#sooo if you wanna make the appeal on why this show is good enough to keep watching now would be the time

[howtotrainyouragents]

I'm trying to watch Black Sails but I'm terribly distracted by how sexy Toby Stephens is

[mirnilop]

𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝑜𝓁𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁 𝒸𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝒹 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 ˚₊·͟͟͟͟͟͟͞͞͞͞͞͞➳❥ wally darling

⚠ tags: sfw, mob au, yandere!wally, gn!singer!reader, power imbalance, discussions of violence

♡ synopsis: you’d be surprised how many fans you accrue as a small-time lounge singer. while this is usually a good thing, one of yours happens to rule half the city, so he isn’t exactly receptive to the word “no”.

♡ word count: 5,310

⛧ﾐ‧*･ﾟ the following content may be triggering to some. please proceed with caution! ･ﾟ*‧ミ⛧

a/n: hello!! ₍ᐢ.ˬ.⑅ᐢ₎ goshh, my very first post on this acc!! i haven’t posted fanfic in a hot minute but i’m suuuper excited to get back into it!! 💞 i have sooo many wips for this fandom, it was difficult to choose which one to finish first! credit to @/clownsuu for creating the au and for the lovely art!! i tweaked the concept a wee bit so that it takes place in a roger rabbit-esque world where puppets and humans live together unharmoniously (with a jessica rabbit inspired reader ofc >v>). it was a lot of fun trying to marry wally's canon personality with a Scary Mob Boss (*´ 艸`) i can't wait to post more!! what are y'all's favourite aus? let me know!! ･*･:≡(　ε:)

There’s a rose on your vanity.

The sight of it snuffs out your high spirits, irritation igniting in its place– and it was such a good day, too! You and the girls were perfectly in sync for your entire performance, bolstered by the unusually affable audience; you even rewarded them with a sneak peek of new material, which made them go wild!

Dreams of stomping it beneath your heel stew in your head as you drop it in the faience vase at the rim of the mirror, where a crinkled, beige-tipped rose droops against the rim. Why not break the vase too? An idea that’s crossed your mind too many times, and while it gets harder to resist with each flower, you endure it. They’re presents, after all, and you doubt your admirer would take kindly to the news that you’ve trashed them. You’re certain one of his minions would obtain the evidence, if not witness you do it; you can’t pinpoint the extent to which they survey you, but the crawling sensation of eyes on your back crops up often, and obviously they have no problem barging into your dressing room to play delivery service.

Sighing, you comb through your rolling rack to pick a suitable outfit to change into. Most of the articles hanging are also gifts, but you’ve made sure to keep some of your own hard-earned clothes here out of sheer spite. A burgundy cashmere number has just slipped into your grasp when the door bursts open.

“How’s that for a show?! And what a great crowd, a whole buncha dolls! Or– well, puppets– and humans! Hahaha!”

Lottie skips in with her usual energy, the bell on her collar jingling alongside the clack of her Mary Janes. You hate that their manager mandates the bells as a part of their costumes, as if puppets being treated like second-class citizens wasn’t enough. “You wanna make money or not? It’s part of the appeal! You know, Mary Had A Little Lamb and all that!” is what he told you after one of your countless tirades regarding his treatment of them, but the sleazy smirk wrapped around his cheap cigarette allowed you to read between the lines. As much as you despise that man, it’s not your business to judge the trio for staying contracted with him. Mottie’s recalled to you how difficult it was to hire a manager at all, and you suppose you have to (begrudgingly) thank him for bringing them into your life, since he’s the one who bagged them the backup singer gig.

A swell of color in your peripheral lets you know that she’s come near, but you don’t bother diverting attention from your search. This is such a common occurrence between you two that pleasantries are no longer required.

“And they were mighty generous with the tips! So me and the gals was thinking we should go somewhere to… celebrate…”

Hearing her trail off, you turn to find her staring at the new rose, her once-perky ears fallen limp. You click your tongue, remorse prickling your heart, though you’ve done nothing wrong.

“I’ll be alright, Lottie. Here,” You grab a wad of bills from your personal tip jar and fold them into her hand. “You take your sisters somewhere nice, my treat. As an apology for having to skip out tonight.”

When she doesn’t move from her spot, merely pouting at you with big, glistening eyes full of concern, you swaddle her in a hug. Fleecy strands of shell pink hair tickle your nose as she nestles her snout into your shoulder, squeezing you like a lifebuoy. Having her in your arms is a vital reminder as to why you continue to put up with everything. Lottie, Dottie and Mottie are your beloved friends– your family when you had none– and you are willing to do whatever is necessary to build a life with them.

“Are ya sure?”

“Positive. And if that bug gives you even a whiff of trouble, you come get me right away, got it?”

She laughs, the sound a balm to the ache of your worries. “He never gives us any trouble– n’fact, I haven’t heard ‘im say a single word!”

“Good. At least one of them has manners. Now go have fun!”

After a few more hugs and a promise to relay your apology to her sisters, she trots towards the entrance. Halfway through it, she pauses.

“Promise ya’ll play nice?”

An involuntary grimace twists your face, which you smooth immediately.

“I was planning on it,” you concede, earning an exhale of relief from Lottie.

“Thanks. Honestly, I’m kinda worried...” She leans against the doorframe, gaze trained on the checkered floor. “I see more and more of that Napoleon-wannabe’s goons lately. Do ya think he’s gettin’ antsy? It’s been real quiet since that incident with Dorelaine.”

Ah, the incident. It happened a handful of months ago; he refused to go into specifics, but what you’ve gathered from his gnomic recount and various news stories is that their rival organization– led by Ronald Dorelaine, a human man– planted explosives somewhere important, racking up thousands in damages and dismembering several puppets, left to be mended with those horrific stitches. You didn’t receive another rose until several weeks afterwards.

“I can’t be sure,” you admit. “He doesn’t tell me much about the goings-on of the ‘family’, not that I care to know. But I noticed he’s been more wound up lately… maybe they’re going to retaliate?”

A visible shudder travels through Lottie, and she tosses her head as if to ward off the gravity of your predicament. It was easier to ignore the implications when there wasn’t an active turf battle.

“You’re right, we should stay as far as we can from that nasty business. Wear the red, then. To butter ‘im up a little.” She offers you a conflicted half-smile, most likely holding herself back from proposing a makeover, before sidling out the door.

Glowering, you follow the advice, shucking your tight, shimmering stage outfit for the cozy cashmere you were eyeing before. Like I need to be reminded of his favorite color. I’ve practically lived in red since I met him. It inexplicably fits like a glove, as do all of the clothes you've been bestowed; for the sake of your sanity, you prevent yourself from delving too far into that subject.

As you fix the little bits of your appearance that got mussed up during your performance, you can’t help but contemplate hiding in your room until morning, even though you know it wouldn’t work– and you’d have to pay for a broken front door. Once every speck of lint has been removed and your ensemble is flawless, you steel your resolve with a hard look in the mirror. If things go south, at least you’ll make a gorgeous open casket.

You step into your shoes and out of the dressing room, swiping your bag and a matching hat from the plethora that dangle on knobs affixed to the wall along the way. The haze that eternally permeates the lounge envelops you as you walk, no longer springing tears to your eyes like it did so long ago, when you were a starry-eyed fledgling. Upon entering the foyer, you call out to the owner, Gene, who’s counting the register behind the bar.

“Hey, I’m heading out!”

“Geez, you’re in a hurry! Got a hot date or what?”

“Something like that,” you breathe, your nerves relighting tenfold now that you’re so close to the outside.

“Ahh, I getcha.” His amusement is clear, construing an innuendo within your words that is absolutely not there, but you’d rather die than clarify. “You did a great job today, you deserve it!”

Somehow, your admirer has managed to limbo directly under Gene’s nose; thus far he’s made no indication that he’s aware he has a very important patron. For a moment, you observe him, and see how he absentmindedly rubs the pocket of his button-up– where a polaroid of his two children is safely tucked away– and you decide that it’s probably for the best.

“Thanks, Gene. Have a good one.”

“You too!”

His reply barely reaches you as you cross the threshold from the comfort of your work into the cold, pensive night. A luckier soul may have suffered a fright when greeted with the colossal figure standing below the street light, carved with shadow, but it’s a familiar sight to you now. An inconspicuous black car is parked behind him.

“Hi Howdy.”

“Evening, Mx.” He bows slightly, whisking open the sleek passenger door which you reluctantly slide inside.

“I wish you’d stop calling me that. I do have a name.” It’s true. Being addressed formally by such an important figure imbues you a with a sick feeling, like he’s won, and you’ve already been initiated into this fucked up institution.

Though he waits for you to finish speaking before shutting you in, he doesn’t grace you with a response; not that you were expecting one. In all the times he’s escorted you to these duress-dates, as you’ve taken to calling them, he’s remained stoic to a mechanical degree, acknowledging your presence and nothing more. Thrashing, crying, screaming– you’ve tried everything to escape, and have never elicited a reaction more severe than that of a tired parent handling a tantrum. If you resist, he simply manhandles you. It’s hardly a fair match, with him having 4 arms and several feet of height on you, so you opt to reserve your energy for dealing with his headache of a boss.

When he hauls his many limbs onto the driver’s seat, the car lurches, too small to accommodate a puppet of his stature; he has to hunch forward to see the windshield, antennae pushed flat. You lean back and vacantly turn towards the window, wondering if cars big enough for someone like him to drive comfortably even exist while the engine rumbles to life.

The umbrous cityscape passes you by, inklings of humans and puppets flashing in and out of the darkness like ghosts. Thick boughs of red and green tinsel are strung across a few lamp posts, but by the end of the season they’ll all be covered. Dottie’s already triple checked that you and her sisters have one day of the annual Christmas market off, even though you strike the same deal with Gene every year; the four of you get Saturday, then he gets Sunday to take his family. It’s one of your favorite times of the year, if only because you get to experience the aura of wonder that enlivens Lottie when the first snow falls, Mottie’s timid wheedling to attend The Nutcracker, and Dottie’s alphabetically-organized checklist of fun winter activities.

Those cheerful thoughts are wiped away as Howdy turns into a private garage attached to a sleek, angular skyscraper. He parks in the spot nearest to the entrance, the first in a row of spaces labeled with metal “Reserved for Staff” signs, and circles the car to let you out. The sensation of him gingerly lifting you comes with no alarm; he always assists you up the concrete stairs leading to the elevator, as if you’re so physically inept you can’t handle 3 tiny steps. You assume his needless precaution is for the same reason he hasn’t beaten you yet despite defying him so often: boss’s orders.

With a reedy knell, the elevator glides open, and Howdy signals for you to go ahead. Once you’re both inside, he inserts a key and presses the button for the uppermost level. Expecting a noiseless ride, you tune into the low muzak emitting from the speakers, which makes you miss the first time he calls you.

“Mx.”

Startled, you swivel towards him. His steadfast profile is unreadable.

“Boss doesn’t know you’ve opposed him so vehemently in the past. Please keep that in mind tonight.”

The entrance broaches before you can interrogate him as to what the hell he means, granting you entry to a luxury penthouse laved in gold, ivory, and– of course– red. A glimmering chandelier suspends from the ornamental ceiling, bathing the antique furniture in an amber glow. If you hadn’t just ridden up the elevator, you would have assumed such a lavish drawing room belonged to an old mansion.

It’s something straight out of a romance novel, except instead of a chiseled, broody Italian, it’s a short puppet sitting at the marble-topped dining table. He lounges at the head in a slate blue silk suit with its jacket buttoned to the top; an honor seemingly reserved solely for you, because it’s the only way you’ve seen him wear it, despite street tales describing the way it billows from his shoulders as he stalks the town. Revealed by its plunged neckline is the collar of a white dress shirt embossed with rainbow pinstripes, and a red ascot neatly tied and pulled askant around his throat.

Wally Darling, in the felt: kingpin of The Neighborhood, and resident thorn in your side.

When you arrive, he rises to meet you, dismissing Howdy with a pointed glance; you’ve learned that the relationship between a crime lord and his loyal bandog transcends language. You watch him as he leaves through a pair of swinging doors to the left, his cryptic advice-slash-warning heavy on your mind.

And so, you find yourself alone with the most dangerous man in the city– puppet or otherwise.

“Good evening, dearest. I hope my gift found you well.”

The concept of personal space might as well be Greek to Wally, since he hasn’t once respected it from the day you had the misfortune of making his acquaintance. He crowds so close that you have to crane your neck to see his face, the heat emanating from him eliciting shivers in your chill-soaked body.

“Yes, thank you. It was quite a lively night,” you chirp, wielding a civil smile.

Although the contours of his wispy, coiffed curls only reach your ribs, he extends his arm to you, which you take with such a featherlight hold that you barely brush his sleeve. Rather than leading you to the dining table like you expected, you’re guided towards a small lounge area to the side, the crackling croon of Billie Holiday wafting over from a refurbished stereo console in the corner. Oh, great. He’s feeling sentimental.

“Would you indulge me with a dance before dinner?”

Don't have much of a choice, do I?

“I’d love to.”

Dancing with Wally is funny, in an ironic sort of way; it certainly caught you off guard the first time he asked. When you envision dancing with a powerful, deadly mobster, you think of being swept away, wrapped snugly by strong arms and a dastardly smirk, or perhaps something more courtly, like a waltz steered by a polite hand on your waist. Turns out both versions are incorrect.

Muscle memory ushers your arms open, and Wally falls into the space in between them– literally. Slack against you, his full weight is heftier than his height would imply, but not physically uncomfortable– emotionally and morally, however, are another story. An air of pure peace washes over him as his cheek nuzzles the underside of your chest, arms limp at his sides; you swear you even hear a little trill. Your face burns, but you say nothing as you begin to sway faintly to the beat, tracing a loop with your feet as you traipse along. Wally follows easily, tethered by the reluctant cage of your embrace.

“Do you remember the night we met?”

The query is felt more than heard, his gentle monotone muffled by the downy fabric of your garb. You huff softly to yourself, rustling a few gel-slick strands atop his pompadour.

“How could I forget?”

The day the infamous Mr. Darling appeared in your club, his two largest henchmen in tow, is burned into your brain like a regrettable tattoo; Gene was off, so you were covering entertainment for the night while the sisters managed the bar and floor. As you were singing the very song playing now, you detected a curious hush that had overtaken the throng of guests, and strained to cut through the stage glare and cigarette fog to locate the cause. Tracking the audience, who were all regarding the bar with varying amounts of subtlety, you nearly dropped the microphone when you saw the broad blue back of Barnaby B. Beagle, someone you’d only heard of in gossip. He gesticulated as he spoke boisterously to poor Mottie, who was as white as a sheet behind the counter. Situated a slight ways away was Howdy Pillar, who stood as motionless as a statue with both sets of forelimbs fastened behind him.

And then you noticed him. A puppet no more than 4 feet tall, but whose oppressive presence commanded full attention. He paid no mind to the (one-sided) conversation between his colleague and your friend– no, he was staring right at you. Boring into you so acutely that you felt pinned, compelled somehow to continue singing until the final note trickled away.

As if a spell had been broken, you leapt from the platform and scurried to Mottie, who stayed petrified even when you tried to covertly nudge her to the side. How avidly you wished a fissure would open beneath their shoes and swallow them whole; but, armed with years of appeasing difficult and sordid customers, you spoke.

“Evening, fellas. I hope you enjoyed the show.”

Barnaby, who had stopped talking when you rounded the bar, bellowed a laugh.

“Fellas?! Is that any way to greet the boss and I?"

He tilted forward with menacing glee, propped up by furry elbows as his claws scraped the laminate countertop. Each of his fangs were as big as your nose.

"Dontcha know who we are, toots? Or do ya just need a refresher on respect?"

The acrid smoke from his cigar blew directly into your face, making spikes of anger bubble in your belly as you choked back a cough. Just when you felt composed enough to reply, a surprisingly mellow voice chimed in.

"It's alright, Barnaby."

The shock slacking his jaw mirrored yours, although you hid it under a mask of cool indifference. You dared a glance at Mr. Darling, but the pressure of his peer chased your gaze back to Barnaby, who grumbled as he straightened back up. It was difficult to stay trained on his good eye, but you soldiered on. Fear was not something you could afford to show, and you knew you'd crumble if you peeked at the fabled gaping socket that he stapled open himself.

"I don't suppose you're Gene Clifton, aged 54, father of two, owner of this joint?" He joked, recovered from the flub.

"No, sir, but my banker would sure be happy if I was. Can I take down a message?"

"A message! I love this bird!" Snickering cruelly, he waved a flippant paw. "Y'should try that material on stage sometime, might bring ya more customers than the singing bit."

You sucked a sharp inhale up your nose. Serenity now.

"See, here's the problem. This is family territory, and in return for our protection, we charge a teensy fee. Now, we ain't unreasonable– we've sent ole Gene a few letters. And what’s our thanks for such humble hospitality? Zilch."

Oh dear. Gene doesn't bother investigating any mail the lounge receives before tossing it because it’s typically adverts. He definitely would've noted The Neighborhood's seal if he did. Regardless, the frank abuse of power only fanned your annoyance, obscuring your better judgment.

"What protection? I don't recall seeing any of your members patrolling outside. Besides, we didn’t ask for protection."

Mottie snapped towards you, looking as though she might faint. The corner of Barnaby's mouth twitched skyward, like he was hoping you'd argue, but his boss beat him to the punch.

"We can reach an agreement, I’m sure. I'd hate to see a family establishment go under, especially when they have such lovely entertainment."

Apparently Wally was so smitten that he'd accept your company in lieu of money, and so the agreement (if you can even call it that, since you were coerced) was this– whenever a rose was delivered to you, you'd attend a rendezvous with him. When you returned to your dressing room later that evening, you discovered the first gift of several: your vase.

“I knew because of your eyes.”

The floral wallpaper in front of you shifts back into focus, Wally’s voice shaking you from your recollection.

“Pardon?”

“That night, you drew me in; I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, least of all a petty protection tax. And I knew I had to have you when I met your eyes.” He sounds dreamy, reminiscing as you were before, though his framing of events is worlds apart from your own; he recalls a destined encounter with his future partner, whereas you mark it the day your wings were clipped for good.

“They shone like stars, even through the smog.”

It’s only after he’s finished that you realize you’ve stopped moving, wrapped in an intimate hug like true lovers. A strange mix of pride and disgust floods you at the compliment, stomach flip-flopping rapidly.

He untangles from you, receding so that only your hands remain connected. The newfound distance eases some of your tension, but to your horror, you find yourself mourning the loss of the husky scent of his cologne. Loath as you are to admit it, the bastard smells amazing: a dark, leathery swirl of apples and saffron that you’d buy out if someone turned it into a candle.

“Let’s not delay any longer. You must be starving.”

True to his gentlemanly veneer, he seats you at the table before settling himself. You don’t see him call, but a server emerges immediately from the doors through which Howdy left with a tray of appetizers.

There are two graces you award Wally Darling: his excellent taste in cologne, and his staff’s Michelen-quality fare. Though they adopt the four courses typical of fine dining, the dishes are more grounded, toeing the border between grandma and Gordon Ramsay perfectly. Truthfully, you’re not even sure what to categorize it as; virtually everything is transfigured into a jello, pie, or salad, harkening back to the post-war cookbooks you used to gawk at as a child in your late mother’s library. The yellowed pictures in those books appeared extremely unappetizing, but somehow The Neighborhood makes it work.

It could be because of an illusive member named Poppy, one of the 7 who make up Wally’s illustrious inner circle. She’s scarcely seen due to her fretful and skittish nature, but Wally lauds her cooking and baking skills, regaling you in the past with plenty of kitchen mishaps that occurred when she tried to decompress by experimenting with recipes and was interrupted by their more excitable comrades. If you remember correctly, he once told you that most of the menus in rotation were created by her.

The nature of these duress-dates is wholly dependent on Wally’s mood– if he’s happy, then he’ll gladly chat your ear off about frivolous happenings in his and his friends’ private lives, though he takes care to be shrewd with any details that dive too deep into the murky underbelly lying just below. If he’s unhappy, then they can be utterly unbearable; his mere existence puts you on edge, so it’s exponentially worse when he’s out of sorts, tone curt and glare fierce.

Thankfully, he’s amiable tonight. The first 3 courses march on without incident, and painless conversation flows between the two of you, even if he does most of the talking– you’re not exactly eager to share more than you have to. It’s when the server presents dessert that things go awry.

“Say, how are those triplets you work with doing?” Wally says, spooning at the Bananas Foster. “I haven’t had the pleasure of catching a performance since our mishap a while back. So much paperwork, so little time, you know how it is.”

The mention of both your friends and the aforementioned Dorelaine incident have you bristling reflexively, but you do your best to tamp it down.

“They’re well, overall. Sometimes it’s difficult for them– their manager’s a real piece of work, and we get all types at the lounge.”

“I see…”

He lets out a long “hmmmm”, like he’s reflecting on this information.

“My family has also come upon hard times. It can be… trying, sometimes, to guide my children. Especially now, when we are under unjust attack.” He confesses, wistfully resting his chin on a thread-scarred palm. “Every family requires a head, but what is a head without a neck?”

Unjust my ass. Still, the weird metaphor confuses you.

“A neck?”

At that, his catlike grin only grows. What is he talking about?

“Yes, a neck; that is, someone who supports the head. I care for my family, so it’s only right I am cared for in return, wouldn’t you say?”

Though the phrasing is puzzling, you’re fairly confident you can infer what he’s purposefully dangling in front of you, and oh, it makes your stomach plummet. Sweat breaks out underneath your suddenly-sweltering outfit; it's as if you've been tied to a railroad and have managed to divert the train through pure will for a year, but now it's steamrolling square for you. The anxiety of impending doom renders you mute, unable to piece together a coherent thought.

Taking your silence in stride, Wally leans forward, intense as he grasps your hand in both of his own. The yellow fuzz does nothing to help how clammy you feel.

“What I mean to say is, I think that it’s time to settle down."

No.

“Wh– what? Settle down how?”

“To get married, silly.”

You’re unable to help the gasp that escapes you. No, no, no!

“Get married? You mean– to me?!”

“Of course. I’ve been courting you all this time, haven’t I?”

You sputter, and he rubs your hand as if to soothe you. His many gold rings gleam under the chandelier, teasing a glimpse of your fate.

“I know in the beginning you weren’t receptive to the idea of this life, but I've shown you that I can provide for you better than anyone else.”

Your expression must betray your surprise, because he chuckles– a slow, stilted sound that sends gooseflesh blooming across your skin.

“You thought I didn’t know? Howdy may not have reported it– which I’ll rectify in due time– but I have eyes everywhere, dear. You’re quite the talented actor, though.”

That trademark simper melts into something beguiling; he cradles you as if you’re the most precious thing he’s ever held.

“I love you, and I will take care of you, as I ask you to do for me. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

An inviting facade of genuine affection, so ardent that you almost want to believe it. Wouldn’t that be the easiest path to take? To surrender to the hand that feeds, because where it strangles others, it caresses you sweetly? It’s more tempting than you’d ever divulge, because underneath the armor of aplomb you've so carefully forged, you're exhausted. This burden has been yours alone to bear– and what a bear it is, because if you mess up, the people you love could be injured, or worse. So much worse.

Perhaps sensing an opening, Wally continues.

“Be reasonable. The family welcomes you with open arms! Haven’t you missed having a family?"

The words stab you right through the heart, and your waning resolve springs back tenfold by the fury that ruddies your vision. When you rip your hand away, he makes no move to stop you.

"My friends are my family. I don’t want anyone else, especially not murderers!” You snarl. “You kill people– and torture and maim them! How can you expect me to accept this?!"

"All in a day's work when cleaning up the city, unfortunately," Wally hums. "I wish we didn't have to resort to such things, but you must understand. As it is, puppets are treated as less than, and hardship runs rampant for both humans and puppets alike. You’ve experienced these firsthand.” With the elegance of a master conman, he touches his chest in mock respire. “All we wish to do is provide a safe haven for those in need– somewhere to rest your bones, enjoy a hot meal, and where everyone accepts you as their own. A home.”

You abruptly stand up, feeling like you’re wound so taut that you could erupt at any moment. The mahogany chair behind you tips over from the force, striking the floor with a leaden thud, though the sound is deafened by the blood rushing in your ears.

“Bullshit! You don’t have to start a gang to combat discrimination or help suffering people! Maybe that spiel works on the poor saps you trick into doing your dirty work, but it won’t work on me. The answer is no.”

All is still for a moment as you struggle to calm your heaving breaths, trembling and locked in a quiet stalemate with Wally, who’s as relaxed as ever. Your attention flits from his right eye to where the left would be, if not for the lesion carved from a notch above his eyelid to an inch below, giving the illusion that what lies beneath is impaled.

Oh shit.

The magnitude of what just transpired comes crashing down as your adrenaline flushes out. After playing it safe for months– stomaching unwanted exorbitant gifts, being tailed by his employees, and rousted to innumerous “dates”– you just rejected Wally Darling in the most aggressive way possible. So you do the only thing that might garner you a chance to make it out of this alive: run.

You’re halfway across the room when 4 thick arms suddenly wrangle and force you to halt, a scream ripping itself from your throat out of fear. Can this motherfucker teleport now?! How the hell did he get here so fast?? Thrashing, you throw your head back to search Howdy’s face, desperate for an ounce of the sympathy he’d offered in the elevator, but it is in vain; his stony visage is impenetrable, as though it had never wavered.

“How about you sleep on it, hm? Think about all of your options. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to those little lambs when their adorable shepherd isn’t around to protect them.”

Delicate fingers cup your jaw, making you freeze as Wally stretches up to plant a faux-kiss on your cheek, complete with a small “mwah!”. You scowl daggers at him as he collects your hat from where it flew to the floor, dusts it off, and lovingly places it back on your head before giving you a few pats.

“Aw, don’t be that way, darling. I truly meant what I said; you have beautiful eyes. I can hardly wait to try one on.”

With a snap, you’re hauled over Howdy’s back and spirited out of the room, presumably to be transported to wherever you’ll be staying. Hopefully not Wally’s quarters.

It’s all too much; you feel like you’re trapped in a nightmare. How else did you expect this to end? You’re not sure. With all of the awful things he’s done, forcing you into marriage is not beyond him. You just thought you’d have more time: to plan, to save up enough money to take the girls and race to the hills.

