beautiful, and more so when she laughed. He wanted to kiss her, but it was not the best place, and he did not want them to have an accident.

For the next three months, Brock trained her in the gym in hand-to-hand combat, but he always tried not to hurt her to the extent that she thought he did not take her seriously.

"Brock, what's wrong with you? Do you think I'm weak or what?" she complained, annoyed.

"No, I just don't want to hurt you," Brock answered.

"In the missions, they won't care about that, if we don't train seriously, it won't do any good," Kath exploded as she threw a punch to provoke him, and he stopped her.

"I know, but I'm not going to let anyone hurt you and I don't want to hurt you," he approached her and caressed her cheek, "Come on, I'll buy you lunch," he invited her, and she accepted.

He couldn't stop thinking about her; after these months, he realized that he had fallen in love with her. Suni had told him to go on with his life, so the only thing he was worried about now was losing Kath.

One day he saw Kath chatting animatedly with Klein, and the first thing he thought was that the technician wanted something with her; he simply was not going to allow it; he would not let any agent, technician, or anyone flirt with her; somehow he was going to conquer her, and she was going to be his. When he saw the boy alone, he pulled him from behind, making him crash against the wall.

"What the hell were you doing with Kathleen?" Brock asked him angrily while threatening him with the gun.

"Nothing, we were talking about work "Cameron cowered while he avoided looking at the Commander, terror was invading him, he knew the least about handling weapons because his job didn't include missions or anything where he needed them, so he knew he had no chance against Brock, who was an expert in handling different weapons.

"You better not go near him or talk to him if it's not about work, or else you'll have to deal with me," Brock threatened as he put the gun closer to him.

"Yes, sir," the technician stammered, and Brock pushed him away.

Kathleen never found out what had happened; Cameron was too afraid of Brock, so he only talked to her about work. Rumlow, on the other hand, had to maintain a certain image with her, especially since he wouldn't tell her his big secret, for everyone's sake, especially hers, since she wasn't going to let Pierce hurt her.

They had already had several missions together, sometimes in conjunction with the STRIKE team or with other agents.

Brock loved spending time with Kath, and vice versa. Not to mention that Brock had been there at various times when she had needed him and the other way around. Brock knew everything about Kath, and Kath knew almost everything about Brock, except for one big secret he kept—something she couldn't find out.

Nevertheless, Jack realized the situation; Brock would be in trouble, but now his dilemma was whether to warn his friend or keep quiet.

"Are you okay?" Leah asked her brother.

"Yeah, I was just thinking," Jack replied, pretending not to care.

"I know you, and I know you're lying to me. Oh, I know! You're in love. "

"No, you're crazy; you'd better tell me, is your wheelchair fixed?" Jack tried to tell his sister as little as possible about his job; he didn't want to put her in any more danger.

"Well, it works well, can't you tell? But don't ignore me; who is she?"

Jack left the kitchen; he wouldn't explain himself, and besides, he still had to finish some documents he had been asked to finish, and later they had a meeting with Pierce.

"Hey, even if you walk fast, you know I'll catch up with you. Don't go, Jack; tell your sister; you're such an idiot that you'll ruin everything for sure. I can give you some tips so she'll agree to go out with you, and I'll tell you so you can see how much I love you for being my brother."

"There is no girlfriend," Jack exclaimed in desperation, stopping and turning to face her.

"Well, boyfriend, whatever it is, I don't care, but I can give you tips."

"Leah, shut up; there's no one special," Jack scolded her.

Leah squinted her eyes analyzing her brother, she didn't remember him having any girlfriends, or if he had, he probably had ruined everything, though he rather seemed worried about something or someone, she was fine then, there was only one person left...

"Now what did idiot Brock do?" Leah asked.

"What? "Jack frowned; she was sure her sister wasn't a mind reader.

"I know you both; what did he do?" she asked again. "Ah, he's the one in love, and I'm sure he asked you for some tips, and you don't know what to tell him."

"Did he?" Jack was confused; he realized what was going on, but Brock never told him anything.

"Tell him he can come over and I'll give him some tips, and she won't be able to say no," Leah assured with a smile. She also saw Brock as a big brother, so she was happy that he had found someone.

"She's the daughter of someone from S.H.I.E.L.D.," Jack commented.

"What, she's an agent too?" Leah thought differently.

