#so i tried to behave and not say too many things. tried to drop a couple jokes. tried to figure out how to be likable 🥲

[miaoua3]

(pairing: hoshi x noona!reader)

there is a superstition that if you spend the first snow with the person that you like, that the new love will blossom between you two, just like a flower after a long and cold winter.

“and then as i jumped up because- hello? they just dropped a fake spider in my lap, i hit my knee in the table, which resulted in the bowl full of hot soup to spill…directly onto wonwoo’s lap!”

you burst out laughing as hoshi finishes his story about one of the many times when they tried to prank him while drunk, which inevitably ended up in a chaos.

you had to stop walking for a second from how hard you were laughing at one moment, wiping away the tears that were forming in the corners of your eyes.

hoshi just stands there, chuckling to himself as he looks at you fondly, waiting for you to collect yourself. the look in his eyes…is something that you weren’t sure how to interpret.

to be completely honest, lately you’ve been questioning your entire friendship with hoshi. see, sometimes people can be really blind to the things that are right in front of them, like you with your feelings for example.

you have known hoshi for years now, and in your eyes he has always just been this dude that was always fighting to get your attention, pulling on your shirt while calling “noona! noona!”. up until recently, you have always just thought of him as your cute little junior, maybe a friend even, but nothing more than that.

you always thought he was a little too young and little too immature for you.

until one night a few months ago, when he bravely stood in front of you and protected you from the creep who has been trying to hit on you. the way he behaved, the way he spoke in his deep voice…

it made your heart skip a beat.

and ever since that day, you have started looking at him differently, and your heart hasn’t stopped skipping a beat every time you would see his cute smile.

so here you are now, coming from what you first thought was a regular dinner two friends would get, but which definitely progressed into something closer to a date.

after eating some delicious chicken from your favourite diner, you two just started strolling around, until you realised that it was entirely too late and that you should go home.

hoshi, intending to make your heart collapse apparently, offered to walk you home, saying he could never leave his noona to walk alone in the night.

as you continue to walk, you continue to talk, telling each other stories that are definitely not as funny as you make them to be.

your mood sours the moment you round the corner of your street, realising that your…date will have to come to an end.

walking up to the entrance of your building, you stop on the third stair before you turn around to look at him. standing like this makes you realise just how tall he is, because it takes you standing on the third stair for you two to be similar heights.

he smiles gently at you, his cute eyes creating cute little crescents as he does.

“well. this is you.”, he pauses awkwardly for a few seconds before he continues “so i was wondering, would you maybe be interested in going to that restaurant on the other side…”.

his voice trails off as he sees you slowly walking back down the stairs, until you’re standing right in front of him, you beautiful doe eyes looking up at him expectantly.

hoshi, being the weak man the he is, lets his eyes fall to your plush lips, dry from the cold of the early winter’s air.

he starts to panic a bit, his breathing coming to a stop while his heartbeat skyrockets.

you look at him, the only thought on your mind being kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

your hand unconsciously grabs the hem of his jacket, fisting it tightly as you look at his dazed expression.

hoshi looks at you for a second longer, before he groans and utters “what the hell.”.

and then he’s grabbing your cold cheeks in his hands and swooping down to kiss you breathlessly.

as hoshi kisses you on the doorstep of your apartment building, tilting your head so he has better access to your mouth, kissing you both so sweetly and so hungrily, a few snowflakes start to fall from the sky, inevitably landing on his eyelashes.

he breaks the kiss apart to look up at the sky, his breath coming in puffs, before he looks down at you and giggles a bit.

as you join his giggles, you lean your forehead against his, your hand unconsciously seeking out his own.

you weren’t sure if this was officially your first date or not, but you knew one thing for sure.

you were definitely looking forward to the next one.

[alchemiclee]

when you really want to talk to someone about something that you find fun and exciting and interesting, but you feel like you're being the most obnoxious person alive.....even if they're nice about it.

[cbartonscoffee]

I think I've never been more aware of just how many people only get their info of the batfam through fanfic. I finally started reading Red Robin (2009) and I can not believe how many things are blown out of proportion. Particularly about Dick and Damian.

First of all, Dick does try to put limits and he does get fed up with Damian's ways sometimes. Out of the three first interactions of them in the comic, at least in two he tells him to shut up. And one of those is when Damian starts to brag about being Robin and Tim being useless, he tells him to shut up twice.

Another thing about that moment, is that they treat it like Dick completely dismisses Tim and treats him as unimportant. He doesn't. He takes him seriously, he tells him he needs him, he tells him he views his as an equal, as someone capable. And he also tells him he's concerned about him and that he needs to start processing Bruce's death. Could that have been a little harsh? Yes, but he needed to do it without making Tim think there was room for him to be convinced about his theory because let's be honest, Tim would've taken anything less than complete refusal and tried to change his mind. And had he been wrong neither of them could have taken it.

Secondly, Dick is always left to shoulder the blame of kicking Tim out and of never reaching out. That's bull. And I need to make that clear. Tim was in a delicate point, he tells us this himself multiple times, but the decision to leave was completely made out of his own free will. Another thing he did was put space between him and the people on Gotham. We see only one time in which Dick tries to call him. Tim picks up and tells him he doesn't want to talk. This tells us that Dick respecting Tim's wish of space included almost no (or even no) contact, and Dick calling was not something Tim appreciated or encouraged.

Now. Going into the second year of the run, when he's back in Gotham, there's a few things to talk about and I'm still in the aftermath of Damian and Tim's fight.

I feel it's important to say that even if they are all family, more often than not they're doing their own thing. Like, Babs and Steph are in the Batcave while Dick and Damian are in Wayne Tower, Cass is said to potentially be in Hong Kong and we haven't even heard Jason be name-dropped except for the fact that he went on a rampage at some point.

So, Dick is immediately called away in League business. So he isn't there. Damian is behaving fairly civil besides being a brat, so no one wastes too much effort in correcting what he says. We need to think about the fact that this is a kid whose world was turned upside down multiple times in a short period of time, who has a need to be accepted, and who hasn't yet found his place. All this is to say, that if it's difficult to get him to eat breakfast there's no way they're controlling his every move and that's understandable.

So Dick is away, Damian is still trying to adapt, Alfred has his hands full and everyone else is doing something else.

The whole thing starts because Tim is being kind of cryptic about what he's doing with his hit list and Damian feels left out and goes looking for more. He finds his name in a hidden double side of the hit list marking him as a threat. He understandably feels hurt and angry, because he's a kid, and he's trying, and his predecessor who at this point doesn't even try with him anymore views him as something bad.

So in classic Damian fashion, he falls back on his upbringing and doesn't deal with the situation as one should, talking about it. Instead he cuts team line, hurting before being hurt. It could've been worse, we see in the panel that Tim doesn't have that much of a hard time getting safely to the ground. The problem is that he snaps and starts a full-blown fight he knows Damian won't back out off. (I'm pleased to add that after cutting his line Damian doesn't start anything else)

So they are fighting, Tim has the clear advantage and he knows this, we know this. And that's how Dick finds them. Having just returned from a JL mission, in the place where the Waynes were murdered, with Tim having overpowered Damian.

They go back to the cave and Damian shares his findings, and Dick understands. And Tim tells him he (Dick) knows why he (Tim) did it. Dick agrees, and tells him he should have tried to make it harder to find. Tim says he hadn't thought Damian would try or even care. Dick tells him Damian wants to be accepted.

All in all, so far the only thing this comic has proven to me is that there's a reason comics are the bomb and that fanon has gotten out of hand. I get making things out to be worse for the sake of a story, but everything surrounding these events is basically used as the foundation for Damian and Tim's relationship as well as Dick and Tim's and I don't think I've once read a fanfic where these events are portrayed correctly or even following the real motivations of the characters. This is a disservice to all of them and only serves to amplify the hate towards a character that doesn't deserve it. There's a lot of Damian hate going around. And it sucks. Mostly because people use his actions against Tim to justify it and honestly? I don't think you should be allowed to use that if you haven't read RR and understood what was going on.

[punkclowngod]

I don’t think I’ve talked much about having a service dog on here, but maybe I should

Boom used to be my service dog, I got him the summer before my last year of high school bcuz I needed a nurse 24/7 to ensure I could eat/sleep/stay alive due to a recent very traumatizing event in my life and my mom came up with the service dog idea.

Getting him was hard. And expensive. No trainers were up to my standards. I, who could barely take care of myself, had to train my own dog. The problem is no matter how hard I worked, my own family or other trainers would ruin it all by messing up my commands, by letting my dog do things I had trained him not to do. It wasn’t training anymore, I ended up simply having breakdowns because everyone kept ruining my dog. People close to me thought they could be an exception to the rules I had taught my MEDICAL AID because surely my DOG would learn the difference between them and strangers.

Eventually I brought him to school. Printed papers explaining what a service dog was and how to behave around him and I plastered them all over the place.

People barked at him, petted him, tried to grab his attention.

His harness was hot pink, patches and signs on it that very clearly said “DO NOT TOUCH” and shit like that.

Someone defaced one of the papers.

Going to school was already hard, I could barely leave the house, my mom had to accompany me to the school doors every morning and then a social worker at school would greet me there and take care of me throughout the day.

I had my own locker at a floor mostly unoccupied so I wouldn’t see other people much and my dog wouldn’t be too distracted.

But it was still to much and I ended up dropping out four months before graduation.

I couldn’t leave the house. I had Boom but he wasn’t perfect yet. People kept ruining him.

But eventually I managed to leave the house. Go to a shopping mall from time to time with him to just walk and have fun.

Too many times people came up to me to tell me the gear I used was hurting my dog. Too many times people came up to me to tell me that their own dog died. Too many people came up to him and pet him without even acknowledging my presence. Too many people telling me they wished they could bring their pets anywhere. Too many people disrespecting me and my service dog.

I stopped going out. I stopped being with my dog.

All this stress and trauma drove a wedge between my dog and I. I consider him my mother’s dog now.

I had to learn to handle myself alone when I went out. It took me years to learn to go out by myself. Only last year I started doing that.

My dog doesn’t live in my room with me anymore.

Having a service dog did still save my life. But those around me ruined that. They made it about themselves. They prioritized my dog over me. My dog that LOVES working. If you tell him “do you want to go to work” chances are he’ll get so excited he will attempt to do a backflip.

We used to have a deep bond. That bond is now broken. People took that from us.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Let people and their service dogs alone.

You are not an exception.

You are not special.

You are disrupting the dog’s training and distracting it.

You are endangering a human life because you can’t resist petting the cute dog.

This isn’t about you. This is about a disabled person trying to simply live their lives.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, your advice is unsolicited and lacks understanding of what the life of a working dog is.

Just leave us alone.

[icallhimjoey]

Almost, Always

♥ ♥          Joseph Quinn x Fem!Reader 

Summary: Happy endings aren't for everyone, so it seems, but that doesn't mean that you can't stop trying for one. Question is, are you actually star-crossed lovers that can figure something out, or just absolutely blind to reality and really fucking stupid?

CW / disclaimer: rpf, fem!reader, language, adult themes, smut, cheating

Author’s note: part four! are we learning from our previous mistakes? TAKE A WILD GUESS! after this, have one more chapter to go, and i know ive been consistently posting every week, but im afraid that the last part is going to take me a whole extra week to finish (bc ill be out of the country for a sec) so, my apologies! but i hope this long chapter makes up for the extra wait! <3

Wordcount: 6.5K

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

“I didn’t say he doesn’t… I just said, he has never actually said it.”

Emily’s jaw dropped, and you immediately regretted saying what you just said.

“No, stop. He has said it. Forget I said anything. It’s fine.”

You knew exactly what she was going to say.

She’d alluded to it from the start. Rolled her eyes at him. Made faces of outrageous confusion that told you, how can someone behave like that, without having to say the words aloud. Without making you hear them.

“I’m just saying…” Emily started, and showed you a facial expression that made you feel stupid for even bringing it up.

“It’d be better for you to leave him.”

You laughed, like she made a joke, yet so aware that she absolutely wasn’t.

But listen, if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry, because you knew, you knew somewhere in the back of your mind that it probably was better for you to leave him.

Not a truth you wanted to face though.

There were still too many easy excuses for you to make.

So... you made them.

But Emily’s face remained quite serious.

“Emily. You don’t mean that.” You said on the back-end of a giggle.

“Are you joking? My God, it’d be so much better if you left him. Better for you, better for, well, me. Can’t even tell you he loves you? What is he on?!”

You shushed her, and looked over your shoulder in the general direction of your bathroom and listened for a few seconds. The shower was still going. He couldn’t have heard her.

Good.

Not that Emily’s general opinion was a huge secret. But still. It was nice if the peace could be kept for the night.

“He does tell me that.” you argued, much softer. “Just...”

“Just does it when he’s about to hang up the phone? Just a quick, casual, love ya, when he’s saying goodbye?”

“Well, he–”

“Or does he only say it when he’s about to come?”

“Emily.”

“Oh, God. You’re so beyond help, I don’t even know what to tell you anymore.”

For a moment, you avoided eye-contact. Pressed your lips together and looked around the room whilst your friend tried her best to get it into your head that Joe really just wasn’t it.

“You know you’re in second place.” Emily said, suddenly much more earnestly. “You don’t deserve to be in second place.”

Which was a nice sentiment. A thing a best friend was meant to tell you. A bit like a parent calling their baby a genius because they accidentally made a bit of babbling sound like a real string of words.

“Well,” you said, taking a deep breath in and giving Emily your best smile. “So is he, so I guess we’re even.”

He wasn’t.

These were two different leagues.

But suggesting that Emily was in first place with you was the quickest way to make her feel appreciated even though her advice went untaken.

It always did.

Emily was a good friend and always gave excellent advice. And you were a good friend because you always listened to what she had to say. Or, you thought you did. Would tell yourself you did.

But then you simply wouldn’t follow any of it.

You hadn’t taken her advice when she’d told you to stop fucking around in a fourteen month situationship.

“I like how this just… works, don’t you?” Joe had said one evening when you were wrapped up on his sofa together. You’d made a comment that someone had flirted with you and had asked if you were single. You hadn’t known what to tell them.

Joe had just shrugged then.

“Let’s not push for something if it doesn’t need it. Something not broken doesn’t need a fix, does it?”

And you’d disagreed then. Had hoped that he’d grow a little protective and would’ve gone, um what do you mean of course you’re not single. For a while you also hadn’t wanted to define anything, because fuck commitment, right? But it had been over a year and Emily said that you should ask him to just fucking label it already.

You hadn’t.

You also hadn’t taken Emily’s advice when she’d told you that she thought this guy wasn’t going to make you happy.