Tears gather on your waterlines, and the minute your mouth wobbles, they spill ceaselessly. Full-bodied sobs wrack you, the pain of Howdy’s shoulder jutting into your midsection compounding the profound ache of sorrow. All this time, you’ve been trying to fight, but there was no fight to be had; it ended the moment his eyes found yours across the lounge that day.

[fatuismooches]

I see the fic but I promise I'll read that later!!! I'm like SOOO tired rn but I wanna dump something short bc it's been BOTHERING me so much

Whenever an artist draws a small scar on his lips, I always think how... I'd like how rough that feels against my lips, yk? Like, jagged against yours... And I think it'd feel good, especially how he kisses you contrasts the texture of his lips... So soft and gentle, careful and thoughtful, like he's making sure you're enjoying it as much as he does!!! And I've been thinking about him kissing you in the smallest of gestures... Like kissing the pulse on your wrist, his reminder that your heart beats only for him 💕 kissing you on the forehead, because you have a wonderful brain he's glad to be part with its growth,, kissing your finger tips, because of your most loving times where you cradle his face as if he's not a damn beast about to maul your face off,, kissing kissing kissing ughhgjfgdgsfje softtore the bane of my existence :((( I love him so much... I wanna pamper him,,, but I want him to pamper me too!! Sobsobs,,

I think he'd absolutely melt inside when u return them tho!! Like if you went up to ur tippy toes to give him a small peck on the corners of his lips, right on his scar, he'd immediately break into a smile no matter how serious he's being that time... Bc, well, as much as he don't find his scars appealing. You at least love them for him 😭😭💕

That's all... Back to class ughhhh..,

OH MYYYY LITERALLY YES TO EVERYTHING HERE!! I adore all Dottore art but when they draw him with scars!! 🥺🥺 And on his lips too... aww you would totally kiss only the scarred part of his lip too, rather than the full one, just to show how much you love it ❤️ I feel like, once Dottore finds out how much you love the contrast, he'd be pretty interested in why you feel that way. Because don't most people prefer smooth and soft lips? Not rough ones? But you don't seem to mind. In fact, you love it. He wants to study that (how you ask? by repeating the process [of kissing] over and over again until you can provide him with an answer that satisfies him.) UMMM KAIIII HOW ARE YOU DROPPING THIS FLUFFY MASTERPIECE ON ME RN!!

I feel like some of those times you mentioned, he didn't even mean to be romantic. Like, he just kissed you like that to make a point, rather than romance, but you!! Thought it was so romantic!! But eventually, you put two and two together and you're like, oh. That's why he kisses you there. And then you fall in love with him all over again because his kisses are the things he can never verbalize, but that's okay. You understand Zandik.

Omg and i totally love the idea of him making sure you love it just as much as him! Because he so wants you to enjoy it, because then he gets to see all those cute expressions and noises you make. If you're not enjoying it, then what's the point? Because i imagine he derives a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from seeing how he makes you feel, since only he can make you feel that way, no one else :)

It's okay!! You both can pamper each other!! There's enough to go around 😌💗 UGHH STOPPP him being all huffy and angry because of some idiot but kissing his scar in an attempt to calm him down... like, he knows exactly what you're doing, he's not dumb but!! He can't help it. And he doesn't know how to feel about the fact you have so much power over him. But he's not gonna do anything about that, you'll always get your way 😭

AND DON'T WORRY POOKIE! TAKE YOUR TIME AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!! whenever you read the fic, i hope you enjoy it 💗 until then make sure to rest a lot for yourself, otherwise i'll find you and make you do that 😡💗

[mancalledvenus]

ranking the karasuno boys :3

TW: OPINION !! (pls don’t attack me.)

9. asahi azumane

CONTROVERSIAL (so is this entire list) but i just do not really like asahi and i don’t know why. it might be his goatee lmfao, it just makes me uncomfortable i’m so sorry. he’s a total sweetheart and i have NOTHING AGAINST HIM, but i love the other players more.

8. kageyama tobio

i have mixed feelings about kageyama cuz on my first watch i did really like him, but now i could not care less about him. his ranking also might be cuz of how popular he is and me not understanding the hype might have turned into resentment lmao.

7. tsukishima kei

similar situation to kageyama except he actually has me PISSED OFF cuz of how popular he is when he’s SUCH AN ASS. the only reason he’s higher is cuz he’s just a little more fun to watch. honestly you could switch him and tobio on this list and it wouldn’t make a difference. i just don’t care for how rude they are. still fine tho unfortunately :(

6. daichi sawamura

solid character. good captain, good guy, blah blah blah, he’s not that interesting to me. he’s got one of the more boring designs in the show so he never stuck out to me. that lands him around the middle, but he could still hit

5. yamaguchi tadashi

love yamaguchi so much, he’s so cute. hurts to see him standing on the side a lot of the time cuz i just wanna see him get a chance to play :,( he’s adorable and so fucking funny. everyone always forgets how much of a SHIT TALKER he is. he’s so real dude.

4. hinata shoyo

HINATAAA he is the perfect main character for me i absolutely adore him. he’s genuinely hilarious and i cannot get enough of how cute he is. this is the point in the list where it’s obvious what type of characters i like and what i don’t (energetic, funny guys vs. quiet assholes)

3. tanaka ryuunosuke

sooooo fucking funny dude. i could watch an hour of him talking about NOTHING and be entertained. get this man a podcast bro. carries the dub on his back plus he’s FINEEE

2. sugawara koshi

everyone’s first haikyuu crush cuz of how damn charming he is. def the sweet boy every girl has a crush on cuz he’s just so like-able. never met a single person who hates suga cuz he’s just so appealing. my unproblematic king

1. NISHINOYA YUU 👅👅👅

absolutely FELL for this man on my first watch and my love for him NEVERRR went away. he’s my day 1 and my ultimate anime crush dude. i would pick him over anybody. literally the reason i’m a die hard karasuno fan and why i hate the rival characters so much. he is SOOO underrated i can’t. his tags are always dry as hell .

that’s the end! thank you for reading <3 ! who are your top 3 haikyuu characters?

[thegeminisage]

i just read broken road and i enjoyed it immensely. i just see it differently (not exactly negatively) now knowing you once(?) shipped sam and dean. does that have any influence into it🤔 just simply wondering not interrogating u. i’m interested in that essay even

(prev ask)

ok, my essay is under the cut. it's very, very long. everybody please consider this your warning for inc*st ships if you'd rather not get into it

first point: actually, broken road was not in any way secretly influenced by any previous love of sam/dean, if that helps you any. i wrote it in post november 5th mode and you better believe i was not remotely capable of thinking about anything else. thank you for enjoying it! it's very very special to me and the time i spent working on it and posting it are genuinely some of my fondest memories. cringe <3

second point: to just honestly answer your question, since you're not interrogating me and not being an asshole (thank you and i'm not saying that sarcastically, i have gotten sooo many rude asks about this), my answer is, "eh." my favorite was sam/dean/cas (once he started being on the show) because i'm a cas girl first and foremost. and if i come across a fic where the premise looks good i might check it out, but i basically never actively seek it out bc my preference rn is strongly for destiel.

(that said i do like sam and dean's relationship a lot as brothers or as...whatever else, i'm mostly neutral as long as we don't leave cas out of things, AND i'm perpetually bitter about sam getting left out in the cold, so if i wanna read good sam fic, sometimes people who ship him with the other main characters will do a better job than making him the perpetual longsuffering butt of the slash joke. same goes for early seasons spn fic: sometimes the sam/dean writers just do a better job. i very rarely get the hankering though because i like late seasons, such as season 13, who is my best friend. i think sam got pushed to the side SO STRONGLY that sometimes people sometimes subconsciously associate him being written well or mattering at all to dean beyond functioning as dean's accessory and/or proof/the catalyst of dean's traumatic upbringing with w*ncest. because otherwise they see him as a minor character (?!?!), and why are you bringing this minor character up so much if you're not secretly shipping him with dean, The Main Character? god, does anybody remember when SAM was the main character?? sorry there is truly not enough punctuation in this paragraph.)

now for the actual essay: i do get a little irritated/confused with how much pearl-clutching people do about sam/dean. like, this is EASILY the most harmless of the "problematic" ships. they're consenting adults, barring some tropes and genres i would not like to read nor discuss. and before cas came into the scene (and sometimes even after) we got baited just as hard for the two of them. it was weird and unsettling because the nature of inc*st is that it's often weird and unsettling. their dynamic is unhealthy and codependent and that's part of their appeal in whatever form. people who get the heebie jeebies because it's "problematic" are missing the point. there are also weird and unsettling vibes between dean and john, because that was part of the abuse. that actually played into broken road way more than any sam/dean stuff. he was a bad father and he made dean his backup wife and there was probably some emotional inc*st happening CANONICALLY. we all watched that in the show right?? but for some reason talking about that is fine and talking about whatever sam and dean have going on gets you put on block lists. because sometimes sam/dean fics are just for fun and whenever we talk about john we have people in fics punching him out or killing him. like we have to point our fingers at john and go "THAT'S BAD" loudly enough to ensure everyone else that we're above moral criticism. it's like. weirdly thought police-y. (and tbh, that's part of what inspired broken road - i was looking for nuance re: john and couldn't fucking find any because of this weird black-and-white mentality fandom has developed.)

and it's so hypocritical sometimes! i remember deancas stuff used to have "w*ncest fans dni" banners all over it, in the guise of protecting and standing with survivors, but when actual survivors would say things like "actually those banners just remind me of everything all over again" they would mostly get ignored?? it was so performative, like this kneejerk reaction of promising everybody YOU know what's bad so you won't get ostracized. my tastes don't usually run very dark so most of the sam/dean i wrote or read was way less unhealthy than, say, whatever lestat and louis have going on in iwtv. but nobody's making blocklists of iwtv enjoyers because that would be insane? there's just a little bit of cognitive dissonance happening i think.

like, obviously, yes, in real life inc*st pretty much always speaks to something having gone extremely wrong in someone's life and a dynamic being extremely unhealthy at best, but in fiction it is possible for it to be consensual, even if it is a little fucked up or the people involved are a little damaged.

(warning for discussion of rape fic from here down) i'm not actually totally anti-censorship though. i do firmly believe there are some types of fiction people shouldn't write! i wouldn't read parent/child anything, or any kind of rape fic unless it's tastefully engaging with the aftermath of something like that. sam/dean just seems so, so tame to me in comparison to some of the other stuff fandom has come up with. in 2014-2016 people used to write a thing called hydra trash party, which was just porn of bucky barnes being gang-raped by hydra agents. ie nazis. and half the time he was headcanoned as jewish. like??? can you even GET more tasteless than that??? i hated that shit (and i still do, deeply). i talked about how much i hated it all the time and people would come after me like "well who are YOU to censor other people? what if the authors are survivors working through their own trauma? you can't ask authors to disclose that kinda stuff if they want a license to write graphic nazi rape porn!" i got literal hate mail about it. equal but opposite energy of those dni banners - both people claiming it was "about survivors" to justify doing, uh, whatever they wanted. it's just fucking wild to me that in less than a decade my stance of "i don't care what people write if everybody is a CONSENTING ADULT," while not changing at all whatsoever, moved from being too prudish to being too problematic.

another side tangent (sorry, you did ask) is that i was a slash writer on FFN in the video game and anime fandoms during the late 00s (ironically, quite a lot of straight men there) and holy mother of god...the kind of shit comments i would get for putting two dudes kissing in the same fic, even though it was PLASTERED with disclaimers. i felt like the mob was after me sometimes lol. and that's sort of the way i felt once those w*ncest asks started. i remember back in the peak of post nov 5 stuff if i like, reblogged art or gifs from certain blogs people would write in to tell me that person was a sam/dean shipper so i'd take down my (gen, non sam/dean) post. i felt paranoid (and still feel paranoid) reblogging GEN sam & dean content because i'm worried people will take it the wrong way. i actually deleted one from my drafts earlier today - i'd been thinking about it but then i got your ask and decided against it, lol. what a way to live! especially in fandom, which is (and i hate to politicize it this way but it's true) a queer-adjacent space that's supposed to be free of the kind of judgment you'd get for not being a normie irl.

on FFN, one of the many pairings i wrote for actually involved an underaged teenager and and an adult. but as i was the same age as that teenager at the time, and had a crush on that adult character and toootally wanted to marry him, i couldn't see what was wrong with pairing them together. like i quite literally did not know better. it's a pairing that actually disgusts me now, lol. if people now could send me asks about what i did back then to try and "gotcha" me (they can't because it's all been deleted) i'd be really pissed about it, because you can't continue to punish people after they've learned and grown. everyone's been so terribly kind about broken road, and there's this real fear of losing or tainting something so special and wonderful just because people have a problem with the fics you read or wrote a decade ago. it sucks. i do think there's a line (like, maybe don't write nazi rape porn, also whatever was going on with that j2 haiti fic), but i also think we've got to try at least a little not to reinvent puritanism on fandom websites of all places. that's wack.

and man, i know i said it already, but i just keep coming back to w*ncest being SO TAME? like it doesn't compute that someone would get icked out over CONSENSUAL sam/dean and meanwhile ship for example rowena/ketch like he didn't torture her or sam/lucifer because they like mark pellegrino like lucifer isn't sam's fucking rapist. and not even get "in trouble" for it. it boggles the mind.

and like, idk. i initially got my hackles up at your ask because it's 1 of a million, and i could dodge the questions by taking down the one sam/dean/cas fic on my profile ig, but that fic is how i met a good friend of mine and she'd be sad if i were to take it down, so i don't want to have to, and i shouldn't have to. you know??

my final thought: i've been writing fanfic for 20 years. 20 years ago when i started writing fic sam/dean would have been unacceptable because it's two men. 10 years ago it was fine because they were the ONLY two men, and every woman in supernatural got bullied off of the show, and people writing het got hatemail. now it's unacceptable again because of the inc*st. 10 years from now, who knows what will happen? so i try to base my morals on what i feel i can live with as a person rather than what a bunch of people on the internet (i'm not including you in that) tell me what i can or can't do, or should or shouldn't do.

i really hope this answer doesn't like, ruin broken road for you, or anyone else. i don't think of myself As A W*ncest Shipper at all, but neither do i deny that i used to be, and i certainly don't have any problem with (again) keyword CONSENTING keyword ADULTS in fanfic now, even if they do happen to be siblings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i just hope that like someday we find a middle ground where we can live and let live but also have enough sense not to write nazi erotica. if that's problematic of me, so be it 😔✊

[amporella]

hi! this is mpreg anon from a few months back lol. i just wanted to say i finally got to reading the fic and im sooo!!!!! sobbing and crying, a puddle of love on the floor! you were right. i Know now why you talked about it often.

i really love holly's stankyle. theres something about them that feels very.. desperate? like they know they belong together and sometimes not even physical touch can satiate that need/want?? idk! but agh! i love them sm. holly is also really good at capturing the overall weirdness of south park and thats why she can come up with aus/ideas that are weird or silly and make them work. i also really appreciate that she went for kinks/tropes that not many people give style.

something else i really loved about this fic was that it felt very like.. omg a dream come true in a way? sometimes i just wanna read a fic where stan and kyle do fuck all all day, just real type of normal maybe even domestic shit and its just them. and this fic came pretty close to that? they are so wrapped up in each other and have so much love to give and g OD i thought the baby was gonna come in and ruin that or like i was gonna get annoyed w the baby but no!!! 😭 i was so neutral about elway in the beginning and was actually loving how kyle was thinking/approaching the whole thing. idek when that started changing?? before they talk about the name elway though. and when she was finally born and the days kyle spent fighting to get her?!! and then he gets her and its the three of them and its like.. yeah.. okay, she's perfect. she really is a miracle stan and kyle created and theres no way she could ever come between them bc stan and kyle's love is endless, its forever and ever, they can share that love with their child 🤧

as for creek, hmm. i think craig and tweek just arent characters i've seen holly write for and like? so even though they are/were together i just didnt rly care for them u_u. im really glad i started finally reading fic where theyre not together in style fics though. it still hurts a bit lmao but ive been enjoying some stories i had passed on before and stuff and yeah, ty for giving me that little push >w<!!!

sorry this ask is so long! i didnt want to bother you every time i finished a chapter lol. i was also going through some stuff and this fic was the only thing keeping me sane. and actually i have just the epilogue left but im so sad its gonna be over after that so i've been delaying it :(! but yeah, aahhhh herbert garrison's night school for unwed fathers enjoyer 🫡 TY! 💙💚

YOU HAVE NOOOO IDEA HOW HAPPY I AM THAT YOU READ THE FIC AND SENT ME THIS AMAZING ASK??? I saw this in my inbox and immediately went to my friends and like BRAGGED ABOUT GETTING THIS? I'm going to respond to every part so bear with me but in the meantime THANK YOU!!!

I think you are so so right about them being desperate... it is key for stanky that regardless of how close they get physically, it's like it'll never be enough? Like they are soulmates in every sense of the word, and can never actually satiate their pull... SIGH!!!! IT'S TRUE!!! And holly's ability to nail absurdity is absolutely one of her strongest suits, and something that definitely contributed to how iconic she is. South Park is an absurd show, and holly meets it with such absurdity that Stan and Kyle can stay perfectly in character, because so many of her plots are something that could legitimately BE a South Park episode involving the characters when they're older. Like, Craig and Clyde fucking in the Marsh shed and Craig telling Sheila Kyle needs a psych eval? A+, can and will happen at some point. It's so ridiculous yet somehow believable, and the mpreg fic is literally the BEST example of it. It's a concept that's frankly a huge turnoff for a lot of people (understandably), but she puts it in such a light that she makes it appealing for a ton of people. It's one of those fics that i would recommend even to the most vehement mpreg hater, because there IS something about it that differentiates it from typical fics like that.

AND DESCRIBING IT AS A DREAM COME TRUE IS SO CORRECT? Everything you said in that third paragraph specifically was so fucking real. The fic starts off as such an absolute disaster situation, and despite the multiple disasters along the way, you can absolutely tell that it was like fate in a way? Holly does an incredible job of balancing the understandable stress with the joy and all the happy moments, as well as acknowledging the fact that in the end, Elway seriously did enrich both of their lives. I LOVE THAT YOU POINTED OUT HOW YOU WERE WORRIED ABOUT THE BABY COMING BETWEEN THEM... because it's true!!! It's such a real concern, but she is so good about wrapping it up; the scenes after Kyle gets Elway feel like a dream sequence in how floaty and happy everyone is, and while reading it I was like (as someone who does not want kids), huh. Maybe I need to have a baby? LOLL but seriously you are so right. It IS endless and now they have even more love to go around because of Elway... whatever. WHATEVER!! I'm not even crying. I'm NORMAL!!!!

I totally get your feelings about creek!! I ended up feeling kind of similarly. I'm happy you started expanding your horizons!!! There's nothing wrong with sticking with exclusively creek fic, obv, but there are some real gems out there if you're able to push some of the icks to the side. And maybe you'll even figure out a new ship you like? I remember that I was afraid to read Other People's Tupperware at first because Tweek is literally dead, and Craig hooks up with Kenny? But then I decided to read it (and felt neutral about it!) and it was valuable to me. And then when I read it a few years later, I really loved it. It got me thinking that first time!!! I'M HAPPY I COULD HELP GIVE YOU THAT PUSH!!!

Talking about holly (or any other fic) to me will NEVER bother me so pls feel free to do so!!!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE EPILOGUE!! It is sweet and so delightful. AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF I CAN EVER GIVE YOU ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS!!

Thank you SOO much for this ask!! It seriously made my day.

[harrytpotter]

A Dangerous Bet — Chapter One.

Plot: A big change can make a person do crazy things. Take on dangerous bets. And that’s exactly what Y/N and Sirius Black did. Can a random and thoughtless occasion completely change two people’s lives?

Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem!Reader.

Warnings: Sexual content.

A/N: And here is my newest series, this time starring Hogwart’s ultimate heartbreaker Sirius Black! My original plan was to make the Reader house-neutral but for the sake of the story, I decided it would be better if she too belonged to Gryffindor. Hope you guys like it! :) ps: it’s unrevised because I’m lazy sooo I’m sorry for the probable grammar mistakes.

It’s always an unsettling feeling to go through a massive change. When something you thought would last forever just ends suddenly. When you realize it was all just a big lie. You feel like a complete fraud. Frustrated. Cheated on by the universe. And that was exactly how you were feeling. Like a big fat deception.

“How are you feeling?” Sirius’ voice popped into your ear, his mouth clung to it so you could hear him through the loud music that echoed in the common room. You realized you had been staring at the void, lost in your thoughts.

“Honestly? I don’t know. But if I had to choose a word to define it, I’d go with relief,” you screamed into his ear, a dose of firewhisky in your hand.

“That’s actually the last one that I’d ever think of,” he laughs. “Why is that?”

You started answering him, but Sirius shook his head and pointed negatively to his ear, letting you know that he couldn’t hear a thing. Pulling you by the hand, Sirius led you out of the party that was happening at full-force inside the Gryffindor tower. Once the two of you reached the hallway, he leaned against the wall and waited for you to answer his previous question.

“I don’t know, I just... think we’ve been together for this long because we were used to each other, it was...”

“Commonplace?” He completed the sentence for you. “I always thought you deserved better anyway.”

“Says the guy who’s with a different girl every week,” you joked, rolling your eyes at him.

“Ouch!” He laughed and scrunched in mock offense. “I know I’m one to talk, but you’re one of my best friends, L/N. I know you. He was just...”

“Too plain for me,” you roll your eyes at him, laughing. “I know, you’ve been saying that to me ever since he and I went on our first date.”

“Excuse me! Because he was!” He laughed even harder than before.

“I’ll never give you the satisfaction to say you’re right if that’s what you’re expecting, Black!” You retorted, lifting a brow at him.

“You don’t need to say it, love, knowing you know that is enough for me,” he winked at you.

“Come on, let’s head back,” you smirked with a roll of your eyes, pulling him by his hand back to the party.

Sirius never left your side at the party, making sure you were having the best time. You were both completely drunk and lost inside your own little word, which made the fact that your ex-boyfriend Bentley Styles was snogging Clark Summers go unnoticed by the two of you.

“SIRIUS!” You shouted suddenly amidst the loud music, feeling the alcohol cursing through your veins.

“YES?” He shouted back, smiling as he put away a strand of your hair that was stuck into your sticky forehead.

“I WANNA DO SOMETHING CRAZY! SOMETHING STUPID!”

“LIKE WHAT?”

“I DON’T KNOW! YOU ARE THE MASTER OF MISCHIEF HERE, BLACK. SURPRISE ME!”

Sirius smiled wide at you for a second before taking his right hand to the back of your head and pull you into his direction, a mischievous spark flickering in his eyes. He brushed his lips against yours teasingly, a grin playing on his features, before nibbling your lower lip. He then stared into your eyes with a burning intensity.

“Is that the best you got Black?” You asked teasingly and you could see his eyes darkening a little.

“Y/N L/N...” he adverted you.

“Sirius Black...” you retorted in a challenging tone, enough to drive him over the edge.

Next thing you knew, your tongues meet and briefly tussle with each other, quickly escalating into an epic battle for dominance. Your lips remained locked as your tongues danced tirelessly, until you finally gave in and let him had it. And he did. It was a kiss like no other, something you’ve never experienced before. It was like both of you were kissing with all of your senses, electricity flowing through every inch of the two of you. You tangled your fingers in his hair whilst he grabbed your waist with a tightened grip, both feeling the need of something to hold on to, both wanting more of each other even though you couldn’t get much physically closer than that. After what felt like hours you eventually pulled away, both out of breath and holding a look of pure longing. You couldn’t hear the music or any other noise for that matter. It was like the outside world had just disappeared and the two of you were the only ones in the room.

“Well, guess I can say I understand the appeal now,” you smirked weakly at him, the longing crystal clear in your face. “Unfortunately, this was not stupid or crazy enough for me.”

Sirius took one of his hands to your cheek, his mind clouded and fuzzy from what just happened and his heart aching with a burning longing. “Y/N, we’re drunk...” he said in a husky low voice, sending shivers down your spine.

“I know. But I’d still be doing this even if I was sober. Wouldn’t you?” You asked with a whisper.

Sirius stared at your lips and started brushing his thumb across them. You closed your eyes, enjoying the sensation. “Yes. I would,” he finally said.

“Good. Come with me,” you said, taking his hand in yours and leading him out of the tower.

As the two of you exited the portrait hole into the seventh floor, you dragged Sirius to the left corridor. Walking past through it three times with a very specific scene in mind, a door suddenly materialized itself on the wall, right in front of a tapestry depicting the attempt of Barnabas the Barmy to teach trolls ballet. Sirius smirked at you as you pushed the door open and pulled him inside, a mattress laid on the floor in the middle of the room. Pillows and cushions were scattered all around it on top of white pieces of fabric that covered the floor. Some pieces of fabric also hung from the ceiling. The walls were enlightened like a projection screen, showing landscapes like an old movie. Closing the door behind him, Sirius decided he couldn’t take it anymore and advanced towards you, grabbing and kissing you hungrily. You quickly entangled your fingers in his hair for the second time in the night as you felt his mouth sliding through your jaw on its way to your ear. Sirius nibbled your earlobe before trailing kisses and nibbles down your neck. You tilted your head a little, pressing him against your body.

“I want you so bad, Sirius,” you mumbled. You could feel his skin crawl at your words.

“Not more than I want you,” he whispered into your ear before kissing you one more time.

Sirius led you in the direction of the mattress and as soon as you approached it, you undressed each other hurriedly, barely containing the desire that was spreading through you like wildfire. Getting on the mattress, your bodies began to swing together in a rhythmic pace, hands sliding through each other’s bodies as sounds of pleasure started to fill the room. Both you and Sirius felt ecstatic, completely wrapped in this sensual, spicy, magical moment where your bodies fitted perfectly together, as if one was the exact match of the other. It was fast, rough and hungry, yet gentle. You went on this high for as long as you could draw the moment, falling exhausted next to each other after you both cried out each other’s names as you came almost together. Sirius slid his arm underneath you and wrapped it on your shoulders, pulling you close to him. You rested your head on his chest, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours? Regretting your crazy, stupid decision already?” He asked with a laugh whilst drawing circles on your belly with his index finger.

“Although it was most definitely the stupidest and most reckless decision I’ve ever made, I don’t regret any bit of it,” you laughed, turning your head so you could look at him.

Sirius smiled and shifted his position so he was facing you. He took his free hand to your chin and gently pulled your head to him so he could kiss you. “So what are you thinking about?” He pressed his forehead against yours and brushed his nose on your own.