"By the way, what do you mean, tips?" Jack barely noticed his little sister's words.

"I'm popular in college," she replied without giving it a thought.

"Popular... then we'll talk seriously, young lady," Jack threatened.

"Jack."

"Leah. "

"I want to meet Brock's girl."

"No, you don't."

"I do, so fix that," Leah said, turning around to go back to her bedroom.

Ꭲꭺꮐꮮꮖꮪꭲ:

@saiyanprincessswanie @sinceimetyou @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad @navybrat817 @angrythingstarlight @shield-agent78 @charmed-asylum @pandaxnienke @real-fbi @smokeandnailz @white-wolf1940 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @xoxonotme @bluemusickid @leyannrae @harrysthiccthighss @marvelatthisone @caplanbuckybarnes @sapphire-rogers @lizzieolseniskinda @notyourtypicalrose @hallecarey1 @nana1000night @talia-rumlow @mylifeispainandiloveit @writingshae @alexxavicry @azulatodoryuga @daemonslittlebitch @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @jtargaryen18 @chaoticcollectivenightmare @endlesstwanted

#Secrets #Steve Rogers x OFC #brock rumlow x ofc

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somelazyassartist · 2 years ago

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I'm. Not going to go into a huge ramble right now because I've done it before and I'll probably do it again later but I am running off of zero sleep and a sonic the hedgehog g fuel so if I talk a lot now it WILL end up incomprehensible but. Just a tiny post since I am thinking about it.

[Edit: it became a huge incomprehensible ramble anyways. It's under the cut if you want to see opinions on the TAZ graphic novel (and sorta the fanon) versions of Taako. But please dear Istus do not think I'm talking about the entire fandom it is just one specific brand of fanon-interpretation I'm talking about, NOT the fandom as a whole please I know enough about Tumblr's reading comprehension to know I should probably put a warning here now that I am talking about a specific trend and not an entire group of people who all have different opinions and also that this is ALSO just my own opinion myself. Oh and also this isn't meant to be like an attack on anyone it's just a personal peeve so if I sound frustrated that's just a Me Thing not me being like mad at anyone in particular Thank you very much genuinely for reading this and understanding]

But like,,,, does it bother anyone else or is it just me that the fandom's perception of Taako has become like. WAY more of a stuck-up ass than he ever really was in the podcast ever since the graphic novels came out? Like don't get me wrong he is a dick but he's never been, like, cruel for the most part.

But like, putting on HtbG (podcast) and then putting him next to the gn version of him is like.... Almost not the same character to me? It's like most people forget podcast Taako started out as the "dumb but sweet joke character" who was constantly slow to pick up on social cues and who the other characters repeatedly would take pity on and make fun of for being "the idiot of the group". And again he is a dick but he's not, like, Seriously a Mean Person!!

Also a decent chunk of the "antagonistic" stuff later on is still a continuation of him not getting social cues like in the beginning (for example, his bit where he threatens Angus for potentially becoming a better wizard than he is, realizing afterwards that his tone didn't come across the way he intended and that Angus interpreted that as being serious, and backtracked to try to clear up that he didn't mean to come off as serious and only meant it as a joke. And also says very explicitly in the same episode that he intends for most of his "mean" behavior throughout the series to come off as joking between equals and he doesn't mean for other people to take it seriously. He just says that.).

And he has, like, unspoken morality about what "harmful" things he does too, especially when it comes to like stealing stuff. If you listen to the podcast he (with very VERY VERY few exceptions) only ever steals from people who are dead- who will no longer be using those items and would be letting them go to waste unmoved- and people who have directly wronged him or his loved ones from his point of view. He actively tries to stop the other two from stealing from innocent people!! There's a whole scene where he establishes he isn't comfortable taking from people who don't deserve it and who need that money!! And then you go into the exact same scene in the graphic novel and.... He's exclaiming that he's going to steal a bunch of shit. Not just any shit, the exact shit he was trying to STOP the others from stealing in the podcast.