Hadn’t taken Emily’s advice when she’d told you that she thought this guy was ultimately just there for a bit of fun, but not really much else.

Hadn’t taken Emily’s advice when she’d told you to just leave him already when you told her he had never sincerely told you that he loves you.

“I know you’re smart enough to know that it’s absolutely wild that he’s not said–”  

“It’s because you just hear all the bad things, I’m sorry. I should also tell you about the good shit.”

“Oh, yea? Like what?” Emily challenged, and in the silence that followed, you heard the shower turn off.

“Like... look! Look what he got me!” you said, picking up a bag from a dining table chair.

Your friend looked at it for a moment, blank faced, and then narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

“Got you? Like, he went out and bought that for you? Or, was that sent to him by the brand, and he just passed it on?”

You looked at the bag you were still holding, then gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. He still gave it to me.”

It was a nice bag.

“Not exactly the same is it.”

No, it wasn’t. But... you know. You could pretend it was.

“Still counts.”

“Okay. If you think so.”

You didn’t think so, not after what Emily had just said, but you were willing to accept it for the nice gesture, and that was all you cared about. Or, what you told yourself was all you cared about.

“I think so.” You definitively told Emily, breaking into a smile to really sell it.

Just when she was about to roll her eyes at you and maybe try her hand at talking a little more sense into you, Joe called you from the bathroom.

You left Emily on her own for about a minute before joining her again.

“Okay. Let’s go. He’s not coming.” You grabbed your coat and found your bag. The one Joe had given to you, but hadn’t spent a penny on.

“He’s– what?”

“He thought of something that still needs doing. He’s not coming.”

Emily stared at you from where she was sat, watching you hurriedly wrestle your arms into the sleeves of your coat as she slowly caught up to speed.

“So, I’m sorry, but have we just waited for him for ages for fucking nothing then?”

You ignored her tone, finding your phone, your keys, and then Emily’s coat as well.

“Let’s go. If we hurry, we might beat the rain.”

You chucked Emily her coat, and she almost didn’t move her arms in time to catch it. With the front door already open, you gestured for Emily to make her way through, calling, “Bye! We’re off!” into the flat.

Emily, under her breath, very mockingly sing-songed, “Love you!” in that same tone as she walked past you, making her point once more.

You didn’t repeat her, but instead rolled your eyes at what you decided was a joke, and then loudly said, “Don’t wait up!”

You didn’t wait for Joe to answer before you slammed the door shut.

It’s been weeks.

Months, technically, although it doesn’t feel it.

“Please be home, please be home, please be home,” you mutter to yourself as you rush your way down his street. “Please be in the fucking country, for just this fucking once…”

You’d texted and had gotten no coloured ticks from him. So then you’d called, but it just rang for ages before you were eventually sent to voicemail, and that’s something you don’t do. Especially not now. Not about this. Hell would have to freeze over before you’d leave a voicemail message. You could delete a text thread, or a voice note. But, a voicemail? Once a voicemail sends out, there is no undoing that.

Maybe you’re crazy, but what you’re doing now feels safer.

It’s after midnight, dark, the streets wet from earlier rainfall, but you feel wide awake. You’ve got Emily’s words ringing in your ears still, and you’ve not been able to shake them yet.

Her advice.

Or, well, it was more just her opinion. She had expertly dressed it up as a fact, though, which is probably why that one sentence still held you in a vice grip.  

Telling her about how you’d had a few… moments, with Joe, since you’d broken up with him, turns out, was the wrong thing to do.

You just really wanted to tell her about the wine.

The expensive bottle you’d satisfyingly dunked into his kitchen sink.

It’s been weeks by now, but you still think about that all the time. And every time that you do, you feel pure glee spark inside of you.

You thought she’d be the same.

You thought she’d absolutely love it.

But then, after you had told her all about that night, she’d just looked at you with so much disdain and disappointment, it startled you into rambling excuses, none of which sounded true to your own ears, let alone hers. She then had shook her head, and sort of muttered something to herself that you asked her to repeat.

It’s those words that haven’t left the forefront of your mind since.

You didn’t ask Emily to clarify herself. You hadn’t gotten into an argument, either. You had just… moved onto a different topic. A lighter, easier to digest thing to talk about.

It left those words to rein freely, left those words at liberty to inflate themselves until they were all you could think about, and the feeling had clawed at your chest for the rest of the day. The rest of the night.

You hadn’t been able to answer the question, what’s wrong, that you were repeatedly asked until it made you upset.

“Nothing’s wrong! Stop asking me what’s wrong! God! You asking me what’s wrong a million times a minute is what’s wrong!”

Something is wrong though.

Obviously.

You just left someone in your bed for this.

Ringing Joe’s doorbell is a quick action, fingers pressing that familiar button before you can have any doubt of what you’re doing. It takes longer than a few seconds before you hear a small beep.

“Joe? I texted you, can you reply to my text?”

A silence follows, and for a moment you think maybe the intercom doesn’t work properly, or maybe he just hadn’t heard you.

“I– I sent you a message, check your phone–”

A loud click of the door unlocking and a loud shrill buzzing sound interrupts you.

“No you don’t have to– just text me back, will you?”

No answer follows, but the loud buzzing persists. After a few more seconds of it, you know Joe’s just holding down the button until you go inside.

That wasn’t the plan. 

With a frustrated grumbling sigh, swearing under your breath, you push yourself into Joe’s building and make your way to his front door.

In the lift you decide you won’t let the doors close properly when they’ll open on Joe’s floor. You’ll tell him from half inside the lift that he just needs to check his phone.

You just want an answer.

But then the lift doors open and one foot steps out as you lean into the hallway, expecting to see Joe waiting by his front door, yet he isn’t.

You make an angry face, nose pulling up and showing your clenched teeth with a frown. You’re in a building where people are asleep so you can’t make any noise, but you absolutely would have otherwise. Joe leaves you no other choice but to get out of the lift, and begrudgingly, you make your way over to his doormat.

When you get closer, you can see how the door’s been left open.

“Hey,” you whisper-yell into the flat, “Joe?”

You get no answer, and take a few careful steps inside to find him standing in his kitchen in a T-shirt and a pair of boxer-briefs. He’s got his back turned to you, and is seemingly busy cleaning up mess he’s left out from dinner.

It’s the fucking middle of the night.

It’s dark in Joe’s flat, the only light in the room coming from his under cabinet LEDs, and it’s weirdly warm for the time of night, you think.

“Hey, I–” you start, voice low because it’s late, but you quickly get cut off by Joe.

“Did you close the door?”

You blink a few times and watch Joe very carefully load some things into his dishwasher, making little to no noise at all. No plates softly clashing, no rattling cutlery.

“What? No. I–”

“Will you close the door, please?” Joe asks, but it sounds like a demand. Sort of cold, a little detached.

“All I’m here to say,” you try again. “Is that I want you to check your phone...”

Joe stands up straight and finally looks at you. Whilst maintaining eye-contact he slowly closes the dishwasher until it latches, machine clicking shut, and when he then just... keeps staring at you, you throw your head back like an annoyed teenager, and reluctantly do as you’re told.

You go to close his front door.

In the kitchen you hear the tap go, and when you join Joe there again, you can see how he’s filling up a glass with water.

Joe is about to take a sip when he suddenly decides against it and lowers the glass.

“Water?” he then asks, and holds it out to you with a stretched arm.

You’re slightly confused, but you take it, and then watch Joe reach for another glass from a cabinet and fill that one for himself.

“Thanks, but…” you place the glass on his counter and hold two hands up to Joe. “I’m just here because I need an answer to a text.”

Joe, with his mouth in his own glass, sort of looks at you a moment as he gulps water down.

He looks tired.

Which, yea, that checks out.

You fucking woke him up, didn’t you?

There’s so many reasons to declare yourself clinically insane right now, but you’re holding onto the notion that this is actually all totally normal with all of your might. If you pretend to believe it, you might just be able to trick Joe into it as well.

But Joe just looks at you like he’s waiting for you to give the real reason of why you’re there.

“So, if you could just, check that. Answer it. That’d be great.” You force a polite smile and step back. “That’ll be all.” And you turn to leave again.

“You’ve been crying.” Joe stops you in your tracks.

You turn back to him.

“No. Well, yea I was, but that’s not– I’m fine, that was about something else, not this. You don’t have to– stop, I’m going to go, please... respond to my message. I’ll read it when I get in, and that’ll be that.”

“Wait.”

Joe picks up the glass of water you’ve just put down and gives it back to you. When it’s in your hands, he even gives it a little push upward to ensure that you have a sip.

“I’ll go get my phone.”

And he’s so calm and agreeable that it feels rude to do anything else but take a sip and wait for him. You watch Joe walk out of the room to go get his phone, and it’s a lot of opening and closing doors, everything done as quietly as humanly possible. Then, you suddenly notice how hot you feel in your coat. It’s really fucking warm in here.

That’s new.

That’s... weird.

When Joe comes back, he closes the door behind him again and looks at his phone as he unlocks it.

“Why did you call me?”

“Just–”

“I’ll read the text.”

In silence, you stand and watch Joe open his texts and read your message. Messages. There’s several. Then, he starts typing back, and, this is what you came here for, but now that you’re standing in Joe’s kitchen in the middle of the night, having pulled him out of bed for this, you almost want to tell him he’s being an idiot. He can just as easily answer your question in person.

His message sends, and your phone buzzes in your pocket.

Joe places his down and gives you a tired stare.

“Yea, okay. Th-thanks.”

“Read it.”

It startles you.

“No, that’s…” You’re so stupid. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Read your message.”

You feel like a fucking child that’s being scolded by a parent.

Guilt.

Regret.

Self-inflicted, which makes all of it so much worse.

Every feeling sits dark and sticky and bitterly uncomfortable in your gut, clinging to all the edges, stretching longer until the shadows overtake all of the previous excuses you had for being here.

You shouldn’t have come.

You shouldn’t have gone to wake up Joe over something so insignificant and, well, dumb. It’s embarrassing, and you want to leave.

“You’re here now. I’m up. Read your message.”

You inhale deeply. Hold it there for a moment.

He’s right.

The damage has been done.

You’ve dipped a toe into this strange pond, and now you might as well canon ball yourself right into this uncomfortable mess, no matter how cold the water might be.

The only way out seems through.

You pull your phone from your pocket with a clammy hand, and fucking damn it, you’re sweating underneath all of your layers.

“I didn’t mean to… I shouldn’t have woken you up.”

Joe just lets his eyes drop to your phone before he looks right at you again, his very stance issuing the orders.

Read the fucking text.

You see the notification and open your phone with face ID. Your own messages to Joe catch your attention first, before you see his reply.

“Were we as good as we’re going to get?”

“What we were together”

“Was that really as good as it can get?”

“Ever?”

You didn’t have to send the same question in various different ways, but that’s what had happened.

Emily’s reaction to the stand alone get-togethers you’d participated in with Joe hadn’t been what you’d expected. You’d hoped for a level of girl power encouragement. For a loud get it girl, or a, yea babe get what you want.

Instead, you’d gotten a sigh and shake of her head, followed by a soberly mumbled, “You really do deserve each other…” that you’d asked her to repeat.

Before she’d always said that Joe didn’t deserve you. That was always the point she tried to get across. The idea she tried to sear into your brain. Joe was beneath you, and you were far above. Always.

And then suddenly, now you are no longer too good for him?

Suddenly you’re on equal footing, and you deserve each other.

What the fuck.

You look at your own messages and realise in that very second that you have no idea what kind of answer you are after from Joe. This isn’t a coin toss situation where you know what side you want that coin to land on the moment it get’s thrown into the air. Fear strikes you lightning fast. No matter what Joe is going to tell you, it’s going to be wrong.

What the fuck are you doing at Joe’s flat?

And why is it so fucking hot in here?

The only way out is through.

You read Joe’s text.

“Darling it’s late, let’s not do this over text”

A non-answer.

You look up at Joe, who is now leaning against his kitchen counter, legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. His head tilts to the side a little and neither of you speak.

It’s oddly unexpected that the guy in his underwear exudes more confidence than the girl bundled up in heavy layers of clothing.

You frown and read the message again.

For a second you debate what to do next. What to say. If this is going to be the end of this interaction, or if it’s going to be just the beginning.

It’s late, though.

You inhale deeply. Slowly.

Then, resign.

“Okay.”

Because honestly, what were you really even expecting from him?

Your soft little defeated okay isn’t what Joe expected though, you can see it in the minor change on his face. The eyebrows that quirk up slightly, his jaw that loosens, the eyes that round out...

“I’ll um...” you say softly, letting your phone sink back into a pocket before pulling at your sleeves to let them cover both hands.

Joe steps forward and bends to look at the clock on the oven behind him before he says, “Well. Since you’re here. Might as well.”

He gestures an arm at his dining table. At one of his chairs. It’s hard, but you do your best to ignore the memories of the last time you were there, sat in one of these chairs. Well, technically, you hadn’t sat in one of the chairs... Joe had sat on one of the chairs and you–

“Am I going to get an explanation of what’s going on?” Joe asks as he pulls out a chair for you.

Finally, you remove your coat.

“It’s a long story.” You say, then think for a moment and add, “No it’s not, actually. Emily said–”

“Ah. Emily.” Joe sits down in a chair opposite. “How is Emily doing?”

“Shut up. She’s fine.” You exclaim, voice a little raised in defense, and you’re immediately shushed by Joe. He holds up a hand as he perks up, and you get the message, lowering your tone as you add, “This isn’t about her.”

“It’s not?”

“No. She just said something. I…” you trail off for a second.

Your head’s a scrambled mess of doubt and insecurities and it doesn’t help that all you’ve done in the past few hours is overthink every single thought that’s popped into your brain. It’s a bit of a journey to retrace your steps and go back to the start of all of this.

“We were talking, and suddenly she... she said something and I’m just… I wanted to know if you think that… if you think what I texted you is true.”

“You just… wanted to know… if I think…” Joe narrows his eyes up at the ceiling as he thinks, slowly repeating your words.

It’s condescending.

Patronising.

Joe’s making fun of you.

“All right, be fucking honest or–”

“No, no. I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s nearly two in the fucking morning,” two already big eyes comically enlargen, but don’t make you laugh. Wrong audience. “But, yea, you’re right. Honest. I’ll be honest.”

You take a deep breath in preparation of what he’s about to say.

Were we as good as we’re going to get?

“Imposing question, though.”

Yea, you’re aware. It’s why you hadn’t been able to sleep and had eventually decided to just get up and out of bed, leave the boy you had in there on his own, and make your way over to Joe’s.

“I don’t know.”