“That you’re surprisingly sweet after sex!” You exclaimed with a mockingly frown, earning a hearty laugh from him. “I was thinking that one time wasn’t enough, actually...” you added with a lustful look. Sirius got the message and smirked playfully at you before starting it all over again.

——————————————————————

“Morning, beautiful,” Sirius said as you opened your eyes, giving several pecks on your lips, causing you both to smile amidst them.

“You know, you never stroke me as the kind of guy who slept in and awaked the girl with sweet kisses in the morning,” you teased.

“That’s because I’m not, but since you’re my best friend I figured you deserved a little effort,” he shrugged playfully.

You opened your mouth in defeat at his remark before bursting into a laughter and threw a pillow to his face, getting up and starting to dress yourself.

“So, what are we doing now?” He asked, getting up.

“You i don’t know, I, however, am going to take a nice and long bath.”

“Want some company?” He winged his eyebrows at you, grabbing you by the waist.

You rolled your eyes with a smirk, playfully pushing him away. “Will you put some clothes on for Merlin’s sake?”

“Why? It’s not like you haven’t seen it before,” he winked at you.

“Aren’t you so full of yourself, Black?!” You rolled your eyes at him once again.

He laughed whilst throwing his underwear and pants on. He suddenly stopped with his shirt in hands, studying it with a fabricated interest. “I think we should talk,” he said, looking into your eyes. As you stared at him with a brow lifted, he added, “about what happened between us.”

“Sirius...” you sighed. “We’re cool. I know you don’t do feelings, besides I just got out myself of a long-term relationship, it’s not like I’m looking for anything serious right now.”

“And here was I thinking you were looking for all things Sirius right now,” he joked, his and your laughter echoing in the room.

“You really are something else, aren’t you?” You smiled at him. Sirius smiled back at you and the two of you stared at each other for a while.

“So, setting the record straight here, this,” he pointed back and forth at you and him, “was a one-time thing right?”

“Well... yeah,” you shrugged.

“Works for me, L/N,” he smirked at you.

“Goodbye, Black,” you smiled at him, taking a while longer before heading off.

——————————————————————

As the hot water streamed down your body, you closed your eyes, reliving all of the memories from the previous night. A smirked appeared on your face as you reminded of Sirius’ hands trailing your body. It was hands down the best night you’ve ever spent with a guy and you knew it had set the stakes high. But it would never happen again, it couldn’t. Sirius was your best friend and you knew him way too well to know that he’d move on to his next prey and never look back. Even with feelings off the table, he was not the kind of guy that engaged on something casual. He was a one-night stand kind of guy. Which was too bad because you could use the distraction yourself. Getting off the bath, you threw your uniform on and got ready for the day with an unusual disposition.

Glancing at your watch, you stormed off your dorm and the Gryffindor tower, fastening your pace in order to be able to have breakfast before your classes.

As you entered the Great Hall, you spotted all of your friends already sat on the table, including Sirius. Suppressing a smile, you went to take your seat between Lily and Alice.

“Finally! Where the hell were you?” Marlene asked as soon as you entered her field of vision.

“Yes, L/N! Where were you? It’s not like you to be late for breakfast,” Sirius shot a mischievous glance at you. You could sense his smirk from behind his mug.

Before you could say anything, James jumped in and said with a brow lifted: “you’re awfully cheerful for a Monday morning, Pad, which is not like you at all.”

“I had a good night of sleep, Prongs. That’s all,” he shrugged to his friend and sent a discreet wink on your way, cautiously so none of your friends could see it.

“You’re lucky, I barely got any sleep and my head hurts like hell,” Alice said, massaging her temples with her fingers. “Please never let me drink firewhisky again.”

“You always say that and end up drinking it anyway,” Peter noted, nodding vaguely.

“Wormy is right, Alice. Besides, it’s not like any of us could’ve helped you out, the whole night is pretty much just a blur to all of us,” James said proudly at the outcome of the party he had planned.

You smiled at your friends, gratitude filling you as you stared at each one of these weirdos. They were your family away from home. Amidst the vibrant discussion about the previous night, Remus reached for your hand, giving it a light squeeze.

“Are you okay? I mean, with all that kissing and everything,” he asked, looking sympathetically into your eyes, searching for any traces of hurt. He had seen Bentley and Clark kissing at the party and assumed you had as well.

You chocked on your cuppa as you tried to look innocent and avoided Sirius’ eyes at all costs. “Kissing? What kissing?” You managed to say after pulling yourself together.

Your little group of friends fell dead silent, eyes wandering from you to Remus.

“Oh,” he opened his mouth in realization. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“Seen what exactly, Rem?” You asked, genuinely confused.

“Bentley and Clark. They looked... pretty cozy at the party,” he shrugged as if he was apologizing.

You just shrugged, unsure of what to say. You could feel Sirius’ intense stare burning holes into your skin, but you didn’t dare to look at him.

“Well, we should probably get going if we want to make it on time, Minnie doesn’t look to be in a good mood today,” James said, breaking the awkward silence.

Slowly, you and your friends got up and headed out of the Great Hall. Sirius, James and Remus walked together, joking and laughing. Alice and Marlene were on their trail, engaged in a conversation with Peter. You and Lily walked a little slower, detached from the big group. The redhead was unusually quiet.

“I know why you choked on your tea earlier,” she said, bluntly and suddenly.

“Excuse me?” You tried to play dumb.

“I saw it. You and Sirius kissing at the party,” she said, stopping in front of you with a concerned look on her face.

You bit your lower lip, once again unsure of what to say. After a while, you shrug.

“Y/N... Do I need to remind you that you used to have a crush on him before you started dating Ben?” She asked, a mother-look taking over her features.

“Lils, it was a very long time ago! We were kids back then! Besides, it’s not like I’m expecting something from him or anything. It was simply a one-night stand,” you said, crossing your arms on your chest defensively.

“For your sake, I really hope it was. It’s a dangerous bet for you to take. Don’t get me wrong, he is one my closest friends, but he is...” she started, pausing suddenly.

“Sirius...” you finished her sentence with a heavy sigh. “Don’t worry, Evans, he might be my best friend but I’m not stupid to ever think he’ll commit to anyone. I was just having fun,” you reassured her, linking your arm in hers and leading her to class.

[levis-little-nuggie]

What the Ever-loving FUCK Happened in Chapter 16??!?!!

A synopsis/transcript of the events that transpired between the end of Lesson 15 and 16.

15-17: Time Loop 1

Barb shows us to his room and goes over the mission, telling us how to return back to the “present” after finding out about the door

15-20: no title

Open to Mammon’s room, all the brothers are in there bc they’re trying to get Lucifer and MC together, like a horror/scary thing to set the mood; the purpose to get Lucifer and MC alone together to open up; MC’s portal opens up and plops them in Mammon’s room with all the brothers; Lucifer and MC are in Levi’s room to play the game. We leave Mammon's room and immediately have to hide

16-1: Time Loop 2

Lucifer and MC are coming out of Levi's room and we're forced to hide in Lilith’s hidden room.

16-6: Time Loop 3

MC finds themselves standing face-to-face with Belphie, the attic door is open, and he starts hugging MC.

16-10: no title

Belphie kills us, then we’re speaking to a voice (Lilith's soul had been trapped, “I knew I picked the right person, I’ve been waiting for so long, you see. I’ve been waiting for you to come find me...after my death I remembered who I was, ever since becoming a soul, I’ve been watching over them, and in that time, I’ve forgotten how to get to the Celestial Realm.”) 

16-12: The Reunion

Brothers are standing over MC’s corpse and Belphie is out of the attic. There's a flashback of Barb telling us to find out how/who opened the attic door and not to be seen by anyone; however the brothers see us and the body Mammon is holding disappears; MC talks about Lilith having lived happily as a human.

16-15: no title

“I tell everyone the story as I heard it from Lucifer;” Diavolo comes in and informs MC they’re Lilith’s descendent. All the brothers start hugging MC and Diavolo asks: “Do you want to hug MC too, Belphegor?”

16-17: The Truth Revealed

Belphie tells us it’s his fault he couldn’t protect Lilith but Lucifer says it was his fault. The screen goes black and we're left with the assumption Lucifer lays out everything we already know based on what he revealed earlier in lesson 11 and in MC's flashbacks of Lucifer swearing loyalty to Diavolo.

16-19: no title

Barb is making and serving tea to the brothers, everyone’s in a good mood.

Lesson 17 starts with everyone acting awkward now with Belphie out of the attic and MC is now tasked with mending his relationships with all the brothers.

But wait, aren't we missing something?

You're right. We are.

16-A: Stuck Waiting

Levi: *sigh*

Asmo: Ugh, Levi, how many times have you sighed now?

Levi: I dunno, maybe 10 or so?

Satan: No it’s been 30 times at least

Asmo: Yes but what about you, Satan? How many cups of tea have you had, hmm? You know, if that stomach of yours gets all bloated from tea, i’m going to find you much less appealing

Satan: I couldn’t care less whether you find me appealing or not, Asmo. Also, instead of criticizing me, how about you say something to mammon here

Mammon: *mumble* … man this sucks so much … *grumble*

Asmo: Mammon, do you think maybe you could stop pacing around the room grumbling to yourself?

Levi: yeah, it’s super annoying

Mammon: Shaddup! How can I sit still at a time like this, huh? I mean MC went to the PAST!... Alone! Lke, MC may seem like someone who’s really got it together and stuff, but there’s a real boneheaded streak there that pops up at the weirdest times! Boneheaded, weak, and super reckless. Oh, and too damn gutsy! You never know when Marcie’s gonna take some sorta crazy risk! And like, that makes me wanna be there just in case. Like I GOTTA be there, or who knows what’ll happen?

Levi: Mmhm, sure, MC is SOOO special to you… What, are we supposed to be impressed or something?

Asmo: ooh I know exactly what you mean! It’s like you can’t help but what to lie down together on a bed or a sofa and do all sorts of naughty things- 

Satan: You’d better not do that Asmo

Asmo: excuse me? Could that be jealousy I hear, Satan? Relax. I won’t deny that MC is cute, but still, I think you’re pretty cute too Satan, so no need to worry

Levi: Yeah, MC really IS totally cute, don’t you think? And sort of … hard not to like… *grumbles*

Asmo: wait a minute… Levi, am I hearing what I think i’m hearing

Satan: You’ve only ever been interested in yout anime characters. Levi, has something changed?

Mammon: Whoa, is it just me or does that totally sound like a sign that Armageddon’s about to hit?

Levi: hey come on! Stop looking at me like that! Um...um...Asmo! You should go to the past and check to see how things are going!

Asmo: excuse me/ I know you’re just trying to change the subject, but don’t be ridiculous! I mean, you know that’s impossible. The doors into the past are inside Barbatos’s room, you realize?

Levi: Sure, but can’t you use your powers to charm Barbatos or something?

Asmo: ugh… no thank you! I mean, we’re really talking about Barbatos. If my powers did work on him, who knows what he might do to me once he ends up charmed? He might kill me, and i’m too young for that.

Mammon: pff, what’re ya, chicken?

Asmo: okay them why don’t you go seduce him, Mammon?

Mammon: Me? Um...really? … … Oh no no no no! No way that’s happening!

Asmo: but you really considered it for a second there, didn’t you? You considered seducing Barbatos!

Mammon: N-no, I didn’t! I mean, if it were MC, that’d be another story…!

Levi: You don’t need to remind us that you’ve got it bad for MC, Mammon. Keep it to yourself.

Satan: Well, powers of seduction don’t work on MVC to begin with, so you couldn’t do it even if you wanted to. Come to think of it...why are we all so hung up on MC anyways? It’s hard to believe that a simple human could have this kind of effect on us.

Asmo: hmm…I guess MC is just special, you know?

Mammon: ...yeah right. Special, that’s it!

Asmo: Still, let’s be honest. When it comes down to it, out of all of us, I’m the only one Marcie has eyes for!

Mammon: ...huh? What’re you talkin’ about?

Asmo: well it’s only natural, right? I mean, show me a human who doesn’t find me absolutely irresistible

Levi: ...well i’ll have you know that MC said that i was a true friend

Mammon: You’re all dumb as stumps! Have you all forgotten? I was MC’s first, after all, so clearly I’M the one deservin’ of all the love!

Satan: *blushing profusely*...

Asmo; mammon, don’t be intentionally misleading! You ‘ve got satan here thinking that you actually WERE MC’s first. Satan, what Mammon really means is that he was the first one to make a pact, okay?

Satan:...pff, like i care

Levi: if you don’t care, then why do you look so relieved? We can all see it on your face, Satan

Mammon: oh MC…! MC! Come back to us dammit! And soon!

Levi: Wait a minute! Where’d Beel go?

Asmo: Beel? Um, he was right there a second ago. 

Satan: Maybe he went to find Belphie?

16-C: no title

Beel: ...Belphie? Are you in there?

Lucifer: Shh, quiet

Beel: …! Lucifer!

Lucifer: he seems to be asleep

Beel: …

Lucifer: Beel, there’s something I need to talk to you about

Beel: What?

Lucifer: When belphie disappeared, you were the one who it hurt the most

Beel:…

Lucifer: I shouldnt’ have lied and told you he was up in the human world. It was wrong of me. Also, i knew how hard it was for you, but i couldn’t bring myself to talk to you about it… i’m sorry

Beel: Forget it. It’s fine. Belphie’s back now, so it’s fine.

Lucifer: Beel…

B: but to make up for it, Lucifer… from now on, i want you to trust the rest of us more. Look to us for help and support when you need it. Not just me. I mean all of us - including Belphie

Lucifer: But what if that still isn’t enough, even with all of us working together? What then?

Beel: that’s easy. At times like that...you can call on MC to help, of course. Isn’t that right?

L: Yeah. That’s right. 

Beel: I sure hope MC comes back soon. 

Lucifer: Yeah. And by the time that happens, Belphie will probably have woken up, too.

That's right. There exists a dimension where they don't get their MC back. The MC from that dimension has replaced the MC that Belphie killed.

Diavolo and Barb sent MC back in time to figure out who or how the attic door opened. MC had been acting under the notion that they needed the power equivalent of having pacts with all 7 brothers to open the door yet, even in the time loop it's still not clear. One moment we're hiding in Lilith's secret room and the next, we're standing in front of Belphie and the door is open.

[helahades]

Can’t Give You Love

(Steve Rogers x Black!Fem!Reader)

A/N: ***Important*** This story has strong noncon concepts, and delusional thoughts from Steve, who is the aggressor. None of these things are okay irl, and because of the sensitive nature of these concepts, warnings are below the cut.

This is my entry to @darkficsyouneveraskedfor’s recent challenge. ♥️♥️♥️My prompt: (#21) Character A meets Character B at a nightclub. Character A wants a one night stand but Character B wants more.

Summary: You take Steve home after a night out, celebrating your graduation. You fall asleep. Steve decides he hasn’t had enough.

Warnings: Smut. NSFW. Somnophilia, Delusional Steve. Justification of terrible thoughts via Steve’s POV. Mentions of blood and violence. Steve pretending to be a good guy.

Word Count: about 3.1k

—

Steve’s favorite part of the night is the beginning. Club goers come in all shapes and sizes, in all levels of modesty. To be in a world of such varied and unburdened interactions reminds him of the true simplicity at civilian level. Makes him feel almost human. Despite all his moral dilemmas, he is still a man though, and he isn’t just here to be thoughtful. He likes to look, and he’s he’s delighted when his eyes find you.

Watching you from the bar, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from the way you constantly pulled down the skirt of your curve hugging dress, the way you adjusted your “Congrats Grad!” pin like it would spear you to death right there on the dance floor, the way you would go to dance, swinging your hips each way like no one was watching. It excites him watching you, because you keep throwing tells that you’ve never done this before, that this isn’t your scene. For a while, he had been bored with that, but you’re not just a shy lamb, there’s something else.

Your laugh is uninhibited, and there’s a starter spark threatening to flame behind your eyes, dare any man get too touchy with you or your friends. Steve loves a protector.

When you approach the bar, it’s hardly for your first drink, but there are no indicators in your demeanor. He only knows because he’s been watching you all night.

You’re there for a moment, watching the workings behind the bar before turning to him.

“So,” you giggle, flame coming to life, “come here often?”

He’s hooked.

“Not at all actually. This isn’t really my scene.” A lie. He fidgets with his drink as a special touch.

Your eyes soften, empathetically and imperceptibly to anyone who wasn’t analyzing the fine details.

“To be honest… it’s not really mine either. Think I’d rather celebrate graduating by sleeping—But anyway, why’d you come out tonight if it’s… not your scene?”

You’re fully engaged. It seems that you love the game of conversation.

“The truth is… long winded.”

“Well,” you say softly as possible, still wanting to be heard over the pulsing of the bass, “I’m pretty tired of dancing, so you’d be doing me a favor giving me a reason to stay.”

You pull up a stool and prop your head on one arm.

With a soft chuckle, Steve continues.

“I guess…I had been looking for love. For… the one, yknow? And I didn’t realize until tonight that it’s not gonna happen.”

“What changed tonight?”

Your drink arrives.

“It’s nothing about tonight in particular, tonight’s just a night—but I’m sorry. You’re here to have a good time,” he finishes, scooting away just a bit as he does so. A test.

Your brow furrows and you think a bit before closing the gap. Smart girl. But he’s got you.

“I’d have a better time, literally anywhere else,” you giggle again, shifting and sitting up to sip your drink. Seeming to realize what you implied, you gather the boldness to finish it.

“So… do you wanna get out of here?”

—

You decide to drive, saying you only had that sip to drink. Steve says he believes you. He doesn't really mind anyway, and he can’t tell you he knows a different truth, lest he reveal himself.

Watching you as you talk as your minidress rides up your thighs, he realizes upon arrival that he can’t remember whether the drive was long. Sloppy of him.

You park the car and shift in your seat.

“I really want to kiss you—what was it?”

“Steve.”

“Steve,” you repeat, sitting back in the driver's seat.

“God I want to kiss you. I can’t show you love,” you taunt gently, in a comfortable way like you’ve known him forever, “but I can make you feel really good,” your voice finishes sweetly.

He feels his cock swell, and in that moment, a large warm hand is cradling your jaw and pulling you close for a sugary, tequila spiked kiss. His lips are plump, warm, now wet as you run your tongue over his bottom one.

From between your legs, heat rises all the way to your chest, and you break away to fumble for your house key.

As Steve sits, collecting air while you fumble with your pineapple keyring, he tries to recall, but he knows he’s never tasted anyone so sweet. You’re warm like muffins fresh out of the oven. You have just enough fight to convince yourself you’re hard to get, and that makes him dizzy.

He tries not to think about the fact that you’re already wet. Because he’s a gentleman. Always a gentleman first. Always the golden boy. Since retiring, he knows his role isn't what it used to be. Sam holds the shield with ease, and honestly, Steve had never pictured life without that shield and moniker before going on the run. When he was on the run, he was living from one moment to the next. Between here and there, he was never really thinking about his own wants, what would make HIM feel alive.

He’s living a different life, though, because now he can. He’s got all the time in the world. After too long of fighting some new cosmic force, of each threat being crazier than the last, he wants the old school life. That sentiment is one he had thought had left, and he wants to taste with you in case it does again.

Seeing your dress ride up your thighs tonight, he thinks of how his flannel might do the same while you cook him breakfast. But he would be right beside you helping, and you wouldn’t look as out of place as you did in that club, because secretly, domesticity with him is what you’re made for.

He’s no fool. He knows you don’t see it yet. But tonight he will bring you to the edge again and again before pulling you into a world of pleasure you’ve never known. And then you’ll know.

—

As he curves his hips up to meet yours, the squelching sounds your pussy makes are obscene. The ones from your mouth are even sexier, and it makes this all seem like a lucid dream. You’re riding him, and he’s...encouraging you by taking control from where he lies. You love it. He’s a gentleman, so he won’t be any rougher.

You say you like it rough, but you’ve never had rough from him. That’s a test for a later time. He doesn’t want to scare you.

“Ooh yea—Steve, please! Right there—like that, don’t stop!”

He doesn’t. He won’t. You don’t need to beg, but he loves it when you do.

Your thighs shake, your mouth falls open in that cute way it does, and you fall forward, catching your hands on his chest. You seem to be in love with the hair there, and everywhere on him. Something about that appeals to a monster in him he doesn’t address.

You wince when you finally dismount, pulling yourself off his incredible length, and looking down for the millionth time to check if the condom is still there, before he discards it. He tries not to roll his eyes as he comes back to lie with you. It’s ridiculous, really. You’re his now, there’s no need for this barrier. He holds the monster back that gives him thoughts of you round with his child.

You plop on the bed next to him and shuffle under the sheets.

“That was sooo good. Thank you. I’m so glad you’re not some creep,” and you giggle it like you do.

Scratching softly at his beard, your eyes close sleepily.

“You can let yourself out. I trust you.”

Hm. Of course you do. You’re his and he is yours. It’s already that easy.

He can’t understand why you want him to leave though, and as you drift off, he wonders if you noticed that he hasn’t shifted from his spot.

The crickets are chirping happily with the night, and after a few seconds, your sprinklers turn on. He thinks about kissing you goodnight, eating dinner together, cleaning the pool while you braid your hair.

Cool and light, fan turned air swirls over him as his back moulds into the mattress. It’s too soft, and somehow he's feeling a little too warm, but maybe that’s what new beginnings do.

Scratching his neck, he sighs at the ceiling before trailing his hand lower...lower… under the sheets, and down to squeeze his cock. It’s still damp with the wetness of you, and he gives it one more slow squeeze. There’s excitement there lingering, and he knows he hasn’t had enough yet.

He could jerk off right here next to you. You’re asleep and you would never know. Maybe he could even cum on your naked stomach, rub it in a bit. Maybe he could cum in your mouth. He tries to blink that thought away. But his cum would look so nice on your pretty skin, or even…

Inside you.

He can’t. You’re asleep. He’s already had you once. He should be sated. All of a sudden, he remembers asking about your New York license plate. He remembers you saying you’d lived there for years before coming out here. And it’s easy for him to conclude that he’s saved you. At least once.

For every threat that plagued New York while he was an Avenger, you’re alive and snoring softly next to him, and that has to be fate. He may not be a hero now, but he was once, and that counts for something right? And he saved your life, at least indirectly. And he can’t ignore your soft breaths pushing past your plump lips, and the way you face him in your sleep like he’s your lover. He’d only be taking what he’s owed. It’s the least he can accept in return for your life.

Tentatively, he shifts and lifts an arm and gently strokes your bottom lip with a thumb. Pushing it just past where your mouth is slightly open, and behind your teeth to push gently on your tongue. The wetness of it is arousing enough, but he pushes further back, and feels your throat constrict in a gag, wetness moving around him pushing his finger to the roof of your mouth.

Then, you’re pulling your head back, gentle discomfort clouding your sleeping features. A pause. And with a rolling slow stretch, you’re lying on your back, legs spread. It’s practically an invitation.

Moving over you, he winces at the way the rubbing sound of his skin on the sheets sounds like an earthquake in the quietness of your room. Propping himself up, covering you like shade, he's aware of the shape of your body’s heat pressed up against such a large surface area of him, and it stirs something deep and dormant. He can practically feel the blood rush to his cock again.

He pushes your thighs further apart with his own, and notes the smoothness of your skin against his, which is hairier. (He abandoned shaving entirely once he dropped the life of being an international symbol. It’s the small protests.)

A choked groan escapes him as he rubs the tip of his cock over your clothed clit, and his breath blows a couple hairs against your forehead.

He pauses.

He hears your fan slicing through the high air.

He hears your refrigerator make a shifting sound as the ice machine starts in the distance.

Most importantly, he hears your breath, still coming even. He chances another rub, pleasure shooting through him like lighting.

Something about both being so close to you again, but also the thought of getting caught in this compromising position has his body alive.

It’s the way he would feel in fights as his younger self, when being a hero was new, and he didn’t know where the next attack would come from. Before violence turned to muscle memory.

Steve decides you’re much prettier than violence, and he likes the wetness of your cunt, of your tongue swirling, much better than the feel of blood streaming over his hands. He lives for this, and the chance of having you while you’re sleeping is a new thrill.

He doesn’t want to take too long really, and he’s not proud of it, but he moves slowly, and pulls his knife from his pants on the floor, inches down your body, and slices your panties open with the blade.

The sound of the fabric ripping is new. Taboo. And he’s harder than before, excitement squeezing his chest. He pauses there for a moment, eye level with your cunt, noticing the slight glisten, noticing flower like curves, remembering how you feel inside.

Scooting a pillow out of the way, he straightens up and sits back on his calves, appreciating you fully. Then, he’s closer, quicker, less careful, as his hands land just over the bend of your knees to turn your thighs out, opening you up to him, then pushing your legs further apart.

It’s really not the time, but he thinks about his life before the serum. On the days when all he could do was sit in bed, draw—but most importantly—think, he would think about a wife. His brain would tease him with fantasies about things he thought he could never have. He would think about being stronger, able to make love to his girl the right way.

He won’t waste his chance now. Coming back up and positioning himself over you once more, he grips the base of his cock and bites his lip, tapping it a couple times on your sensitive pussy.

He freezes when you shift your hips.

A moment.

A breath.

Then the head of his cock breaches your walls and the rest of him follows. You’re not as wet as you were when he first had you, but that can be remedied. It makes the squeeze feel tighter, the moment feel longer. He’s kissing on your neck now, slowly pulling all the way out, before pushing deep back in, relishing in this unbearably and oddly pleasurable friction.

Your breathing quickens, somehow still even, and he needs to be closer. Rolling his hips into you, he’s right against you, damn near balls deep, and he doesn’t know if he’ll last, hearing all your sleeping whines.

He’s obsessed with how your breasts bounce. Your nipples are hardened by the cold, and this stimulation, and they draw small circles in the air with each thrust. His eyes flicker to your face one last time, and as a wave of pleasure rolls through him, his monster deciding he’s done being a gentleman.

With another thrust, and a softly choked groan into the silent night, a wave of your slick is rushing around him, and the sounds drive him crazy. Over and over, he thrusts into you. Gentleness gone, along with his cool reservation of the sounds of his pleasure, he’s damn near growling now, hooked on having you this way.

He adjusts himself, wanting to see the exact motions that are moving you up the bed, that have you whining, your sounds losing their softness. Each time he plunges into you he shudders. The wetness of you, the way he’s using you, the way he can take what he pleases, and the thought you’ll maybe only know because of the soreness.