Which just doesn't feel like Taako at all!! In fact when he stole and sold Angus' grandfather's silverware and realized Angus really didn't deserve that, he felt guilty about it and tried giving some of it back for him and making up for the rest with quality time and magic lessons! but now when I look at fandom stuff (at least what I've come across) it seems a lot more people lean towards the more kleptomania-fueled dickhead Taako than the much tamer original version, and I have to say I prefer the original more!! He has so much more dimension to me in the podcast- not even because there's more time to flesh him out there than in the gn- but because while he is rude and foul-mouthed at times he has pretty explicit limits and will get upset if people try to force him to cross it! (Also seen with his elevator-related PTSD and him having a very reasonable breakdown when his emotional limits were repeatedly crossed with fair warning from him he'd freak out if forced into going in there..... which got cut from the graphic novels as well because of course it did).

And going forward, with gn Taako being so much more selfish and inhospitable than the original version, I feel like they might cut out his "I'm not a piece of meat" scene in TSG, because if they DO keep it in there's no way to me personally that it'll feel earned in any regard- tell me when in the graphic novels has he pretty much ever shown the genuine humility that the original version carries under his standoffish persona. I don't see it, and I don't think whatever happens between Crystal Kingdom's gn and The Suffering Game's gn will be enough to make that scene feel genuine to me. I really, honestly believe that.

Of course there's some things I do like about the graphic novels and I'm more than willing to give the next ones a fair shot (Crystal Kingdom was a lot better than I expected it to be!) but I really, really, REALLY don't like how the graphic novels (and to a small extent, the fandom) really over-emphasize how mean he is to people when if you listen back to the original in a lot of cases he's much more mellow and kind or is just not picking up on other people's tones/social cues and is being misinterpreted (both by other characters in-fiction and/or certain listeners) because it's established in the text he's bad at picking up that sort of thing

#anyways. you can pry Autistic Taako out of my cold dead fucking hands #not picking up/expressing tone and social cues well?? showing affection in 'weird' ways????#having trouble with things he 'should know at his age' like math but being very smart in more niche subjects like aphorisms and cooking????#anyways. not entirely related to my rant but I'm sleep deprived and would ramble more about how fucking autistic Taako is #if i didn't already write a whole essay right now about other things about him and also wasn't sleep deprived as shit lmao #but maybe I'll write more about him being autistic later <3 #taako taaco #Taako #taako adventurezone #taz taako #taako taz #graphic novel taako die 100000000 deaths #<- was my first (and only) suggested tag regarding that version of him and i still stand by it

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catsconflictscopicsandchamomile · 1 year ago

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Serious Post For Once. MAJOR trigger warning for some fully-mask-off discussions of (mostly my own internal) racism, generally Actually Talking Abt Real Shit For Once.

ok, so..hm

I don't have the energy to try to write this academically rn so I'm just going to word-vomit it out.

I am really having....Feelings... about the characters of Grendel and Grendel's Mother, specifically re: race and BIPOC identities.

I personally am white as the driven snow (though Jewish, whatever that counts for in 2023. still 'wtf' abt all that personally).

I have been putting my heart and soul into a story centering modern/reincarnated versions of Grendel and Grendel's Mother for about three years now. they are some form of shapeshifter, usually take animalistic/monstrous/hybrid forms, often eat humans, and are canonically descended from Cain (kinda. its complicated but basically they are). they are also both EXTREMELY white.

I'd actually made this choice with an intentional eye on race, way back when this story started outgrowing its roots as a supernatural fanfiction (please dont ask). no longer limited to spn's Genuinely Concerningly White Actor Pool, I had to really look at these characters re: race and decide what I was doing going forward. At the time, I was already looking into Maria Dahvana Headley's "The Mere Wife", and its centering of race both intrigued and really repelled me. At first, the (lbr) graphic depictions of how this story's Grendel's nonwhiteness informs the violence against him shocked me in the way I think they were "supposed" to, and made me really take a step back and reconsider the entire narrative of Beowulf (though to b clear I was already pro-Grendel's side of things at this point) in terms of how closely it matched more modern treatments of BIPOC and specifically young men.

...and then I went "wait. isn't Maria Dahvana Headley white???"

after a LOT of research failed to provide any contradicting evidence, my self-reflection and serious though turned to genuine strong disgust. It felt, and still feels, VERY weird that a white woman with (afaik) white kids wrote a lot of the sentiments in this novel. if you've read it, you know the ones that I mean.