Wild how you feel about five inches tall whilst simultaneously feeling like you’re taking up too much space in the room.

“You don’t know.”

Typical.

“Well. No, I… was it as good, wait, what was it?” Joe looks past you and sees that he’s left his phone on the counter. “Was it as good as it could be?”

You exhale through flared nostrils, frustration forcing your eyes shut for a moment.

“Were we as good as it’s ever going to get for us?”

“Were we as good as it’s ever going to get... I mean, I think so? I– But–... you tell me. Were we?”

And Joe’s right. It is late. You have spent hours thinking that question over, and you couldn’t answer it when you weren’t as tired as you are now, so it’s useless to even try at this hour.

You shrug, and for a moment, it’s quiet. You don’t know how to go about leaving now. You came here for something you aren’t going to get and so, fucking now what?

“Why um... why have you been crying?”

“Oh, I...” your fingers find your sleeve to rub. “I was asked why I couldn’t sleep, and I... well, I couldn’t really explain, so...”

Joe frowns in confusion, not understanding.

“I don’t know, you try listening to someone say shit like, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong I can’t help you, fifty times in a row, and try not to fucking snap.”

They’d been tears of angry frustration, mostly with yourself, and they’d actually surprised you. You hadn’t expected to cry, but, you felt hurt by words your best friend said to you, so you guess that does add up, actually.

Something slowly dawns on Joe before he then leans back in his chair and nods, scrunching his nose, and he whispers, “Jasper.”

“Jasper.” you confirm, and it makes you chuckle a little before a yawn breaks it up.

Joe watches you. Lets his eyes take you in. It’s the middle of the night and you’re very clearly going through something, but he hasn’t got the answers to the questions you’re asking him, and he hates it.

Wishes he could help.

Wishes the questions you wanted answers to weren’t so impossible.

Joe watches you yawn. Watches your eyes blink slowly as you stare into space for a moment. It’s so quiet, he can hear his clock tick on the other side of the room. Then suddenly, you smile.

“I told Emily about the wine... about how I was a complete bitch and poured that bottle right down your drain.”

And Joe can’t help but feel more amused at your smile than feel annoyed about his expensive wine being wasted. He won’t let his face show it though.

“Bet she enjoyed that.”

“Yea I thought she would, but... she just... she said that we deserve each other. Whatever that means.”

Joe watches your fingers rub along your sleeves. Knows what that means.

“That’s not true.” he suddenly says, voice low and sincere.

“Oh, right,” you huff a laugh and half-heartedly joke, “I don’t deserve you, of course.”

Joe doesn’t laugh.

“No, I mean... well, yes. Technically.” Before he continues, Joe shakes his head in an attempt get his thoughts in order. It’s late. “But not in the way you just said it. In that... you probably deserve better.”

“Probably?”

“Yea. And so do I. Probably.”

Hmm.

You silently mill that over for a second. Aren’t sure what to make of it. If there’s even anything to agree or disagree with there.

“But, who’s to say. All we know is that we weren’t the best before.”

Joe stresses that last word and then lets the words float in the air for you to draw your own conclusions from. It’s certainly true that you weren’t the best together - hence the break up that eventually happened. But Joe’s expertly sharing the blame, which is not a fun truth to face.

The before saves it, a little.

The before makes it sounds like Joe’s talking about two people who no longer exist. Like, those people are gone. That door is closed. And look at you now. You’re a whole new set of two different people. It’s a different world, and you’ve changed. Grown. Learnt.

Who knows what you’d be like now.

Joe can’t predict the future.

And neither can you.

“Hmm.” you hum, eyes trained on the surface of the table, body flushed with conflicting feelings you don’t know how to put into words. Instead of stumbling through words until you find ones that make sense, you remain silent and pull at your sleeves so there’s more fabric for your fingers to run across.

“Hey,” Joe leans forward a little and catches your attention. “Are you okay? Do I need to be worried about you?”

You smile and let it take over your whole face as you shake your head no before you bring your hand up to cover another yawn.

“No. But I should go. This was never meant to be– she just… I don’t know, Emily got into my head and I didn’t know how to get her out.”

Joe contemplates in silence. Wonders if he’s okay with the idea of you walking out and going home right now, in this state. It’s almost three o’clock.

“I don’t make the best decisions after midnight. Sorry.”

You push your chair back and get up on your feet, the plan being to give Joe a quick polite hug goodbye before you make your way back to his front door.

You’re tired, but you know the second you step outside into the cold air that will make your lungs feel sore, you’ll wake up enough to make your way home without any problems.

But then Joe decides you can’t just go.

You can’t just leave.

He’s stuck.

You’re stuck.

You’re stuck in it, together, in this muddy sludge of whatever the two of you have become now. One of you is going to have to step out of their shoes and escape, and Joe thinks it should be you, because you’ve escaped this quicksand of a relationship before. You know how to get out.

It’s weird that you willingly came back.

Keep coming back.

And it’s awful that Joe just keeps inviting you in. Welcomes you with open arms every single time.

But he wants you to stay. It doesn’t have to be like before. Things can be different. Better.

He decides he’s not just going to let you leave, so when he stands up and you go in for a hug, he takes hold of you by your upper arms and starts moving you towards his sofa.

Says, “Come sit for a second.”

And no resistance comes from you. Joe thinks it must be because you’re tired. You’ve cried and you’ve worried and you’ve let all of it eat away at you until you decided to reach out to him, and now, he wants you to stay. He’s not a fan of how, from a certain angle, it looks like he’s taking advantage of the situation, but... you’re both adults.

He’s not doing anything illegal.

Well.

There’s a girl in his bed.

It’s why the flat is warm and why all the doors are closed. Joe shouldn’t have let you inside. Shouldn’t have made you come in and shouldn’t have made you close the door behind you. Shouldn’t have given you a glass of water and shouldn’t have sat you down.

He doesn’t want you to leave now.

There’s a girl in his bed.

And you’ve got a Jasper in yours.

Joe’s closeness to you will come at a price, he’s aware. But it’s one he’s willing to pay. One he’s got the cash for, no problem. Name the sum and he’ll double it.

He’s got you by the arms and is walking you over to his sofa. You are stopped just before you’re about to step onto the area rug.

“Shoes off,” he says, like he gives a shit. You know he doesn’t, but listen to him anyway, and know that taking your shoes off means you’re not going anywhere. At least not for a while.

You get turned around and get sat down, and immediately, you feel far too comfortable. The seat’s too soft. The cushion’s too fluffy. Memories of the hours spent snuggled up on this sofa shoot into the forefront of your mind and you want to warn Joe that it’s not going to take much for you to fall asleep.

But before you can, he pulls a throw blanket from the other side and hands it to you, and you realise that getting comfy and cosy is actually the goal here.

There’s a guy in your bed, who you’ve just… left. Didn’t tell him anything. Just got out, got dressed and left.

You take the blanket from Joe.

It’s probably a good idea to at least let him know something. Send him a text. Let him know you’re okay. But that little voice of reason in your head gets drowned out when Joe sits down next to you and helps sort out the blanket so it covers you both.

“Sit for a second?” you ask through a soft half-suppressed laugh as Joe settles in beside you, your thighs touch underneath the throw. “Am I staying the night?”

“I don’t know, I don’t control what you do. I just want to sit for a second.”

Joe stretches an arm behind you that you think he’s going to rest on top of the sofa, but it moves your head forward a little as it grabs hold of your bicep to pull you in a bit more.

“Joe...” you warn, but it sounds lighthearted and sleepy.

“What?” Joe acts all innocent, but you can hear his amusement when he adds, “Just for a second.”

Joe is still shuffling in his spot, using his other hand to sort the cushion behind him, then pulling the blanket and tucking it under his leg, followed by him using his chin to fix the bit of flipped cotton of his T-shirt sleeve – it’s a lot of faffing for someone who wants to sit for just a second.

He’s nearly done, a centering sigh half way out of him when, suddenly, you feel how he pipes up a little and see how he looks across the room. His phone’s still on the counter, and for a second, Joe debates getting up to go and get it.

You determine on his behalf that he doesn’t need his phone by draping your arm across his stomach and snuggling up.

It’s warm in Joe’s flat.

And this little nest is perfect.

“Fine.” you mutter softly. “Jus’ for a second.”

Joe pauses for a moment as he looks down at how you let your nose brush his arm, your eyes already closed, and he grins as he sinks back down into his sofa.

You don’t make the best decisions after midnight.

Neither does Joe.

Maybe you do deserve each other. Maybe you don’t.

But you deserve this, you think. And you mean that in the best way possible. You deserve to be comfortable, and cosy, and toasty warm in a dimly lit room with a man who smells really nice.

You deserve to cuddle up next to someone who truly values your presence and genuinely just wants you to be there with them for a little while.

You deserve the soft tickling fingertips that delicately dance across your hairline, lingering there for far longer than ‘just a second’.

You deserve the barely whispered, super soft “Love you.” spoken so tenderly and punctuated with a gentle kiss pressed to the top of your head, it makes you tighten your arms around him.

You fall asleep in the soft glow of the under cabinet LEDs with the knowledge that the next morning is bound to be awkward. But this is still infinitely nicer than trying to fall asleep with Emily’s words on your mind. It’s difficult to think about impossible-to-answer questions when you’re wrapped up in strong warm arms that want you there, so you allow yourself to sink and to drift until dreams fully take you.  

A loud bang of a door slamming shut wakes the both of you with a violent jolt.

Two pairs of tired bleary eyes look around the room, and there’s a fleeting moment of confusion. Your mind scrambles to piece together where you are and what just happened, but all your mind can focus on is how dry and heavy your eyes feel as you blink to adjust to your surroundings.

“Oh, fuck,” Joe croaks, groaning as he goes to sit up. He looks over his shoulder, then rubs a heavy hand across his face before he goes, “Yea…”

You feel disoriented and frazzled, and move to sit up just enough to look over the back of the sofa with squinty eyes to see what Joe is even looking at.

All you see is an open door to the hallway that leads to his bedroom.

“What was that?” you ask, thinking maybe something dropped or knocked over somehow. When Joe gets up and walks over to his bedroom to check, you think that’s it. Something fell because gravity finally got a hold of whatever Joe had been precariously balancing on a bookshelf.

But then you hear Joe audibly sigh and dejectedly go, “Yea, she won’t be coming back.”

That takes minute to land.

It’s too early for your brain to comprehend what just happened, but slowly, puzzle pieces click together.

Oh.

Oh, that’s fucking detestable, isn’t it?

When Joe walks back out, he’s wearing joggers and is holding a ball of socks, and you hope there’s a different explanation than the correct one you just concocted. He looks at you for a moment, and you can tell by the look on his face that he feels awful.

Right.

Emily can fuck off.

You don’t deserve each other.

You deserve better than this.

Okay, so, yea, admittedly, you aren’t really one to talk, seeing the personal choices you have made over the past eight hours. But the choices Joe has made in that same span of time are just as bad, if not worse.

You decide to give into the feeling of wanting to lay back down rather than to face whatever this morning has on offer for you. You disappear from Joe’s sight, and cover all of your face with your hands that press and pull at your skin.

This is such a mess.

“Emily can fuck off.” You mutter into your own palms, hoping Joe can translate that and connect the dots of your disdain for him in this very moment.

You should leave.

Should check your phone for any messages or missed calls, and you should leave.

Never come back.

Learn your fucking lesson already and never set foot into this flat ever again.

But then Joe leans over the back of the sofa, and with knitted eyebrows that show off every single line on his forehead, he softly asks, “Do you want a coffee?”

You drop your hands.

Look up at him. The kind face. His short hair sleep messy. Jaw line. His mouth.

You should leave.

“Um…”

Oh... oh no.

“Yea…”

Fuck.

So close.

“Yea?”

You almost had it.

“Yea. I could use a coffee.”

Almost.

---

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[iid-smile]

can't get rid of me , fushiguro toji

a strong legacy to be left behind , chapter one

the series masterlist. | previous | next

cw: profanity, mentions of pregnancy (pills) but filtered for megumi's sake, mentions of violence in prison, you're broke, smoking cigarettes

author's note: sigh... im out of my fluff era 😞 (sorry guys) kinda wanted to write something that i think would actually happen in some sort of alternate jjk universe and um idk how far to go because this kind of stuff does happen in the manga, but writing it feels illegal??? idk...

"mom?" megumi peeks out from around the corner in the hallway. "who was calling?"

another groan escapes your lips, around the fifth one in the last three minutes, and you silence your phone once again. "your— excuse my language, shitty deadbeat dad keeps wanting to call me." you slap your hand across your forehead and lean back on the couch, a small creak coming from somewhere below. "apparently he's getting aggressive in prison. shut off the house phone, but they still found my number..."

your son comes closer to you, and you scoop him up, placing him by your side. he glances up at you, and you swear your fight or flight instincts nearly kicked in, (not that you'd be able to fight of a guy as big as toji anyways) flinching slightly from his sharp gaze. it sucks how he looks so much like his dad, because you loved megumi so much. but the image of that guy was almost too much to bear, and he's the spitting image.

"shitty?" he repeats. for a well-behaved kid, he really doesn't respect your words.

"don't say that megs, it's bad language." you swear around him all of the time, so what's the point in scolding him? "only your mama can say it."

"don't tell me what to do."

wow. okay. why do you feel threatened by a six year old? "damn, you've got his attitude too." you mutter, but you've only got yourself to blame for that. you knew you were never cut out to be a mother, so your ways of parenting weren't the best.

he snuggles closer to you, and you openly accept, moving your free hand to his hair to rub over it. "why can't i see toji?"

ah, this lovely story again. "because he left me as soon as you were born, love." really, you couldn't and didn't want to stop yourself from wrapping him up in your arms, feeling the need to protect him. "at this point, he's dead to me. seems like he doesn't feel the same though... i'm so sick of his ass." you also knew it wasn't good parenting to rant to your child about adult issues, but you've only got him to talk to.

that hug was out of comfort then. why are you lying to yourself?

he looks up at you with an irritatingly cute but blank face. "why?"

"god, i hate how many questions you ask." you speak under your breath once again, looking up at the ceiling from any sort of help from a higher being. the amount of times you've had to family-friendly-ify things that have happened isn't even funny. you're not naturally rated u for universal. it's more embarrassing when he recites those same stories to his teachers, and you get called into the school for a little talk.

yikes... here we go. "he lied when he said he gave me the right magical candy after we visited the stork. tried to make it drop you off back to where babies are made in heaven, but i wanted it to deliver you to me, whether he liked that or not." the story's got to be a little filtered somehow. you'd rather not get yourself in the principal's office again. "you're my little hero; a miracle to me. i would've given up on myself ages ago. your dad is a bad, bad man."

the type that would kill. if he found where you lived, or perhaps where megumi goes to school...