He slows, cock pulsing, for gentler thrusts. Not for you, but for the artists details. He canvases the soft ridges inside you that have him like a vice grip. Takes the time to note the sharp, raw scent of you mixing with him.

Sitting up and back, he pulls you by the hips from where you lie, your ass lifting off the mattress, and your upper body still unresistant to his manipulations. He has a better view of you now, rubbing the head of his cock over your clit, around your entrance, tapping it on your mound to tease himself. He’s rewarded with another gush of wetness, and it runs down his cock, down his balls, into your sheets, and as he pulls you onto his length again, he growls when he catches the scent swirling through the air.

You’re so fucking pretty like this. He can’t believe he’s never had anyone this way. Then, he realizes, it’s special. For just the two of you, as lovers.

He feels a tug. A throb in the base of his cock then upwards as pleasure overtakes him. He chuckles wickedly, and that cuts off in a hedonistic moan as he knows you won’t be able to stop him. He hears you try to tease that he’s not ready for kids, hears the edge of fear in your voice from before. You don’t do this all the time, and it’d be terrible for a stranger to impregnate you.

But Steve is different. He’s not a stranger. He’s the one for you. You just don’t know it yet. He fucks into you angrier, ignoring how he's overstimulated, how your pussy is puffy and raw, remembers how you told him to let himself out. It would be another joke to laugh to had you not meant it. He just has to feel you. Has to see you take his cum like you were meant to. It’s not his fault. It would have been easier, more gentlemanly had you let him while you were awake.

He’s only a man, really, he has to take what he wants. The feeling swells in his balls again, the pressure of coming release running up his shaft, and his cock feels even harder somehow.

Rushing through him as his thrusts get weaker and he leans more weight on you, the bliss of your wetness squeezing and tugging him involuntarily is indescribable.

He gasps, filling the whole of his lungs, curving his hips into you with short, desperate stutters, stronger pressure pushing up the base of his cock, before finally releasing into you with a deep groan. The new loose feeling, this mess, has him seeing stars.

Steve can’t help but to pause, not because you’re waking up, but because he’s feeling his cum take form wherever it can fit around his cock thats pulsing inside your pussy that’s throbbing too. What can’t fit spills out of you, dripping and smearing, and in his post orgasm haze, he slowly fucks it back in. He pushes it in deep with a wicked moan, thighs shaking in pleasure.

It’s done.

And when the clouds leave your eyes, and you’re really awake as he pulls out of you, flinching at your own sensitivity, your eyes widen in horror as a hand flies between your legs, still processing what he’s done.

And because he’s a gentleman, he has to ask.

“What’s wrong, lover?”

—

(reblogs appreciated!)

tags: (only tagging people I know are comfortable with dark fics) @darkficsyouneveraskedfor @threeminutesoflife @honeychicanawrites @avintagekiss24 @xbuchananbarnes @sapphirescrolls @jtargaryen18

[selfcareparker]

(lovely anon) i'm so happy to finally be answering this oh my goodness hi gorgeous human being i feel that it has been too long 🥲 SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE LAST TIME I'VE WRITTEN ONE OF THESE HOW HAVE YOU BEEN

to answer the things you have said most recently- i'm so mad that spring break is over bc now i have to go back to life??? like dancing and school and shit that feels so unnessacry 😭 and like i can't just do nothing anymore? i was so used to it and now...... ugh. i STILL haven't played sims (i think it's because ✨depression✨ be hitting sometimes) lol but MWAHAH IM SO HAPPY FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR!AU AND THAT THEY HAD LITTLE BABY LEO!! i feel the name thing.. i just come up with something that sounds nice? i think leo is a nice name, it makes me think about lea michele and the fact that her son's name is Ever Leo but anyway. i don't name my sims after what i want to name my children irl either... idk why though. (i don't know why i'm telling you this but for boy names i love Liam🥰 and if i had twin boys i think i would do Liam and Peter though i am not married to the name Peter.... anywho)

LMAOOO the therpaist coming made me laugh thank you :)) i hope it's helpful? this may be tmi but i've only really had negative thoughts recently and not many healthy outlets so i'm hoping crossing one thing off this sad list will make me feel better :') i think during spring break my anxiety and my depression really spiked? idk, it comes in episodes but yeah THIS GOT REALLY SAD

i think a lot of things when i read your posts but i never say them hahaha so imma say it now: i googled what bon appetit meant ( i also just had to google how to spell it ) but ur right, i feel like bone apple tea makes more sense than bone apple teeth.. the "th" is throwing me off bc how i say it bone appa (like app-a) teet (like you're saying tit but teet lol) so bone apple tea makes more sense to me lol

i never know really know the time difference for anything lmao but est to germany (that's not gmt is it?) is like 6 hours wOAH so it's like 9pm while it’s 3pm here? wowee

i feel mega weird after watching this show called hollywood (darren criss is in it, so is laura harrier and a bunch of other people) but i don't like it💀 i feel really icky rn and idk why but reading your last response to my ask (?) always makes me feel better :')

i am doing what you said btw, i'm typing this on my computer first then gonna transfer it to my phone's tumblr lol but when you said a digital detox, it's interesting cuz i feel like i've been having one since tom's new project was announced? gOD i don't wanna get into it bc i get so triggered but i've been off of instagram since then bc instagram stans literally stand by tom through whatever even when something ain't right- i’m just gonna leave it there bc i’ll continue the rant, but yeah so i took a break lol

also heard abt your driving lesson thing (?) was it that bad? i can't find the old post but someone asked if you hooked up with your lesson person and i was sOOO CONFUSED LMAOO LIKE OK ARIA GET SOME BUT UHH HUH?

now to address the actual response HAHA the way you touch my heart :') by :') bringing :') up :') halle :') being ariel :') (i honest to God don't remember if i brought this up first, forgive me if i did, it's been a minute lmao) i'm always talking about it and i'm pretty sure my family is so tired of me talking about it lmao, but YEAH when i found out they weren't twins i was so surprised but idk why i always thought they were twins? but YOU ARE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE WITH THE DISNEY TALK- everyone is always like "tiana is my favorite princess" and yea she's strong and stuff but...... she was a frog. for almost the whole time. it's about time we got another one!! i do agree with some people on the fact that disney should just make another black princess but halle is adorable and i was ariel on stage so it's already really special to me :')

yeah lol there are good times with my brothers but they make me mad for a good portion of the time (there's the 12yo vincent and the 7yo daniel but vincent??? psshhh he is a piece of work and i'm not sure how much longer i can put up with him HAJAH AND YES VINCENT IS THE ONE WHO WAS 👁👄👁WHEN I CRIED AND THE ONE WHO DOESN'T LISTEN TO MUSIC- writing this now makes it sound like vincent is awful. which he isn't... we're working on him ig. not to add to the awfulness but no, he listens to obnoxious loud VIDEO GAME MUSIC and won't stop when we ask him to stop... he gets beat up a lot) anyway i imagine being an only child is really calming.. like you have time to yourself and its just you and your parents 😌

yeah let me know if you end up watching it (wandavision)! i think it's great but if you like it lmk!! tfatws is sooo good like PHEW i am honestly loving it. sidenote: j*hn w*lker makes me wanna jump through the screen and choke him to the ground. i was thinking right, and the falcon and the winter soldier (THATS SO MUCH EASIER FAJHKDAH) would techinally be like a 10 hour movie right? because every episode is an hour long and there'll be 10 episodes? like wow. i get what you mean though, abt the racism in the show etc, like looking forward to it but not like..... no i get what you mean i will not try and give another example lol but you make me wanna learn more languages like really badly (bc of what you said about the german to american translation) & if you end up watching hamilton PLEASE LMK ABT THAT TOO HAHAHA i love it so much, same thing with lion king lmaoo

speaking of germany, i was at lunch on saturday with my mom and her friend and we were talking about my schooling and like-- she planted this idea in my head lol like what if i just got my GED and went around the world (to england probably) to get a theatre experience??? and i think it sounds so cool but no where near practical lol, it's just..... the dream haha and i would then try and learn a language 😉

uh yes we absolutely should order basically a resturant meal at a cinema, how about burgers, chips (fries), and a large drink? any time next week works for me, should i pick you up?

also about cherry (which i still haven't watched yet lol) i got the timestamps from tumblr😌 i couldn't find them anywhere else, but i agree, i probably wouldn't even look twice at cherry if tom wasn't in it? like i liked tdatt a lot, but it's not a movie i would be itching to see ya know?

HAHAHAHA THE 24 HOUR NOTIFICATION- i think i have around 1030 hours on sims? but i've had it since 2019 lmao (reading the screenshots, yes u are 100% a genuis, i take screenshots too but on anon you can't upload them so i just read them and retype what i wrote lmao) i think the university experience in the game is fun, but time consuming and it's all work imo. idk why i do it so often tho 😭😭😭

and agreed!! when you're making good money in the game you have to find other ways to make it interesting. my cousins who play it just continously do "motherlode" and i'm like.... then what do you do in your game?? it just sounds boring to me... my current sims household, i had a famous comedian sim, her name was dylan, aND SORRY IM LAUGHING SO HARD WHILE WRITING THIS BC ITS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF THE UNI THING UNLESS IM JUST DUMB, she went to college for communications when i wanted her to be a comedian and when she graduated i realized that degree did nothing for the career 🥲 so yeah, i think i'm just dumb. but she had a kid in college, guy didn't stick around and she was pretty broke HA but then she got married to this (great) guy named steve, made good bank, had 5 more kids (two sets of twins and one more lol) but then she passed. uhm... yeah that's still an open wound . lol i'm kidding, but when you get rich like that, you have to find a way to make the game interesting and i chose a million kids.

(this was one giant paragraph until i broke it up uhh yeah) i seriously don't pay attention to the sims prices and just end up spending way too much money and not being able to finish the rest of the house😭 but then again, i'm so used to having sims live in apartments... if i end up building a house FIRST OF ALL it'll look like what you explained before lmao but i'll tell you if i actually end up building a house HAHA & planning out your sims game is so fun to me lol, did enisa and michael take in his daughter yet? i may be thinking too far ahead lol and i love that they fucked woohooed (i say woo woo lol) in celebration HAHA but when i was playing with this one couple i had them woo woo every night hoping the dude would have horrible pull out game and they would concieve, but one night they were too tired and i was like why? get back in there man. if i was in college and lived with my partner we would be fucking every night homie. be grateful. i have been talking a lot about sims, and like you said: enough 💀 i just love this game a lot 😭😭

SORRY LAST THING i think the sims romantic and sexual stuff is so nice bc its what i want?? LMAO IDK like the whole hot tub thing you're talking about- puh lease ITS JUST NICE TO SEE OKAY

i'm reading the german section over again and i said aloud "my german friend is so cool" lol (i was saying that to my brothers & i know they don't care LMAO) (& i'm glad the uni zoom call went well!!) so on a form, in german, it could possibily say Einführungsveranstaltungsteilnehmer because you would be a participant to an introductory event? i swear german sounds so cool 😌 but i love reading your german lessons!! it's really interesting, most of the time my brain can't comprehend it tho?? like that word makes sense to you, but i need a translation. like to be able to look at that and know what it says.... its just appealing and seems so cool lol i kinda wanna write something out in german but i feel that google translate will fail me. während googeln "google übersetzen" mein Computer war so verdammt langsam und es fühlte sich einfach wie etwas Gutes auf Deutsch zu sagen. ich bin nicht sicher, welches Wort ist "fucking", aber ich mag es lmao (did it fail me like i thought it would??)

LMAOOO THANK YOU FOR BRINGING UP JUSTIN BC WHILE AT THE RESTURANT THEY PLAYED A JUSTIN SONG AND I IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT OF YOU AND THIS STORY😭 lol i was thinking it's depending on your age but not even that either... i really don't know.... but tom's fans are hollanders💀 i would consider myself one? he's the only person i'm really into like that (like a lot lol) so idk lmao (directioners 💔💔the pain is real)

LMAOOO (both of these paragraphs started off with “lmaooo” smh) "i like my men when they look like they are on the brink of death" PLEASE, i don't like pete's blonde hair... i just don't. i'm not sure if i wasn't watching the most recent snls but yea. my mom thinks he looks like trash, but i think he's okay? like he said staten island people just look like trash LMAO and I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN KING OF STATEN ISLAND GIRL I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT THAT!! now i'm gonna make plans to watch it lmao, & yes agreed i find pete hot, don't ask why i really couldn't explain it to someone he's just .

my favorite songs from rex are from pony oh my goodness 🥺 anywho i'm gonna go eat cereal (i ended up eating bun and cheese instead) and listen to the Stormzy songs you recommended... aria. aria aria aria. i would like to thank you for introducing me to stormzy i- i don't have any words or any emojis to express HOW GOOD STORMZY IS. i hope he's popular in germany/the uk because i haven't heard of him but GURLLLL

one second - delicious i love it. it's really good. it’s not my favorite from the album, but its great.

superheroes - at first i played the non-explicit one (on accident) and wondered why the words weren't playing but i was reading them in the lyrics??? THIS ONE THOUGH??? IS THE BEST SONG I THINK I'VE EVER HEARD. i am so SO SO into black people empowering songs (like brown skin girl by beyonce) and this song???? PHEW I CRYYYYY ITS SO GOOD.... i was gonna quote some lyrics BUT THERS TOO MANY I LOVE, "i am young, black, beautiful, and brave" "black queen, you're immaculate, it's coming at the world, they ain't ready for your magic yet, and that was never your fault" THAT WAS NEVER YOUR FAULT- I ALMOST CRIED THIS SONG IS SO BEAUTIFUL (i played it twice lol)

lessons is another beautiful one, like its slow and it feels intimate and nurturing and just OO chefs kiss, beautiful . like you can feel the apology and the regret... it’s so good

own it - OWN IT OWN IT OWN IT IS AMAZING!! swear you would catch me dancing to this song, this song is so fucking good i cannot comprehend like this one might be my favorite for real... "it's the way you wind up your waist, i'm so in awe, you never have to worry abt nothing, you know its yours, you know you own it" 🥲 i played it two or three times honestly

rachael's little brother - YES I DID LISTEN TO IT LMAO AND YES I LIKE IT, its a very complex song and it's very layered in terms of emotions i think and i really like that about it. i probably won't listen to it that often, but its really good. i would recommend this song to my "older brother" bc he would just absolutely love this

shut up - i was taking this song seriously (also very good) until i heard him say shu-T up LMAO, this one is good, i probably wouldn't listen to it 24/7 like rachael's little brother but honestly its still fire

before listening to blinded by your grace and vossi bop, i know you brought up the religion bit, i definitely don't mind that, especially because i'm Christian lol and i actually liked that he brought up God in some of his songs like idk i just like it🥰🥰

(i then went to bed after that lol but first thing in the morning i listened to superheroes and... that song is probably my favorite tbh, i was gonna write MORE quotes that i loved from it but, yeah no there's too many. if you want i'll tell you lmao but this is already so long i would just be quoting the whole friggin song)

VOSSI BOP IS A BOP (lol) I CANT EVEN LIE, i love a song that hypes up a dude's girl so the line- i love that my phone decided to fail to load the lyrics, lemme google it, okay the lyric "looking at my girl like what a goddess" i was like AYEEE its honestly just really good. and no one in america says "sauce" like "i've got the sauce" but now i do (thanks to love island and Nas from last season) and now stormzy so (also im gonna watch the music video for superheroes bc it looks great so 😛)

(because this is already so long i feel like i shouldn't finish the rest but . no i'm gonna do it)

now for blinded by your grace pt2 idk why i’m nervous lmaoo PAUSE I'M NOT EVEN DONE WITH THE SONG GIRL THIS SONG IS *chefs kiss* no words, speechless PHEW y'all gon make me start jumping around. why did i not know about stormzy before, he is amazing i- ok yeah i finished the song, all i have to say is that Stormzy is immaclucate. period. i am literally sending his music to all my friends he is..... amazing

you want my song recommendations 🥺🥺 hmm uh okay lol i listen to a lot of old music, whitney houston, marvin gaye, queen, celine dion, i love "more than words" by extreme uhmm okay, but for actual music i listen to on the daily? (this is a lot of different music like.... they do not go together lmao so be prepared) a song about being sad by rex orange county, betty by taylor swift and lover by taylor swift and... most of that album lol, treasure by bruno mars lmao, OOOO and versace on the floor by bruno as well, lazybaby by dove cameron, creep by tlc has been on repeat lol, deja vu by olivia rodrigo (i saw what you said about drivers license and AGREED LMAO but i like deja vu a lot more haha) and two albums that i listen to in general, rare by selena gomez and ungodly hour by chloe x halle 🥰 you don't have to listen to all of them or any of them lol but that's a sense of what i'm into :) so basically everything haha, i'm into literally every single kind of music really so i wasn't too surprised that i enjoyed stormzy :’)

HAHASBSJHAHA your h20 story cracked me up,, like "wow these actors are so dedicated, learning german just for us" 😭 the beauty of overdubbing

once again, math and maths, in my mind maths makes sense because its mathmatics, but saying maths doesn't feel right to me lol, like if i said maths i feel like everyone would look at me like ??? and yea i was taught it as math so its just more natural for me. but yes math/maths is disgusting, easily one of my least favorite subjects so .

mkay. i- the first time i read this i could not contain my laughter when you said the only pollen you know is sex pollen LMAOKOOSHBABJFAJF STOPPP I'M EVEN LAUGHING WRITING THIS,, anyway. wow! that's interesting, my dad (<<< mostly anything else) gets migraines from the sun and the heat and stuff, yesterday (sunday, i was outside for like hours watching my brothers play football, the american kind lol) i was in the sun for like ever and i got a headache😔

summer clothes🥲 i need to go shopping fr fr. for my birthday my mom and dad got me a giftcard like dedicated to a shopping spree and we've yet to go so..... i should bring it up to my mom lol, but!! i went bra shopping (ended up returning literally all of them cuz they honestly didn't work for day to day work? its a long story) and if i could i would walk around in this new "summer bra" i got, i would. it's so fricking cute and its really light fabric (which isn't perfect for my nipples but still) so i don't get hot in it, but that bra and some shorts would be perfect. its the closest thing to being naked so

IS THE BIRD STILL BOTHERING U ARIA, TELL ME NOW ISTG, i laughed really hard that the bird isn't stupid and is really trying to torture you LMAOO like i was rolling, it wants you to suffer, badly

when you said "mensus" it was still close to mens!!! latin speaking queen 😌😌

okay STORYTIME i was reading back your response and started (fake) crying bc i love you lol and my youngest brother (daniel) gon say "oh man, catherine's crying about something we don't care about, again" I--- i swear when i tell you about them they sound awful, but they aren't that bad, just the stuff i say about them is sounds really mean LMAO

but the thing you said about being kind, same, what i always say is: don't be the person that makes people say "i hate people" ya know? like there's no reason to be a jerk or anything.... but its true 🥺🥺🥺🥺 you are really kind and every time i talk to you i would like to personally fly to germany and give you a hug 💖💕💞💗💓💝💖💘

& i'm gonna show my stretch marks some love bc of you 🥺😭 i really hate how men have basically everyone conditioned that you can't love your own body </3 fuck them, y'all beautiful :')

also thanks for what you said :')) you literally are the kindest, sweetest person i think i've ever spoken to and i love you 🥰🥺🥲💓💗

READING YOUR TAGS HAHAHHAHA the spelling errors makes everything so much funnier. once again, i like your german lessons & yea!! i'm gonna play sims after writing this hahah

#catherine's tags are back #i don't think i've told you my name before?? #anyway it's catherine🥰🥰🥰 #i'm typing this on my computer (without emojis) and if i didn't edit this you would be reading shit shite like #heartface and pout and cry LMAO #yeah abt the tattoos #some stuff with my parents i'm like deal with it??? lol #my mom tells me "if there's something you enjoy or you like but i don't have the same opinion on it... why would my (my mom's) opinion matter? #and i love that #like i'm not gonna go and do whatever i want #but if my mom doesn't like that i swear (which isn't true just an example) #its like okay.... #but whatever #and your tattoo ideas sound really cute!! #and yeah @ your parents, i mean you aren't getting something wild #and the tattoo album>>> #i'm gonna look up ariana's butterfly tattoos just so i know what you mean lol #but i'm guessing you don't want something so incredibily simple, but not super like over the top? #correct me if i'm wrong lol #LMAO the tags were in order don't worry ! #and yeah lol ily2 <33 #and once again, again, sorry for this post JSHJS ITS A MESS AND LONG AS HELL #and you don't need to go in order of my post its literally longer than your german compound words #u're fine #also !!! while writing this the birds were chirping outside and i was like 😳 #and one of your fics (i’ve read all of them, i don’t remember lol) that valentine’s day one where y/n had lingerie on (the pancake one lol) #inspired me to buy lingerie #like when i look back on me “growing up” #that fic & basically you lol really helped with that #that made no sense and i don’t know how to make it make sense... but... yeah. like ily

hiiiiiiiiiii <3333

Dear catherine, 😌

(you have said your name before, but it wasn‘t like an introduction or anything i think you were talking about .... was it possibly the incident at the cinema??? And you said something like ‘calm down catherine‘ like you were telling yourself to calm down idkd dkdkkdkd anyway i didn‘t mention it cause i wasn‘t sure if it was an accident or not dkdjd but now i know 😌❤️ Catherine is such a cute and lovely name btw omg and so are your brothers‘s names 🥰

Sorry that I‘m answering this so late, it‘s been an emotional rollercoaster for me since last week but i‘ll get to that in a second lol

Sksklssk girl i haven‘t played sims in like 2 weeks now ekejdkdlldld ok that‘s not that long at all actually but i keep wanting to play but then i end up not playing for whatever reason, so no news about my sims game 😔 but i love the names Liam and Peter and for twins!!! That sounds really nice actually

okay i‘m trying to answer your ask in chronological answer even though i wanted to wait for the depressing stuff and write it at the end or something OKAY so. i thought that i‘d feel so good when i start uni and that i‘ll like... have a purpose in life again and just be happy (cause in the last year i didn‘t do much and i was depressed like half of the time lol).... anyway i kind of feel even worse now? 😭 i think it‘s because in my brain it‘s like: university!!! that means your life will change and it‘ll all be so exciting. and don‘t get me wrong it is exciting butttt..... idk the online thing is so weird cause you‘re not meeting any new people (i‘m introverted anyway but still lol) and it doesn‘t feel like you‘re listening to/talking to actual people cause it feels the same as just watching a video?

also i thought i‘d be busy again but i only have one lecture (90mins) a day and theres one day where i dont have any lectures at all and just one day where i have 3 hours but.... idk i mean i shouldn‘t complain about having so much free time but i just don‘t know what to do all day and in a pandemic there really is nothing to do but i also can‘t relax bc it‘s like during the week and i know i have uni the next day and .... yeah.

There‘s also this one assignment i had to do that took me AT LEAST SIX HOURS AND IM NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING????? so that was the only thing i‘ve been doing besides “going to“ lectures. for this one course we have to read two (really really long) texts (like it literally took me 3 hours to read them) and we‘re supposed to post it on this website that all the professors in our uni use. So after 5 days of anxiety (✌🏼) i posted mine this morning bc last night i realised that i didn‘t even know why i was having anxiety so i just posted mine today. The deadline is tomorrow at 12 and no one except me has posted theirs yet........ so i have anxiety again 🥰 cause idk if i‘m the only one who did it or if i even did it correctly

Edit while i‘m rereading this: my anxiety about uni is a lot better and i‘m not as d*pressed anymore maybe it was just hormones? idk but i‘m better so that‘s good

(I started writing this like 5 hours ago and then i randomly completely forgot lol)

I‘m in a better mood now though so let‘s move on from that (oh wait also, i think i‘m gonna see if i can find a psychiatrist bc with my anxiety symptoms (long story) i need to go to a psychiatrist, and so far i‘ve only gone to like psycholgists and it didn‘t help but i think that‘s just bc i was meant to go to a psychiatrist and not a psychologist so dldjdjsj

n e ways but yes you‘re not alone, ily, things will get better and yes i love you (i‘m not good at this type of thing🥲 but i‘d hug you right now if i could <3)

Yess i think the time difference between est and me is 6hours but gmt is uk time i believe? i think mine is called.... cet? For central european time? I could be completely wrong though lmao

Oof i completely forgot about hollywood, i remember when laura kept posting about it on instagram but i never actually watched it and i definitely won‘t now lmaodkdksjsn

Okay my driving lesson LEBDJDKDK I DID NOT HOOK UP WITH ANYONE AKSJSKSMMLM especially not my 40 or 50 year old driving instructor lol i like her but NOT LIKE THAT, the lesson was really really really good actually and i think i‘ll have my driving test soon, but i don‘t even remember why the anon would have thought that??? Oh wait now i remember okay KEKSKDLDL so during the lesson my instructor was like do you mind if i turn on some music? AND THIS WOMAN TURNED ON ONE DIRECTION I LOVE HER so i made a post about it and i said something about the song up all night and i guess i phrased it in a .... idk in a dumb way 💀 so the anon made a joke that i stayed up with my driving instructor all night and NO. No.

Wait did i read that right? YOU WERE ARIEL ON STAGE? SIALDBDJDKSLMSBDKDMDMDKDJSLSMDJFJJEDMBFEKLEFBJDLDVSIDLESKSKWKDKDJDOWNYUEKWNDUWLNSUFLWVSUDLEHDOENSIDBEISBEHENJELBSIEMWUDNRIW KB WOBE JO ON SBEUU HIII S HWS LV W ICH US KB okay this keyboard smash is getting out of hand but uh please do elaborate on that 💘😌???? Like you can‘t just drop that information and not say more??? I forgot if you‘re in like your school‘s drama group (is that a thing? lol idk anything about acting) or in an independent group? Either way - ARIEL that is so fucking cool

Your brothers loooooool, no i get it though obviously you love them and stuff but esp at their age children are so annoying so good luck with them 😭😭😭lmao

Yeah “anyway i imagine being an only child is really calming.. like you have time to yourself and its just you and your parents 😌“ yeah just me and my parents who constantly fight 🥰 lmao no i like being an only child, like i cannot imagine having siblings but i feel like if i had siblings i would be saying that i can‘t imagine being an only child so? but i do think it‘s quite different like i‘m trying to imagine having siblings and WHAT that‘s just so different omg i‘ve never really thought about it like properly ???