I attempted to research racial themes re: Grendel further and ended up in a rabbit hole about Cain, Ham, Mormons & Bigfoot (seriously.) and all of this, along with some other research, eventually led to the following conclusions:

narratives placing Grendel and His Mother as victims of racialized violence/heroic or sympathetic figures in a racially- and/or socially-conscious work are both amazing and necessary

not if they're written by white people. there's probably some exceptions but honestly that's just weird and makes my hair stand up(derogatory).

I am White People. I should not try to do this.

given the association (certain modern media almost bafflingly aside) between Cain/Ham and justifications for SLAVERY, I, a white author, should not only NOT make these characters BIPOC, but should lean pretty damn hard into their whiteness- it's not "reclaiming" exactly, it's like... "reclaiming"(derogatory)(ironic)

given the current political movements around Viking Shit, and SPECIFICALLY pseudopagan, christian-based anglo-saxon warrior male social orders, the figures of Grendel & His Mother can and maybe even SHOULD serve as symbols of active and violent resistance from within the communities (White As Shit) that the current alt-right claims to represent.

given ALL of that, the best way for me to write these characters is how I'm currently writing them- very white, very monstrous, would probably state their race as "fae" if asked and "white" and/or "european" if specified for human racial terms, explicitly monstrous, symbolic of both (my own) queer/disabled/neurodivergent rage, feeling of incompatibility with most/all friend groups or communities, as well as a larger theme of a "KILL ALL VIKINGS" fantasy enabled by them being Big Scary Creature Beasts.

However... its been a few years. I've been drowing myself in Anglo-Saxon Everything but fully ignoring racial and diversity issues, a huge part of this admittedly being irl stressors in my life that, shall we say, EXTREMELY reduced my capacity for basic empathy & Current Events Awareness to a degree that I'm only starting to repair. as part of this repair, I'm really questioning this. I've read some super fascinating stuff about Grendel & race recently, and yet.

...and yet

I can't shake the feeling that

as a white author, making this a race-centric narrative isn't just not my job/not my turft, its actually kinda pretty racist

however, refusing to write these characters for that reason then involves (at least internally) saying that "this kind of archetype" is ONLY "meant" to be written by BIPOC ppl, because "they're the only ones who really Get The Experience", and HOO BOY. THAT IS RACIST. that is me doing a great big racism right there.

...so what do I do? I really love my take on these characters. I've grown really attached to them. It seems like everything is actually pretty well in order for me in terms of why I made the choices I did- I've looked at the other things I could have done with these themes and they're Extremely Problematic At Best...

but I can't shake the feeling that I'm still missing something, fucking up somehow.

I'd genuinely welcome discussion on this, I'm not going to be offended or defensive about ANYTHING, legit if you want to tear this whole post apart via critique re: art or just my own biases, please do. I'm just trying to figure this shit out.

and possibly overthinking it. that is also definitely a possiblity.

*to be clear I don't hate or dislike Headley. I just don't GET her. I'm not sure WHAT to think.

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aeori-o · 2 years ago

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2022 Get Outta Here

Last year I started my post by talking about COVID-19 and it is wild that that thing is still around and people STILL aren’t taking it seriously. I guess if people start off not taking something seriously there’s no reason to then take something seriously later as it has become the dreaded “new normal.” Awful. I’m moving to Pluto.

Let’s talk about the usual stuff, as is tradition.

I know I have that graphic for goodreads (and I now have a secondary goodreads for graphic novels so there’s two now) but worth mentioning is I also have a storygraph account if any of you are on there! Please friend me or however that works.

So far storygraph has some issues (sometimes the website seems to crash and nothing loads or things I do don’t save to my profile) and it looks a little barren (though goodreads doesn’t exactly look good, either) but I really like that there’s the ability to see the community submitted content warnings and that a book is ranked not just by stars but by things like pace, focus, and vibe. Also it’s not owned by amazon (which goodreads is) so that’s a bonus. For now I have both accounts but hopefully storygraph keeps getting better and can eventually replace goodreads for me (I think the main things is adoption—I still like to see what friends and acquaintances are reading and if they’ve read what I’ve read so that’s currently missing for me and the other main thing is a “books by authors you’ve read” section, it is so handy to have that in one place).

I finished 37 novels and 10 graphic novels this year which brings me to 47 total books! I am much preferring 30 minutes of reading a day over an hour, it’s much easier to commit to and much less stressful and I still get a lot read in a year. It also feels really good to be able to fully fill out one of these calendars (I think I’ve managed it for the past few years) which is also nice. I know the calendar is totally arbitrary but there’s something nice feeling about having something that shows how much you’ve done at a glance.