"and now i'm left broke in an apartment that barely functions, yet i still spoil my little hero." you sing-song, leaning your head back. "and with what money? i'm broke as hell, megs. can't even make both of us breakfast in the morning cuz your elementary school is too damn expensive."

"is this my fault?"

"...no. no, baby, of course not." you furrow your eyebrows more, a small pout in your lips. "if anything, you made my situation a bit more fortunate."

it's a selfish way of thinking, using your child to avoid solving your problems, using your child to wail and complain about how much you hate your life, but you've got nothing to lose. nothing to lose except for the one person you love.

you can feel your phone buzzing again.

"you stay here and watch tv, okay? mama's gonna go to the kitchen and talk to her friend." he seems a bit relieved as you let go of him, and you stand up.

you hear him mutter. "it's only playing the news though..." no shit it only plays the news, you can't afford to get a good television company that has any kids shows. that is, unless you wanna get scammed out of all of your money.

begrudgingly, you make your way to the kitchen, confirm that you closed the door completely, and answer the vibrating device. "hello?" you sigh, placing the device over your ear.

the other person on the call replies quickly. "is this miss—"

"yeah, yeah, it is. what the hell do you want?"

"um... we apologise, but we strongly suggest that you come to the prison building. he—" the guy's voice cracks. must be really nervous. "pardon me. he's been physically assaulting other inmates and guards, he doesn't follow orders, he never leaves his cell unless it's to visit the closed visits room. you know, in hopes that you'll come..."

obsessed much? where was this energy six years ago? "that's got nothing to do with me."

"please, ma'am. he won't listen to anyone, and we are unable to place him into special facilities as he doesn't emit any cursed energy." ah, he's begging? that's a first. you never would've thought you'd hear a person who works at a prison begging.

cursed energy, cursed energy, this talk again and again and again. "urgh..." you take a deep breath. your options are limited, and they won't stop calling until they can get that lunatic to calm down... surprise, surprise, you really don't want to go.

but if you were really uninterested in him, wouldn't you have already spent the bail money that's been sat on the counter for ages, neatly concealed in an envelope? wouldn't you have paid off all of your debts already? "will i— hm..." choose your words carefully, goddamn it. "can i get a reward of some sort if i go? money?"

"yes, yes! please do visit. there's nothing we can legally do to him in check anymore." ...you think this guy sounds a little too eager.

damn toji and his "supernatural powers", or else you wouldn't get yourself into this mess. finally, after your moment of silence, you respond. "okay. i'll visit."

"thank you—!" you cut off the line.

"fucking bastard..." you drop your phone on the counter, running your hands through your hair and over your face. "stressing me out for what? you don't even love me." your words turn into whispers. with haste, you rummage through your back pocket, trying to find those last few cigarettes, but as your hands were occupied, your eyes moved over to the ashtray that was collecting dust on top of the microwave. oh, right... you don't smoke anymore because there's no ventilation indoors.

you'd have to head out if you wanted to, but then megumi would be in the apartment on his own. and nobody can babysit, because you don't have anybody to ask to babysit. great, you can't smoke until monday. it's a friday afternoon. you have two whole days to get through!

you know for a fact your addiction won't hold out for that long.

[videovamptramp]

i would do anything for you to love me

(song: american hero - rainbow kitten surprises // natasha x fem reader)

summary - you have an obvious crush on natasha, and consistently do little things that prove so. though, she’s a grump who doesn’t know how to respond to your advances. this ultimately leads to her hurting your feelings.

warnings: mean nat, grumpy natasha, y/n is too sweet for her own good. a bit angsty but fluffy ending

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“hey nat!” you exclaim, and natasha nearly drops her coffee mug due to the sound of your high pitched voice. natasha turns to glare at you, “how many times do i have to tell you not to call me that?" she snaps, and your shoulders deflate a bit. “sorry, natasha! i just wanted to see if you were alright. you came back from that mission yesterday and you didn’t even have dinner...” you say, and natasha turns her head to keep her back towards you. “i’m fine.” it was an obvious lie, but natasha didn’t know that you knew that.

you merely nod, “okay, nat— natasha. i just brought you some of those banana and nutella crepe’s you like from that place downtown. here.” you reveal, as you place the to-go box on the counter that the redhead was leaning on. “thanks.” natasha mutters, and you smile widely at the small moment of politeness. natasha turns her head to see you smiling like an idiot, and her scowl returns as something unwanted in her stomach flutters. “is that all you wanted?” natasha asks a bit harshly, and your smile falters. “oh, yeah! sorry! i’ll leave you alone now!” you promise as you scurry away, leaving natasha alone. at least she thought she was alone.

“god, you’re such a cunt.” yelena murmurs, half asleep as she walks into the kitchen of the compound. natasha glares at her younger sister, “well good morning to you too.” natasha hisses, and yelena rolls her eyes as she reaches for a clean mug. yelena doesn’t say anything else to the redhead as she pours herself a cup of fresh coffee. "what has you in such a crap mood?” natasha asks, evidently annoyed. “nothing. i just figured we were all being asshole’s today, considering how you just behaved with y/n.” yelena’s response causes natasha to scoff. “oh please, i’m always like that with her. she’s like, borderline obsessed with me. nothing i say bothers her.” the older woman explains with a careless shrug, and yelena blinks at her sister in disbelief.

“she has a crush on you, идиот (idiot). god forbid somebody actually cares about you.” yelena whispers with a hiss in order to keep herself from snapping at her sister. natasha rolls her eyes, “i don’t want her to care about me. i don’t care about her at all. the sooner she realizes that, the better.” natasha simplifies, and shakes her head in dismay, before scoffing. ”you don’t deserve her anyways.” yelena mutters as she reaches for the to-go box that was originally for natasha. natasha glares, “that’s mine—” “you don’t deserve it.” yelena cuts in with a snarky tone, before she takes the crepes and coffee back to her room, leaving natasha alone.

natasha throws her coffee out into the sink, by now it's gone dog-nose cold. she tries to continue on with her day after that, though her thoughts of you, and the amount of unnecessarily sweet things you do for her, circulate through her mind. the way you leave files on her desk with cute little sticky notes. you bring her lunch or dinner up to her room, whenever she’s too mentally exhausted to join the team in the kitchen. you even bring her a protein shake after her practices and training sessions. natasha doesn’t remember telling you her favorite flavor protein shake, but you somehow know it’s peanut butter and chocolate.

the next morning natasha wakes up, and the kitchen is abnormally empty. she opens the cabinet, hoping someone bought new coffee so she wouldn’t have to. low and behold, there was a weeks worth of coffee in the cabinet with a sticky note and your handwriting on it.

“hey natasha! i’m going out of town for a week but i restocked the place with your favorite things! — y/n.”

natasha reaches for the note, and frowns. out of town? you didn’t mention a vacation to her. then again, she hadn’t really been in a talking mood yesterday. she never really was. “morning natasha. oh sweet!! someone bought coffee!” bucky exclaims as he reaches for the new tub of coffee beans. natasha stuffs the note in her pocket, “hey, where’s y/n?” natasha asks, and bucky furrows his brows. “she went out of town to visit her family for a week. i thought she told everyone about it the other day?” bucky questions, and natasha thinks back to a few days ago.

“hey nat!” you exclaim, your bubbly voice filling the gym as you bounce in. natasha scowls at the sight of you, “what do you want?” she asks, sounding harsher than usual. “oh, i was just looking for you to tell you something! i brought your shake!” you admit as you hand her the protein shake. “look, y/n, whatever you have to say, save it. i’m not in the mood today.” she snaps, and you frown. “o-oh okay. sorry nat i—”

“and my name is natasha!” she raises her voice and you flinch a bit. a wave a of guilt washes over her for a second, but she keeps her arms crossed and a glare on her face. “sorry natasha.” you mumble before walking out, and leaving natasha to train. “wow.” wanda chirps in, and natasha looks over at the other redhead. “what?” natasha asks angrily, “she just wanted to give you a shake and have a conversation.” wanda points out, and natasha rolls her eyes. “i don’t want to talk to her. and i didn’t ask her to make me a shake. i never ask her for anything. you’d think she’d take the hint and stop already.” natasha grumbles, and wanda nods. “well, maybe one day she will. i do think you’ll miss the actions more than she will though. so be careful what you wish for.” wanda warns, and natasha waves her off with narrowed her eyes as shoves her earbuds in and takes a big chug of her shake. it’s peanut butter and chocolate. her favorite.

“i guess she forgot to tell me.” natasha mutters, and bucky nods. “well, she’ll be back on sunday night.” he assures her as he opens the fridge. “oh sweet, there’s new bacon!!” he exclaims in a giddy tone, and natasha swallows thickly. you’re not here and you still did something for her.

natasha feels your absence throughout the day. it’s as if the compound is dimmer, and lacking any life. nobody brings natasha her shake, and she had to make it herself; though it doesn’t taste as good as when you make it. natasha always uses too much peanut butter. the rest of natasha’s day is no better. she doesn’t join the team for dinner, and she isn’t greeted by the sound of your soft knocks and a plate of her favorite foods.

natasha’s entire week without you is unexpectedly hell. for some reason, you seem to be the only person who seeks natasha out. you know when she’s having a bad day, you know when she’s had a terrible mission, you even know when she’s in a good mood. natasha doesn’t understand how you know all these things about her, she’s never once bothered to open up to you. it makes her feel a surge of guilt as she recalls all the times you’d try to talk to her, and she’d turn you down. she wishes she understood why she suddenly felt so weak without you. why her days dragged on when she didn’t hear the sound of your voice.

you return on sunday night, and as soon as natasha sees you, she knows somethings wrong. you smile at her, but you don’t greet her with your usual “hey nat!”. you drag your bags up to your room, and without a word you don’t come out until the morning. natasha doesn’t sleep that night; you’ve been gone for a week, and you didn’t even bother to say hello to her. why? you’re in the kitchen the next morning, chatting with yelena, “hey natasha.” you greet her with a soft smile. she doesn’t enjoy the way her full name sounds rolling off your tongue, despite how many times she demanded it.

“morning.” she greets back, eyeing you for a moment before shuffling passed bucky and thor to the coffee machine. natasha makes herself a cup of coffee, and can’t help but listen to you and yelena quietly talk about some show yelena’s watching. she doesn’t understand why it bothers her that you’re talking to someone else and not her. it’s what she wanted isn’t it? to be left alone by you. natasha huffs, and is out of the kitchen as soon as her mug is full of piping hot coffee.

today you don’t bring natasha a shake, and you don’t go out of your way to see or talk to her. natasha is in a grumpier mood than usual because of it. she hopes this is just a momentary thing. maybe you’re just taking it out on her for the way she acted before you left. you’ll be back to normal again by tomorrow. right? natasha doesn’t know why she's hoping that’s the case.

that definitely isn’t the case. the next three days pass and you barely say a word to natasha. you still smile at her, but the shine in your eyes seems to have disappeared. natasha has a haunting realization that you may have realized what yelena has been saying all along; you deserve better. better than natasha and her complex moods. better than the way she treats you. better than her and her need to push away anyone who truly cares about her.

natasha hasn’t been to dinner with the team for two weeks now, and you haven’t once brought her a plate. something about the sudden distance makes natasha inexplicably angry. your cheerfulness in your voice is gone whenever speaking to her, and she can’t figure out why your smile doesn’t reach your eyes like it did before. it takes two and a half weeks of this for natasha to get fed up and finally do something about it. she finds you on the treadmill in the gym alone, getting your cardio in.

this time, natasha tries a different approach. she brings you a protein shake. “hey. this is for you.” natasha says bluntly, and it causes your running to falter as you stop the electric machine and face natasha. she’s holding out a chocolate shake, and you eye it carefully. “i swear i didn’t poison it.” she promises, and you raise your eyebrows. “did— did you make it? for me?” you ask a bit uncertainly. natasha’s brows are scrunched together, and she scoffs.

“well, i don’t see anyone else in here do you?” she asks impatiently, still holding the protein shake. you gladly take it, and a small smile tugs at your lips. “thanks natasha.” you thank her, before taking a sip. it has way too much chocolate in it, but you don’t mind. the gesture is undoubtedly sweet. natasha stands there for a moment, and you blink up at her. “it’s good.” you obviously lie politely in order to spare her feelings, and natasha rolls her eyes. “you make them better than i do.” she grunts out, making your smile widen.

for some reason the curve on your lips makes natasha’s chest flutter. she clears her throat, “i’m uh— i’m sorry if i scared you off. i don’t take to kindness too well... your little acts of genuine kindness scared me. it wasn’t my intention to be such a jerk to you.” natasha apologizes, refusing to meet your eyes. you’re a bit surprised by the unexpected apology, and you shake your head quickly. “you didn’t!” you respond without thinking, “you didn’t scare me off... the truth is it’s been a tough few weeks for me. i’m not very close with my parents and whenever i visit, a fight always breaks out. it wasn’t my intention to make you think i was shutting you out, i’ve just been a little sad since going back home.” you promise, and her eyes widen.

“wait, so you... you aren’t angry with the way i’ve been treating you?” she asks and you shrug. “sure, sometimes you hurt my feelings, but sometimes i can see in your eyes how much you’re hurting. you deserve kindness, natasha. even if you don’t know how to accept it.” your voice is sincere, and natasha’s heart feels like it’s being squeezed so tightly it might pop. something inside of her snaps and she doesn’t even feel the tears brimming in her eyes. your eyes almost widen at the sight of her tears, “why? why are you so nice to me all the time?” natasha asks in a frustrated manner. why is it impossible to hate you? why doesn’t she want to?

“because i know what it feels like when the world hasn’t been kind. like i said, you deserve kindness, natasha.” you iterate, and the redhead lets her chest rise and fall before saying “yo-you can call me nat.” the smile you give her makes it feel like someone lit a match in her belly.

after that, there’s quite a difference in your friendship with natasha; if you could even call it a friendship. the two of you were nearly always together; during breakfast, during training sessions. on late nights doing paperwork, you’d keep natasha company, and she didn’t mind. it goes on like this for a few months, the subtle flirting, light touches, and longing looks. everyone on the team notices, including you both. the problem is, neither of you are brave enough to make the first move.

until you’re both put on a mission with peter and steve. it’s supposed to be an easy mission; peter and steve infiltrate the building across town with the databases and broadcasts, while natasha sets up a bomb in the secret hydra location downtown. except, it’s two minutes passed the time natasha’s supposed to have came out, and she still isn’t here. “steve— don’t start the bomb, nat’s not here yet.” you order, “what? *static* — do you mean— *static* —ot there?” steve’s mics chooses the worst time to start cutting out.