I saw a tik tok the other day that was like “sometimes i forget that my siblings have a life of their own. like i see them as side characters in my life“ and even though i can‘t relate obviously i felt that. lol, like i can really imagine how it feels idk what i‘m talking about like shut the fuck up, daria

(also my actual name is daria not aria but i dont like it, and also i wanted to be more anonymous on tumblr so now i‘m aria lmao. pls don‘t mention it though cause no one knows except for you and mel (peterbenjiparker) dkdkdkdnkdnd. but i‘m starting to identify with the name cause everyone keeps calling me that looool😭😭😭 (but i like the name, more than daria anyway? well it also depends on the accent, cause the way germans say daria is okay. the was Americans say it is also okay, but some of my family in England are from the north of england and i don‘t like how they say my name 💀 no offence to them(?) but yeah pls don‘t mention the name in your ask cause the chance of people seeing it is higher then (or if you want to say something about it just send a separate ask and i just won‘t post it (IDK what you‘d want to say about my name but yeah just in case slsldlldmsndnsns)

I‘m loving falcon and winter soldier so much but when i was watching an episode the week before last week (?) my laptop broke😭😭😭😭 during the scene where the dora milaje came at the end my laptop just shut down? And it had these lines all over the screen and i had to bring it to the shop where i bought it and they said it‘ll take 6-8 weeks to repair 💔💔💔 but at least it‘ll be for free, cause if i brought it back to apple it would cost like 400€ (i think that‘s nearly 500$) so yeah. but it sucks cause now i‘m “going to uni“ on a really old rusty laptop and on my phone which kinda sucks. oh yeah and also i can‘t watch anything on there 😭 i definitely want to watch wandavision but it‘ll have to wait🤧

Yessss you should def get your GED! I googled and I‘m still not entirely sure what it is dldks but from how you described it- YES!!!!!!

Idk if you know this? Like no idea if I‘ve told you this already (hmmm wait i feel like we talked about it actually?) anyway i was originally gonna go study in England, but for loads of reasons I ended up staying in Germany and I‘m def happy with my decision, but I definitely want to go to England sometime even if it‘s just for six months or maybe for my masters or something? And (obviously everyone is different) but i think everyone should go abroad and live in a different country once in their life, no matter if it‘s for school or what, and even if it‘s just for a few weeks. But i think that‘s something that you‘d never ever forget! And combining that with your acting/theatre??? You really would be living the dream 💘💘😌

how about burgers, chips (fries), and a large drink? any time next week works for me, should i pick you up?— sounds good see you soon 🥰🥰🥰

i used to be one of the people who‘d just do motherlode motherlode motherlode and just... what did i do? Why did i do that??? But not anymore lol. Like I said i haven‘t played sims in a few weeks but i‘ve been watching a few legacy challenge let‘s plays and usually i play with the aging off. So my sims just don‘t age 💀 but i could (should) turn aging on so that it stays exciting and i have limited time and everything. and once i get bored with my current sims i can just make them have kids and continue playing as their children when they get older- like recently i remembered that i haven‘t played the acting career in ages? and i haven‘t had a shop in ages? and i think you can even become a vet right??? like those are definitely some things i want to do in the next weeks!!! Also yes sksksjs i have a few hundred hours on sims as well (if not thousands 😭) it was just that one household that i‘d been playing with for 24hrs

AND GIRL SSKSKJD THE UNIVERSITY THING HAPPENED TO ME TOO, it was a while ago so i don‘t remember what degree and what job it was about but i made my sim study something for aaaaaages so she‘d get a better job from the beginning (you know what i mean like get in at a higher level)...... and i apparently studied the wrong thing cause i didn‘t get any benefits from studying and still had to start at level 1 and shit 🥴🥲

Oh also (this was like 2 weeks ago) Enisa and Michael did take in Michael‘s daughter and i think Enisa currently even has a higher/better relationship with the daughter than Michael but um💀💀💀 also i was hoping (since michael and enisa married (in their back yard i think lol) that the daughter (i forget what her name is😭) would have enisa as her step mom? Like you know how you can see the relationship and it says daughter or son or sister.. and i was hoping that it would say step mom but it doesn‘t say anything 🥲 but in my mind (and if the sims had proper family relations) she is her step mom😌 also Leo is a teenager now???? I mean I aged him up lol dkdk he was being too annoying as a toddler but i don‘t like children so i aged him up twice in one day and now he‘s a teen, but that means he can look after his half sister when she becomes a toddler which is good (the game recognises them as siblings tho even if they‘re just half siblings? why can‘t they have step family members in the sims🥲) okay i‘ve annoyed you enough with sims ✋🏼

I‘ve been a bit sick these past few days and now i‘m getting a headache so i have to finish this response tomorrow 😭😭😭 </3

.

It‘s not tomorrow, it‘s 3 hours later but i‘m better lol

oooff when sims are ungrateful and won‘t woo woo (lol i like that) cause they‘re too tired like?? Be grateful that you‘re not living with your parents anymore 🙄 no okay dkdkdkdl idk if you play with mods (i don‘t) but i know there is a mod (or it‘s part of a mod idk maybe wicked whims?) where you can adjust the percentage of how risky a normal woo woo is, like you still click woo woo (3dksksks okay i‘ll say woohoo again— wait is that what’s it called? 😭) but there‘s like a 25% chance that your sim can still get pregnant just like in real life there‘s always a chance of getting pregnant even if you‘re using protection (just not 25% lmao) but yeah i personally don‘t play with mods sksk and you can always just click try for baby but it would be cool if you could add stuff like risky woohoo to the game without mods (i have no idea how to download mods and i play sims on a really really old laptop and sims is literally tje only thing that works on it anyway so—) i repeat my words from earlier: okay i‘ve annoyed you enough with sims ✋🏼

okay i‘m so sorry i‘m gonna watch fast & furious 1 now cause i need to watch f&f 1-5 until the 30th of april cause they‘re only on netflix til then (i mean i could watch them somewhere else but the quality is never as good) so i will finish this tomorrow after all😭

it is now 1 am, i finished the film, can feel a new obsession coming up again (i always have these f&f obsessions for six months before and after a new film comes out)

THE GOOGLE TRANSLATE wkekdjdj tbh it sounds like someone is speaking with some kind of foreign accent i guess that‘s probably because it just is a direct translation and so anyway slsjsj i don‘t know if you asked me what the word fucking is in german? like idk cause the translation is a bit weird but in case you asked lol sidjsjs theres not really a good translation like we just say fuck for fuck lmao, i don‘t know if you typed in fucking in google translate and it came out as verdammt? cause that means damn (or damned sksjjs) ummm yeah idek if/what you asked so imma move on🤧

I‘m not gonna comment on what you said about every stormzy song cause you already said all the important things but SKSKSJSJSKNSNDBDUDOENWBSLSKKHSULSLSKSBSJSKSK I WAS SMILING SO HARD WHEN I READ YOUR RESPONSE FOR THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH finally i know someone who loves him as much as i do 💘💘💘 also since you brought it up, i‘m pretty sure he‘s considered the most successful UK rapper or if not then at least top 3 so he‘s defffffffffinitely big in the uk, in germany more and more people are listening to uk rap too but not as much stormzy cause theyre dumb apparently 🙄 but anywY i‘m sooooo sooo happy that you like him. i think hith came out end of 2019 (i could be wrong but i think it came out on the 13th of december so (in a european way) you‘d write the date: 13.12 and obviously i don‘t KNOW this but i can definitely imagine that he chose that date because ACAB and yes, Michael. Yes. But he hasn‘t made too much music since then so i hope he‘s working on some new stuff 🤞🏼

Also i ordered the stormzy poster😌 also a nicki minaj one bc i decided i‘m gonna have one wall with red-ish posters (i already have two kinda red ones) and one with blue/green-ish posters (already have two) and i can add stormzy to the blue one and nicki to the red one, but i think that‘s it cause if my walls are tooo full it could look cluttered? I‘m not sure how that type of thing works lmao but my room is generally untidy so i don‘t want the walls to look unorganised too so i think that‘s it for now

I really want to finish this now but my brain is getting kinda slow and i need to sleep soon so this will have to wait till later after all 🥺🥴 (not that it makes and difference to you bc you‘ll see this whenever i post it buttttt i wanted you to know that i want to talk to you again but with my slow brain i‘m just taking too long to do it in one day😭😭😭 and i‘m so busy tomorrow hmm but i‘m sure i‘ll have 30 minutes to finish this then <3)

Okay wait I‘m so dumb I didn‘t realise I‘d nearly answered everything i could have posted this yesterday 😭😭

Oooohh that summer bra sounds so nice like if i was confident enough i literally would just wear a top that resembles a bra (or really is a bra lol) cause my tiddies always be looking amazing i‘m just insecure about my stomach sometimes 🙄🙄🙄 but recently i‘ve been loving myself more and more tbh 😌

also i hope you can go shopping for some nice clothes soon ✨😌

I‘ll be honest I haven‘t listened to your song recs YET but only because i wanna take my time with them and i‘ve been so busy and slso AJ tracey‘s album came out last week and I haven‘t listened to that one yet either so ekdkdj (he‘s also a uk rapper like quite popular and successful as well, but i feel like i‘m not gonna like his album cause whenever i‘m looking forward to an album it ends up being really bad and the albums where you weren‘t expecting it turn out to be bangers.... so yeah but i‘ll let you know when i listen to your songs!!!! :)

Omg i keep having to scroll up all the way to see the next thing you said so sorry if I completely miss some of the things you said😭😭

So when you sent this the bird was still bothering me oh my FUCK DKDLDMMDMDMD but now i‘ve been going to bed at like 1-2am so the bird is probably still asleep lool

Okay and for the rest of your ask my response is: 💘💖❣️💚❣️💛❣️💛💕💞❤️💓💟💞💕💕💖💘💝💟💟🧡❤️🧡💞💛💚💓💚💚💚❣️🧡💖💘🧡💝🧡💕💘🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥺🥺🥺🥰🥺🥺💘💘💘💘💘 (okay that looked cuter in my head i don‘t really like the green hearts dldkkdksndnd)

[cheseyre]

good news, sluts! my brain's no longer being completely stupid (only mostly), i've seen the new asides and...have some thought-y thot thoughts:

*deep inhale*

Okay, first things first: this art style is soooo fucking cUTE and I'm a jealous, squealing bitch. Anyone who knows who the artist is, could you link me to them, stat? I think Thomas mentioned them at the beginning of the ep, but nYeh, brain hurt, doesn't wanna do wooork-

Okay, I'll admit, I was a little...apprehensive when I first saw the thumbnail and title. Part of it's just me being a bitter Remus Stan, but also...okay, deep breaths, controversial opinion time, get ready:

I don't ship Prinxiety.

Like, at all. 

I can see the appeal, and these dorks were so very, VERY cute in this particular ep, but I was honestly turned off by the ship long ago due to how overwhelmingly popular it is and how some fans characterize these two and treat this relationship as if it's the only valid one, y'know, the works—slight tangent, but that's also why I don't ship Logicality or Remile. I honestly vibe much better with ships like Roceit or Analogical, y'know?

Cutting in for another brief tangent: I'm surprisingly okay with Demus/Dukeceit/Receit/Trashnoodle/Whatever-Their-Ship-Name-Is-Oh-God-Why-Do-They-Have-So-Many-Fucking-Names; maybe it's cause they haven't actually interacted in canon and the fan content gives me such good Gay Disney Villain content, idk man im weird—).

Still, their interactions were both hilarious and sweet and like I said, I see the appeal, it's just not my cup of tea. y'all Prinxiety fans got fucking FED and I'm happy for you nerds. Enjoy ze happy boys!

I guess another factor in my...low-key hesitance when I first saw what the ep was about is that...okay, get ready, another controversial opinion, le gasp: well, I'm not a big Virgil fan. In fact, at times, he swaps places with Patton as my least favorite sides—especially with some of his recent behavior in eps like DWIT (the "prohibit your breathing comment" really triggered me, for example). Sometimes, his attitude, especially around other sides like Roman or Janus, reminds me a little too much of my sister, who I don't have...a very good relationship with. Add to that how the more...intense side of the fandom has a disturbing tendency to turn him into the 'uwu precious woobie emo baby who can do no wrong' while unnecessarily villainizing other CERTAIN sides in the process, and...I think you all see where I'm going with this little rant 😅

However, upon actually watching the ep, he wasn't...that bad? I don't think? I enjoyed watching him be a flustered, disaster-y mess and genuinely excited at the end, his interactions with Roman were nice enough, and him literally pushing Thomas to make a move with Nico despite his obvious panic attack was a nice moment of genuine character development. I like seeing that, that's the good shit right there. And him being all flustered and shit, and smiling so much at the end of the vid was just...well, adorable. This man has no fucking right to be this cute, my god

alsoooo 

pURPLE EYESHADOW

PURPLE EYESHADOW HE LOOKS?? SO GOOD?? WTF?? SLAY EMO, SLAAAAAAAY FUCK, DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO CHANGE MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME NOW?

alsoooo 

hAPPY ROMAN

YESSSSS~ MAH BOI MAH SON MAH DUMB BITCH HIMBO PRINCE MAH EXTRA MESSY CINNAMON ROLL

ITS  BEEN SO  LONG

AND HIS LITTLE HEART EYES THROUGHOUT THE VID, OH MY GOD-

IMMA JUST IGNORE THAT "ADDING [MISTAKE] TO THE LIST" COMMENT I AM LOOKING AWAY I DO NOT SEE IT LALALALALA

THOMATHY, SIR, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT MAKING THESE TWO GAY IDIOTS SO BAEBY

Okay, but Virgil not realizing that "cyberstalking in real life" is literally just stalking is both a big ass mood and further proof that, yes, Logan is indeed the only one holding the braincell out of this disaster of a lot. God help them all if he ducks out in the next ep.

👀

And Thomas x Trash Can is my new OTP.  I dub thee ✨ "Trashmas" ✨

we sTAN TRASHMAS

Wait, does that mean Remus actually WAS in the ep? Cause, y'know, trash man?

hmmm

👀 👀 

Okay, okay. 

With how much Virgil and Roman were going off about Thomas constantly lying, I was (understandably) a tad bit disappointed my snek son didn't even make a fucking cameo, but y'know what? In hindsight, I'm okay with this it's fineee~

He was just off playing with shadow puppets and stealing money from us desperate, content-starved peasants with his sheer extra-ness and, honestly? Gotta respect the hustle. 

Get that precious, precious coin, dapper snake! Wring us poor losers dryyyy!

*evil snek laugh*

Also, this is a breather ep and adding Janus in probably would've caused unnecessary drama with the Roceit breakup and the constant antagonism between Virgil and him. It probably would've distracted from the point of the ep (flirting with social anxiety, exactly what it says in the tin)—much like it wasn't really Virgil or Remus's place to show up during POF. Does that make sense? I think it makes sense. Sorry, brain going brr-

Still, I can't believe the "Fuck Janus Sanders" Club is actually canon now 😂

God, first Patton in a skirt and now this. 

Thomas Sanders, you delight in fucking feEDING this gremlin nest of a fanbase, don’t you? You RELISH our screams of joy and pain and suffering, dON’T YOU?

What's next, actual canonical Janus and Remus interaction? Patton saying the fuck word? The Dragon Witch comes back? Janus's bowler hat gains sentience and takes over the world, Doris-style? What do you have planned, Thomas? Joan? WHAT ART THOU PLANNING, I MUST KNOW YOU HEATHENS YOU FIENDS-

And Virgil's little "would it be fair to him" comment, tho.

👀

Like, I get in the context of the ep, he was likely talking about Nico and how it wouldn’t be good for a potential relationship with Tomas to be founded on lies, but still...my anxceit heart aches, man. 

Gimme that sweet, sweet angst with a side of mutual regret and possible future reconciliation and maybe something more wink wink nudge nudge on top, pls

...and fries.

Honestly, tho, that entire bathroom monologue was fucking beautiful, man. And relatable, too—i can't tell you how many times I've talked to myself in public restrooms because I just didn't know how to get the words I wanted to say out. It's...kind of embarrassing, tbh

Speaking of embarrassing, uh, crying stall guy.

Just...

Crying Stall Guy

Like, I was expecting someone to come out the bathroom stall after Thomas stopped talking, but...I honestly wasn't expecting that. God, that whole scene was so cringe worthy and fucking hilarious

Honestly, Thomas in the ep in general was a huge ass mOOD and we collective gay/bi disasters ALL related with him, and if you say you don't, you're either lying to yourself or a demon. 

There is no in between 

sorry I don't make the rules

Like, I get this series is literally a gay disaster talking to himself for thirty minutes or longer, but like- EMPHASIS on the 'disaster' part 😂

Like...Thomas, you're lucky you're such a goddamn bean, because GOD, I cringing so hard when he first started talking to Nico

Although, I too have apologized profusely for genuine mistakes and am a flustered bi mess around my crush sooo

😅

And god, Roman's "thirty = old man" jokes made me feel old...and I literally just turned twenty, like, come on, man!

Maybe that's because I was literally watching this ep after finishing my ACT and had been sitting with a bunch of high schoolers, with their tiny fucking desks and tiny fucking water fountains smeh

*clears throat*

Anyways, uh, we STAN Nico Pintrovert Florés in this house

Like

He gives me such big Carlos from WTNV vibes for some reason and this makes me sooo happy

and YESS, he's a WRITER

And he's??? So sweet?? A pure bean?? Just sits on his laptop at the mall food court all day, like a god-fucking iCON?? A Nightmare Before Christmas fan?? weARS GLASSES??

my hEART

*cries*

The fandom seems torn between "Nicomas" and "Karrot Kings" as a ship name atm—personally speaking, I'm casting my vote for the latter

*crosses fingers* please dont be another janus x remus multiple ship name issue guys, please please please I can't keep track of them all-

*clears throat*

On that note, I'm guess I'm gonna go try and whoo over my crush with carrots now. If THIS disaster can do it and make it actually fucking work, god damnit, so cAN I

Meanwhile, in hell, my brain's just screaming "CANON LOVE INTEREST CANON LOVE INTEREST CANON LOVE INTEREST-"

God, I hope Nico isn't just a one-shot character, he's too pure and Thomas and him are adorable gay Disney fans and I stan

Oh, I wonder how the other sides'll react to him.

Wait.

Oh god.

Oh god.

This ep just unleashed a new fresh hell of potential Nico x Sides ships, hasn't it?

Welp, time to prepare for ze incoming flood of fanfics, I guess. I'll get my umbrella and rain boots.

That last shot of Virgil during the endcard was so fucking ominous oh my god mom im scared can you come pick me up-

Goddammit, Thomas and Joan, I'm NOT fucking ready to be traumatized again, fUCK

I wish I wasn't a broke ass university student so I could contribute to Thomas's gloriously extra Patreon—both so I can support my favorite content creators who make this amazing blessed content and also, to join my boi Janus in fucking  destroying society by giving money to the people who actually deserve it, fuck YOU GOVERNMENT-

Okay. 

Okay. 

New headcanon time as to why Patton, Remus, and Logan weren't in the ep: they were helping Jan film that Patreon promotional video. 

Like

Remus directed it, Logan helped with the lighting and script, and Patton was just there as the cheerleader. 

The reason Janus made a dog with shadow puppets wasn't just to flaunt his deity status and prove how he is truly above us mere wretched mortals 

despite that being the absolute truth and we all know it, don't lie to yourselves

No, it was really him trying to do something cute and silly for Patton, because Moceit rights, daMMIT

*inhales*

noww 

guys, gals, and nonbinary pals

it’s time forr

the most wonderful time of the yearrr

WAITING FOR THE NEXT EPISODE

Step right up, folks! Hear ye, hear ye, my prediction for the next episode: Prinxiety v. Moceit! With special guest stars: Karrot Kings vibing in adorable gay and Intrulogical, bitter at being excluded aGAIN

Who will win? Who will lose? 

here’s a hint: we all will because in this sick twisted game they are no winners only losers-

Place your bets, folks! ✨

Haha im not readyyy~

tl;dr

this episode has cleared my skin, watered my crops, and ended my suffering—an adorable calm before the... angsty fucking shitstorm that’s coming far too soon. Prinxiety stans, enjoy your food. Place an 'F' in the chat for me and my fellow grieving Remus stans. Trashmas is the true OTP, but Karrot Kings is cute too I guess. I've only had Nico Florés for 24 minutes, but if anything happens to him, I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself. Purple eyeshadow Virgil makes me question my sexuality aGAIN, and happy gay disney prince rights y'all. Say a big ole 'fuck you' to capitalism by giving your local dapper snake moneys. Concussion makes brain go brr and imma go buy some carrots and be gay now.

psst hey @quarantinevibes2020​ you wanna join me in being disaster-y? i’ll bring my best gay stare and you bring the wine

Until next time, my lovelies! ~ Ches 🖤

[writingsofmyimagination]

Conjecture |12|

Idol Reader Au, Enemies to Lovers AU

Summary: Your management refused to renew your contract unless you collaborated, so you ending up working with Min Yoongi. A guy you’d disliked from before both of your debuts. There is more to their past than meets the eye.

Links to other parts:  | 1 |  2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |11| 

So this will be the penultimate chapter :)

Hope you guys have enjoyed the series.

Words:4600

Rating:18+

Warnings: SMUT!! (BDSM themes, Sub Yoongi, Slight exhibitionism maybe, squirting, pegging) Swearing, alcohol comsumption. General sass.

Permanent Tags: @msunnsstuff  @rosey-roseu @eyelessmin @backtonormalthings

Reblog, Like, Comment 

I’ve done some Domme reader stuff that I haven’t done before so please comment on how i did :P

//

It’s been two months since Yoongi heard those three words slip past your lips from your lips in the hotel room. He made love to you that night like you couldn’t believe. He didn’t let you lift a finger because you were exhausted, especially after the performance and the emotional drainage loaded onto you that day. He worshipped your body, like the goddess he truly believed you were. Everywhere your body liked to be touched received his lips in the form of a kiss or light nip. Your body was subject to wave after wave. You were left a wrecked, exhausted shaking victim of his tongue technology.

//

It had been a week since Yoongi had heard you mutter those words in person. You’d been in the in the States. You’re reunion was going to be at a house that you knew pretty quickly you’d wanna excuse yourselves from. The … had been gently stroking at your walls since you left the airport. You were slowly getting needier and needier and every bump and damn pot hole was making it worse. If Yoongi had been good and done what you’d asked then he would have a smooth silicon butt plug making him just as needy.

Why do I do this to myself

-How long are you going to be?-

-Missed me huh? :P-

-Is it a crime? And besides Tae keeps trying to get me to dance and linking arms with me…help-

-Lol, I will pay extra to see this. I’m here anyway-

The bass could already be felt through the lit porch. The wide white door with gold embellishments; the window to the party inside. The house was extravagant, so says Greek god of music Apollo posing for the stone fountain you passed on the way to the porch.

“About time you showed up, pretty sure Yoongi is swamped with Tae affection and needs you” Lee chuckled welcoming you inside.

“I’ll make sure I take my time getting a drink then, thanks for inviting me by the way”

The annex floor war marble, the black pattern laced in the white marble resembled mosaic, this room was clear but the noise flooded out through the open living room door.

“Oh please, how much have we worked together these past two years. You basically lived in my here for two months this year” He wasn’t wrong he’d near enough help you produce most of your last album.

“Alright! I was just being polite jeez!” he slid your coat off your shoulders storing in in the cloak room large enough to be a childs room.

You followed him through to the king sized kitchen. The flurry of people drifting in and out, in addition to the smalls groups conversing conveniently next to the generous snack table the kitchen appeared to be much more cramped. You responded to a few smiles and waves in turn; there was a fair share of Idols around; as well as dancers, producers and various other roles from the music industry. All the alcohol bottles were shoulder to shoulder along the back of kitchen unit.

“Mixers all in the fridge, you good?”

“Yeah, yeah” you were already eyeing up the different flavour gins. His only response was a thumbs up and he merged seamlessly through the people and out the back sliding doors.

Mid pouring the lemonade arms wrapped round your front and you were squeezed tightly, all with added sound of a high pitch squeal.

“Oh my god I’m soo glad to see you” Sophie squealed. When you were released you turned to find her and a couple of the hair stylists from your company equally brimming with slightly drunk infused glazed over eyes. Karen was already handing you a shot. Sambuca! The worst!

When your sambuca disgust face twitching stopped you followed the girls outside. The sun was low in the sky, ready to pass the illumination baton on to the tall lamps dotted around the pool. The swimming pools lights were already glistening below the calm blue as perfect yellowy ovals. The calm blue was disturbed by a couple of splodges of green, white and pink; an inflatable dinosaur and unicorn ring were happily bobbing on the surface. Untouched, for now at least. You didn’t need to scan the mass of smart casually dressed people around the pool for long until Hobi’s laugh pierced through the music yanking your gaze to where your legs were now taking you.

Of course, it was right next to the music deck. Underneath the permanent veranda. ….. had moved his music deck outside, as far as you could tell there was no one actually manning so the music must be from the speakers with just the option to mix. You clapped eyes with Tae, a grin and an amused shake of your head greeted him. He chuckled, Yoongi’s hand captured firmly under his arms. You shushed him. You wanted to enjoy every miniscule reaction up close. Yoongi was naturally trying to pull away from affection to find solace in the chairs in front of him. When you were easily within range Tae let go stepping behind for you to come darting behind Yoongi wrapping your arms around him.

“Seriously, I swear to god I will end you!” Yoongi warned, blind to the more feminine hands at his waist. The other boy’s mouths dropped which hastily got covered to shield their amusement.

“Rude!”

His body stiffened before fighting in your grip to turn and face you

“Babe.. I’m so sorry I thought you were Tae” You kept your face straight for as long as you could to enjoy the panic washing over Yoongi’s face. It was a mere and feeble few seconds before you erupted into a giggle. You could feel eyes migrate onto you; as much as you were amongst your own industry and there were no paparazzi the two of you were still pretty big news.

“Hey” the saccharine low voice melted into you like butter on a hot crumpet.

“Hey” you replied, his hands dropped to envelope yours into a squeeze. His lips were screaming to you, begging for yours to comfort them but you were not a huge PDA fan. Yoongi who seemed more than happy using you as an excuse to go sit down and out of the zone of dancing Tae; who’d now moved onto Jin who was much more pliant.

“You look nice” Yoongi spoke plainly clambering through the glasses on the table until he reached his wine.