As always I would really recommend doing this, but you can make your goal completely different (it could be ten minutes of reading a day, or a chapter a day, or a certain number of pages a day. Start with something where the bar is on the floor to make it easy to get into!). Doesn’t even need to be reading! Can be exercise or learning something or creative stuff! Sometimes calendars can be hard to find where they’re easy to fill in, I just started making my own in excel (google sheets would work, too) but I’ll put in a blank one at the end jic anyone wants to try. Gotta make the barrier to entry as low as possible! Anyway here’s my reading one:

And then of course I love the little year-recap from goodreads!

Really enjoy that I manage to read a very barely read book on goodreads every year.

Again we’re up! This year my average has gone from 4.1 to 4.2 but still. I think overall I am reading better books. I’ve changed how I rate books on goodreads a little as well. I am in an eternal struggle with how ultimately meaningless rating systems are so I’m trying to rate things more on a scale of if-I-would-recommend-it and how many caveats I have with that. So more books wind up five stars than not. It feels much easier to rate things consistently, as well.

My own personal rating system (in my excel doc) tends to differ a little from how I rate things online (so despite rating Many books five stars this year only one book hit my favourites and most of those other five stars are in my ‘Excellent’, ‘Splendid’, and ‘Good’ categories. And then I have ‘Meh’, ‘Not Worth Reading’, and ‘Why does this exist?’). That’s just for me, and maybe friends, though.

So! Of the 37 books I read this year I’m going to once again recommend a few.

The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

I recommended the first book last year and now that I’ve read the rest of the series I want to reinforce the recommendation: These books are thick, they’re door stoppers, and the first book is a little slow to start but once they get going they are phenomenal. Everything just goes, there are incredible high points in this series. I didn’t think the second book could be outdone but the third book did it. The series goes from conflicts inside a community to global conflicts that that community has to deal with and manipulate.

Basically: The series is about a family of ‘Green Bones’ (who are people who are able to control bioenergetic jade to enhance their strength, resilience, and speed) and how they deal with a territory war with another Green Bone Clan and eventually how they deal with foreign powers trying to extract and study bioenergetic jade for war purposes. Really great series.

Mistakes Were Made (But not by me)

by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

This one is non-fiction but I found it incredibly interesting. Most of it I feel is things most of us kind of intuitively know just by existing in the world and dealing with people being infuriating (especially in the context of jobs and managers passing the blame) but it’s interesting seeing the research and the various ways it comes into play. I’m not sure if I’m weird but I also found it a very fast, easy read as well? It was just too interesting for me to find boring. So if you’re looking for an interesting non-fiction check it out!

Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk

This is a novella so I can’t say too much without spoiling a lot but if you’re looking for a lesbian noir with magic, demons, and angels then definitely check this one out. The ending is maybe a little rushed but I loved the setting and the characters despite the very short amount of time with them (the curse of novellas).

The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty

I didn’t actually like the first book at all! There were a lot of things in the first book that bugged me but I felt compelled to read the second anyway. I saw this book all over the place (and heard about it all over the place) and I have a thing for seeing djinn in books and media. Despite my issues there were nuggets of potential in the first book. And then the second book was shockingly good and I devoured the rest. A very fun fantasy romp about family and duty and the things we choose and how hard and disastrous it can be to try and do your own thing.

I especially liked the fourth book though which is a collection of short little scenes with various characters. They weren’t short-stories exactly they were just things that either didn’t fit in the main series or ultimately no longer belonged in it with how things went but I really enjoyed reading it. It felt very nostalgic and I wish more authors would do something similar. I don’t necessarily want plots and entire side stories to see more of characters sometimes I just want to see little things with the characters. I know that’s what a lot of people use fanfiction for but I’d love it from the original author. Really delighted by these and I’m really glad the publisher went for it! This kind of thing could easily have never seen the light of day or, best case in most instances, been relegated to some dusty page on the author’s website.

A lot of the other books I would recommend are parts of a series so I won’t get into them now, but I’m keeping an eye on Iron Widow, Children of Ragnarok, Book of Night, and Not Even Bones. Most of those don’t have sequels out yet, but one of them does so hopefully I can recommend it on next year’s round up.