“rogers, stop the plan i’m going in for nat!” you say, and the mic goes silent. “steve?” you ask, but you don't get a response. within a moment a loud explosion sounds throughout the building, and your eyes go wide as the blood goes straight to your ears. you don’t even think twice before rushing out of the van, and running into the building. your eyes dart around, and you find the stairway right way. you go downstairs to where natasha’s supposed to be, and your eyes widen as you see she’s pretty busy fighting off three guys.

you rush over and pry one guy away from her, punching him square in the nose, then kicking him in the crotch. natasha uses one of her widow bites to tase the man, and she doesn’t notice you pulled your gun out until she hears the first shot. she looks over and sees the large man slump forward, and you don’t hesitate to shoot the other right between the eyes. natasha has never seen you use a gun before, and it causes her mouth to go dry for a moment.

you look at her, acting on complete instinct, as you grab her wrist and pull her for the nearest exit. not even a second after you push her out of the building, and stumble on top of her, the building collapses. surely leaving no survivors on the inside. you let out a silent breath of relief, nearly forgetting you’re literally on top of natasha romanoff. natasha pushes you off, glaring at you, “are you out of your fucking mind?!” the redhead shouts, and you frown up at her, propping yourself up on your wrists as she stands up. “why are you yelling at me!?” you ask loudly, your ears still ringing from the explosion.

“because you’re an idiot! you were supposed to follow orders and wait in the van!” natasha looks like shes seething, clenching her fists as she glowers at you. the police sirens snap you guys out of your feud, as you stand up. “get back in the van.” you order, and she scoffs as she follows you back into the van. as soon as you're both in, you speed away from the scene.

“rogers? parker? are you there?” natasha asks, as she uses the emergency walkie. “we’re here, natasha. where y/n? she was trying to tell me something before we got cut out.” steve says over the walkie talkie, and you look over your shoulder, “nothing. it doesn’t matter now.” you say, and natasha glares at you. “doesn’t matter?! you could’ve died! she completely went off orders and ran into the building, rogers.” natasha throws you under the bus and your eyes widen. “what?? y/n, you were supposed to wait in the van!” he reminds and you huff in frustration, hands gripping the steering wheel as you drive back to the compound.

“we’ll talk about this when we meet back at the compound.” steve adds, and your shoulder slouch a bit. you know you’re in for it. when you get to the compound, natasha completely ignores you as she practically stomps to the elevator. you sigh as you watch you her walk away. “y/n, your bleeding.” steve points out, as he gestures to your shoulder. “i think one of the guys i was fighting had a knife or something? it’s just a slash.” you assure him, and peter shakes his head. “that’s a pretty deep slash.” he mutters and steve flashes him a look, “that’s because it’s not a slash. it’s a gash. you need to get to medbay and get that stitched up.” he orders and you want to protest, but the stern look on his face advises you not to.

“yes sir.” you reply as you walk away with your head down. you aren’t upset that steve is disappointed, you’re more upset that natasha is angry at you for saving her. did she really expect you to just sit back and wait for her to die in an explosion? did she really think you weren’t going to go in there for her? your thoughts whirl around your head the entire way to medbay. you don’t mean to be so sensitive, but you can’t help but feel hurt as you realize natasha is angry with you. you don’t like it when natasha is upset with you.

“hey steve, where’s y/n?” yelena asks, sitting on the edge of the countertop as natasha rummages through the fridge for a beer. “medbay. she has a gash in her shoulder that needs stitches.” he admits and natasha knocks over the tub of juice as she practically pulls her head out of the fridge. “she got hurt?” the redhead asks demandingly, and peter shakes her head. “it’s not that bad, it’s just a cut.” he reassures the widow, and natasha slams the fridge shut.

“just a cut? a cut she didn’t even mention— oh i’m gonna kill her!” natasha hisses and the team hears her heavy footsteps as she angrily makes her way to the elevator. “natasha.” steve calls out, keeping his voice calm. she spins around, “what?!” she asks harshly, and he flashes her a look. “go easy on her. i don’t know why she went against my orders, but she sounded frantic before the mic cut off. whatever it was, i’m sure it was worth it to her.” he says, and natasha blinks a few times, the anger slowly leaving her body. you ran into that building for her. if you two would’ve left a second later, you’d both be dead.

natasha doesn’t respond; she swallows thickly, and makes her way to the elevator. the entire way to the medbay she thinks about how mean she was, after you quite literally put your life at risk for her. she also thinks about how sexy you looked while firing a gun. the beep of the elevator brings natasha out of her thoughts as she steps out, and she can already hear you and bruce going back and fourth. “come on, just tell me if it’s green.” you beg and he flashes you a stringent expression. “i’m not going to tell you if hulk’s junk is green!” he scolds, sounding extremely irritated and embarrassed while he attempts to keep still. he was nearly halfway through with your stitches, but you weren't helping by squirming every other minute.

natasha chuckles, causing you both to look over at where she was standing, leaning against the doorway. “you know, i always wondered that too.” she reveals, and bruce rolls his eyes. “oh great, now you’re both here. it’s bad enough i have to listen to this one’s way too personal questions, now i have to make sure these stitches are perfect.” bruce mutters, and natasha smirks, “better make sure you do a great job, banner. and try not to hurt her." natasha says protectively. you blush obviously, and bruce rolls his eyes as he continues.

you glance over at natasha who’s staring intently at the wound on your shoulder. “are you still pissed at me?” you ask, pulling her out of her thoughts and back to reality. she meets your gaze, and she shrugs. “only when i look at you.” she blurts out, and you frown, you shift and bruce glares at you causing you to halt your movements. “did you really come all the way here to tell me you’re still pissed?” you question, narrowing your eyes at the redhead. she crosses her arms tightly, turning her head to the side so she doesn’t have to meet your eyes.

when she doesn’t respond you scoff, turning your own head so you wouldn’t have to look at her anymore either. natasha glances at you every couple of minutes until bruce is done, but you keep your sight locked on the wall beside you. “alright, i’ll give you some antibiotic cream for it, you know the drill. come back next week so i can take the stitches out.” he explains adamantly, and you do a poor imitation of a salute. “sir yes sir.” you joke, making him shake his head, but there’s a faint smile tugging at his lips. “don’t make this a habit, y/n/n.” he adds, and natasha’s piercing eyes snap over to you both. “she won’t.” the redhead answers for you, and you flash bruce a look. “you heard her.” you state, and bruce nods as he makes his way out.

he leaves you and natasha alone, and a silence washes over you both. you gnaw on your bottom lip as you glance at her, before your eyes begin to dart around the room. your kicking your right leg back and fourth in anticipation, mentally preparing yourself to get yelled at or scolded (or both) by natasha. “what you did was seriously stupid. you do get that right? you could’ve died.” the taller woman scolds, but her tone isn’t as harsh as before. you narrow your eyes at her, “you could’ve died! if i hadn’t gone in there... you... you wouldn’t be here right now.” the haunting realization hits you as the words leave your mouth. tears brim your eyes as you clench your fists, “i don’t care if you’re angry! i’d do it again in a heartbeat!” you snap, and natasha looks taken back at the confession. as if the thought of you risking your life for her was so far fetched. as if you don’t think about her every morning and every night. as if her rare smile doesn’t make your day. as if she isn't the only consistent thought running through your chaotic mind all damn day.

“i have been nothing but an asshole to you! do you see that or are you blind?? why would you want to risk your life for someone like me?!” natasha yells back, her nostrils flaring as she crosses her arms, unknowingly flexing her bicep muscles. you have to remind yourself not to ogle her. your fingernails dig into your palms, nearly drawing blood as a few tears leave your eyes. “because you’re not just a fucking asshole, natasha! you’re a person! you’re a great person, and i don’t care how self deprecating you are, you deserve to live! and i— i wouldn’t be able to if you weren’t around... okay?” your voice breaking towards the end as tears fall out of her eyes rapidly.

natasha’s demeanor changes, as her arms fall to her sides, and her jaw unclenches. “what do you mean?” she asks, and you scoff as you turn your head to look at the wall. “please don’t pretend like you don’t know.” you whisper in a pleading tone, and natasha stares at you with those intense emerald eyes. “pretend i don’t know what, y/n?” natasha questions again, this time her tone is more demanding. you look at her, your eyes full of emotions. she’s never seen you so passionately upset, “pretend that you don’t know i’m hopelessly in love with you!” you hiss, balling your fists as you look at her while you cry.

natasha’s eyes nearly widen at the confession, and she stares at you as if she can see right through you. you sigh, shaking your head and wiping your tears away with your palms, “i know you could never love me, and maybe that’s why you don’t understand why i couldn’t just sit back today and let... let you get hurt. i had to go in there, and i would do it again. no matter the outcome.” you iterate certainly, and natasha is looking at you with an unreadable expression. “you’re wrong.” natasha mutters, and you roll your eyes. “if you’re about to gaslight me into thinking i don’t love you, you can just go, nat. i’ve had a long day.” you say in a exhausted tone.

natasha grits her teeth, “you had a long day?! i just almost watched the woman i love get blown up because of me!” natasha shouts, and her hand clamps over her mouth as soon as the words leave her mouth. your eyebrows nearly meet your hairline as soon as you hear those words. “the— the woman you love...? you love me?” you ask, your tone laced with a bit of disbelief and giddiness as your eyes flutter up to meet hers. she takes a step backwards, shaking her head, “n-no i didn’t— i didn’t say that. you misheard.” she says simply, and you grin, finally the air is light again. you giggle despite your tears, “no, i’m pretty sure i heard correctly. i’m also pretty sure there’s high tech cameras in this room, i’ll just ask FRIDAY to run the video.” you shrug and she narrows her eyes at you. “you can, but then you’ll be disappointed because i didn’t say love.” she insists, lying right through her teeth.

“it’s too late for take backs, nat.” you flash her a feline smile, and she scoffs. “there’s nothing to take back!” she defends herself adamantly, and you frown. “oh... okay.” you feign disappointment, pretending to actually feel hurt. she rolls her eyes, crossing her arms again, “god, you’re such a baby. i can’t believe i’m in love with someone who acts like a child.” she murmurs, and your eyes light up. “you’re in love with me?!” you ask, and she looks up at the ceiling. “you keep mishearing things, y/n. you sure that bomb didn't affect your ears?" she plays dumb.

you groan in mock frustration, “naaat.” you drag out her name whiningly, and she can’t help but grin. “fine. maybe i said it. once or twice.” she murmurs finally giving in, and your face breaks out into a gigantic smile. “i knew it! i knew you loved me!” you exclaim as you throw your arms around her neck and pull her in for a hug as you stay seated on the small bed. she rolls her eyes, but eventually hugs back. “can i have a kiss now?! please?” you ask hopefully, and natasha sighs, rolling her eyes as she pretends to be annoyed.

she pulls away, and before you can say anything else, she’s cupping your jaw with one of her strong hands and leaning down to kiss you. your heart is on the brinks of exploding, and you have no idea where to put your hands, but they instinctively land on her waist while you kiss back. suddenly every dismal emotion you've felt today dissipates, and all you can feel is a burst of warm joy. when she pulls away there's this soft smile on her face, and her eyes are full of love. "totally worth almost dying." you whisper, and she rolls her eyes playfully as she leans in and kisses you again.

[strawberrystepmom]

gojo x f!reader. very self ship coded. fluffy, a little hurt comfort-y. cw for light misogyny from higher ups. wc 1.5k

divider thanks to @/cafekitsune like usual

“Anything in those bags for me?”

You snort, bare feet padding across the shiny wooden floors of Satoru’s apartment that is also technically your apartment despite the fact you keep your apartment across town in case he’s really on your nerves, dropping them on the floor in front of you. He looks over the edge of the sofa, one arm slung over the back carelessly, and you can’t help but smile at him looking so relaxed despite the fact you lack the same ease.

“Nah, these are for me,” you retort, not mentioning the small box with the delicately wrapped lingerie at the bottom of the largest bag. He’ll have to wait until later to find out about that one. You leave the bags behind and walk toward the couch, leaning over the edge to give him a kiss.

“What’s the occasion then?”

Reaching down to wipe your gloss from his bottom lip, he nips at the tip of your thumb and you smile. He’s good at disarming you, something both of you have learned over the years spent side by side, and you climb over the edge of the couch and plop down on top of him.

“Higher ups.”

He hums, the sound laced with disbelief.

“I don’t think you’ve ever broken a rule in your life. What do they want?”

Giggling, you roll your eyes. Sometimes he behaves as if he forgets you’re milder now than you used to be, the fury of your youth something that became unimportant entering into your twenties.

“You know very well I’ve broken many rules in my life, especially theirs.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.”

Sighing, you snuggle into his chest and press your cheek to the area right above his heart, the steady beating comforting your anxious nature. He wraps one arm around your back and traces lazy circles over the back of your arm.

“They think I’ve given my students too much freedom, Maki especially. It’s a scolding.”

Admitting your anger aloud would feel like a loss so you simply sigh, pressing your face against Satoru’s chest and closing your eyes. He continues rubbing circles into your skin, watching the tension slowly melt out of your limbs, but now he is wound up.

How dare they question your methods? None of them have any clue what it’s like to be in the role the two of you both are, strength removed from the equation, and it feels like yet another overreach of their power.

“They’ve been on my ass for months, this is just the latest thing they’re mad about.”

Satoru scoffs, shifting and sitting up. He pulls you with him, keeping you pressed to his torso while getting comfortable. His face gives away every ounce of his concern, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean months? How often have you been seeing them?”

Your face doesn’t hide your surprise that he has somehow missed out on the last five times you’ve been summoned to address what would otherwise be very routine issues to be handled between yourself and your immediate supervisor Yaga.

“This is like the sixth time they’ve asked me in to talk…” you trail off and he reaches up to cup your cheek.

“There’s more you want to say.”

You nod and half shrug.

“Feels kind of pointless to say it though.”

He pinches your cheek and you smile, trying to shake him off of you but giving up and after a moment, giving in.

“They’re mad at me because we’re together. This is a punishment for distracting you and everyone else I’ve mentioned the situation to agrees with me.”

Despite being a tiny bit annoyed you’ve seemed to discuss these meetings with everyone but him, he understands. The mythical heads of the sorcerer community have always tried to keep his leash just loose enough to let him roam but tight enough to keep him controlled and now that is extending to you in the form of bureaucracy and bullshit.

Gojo Satoru, head of the Gojo clan and the strongest sorcerer, won’t allow it.

“What have the other meetings been about?”