“I look nice?” You mocked teasingly

“You haven’t seen me for a week and you just say I look nice?” you goaded further. His eyes rolled, smile twitching at his lips.

“God! you’re sooo demanding what do you want me to say?” he whined sparkle glinting in his eyes.

“I missed you, can’t wait to have what nice clothes you are wearing on the bedroom floor while I fuck you until your begging me to stop”

The remainder of your mouthful of drink sprayed onto the stone, darkening Infront of you. Your glance quickly scanning your immediate surroundings for potential heard ears. Your core clenching around your toy. The dampness of your underwear becoming mildly uncomfortable.

Did he just?...out loud? Where has my shy Yoongles gone

“Well… I mean that’s certainly more… interesting”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, not bad, if it was me though I probably woulda said… missed you can’t wait to have my mouth round your cock drinking down your cum”

“Ooof touché. Now no more otherwise you’ll start giving me…issues. Where’s Sophie and Karen disappeared off to?”

“Well we wouldn’t want that would we” pecking him on the cheek.

“No doubt to get me more shots to catch up, has Lee played your track yet?”

“Not yet he’ll, he’s got my memory stick”

“You trusted him with the password? Bitch you don’t even give that to me!” you whined.

“Damn right I don’t last time I did you put our private videos on there, I don’t need that kind of distraction when I’m at work”

“Not my fault you have no restraint”

You were right. Sophie and Karen had fought their way back over to you each with two glasses in their hands. Jaegerbombs.

“The hot tubs freee and has our name on it…” You’d packed your bikini in your overnight just for this. You wrote some of your favourite tracks from your last album in that hot tub.

“You saw Lee wave at Yoongi flagging him over

“You guys go I’ll be like 5 mins, got to hear what my boys made”

“Babe, you’ll hear it wherever you are, you go I’ll catch you in a bit” The kiss to your forehead signalling finality

“Fine!” you huffed squeezing his hand off your waist

“Sure it’s not just because you want me in a bikini quicker?” you teased out loud.

“You flatter yourself way too much” He countered acting disinterested; the glint of insincerity clear as day through his eyes. The hand he’d refused to let go now slid from his grasp.

The appeal of the hot tub was it was embedded into the floor. You stepped down into the shimmering warmth. A square area immediately around the circular pool the floor matched that you’d find in a sauna. You’d be on your knees on the seat of the tub, relaxing undulation of bubbles swarming your skin while you’d be writing lyrics on the wood, elbows growing sore with how fast your ideas were flowing out. The biggest appeal was the one-way glass, you could see the pool and if the patio pool area was free of swarms of people you had an aesthetic view of the skyline. The blanket of lights from the sea of buildings of Seoul.

The flow of water was circling and bubbling away, diffusing weakly into your tired muscles. The condensation had made the room soothingly stuffy and warm. The one-sided glass leaving the three of you in a tranquil heat filled space. You’d initially packed an overnight bag as you weren’t sure if you’d be staying at Yoongi’s or yours. You’d packed a few… extra things for Yoongi which you made sure were coated underneath the pyjamas.

The music filtered through the speakers in the top corner of the room, your ears alert for Yoongi’s new music that he’d refused to share with you. You’d tried every legal blackmail your mind could possible to torture Yoongi. When it came to music you’d very quickly learned he was as stubborn and private as you. You’d only hear it when he was happy for everyone to hear it; the only way you’d hear something before was if you were actually collaborating.

“Don’t you think Kihyun is looking damn good tonight” Karen cooed.

“You’d eat that boy alive” you chuckled

“How do you know I haven’t already?” she challenged from the side of the hot tub, the thin waves of steam failing to cover her deceptive smirk.

“Oh come on! you know Wonho would have told me” triumph filled the air. The three of you shared amusement

“You still talk to him then?”

“Not as much, but we’re still close”

“Well that’s hardly surprising most of your messages were absolute filth.”

“Well, there is that” you laughed, Sophie blunt as always.

“Anyway cheers girls, you bitches are the best” Glasses klinked, the beat of a song you’d never heard before started seeping into the room

“Oooh this must be it” you buzzed, the lower tones and bars of music ringing true of Agust D.

Your heart thumped to the bottom of your stomach, lead weighted. Blood plummeting southwards leaving your face drained. The sounds reaching your ears unbelievable.

“Well that’s erm different” Both girls eyes on you to gauge your reaction, you’d not moved. Face frozen eyes stuck wide.

“Wait…that’s not you…is it?” Your stiff expression face obviously confirming. The whole intro of the song he’d mixed in was the unmistakeable sounds of your moans. You completely blocked out anything when the lyrics started.

“I’m going to kill that asshole” Your shock morphing into pure anger out of embarrassment and self-preservation from m completely falling into tears.

“That’s a fucking dick move, he didn’t even ask?” mouth falling into a O.

“Would I want to hurt him if he did? I mean Jesus how could he, that’s so humiliating”

“He’s an artist right, you guys get soundbites from everywhere, people won’t even think it’s you. No one would expect Yoongi to do something like that. And it’s remixed pretty good, it’s pretty sexy actually”

“Don’t you even dare support this”

“I’m just saying” Karen shooting to defensive mood

“And anyway, that’s beside the point! How could he do that to me”

He is going to learn the full meaning of in dog house back home and he’d be a fool if he didn’t know that already.

When the songs was at its end the crept open. As soon as you saw his face you made sure you gave him daggers, right now you hoped they were primed and sharp. His hesitant movement into the room, sheepish aware of the wolf’s den he knew he was sacrificing himself to. Swim shorts over his shoulder.

“We’ll just go” Karen elbowing Sophie.

//

“What the actual fuck Yoongi! Your joking if you think you’re getting in” you seethed. He took a small step forward but no further. The barrier of your blood boiling giving him no choice but to choose wisely and come no closer.

“I’m…sorry, it was a complete accident, please let me explain” He rushed.

“An accident?” you scoffed.

“You don’t make a whole fucking song by accident, I don’t even wanna hear it. Do you know how embarrassing that was?” His head drooped low, eyes regretful looking up desperate at you.

“No one knows it’s you…I”

“You don’t know that! That’s besides the bloody point, you used something private without even asking for permission” He slumped himself down on the wooden bench that ran along half the room.

“I know I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to be played”

“Oh the song you’d made that Lee Asked if you could play at his party you mean?” you snapped.

“I made two versions!” his voice never even raised but it strongly spoken.

“I thought I’d removed that one off the memory stick, he obviously played the wrong one” You churned the fact that actually he’d never meant the song to be heard through the grinder of your thoughts.

“Please forgive me I never meant to…” he pleaded

Fine!

“You know what fine! If you didn’t play it on purpose… just get out I’m too angry, I need to cool off” he stood without a word of contest. He knew by now how hot blooded you were. Eyes never leaving the floor, the now wounded sheep made his way towards the door. His face wringing the anger from your body as quick as it had flared. Leaving you empty with just guilt for company.

“Yoongi wait”

“Want to make it up to me?” He recognised your tone, he recognised the devilish smirk slowly creeping across your face.

“I’ll do anything you want” Instant submission.

Good boy

“Well that’s exactly what I want, lock the door, get changed and come in”

He joined you in simple black swim shorts, his V-lines more prominent than the last time you saw him. As soon as he settled you straddled his lap. A spring recoiling in his arms looping round your waist to hold your hips. He shouldn’t get to touch you, you wanted to pin them but you’d missed his touch too much to argue with yourself. You let it be, for now.

“You need to stop working out” You delayed his reply

“Wh..y” you went onto his lips, hard; catching his bottom lip between his teeth with just a much force. You heard the soundless exhale, a soft breeze from his lips. The growl was stuck in his throat but your hand felt it where it was resting loose on his throat.

“You can’t be hotter than me. Now are you ready to be a good boy and do exactly as I say?” his amused smile switched to an open mouth whine; dragging his hair back in a short tug.

“Well that’s impossible and yes I am yours to use” to hear those words roll off his lips was just…

“Sit up on the side I can’t have you make me cum with all this water” You clambered off him to resume the same position.

“I’ve missed those hands and I know how much you like to use them but to make it more of a punishment I won’t be moaning for you or calling your name” Your ability to do this was partially his fault, when you’d stay at the dorm with the others Yoongi actually wanted to keep things quiet from his brothers. You would always make sure you’d seduce the fuck out of him so he couldn’t refuse. You’d test how quiet he could be and he did the same. So in short it was actually mostly your fault.

You pulled at the bow at the back of your neck, the top flawless in the way it fell from your skin. You held it up biting your lip letting it fall from your hand. Yoongi pulled at the tie just below your hip, bottom lip also disappearing becoming victim of a bite. The lustful coffee swirls of his eyes focused on yours waiting for approval before he removed it from your glistening skin.

The grip of your hands tightening on his shoulders, his hand dipping, tracing his fingers from your neck down, your chest rising under his touch, through the valley of your breasts. His palms flipping up when they reached between your thighs. Pursing the heavy breath through your lips, dissipating the moan in your throat. Both your foreheads pressing together eyes challenging each other in a battle of unbridled lust. Throwing your white flag back with your head when his finger pressed to the front of core, too quickly finding the precious velvet wall. The double hit being in this position his palm was also pressed against your even more precious bundle of nerves. Your neck quickly succumbed to a wave of open-mouthed wet kisses; each igniting a different line of nerves rerouting them between your thighs. Your chest pressed to him your back arched in a perfect crescent. He tilted you back slightly leaning further to you. His fingers could go that much deeper. His palm pressed to your clit with just more pressure. Before your head buried in his neck the unknowing hustle of the people received such an arrogant devilish smirk before a harsh thrust of his hand had you clamping down on his shoulders. He was trying to make you lose your own game. All your moans you made sure were caught in your throat.

“Fuck this is infuriating without you moaning” Yoongi breathed in your ear. His fingers pumping harder.

You could support less and less of your own weight; you became heavier in his hand and lap. He knew he had you.

You fell completely apart, your legs tensed so hard convulsing around his thighs. His fingers still pressed hard to the front of your walls; palm still snug on your clit. He hooked his finger harder inside you, the next pulse of your muscles with the pressure of his fingers right there caused something deeper to release

Your cry flooded past your lips, the moan and expletives loud and breathless in Yoongi’s ear. If his shorts weren’t wet from the hot tub, they’d definitely be soaked with you.

“Did you just?” he asked through heavy exhale, smugness caked on his face.

“I did just”

“That was…so fucking sexy”

“Great punishment” he toyed like a brat.

“Oh babe I’m not done” The glint in your eyes made sure he knew. You tugged his hair dragging his head so your mouth was next to his ear

“I’m going to fuck you from behind while you look out at everyone. I want you think how much of a good boy you are”

“What? You can’t?” you’d already got yourself out of the hot tub.

“And why not?” You challenged, fully prepared for his response.

“Don’t you need…”

Yes I do you thought to yourself holding the harness in your hand

“You brought that to a house party?” the wideness of his eyes briefly sheltered the mischievous creases that built in the corners of his lips.

“Well I was hoping I’d be coming to stay at yours”

“But seriously…here?” he still challenged

“Oh so you don’t mind making me squirt like that, but fucking you is a bit too far?”

You butted in before the guy had a chance to respond

“Now stop being a brat, I want those off and you bent over the side of the tub” The lack of smile and piercing eyes dissuaded any more backchat.

The gold metal buckle lightly pinched the skin at your hip as you stepped into the pool. Yoongi’s head already resting on his arms. He exhaled through his teeth, your hand gently reached around and wrapped at the base of his cock.

“Are you so hard it hurts yet?”

“Getting there” he admitted, the colour fading back into his knuckles when you let him go

“Well you’re not going to cum from this” you warned.

“That’s never not happened” The complaint coming through a low echo with his head weighted on his hands

“You’ve been doing sooo much better. You’re just going to try extra hard for me today. Promise I won’t make it too difficult”

“If you do then you’ll just have to go without making me cum for a month. And you know I’ll make you watch when I do it myself”

“Ready?” hand slick with raspberry lube stroking the thin purple silicone shaft.

“What do you say?”

“I’m sorry for playing that song…ugh!” If he was going to say anymore, he didn’t with you teasing

“Thank you, now ask for it. Ask for your punishment like a good boy” His head took a quick glance up soaking up the view. He couldn’t deny it had definitely become quite a kink. The danger and the audacity of it just ruffled his feathers in all the right ways.

You deemed the silence too long. Fingers skipping up his spine, twizzling in his hair. Sharp tug.

“Ugh!”

“I’m waiting”

“Fuck me…please… I won’t cum…I don’t deserve it” His words hitting you like honey, sweetening right in between your thighs

“God, you drive me crazy when ..” Your leg propped up, hand resting at the base of his neck. Another hand tight on the masterpiece of his ass.”

His head dropping, groans deep in his throat. Hips slow pressing into him.

“Head up, look straight” Knocking your hips in a jolt against him

“I want you looking at all those people while I fuck you”

“Do you think they’ll be surprised to know how much you love it when I have you from behind” You leaned as far forward as you could, slithering your words at the top of his spine. Feeding into his love for you dirty mouth.

He was attempting to choke his moans away, half conscious of the open space of the room. He was struggling to hold himself together. When he’d whine a certain way, you knew he was close so you’d stop and give him a moment to control himself. You weren’t feeling cruel enough to actively try and make him fail.

Your hips had slowed now, and the long drawn tortured moans you were rewarded with. Oof. You could have quite easily stopped and wrapped the mouth he loved so much around his cock and given him the release he so desperately needed. You didn’t.

“I…can’t…anymore” he panted, exhausted. You still inside him pushing your hips to meet his ass once more

“Say please”

“Fuck please!” he cried. The desperation calling your punishment satisfactory. The top half of his body collapsed onto his arms. A beautiful panting mess of your own creation.

“Now I’m so hard it hurts” he breathed, muffled. Buckles undone, harness carried to the bag. Satiated smirk solid on your lips. You made no attempt to hide it when you re-joined him back in the tub. He shuffled round and slid fluidly onto the seat. The creases around his eyes glistening with tears. You swept them away with a gentle swipe of your thumb.

“Such a beautiful boy. Such a mess for me”

“I’ve been good, please…let me cum…Babyyy” Oh god the whine was sounded so perfectly with need and beauty. You were actually impressed he managed it. He’d normally come undone pretty quick.

“Fine, you can cum but… you have to tell me, and you only get my hand” His hands excitedly grabbing your hips as you sat on his lap; gasping when you most definitely on purpose guided his cock through you as you lowered yourself.

He really was desperate.

He breathed a curse as your thumb rolled over his tip. Eyes automatically firing warnings your way. Inhaling your bottom lip between your teeth, the evil smirk responding. You are still in control and you are not done.

Back arched into his chest, hand spread at the base of his neck. Lips dangerous, finding that spot he loves you to clamp down on.

“Fuck, I’m not going to last long” he breathed already flushed trying to contain himself. The small bulge of his adams apple bobbed underneath your lips, his legs stiffened in between yours. You kept your hand movements slow and deliberate. Wanting to drag each long groan past his lips that you could.

“Is that nice baby?” Asking the obvious you knew but you wanted to hear it.

“Mmm so…” his words choked as your hand worked faster. His fingers locked tighter onto the outside of your thighs, head dropping back mouth agape stuttered soundless whimpers. Your hand constricting the side of his throat coaxing him to just topple off the edge.

“I’m going to…” Your hand abandoning his cock before his hips started spluttering. Even though you still had pressure on that beautiful milky throat of his. The sweet exasperated groan and breathy curses tweaked the sides of your lips up. His tortured pupils looking so feebly at you, devastated you’d just ruined his climax that he was gagging for. The water settling around you, your arm dragging droplets round his scapula, rolling down his chest perfect little drops.

Wet hands toying with the bottom of his hair line.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that” his chest still rising and falling in rapid undulations beneath you.

“And you know you can’t get enough of it” you countered pressing an adoring kiss on his plump lips.

“Babe you seriously gotta stop trying to leave me like this” it was a weak tired plea more than being a brat so you forgave him. If you ruined him just right, he’d stay hard; giving you plenty of extra play time. You retrieved your bikini halves from where they were shamelessly dropped.  Facing the gap in the wall towards the changing area wringing out your hair; your ass a full spectacle to him to enjoy.

“Well I won’t because we’re not finished and you’re going to come and fuck me against the wall”

He followed you through into the changing rooms like the absolute love-struck horny puppy you know he is and you wouldn’t change him for the world.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i was gonna send an ask like "have you considered: 'anger is a type of geography' + 4x11" and then i checked and you actually had! but if you feel like considering it More then here's a free space

oh thanks for these Layers of Allyship re: humoring my repeated [anger geography sign tapping] and checking for things and then sending me asks about it all to invite yet more Consideration.........yeah i feel like i mentioned it at least once in tags or smthing lol??? but here comes yet more consideration / giving it an In The Text post if that doesn’t exist already yet either

the Anger Is A Type Of Geography Quote From Hanif Abdurraqib in question for everyone’s reference:

anger is a type of geography. the ways out of it expand the more you love a person. the more forgiveness you might be willing to afford each other opens up new and unexpected roads. and so, for some, staying angry at someone you love is a reasonable option. to stay angry at someone you know will forgive your anger is a type of love, or at least it is a type of familiarity that can feel like love.

like, yeah sure what with winston originally talking to lauren and mafee about this and taylor Happening to walk in on it, he probably wasn’t necessarily planning to go off on his Indignant Monologue to taylor right then and there, but the fact remains that he was willing to do so, and i definitely think that that wouldn’t be the case if he didn’t have this Respect for them and think that they have respect for him in turn, and if he didn’t also think that that mutual respect is holding hands with mutually valuing each other. like, he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t think taylor might actually listen / consider what he says, and he wouldn’t even Want to say it if he didn’t give a shit about them, because he’s not just complaining about “um i simply ask for more money,” it’s about the fact he Feels Disrespected by the implied deprioritization of tmc employees and that the way this (false lol) choice is presented to them being Unfair and disingenuous. like, you could (and im sure most viewers do) interpret the other stuff he says as just him backing up his “Pay Me” argument when all he really cares about is the Pay Me part, but a) that’s not how We roll and b) doesn’t make sense with winston being just as happy as anyone else in 4x12with taylor Apologizing re: many of these 4x11 points, despite them not saying they were gonna change the Bonus situation lol, and c) it Does make sense to think that the Mutual Respect between taylor and winston matters to him due to [see: the rest of this post]

well wait lol first of all yeah sure the money Must matter to him b/c nobody could possibly be in the world of High Finance as a passion project (except for taylor apparently lmao cuz i mean we know that the Real reason they are determined to stick with hedge fundery (and involved in the first place) is b/c they are the best part of the show and elevate all the other Lesser Elements of it as well) and also we can figure that this was probably winston’s first year working a Big Time Official Job and he doesn’t have the savings that other ppl might when they’ve been in the business multiple years, and this seems to be backed up by lauren referring to him as they guy who’d be the First One Smothered by either taking a bonus cut by 40% or not getting that bonus at all until a whole other year, which, like he seems to also imply, is also Unhelpful in that surely these investment finance people turn around and invest their own finances, and Bonus Now is better than Bonus Then b/c.....interest....Long Shares.......and also just like tfw you want your job to pay you.......but anyways Seriously [next paragraph]

cuz winston *must* be working at Taylor Mason Capital b/c he really values working with taylor more than, say, wanting a job that will make him the most money, or will necessarily look the best on a resumé if he’s just looking to up his stats, b/c yeah, this is sure an unlikely opportunity for him where this is what we’re assuming is his First Fancy Job and he’s getting to be the Top Quant right out of the gate, but he must also know that like, it’s still like “oh so you were head quant at a brand new fund :/” and also he must know that there’s a Risk with said fund and he might even end up having been head quant at a new fund that burned out really quick, super impressive........and, we Know that winston *knows* how good he is at what he does, even though he keeps getting dunked on for that like he’s sooo conceited lol like. he IS that good, sorry!!!! why should he downplay it, we don’t actually see him being one of these shitheads with a fragile ego trying to prove themselves Superior or whatever.....ANYWAYS yeah the point being that, winston claiming to have a lot of offers already in the interview might very well Not be any kind of bluff, and he’d surely know that he could rise through the Quant Ranks quickly enough at some other fund even if he started out as anything but Our Main Quant at those places.......and if Getting Tf Paid Top Dollar was really his primary concern, “go with the brand new hedge fund which doesn’t have Established History / Experience / Clout and has the one big investor but who knows what’ll come next and any business that Just opened is not your safest bet even if you trust in your own skill and in that of your ceo and you Know that even if you’re not immediately destroyed, funds will be tighter / of a Lesser Amount than at a bigger established fund”.........the now-dramatic-irony of him talking about how those Tech Firms Out West pay guarantees, not bonuses.........like, when he was trying to get onboard with axe cap, he was obvs interested in trying to leverage to get Paid more, which is like, not necessarily winston wanting to be a trillionaire but also just how stupidly everyone’s supposed to like Play The Game of negotiating / leveraging / calling your employer’s bluff to get a certain starting salary / get a raise or whatever, dumb as hell baked-in Requirement........discuss your wages with coworkers gang!!! anyways. and but Also winston makes it clear when interviewing for axe cap that Working With Taylor Mason has appeal, even if he’s flippant about it, cuz he’s flippant about all of it cuz that’s his shtick here.....

like, when it’s Taylor Alone who calls him back eventually, he’s fine with meeting up with Just Them, and later on meeting up with Just Them (and the other quants, rip) again, and agrees to work in this lil basement evidently Not on axe cap premises b/c he’d been at axe cap’s offices and this is Not That Place......and yeah him talking about taylor selling axe on using his algorithm in kompenso sure implies that winston has this whole time Assumed that all of this was still ultimately in the service of axe cap.......and he was apparently fine with reporting to Taylor Alone and not getting to rub elbows with any other higher-ups, and he’s obviously pleased well enough with a “good work :)” from taylor and isn’t like “hey be sure to tell axe & co i did this singlehandedly etc” or anything, and he’s not really complaining about the whole “work in this lil basement Not at axe cap hq with taylor mason dropping in at least once to check on you and that’s about it” situation, which obviously is hardly that “You’re A Valued Axe Cap Employee” treatment one might expect if they wanted that.....winston’s glad that taylor called him, he’s trying to appeal to them and what *they* want to see rather than how he tried to go for what he thinks [a place like axe cap] would wanna see like he did in the interview, he’s showing up at this weird basement rendezvous to be on a 3 person quant team of taylor’s, he’s fine to not only do this on his own but also accept those increased demands that make it a [fifty(? or 15, either way) phds would work on this]-Level task, and then he’s glad just to have taylor’s approval at the end of the day.......they Wouldn’t have been able to promise him any leverage of “please do your best work on this” with like, promotions / clout within axe cap or axe-cap-levels of Lots Of Payment b/c like, well taylor wouldn’t outright lie anyways but also Especially wouldn’t if they wanted to keep this quant around for tmc, so winston must never have been asking about that kind of thing

and then, bless your Missing Scene fic but there’s zero canon content re: “uh how/when did taylor break it to winston that this algorithm was for their own fund actually and btw do you want to work for that fund instead,” but presumably it went smoothly enough, he was already happy to Effectively work for them alone apparently even if he still thought that yeah, he was working for taylor who was working for axe........just Yeah altogether it’s evident that “Working With Taylor Mason” must matter more to him than “working with any Other big name financiers” or “getting paid as much as he can get” or “raking in that clout asap to leverage with Other jobs or just like, in general.”

and then of course you have the fact that taylor is Recognizing his ability by calling him back and offering him this job, going “despite your demeanor your skills are superior” and “those other two were sweet, but you’re more talented, i need you,” [praying hands emoji], and giving him this Second Chance and entrusting him with this Solo re: building this algorithm which, unbeknownst at the time to him, is really this linchpin of their hopes & dreams of launching their own secret fund here, and really they must’ve been planning from the start to keep him around if he succeeded b/c it’s not like the algorithm and their whole planned Quant Department wouldn’t continue to be integral to the fund’s success, it wouldn’t really be ideal to have this guy be the one to build an algorithm to reel in an investor who’s working in.....wait for it......billions of dollars here, and then be like, okay bye dude. they must Know how good he is same as winston knows how good he is, and him being Head Quant from the very start was surely never just about mase cap having precious few employees at the very start of things....they could’ve like given him that Lead Position temporarily or whatever, they’re ceo. but they really do value him as like, maybe he doesn’t have the ideal ~personality~ for what fucking ever, either for being Properly Assertive and Impressively Flashy like axe cap might want, or just easy to work with, which taylor would care more about than axe cap would lol, but yknow, they value his Abilities and surely they must also value his efforts re: I Promise To Try and re: his really singlehandedly making that brilliant amazing algorithm which evidently did the trick as they hoped it would

and then......dare i get to the Emotional part of things, the Interpersonal....the anger and the love...............

i mean already when winnie n tay are having their post-math-meetup meetup, aka the first time they’re meeting After their disastrous really-first meeting aka the Interview, you have winston taking a way more grounded approach to this “yeah i want to work for you please accept me” process which is obviously in response to what he thinks Taylor wants from him based on the mess of the interview, evident thanks to winston telling them that he’s been thinking about all of that.......and i mean, part of taylor’s whole thing is they have that grounded approach pretty much always lol, (or try to....Want to...), but they sure seem to Also be bringing this effort to Accommodate him based on the hot mess of the interview, wherein yeah they wouldn’t’ve expected to have to ever interact again with this person they were dunking into the trash (and of course from that Meta Perspective, the scene when originally written was meant to be winston’s only appearance ever), but they really seem to also be bringing a more dialed down approach, letting him talk first and going along with his “you ever done math meetup” intro until he’s the one who changes the subject, and i really see that Head Tilt as a sympathetic one lol, not necessarily like “awww :’0″ levels lmao but still like. they Know he’s likely to have some [emotional vulnerability] re: what last went down between them since they weren’t especially gentle with him then, and they like, demonstrably give a shit about that fact lol. they’re also not just wholly swinging in the other direction to make up for it or anything lol but they’re Also making it clear that, yknow, they’re willing to work with him For Real, not just in this “are you willing to work for me, y/n, okay great” way, but in this way of [winston making an effort to make things easier on taylor] and [taylor making an effort to make things easier on winston] which is already playing out here between them.