Additionally some friends and I pass around books and write in them, and so far our library has six books in it! (There’s more on stand-by but they haven’t been written in yet.) It’s such a fun thing to do and makes some truly terrible books fun to read. One of the series we’re reading we’re hoping gets better (as promised by the fans of that series) and we might be adding the series that inspired that series to the list. (I am being intentionally vague.)

Once again I’m going to keep my goal at 30 books, half an hour of reading a day (catch up days allowed). I have enjoyed being much more relaxed about reading. Unlike last year I currently only have four books out from the library (instead of last year’s thirteen) but that said I think all the books I read last year (including the graphic novels) except for four were from the library. So out of 47 books (total) 43 were from the library. I love the library, but I also need to get a proper start on my owned to-be-read pile. Once I’m through these four books I’m going to try to only take out a library book for every owned book I finish. So hopefully I can at least make it half and half.

But! Here’s the ten graphic novels I read! One of which I own. I really enjoyed all of them and can happily recommend them all. Lore Olympus I finished the second volume and for whatever reason was just hooked and binged the rest online. Heartstopper is also really cute and sweet, I tried a little bit of the show and it wasn’t doing it for me but I am so, so happy it exists I’ve seen that it means a lot to a lot of people (but I’ll stick with the graphic novels).

Film and TV I finished 45 things this year, which so far it seems like I watch a fairly consistent amount of stuff? 2020 my count was 43, last year was 41, this year is 45! Funny how that works out. Some of my highlights from this year are old goodies—we just recently watched the first two Lord of the Rings films (we were trying to marathon but it did not work out), and I re-watch Ghibli films periodically, but of the things I had never watched before? Everything in the image really stands out for me.

Love and Leashes was just incredibly cute, another delightful Korean film. I forgot I had watched that this year so I’m glad I’ve started tracking this stuff because this movie is just really cute. It’s on Netflix and I would wholeheartedly recommend checking it out!

Turning Red made me cry, and then when I walked in on family watching it I almost just cried again just knowing what scene they were on (they did not feel very invested in the movie so it was kind of awkward).

Everything Everywhere All At Once was incredible. I know everyone is saying that and has been saying that but if for whatever reason you haven’t watched it it is really good. It feels really ‘fresh’ in a way? It’s unhinged but also sincere, I really liked it.

Severance was really creepy and tense, and yet somehow very compelling despite the monotony of the environments the characters spend most of their time in. I’m so curious to see where it goes it ended on such a tense note.

Our Flag Means Death was a really heartwarming romp, I think the first few episodes I wasn’t crazy about but it got very good very fast and it also had a very tense ending.

Nope I watched twice back to back (and then a third time some months later to show family). It’s such a fun movie and there’s a lot to interpret and talk about in it, I think this is my favourite Jordan Peele movie yet.

And finally: House of the Dragon though this one is on thin ice. There’s a lot of weird and uncomfortable things in this series, which I guess is to be expected, but overall I found it really interesting and that last episode, hoo boy. I want to see it develop and I am hoping it does not go the way of Game of Thrones but I guess we’ll see.

Video games!

Okay so Nintendo sent me my yearly recap weirdly early this year? And then Steam just sent one. The steam one is very fun.

Unfortunately the Nintendo one this year didn’t have that much info? Last year it gave total games, for how many hours, and even compared the previous year and because the switch doesn’t have the built-in tracker anymore (like the 3DS has) I can’t even check myself. Like I know I played my Switch for at least 130hrs this year in total (compared to 23 total hours last year) but that’s just looking at the games I know came out this year so I could have only played this year (being Arceus, Scarlet, and Splatoon 3) but for games I’ve played in the past like Shield, Pokemon Snap, Okami, Smash Bros, etc. I only can see total time, not time spent this year. I still really miss the tracking the 3DS has. Oh well at least Steam has an in-depth one this year:

I love to see random little facts!! I’m surprised I hit even 20% with controller to be honest, I feel like I almost exclusively used keyboard and mouse this year.

As you can see: I love to play new games.

AND THIS is the kind of thing I like to see! I think that drop of in gaming is more or less universal across all platforms for me.