A serious Satoru is a beautiful and terrifying sight, his jaw ticking and his face set in a hard glare. It isn’t often he gets this fired up and you’ve intentionally kept the situation quiet to avoid giving him something else to worry about. Selfishly, it makes your heart beat faster knowing that he’s so willing to jump to your defense.

“First one was about my technique and the logs I’ve been keeping of exorcisms performed in my domain, three of them were about my students, the most recent one was about, well, you.”

He frowns and you know he’s asking you to elaborate although you’re embarrassed to even be discussing the most recent meeting. You cried the moment you left the meeting, tucking into a corner long enough to compose yourself to keep Nitta from worrying about you the drive back to the campus.

“They reminded me we aren’t allowed to go on missions together.”

A humorless chuckle is all he can manage. The gall of these people shouldn’t surprise him the way that it does after all these years yet they still manage to pull one over every now and then.

“What exactly was said?”

He sees the shift in your face and knows immediately their words must have been full of bluster and cruelty disguised as tradition. Of course they aimed them at his partner, his girlfriend, rather than the man they have so many issues with. Satoru softens, pulling your head toward his lips and pressing them against your forehead.

“They said they won’t pay for us to go on “little lover’s vacations” just because we are unprofessional.”

The mocking serious tone you use to mimic these powerful men makes him laugh and he kisses your forehead again. He knows you well enough to know that you are still holding back everything that was said to you but he understands why.

“Well, fuck them.”

Laughing and shaking your head, you lean into Satoru’s big body with a contented sigh.

“We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Maybe I’ll tell them just that.”

You both know that you would never but he laughs at you anyway.

“If you don’t I will.”

You were happy to let the conversation die there, instead mentioning that there may be one thing in your shopping bags for your spoiled boyfriend. It served as distraction enough that you didn’t have to discuss the heavy stuff and the evening was spent focusing on more pressing matters.

This morning, though, Satoru isn’t willing to focus on other matters.

Riding the elevator to the bottom floor where these meetings take place, you straighten out your new blouse and ensure your skirt is acceptably pressed above the knee. Anxiety runs wild through your body but you breathe through it, sweaty palms clutching the handle of your purse.

The elevator doors slide open and you step out, jumping and shrieking in terror at the sight of a blindfolded Gojo standing in front of you.

“Holy shit, what are you doing here?”

He grins and you swear it lights up the dim surroundings.

“I’m not going to let them treat you that way.”

The support means the world but the notion of him saving you makes you uncomfortable, shifting your weight from foot to foot where you stand.

“You don’t have to stand up for me, Satoru…”

He shakes his head and puts one hand on your shoulder, burying the other in his pocket nonchalantly.

“Oh I’m only going to be supporting you from the outside. I know you’re more than capable of telling them to stick their old man opinions up their asses, isn’t that what got you in trouble your third year?”

Smiling at the memory, you nod. That was indeed what got seventeen year old you in enough trouble you were off missions and in detention for a month.

Yaga let you watch TV and tap away on your handheld game device the entire time in lieu of actual punishment.

Satoru’s grin softens into something sweeter and just for you.

“Don’t forget who you are. You aren’t just my girlfriend.”

His emphasis and both just and my make you laugh but you quickly compose yourself, straightening your shoulders and spine and letting Satoru pluck a bit of lint off of your top. He claps your shoulder and shakes you just enough that you strangely feel steadier, ready to face whatever opposition lies down the flight of stairs a few feet away.

“Thank you, Satoru.”

He shrugs.

“I’m just looking forward to listening to someone else handling you while you’re mad.”

Another nod is exchanged between the two of you and he squeezes your shoulder one last time before turning you in the direction of the staircase. He pats your ass once and you slap at his hand but confidence is all you feel heading down lower.

Gojo has never been more certain he picked the right one in his life.

[sensitive-neuvi-enthusiast]

Day 23: Cockwarming

♤♡-Pairs: Wriothesley x fem!reader

☆☆-Warnings: cockwarming, thigh smacking, degrading, rough fucking, desk sex, harsh words, he's a little mean, cuming on tummy/pussy, Dom wrio, slight dumbification

A/N: Little late, but enjoy! ♡

"Stay still, you know I'm busy." He spoke, gruff, against the shell of your ear. Your arms wrapped around his neck as your legs dangled from his lap. Your warm cunt wrapped snug around his cock, fluttering each time he spoke. "M'trying, just feels so good." He chuckled, the rumble of his chest vibrating against yours, making you whine. "I know it does. But good girls, patient ones, get what they want after they listen. Isn't that right?" You nodded, doing your best not to shift. 

It was your fault you were like this, he'd say. But you had a different opinion. If he'd spent less time working and more time fucking-

You felt a smack against your thigh, your flesh rippling. "I said don't move." Fuck. You must've moved while you were spaced out. It wasn't fair. His cock was nestled deep in between your thighs, probably leaking against your soft walls. "Mm," you groaned, breathing hot against his neck. He gave your thigh a comforting rub before returning back to work. His hand moving swiftly across the papers. You weren't even sure what he was working on. It didn't cross your mind when you'd walked in earlier. A pair of begging eyes as you shoved his papers to the side, begging him to fuck you against the desk. 

It hadn't worked, and now you were being tortured. The very thing you wanted was so incredibly close, but you couldn't enjoy it. 

"Wrio-" another smack landed to your thigh, this time harder. You gasped, pussy twitching almost immediately from the pain. His grip tightened before he breathed, "That's not my name." Your face flushed, burying it in the crook of his neck. "M'sorry…Your Grace." Wriothesley smiled, "that's better. Now behave, the sooner I finish this work the quicker I can fuck you." He pressed a kiss to your temple before getting back to work. His cock twitching slightly before settling inside you once more. 

Minutes passed as you tried. You really did. Desperately clinging to the fabric of his shirt so you didn't move your hips. And you knew he could feel your walls fluttering around him, squeezing him. He gave you many warning squeezes to the plush of your thighs. But all that did was make you more needy. Your hips moved, shifting your body back and forth. His length dragging in and out of the wet, hot cavern of your cunt. He groaned, immediately dropping the pen as both hands grabbed your hips, stilling them. 

"You've been warned three times already." His voice was low, raspy as his eyes bored into yours. "You just don't listen." 

Wriothesley stood easily, still connected before he pressed your back to his desk. Papers long forgotten as he looked down at you, sliding himself out before slamming back into you. Your back arched off the surface, eyes crossing as you moaned. "Can't think with that pretty little head of yours with my cock inside, can you?" You nodded your head rapidly, arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders as he fucked you. The desk creaking in time with his thrusts, papers slowly falling to the floor. 

"Just couldn't wait, could you? Needed my dick that bad-fuck," he let out a breath, feeling you clamp around him. 

"Yes yes, wan your cock always-love your cock, Wri-"

"That's not my name, and you know it. What, want me to fuck you harder? Okay, I can do that." His thrusts sped up, his balls slapping against the flesh of your ass. Your arousal leaking, splashing against your thighs each time he entered. "M'sorry…so..rry..Your Grace," you sniffed, your tummy muscles clenched. A knot forming, building as tears rolled down your cheeks. "Too late for sorry's baby," he peppered kisses over where your tears fell. A stark contrast to the way his hips pistoned in and out of you. 

"Want my cum baby?" He breathed, sucking in a breath when your pussy twitched in response. You nodded, unable to form words with how cloudy your mind became. "Huh? What was that? Couldn't hear you, guess you don't want it after all." He chuckled, leading into a groan as he swore, craning his neck downwards. Watching as you swallowed him whole, happily. "Fuck-you take me so well, s'aa shame I won't get to feel you cum around me." 

Your eyes widened at his words, breath stolen as he stilled, pulling out before stroking his cock. Letting his sticky seed land on your lower tummy and the top of your pussy. Making you messy. "Mm-fuck," he groaned. The sloppy sounds of him stroking himself filled the room. His thumb rubbing across the slit as a few more ropes of cum spilled onto your worn body. Your eyes welled with fresh tears, still horny and close. And upset that he didn't fill your womb with his sticky cum. 

With a puff of air, he sat back in his chair. Dick limp as the leftover cum leaked onto the front of his pants. 

In one fell swoop, he gathered you up in his arms. Willing his dick to harden slightly so he could slip himself back inside. He hissed, 

"Told you. Only good girls get what they want. Now sit there in my cum and wait for me to finish this paperwork."

Masterlist

Prev. ☆ Next.

[augustjustice]

Children Behave (That's What They Say When We're Together), 1/2

AO3

It’s just after 10 pm on a Saturday night when the Party find themselves standing out on the edge of the forest surrounding Lover’s Lake, summoned by the “Code Red” Dustin had sent out half an hour before on their walkies. 

“Dustin, seriously…what are we even doing out here?” Max demands with an exasperated flap of her arms as she hops off the back of Lucas’s bike, the pair of them stopping a few feet from the two others already dropped into the grass. 

They approach the figures at the treeline quickly, the silhouette of one of Dustin’s many rotating ballcaps and Mike’s black curls–grown out so long they nearly brush his shoulders now–easy to recognize, even in nothing but moonlight. 

It’s just the four of them these days, at least until the Byers manage to pack up their house in Lenora and move the family back to Hawkins. The party has been impatiently waiting out the days until summer begins as a collective, Dustin even rigging up a countdown clock that he updates them on every morning before school.

“Yeah, I really wish I knew,” Mike mutters in answer to Max’s question, the pair of them sharing an equally exasperated look, a rare show of solidarity.

“Reconnaissance,” Dustin interrupts, simple and curt, pointing from his position squatted down amongst the greenery. “Look.”

As one, Lucas and Max turn to follow the direction of his finger–where Steve’s familiar maroon BMW sits, about a stone's throw from Reefer Rick’s place. 

“That’s…weird,” Lucas admits. “What’s Steve doing out here?” 

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Dustin explains. “Steve wasn’t answering his walkie. He always picks up, he knows the Rule of Law.” 

“How’d you even know to look for him out here, then?” Max asks, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Through the powers of deduction, my dear Mayfield,” Dustin replies, voice purposefully affected. “Something’s afoot. Of the Upside Down variety.” 

Even the mere suggestion is enough to make the other three teens stiffen, casting wary glances at the darkened forest around them. 

“Vecna’s dead,” Mike says, voice threaded through with sudden tension.

“And El closed all the rifts in Hawkins,” Lucas insists.

“She did,” Max agrees immediately, coming to the defense of both Lucas and El simultaneously.

“How many times have we said that before?” Dustin asks.

Max, Lucas, and Mike all share a cowed, anxious look. 

“I’m just saying, it never hurts to stay hypervigilant. Especially around here. Don’t forget, Steve and the others tried to leave us behind, in this very spot, the last time.”

“Yeah, but…it wasn’t like we didn’t know what was going on then,” Lucas says defensively. “They would tell us, if Vecna was back.”

“That’s because we,” Dustin gestures emphatically between himself and Max, “were the ones to figure it out in the first place!”

“Come on, Dustin, he’s probably just…with some girl.” Mike’s face twists in a way that makes it clear exactly what he thinks of that. “I mean, it is Steve.”

“He’s not on a date, Mike,” Dustin rolls his eyes, his snippy tone implying the very suggestion is absurd. “Because if he was on a date, he would have told me. You think he would have missed the opportunity to brag about some hot Saturday night out he had planned? No. Besides, Steve tells me everything.”

“And yet…” Lucas holds up a finger, with the gravitas of someone interjecting in a court of law, “you still continue to insist he and Robin are dating, despite the fact that Steve’s told you a thousand times they’re not.”

“That’s not the same thing. It’s not my fault Steve’s too emotionally stunted he can’t recognize his own feelings for what they are,” Dustin waves a hand dismissively. 

“They’re definitely not dating, dude,” Max says with a certainty that makes the boys’ heads swivel in unison to look at her, like she possesses some secret knowledge none of the rest are privy to yet. She ignores them, instead taking the binoculars from Dustin without so much as a question. 

“It’s called Lover’s Lake,” Mike points out petulantly, “it’s literally a make out spot!”

“And the exact location of a former gate,” Dustin argues with just as much fervor. “Which Steve knows. Why would he be out here if it wasn’t because of something connected with the Upside Down?”

“I hate to break it to you,” Max interrupts, still peering through the binoculars, a slight smirk unfurling across her face, “but it looks like Steve’s definitely on a date.”

“What the fuck?!” Dustin squawks. “Let me see!”

As Max and Dustin begin a spirited game of keepaway with the binoculars, Lucas cranes his neck curiously. 

“Ew,” Mike’s face screws up in exaggerated disgust. 

“What?!” Lucas’s shoulders scrunch up towards his ears, defensive. “Don’t act like you don’t wanna know.” 

“I definitely don’t, dude.”

“Admit it. You’re just mad because he didn’t tell you.” As she continues taunting Dustin, the corner of Max’s mouth tilts into a teasing grin. “Busybody.” 

“Listen to what your boyfriend is saying, Max, and see reason. We need to find out if Steve and Robin finally got their shit together!”

“I already told you, they are so not dating,” Max rolls her eyes. “Besides, whoever he’s got in there with him? Has dark, curly hair. That sound like Robin to you?”

“Curly?” Lucas’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, you don’t think it’s–” 

“Nancy?!” Mike gasps, completely scandalized. 

“No, but I thought–Jonathan,” Dustin darts a confused look at Mike. “Unless…I was right, and they’re out here investigating something! I mean, come on, it’s Steve and Nancy. That sounds exactly like the kind of guns blazing thing that they would do.” 

“It didn’t look like they were investigating,” Max mutters, “at least…not anything that wasn’t already inside the car.” 

Whether it’s that last comment that sets him off is unclear, but from one blink to the next, Mike is suddenly charging out of the woods towards the car. 

“Wait a second, Mike!” Max shouts, on his heels immediately. 

One fleeting look between Dustin and Lucas is all it takes to send them rushing after the pair. 

None of them is fast enough to catch up to his gangly gait, however, especially not with Mike Wheeler on a mission. In moments, he’s right on top of the Beemer, slapping an open palm impatiently against the window.

“Steve? Nancy?!” he shouts in petulant, disbelieving teenage outrage as the two figures inside spring apart. “Holy shit, is that you? Open the door!”

The question is followed by the sound of muffled cursing, and, apparently deciding the pair isn’t moving fast enough, Mike yanks repeatedly at the handle on the passenger side. 

He’s nearly knocked backwards into Lucas, the other three having caught up, when the door finally pushes open under his hand. 

"Nancy?!" he repeats in a screech to rival even Dustin’s loudest as the dark, disheveled curly hair they'd already spotted comes more clearly into view.

"Uh…" a deep, familiar voice pipes up, "sorry to disappoint, but–I'm definitely not Wheeler."