and the whole matter of winston’s seemingly genuine Dismay at messing up even part of this exchange, i.e. the “[wince-ston] damn it, sorry,” like, sure maybe he just really wants the job, but [see: everything above about how he Must primarily want to work with taylor re: wanting any of these jobs lol] and, after all, he “oh shit, sorry”s @ them when he’s well-established as their Head Quant in ep 4x08 and generally shows this directed-at-self displeasure at thinking he’s messed something up even without some clear “your (potential) job is on the line” element......he just Doesn’t Want To Disappoint Taylor Themself, doesn’t need some particular fear of further repercussion behind that.

and speaking of Lack Of Fear, you Know we love to point out how kompenso (and really winston’s :/ + “sure, why not :\”ness at the end of 3x09 lol) demonstrates that winston isn’t afraid of taylor either as an [intense and unusually-demeanor'd person who Does apparently strike people as Scary(tm) sometimes lol] or as this Esteemed Rising Star Axe Cap Higher-Up or simply as his de facto boss.........he’s not raring to tell them that the other quants bailed b/c of his own disapproval lol, but he’s honest as soon as they deduce as much, the tone of “fine, yes, big time” + his standing up to get even closer to them instead of just shaking in his desk chair like :c pls forgive me obviously does Not convey that he’s terrified of them, and then the rest of that interaction jsut being like, ugh god so fucking essential, they’re both able to stand face to face and be like I Am Looking Directly At It / I Do See It re: each other, both of them just continuing to be Honest and Direct with each other, God.....taylor might’ve swatted his metaphor away but he was not all that put out, and then they’re Using His Own Language by bringing it back three seconds later, like, yeah sure at this point they have a vested interest in this individual quant (the only one left lol) accepting this Demanding Task, but a) they’re not exactly playing it cool on that front, they Just said “i need You,” it’s unlikely that this is just some all manipulative tactic here by encouraging his metaphor after all lol and that’s hardly their style anyways even if they Can be strategic(tm) about things, and b) they’ve Just Previously adopted his own words lol with winston having said “as for not being a dick” and taylor saying “you backslid into being a dick” (combining His Phrasing with Theirs aka “if you promise not to backslide”....god!!!!!!)

and so then yeah to top it all off winston even ~pushes his luck~ lol by being a lil deliberately rude re: his ex-coworkers lmaoo, and you get taylor’s Reaction to being sort of tested here to be Closing Off Their Expression (speaking of....their tiny lil Eyebrow Twitch when winston infers that he’s making something to pitch to an investor.....god!!!!!! a) winnie n tay and b) emmy) and making it clear that their interest in him acting Easy To Work With was a practical matter......winston watching them go up the stairs, taylor looking back at him as they Ascend and he gets back to his desk.....jesus

the point being!!! they vibe with each other so well by Kompenso already and just *get* how the other operates and communicates and Neither Of Them are offput by the other, Neither Of Them are unwilling or uninterested in meeting each other where they’re at, and each exerting this effort to really work with each other........and how winston is Not intimidated by taylor as either someone who’s so ~weird~ and can be so Intense, or as someone who is his boss lol........which yknow we always also point out as Important re: tayston developing from this point, where taylor would be careful in how they approach winston about fwbship but would feel like it was even reasonable to consider it in the first place thanks to not having to feel like oh he definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable being honest if he wanted to say no / wasn’t sure

also Yeah It’s Billions but winston freely swearing with the F-word when they’re assessing the completed algorithm, which taylor has no reaction to lol.......the both of them being Hyped about this algorithm lol, like, Of Course they’d both be, but it’s fun :)

and then 4x03, with winston not acting terrified about there being potential Algorithm Problems, and taylor making sure to be like “don’t you dare blame latency” lol like which obv he May Have been planning to mention lol since he’s intending to give this technical answer rather than throwing out his Front Running / Interference Theory like mafee then does.....fun little moment too anyways.......taylor Allowing winston’s tangent about being cassandra and emails and “it’s pronounced owned,” like, they’re not raring to Interrupt / cut him off even if it’s Not obvious what he has to say is absolutely crucial and considered relevant by everyone else, and they’re not telling him he’s a stupid idiot and wasting their time or anything else before sending him away.......imagine. and just think about the beauty of winston very intently / earnestly saying his “i’m cassandra: Always Seeing The Future” right to taylor. 

and in 4x08 they build on his metaphor Again after having just Validated him despite everyone else really wanting to do the opposite lol......i “lol” but would everyone else lay off a little Lol......his self-reproach upon Registering that disapproval / oh-no-i’ve-messed-upness again.......then despite winston Standing Right Beside and then Sitting Right Behind taylor they don’t really interact l o l .....we have taylor being all “why is He so happy” and silently observing his Solo “i won” moment, rip, but also congrats.....and then i suppose that covers the Prior To 4x11 stuff lol

just......even re: the relative little we’ve Seen between them up to that point, winston might not have intended to talk to taylor right then, and he might or might not have intended to eventually talk to them in front of anyone else, but You Know He Knows that taylor listens to him, and that he doesn’t have to like, say things in what other people think is The Right And Effective Way to talk (even by billions’s fucking off the shits standards on that front lol), because taylor Does care about what he actually means and what his actual intentions are, not just “oh that very direct/honest thing you said Seemed rude whether you intended it or not”.......the “sad” after his yngwie malmsteen metaphor was the only time they’ve critiqued something like that lol and they then used that metaphor, So, and they’ve copied him calling himself a dick lol, and they built on his Sword metaphor, and they’ve just always been interested in Understanding him and communicating effectively with him, not in trying to get him to communicate differently or just making sure he knows He Should Feel Bad about how he Does communicate, though god knows the latter is something that everyone else seems to be somewhat #about. god knows some axe capper would have that “are you finished?” simply be the Purely Rhetorical intro to their barrage of Dunking-Upon insults, although it sure seems possible that that could’ve been sort of gently dismissive enough anyways to Encourage winston to not be finished even if maybe he would’ve stopped there otherwise.....but everyone else follows taylor’s lead in Not Actually Interrupting Him at any point, despite all the 9_9 and >:| as it were, and like, even though taylor then lets this whole thing end just with mafee going tf off on winston and bullying him into deferring and would-be deference, b/c winston might have this amount of moxie and he might be honest and he might not be scared of taylor (or anyone else here really) but he’s obviously not that assertive and definitely not that aggressive, he’s self-loathing, he’s easily put out, and all of this just bolsters how much it means that he communicates so well with taylor, b/c they’re Not interested in anything that would be counterproductive to actual effective communication but which might be “productive” if they had a goal of wanting to twist his arm about anything or pressure him into acting a certain way or just fueling their own ego or sense of superiority, axe cap style. they Value all his actual input and they have this respect for him where they don’t Want to bully him even if it’s not that difficult, like, yeah mafee was being mean to him for sure and trying to insult him into simply shutting tf up rather than like, actually responding to any of his points or doing anything but reinforcing them, but also winston has been Put Out by milder [negative responses] too, it’s of course more than just “i respect you too much to like, yell at you and try to diminish you”

and Frankly Winston Was Right and he may have been Indignant and he may not have been ~polite~ about it (though like, relative to how he is generally this Direct And Honest, there’s also not all that much evidence he’s deliberately trying to add some extra servings of Rudeness or anything) but once again like with the “as for not being a dick, i can’t absolute guarantee it” moment and the “fine, yes, big time” moment, and the “im sure it’ll go faster without the dead weight; Whoops ;)” moment, and the [talking about the algorithm problems] moment, and him freely jumping in with the “this plan might get us killed (not literally)” and “it’s b/c it sucks that they had to decapitate their dad, also not literally lol....although...” remarks, he’s just like, never afraid to tell taylor something that sure might not be the most pleasant for them to hear, and sure might not be something they Want to hear. and what’s Honest is that he’s Angry about this, and they won’t want to hear that and that they will even less want to hear his Honest Thoughts about why this is unfair, but he’s willing to say that to them, and even though we were like “haha boy winston if this isn’t fixed big time you might wanna quit :/” it’s also like, he must’ve trusted them to not wanna just fire him for lack of reverence to his ceo, and we can Juxtapose this with a) the scene that we’re set up to juxtapose it with, wherein a group of axe cappers carefully tell axe he’s being dumb as hell and might fuck all of them over, and axe tells them all to shut the fuck up b/c He Is Their Sun and he can do what he wants and get the fuck out of here, and we can also juxtapose it with b) winston being jumped on immediately in The Interview for ~lack of reverence~ to the potential employer, putting on this cocksure hotshot act (trying to..) and daring to express confidence in himself and be like “i should be interviewing you” / you should be selling to Me lol......jump to 4x11 and winston is caught off guard, he’s not putting on any kind of act, he’s not trying to appeal to anyone, sure mafee might turn it around on his [last we checked, the quant hates himself]ness, but this wasn’t about Winston Lashing Out b/c he’s angry at himself, he’s angry at Them for not valuing him, for what he perceives as them not even *really* giving them the option of the 60% Now approach, which sure seems to be justified seeing as apparently nobody but lauren goes for it and after winston invokes the Peer Pressure / pressure to seem Loyal / Committed by deferring, mafee immediately uses that [social pressure] to crush his dissent........where was i. right like. winston’s truly just Mad At Someone Else this time, he wouldn’t be here if his self-esteem was so low that he was immediately ready to just accept and absorb this treatment, and he Knows that taylor will actually listen to him which is their fuckin Mutual Respect thing and who tf else does that for him all the time, and he knows that taylor doesn’t value their own ego above everything else Unlike Some People, and he knows that he can be honest and get an honest reaction and that their honest reaction to his honesty is not “ugh you’re stupid / annoying / rude / etc,” b/c he’s Not, and that might be everyone else’s idea of him to some degree, but taylor Gets him better than that

and then you don’t quite have taylor being obviously Angry back, but they’re not exactly thrilled, and letting mafee go off on winston / effectively telling him they expect him to consider That the response and in turn respond back to that, can sure be interpreted as an expression of something a little short of pure goodwill and best intentions towards him here lol......again, i lol through the pain.......winston only has further reason to be angry, his Complaints weren’t resolved in the least and he came in all “i feel disrespected” and surely that’s only been doubled down on, b/c this isn’t Just “pay me goddamnit,” it’s really also just about the fundamental respect itself, which he figured that taylor cares about too, and so this would be something he could appeal to / expect them to earnestly.....he feels like none of them are being valued more than this feud with axe cap, he (maybe) feels like said feud is causing the quants’ work to be deprioritized in favor of more elaborate schemes based on “what will screw axe over specifically,” he feels like he’s not being valued as a Very Important Employee, he feels like this False Choice thanks to Social Pressure is insult to injury, like they’re not supposed to get a real chance to question this. boy i’m really just going off talking about any and all aspects of this huh, where’s the Anger Geography core here

well here it is: winston doesn’t ever talk to taylor in any more Filtered way due to them being his boss / him feeling a need to be more careful around them, if anything, they’re the one person he can be Least filtered around, b/c they care about What He Actually Means and aren’t all hung up on whether his communication style seems gratingly weird / wrong / offputting. winston isn’t bringing any particular leverage to this situation, yeah sure he pointed out He’s Valuable but he also did that in the interview with even less leverage and in the basement when he thought he was just working on some weird side project for axe cap in this remote quant dungeon - he’s counting on them to just Listen To Him and care about what he means, same as he always does and like they’ve done thus far. and he’s Temporarily Burned by this, which is tragic, but then 4x12 happens, and who knows if taylor and winston talked between these scenes at all cuz billions sure won’t say at all, but either way winston sure seems to pick up on the fact that taylor is responding to his Complaints here, the implication they were taking a too-axe-esque approach to them now answered by taylor deliberately differentiating themself from axe, and asserting that they Do value their employees and their contributions, and that taylor has this responsibility to them, and maybe Had gone astray there with the revenge jag but aren’t actually interested in that being the core of everything.........winston is Validated and we realize it and he seems to realize it lol, he definitely Was listened to, and he sure wasn’t like fired or anything, he Could Be Angry with them and that wasn’t going to lead to taylor wanting to sever even the Professional relationship or anything like that. sure seems to be no grudge held between them during the “q is for quantitative, babey” scene there lol and yeah it’s billions and shit moves fast / people will roll with A Lot of mistreatment apparently (see: winston also does not seem to harbor any grudge against mafee here lol but who knows) but the Fact Is, here they are, having found A Way Out Of [Anger], after having had this altercation which wouldn’t even have been possible if Winston hadn’t felt it was possible for them to interact like this, for him to be mad and be honest about that anger and the hows and whys of it and for that Not to be a dead end between them or something that could shatter the relationship entirely. and he was Validated!!!!

and guess who i also love to quote and paraphrase lol i also think of mariame kaba talking about interpersonal Conflict being possible Opportunities in a relationship, because working through said conflict can allow the relationship to grow / deepen / strengthen. which sure seems to Hold Hands with this idea: that you can Be Angry with someone because you already know that won’t break the relationship, and that even if you don’t already know that, going through that experience / process of Being Angry with someone and coming out the other side together will show that the relationship can handle that / will have involved gaining tools to be able to handle that going forward. and really like, we’ve seen winston Forgive taylor’s anger at him right off, and that may not be the sweeping heights of love but it came from Understanding (and....low self-es steam probably lol) but no really, he Shows that he understands why they reacted like that by behaving in this way that he figures is more in line with what they actually want, just talking and being direct with no boxes or [wags] or standard boring interview questions or posturing, showing he’s willing to work with them in the “please hire me” and “i’ll try to Behave” ways lol........and taylor is offering their own patience and sympathy and restraint and Understanding and willingness to bend.......things are happening on an emotional plane between them here.

and then after winston chooses to be on board with mase cap, and after he’s worked for them so long that it’s comp time baby, and after these few Sample Interactions we’ve seen in which taylor doesn’t cut winston down or show contempt for him and they continue to directly or indirectly validate him, winston can be Angry with them and taylor can (definitely Sorta) be Angry back, and winston surely even Stayed Angry after that scene in 4x11, and he didn’t quit, and was that [terrible self-esteem actually lol] or was it him believing that there could be a way out of this state of anger between him and taylor? both?? we get to decide!! b/c he’s sure not Validated and Vindicated until later lol.....what does he sit there on that couch alone in that room and Think in those moments...........and then once things Are better resolved, they have this whole [episode of conflict] in their history, and like is the whole Point of all of this, that’s hardly necessarily just some awful and unfortunate thing.......their relationship can survive something like that, and the conflict sure sparked this kind of Genuine Interaction between them which couldn’t have happened if winston just shied away from all this / kept it to himself because he didn’t think taylor would Listen or Care or Understand. 

and it’s Not Just About The Money, and even when he expresses that he’s upset about this perceived disrespect / not being valued as an employee, we Know that he’s not someone who’s got this need to feel superior to everybody else / like he’s always Winning, and we know he’s not after Maximum Clout, but he does want to Work With taylor and he evidently wants to feel valued By Them, who does happen to be his boss and does have this avenue to potentially treat any employees unfairly. and we know that winston *knows* in this objective way how good his work is, and both winston and taylor have acknowledged that yeah, His Work / professional quantly ablities have value, so winston Knows he should expect for that to be valued in the form of “your quantributions are important and you’re getting paid to reflect that”........and that he feels like he’s for once not being Allowed Honesty re: everyone supposedly being pressured into deferring is like..........what do he and taylor have if not earnest, open communication b/c they both value and respect what the other Really Has To Say!!!!!! that’s winnie n tay and it’s also tayston.

which, speaking of which, Sidenote: when it comes to tayston hcs we generally have this as a “they’re not currently doing Their Thing at this point anyways, and maybe the fact that that’s been ended (and they Haven’t been talking through this particular conflict yet) is adding to the tension / anger / feeling of not being valued hahaha rip” deal lol, but also if they Were still currently in their fwb/[???]ship like obviously this would spill over and probably require an at-least-temporary halt to give everyone some space seeing as it’d be a little impossible to truly completely Set That Aside in the recent aftermath l o l ......but despite the lingering tension / awkwardness that would be present whenever they Do next meetup [imagine: an I Was On The Phone With You, Sweetheart phonecall prior to 4x12′s scene?? wrow] the layers to that ensuing sex lol......reunion sex? makeup sex? not-hate-sex-but-maybe-still-needing-to-vent-a-lil-Emotional-frustration-maybe sex? maybe all of the above and more

ANYWAYS even i don’t know why this is so long, and also it’s 7am. i definitely think that winston trusted taylor and the Relationship between them to be able to handle Anger (his, for once, lol) and for that Anger to even potentially be something Constructive. and he was right. and in 4x12 he’s there with them at the very end, wearing the tmc logo, standing behind them in the hellhole which is axe cap hq, knowing that taylor is the one person (here, certainly) who definitely Gets and who’s Got him, who’s asserted this loyalty and commitment to him after he’s certainly done that re: them, and once again winston definitely has this Choice to be here with them just like he must’ve had that choice to join up with their fund in the first place, he’s never been trapped with them or forced into alliance with them, and we just Know that he’s not choosing to be here just for Linkedin reasons / what’s best for career advancement and/or for raking it in as best as he can manage and/or for gaining clout and status or whatever, and we sure never see him reaping some kind of deluxe treatment/benefits just for being closely associated with taylor / having their approval. everything we see points to winston caring most about what happens between him and taylor and that he gets to work with them and that he’s here because of that mutual respect and value for each other. 

and really, the show also repeatedly tells us that winston Does basically have these world-class abilities and *is* that valuable, and we know that winston Knows how good he is, and he must’ve legitimately had all those offers and known that he’s really good enough that these places Should compete for him. he must’ve known that he has this Potential here and all of these options laid out in front of him, and he takes taylor’s call and shows up in a basement for them and singlehandedly writes an algorithm good enough to found their fund upon and he follows them there when now he’s got this Proof of just how incredible his work is and could’ve leveraged that anywhere else. but his relationship with taylor has always had this personal aspect to it and the fact is that, even with his choice of Paths laid out in front of him, he chose and keeps choosing the geography of winnie n tay. Love. thank you and goodnight

[eleventhousandfour]

tagged by @arcaydyin – thank you so much!

nickname: emma is such a short name anyway so i don’t really need a nickname haha but em / emm gender: female astrological sign: aquarius... no idea what my sun / moon / rising sign is, i just know i’m aquarius ! height: 6 ft… but tbh i never actually made it to 6ft, i never got that tall! :( i’m like a centimetre short i’m like 182cm i think so i’m technically 5’11 but 6ft sounds better hahaa sexuality: i like girls! and if you wanna put a label on that then i’m a lesbian / gay hogwarts house: definitely ravenclaw but there’s a bit of hufflepuff in me too! favorite animals: i find loads of animals cool but i suppose my favourites are arctic foxes and seahorses… wouldn’t it be so funny though if my patronus was a seahorse, like imagine it just sorta bobbing about in the air, that would be amazing...  number of blankets: if you mean number of duvets then 1 + sometimes a blanket / quilt if im cold in the winter where i’m from: the uk! dream trip: i wanna go to so many places but a) money b) I don’t have a travel buddie bc all my friends are ‘party all night!’ type people and im not lol and c) im too shy to travel on my own and make friends along the way haha when i made this account: i created it in december 2011 i think why i created this account: all my friends were getting tumblrs and i didn’t want to feel left out lol followers: a lady never tells……. jokes I have 383, it would help if more of my posts actually went in the frigging tags !!  following: too many... i will check – 2,609 wow that is too many, though i reckon a lot of those are dead / inactive the last thing I googled: ‘does tango orange have caffeine in it’ because i was ordering a takeaway online and i am avoiding caffeine… but the answer was inconclusive, and i couldn’t be bothered to waste time finding out the answer i just wanted my greek food so instead i ordered a 7up lol :) favorite musicians: sigrid is my absolute fave! also aurora and lorde and some others i like are passion pit, banks, daughter, london grammar, of monsters and men, bon iver, the xx and at the moment anything esc 2019 ofc! song stuck in your head: kill this love by blackpink do you get asks: i occasionally get asks… i got a few from an anon about skam spain the other day that made me ridiculously happy bc i never get asks haha amount of sleep: i used to be sooo good at sleeping but now it varies so much and i definitely don’t get enough… i reckon i get around 6/7 hours a night but i have discovered i can survive on like 5/6 hours... lucky number: 4 and 24 what are you wearing: dark grey skinny jeans and a t-shirt from uniqlo with a marimekko design on it... it has a blue background and white spots, but its now almost too big for me because ive lost so much weight (losing weight is a good thing because i was totally overweight and didn’t feel healthy) but because its too big it’s almost getting uncomfortable to wear bc theres just so much fabric that’s just not needed anymore lol!! it’s a little frustrating bc its one of my favourite t-shirts and its so pretty so i cant stop myself from wearing it! dream job: honestly? i don’t know... i’ve often said my dream job would be a film / tv location scout but then i have begun to realise that not all parts of the job appeal to me... like i know that i have an insane natural talent at finding out where places are filmed (and to do that i can happily spend hours looking on google maps and researching things) and that has translated into me thinking ‘that’s what a location scout does!’ but then actually, would i really be spending all my time looking at google maps and researching places? no, i probably would not... the job would be so much more than that. also would my enthusiasm disappear if it was my actual job? my passion for finding out where places are filmed is because im a) hella nosy and b) really interested in the movie / tv show / actor so i want to find it out because i just have to know and it’s fun but would that still be the case if i actually worked as a location scout? who knows! so basically i have no idea what my dream job is hahaa... instruments: i unfortunately can’t play any musical instruments because i am untalented and don’t have the patience, i blame my brother and my cousins for stealing all the musical genes in my family… languages: i speak english and english only... but there are some yiddish and scots words that occasionally crop up when im talking thanks to my family’s heritage, but i dont speak any other languages... i learnt french and spanish at school but i found them very hard and never really enjoyed learning them, although i did get a b in french at gcse so i was alright i guess but i reckon thanks to crisana and juliantina i have learnt more spanish in the past few months than i did during the two years i learnt spanish at school haha...  favorite songs: ugh i have too many faves, but sight of you by sigrid, the seed by aurora, radio gaga by queen. dancing with myself by billy idol, be the one by dua lipa, to the other side by passion pit, ribs by lorde, 33 god by bon iver, dog days are over by florence + the machine, video killed the radio star by the buggles to name but a few… random fact: ???!! i guess a random fact is that i find it impossible to come up with random facts about myself! aesthetic: exploring new places, quoting random lines from poetry or films, going to supermarkets in foreign countries, saying ‘i love you’ spontaneously, posing for endless photos in endless pretty locations, watching the sunset over a city while listening to music, enjoying the magical loveliness of everyday life…

im tagging @theelephantsvanish @etherealpondsx @lexa-el-amin @allyoursecrets @annatorvsgf @frenchcutcarrot @supuswnt @hillyan @celmurcia 

[thecrushheb]

D B Weiss and David Benioff don't value story at all. Only entertainment

Theyve thrown away every piece of character development all in one season.

Jon... Hard to figure out because he seems to have no major character at all other than "I don't want to be king" and "I am loyal to my queen whom I love" even though he's known her for like a few months max and he didn't even go against his values for Ygritte and he definitely loved her more (or I guess not but like nothing we've seen would make us think he fell in love with Dany. When and why does he love her?).

Tyrion hasn't made a single correct decision until he decided to try to save Kings Landing by sending Jamie to Cercei. But honestly him being a good person for the greater good was never what he was about. Why in crunch time are we only hinting at the parts of Tyrion that always made us love him, the wit, he talks about not being with women anymore but like why, that's development that is only hinted at and for what?

Sandor Clegane, why did he die in fire? I get the seeming appeal for him to end his life to finish his revenge plot by taking his own life right after a "ya don't wanna be like me kid", but did he learn nothing fighting for Arya? He did all that in the battle of winterfell to have a death that meant he wasn't fighting for something other than to kill his brother. Fell way flat. Felt like a weird cinema action movie scene rather than the poetry usually around deaths like in Harry potter, the last movie when Harry grabs voldemort and jumps off the (bridge? Idk I only watched the movie once and try to forget), like wow Cinematic af but what. Does. This. Actually. Mean. And. Do?

Speaking of, what is Arya's arc exactly? She spent so much time with her arc but then leaves to go to Kings landing rejecting Gendry (even though seeing her brother over killing Cercei is already a decision she made after talking to Hotpie). But I can get all of that. Maybe she felt she could end the war and didn't want Gendry to hurt more. But then she marches in as the place is collapsing thinking it's worth marching to her death to get Cercei? This part of her arc already completed. Not to mention, making a ham fisted parallel to an episode that aired the weekend before last, " Sandor, thank you" is sooo too much like "theon... You're a good man thank you", that like I get that cinematic parallels are important but it was a. Two episodes ago b. Not part of her arc and c. *Does jerkoff motion*

Jamie.. where to begin, he's gone the full 180 choosing to fight for the living, recognizing his love for Brianne because she makes him a good person, then all of a sudden flips that 180 into a full circle and dies feeling 0% of that development, dying being the exact person he was in season 1. Also, he says he never cared for the people of Kings landing while talking to Tyrion but his greatest shame was a sacrifice he made, and never talked about, because he wanted to save countless innocent lives?? How does that lineup with who he's ever been?

Cercei, smart enough to know when she's beaten but sure maybe she's this stubborn in the end but the decision to make her out to be a victim, dying in her lovers arms pleading for the life of her INCEST MADE baby while the world crumbles around her is the most irresponsible decision honestly it disgusted me. She is the true monster of the show and she gets that death with that framing, disgusting.

Dany. Oh Lord. Sure, she's shown tyrant like tendencies. But they always felt like we were being told how bad she was, and then she would do the decent thing. She would think about doing something bad then end up listening to her advisors. Her becoming "mad" really started with her killing the tarlys. People she had just defeated in battle, she is at war. Then Sam is sobbing over his dad like, it's almost as if the show did that, because he never gave a shit about his dad, just to make us feel like danys a dick. She always protected the Inocents. Mary masdoor, liberating people, etc. Always looking out for inocents, always having a reason she killed people, they had to be bad in her mind, slavers or kidnappers of her dragons or her opponents in war were burned, but then she snaps and kills citizens? Why? Her actions are always good. She helped the living not that long ago! Her arc is just 'well bitches and targs really just be crazy tho'. Foh. Find a better way to make her evil if that's what you want but word of mouth in 4 episodes at the end of a 60some-odd episode run of her trying to do the right thing is not the way.

Bronn, all his character development and now he's just who he was day 1. Like what's the point.

Think I hit all my bases but damn. I won't even go into the army of the dead as a symbol for climate change just being thrown away.

Stories are important and the messages they send are important and character arcs are important. This season has done away entirely from it all in the name of entertainment. This is no longer an endlessly talk about and dissectable series when development becomes a mess in the end and symbolism and theme are abandoned.

[lore-a-lie]

Chapter 2, Act 3: A Sonata by Moonlight

Daily Life

Kaede made her way through the gates of greed and lust, only to find Ryoma waiting at the top of the spiral staircase on the other side, candy cig in hand looking out at the two buildings before them as he looked over his shoulder to give her a nod.

“So, things getting any easier on you yet there boss?”

“With what, Angie? Not a chance, there’d be no point in trying to reason with her right now. And please don’t call me that, it’s weird.” Kaede replied, scratching her cheek a bit in embarrassment.

“Whatever you say. Time to get move on I take it?”

“Yeah, I’m not really sure what to be expecting though.”

“My best guess? Literal blackjack, minus the hookers." Ryoma began with a roll of his eyes and a shrug. "But barring that I know there are slots, a fishing game, some car racing, and color crusher type game. Pretty standard arcade stuff more than a genuine casino, they even use tokens instead of chips. They barely even look different from the monocoins.”

“Are casinos really so different? I only kinda know about them from western movies.”

“Yeah, I’d been to a few when I’d have competitions that’d take me overseas, so while this place definitely has the look of a casino down, and the slot machines do help, the lack of actual dealers makes it feel a lot different than how’d they work in America. Kinda weird how legal it was over there.”

“Sooo, you been to America often?” (Now’s my chance to find out more about his previous lady friend~)

“You know you’ve got a ways to go before you’ll be any good at being subtle. It’s kinda refreshing, with how guys like Kokichi can be, but your thoughts are an open book. Even your hair gives you away.” (Drat. But what does he mean my hair?... It’s the cowlick isn’t it? Stupid hair. I can never get it to behave right.)

His words rang true as Ryoma began to chuckle at the sight of Kaede’s not-so-inner dilemma. The wry smile didn’t leave his face as he slowed his pace at the fork in the road between the Kumasutra and their destination, causing her to match him until both came to a stop as he gave her a knowing look.

“Though before we head in, if a certain pink pianist has anything to do with a black and white bat-winged toy going missing in front of the fountain room, she might want to take a quick look near the entrance of the Love Hotel. Might find a similar prize wandering around in the bushes if she catches my drift.”

“W-what, why would I be picking up weird little Monokuma dolls? It’s not like there aren’t enough toys in the Monomachine, r-right?” (Damn, he’s onto me! But that’s a place I never thought to check before…)

“Right, of course there are. Must have been my imagination it just happened to disappear after you showed up... Or maybe someone else has been collecting them?” Ryoma’s words didn’t match the smug look on his face though, and it didn’t take long for Kaede’s attempt at indifference fell apart.

He paused for her to catch up as he watched her scamper down the right-hand path in search of another doll to join the two on her back and his chuckle broke into a full deep laugh. It didn’t take long for her to find it either, now that she had a proper hint.

AND HE’S SO CUUUTE! Lookit him with his little bellhop hat as he struts around, like he’s got himself a widdle job! … Ahem. I’ll… just put him in my bag with the others for now. And go thank Ryoma for this. Who is my new favorite person. Sorry, Kaito.

Kaede couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off her face as she made her way back, rambling her thank yous and giving half-hearted requests for him to keep from sharing her odd little hobby with the others. But all he could do was chuckle and nod as they made their way to where Kaito and the others were.

Kiyo was already in the exchange area, looking at the different bottles in the bar and upon noticing the two of them indicated everyone else were downstairs in the game room. Ryoma went on ahead to make sure Kaito wasn’t getting into too much trouble but Kaede took the time to look at the prizes she could try to save up for first.

Hmm, well the Crystal Bangle is nice but a lot of these look expensive, I wonder how hard it is to earn these medals. The Ladybug brooch is also pretty cute, Gonta might even like one as a gift sometime. A Travel Journal might be fun to look through and I could also probably find someone who’d like it when I’m done with it, like Kiyo sounds like he’s been to a bunch of places...

Tennis Balls are easy to have fun with when you’re bored but I could probably just borrow some from Ryoma’s lab rather than buy my own set. Don’t need any more Teddy Bears, even though it is pretty cute.  

The Factory game could also be a fun little time killer, and the console’s design is nice. I think it’d be good to have something to take care of daily so the Banyan Tree could be a good investment, but what would I call them? Plants gotta have names-

Holy shit look at those Headphones! Oooh, those would be great to use with my lab’s CDs, they even look like they dampen sound if I just need some quiet time. But it’s a bit pricey... The Space Egg is pretty but I’d rather use that money for the headphones. Oh wow, look at that key!

Ugh, that’s even more expensive though! What does it mean “something good might happen if you keep it”? Gah, I wanna know~

“See something in particular that catches your interest?” Kaede jumped a bit as Kiyo’s voice interrupted her thoughts. (Ryoma really wasn’t kidding when he said I was like an open book huh? Maybe I should work on that.  At least a certain someone’s bothering to “read” my feelings this time! Still mad at you.)

“Y-yeah, kinda. But the good stuff looks like it will take a lot of playing to save up for. Like those headphones. Or that mysterious “Key of Love”. Is that the only way to investigate the hotel area?”

“I highly suspect so but it doesn’t sound like you can really use if for “investigating”. Even with the key, you can’t unlock the doors before their “opening hours” and Monokuma indicated their use is rather limited in practice.” Kiyo said very matter of factly, despite this being the first Kaede ever heard of this.

“Huh? When did he ever talk about them before? You see him here earlier or something?”

“No, not at all, I already bought one the day before you see. Apparently, when you have one in your possession he sees fit to wake you at some unholy hour of the night to see if you might be interested in participating in an unusual scenario. How it was explained doesn’t particularly appeal to me though, so if you’d like it I’d be more than happy to give it to you.” (What?! But it’s so expensive! Why give it away?)

“A-are you really sure? I mean you must have spent a lot of time to buy it didn’t you? How bad is the “scenario” he offered you exactly?”

Despite her concerns, Kiyo had no issue with taking the decorated key out of his pocket, so Kaede gladly accepted the trinket dropped into her waiting hands. Seeing how confused she still was he explained.

“It’s hardly like any of our currency matters in this place, and it isn’t “bad” as much as it simply doesn’t interest me, intriguing as his offer was. You have no control who here may join you on your “visit” to the hotel, and whoever does will see the keyholder as some sort of “ideal” partner for their preferred sexual or romantic fantasy while the keyholder must act in accordance to this forced roleplay lest the other party feel terribly dejected. I’m not particularly fussy in regards to gender in cases like this so I don’t find the random element too distasteful, but it’s the lack of control the keyholder has that bothers me.”

“I see. And any purely romantic scenes might be kinda awkward the day after right? You said you took this sort of stuff rather seriously before, when you and Ryoma were talking about your past girlfriends.”

While her question was innocent enough Kiyo looked rather panicked by the mention of his previous partner. It took a moment to settle his wide-eyed staring, and lose the bit of hostility in the air, before he calmed down enough to respond. (Jeez, it’s like that time when I just asked him about if people had thought he had a siscon thing before. It’s pretty hard to not get nervous when he has freakouts like this.)

“Right. I… It has been awhile since Her passing but I’m not at all comfortable with that sort of intimacy. Particularly one that is forced for the sake of someone that should the scene play out right won’t keep many memories regarding the night previous. I’m unsure how that is meant to work, drugging perhaps? I wouldn’t put it past Monokuma or his kin.” (Yikes, why is that not the bigger deal breaker for you?!)

“M-maybe it’s more like a weird shared dream? That can happen right?” (And be maybe be less rape-y? Please?!)

“Perhaps, but then how would the partner be selected I wonder. Or the “dream” controlled. A most peculiar means to bear witness to a friend’s hidden desires. I can’t help but wonder what my own scene could contain. Nothing in regards to Her I’m sure, as that ideal would be too intricate to match to my satisfaction; I know Her too well to be fooled by a fake.” (It must still be hard to for him to accept she’s gone if he’s still using present tense for her like this. Though I wonder what mine would be like too.)

“So was she like a childhood friend of yours?”

“I… suppose you could say something like that. I do hope you enjoy whatever beauty your nighttime visit may reveal to you. You would let know if I was your visitor, wouldn’t you? Simply for curiosity’s sake of course.” It was clear he wanted to drop the subject as he teased her, which still got Kaede flustered at the implications.

Luckily for her, she wouldn’t need to respond to this as Kokichi came up the stairs with a childish pout.

“What are you two still doing up here? Come on you’re missing the good stuff! No more of your dilly-dallying, the prizes don’t even matter right now! This is supposed to be a good time together. Isn’t this what you wanted Kaede? Or does that only count for if it’s something Tenko invited you to?” Kokichi pointed at her accusingly as he complained. (Okay, yup he knew. At least he’s not actually mad about it.)

It was fairly obvious any annoyance he was feeling was fake, he even stereotypically crossed his arms as he humphed for emphasis, but his adamance that she come down certainly wasn’t. Seemed rather odd to her considering she should be the more optional person for his gambling crew than Kiyo was, seeing how Kokichi claimed this was meant to be a guy focused event and Kiyo was the one who invited her.

Rather than respond she rolled her eyes with a giggle as he took her by the hand tugging her down the stairs and half-heartedly encouraged Kiyo to follow them so they could see “just how much Kaito sucks at gambling” as he put it. The transition from the warm golds of the Casino’s main hall to the neon-lit blues of the game room down the stairs was odd as ever but she was beginning to see what he meant.

Maki was clearly trying, and failing by the looks of things, to encourage Kaito to stop playing the slots to at least try something less random as he must have been on some sort of losing streak. Regardless of his own luck she still managed to have a fairly large pile of tokens beside her, which was probably part of how Kaito could continue playing at all, while Ryoma was messing around with some of the other games. It looked more like he was investigating than playing though, and Kokichi caught that too.

Upon reaching the bottom he suggested that Kaito and Maki switch machines so the six of them could sort out what games would be played by who had the most “luck” at slots first. Everyone would get to pick a game in the order from who won the most to the least, and he even had a bunch of card games on him to give them a few more options “in case the arcade games here suck ass”. (Which probably means his choice really will be Blackjack just to be cute. Not that I know how to actually play Blackjack.)

Kaede wasn’t entirely sure how this “competition” was really working, as all she knew to do with these was pull the lever and leave everything to chance. If anyone asked her what any of the combinations on these machines meant she wouldn’t be able to tell them, but since she was getting more medals than she put in (and she put in as many as she could each time) she figured she wasn’t doing too badly.

That was more than Kaito could say as he quickly burned through the last allowance Maki gave him putting him dead last. Ryoma proved to be nearly the opposite not long afterward, as his machine started to practically sing as it spat out medals for him at a ridiculous looking rate. Kokichi wasn’t quite that good, but he also did fairly well.

According to his huffy attitude, Kiyo managed to do better though, and Maki gave up at some point to take jabs at Kaito so she was considered second to last while Kaede was considered third last. (Oh well, I never was all that lucky anyway. Not really unlucky either, but still this was fun.)

Kokichi was obviously very impressed by Ryoma’s skills and luck to do as well as he did which just earned some sore losers griping from Kaito much to Kaede’s amusement. She did try to muffle her giggles best she could, but that quickly became an impossible effort. Even Maki couldn’t wipe the sly smile off her face as a thought crossed her mind.

“It’s hardly either of their faults you happen to be the idiot who doesn’t know how to quit even if he does manage to get ahead.”

“Come on Maki Roll, stop calling me an idiot! It hurts my feelings ya know...”

“Then stop acting like one. There’s hardly anything smart about gambling in the first place. There’s a reason it’s illegal and I’m not going to bail you out if you get addicted to it.” Maki chastised him, and with her aura, Kaede could almost believe her false talent of child-caregiver wasn’t wholly misplaced.

“Hey now, you’re talking to Kaito, Luminary of Stars! No way I’d do something as uncool as get hooked, I can stop whenever I want! My instincts were just off today is all.”

“That’s not the best argument for your case my friend, and there’s more this than instincts and luck,” Ryoma said, as he stared at his coin pile at a loss for how he would actually carry any of his winnings.

“Luck’s just a superstition, it doesn’t really matter if you try hard enough!” Kaito exclaimed, though Kiyo only shook his head at that as he began his own ramblings.

“And how exactly do you believe you can “try” hard enough with slots of all things? Surely you must see that the other options here have some level of skill about them yes? And besides that, it’s hardly as much a superstition as you may believe-”

“How is it that after we got stuck in a school without any teachers we still managed to end up with a guy who’d end up giving us all lectures anyway? I didn’t wanna learn today…” Kokichi groaned.

“Kehehe, then why invite me of all people? My inclination towards education is hardly an unknown fact here. But back on topic, it’s odd someone who puts so much faith in the power of personal belief to try to denounce the power of superstitions. If you truly don’t believe in the supposed superstition their effects should hardly affect you, much like many practices in religions like Voodoo.” Kiyo continued after Kokichi’s interruption, though upon the mention of “Voodoo” Kaito looked rather ill again.

“The reason they last in the cultural consciousness as long as they do is but a testament to how many of its people still believe in them, rather than proof of any grains of truth to be found. This can get to the point idioms can exist in common usage for long after the meaning of their words have been lost to the people that use them in favor of the concept they are thought to represent. Humanity often puts a lot of faith in the power of words and the hopes that by using them to influence the hearts or minds of others that they can sway the powers of fate in any manner of ways. Luck is more often based on observation and personal perspectives, as what counts as “lucky” or “unlucky” is incredibly subjective and fickle.”

“Basically. Though confidence can change how something’s going to go too." Ryoma agreed. "You can’t expect to win a match if you go in thinking you’re going to lose. The mind’s a powerful thing, that’s why things like placebos can work at all. That’s why in sports it can get easy to develop personal patterns or pre-game rituals, you get to thinking if it worked well before it will again.”

“But luck isn’t a superstition because it’s only there if you want to see it and superstitions are more complicated than that? Ugh, this stuff is confusing! Let’s just have some fun with the games! It’s Ryoma’s pick, right? So shoot.” Kaede suggested in hopes of finding something to lighten Kaito’s mood.

As Ryoma also saw the problem he offered to play the 1-on-1 mode in Outlaw Run against him, while at Kiyo’s request Kokichi finally got his game of blackjack. Implicitly under the threat that Maki would throttle him if he tried using the joke that started all this again. Maki turned out to be pretty good at it while Kiyo didn’t fare as well. As Kokichi was willing to share the rules to it as they went along Kaede at least got the hang of it before they moved onto the other arcade options.

It was a nice night overall as they fell into idle chattering, seeing how much they could win. Kaede quit after she earned enough for her headphones though, but she stayed with the others after trading for her desired spoils just to enjoy this atmosphere for a little longer.

When Kaito called it a night Ryoma left with him, with some light-hearted bantering with Kokichi as the latter tried to give him a “Death Flag” under the pretense of it being like a Jolly Rodger dissolving into a brief debate about space pirates.

As Maki left some time afterward, apparently having gotten herself the Space Egg Kaede noticed before, Kaede went with her so neither girl would be wandering around on their own at night. (What can I say, some instincts are hard to break. And it’s not like they’re really out of line in this place now are they?)

The walk back was fairly quiet, as Kaede didn’t really know what to say and Maki wasn’t often one for conversation, but it was a pleasant silence between the unlikely pair. A far cry from how tense things could be around the revealed assassin before, which in itself was a hopeful sign of progress.

But not one that was able to last, as Kaede began to hear arguing coming from behind the doors to their dorms. Kaito’s voice first as his was louder and deeper, and given how things have been going the second was likely Angie’s.

Kaede sent a nervous look to Maki, to see if she should go first to make sure things wouldn’t be too hostile to her friend, but Maki paid no heed to it and opened the doors herself. Kaito and Ryoma still hadn’t gone to their rooms yet and Angie, Tenko, and Tsumugi were standing near the opposite wall.

“So what if we were out a bit late? There ain’t any official curfews and we’re more likely to wake someone up by talkin’ here than we would have if you let us be. You’re all overreacting, back off.” Kaito complained.

“Official curfews? Maybe, maybe not, but there will be one for us all starting today." Angie said. "Atua thinks the next murder would most likely happen at night, like Himiko’s did before, and as such the student council will be responsible for making sure everyone else is safe in their rooms when nighttime comes from now on.”

“And let me guess, for you guys to “enforce” it this rule won’t be actually applying to any of you does it? So this would only be keeping half of everyone here inside. Not sure how that would prevent anything.” Ryoma said, being one of the few keeping his volume lower than normal for the sake of those sleeping.

“Of course it would when that half doesn’t include anyone we know has a penchant for violence!” Tenko barked, placing herself between Kaito and Angie.

“Seriously, this again?! And that’s bullshit, you’re the one here most prone to throwing us guys around! Not to mention Kirumi’s outburst. Ryoma and Maki haven’t threatened anyone, not even when she had her video freak her out back then… Well okay, she says scary stuff sometimes, but she doesn’t mean it!”

Kaito was clearly making the effort to keep his voice down, but with his personality, it was hard to keep his enthusiasm from causing his voice to raise. But at least no doors opened to see what the ruckus was.

“I don’t need anyone defending me here, Kaito, so stop it. But I agree with Ryoma. Even if your Atua isn’t a lie with so many people still being allowed out during this danger period the odds haven’t really changed. You’ve just limited the potential murderers and victims to put your own people at the greatest risk.”

“Fine, fine~" Angie sighed. "Then I’ll ask Monophanie if she and Monodam will do the rounds for us with their Exisals tomorrow night, okay? Since she’s sleeping like Atua is right now and I don’t know where he would be.”

“What the fuck?! You’ve got to be kidding, you can’t seriously be trusting these clowns! Basic wilderness survival tip: Never. Trust. A. Bear. With absolutely anything! EVER.” (Exactly! And that reminds me-)

“So, should I ask Monodam to reopen the manhole cover while we’re taking the risk of asking them for favors? I saw what you guys did earlier, this isn’t something you should be deciding for everyone alone.”

“THEY DID WHAT-” Kaito stopped himself mid-yell as he remembered himself and tried again. “You guys did what? That’s going way too far-”

“Come on, let’s all just go to bed okay? It’ll just plain bother everyone if we wake them up like this. Why don’t we talk about things tomorrow after we’ve all had some rest and time to think?” Tsumugi offered to try and settle things down, as she began nervously looking at the rooms around them.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea too. This needs to be discussed with everyone, we won’t accomplish anything here otherwise.” Kaito gave Kaede a worried look but backed down at her request. They didn’t say anything of where the other council members were or when Kokichi and Kiyo would be coming back.

Kaede thinks she heard their footsteps signaling their return a short time later as she was trying to sleep, as neither set sounded as heavy as Gonta or Kibo (despite the latter’s small stature) and both lacked the gentle clicks of Kirumi’s heels so she assumed the other members had already gone to bed.

But that wasn’t her only interruption as she heard a squeaky set of knocking at her door. She ignored the first few sets of rapping, but after the fifth set of three squeaks she gave in and found Monodam on the other side wearing a sleeping cap and a blankie. (What the actual hell, didn’t I see enough of you today?)

“Err… Hello. I’m-Sorry-If-I-Woke-You-Up-But-I-Heard-You-Have-An-Item-You-Could-Use. I-Thought-This-Would-Be-A-More-"Polite”-Way-To-Ask-You-About-It. May-I-Come-In?” (... Is this about the Love Key?)

He took her moving to the side as permission and puttered his way in like a sleepy toddler, giving Kaede’s collection of dolls an odd glance as he took a seat on the couch, patting at the seat beside him. With a sigh she humored him, and he began to explain while swinging his feet from side to side.

“This-Is-My-First-Time-Doing-This, Normally-Father-Didn’t-Let-Us-Help-Since-It’s-Past-Our-Bedtimes. But-Monosuke-Didn’t-Want-To-And-Monophanie’s-In-Angie’s-Room-So-It’s-My-Job-Now. So… Do-You- Have-Any-Ideas-On-How-This-Works? We-Know-You-Didn’t-Buy-It, Only-Kibo-And-Kiyo-Have-Bought- Them-So-Far-And-Only-Kibo-Used-His.” (Woah, what? KIBO??? Not like… Miu or Angie or something?)

“I, Uh… Kiyo gave me the general idea of it sure. If I go I’ll meet up with one of my friends at random and play out some sort of “scene” with them. That’ll… Probably be suggestive. But they won’t remember anything about what happens in there if I go.”

“Correct! Except-It’s-Not-Actually-Random, We-Choose-Who-Goes-With-You. We-Try-To-Make-It-With- Someone-We-Think-Makes-A-Good-“Ship”-With-You. Monophanie-Got-Really-Into-That-Part, She-Has- Charts-For-You-All-And-Everything-Now! We-Think-Father-Went-According-To-Popular-Demand-Too. Do-You-Want-To-Use-It-Tonight?” (“Popular demand”? According to what? Or who? What even is this?!)

“... That depends, can I just tell you who I’d like to meet? Or ask who you have in mind?”

“It’s-Not-Fair-For-You-To-Pick! Even-If-Kibo-Would-Have-Picked-Miu-On-His-Own, Father-Still-Didn’t-Let- Him-Choose. But-According-To-Monophanie’s-Charts… I-Think-Kaito-Had-More-“Ship-Tease”-With-You-Today-Than-Kokichi-Or-Kiyo. But-Which-Of-Those-Three-Is-Still-Up-To-Me.”

NOOOPE. NOT HAPPENING. Either Maki kills me or I’ll wish she did. No matter how nice Kaito is I’m not doing that to her. And heaven forbid I get either of those other two, definitely not interested. I don’t want to think about that stuff with Miu, but if Kibo didn’t forget… That might explain some things. But it’s just too sad to consider right now.

“Yeeeah I think I’ll pass.” (Potential for embarrassment and self-preservation beats curiosity this time.)

“Oh. That’s-A-Shame, We-Don’t-Really-Know-How-This-Works-Yet. Sorry-Shuichi-And-Rantaro-Aren’t- Here, They-Were-Monophanie’s-First-Picks-For-You. And-Kokichi’s-Too, Which-Was-Kinda-Weird-To-Me. Maybe-Things-Will-Be-Different-Tomorrow-Night.” (I… I’ll just forget I heard that. For multiple reasons.)

“Do… Do you even understand what a “love hotel” is ?”

“Of-Course! It-Is-A-Place-Where-Things-Like-Father’s-Videos-Happen. The-Ones-With-The-Delivery-Men- And-Women-Who-Keep-Ordering-Things-Without-A-Means-To-Pay-For-Them. I-Don’t-Understand-Why- They-Keep-Doing-It-Though, And-Monokid-Would-Always-Kick-Me-Out-Before-The-Payment-Issue-Was- Resolved-So-I-Don’t… Miss-Kaede-Why-Are-You-Holding-Your-Face-Like-That? Did-Your-Eyes-Fall-Out?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not sure what I should have expected here really.”

“Okay. It’s-Fine-If-They-Did-Though, It-Happens-To-The-Best-Of-Us! But-With-That-Question-Answered- I-Have-Another-Thing-To-Ask…” Monodam got a bit nervous so Kaede nodded for him to continue. “Is- It-Okay-For-Me-To-Stay-Here-Tonight? Monosuke-Says-He’ll-Do-The-Announcements-By-Himself-Now- When-He-Kicked-Me-And-Monophanie-Out-And-Angie-Said-It-Was-Okay-For-Her-To-Stay-With-Her. So- I-Thought-I’d-Ask-Is-All...” (Good grief, seriously? Why me? I can’t go kicking a kid out this late, even if he’s a cub. That’d just be fucked up. So is a bunch of childish robotic-teddy-bears kidnapping us, but still.)

“Fine, You can stay. Just for tonight, I’d rather you not get in the habit of this. Hopefully, you can work things out with your family tomorrow or something.”

He wasn’t really listening as he just gave her side an awkward hug. But any moment had was quickly lost.

“Thank-You. I-Also-Hope-This-Will-Just-Be-For-The-Night. Your-Collection-Of-Tiny-Not-Fathers-Is-Rather- Disturbing-To-Me. Shuichi’s-Room-Has-Shelves-For-Those-If-You’d-Like? So-You-Can-Get-Them-Off-The- Bed-So-You-Can-Sleep-Better-”

“But they’re teddy bears, why shouldn’t they be on my bed with me? Who keeps plushies on a shelf?!”

“... Miss-Kaede-You’re-Worrying-Me. Why-Do-You- Like -The-Not-Fathers? How-Do-You-Fit-In-That-Mess- Anyway? Are-You-Okay? Is-This-A-Cry-For-Help-”

“Do you want me to kick you out? And why did I become a “miss” instead of a “bastard” if you’re going to keep being rude about how I keep my own room?”

“No-Miss-Kaede, I-Will-Stop-Questioning-Your-Creepy-Not-Father-Pile. Monophanie-Said-Angie-Told- Her-That-If-We-Want-To-Be-Friends-Calling-You-Bastards-“Bastards”-Is-Bad. Am-I-Doing-Okay?” (NO.)

“Well, uhh, that’s good progress for you? “Miss” is much more respectful. So just… Keep working on it.”

“... Is-It-Complaining-If-I-Ask-To-Use-A-Different-Bed? Like-This-Chair? It-Is-Comfy-And-I-Fit-Well.” It was pretty clear he just wanted to be as far away from her Mini-kumas as possible, further helped by the chair facing away from it. Being a rather bouncy seat for him was just another plus he was enjoying.

“Sure, just give me a minute.” Kaede went through some of the Monomachine prizes she had to find something to help make a better bed. (A rude uninvited guest is no excuse to be a poor hostess, right?)

As she came back and gestured for him to get down so she could make his bed she realized the blank stare he kept giving the toys on her bed was probably his best attempt at a glare. With a chuckle, she laid down a wearable blanket as a little nest and added her Helping Yachi for some company, which he appreciated as he snuggled into place with another set of “thank yous”. It was almost cute, all things considered. (Ignoring how he’s a murderous little brat only here ‘cause no one else can stand him.)

Nothing else came up as she tried to go to sleep again at least. Not even her previously racing thoughts about the current motive’s potential dangers or unpleasant memories of the days previous, as she chose to focus on her unwanted roommate’s odd sounding snoring to help ease her into slumber at long last.

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