Okay so here’s everything I started this year and have yet to finish:

And I actually am feeling very optimistic about finishing all of these! Two (Haunting Ground and Fahrenheit Indigo Prophecy) I’m playing for friends and both have been very fun to stream. One is a genuinely good game and one is Fahrenheit Indigo Prophecy (which is very fun to experience with friends but oh it’s not good, it is especially bad on PC because this “remaster” is garbage. I said RE4 on PC last year was bad but it’s an amazing port compared to this one.)

Haunting Ground is still a really delightful game. It makes me miss the days of costumes being fun unlockable bonuses instead of DLC. I’m mostly impressed (so far) by how good the game is at making sure you always know where to go despite how otherwise cryptic the plot is. The only time I’ve gotten lost/stuck was when I unlocked the room, ran into the stalker immediately in that room and ran, and then I guess I got startled so badly that the newly unlocked room just deleted itself from my short term memory. So that’s on me, not the game.

Pokemon Scarlet I’m chugging along steadily in (despite my many, many problems with the game) and Pokemon Legends Arceus I was thoroughly enjoying but the controls were too similar to Horizon Forbidden West so I’ll get back to it once I’m done Horizon. But hoo boy Horizon is taking a while. I know there’s a large group of people who want more game-play-time for their dollar and I largely disagree with that idea in general but this game is wild in that I am enjoying all the time I’m spending in it but also kind of exhausted by how huge it is.

The only one here I might not finish anytime soon is .hack, because I started playing it with Vin and would like to continue showing them it.

I think of all the games in my Unfinished Picture from last year the only one I actually finished was Tell Me Why—Dishonored I still kind of pick at, Pokemon Snap I haven’t gotten back to despite meaning to, Resident Evil Village I want to continue but haven’t gotten to either, same goes for Resident Evil 5. And Prey I officially decided I was done with. So I’m much more optimistic about finishing this year’s batch of unfinished games.

And with Hades 2 being announced I extra want to get back to and finish the first Hades (I got to the credits but I need to do everything).

And then the games I DID finish this year:

All but one of these I played for/with friends! (Steph did most of the playing of Fatal Frame 3, though.) I finished up Tell Me Why on my own but all the rest were friend-experiences! Disco Elysium is unhinged (we would all lay down our lives for Kim). Lighthouse I have thought was “the dark beginning” forever and only right at the end of our play-through did I realize it was “being” not “beginning” and it was also entirely wild. Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise was charming and also kind of a lot. And then Pajama Sam in No Need to Hide when it’s Dark Outside was surprisingly well-written and charming? The last two games took almost no time to play all the way through (despite them being huge time sinks when I was a kid) but they hold up really well! Very intuitive, simple puzzles (which makes sense for a kid’s game but is still fluid-feeling as an adult as opposed to escape-room-esq logic puzzles ‘adult’ puzzle games require) and very fun writing that actually got some laughs out of us at points. Good stuff, we’re excited to play more from Humongous Entertainment.

I did start another fill-in-the-squares calendar in June. It mostly came from days feeling like they blur together and I couldn’t really remember what I had done on certain days and wasn’t sure if I had done anything “productive”. I’m really good at warping my own memory to downgrade the things I do so I tried to start marking off when I did anything, at all, that I consider some sort of productive. So that could be cleaning, writing, helping my sister with something, or one of the various little side-projects I take on. I haven’t been super consistent with it, I keep forgetting to fill in days, but overall it has been really helpful for even if I don’t remember what I did I can look back and see all the filled in squares and be sure I did at least something that I consider worthwhile. I just keep a little list under it of kind of ‘ongoing’ things that count or add on things that I finished and that has, in turn, made it easier to remember some neat stuff I did this year!

There’s two major ones but first: I really got into re-shelling controllers last year. Unfortunately I’ve kind of run out of controllers to re-shell. I did get to take apart a friend’s joycon recently to put in a new analogue stick to stop that pesky drift but otherwise I don’t do much shell-stuff these days.

But I did wrap my entire car.

Before and after! Steph helped me with the hardest parts (the bumpers and roof) and my stepmom helped with some bits (which, despite our struggles, she says she’s glad she did because she never would have understood how much work I was putting in otherwise) and my partner helped a little with the doors when they were visiting! I’m especially happy with the headlights. I ground all the UV damaged plastic off, polished them up, and then put a clear, glossy, paint-protective film over top. They look brand-new! I love seeing side-by-sides of the lenses before and after. I used to think the ‘before’ state of the lenses looked good! Wild! Some people have lamented the colour (a lot of people really like bright red cars?) but I love the blue/purple colour shift and my clear-coat was coming off anyway (she’s an old car) so I had to do something to protect it. Bless and curse the co-worker who talked me into this (bless because I love it, curse because it was hard as hell).