"Oh my God, you guys have gotta be fucking kidding me," Steve’s voice pipes up, and then he lets out a full-bodied groan, leaning across the console and pinning them all under his glare. 

He's wearing his 'seriously pissed off' face, which is about two shades more intense than his 'pretending to be pissed off for the sake of saving face and riling them up' face. And at his side sits none other than…

Eddie Munson, who blinks over at them with wide brown eyes.

Part 2

[ovaryacted]

If you need some crack to help lift the spirits.

Leon trying (and failing) to win over his s/o’s cat.

I’m talking like, Leon meets the fluffy beast for the first time. He tries to pet her and she glares at him. his s/o is like “This is princess. She’s very sweet :)”

His s/o can’t see it, but Leon can. That cat is a menace.

She knocks over a cup when she sees Leon and s/o kissing. S/o is like “aww someone wants attention.” But Leon K N O W S.

Whenever Leon and S/o are cuddling, the cat gets between them.

He sleeps over and wakes up to the cat sitting on his face to try and suffocate him.

When s/o is gone? It’s WWIII. Leon and the cat are in the same room and s/o isn’t there? WWE smack down on LEON. He gets beaten by the CAT.

Whenever s/o turns their back, Leon and the cat just GLARE at each other wherever they are.

He tries to pet her and she actually growls at him. Full on monster growl. He tries to win her over with treats and she hisses. He once got so fed up he hissed back. Only ended in mutually assured destruction between them.

They tolerate each other at best. But infront of s/o? They behave.

But! Bonding! Only during storms. The cat is afraid of thunder, and storms remind Leon of RC. So he’s awake in bed, and the cat just so happens to walk onto his lap and sit down. But as soon as the rain stops? It’s back to Tom and Jerry antics.

However. If the cat is sick or hurt, Leon is perceptive enough to know she needs to go to the vet. He’s studied the feline for so long he actually gets upset if she has to stay at the vet for an extended period of time.

But once she’s back? the Cone of shame can’t stop CLAWS.

But, it’s not all cats. Maybe there’s more animals. They all Love leon. He can read them and their behavior easily. He’s just been bested by this ONE DEMON CAT THAT HIS S/O NAMED PRINCESS

-angsty (not really anymore lmfao) anon

LMAOOOO OMG THIS IS FUNNY AND ALSO CUTE AND ENDEARING. I can see Leon being someone who is relatively good with animals and is often kind to them, but he just can't seem to get along with his partner's cat. I've seen so many videos of cats doing the same thing where they'll be so close with their guardians and the other person becomes their punching bag. Yeah, Leon would find himself in that predicament.

He can't be near his partner without the cat hovering nearby, probably jumping into their guardian's lap and craving attention, which really is just a tactic to get Leon away from them. That cat is just so petty that they'll stare and hiss at Leon when he kisses his significant other, almost as if daring him to fuck off.

God forbid Leon is in bed with his partner too, this cat will just come into bed and start slapping Leon in his sleep and it wakes him up so suddenly he feels a weight on his chest. He blinks in the dark, seeing orbs literally staring back at him as if this small pet was claiming their dominance over Leon.

He tries to mention it to his partner and says that he doesn't know why Princess hates him so much as he scratches the back of his neck. His lover just kind of laughs and shrugs, saying "She'll warm up to you, she's just not used to you yet. She's a sweetheart" and he thinks that it's reassuring enough so he drops it and moves on.

Except the moment of acceptance never comes, not in the way Leon wants anyway. He is literally fighting at home constantly, this cat, this so-called princess making an enemy out of him and trying so hard to get on his nerves. He'll get hit constantly, and his clothes are used as makeshift scratching toys, all torn up from the kitty's claws. Not to mention, Leon also gets scratched if he even tries to get too close to Princess, she'll literally jump his bones and pounce on him to get some hits in.

This is a man who kills bioweapons for crying out loud and here he is, getting his ass beat by a fucking cat. But he loves his partner, really does, and knows that they are good for each other so he decides to suffer in silence and let Princess tear him a new one. He tries to bribe them with treats and toys, giving them a peace offering so they'll back off but the cat just won't give him a break.

What he doesn't talk about are the rare moments when this demon cat silently accepts his existence. They hate the rain and hate thunderstorms, and one night Leon finds himself wide awake and walks out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, getting himself a cup of water. He can't sleep, knowing it will be a while before he can go back to bed. He watches the cat coming towards him, and he doesn't move, just pretends he doesn't see them in his peripheral.

The cat jumps onto the counter, tail curling as they watch Leon diligently, but there isn't malice in their eyes. He tilts his head towards the fluffy animal and starts to talk to them.

"You too huh?", he's asking this pet if they hate thunderstorms just like he did, and he gets a meow in response. He sips at his water again, nodding his head as he suddenly becomes the cat whisperer.

"Yeah, I hate the rain", Leon mumbles after, and they stay in the kitchen in comfortable silence after a while, enjoying the quality time shared with a new mutual understanding between them.

Maybe this cat ain't so bad. He'll think that to himself before getting his ass beat again the moment he wakes up.

[igetthedisneybox]

So.

Kids always get up to wild shit. Especially when their little.

Everyone's parent has a story of how their kid nearly gave them a heart attack.

What stories do the madrigals have regarding your next gen fic?

Oh god, so many.

Like, soooo many.

I decided to do just the biggest heart-attack inducing event for each kid.

Miranda: She's well-behaved, so the biggest moment was when she first got her gift at age eight and almost floated off into the stratosphere XD.

Amelia: At fifteen, she snuck out with her girlfriend and they got caught kissing....rather passionately.

Sofía: Got angsty one time at age ten and decided that she wanted to live in the walls like her father did. She was missing for half a day, and everyone was panicking.

Princesa: At the ripe old age of six, she was experimenting with her gift and almost caused a rock slide.

Fuega: She was twelve, and got so angry at one of the townspeople that instead of bursting into flames, she just straight up passed out for a minute.

Leta: That time she tried to climb the walls of the Encanto and fell like fifty feet, breaking her arm. I'd say she was around sixteen or so.

Andrés: When he first got his gift and just straight up vanished from sight lol.

Carlos: When he duplicated his birthday cake one too many times and made himself sick. He was five, this was the night he got his gift.

Avila: When she was nine, she wanted to see if she could freeze herself in time. Turns out she can, but when she's frozen, she can't unfreeze herself until it wears off. The family was actually very worried that she'd be stuck like that forever.

Amada: Got angry when she was eleven, and went to go sulk in the town's canal. Turns out, her water powers also let her breathe underwater, which no one knew.

Tomás: Tried to hover a giant wagon with his powers, and almost dropped it on his head. He was around eight or so.

Rómulo: When he was seven, he used his super speed to jump out of one of Mariana's portals, and ended up running himself straight into the ground. He was very injured. Did that stop him from doing it again? No.

Zoe: Straight up wandered away from her family while in town when she was five. They spent hours looking for her, only to discover that she'd found a tree to take a nap under.

Hugo: He befriended a big-ass spider, and let it crawl around on his head for a few months, until it died. He was nine.

José: Swindled a few men from the city for around 100 Colombian Pesos. They were not happy, and were actually probably gonna hurt José if they didn't get their money back. Luckily the family were able to yeet them out of the Encanto before anything got bad. José was nine, and very very very grounded.

Héctor: When he was five, he turned into an elephant to show off, and passed out after three seconds of transformation.

Óscar: Soon after he got his gift, he had a huge meltdown because he was seeing ghosts and things that other people couldn't see. The family was worried he was seriously hurt or something.

Beatriz: Was trying so hard to keep a surprise birthday party a secret, she projectile vomited all over the kitchen table. Poor kid was six, and so embarassased.

Lidia: Had a temper tantrum at age five, and made a scribble monster that wrecked havoc on the town until Pepa made it rain.

[too-antigonish]

The Great S7 Rewrite

An attempt at summarizing the rocky ground on which we some of us stand following this rather epic post yesterday: Prophetic words from Morse in Oracle?

People had so many interesting things to say that I though it would be nice to keep this discussion public for now.

On the most basic level, Season 7 has two overarching storylines: 

Opera Storyline: The one with Morse, Violetta, Ludo,  and the mysterious accidental deaths

Towpath Murders: The one with Morse and Thursday fighting mainly over whether or not Carl Sturgis did it.

Then you have the episodic murders for each episode: 

Oracle: The math TV program, Dept. of Latent Potential, women’s lib conference, and  misogynist professors in Oracle

Raga: The Indian restaurant, restaurant critic, gay wrestlers, racist poker game organizing politicians in Raga

Zenana: The coming together of the opera storyline and the towpath murder storyline in Zenana.

If, theoretically, you wanted a do-over for S7, what would you need to consider? Below are some of the issues raised in discussion yesterday:

Bone of Contention #1: Opera Rules

S7 may or may not have been asking us to view its world according to “opera rules.” If it wasn’t, then the storylines were just outrageous. If it was, then they didn’t do an adequate job of either:

Signaling that we needed to see this world through that filter

Making the story robust enough that you didn’t *need* to see the opera references to “get” the storylines. (As Durian pointed out: Ride works even if you don’t realize that it’s Gatsby, but S7 doesn’t work if you don’t realize it’s opera. It doesn’t stand on its own.)

I think actual S7 tried to signal that we were in Opera World (#1) by: 

Using theatrical techniques (voiceovers, mise en scene/ tableaux, etc.) to signal that we were in opera world (i.e. heightened reality)

Using opera tropes

Using role reversal with the characters. I think that’s a big reason why the season feels so unsettling overall. Normally Morse is the one doggedly pursuing a hunch based on an obscure clue. This time it’s Thursday. Normally it is Thursday finding out that Morse didn’t check someone’s alibi. This time it’s Morse. Normally Morse and Thursday are calling the shots at the crime scene. This time DeBryn and Strange are having to put them in their place like squabbling children. Etc., etc.

Things in the show are “out of place” as well. (e.g. Thursday is at the early morning crime scene in Oracle instead of Morse. Morse is in Venice instead of Oxford.)

So the questions about Opera Rules are:

Do you keep the idea of Opera Rules for S7?

If you keep Opera Rules, how do you do a better job of signaling them?

If you keep Opera Rules, how do you make the story strong enough that people who don’t understand opera rules will know what’s happening? 

Do you just out-and-out tell people about Opera Rules?

Bone of Contention #2: Ludo and Violetta?

I have yet to hear from anyone who really likes Ludo and Violetta. If someone reading this does, I’d be fascinated to hear why. To say that I find them off-putting is being kind. Why is Morse attracted to two such unpleasant people? And not only attracted, but taken in by both of them? Normally Morse is attracted to girl-next-door types (Monica, Joan). Normally Morse has no time for snobs who name-drop and talk about themselves non-stop (Oxford Don stereotype). 

For me the disconnect lies not in the fact that he could be taken in. I think Astrid and Fanfic are very right about both Morse’s lack of wisdom when it comes to friendship and love, and well as his “secret” desire to have friends who perhaps share more of his interests. The leap I can’t make is that it would happen with these two specific people. Even taking into account that Morse is behaving “the opposite” of his usual way, I can’t see him being attracted to either of these two personalities. 

In the end, like Astrid, I like the *idea* of the Ludo and Violetta storyline but found the way it was played out too incongruous. So what to do? It seems like you can either retool Ludo and Violetta or replace them entirely. Which you choose I think depends on how you want to remake the story and how loyal you are to canon.

My first instinct is to replace them. I find both of them so repugnant, but I do find myself returning repeatedly to an idea that I had when I first watched Oracle, which was that Violetta might actually be more directly based on the Violetta from La Traviata.

She would be a woman from the “other side of the tracks” so-to-speak, but genuinely in love with Morse. You could also use Traviata’s bit where Violetta’s “betrayal” of Alfredo is actually self-sacrifice, etc. I’m not sure about Ludo, but it would definitely need to be someone that Morse would *actually* want to befriend and not someone as obvious as Ludo.

So the questions about Ludo and Violetta are:

Do you keep Ludo and Violetta?

If you keep them, how do you retool them? 

If you throw them out, what do you replace them with? 

Either way (new or retooled), how do you make Morse’s attraction to them believable?

Either way (new or retooled), do you use existing opera tropes/storylines as a basis for their story?

Bone of Contention #3: Towpath Storyline

It seems that there is pretty much universal agreement on keeping the Towpath Murders as a storyline. Also, there is pretty much unanimous approval for the idea of an earlier and more prominent role for Dorothea in the case. Durian points out that this could also have the side effect of reducing some of the tension between Morse and Thursday. 

Disagreement arises over two main elements:

Too many things going on in the storyline

How the conflict between Thursday and Morse is handled.

I’m in agreement on both of these things. In terms of the number of things going on in the storyline you have the whole is it or isn’t it a serial killer, the ESP angle, the flasher thing, the copycat killer, all of the animal imagery and later wolf imagery, the blood drinking, and much, much more. It could work if it all tied together coherently, but it doesn’t—at least for me. It feels like I can sort of see what they were going for, but that they definitely didn’t get there. There needs to be a unifying theme.

With the conflict between Thursday and Morse, my problem is not so much that they have the conflict, but that it comes seemingly out of nowhere. We jump from the reconciliation of Degüello to the petty arguments of Oracle with nothing in-between to explain the change. It’s not that I didn’t find the conflict between these two characters interesting or believable. It’s simply that there was nothing to explain it. Yes, you can say that Morse was becoming more of his own man, but that doesn’t seem adequate to me.

So the questions about the Towpath Storyline are: 

What elements would you throw out and what would you keep?

What would make a good unifying theme for the Towpath case?

What is the source of the conflict between Morse and Thursday? What sets it off?

How do we have Ms. Frazil on the case sooner rather than later?

How does Dorothea diminish tension between Thursday and Morse. 

Of the arguments between Morse and Thursday, what would you keep and what would you throw out?

Bone of Contention #3: The Episodic Storylines

I find it pretty telling that except for one brief mention, no one has strong feelings about the episodic mystery in Oracle. It definitely had less substance that the one in Raga, in part because it had to leave room for the establishment of the two big overarching stories. Personally, I found the sexism angle (the Women’s Lib Conference and Prof. Blish beating out the others for the spot on the tv show) more compelling than the ESP studies angle.

Durian mentioned that Raga, like the Towpath Murders, has way too much going on (Indian restaurant, Oberon Prince and his ex-wife, the gay wrestlers, the racist poker game, the return of the evil beautician, two stabbed teenagers, etc.) Fanfic raised the interesting idea of making the conflict in Raga more of a family conflict, using the political situation with East and West Pakistan (Bangladesh) as a focus.