I haven’t posted progress shots in one big block anywhere so I’m gonna do that here! And then I realized there were just WAY too many progress shots so here’s just a few:

I mostly like the super wrinkly shots and then seeing it all smoothed out, it’s so satisfying (the work in between those shots is brutal) like these (with a mid-lens-fixing thrown in to see a polished one next to what I had before for funsies):

It was so satisfying to have this come together and I am so happy with how she looks. I am extremely grateful to everyone who helped me along the way, some pieces would have been impossible with just one person (and in the case of the roof that seemed impossible even with two people). Considering it was my first time doing this and I was working in less-than-ideal circumstances (being: outside, where bugs and dust and leaves and weather are an issue) I think it turned out extremely well.

I think when I counted the actual total days this took it was like 11-14? I had work, and then we kept getting rain (the day we did the front bumper it actually rained in the middle of the day so in retrospect I’m amazed that one came together). I also did a little on some other cars. My stepmom’s car is also old so we did some protective stuff where the paint was having a hard time, did the hood of my sister’s car and her lenses as a birthday gift, and then did a co-workers car because its clear coat was having a really rough time. Lots of wrapping! I should redo this one in 4ish years (or that’s what the vinyl manufacturers say, anyway) so we’ll see how it goes.

I also made my dice displays nice this year. At some point I had gotten a shot-glass display to put my dice in, but it wasn’t the nicest looking. Better than having them not on display at all but not by much. For whatever reason I can’t find a proper picture of how it looked before but:

And then once the glass was closed on top of that the ones in their cubes were pretty obscured and the other dice just, didn’t look great in their heaps. So I got some foam core, some washi tape, and a box cutter and spruced it up:

Which I am super happy with! I was so happy with it I got a second one and fitted it the same way. It’s especially nice for my glow in the dark dice, I get to see them glow every time I turn the lights off now.It was a very time consuming little project but I’m really happy (and kind of amazed) at how it came together!

In terms of my more regular creative pursuits I didn’t really write anything creative except to completely re-structure a book series I was reading. It went from me ranting to just completely unhinged going IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE THIS and then I rewrote a scene from the book based on that premise. That was fun. I still need to touch that up and edit it some but then I fully intend to rip the book open and rebind it with my addition. (It’s one of our pass-around-and-comment-in books.) Still RPing, of course, and it’s a mix of god/furry Anir and Lelia with some modern Lelia and my spirit-folk thrown into the mix. And I didn’t really do much drawing this year but I did do a little to help my sister with some stuff. And that’s better than nothing! I will post none of that here, though.

Once again, though, I have been extremely blessed to receive some wonderful art!

Art by @monsterranchersteph,@phantomeus, and @auyamx!

Hopefully 2023 proves to be better than 2022! I’m ending the year with a cold (not COVID, luckily, though I did have that during the summer and it was awful. I can only imagine how much worse it would’ve been if I weren’t vaccinated.) which I’m not sure is a great summary of the year but it’s unusual for me to get sick twice in one year. Having just a regular cold is surreal, though, the last two times I got sick (COVID and then some sort of flu) were both completely terrible, so having just kind of a stuffed up and runny nose, a teeny cough (like, barely), and then just extreme fatigue is more of an annoyance than anything. I am very glad to not be that sick but I also forgot very mild sickness is a thing. (And it’s annoying.)

Anyway, as stated above I’m going to keep my reading goal the same this year as last. 30 books, half an hour reading a day with catch-ups allowed. I’m going to try to get into the habit more of using my other general ‘productivity’ calendar because I have been finding that helpful for my mental health if nothing else. And if anyone else wants to try these calendars here’s the one I’ll be using:

And I think that’s it! Happy new year! If you make any sort of yearly round-up or recap and you’ve made it this far please let me know and I’ll check it out! I am not consistently on tumblr so I miss stuff all the time. I log on, I sigh and block/report the bots that have followed me, I see a little of my dash, I add stuff to my queue, and that’s about it. So please let me know or link me!

#new year get better do better

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