So the questions about the Episodic Storylines are: 

What elements would you throw out of Oracle and what would you keep?

What elements of Oracle would you change entirely?

What elements would you throw out of Raga and what would you keep?

What elements of Raga would you change entirely? (e.g. changing to internal family conflict)

OK. I'd love to hear thoughts on all of this!

[lilies-n-slander]

Hazbin Hotel would be so much more interesting if charlie’s naïveté and surface-level kindness were treated as the actual flaws they are and didn’t work. Heads up, this kinda just turned into a text wall of charlie neg and ranting so don’t read if you don’t want to see that.

How she currently is, she just doesn’t make that much sense in the setting. I’ve seen ppl say that charlie is a fresh take and contrasts the edginess, but I just don’t see how she is possible. You’re telling me she’s been in hell for 200 yrs but still has this childish and naive personality, is still disgusted by the sinners being cannibalistic, violent, and even just horny, and is so detached from those she calls “her people”? She was born in hell, shouldn’t that make her more used to the sinners’ depravity and not less? She doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on what the sinners want or how they behave. It would make more sense if the show leaned into the toxic positivity white savior nepo baby angle (or rather, actually portrayed it as a *bad* thing) and rather than naïveté, her ignorance was out of self-centeredness and/or lack of true empathy for the other sinners. She would be more interesting as a character too imo.

She looks down on the other sinners (and honestly so does the show?? When she’s showing lucifer around and introduces him to her friends, they’re framed as unappealing as a joke… these are the characters the audience is also supposed to care about.. and many of the bg chars, such as the cannibal town residents, are portrayed as simple-minded brutes), there’s a lot of condescending “….ooookay” type of lines and she constantly has to think of nice ways to frame the clearly negative things she thinks about others. So why does she want to save them so much? The more reasonable explanation is a sense of white savior-ness than actually caring about them.

She’s eager to excuse whatever sir pentious did (which I’m assuming she doesn’t know?) and let him in, despite how he makes the other residents (including her own gf!) uncomfortable. And yes I say excuse, because she never inquires about his past sins or discussed him repenting. It seems to start with sorry, but also end with sorry too. This could’ve been made interesting if she simultaneously looked down on but also excused all sorts of heinous acts. Like val is the most openly manipulative and scummy character, he licks her arm, and yet she’s still apologetic about ruining things (Side note, if she’s genuinely apologetic, then she’s actually an idiot because why is she talking to the boom-mic employee *while they’re filming???*).

She doesn’t know what she’s doing and has no concrete plan but gets incredulous at ppl who don’t blindly trust her. Angel has to leave in ep 4 and she gets SO frustrated over it, like you seriously expect everyone to drop all of their other commitments for you? She has her webster definition notecards for the meeting with heaven and has to improvise and rely on angel being good at the club but she gets mad that lucifer isn’t 100% behind her plan?

Also, trust falls? Really? Then she goes “why isn’t this working? We’ve tried everything!” But on that note, the actual episode portrayal is kinda exactly what I’m going for. Not only do the trust falls not work, charlie says, “I love all of you so much,” pulls her puppy eyes, and only vaggie catches her. It’s surface level and shallow, and does not win anyone else over.

In contrast, vaggie’s attempt at building trust, throwing everyone into a battle, *actually works* (despite vaggie only being in hell for 3 years and being heaven-born, she already knows how things work better than charlie!) and yet charlie talks about it as though it already failed. She says “we work best as a team,” with the underlying message being “I can’t trust you to do things on your own.”

If she was waiting so long to reconnect with lucifer, then why hasn’t she called him in years?? Altho I’m currently rotating lucifer in my brain so I might be a bit biased

“If angels can do whatever and stay in the sky” they can’t?? Your dad is RIGHT there. I. What

She has a power dynamic with every other character except lucifer since she has her demon powers, not to mention she’s giving them a place to stay. When vaggie says she appreciates that charlie doesn’t use her powers, charlie doesn’t say “it wouldn’t be right,” she says it would be too *mean.* But if someone pushes her buttons, who’s to say they wouldn’t slip out (see her flip on a dime after val hits angel. Obv it’s justified in this case, but it shows that she’s willing to use her powers on sinners)? Again, it would be interesting if the show actually leaned into this angle. Imagine if she put on a nice front, never swore, seemed genuinely touching and understanding, but the second someone annoys her she annihilates them and becomes threatening and violent. Then she turns around and is nice again. Too much like alastor? idk

Also, many characters refer to her by calling her lucifer’s daughter, so clearly ppl know that if they cross her they’ll face his wrath by proxy (this also fits in thematically with what lute tells her in the first episode, that she’s exempt from the exterminations bc nepotism privilege). So realistically, everyone else would be a bunch of sucking-up yes-men bc they’re afraid of her. Which they kind of are when push comes to shove?

At first, she doesn’t help at all during the war and lets everyone else fight for her. Doesn’t want to get her hands dirty ig, even though all of this was caused by her in the first place. She only starts fighting at vaggie’s urging.

Like husk points out, every meeting charlie has with the angels makes things worse for all the sinners. Despite lucifer’s warnings that the meeting with heaven won’t work, and against vaggie saying to calm down, charlie basically picks a fight with heaven at the risk of *everyone else EXCEPT HER.*

What were charlie and lilith doing to stop the exterminations before lilith took her 7 year leave? Hell, what was charlie doing during those 7 years? Why does she have 0 connections outside of vaggie, who she only met 3 yrs ago? Why does she have to introduce herself to rosie, rather than her already knowing her name?

Also in ep 7 she says to alastor “I can’t believe how you can do exactly what you told me you would do!” (standing by and watching everyone fail at redemption) almost like she wasn’t paying attention to him at all.

“Why would vaggie hide that she was an exterminator” -> Rosie asks “how did that make you feel?” “It made me mad and doubt if she loves me” like I get it, it was a betrayal, but IS she stupid

Ready For This is charlie manipulating a town of ppl to join the army. Her pitch includes “on the way to the hotel the scenery is nice and you can make friends :3” and “have you ever wanted to die for a cause? Notably I myself am spared from being killed but uh that’s your problem.” Alastor pipes in that you can eat the angels and that’s what actually moves the crowd, because he understands them.

Her perspective on violence and where she chooses to draw the line is really confusing. Why does she care about sinners being violent to each other if they’ll just respawn? She stops alastor from beating up sir pentious at an arbitrary point, but is fine with him eating and presumably killing the gangsters who come after mimzy. (Edit: forgot to point out yet another example, that she was fine with vaggie tossing sir pentious and angel off the balcony but stops her from tossing niffty as well for no reason.) Why is she so apologetic to the angels actively killing sinners but was distraught over vaggie having partaken? Why was she opposed to the CANNIBALS being eager to eat the angels and saying “idk, they seem kinda murder-y” WHAT. What? I’m struggling to even begin to describe how ignorant that is during a WAR. What did she think was going to happen, that she wouldn’t have to fight anyone herself? Why did she stop her dad from killing Adam but doesn’t react strongly to Niffty finishing the job? If it mattered so much to her, the lack of reaction seems strange to me.

Isn’t it just so poetic that her weapon in the war is a shield that she uses exclusively on herself, which she hardly even needs due to her contractual immunity?

Why doesn’t she think to use her powers to build and maintain the hotel? That doesn’t require any violence or domineering. Yet when lucifer comes over it’s run-down and falling apart. Or ask lucifer to help her build it? She was concerned that asking for the meeting with heaven was such a big ask—why not start with this small thing? Father-daughter bonding.

Why does the show end w lucifer + the sinners congratulating her, and in particular, rebuilding the hotel? Hell doesn’t know that sir pentious got redeemed, so from their pov charlie’s idea didn’t work at all.

Can you tell that I’m writing this while I’m rewatching the show?

Aaand that’s that. Her char has always come off to me as somewhat condescending/fake, but I keep finding more and more things to dislike about the way she’s been written. Unfortunate. Honestly tho I might enjoy watching her more if I read her through this lens. You could probably write a similar post for most/all other chars in the show, limited only by the amount of screentime they get lmao

[oukabarsburgblr]

Hello! I am new, and wanted to ask 3 things for you:

1.) Is Daichi a type of yandere, and why is he obsessed with the reader?

2.) Are you maybe interested in writing JJK?

3.) Can I be 🎃 anon?

-🎃 Have nice day studying/whatever your busy doing, keep up the good work ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

Hello there and 3) yes u can be 🎃 anon, reminds me of that one game kubz scouts played for days on end. Pumpkin race? The one with the time that he tried to one up haha

1) to be honest, its been a while since i wrote that fanfiction and ever since then ive been focusing on my ocs so much hshsh. I do think daichi can be classified as a psychopath. A yandere? I wouldnt say he loves the reader (during his third year) and i could say for a fact even he acknowledges he doesnt harbor romantic feelings for the reader until much later (after the training camp shenanigan) however, he did harvest some type of attraction to the reader. An unhealthy one. Where the dynamic is between an object and an owner? Not a pet or a partner, but an object instead. Something he can switch on and off, mold into his liking and reader just so happened to be a perfect victim for it. Although he does grow to be fond of you, ever since how obedient you became. So many screaming nights passed in your house.

Now came the question of why? Why did he do all of this? Why did he instigate it the second the reader came into his view? I tried explaining it in the second part of the fic. Sugawara and Asahi would have treated reader like any other first year if it werent for Daichi. Maybe suga a bit sociopathic but daichi was the match that started the flame.

I think it came from the canon fact that Daichi was the rock of the team, their anchor, their foundation. I thought of him as someone youd look up to, youd rely on but there had to be days where he wasnt feeling himself right? Where he finds all of them a tad bit annoying, but that wouldnt be nice, they were his friends after all. And you came into the picture. On a bad day, where he just felt shitty and you suddenly came stumbling into the club, making a ruckus, curse words from your mouth scratching his eardrums and a thought slipped his mind where he found you so fucking annoying. However, it wouldnt be fair to thrust all that negative energy onto you so he did what he could, ignoring you until he could cool himself down. Maybe the day after he could find himself talking to you again. Wrong. He still finds you annoying and rude. Then there was this urge that came from deep within his stomach, this feral desire to grasp at you, clench at your face, pulling your skin back so you would behave- Too much blood so no can do. He still found you annoying though, hence, the snowball rolls where he decided to just change you. Sugawara and Asahi was a massive help, pinning you into the corner until he had you cumming around his finger.

If given the chance, where there would be no repurcussions, no trace of any evidence whatsoever, Daichi Sawamura would have murdered you, killing you in cold blood and burying your body deep within the mountains. A heavy burden would lift from his shoulders and he felt like the world would work his way again. But there was no solid plan for it so he never took the chance nor thought to.

Can you tell that Daichi is my favourite? Hahaha ive said this like three times now. I loveeeee him.

2) would i ever write jjk! One of my favourite readers have requested a satosugu x bottom male reader in my inboxes and i will consider but heres the thing.

I dont watch jjk😭

Well, i did, until i dropped it. I think it was at episode 20+ on season 1. I used to be a huge shounen person but now im a slice of life fan (although they can be quite boring sometimes) i guess im more into thrillers but in a normal setting? But i know jjk characters.

I used to have an obsession w sukuna haha. Ik maki, ik zenin naoya, ik todo aoi, like ik them and ik what happened to them (rip nanami) but idk i think i have to get hooked on really well for me to watch jjk so that i can write it. We'll see deffo! But i plan to watch chainsaw man first hshshs

[666writingcafe]

Hello! Really enjoy your blog in its entirety! 💙

If you’re able, I’d like to order “Yeah, but they don’t fuck you the way you deserved to be fucked, do they?” with Diavolo 🫣. He’s one of my faves.

Order #9

"Yeah, but they don't fuck you the way you deserve to be fucked, do they?" Diavolo

Featuring a Letter That He Actually Sent One Day

My darling MC,

As you know, there are some things a prince must never say out loud in order to keep his reputation intact. To not behave properly would be considered a public disgrace. I try my best to keep my composure, but there are times where there are visible cracks in my armor. At least, visible to those who know what they're looking for. I'm used to Barbatos reading me like an open book, for he believes the information is necessary for him to serve me to the best of his ability.

You, on the other hand, have caught me off guard.

You asked me over dinner the other evening what was wrong, and when I tried brushing you off with a smile, you told me that my eyes didn't match the rest of my face. I lied and replied that I was tired. You didn't buy it.

And yet you knew to drop the subject.

Perhaps that's why I feel comfortable opening up to you a bit now, in this letter. You won't run off and have my emotions published on the front page for all to see; you know how to be discreet.

With that in mind, I suppose it's time for me to admit the truth: I am a very jealous man. It can make me rather possessive sometimes, especially if what I desire is another person.

I want you, MC. And there is a part of me that is tired of sharing you with others.

Now, I know all too well that I can't keep you all to myself. You have your own life, and it would be wrong of me to ask you to throw that away for my sake. I should accept the fact that I am among your close group of friends and lovers and drop the subject all together. But no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to block those feelings out.

Probably because I've never had much practice with doing that. For better or for worse, I'm used to getting what I want, and I seldom have to repeat myself in order to be heard. I'm sure that if I told everyone to stay away from you because you were mine, they would listen. Oh, there would be some initial pushback, especially from the brothers, but they'd fall in line eventually.

You'd see to it that my plan would never work, though. Don't get me wrong; I admire the fact that you're not afraid to stand up to me. It's one of the many reasons why I'm so drawn to you. You'll put me in my place the minute I start acting up. I just wish I could do the same to you. Not in any real life-threatening way, of course. I'm not that cruel. I was imagining something a bit more intimate.

To put it simply, I don't think anyone else fucks you the way you deserve to be fucked. Not the brothers nor Solomon nor Barbatos nor even Simeon (although I know he's trying his hardest). Clearly, they're all adequate enough for you to keep returning to them, and I'm happy that you're receiving what you desire out of them.

But I don't think it's enough. You're more than welcome to chew me out for writing this if any of it is inaccurate, but based on my own observations, this is what I've come to believe you need fulfilled.

You want someone who can shut your brain off. You have a lot of responsibilities, and that often has you going a million miles per hour as you take care of everyone's needs. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit back and let someone else take the reins, even for only a few hours? Would you be able to trust me enough to allow me to have my way with you every once in a while?

I want to make you fall apart. I know that desire is not unique to me, but unlike the others, I don't have to rely on magic or toys for that to happen. I can simply use my body to achieve my desired effect over you.

There's no pressure, of course. If you'd like to forget ever reading this letter, I can always have Barbatos wipe it from your memory, and we don't ever have to talk about this again. But if you are interested, you know where to find me.

Your not-so-humble prince,

Dia

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy