#that is simply too much wit for me to commit to.

[essektheylyss]

Remember that guy Laerryn basically one-shotted with a fireball and a construct? Oh, Micah. They say those who shine the brightest burn the fastest, but really I think you just burned.

Find all of the WWE (World Wizard Entertainment) polls and the full bracket here!

[accioscarheadthings]

Hi I hope your doing good!♡

I was wondering if you could do a kenji × female reader. But the reader is in the military and is surprising him by coming back early. I've been watching to many coming home videos of soldiers coming home and I got the idea! You can pretty much do anything you want with it but mabey you could do where the reader suprises him at a game.

Thanks so much!♡

hii love. yes i'm great. sorry abt the wait. i was caught up with volleyball practice and college. here you go. i hope you enjoyy<33

No more Goodbyes

kenji sato x fem!military!reader

warning: mentions of insecurities, nightmares, scars and wounds, mentions of love-making session, fluff, [not proofread!!] summary: you surprise kenji at a game by coming back home early

kenji missed you desperately, as you had been away fulfilling your duties as a devoted soldier in the military.

you had been deployed, and kenji had been counting the days until you would come back home safely.

his heart ached every time you left for your military duties. he hated being separated from you, but at the same time, he was proud of your commitment to the country.

when you could arrange video calls, kenji made sure to make the most of the time you had together.

you would spend hours talking, catching up on each other's lives, and enjoying each other's company. he always looked forward to these moments, when he could see your face and hear your voice, even if it was through a screen.

but despite his worries, kenji never let his fears show to you. instead, he was your rock, always there to offer words of encouragement and support.

he knew that you relied on him for strength, and he was determined to be the partner you needed.

when you finally returned from your missions, kenji never let you go. he would hold you close, his hands tracing over your body, almost as if he was trying to reassure himself that you were really there, safe and sound.

the moments you spent together were precious, and kenji treasured every single one. he would spend hours upon hours exploring and learning every inch of your body, committing it to memory as if it were a holy hymn. every touch and caress was filled with a sense of reverence, as he savored the feeling of your skin against his own.

he made love slowly, taking his time to explore and rediscover your body.

his hands roamed over your body, tracing gentle patterns over your skin, and finally interlacing with yours, pinning them to the sides of your head, "i've missed this," he murmured, his voice low and filled with emotion, "I've missed you so much,"

you would bracket your legs around his torso, yearning for his touch, "me too," you panted.

kenji smiled against your neck, mouthing a kiss there. his body was pressed against yours, his weight pinning you to the bed. he angled his hips against yours, causing you to let out a gasp of pleasure. kenji chuckled softly, his breath warm against your skin. "i love the noises you make, my love,"

he would ask you about your missions, listening intently as you recounted the dangers you had faced. despite the horrors you had witnessed, he never judged or criticized.

kenji simply held you close, offering comfort and support in the only way he knew how. he could see the toll your job took on you, the weight of your experiences etched into your expressions and actions.

every time you visited him, you would come back with healing wounds and scars. kenji would ask stories about them, tracing them with the tip of his fingers, committing them to memory.

"and this one?" he asked, his voice soft and curious when he reached the one on the softness of your belly.

you cringed slightly, feeling embarrassed as you remembered the scar's origin, "that one is a bad memory," you mumbled, ducking your head in embarrassment.

kenji leaned in and placed a tender kiss on the scar, his lips lingering on your skin, as if he was trying to soothe the pain of the memory.

you looked down at him, feeling a wave of bashfulness under his intense gaze. his eyes were saying a thousand 'I love you's' all at once.

but no matter how tired or weary he was after his games, kenji was always there. he was patient and understanding, never pushing you to talk or open up if you weren't ready. he knew that you needed time to process your experiences, and he was more than willing to wait patiently until you were ready to share.

he would hold you through your nightmares, stroking your hair and whispering reassurances until you finally calmed down. he would listen to you when you needed to vent, offering a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on.

you would feel so guilty to weigh him down like that. as a professional baseball player, he needed his daily sleep and you were hindering it. you got so fed up with how you were leaching on his time and shrunk into yourself in shame. it had got to the point where you had asked him if he wanted to break up with you and be with someone else.

kenji had you curled on his lap, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. when you voiced your thoughts, he sat up straight, pulling you to frown down at you.

"what do you mean?" he asked, his voice tinged with hurt, "why would I ever want to date someone else? I love you," kenji's expression softened, his eyes filled with sadness and understanding. he can see the doubt and hurt in your eyes, and it shattered his heart.

"well," you wrung your hands on your lap, hanging your head low, "i hate how much i keep pulling you down. how much i ruin your sleep, how much i put you at risk of breaking your heart. i feel like," you grimaced, "like I'm not worth all of those. all that effort,"

kenji took your face in his hands, his touch gentle and tender as he guided your gaze to his, "you idiot," he said softly.

your lips twisted into a pout and you glared at him slightly.

kenji pressed a soft smooch to your lips, mouth dominating and wiping the frown off your face.

he slung your leg over his lap, making you straddle him, palms splayed on your lower back.

"i don't care about any of that. i don't care that you're not here all the time. i don't care that there's a risk you might not come back," he shuddered lightly, as though he didn't want to think about the idea of such an occurrence, "all i care about is being with you, no matter what," he leaned in, his forehead resting against yours. "you're worth it to me," he murmured, "you're worth the wait, the worry, the uncertainty. i love you. and i'll always love you. i will never give up on us, and i will keep coming back to you because you are the only one I want to be with, "

you inhaled shakily, a comforting warmth blooming in your chest as he spilled his heart to you, his words chased away your doubts.

you hugged him tightly, arms around his frame while your face buried in the crook of his neck.

now, kenji was in the chaninging room after a game, swiping through his photos he had with you. he stopped at one particular one, his favourite one:

in the picture, kenji was sitting on a couch, his arms wrapped around you as you sat on his lap. his head was turned towards you, his teeth gently biting your cheek in a playful gesture of affection. you were smiling widely at the camera, your eyes sparkling with laughter.

kenji missed you more than words could say. the months apart from you had been torture, and the only thing that had kept him going was the thought of seeing you again. every day, he longed for your touch, your smile, your laugh, your presence.

"hey, sato! over here!"

kenji was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard his teammate call out to him. he stood up, pocketing his phone and turned to look, expecting to see one of his fellow players.

but instead, he froze in shock when he saw you standing there, a smile on your face.

"hi baby," you beamed at him, thoroughly enjoying his reaction. you were still in your military uniform, you took off your cap, letting a few strands of hair fall to the side of your face.

kenji stood there, frozen in disbelief, "shut up. no way,"

months of separation had made it feel like a lifetime since he had last seen you, and now, here you were, wearing your military uniform, a smile on your face.

his teammates, knowing how miserable he had been without you, erupted in cheers and hollering for the pair of you.

but kenji didn't notice. his focus was entirely on you, as he tried to process that you were really there, standing in front of him.

his expression quickly shifting from surprise to disbelief and then to pure joy.

he dropped his helmet and gloves and surged toward you, wrapping his arms around you in a tight embrace. In a swift motion, he picked you up, causing your legs to instinctively wrap around his torso.

ripping his gloves off his hands in a hurry, he charged at you in an embrace, sweeping you off your feet and wrapping your legs around his torso.

the room erupted in cheers and hollering for the pair of you, adoring the sight of you both reunited. even his teammates knew that he was miserable without you.

kenji held you tightly against him, his heart pounding with relief and excitement. he buried his face in your shoulder, inhaling your scent and relishing the feel of your body against his. his grip was firm and possessive.

he had been counting down the days until your return, longing for the moment he would be able to see your face again.

"are you really here?" he muttered against you, "i'm not hallucinating, am i?"

you could feel his tears soaking through your uniform, "no," you laughed, blinking quickly as tears began to gather in your eyes.

kenji squeezed you tighter, his voice wavered in a sob when he spoke, "i missed you so much,"

you felt your heart tug at his vulnerability, and you curved into his body, "me too. me too kenji," you sighed, letting his warmth engulf you.

the rest of the giants team had dispersed to give you both the privacy you needed and now you were all alone with the love of your life.

you rested your hands on his shoulders, "i saw you play today. you were unbelievable!"

kenji's glassy eyes were sparkling with pure joy, his gaze expectant and eager for your opinion, "you did?"

"yes!" you held his face in your hands, "and you were a menace!" you cooed, resting your forehead against his and kissing the tip of his nose, "I'm so proud of you,"

kenji closed his eyes, adjusting you in his arms, and grazed one palm down the length of your leg, while the other held you up by your ass.

"how long can you stay?"

you grinned, "forever,"

kenji's eyes snapped open, "what,"

"i'm home now," you spoke, kissing his forehead, "I'm done with my service,"

"so that means no more goodbyes?"

"no more goodbyes," you promised, raking a hand through his bangs.

kenji's lips wobbled, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he pressed kisses all over your face, "i'm gonna marry you. and m'gonna make you so happy," he mumbled into your neck, his accent thick," i'm going to spend every day showing you how much i love you. every day. s'my only job from now. okay?" his voice wavered as he breathed you in.

you nodded, unable to hold back the tears that were streaming down your face, "okay," you repeated, your voice shaking as you tried to hold back the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm you, legs nearly giving out from the rush of emotions.

the moment hung heavy in the air, both of you acutely aware of the weight of those words.

kenji held you tighter, his grip firm and unwavering as he held you close, as if to make a promise that he would always keep his word.

[vixen-tech]

HIII :333 first requester here....I should get an emoji can i be 🫧 anon :ooo anway here's my req!! the ais with a reader who is just SO DOWN BAD. WILL DO ANYTHING FOR THEM. RUSHES FOR HELP if they crash or something. Just PATHETIC reader.

Stupidly Smitten

Hello you two!! This is one of those requests that I think work well enough to be combined into one post. You are just so extremely, pathetically in love with your Ai <3

Includes: Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), Auto (Wall-E), Wheatley (Portal 2)

Hal 9000

Hal was unaware that a person could have so much love in them, let alone for him specifically. It was overwhelming at first, baffling when he realized it was only for him and not for any other crew members.

However he handles it in stride, able to calmly respond to your paragraphs of praise with the gentlest "Thank you, I deeply appreciate your companionship as well." Expertly concealing any signs of fluster as you giggle and kiss his camera lens.

Of your long list of cheesy nicknames, prince or prince charming tends to be a go to. A good match for his ever polite, gentlemanly nature. He reminds you that he was simply designed like that, but grows fond of the name anyway.

He very much appreciates the amount you volunteer around the ship. There is a lot that he can't do without a human crew and he adores the diligence you show in your work and the care with which you handle his ship.

Edgar

You and Edgar make the sappiest little feedback loop. It's an endless cycle of "I love you more." "No, I love you more!". To any outsider it would be exhausting to witness, but it's just how you two get out all your feelings.

He goes crazy for all your terms of endearment. 'Songbird' is a pretty easy match for him, but he loves literally every word that comes out of your mouth. Flipping each and every one back at you.

It's not unusual for you to do the same song and dance around the chores. Generally, he'll already have them done by the time you get home, but when you get the day off you always offer to do them yourself. He rarely lets you.

You've told him the time you often have your lunch break so you can chat over the phone while you eat. You're sure your coworkers are sick of you being such a cartoonishly in love couple, but you don't care. He makes you too happy for that.

Auto

Auto has absolutely no idea how to deal with you. He was not made to interact with many people and certainly not someone so affectionate. He may as well have bluescreened the first time you clumsily tried to hug him.

At first he resigns himself to just... sit still whenever you got in a lovey-dovey mood, letting you gush over him. Definitely not spending the rest of the day thinking about the way you said "See you later starlight!" when you finally let him get back to his job.

Over time he recognizes that he began to anticipate your visits, it's so different to how he's usually treated. He knew you had gotten to him when he went out if his to check up on you the day you missed one of your usual visits.

He usually rejects any help you attempt to offer him, his purpose is to handle the ship just fine all by himself. But after that episode he stops trying to push you away. If you're so happy tagging along, he might as well graciously allow you to do so, ignoring his complicated mess of feelings about you.

Wheatley

Oh the ego boost you give him is downright dangerous. If Wheatley was annoying before, now he is absolutely insufferable. Perfectly matches your energy though, you two cannot shut up about each other.

He makes your boundless affection everyone else's problem. "See, I reckon you're just jealous that you're not in a loving, committed relationship with such a lovely person like I am." He boasts. "My amazing romantic partner even calls me their sunshine. Cause I 'light up their life' as they say. Bet you wish you had someone like that."

He is always fishing for compliments, trying to show off for you in any way he psychically can to get some of those sweet sweet words of affirmation. To his delight you always do, grabbing him for some well placed kisses.

He'll even go so far as to reject any assistance you offer him so he can prove he's all cool and competent by doing it himself. Although it's never too long before he gives up and sheepishly asks for your help.

[saphronethaleph]

Destined Trials

Link frowned, concentrating ferociously, and considered all the information he had available to him.

There had to be a weakness…

He glanced to his side, at Zelda, then glowered at Ganondorf… and, suddenly, he saw it.

Time slowed for a moment.

“What time did this take place?” Link asked.

“Oh, ah…” the Rito said, frowning to herself. “I suppose it was… yes, it was the day after the solstice. I remember I was very pleased with the balalaika my wife had got me. The window was closed when I went into my room, then I was playing the balalaika, and when I went into the room the next time it had been broken – I don’t know when.”

“The day after the solstice,” Link reiterated, looking up at Ganondorf. “And yet the previous witness said that my client was present for every meal during the solstice day celebrations, and for the three days afterwards. There simply wasn’t time for him to get all the way there and back during the time the crime was committed.”

“There are, of course, high speed connections between the cities,” Ganondorf said.

“Not during the day after the solstice,” Zelda spoke up. “That day is a nationwide public holiday and public transit is on a volunteer only basis. All long distance train travel on those dates is stop to stop only, which doesn’t leave enough time for the crime to be committed.”

Ganondorf glowered at them.

“Then who do you suggest was responsible?” he asked.

“That isn’t something we have to prove,” Link replied. “This is a trial of a person. It’s not a trial to punish someone, it’s a trial to determine if a specific person should be punished.”

Later, after the decision had been reached, Zelda approached Ganondorf with Link a pace behind.

“You knew the person you were prosecuting hadn’t done it,” she said, without preamble.

“That’s quite an accusation,” Ganondorf replied, urbanely. “If you intend to sue me over it, I can identify a very good prosecutor I suggest you use… of course, I’d need to be assigned a public defender team.”

He smirked. “And, besides, I’m a lawyer. My job is to argue in favour of my side. That’s it. When you’re defending someone, do you defend them any less well if you think they’re guilty?”

“It’s a lot harder to defend someone who’s guilty, but mostly because they did it,” Link contributed.

“Our job is to make sure that justice is served, and that means making sure you have to work for everyone who gets punished,” Zelda declared, then frowned slightly. “But… why are you a lawyer, exactly?”

She indicated the seven-and-a-half-foot, immensely strong man facing her. “I know it’s a bit off topic, but… you look like someone who should be a prize winning athlete.”

“Destined combat,” Ganondorf replied, blandly. “Make no mistake – you, and I, and the twink over there are destined to battle down the ages, again and again. The Princess, the Hero, and the Beast of Despair.”

Zelda and Link exchanged confused glances.

“But this time… I wasn’t feeling it,” Ganondorf continued. “Being slain is extremely painful, you know, and I didn’t much fancy being stabbed to death with eleven hundred arrows made of magic superlaser this time. I’d much rather do all the epic prophesied battle, then settle down to a retirement somewhere in the upper slopes of a mountain range overlooking Gerudopolis… and enjoy some wine, once in a while.”

“...so… you became a lawyer?” Zelda asked.

“Of course,” Ganondorf agreed. “Being stabbed to death with eleven hundred arrows made of magic superlaser is extremely rare in a courtroom, and I figured you two would end up following me anyway so being a prosecuting attorney seemed like the profession with the highest salary while involved in combat. Though do let me know what you think of the alternatives… I was wondering about archaeology, but that seemed to have entirely too high a risk of accidentally uncovering a magical artefact that would need to be destroyed and an epic non-metaphorical battle.”

His voice became distant. “Perhaps I should try a band, one of these lives. Ganon and the Dorfs. It might catch on…”

“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” Zelda whispered to Link. “Because if he’s trying to get me to question my life choices and why a royal princess is working in a public defender’s office, it’s kind of working.”

[d-targaryenshoe]

Subtle Admiration - Anthony Bridgerton

Word Count: 1176

Summary: When one admires the person they love, would they not also show the world?

Anthony Bridgerton was a man of impeccable standards and unwavering convictions, known throughout London for his sense of duty and commitment to his family.

As the head of the Bridgerton family, his actions were often scrutinized, and his decisions influenced the lives of his siblings.

Yet, despite his formidable exterior, he harbored a deep, unyielding love for his wife, you, a love that he was determined to showcase to his family.

It was a crisp spring morning, and the Bridgerton household was abuzz with activity.

their late father, Edmund Bridgerton upheldThe family had gathered for breakfast, a tradition upheld by their late father, Edmund Bridgerton.

Anthony, seated at the head of the table, observed his siblings with a mix of affection and amusement.

Each one was unique, yet they shared an unbreakable bond.

As Anthony sipped his coffee, his gaze drifted to you, seated beside him.

You were engaged in a lively conversation with Eloise, your laughter like a melodious tune that brightened the room.

Anthony's heart swelled with pride and adoration.

You had seamlessly woven yourself into the fabric of the family, your warmth and wit endearing you to each of his siblings.

"Anthony, you're staring," Daphne teased, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "Do you have something to say?"

Anthony chuckled, setting his cup down. "As a matter of fact, I do." He stood, drawing the attention of everyone at the table.

"I've been thinking a great deal about family lately, about how fortunate I am to have all of you in my life. But there's someone here who has brought me an immeasurable amount of joy and fulfillment, someone who has made our family even more complete."

He reached for your hand, helping you to your feet. "Y/n, you have been a beacon of light in my life, and I want everyone to know just how much you mean to me."

You blushed, your eyes shimmering with love. "Anthony, you're too kind."

"No, my dear," he said, his voice filled with emotion. "I am simply stating the truth. You have shown me what it means to truly love and to be loved. You've brought laughter and happiness into our home, and for that, I am eternally grateful."

Benedict, seated across the table, raised his glass. "To y/n, the heart of our family!"

"To y/n!" the family echoed, lifting their glasses in unison.

Anthony smiled, his heart brimming with contentment.

He had always known that his love for you was profound, but now, standing before his family, he realized that his affection for you was boundless.

He was determined to ensure that everyone saw the depth of his feelings, not just in words but in actions as well.

Later that day, Anthony took you for a stroll, a favorite pastime of yours.

The park was a riot of colors, the flowers in full bloom, and the air filled with the sweet scent of spring.

As you walked hand in hand, Anthony couldn't help but steal glances at you, marveling at your beauty and grace.

"You're unusually quiet today," you remarked, a playful smile on your lips. "What's on your mind?"

Anthony stopped, turning to face you. "You. Always you." He cupped your face in his hands, his eyes searching yours. "I want the world to see how much I adore you, how you've changed my life for the better. You deserve to be celebrated every day."

Your eyes softened, and you leaned into his touch. "Anthony, you do celebrate me, in so many ways. Your love is more than enough."

"But it's not enough for me," he insisted. "I want to do more, to show you off to the world, to our family. They need to see how deeply I cherish you."

You laughed softly. "You have a romantic soul, Anthony Bridgerton. Very well, if it makes you happy, I shall allow you to spoil me."

Anthony grinned, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "It makes me very happy indeed."

True to his word, Anthony set about planning a series of events and gatherings where he could showcase his love for you.

He organized family picnics, soirées, and even a grand ball in your honor.

Each occasion was meticulously planned, with every detail reflecting his admiration for you.

At one such gathering, a garden party held at Aubrey Hall, the Bridgerton estate, Anthony outdid himself.

The gardens were transformed into a magical wonderland, with twinkling fairy lights and fragrant flowers adorning every corner.

Guests mingled and laughed, the air filled with the sounds of music and merriment.

As the sun began to set, Anthony took your hand and led you to the center of the garden, where a string quartet played a soft, romantic melody.

He held you close, swaying gently to the music.

"You've outdone yourself, Anthony," you whispered, your eyes shining with happiness. "This is beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you," he replied, his voice filled with love. "I wanted everyone to see what I see every day—the incredible woman who has stolen my heart."

You rested your head against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. "I love you. More than words can say."

"And I love you," he murmured, kissing the top of your head. "More than anything in this world."

As you danced under the stars, surrounded by family and friends, Anthony knew that he had succeeded in his mission.

He had shown everyone just how much you meant to him, and in doing so, he had strengthened the bond of your family even further.

In the days that followed, Anthony continued to find ways to express his love for you, both grand and small.

He would surprise you with handwritten love letters, leave your favorite flowers by your bedside, and steal moments alone with you whenever he could.

Each gesture, no matter how simple, was a testament to his unwavering devotion.

The Bridgerton family, too, embraced you with open arms. They admired Anthony's dedication and the way he openly cherished you.

It brought a new sense of warmth and unity to the gatherings, a reminder of the power of love and the importance of expressing it.

One evening, as you sat by the fireplace in your home, you turned to Anthony with a thoughtful expression.

"Do you know what I love most about you?" you asked.

Anthony raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "What is that?"

"Your heart," you said softly. "Your ability to love so deeply and to show that love so openly. It's a rare and beautiful thing."

He smiled, his heart swelling with pride. "And do you know what I love most about you?"

"What's that?" you asked, your eyes twinkling with curiosity.

"Everything," he replied, leaning in to kiss you. "Absolutely everything."

As you sat together, wrapped in each other's arms, Anthony knew that he had found his true soulmate in you.

You were his anchor, his confidante, and the love of his life.

And he was determined to spend every day showing you just how much you meant to him, letting the world see the depth of his affection.

[atopvisenyashill]

patterns of abuse with jaehaerys

this post made me deeply depressed and i reread f&b which was my first mistake.

tldr i’m making the argument that jaehaerys definitely sexually abused saera and alysanne, and likely viserra and gael, and also i hate this man. if you disagree and want to say so *nicely* that’s cool but if you hardcore love jae and don’t want to hear criticism, maybe just scroll past bc i’m not nice to him at all (obviously, i’m accusing him of csa lol).

breaking this down by each woman, so there’s 6 sections: saera, viserra, daella, gael, alysanne, and alicent.

saera targaryen

If she were the king’s firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and Daella…when does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.

that’s septon barth’s opinion on her and barth is always right. simply put, she’s a deeply neglected child who acts like a brat to get her parents attention because she’s learned the only way they’ll pay attention to her is if she’s causing a problem.

Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.

The king’s half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received.

stealing alcohol at 10 and being a committed alcoholic at 12 is not normal behavior. it is a sign of something deeply at wrong at home. also, the way she kind of, sexually humiliated tom, someone who is too “innocent” to even realize she’s sexually humiliating him…gives me the ick re: how she views sex.

Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saera’s sisters all misliked her to various degrees.

i don’t like this. nothing wrong with giving your child gifts (see ned going above and beyond to get arya not just instruction on how to fight but also a specific style that would gel with being smaller than your average opponent) but in conjunction with “jaehaerys ignores saera unless she’s pressing him for an expensive gift which he immediately gives her and alysanne doesn’t get why he caved so quickly” its an alarming dynamic.

also speaks to how isolated saera specifically was, that the only siblings that like her (aemon and baelon) are usually out and about, and there’s a clear wedge between saera and her sisters, even viserra.

The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saera’s notion, and what a funny girl she was.

again with sexually humiliating tom.

it continues with her friends. it’s not unusual for a 15 year old girl to want to fool around with other 15 year olds but alys and perri are all guilt ridden and upset and alys is with child. it reminds me a lot of cersei sexually abusing taena in affc. when she’s caught (now, mind you, she’s been marched in front of her parents sitting on the throne and not brought to them in their private rooms. she’s being treated right off the bat as if she’s guilty of a crime and not guilty of being a shitty teenager):

“She went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance in the space of an hour, with stops at giggling and weeping along the way,” Septon Barth would write. “She never did it, they were lying, it never happened, how could they believe that, it was just a game, it was just a jape, who said that, that was not how it happened, everyone likes kissing, she was sorry, Peri started it, it was such fun, no one was hurt, no one ever told her kissing was bad, Sweetberry had dared her, she was so ashamed, Baelon used to kiss Alyssa all the time, once she started she did not know how to stop, she was afraid of Stinger, the Mother Above had forgiven her, all the girls were doing it, the first time she was drunk, she had never wanted to, it was what men wanted, Maegelle said the gods forgave all sins, Jonah said he loved her, the gods had made her pretty, it was not her fault, she would be good from now on, it will be as if it never happened, she would marry Red Roy Connington, they had to forgive her, she would never kiss a man again or do any of those other things, it wasn’t her who was with child, she was their daughter, she was their little girl, she was a princess, if she were queen she would do as she liked, why wouldn’t they believe her, they never loved her, she hated them, they could whip her if they wanted but she would never be their slave. She took my breath away, this girl. There was never a mummer in all the land who gave such a performance, but by the end she was exhausted and afraid, and her mask slipped.”

What does Jaehaerys ask after all of this? “Have you given any of these boys your maidenhead?” Her response:

“True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”

Now mind you, Alyssa and Daella have both died of childbirth recently and her parents are mad she had sex as a 16 year old bordering on 17 year old, and not the fact that she like, at best peer pressured her besties into having sex and now one of them is pregnant. jaehaerys has only asked if she’s still a virgin.

“I will be married,” the princess said. “Why shouldn’t I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.”

i keep trying not to give my opinion and just lay it all out but the thing is i’d just be reposting the whole scene because it’s just filled with so much weird sex stuff. if you don’t remember it, go reread it. it doesn’t feel (to me) like regular “george is bad at writing sex” vibes but “george is purposefully trying to skeeve you out” vibes but i am willing to admit i could be wrong and he really just doesn’t understand what he wrote.

anyways remember how i said saera acts out to get attention from her parents? all she’s done here is act out, her “crimes” are basically nonexistent; beyond how alys feels about being pregnant, saera consensually had sex with boys around her age who aren’t married, and then blithely compared herself to some asshole relatives. if your teenager idolizes dick cheney that’s probably worrying but not a crime! this is not how jae treats it however.

When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, “Father, Father!” but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.

The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saera’s taunting words about his uncle’s wives. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said more than once. Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. “

saera tries to escape.

This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.

Princess Saera watched from the window of her cell. Jonquil Darke, her gaoler, made certain that she did not turn away.

that’s as her dad is murdering stinger btw. is he a creepy 19 year old? yeah. but like, making your 15 year old watch you murder her 19 year old trust fund baby stoner boyfriend sure is something.

so then they sent her to the silent sisters where she’s beaten all the time and has to pray all the time and she runs away, becomes a sex worker and literally never looks back.

The truth did not come out until a year later, when the former princess was seen in a Lysene pleasure garden, still clad as a novice. Queen Alysanne wept to hear it. “They have made our daughter into a whore,” she said. “She always was,” the king replied.

“You need her as a Dornishman needs a pit viper,” Jaehaerys said. “I am sorry. King’s Landing has sufficient whores. I do not wish to hear her name again.”

but before we move on, let’s look at one more related ick, when saera’s sons show up to the great council:

From Essos came three rival competitors, grandsons of King Jaehaerys through his daughter Saera, each sired by a different father. One was said to be the very image of his grandsire in his youth.

after her drinking, acting out, and jaehaerys’ focus on calling her a whore, explicitly pointing out that one of her grandsons looks just like jae is a choice. i know they’re super inbred. it’s still uncomfortable in context.

viserra targaryen

alysanne makes no sense here but i’m just gonna quickly explain instead of lay it out or we will be here all day bc viserra’s engagement is completely nonsensical. theomore manderly is old, ugly, has a shitton of heirs, and viserra clearly doesn’t want to marry him. also if she wanted to be queen, why is she going after baelon, aemon is still alive. anyways jaehaerys is no help here, then she goes to baelon for help, but she’s also super drunk.

Frustrated, Viserra next turned to her brother Baelon in hopes of rescue, if court gossip can be believed. Slipping past his guards into his bedchamber one night, she disrobed and waited for him, making free with the prince’s wine whilst she lingered. When Prince Baelon finally appeared, he found her drunk and naked in his bed and sent her on her way. The princess was so unsteady that she required the help of two maids and a knight of the Kingsguard to get her safely back to her own apartments.

she gets drunk with some friends again, goes riding, breaks her neck. i wanted to point out this pattern of drinking and acting out at a young age. as well as this pattern of targaryen daughters who aren’t “meant” for a brother and are promised to men who are old and with heirs

daella targaryen

i wanted to add daella because her getting married at 15 makes as little sense as viserra, and her match to a old man with several heirs is equally nonsensical. but also this:

“I would never marry her,” the boy said, in front of half the court. “She can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for that’s the only sort he will ever have of her.”

where did vaegon get that mouth.

Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.

Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. “She will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.”

The queen always rose to her defense. “Daella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.”

so daella is 12 at this point.

Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her wit’s end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegon’s Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the year’s end. “If she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,” he said. “I would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.”

i just don’t like this. other “simple” targs are not required to marry, like vaella and aelora, two of daeron ii’s grandfaughters so i don’t get why daella is pressured into marrying before she’s even of age. at least jae 2 forced rhaella and aerys because of a prophecy? what is jae’s reasoning for so sexualizing his daughter?

gael targaryen

this one is definitely a reach but i’d like to point out that this is basically all we know about gael:

Princess Gael, a sweet, shy child of seven, became the queen’s constant shadow and support, even sharing her bed at night.

and our information on how she dies is so shady:

A sweet-natured girl, but frail and somewhat simpleminded, she remained with the queen long after her other children had grown and gone, but in 99 AC she vanished from court, and soon afterward it was announced that she had died of a summer fever. Only after both her parents were gone did the true tale come out. Seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, the princess had given birth to a stillborn son, then, overwhelmed by grief, walked into the waters of Blackwater Bay and drowned.

how does gael get pregnant by a traveling singer when she never leaves her mother’s side? why doesn’t anyone in court know gael got pregnant and killed herself until after aly and jae both die and how was this even found out?

am i implying that jaehaerys sexually abused all four of his daughters? yes because he literally sexually abuses his own wife.

alysanne targaryen

“I am forty-two years old,” she told the king. “You must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.”

King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.” He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay.

he uses the birth that killed their mother and that is condemned by rhaena and alysanne as reckless and cruel of rogar to force on her. that birth.

at this point as well, he had abused saera and daella, then they’re gone, then viserra starts drinking and dies, then jae marital rapes aly into having gael, giving him access to another young girl to abuse…i’m aware this is a very uncharitable reading of him but…

alicent hightower (and kind of alyssa targaryen)

Ser Otto’s precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.

saera is the one he fixated on yet again but notable that he’s fixated on his daughters as he dies and not his sons, despite jaehaerys turning to drink after aemon died bc he was so upset.

He announced his intention to wed Lady Alicent of House Hightower, the clever and lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of the King’s Hand, the girl who had read to King Jaehaerys as he lay dying.

The Hightowers of Oldtown were an ancient and noble family, of impeccable lineage; there could be no possible objection to the king’s choice of bride. Even so, there were those who murmured that the Hand had risen above himself, that he had brought his daughter to court with this in mind. A few even cast doubt on Lady Alicent’s virtue, suggesting she had welcomed King Viserys into her bed even before Queen Aemma’s death. (These calumnies were never proved, though Mushroom repeats them in his Testimony and goes so far as to claim that reading was not the only service Lady Alicent performed for the Old King in his bedchamber.)

i know it’s just mushroom being a perv but a rumor that 15 year old alicent “serviced” jaehaerys existing besides rumors that he mistook 15 year old alicent for the daughter he last saw when she was 17 - and viserra was 15, gael 19, and daella 15, all around alicent’s age and all died before age 20. all the targaryen girls that weren’t born “for” a brother exit the narrative after some sort of sexual abuse that centers around jae, as teenagers; daenerys was born for aemon, alyssa for baelon, and maegelle for vaegon before they both fucked off and maegelle was too pious (and too old). this idea of being “for” a brother leads directly to alyssa’s death before 30:

“You were made for battles, and I was made for this. Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, that’s three. As soon as I am well, let’s make another. I want to give you twenty sons. An army of your own!” It was not to be. Alyssa Targaryen had a warrior’s heart in a woman’s body, and her strength failed her. She never fully recovered from Aegon’s birth, and died within the year at only four-and-twenty.

and alysanne being “for” jaehaerys is how he excusing sexually abusing her into a risky pregnancy. essentially what i fear is that because saera, daella, viserra, and gael aren’t “for” someone, jaehaerys gets it into his mind that that are for him. even without him raping them tho, that subtext is there! he is entitled to saera’s virginity and calls her a whore multiple times, even decades after she’s left, and murders her boyfriend in front of her. he claims a weird sexual ownership over his neurodivergent daughter daella and his alcoholic, depressed daughter viserra, and we get zero information on gael’s pregnancy or his reaction to it. but jaehaerys deciding his daughters are “for” him certainly has a basis in canon just judging from the erratic and worrying behavior of his younger daughters.

jaehaerys is a creep and i hate him and i don’t know how much of this is on purpose (like, will aegon vi or dany find out jaehaerys was a shady pedo and it shatters their world? will dunk and egg find it out and it affects their plot somehow? did george just put it in there to make a comment on power and monarchy and misogyny, similar to aegon iv raping the bracken women? or is just there for window dressing creepiness, like “i will pepper in the fact that jaehaerys is sexually obsessed with his daughters” thing?) or if george just made jaehaerys sexually obsessed with his daughters on accident?

on the one hand, it seems out of character for george. he romanticizes drogo thru dany’s eyes but it’s clear he’s meant to be seen as a creep (dany talking about being pregnant followed by “she had just turned 14” is sickeningly jarring for a reason) and also, drogo dies bc of his own pride. sansa doesn’t like any of the old dudes touching her; she is at least marginally freaked out by her wedding night, the unkiss, and lf & dontos taking liberties with her, and rightly. the story that’s told about the mountain raping a girl and making the father pay him is meant to disgust us. the walk of shame is a harrowing chapter to read, because whatever cersei’s crimes, this sexual humiliation is not something she deserves. on and on. yes, we all hate the way arya is sexualized in the mercy chapter, but crucially, she’s not blithely and happily seducing these pervs, she’s going hard candy on their asses. is this just messy set up for something like that?? i think, given how little dany knows about her family’s crimes that somehow learning jae sexually abused (and maybe even impregnated) his own daughters after she herself experiences sexual abuse would be huge. the same goes for aegon vi learning that sexual abuse runs rampant in his family tree; would he empathize with saera hiding out in essos to escape the sexual abuse of her father, see some of elia and his own plight in her? in gael?

or did george really just. not realize how sexually obsessed jaehaerys was with his daughters?

idk how to end this. where’s the winds of winter george i need answers.

[lilcriceta]

I've been going crazy with Collector AU (by @cutepotatook) lately and I made this babi :> I want to show her off a bit :>

My English is very bad so please don't criticize me if you find any wrong grammars or words ;v;

★ My baby is Collector! Astray. She is a 10 year old little girl :>

★ Her design is slightly based on Collector Y/n's design ;v;

★ Ngl when Astray has great affection or admiration for these two people :>

★ Anyway, Layra by @softlantern :>

★ About Astray's lore, she was born as a creation of God. From childhood, she was always pampered and cared for very carefully by them (God in A's universe has no defined gender). Because of that, she has a great love for her God and is very attached to them like a child would do to its mother.

★ Until one day, the God created new creations, took care of their new children and gradually spent less time with Astray. At first she didn't mind much, but gradually she had a hunch that God was probably spending too much time with her new siblings. One time she asked for a hug from the God, they ignored her, making her feel a bit sad. Even though she told herself that everything was okay, a part of her was harboring jealousy. Astray's jealousy grew stronger and stronger as she observed the children being lovingly cared for and cherished by the God, she could not hold back her jealousy.

★ When she couldn't stand it anymore, she committed a heinous crime. She lured another of her siblings to a secluded place, and with a weapon in hand, she used it to vent her anger brutally on that child. Whatever comes must come, Astray's crime was discovered by the God. They were angry and punished her by causing her body to be tormented in extreme pain, her soul to pieces, she lost all her memories, was banished to a terrible place and forgotten by everyone (the two pictures above are when Astray was banished to the terrible place called The Void Realm). The little girl was banished there with many bleeding wounds in the shape of sparkling stars shining on her body, she was completely exhausted.

★ The Void Realm where she was banished to was not a good place. It is a place where there is no sun, not a single ray of light, it can be said with certainty that nothing like that exists. The Void Realm is a space covered in pitch black (the whole sky is black, the surface is only black water). Due to her exhausted state, she was unconscious there for an unknown amount of time (but let's just say it was a long time). Luckily, she was found by Collector! Wally was in a state where her body was floating on the water. Then Collector took Astray home and let Helper! Wally takes care of her wounds while he tries to put the pieces of her soul back together. The two of them took care of the little girl until she woke up, letting her live in the Collector's mansion :>

★ This is just a silly little comic where the duo encounters someone who wants to harm the little girl :> The truth is that Astray falls asleep very easily when she is in someone's embrace, no matter how big or small the embrace is, she will still fall asleep. Collector and Helper often witness such things, but I think they will simply put her to bed😭😭😭

★ A small fun fact is that Collector often calls Astray by cute nicknames like: Little Dove ; My Angel ; Little one ;... when she got used to life here. As for Helper, he simply calls her by her real name ;v; As for Astray, she often calls Collector Mr. Collector and Mister (she is used to using honorifics, a habit when she used to live in heaven) and with Helper, she calls him Mister or Mr. Blueberry (she calls him exactly what she thinks of him :P)

★ Woof the family trope so much hmu- I think Collector, Helper and Astray fit the family of three, the warm and happi one🥹🥹🥹 (don't mind me, I'm being silli now😔😔😔)

[echo-stimmingrose]

“And where have you been?”

Will freezes, feet halfway in the door, eyes locked on his brothers in what only can be described as a deer in headlights look. The standoff lasts several seconds as Will debates whether to back out the way he came or get hit by the oncoming car. Like most deers when faced with a life or death situation, he remains put as his very brief time on this mortal plane flashes through his mind.

Illuminated under a singular lamp, like their about to perform an interrogation- dramatic fucks- is Micheal with quite possibly the most shit eating grin Will has ever seen; and Lee, who's expression alone tells him he's about the get the scolding of a life time.

“Helloooo, dear brothers!” Will cajoles, plastering on as bright a smile as humanly possible. “Don’t you two just look lovely this fine morning!”

“Where have you been?” Lee repeats, undeterred by Will's poor attempt at flattery.

“I was on a morning walk!” -not a complete lie- unfortunately, stupid Apollonian traits didn’t see it that way, his traitorous voice squeaking up several more octaves than necessary as he starts to cough. Thanks a lot dad.

Micheal only grins wider, “Nice try, we saw you leaving at eleven, Which means,” -He pauses to theatrically check his watch, despite the fact that he does not, and has never, owned a watch- “you’ve been gone a whole eight hours now!”

“You saw me leave? Wait- Have you two been sitting here all night waiting for me?”

“Not important-”

“What is important,” Lee cuts in, “Is what on Earth you could have been doing at such ungodly hours in the evening?”

“I wasn’t doing anything!” He insists with a whine high enough that all the dogs in New Jersey collectively howl.

“You we're out all night, William Andrew-” oof, Is the full name really necessary? “-No teenager who crawls out of a window, falling on his face as he does so, I might add-” Okay, rude. “-In the dead of night, is ever up to anything good”

He scolds him with a tone that could rival even his southern mama. Quite the impressive feat Will must admit (in his head of course, never out loud, Lee would like that too much). Truly he rues the day his older brother officially meets The Naomi Solace in person. Those forces are simply too powerful that if they joined it would throw off the balance of every ecosystem within a thirty mile radius. Two hawks sharing a territory while he is but a simple field mouse doomed forever under the gaze of the predators, with little places to run, always being caught. What crimes did he commit in a past life to deserve such a hellish tragedy?

Locked in another stalemate and desperate to escape the hole he's in, he takes the most logical option- not putting down the shovel of course- but scoffing at the pure audacity that they would be accusing him of the thing he very much did do.

“I am offended, at you implying that I of all people! Would be up to something heinous! I mean, ME!?!? I am a VERY good kid! I am very responsible! I am ALWAYS on time!!-”

“Can you even tell time?”

“I follow all the rules to a T!-”

“That's not even close to accurate”

“I am extremely respectful to my elders!-”

“Ha! That's funny.”

“I have never done anything against the law!-”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

The rest of the cabin starts to awaken to bear witness in what surely will be Will’s final days on this earth. None of them come to his aid of course, all finding the situation to be much to humorous. Even his patented puppy eyes fail at getting him any assistance in his battle with the all mighty tyrant that is Lee Fletcher.

He makes his way past his brothers and to his bed, doing his best to ignore them as they just swivel their chairs. Where the hell they even got those chairs he has no idea. He rips his flannel off, throwing it onto his bunk- he is nothing if not theatrical- and turns back around to continue arguing his case when the hushed snickers of his traitorous siblings increases to snorts and giggles. Micheal has all but fallen over in hysterics while Lee’s scowl has somehow deepened.

“What?”

“Rookie mistake, William,” Micheal says between guffaws, “Rookie mistake.”

He looks down to where his siblings are pointing and where should be, his neon camp shirt, is a black tee that reads ‘cabin thirteen’. “Shit.” he mumbles, cautiously looking up at his eldest brother who has a look so cross he could probably pass as a southern grandma who just got her finest china broken by roughhousing grandkids.

“I am going to have some words with that boy.” He announces, much to Will’s utter horror.

“Don’t you dare!”

“I will-”

“You are the actual worst!”

“That boy is a bad influence-”

“I hate you so much.”

“I think I will contact his sister too.”

“What the fu-.”

“Language, William.”

“Oh fuck you!” he exclaims before his brain can catch up to stop him from shooting himself in the foot and most likely condemning him to a lifetime of stable duty.

“Thats its, you are grounded, Young Man-” The tyrant declares, officially shackling him.

“What! You can’t do that!” He argues, pointlessly fighting against the chains.

“I absolutely can.”

“No-!”

“I want you back in the cabin by seven thirty each night for the foreseeable future.”

“SEVEN THIRTY!?!?” Will screams, “The campfire’s not even done by seven thirty!!!” He argues, flailing his arms as if that will help get his point across.

Lee nods, “Seven thirty.”

“I am not a child I don’t need a curfew!!”

“You are a child.”

“Are not! I’m fourteen!”

“A child.”

“UGHhhhhhhh!” He screeches, miming a crushing motion with his hands, hoping to explode Lee’s head via the force. It, unfortunately does not work.

He then decides to stand up and announce that it is breakfast time before casually leading the rest of the apollo campers out of the cabin as if he didn’t just ruin a poor innocent teens life.

“Well that was amusing,” Says his annoying younger sister, hanging back from the group, reveling way to much in his suffering.

“Shut up Kayla.”

She just grins, looking far to similar to Micheal for his liking. “I just can’t wait till he finds out about your tattoo.”

“Oh gods.”

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

So this is part of an au/verse I'm working on where basically everyone lives and they all get to be normal teens with semi normal teen problems. (It will probably end up being mostly cabin seven based cause they're my fav) It's not gonna be written in a specific order or anything probably just a bunch of one shots of things I think of. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions of prompts/story lines for this verse lmk.

Also Lee is supportive of Will and Nico's relationship he's just being an annoying older brother cause he can.

[pradabambie]

the roommate. rafe cameron x reader x felix catton. pt. 4

masterlist

as felix exited the bar, following your boyfriend's tall figure, memories of the past months living with you flooded his mind.

living in such close quarters had magnified the subtle dance of emotions.

he recalled the late-night talks, the way you would fiddle with the clasps of his bracelets or trace your fingers over the stars tattoo on his hand whenever you talked to him, and the way it secretly made his stomach flutter.

he remembered all the late night talks in the balcony, all the cigarettes you two shared while laying on the grass, the sunlight made you look heavenly, he always thought to himself.

all of the parties, the shared quiet laughs in class—these moments lingered in his mind, etched with an ache he couldn't quite name.

felix couldn’t deny the attraction he felt towards you.

he always found himself stealing glances when you changed in your shared room, unable to resist the pull of his eyes. the way your figure moved, the subtle curves, and the casual grace in your actions created an undeniable allure for him.

he had never felt this way about a girl, it was always about sex with them, but not with you.

not that he didn’t think about it, he did. some would argue he thought about it way too much, but he couldn’t help it. he simply had to have you.

but of course there was rafe, and you would never.

to be fair, you found yourself in a conflicting whirlwind of emotions when it came to felix.

despite your committed and loving relationship with rafe, there was an undeniable, magnetic attraction to felix that tugged at your thoughts.

you couldn’t deny the subtle flutters when felix was near, the way his wit and charm drew you in.

you struggled to admit, even to yourself, the undercurrent of feelings you had for felix. it was a silent acknowledgment, buried deep within, as you navigated the complexities of emotions.

the guilt lingered, but so did the unspoken attraction that added a layer of tension to all your interactions.

as felix opened the door, the chilly night air embraced him and rafe, as they stood outside the pub, the distant sounds of the party acting as a faint background melody.

rafe took a deep breath, trying to clear the tension that had built up inside him throughout the evening.

"so, rafe cameron, the infamous boyfriend," felix remarked, breaking the silence.

he leaned against the wall casually, his eyes studying rafe's reaction.

rafe shot him a sharp glance, unamused. "cut the act. i know exactly what you're doing."

felix raised an eyebrow, feigning innocence. "and what, my dear, might i be doing?"

rafe crossed his arms, a defensive stance. "you're trying to get under my skin, testing how much i can take."

he was used to this kind of thing. i mean come on, was this the first time another boy wanted you? of course no. he was used to all the dickheads in the island wanting to get his hands on you.

that’s why rafe made it his number one priority to make sure everyone knew you were his, and if he had to kick some pouge ass to do so, he was ok with it.

so let’s say he was not that threatened.

felix's playful demeanor softened, "look, i get it. you're protective, and that's cool with me. we’re just friends.” a hint of sadness breaking through. he wanted to be more than that, and he knew it.

rafe remained silent, his expression unreadable.

“just friends, huh?"

felix sighed, a wry smile on his face. "yeah, friends. and to answer your unspoken question, i know she's yours. i know." his stomach turned as he said the words.

rafe raised an eyebrow, a mix of surprise and suspicion in his eyes.

felix chuckled. "relax, mate. now, why don't you head back inside? i'm sure she's missing you."

rafe regarded felix for a moment, then turned to make his way back into the pub. as he disappeared inside, felix let out a soft sigh, watching him go, a tinge of sadness in his eyes.

later, back at the table, felix announced, "hey, everyone, i've got an early morning thing with ollie so i should get going. i'll crash at his place. give you two some space," he declared, flashing a smile in your direction, yet there was a subtle hint of longing in his eyes.

leaving you with rafe, felix felt a sense of loss. the special connection he cherished felt like it was slipping away, making him long for the times when it was just the two of you navigating the uncharted territories of friendship.

on the other side, rafe's expression shifted from annoyance to a subtle sense of triumph.

contradictory thoughts invaded your mind. why were you upset that felix was leaving? you had wanted a night with your boyfriend since you got here, but now… it was different.

“let’s go, princess” rafe got up and took your hand “i’m in the mood to show you how just how much i missed you” the boy said while smirking.

your mood switched, and you smiled back “okay rafey” maybe you just needed to be reminded of who you belonged to.

[cheekycatlady]

emily prentiss x reader pre-relationship: reader getting hurt in action and prentiss hovering after

୨୧ Emily prentiss x female|reader

୨୧ angst? Hurt? Idk!?

୨୧ Authors note | Please bare with me from this one I write a lot better than this I wrote this after a 9 hour shift at work and running on 3 hours of sleep 😭 I’m hoping to have a better one posted later this week! So please keep sending requests!!!

───────── ∙ ~εïз~ ∙ ─────────

It was a day like any other. Emily Prentiss and Y/N were working on a case together. They had been on the trail of a dangerous criminal for weeks. The day started with their usual banter, Emily attempting to lighten the mood with her dry wit while Y/N responded, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

They were in a warehouse, the air heavy with anticipation. Suddenly, the unsub appeared out of nowhere, his gun raised. In the split second, Y/N did the only thing she could think of - she threw herself in front of Emily, taking the bullet intended for her. The world seemed to slow down as Emily watched Y/N crumple to the ground.

"Y/N!" Emily cried out, rushing to her side. But before she could get to her, darkness claimed Y/N.

Upon regaining consciousness, Y/N found herself in a sterile hospital bed, the sharp, biting pain in her side serving as a brutal reminder of the harrowing events that had transpired. Emily was there, seated diligently by her bedside. Her face was a canvas of exhaustion, pale and drawn, the dark circles under her eyes a testament to countless sleepless hours since the incident.

With a hoarse voice, Y/N managed to utter, "Emily," which immediately drew Emily's attention. Her eyes lit up, a wave of relief washing over her as she realized Y/N was awake. "Y/N, thank God," Emily murmured, her fingers intertwining with Y/N's in a comforting grip. "You scared me."

Apologizing, Y/N reassured Emily, squeezing her hand gently. "I couldn't let him hurt you." Emily's eyes welled up with tears, the thought of losing Y/N too much to bear. Y/N, however, remained resilient, "But I wasn't. I'm here, Emily. I'm here."

And indeed, she was. After a few days of rigorous medical attention, Y/N was discharged from the hospital, armed with a list of instructions for rest and recovery. From that moment on, Emily was a constant presence by her side. Whether it was draping a warm blanket over Y/N, making a hot cup of tea, or simply offering a soft, comforting smile, Emily was always there, her care and concern evident in every gesture.

Emily's attentiveness, while endearing, was also slightly overbearing. "Emily, I'm fine," Y/N would laugh as Emily fluffed her pillows for the umpteenth time. Yet Emily, ever the worrier, would insist, "But are you comfortable? Do you need anything?" To which Y/N would always respond by pulling Emily in for a soft, reassuring kiss, "I have everything I need right here."

Their conversations in the calm, quiet moments were a balm to Y/N's recovering body and spirit. They spoke about their dreams, hopes, fears, and everything in between. It was during these moments of quiet intimacy that their love for each other shone the brightest.

Even though Y/N's ordeal had been terrifying, it had managed to bring them closer. Her bravery was a testament to the lengths they would go to protect each other. The harrowing experience had only forged their bond stronger, solidifying their commitment to each other.

As Y/N's recovery progressed, Emily remained a pillar of support. Her gentle smiles, her quiet strength, and her unwavering love were Y/N's constant companions throughout her healing process. And Y/N knew, with absolute certainty, that she would brave any storm if it meant safeguarding Emily. Because love, in its purest form, is selfless, enduring, and worth every risk.

[tiredfox64]

At your service

Prior notes: I’m such an indecisive bitch. So half way through writing this an earthquake hit so…y’all I’m so scared ;-;

Pairing: Rain(MK11) x Servant! afab reader

Warnings ‼️: NSFW, fingering, biting (ya freaks), pussy magic (that’s not really a warning but like you got it or something)

Being a servant to the Prince of Edenia should be a privilege, right?! While yes you get fed and you have a roof over your head, it can be a hassle.

He requires so much attention. He needs worship, and that could mean anything. More specifically, the servants really gotta put in the work. Kneeling before him, listening to his every request, having them praise him, and of course have his way with them.

Now you’ve gotten used to the sounds of ladies moaning at night and hearing in the morning how great he is in bed. But it doesn’t tempt you. You played it safe, only focusing on your work and nothing else. And you were an amazing servant. Great at cleaning, wonderful at prepping and cooking, you truly were a useful one. You thought all your efforts would go unnoticed. Oh how wrong you were.

Out of all the ladies, Rain had his eyes set on you for a while. Very hardworking and committed to duty. Well, when it didn’t involve pleasuring the prince at all. It almost infuriated him that someone is not falling for his charm. More like he never even had the chance to charm you. You always seemed out of reach. Even the other servants told him to stop wasting his time on you but we all know how stubborn of a man he is. No, Rain instead tried to keep an eyes on you from a distance. A distance where you could feel eyes on you yet never find who those pair of eyes belong to. Who would even be interested in watching you clean?

It’s like you were deliberately avoiding him. Every time he requested you, you sent another servant. The servants never complained but they would witness how upset Rain got. You have a job to do and you can’t let the prince himself slow you down. Except he can. He’s the prince. He made some demands that all would have to listen to.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

The guards alerted you that Rain requested, no, demanded for you. Before you could even say you’ll send another servant they repeated themselves. He is DEMANDING for you! They grabbed both your arms and dragged you to the throne room. You protested, questioning them on their rudeness and disrespect. They are just following orders. They hate to do this to you.

You fought but it was all in vain. You were thrown in front of the arrogant prince, forced to come face to face with him at last. And oh how adorable you looked to him. The way you looked up at him all nervous. Your hands clenched at the your uniform skirt to keep calm. You’re absolutely clueless about what this man wants. How ready he is to make this difficult for you.

“Finally, you’ve emerged from hiding,” He says it like the guards didn’t just drag you in, “It’s a shame I haven’t been able to see that cute face of yours so clearly. Tell me, why are you always being sneaky and hiding?”

You thought hard before answering as you were afraid of saying one wrong thing, “I’m sorry if I have upset you, my prince. I was simply just focused on my duties and I would hate to bother you.” You said politely.

Not good enough for him. But it was worth a try.

“You would hate to bother me? When I’m the one requesting you?” He said it so condescendingly that you knew there was no excuse for your actions. He makes it sound like you were disrespecting him by not listening. The last thing you need is to get on his bad side.

“I meant no harm. Please, is there anything I can do to make you happy and show my loyalty to you?” You’re making this too easy for him. That wicked smile Rain gave you left you with a bad feeling about this.

“Well since you’re so desperate to do so and I’ve seen how hard working you are, I think I have something in mind. Something that can be a reward for your hard work and can make your prince happy.” That arrogant tone let you know what he means.

“O-oh…I see. I guess I’ll be seeing you later tonight in your…chambers.” You struggled to get the words out.

“Why should we wait? I have all the time in the world to reward my most loyal servant. And she should have all the time in the universe to serve her prince well.”

There was no argument to be made. Rain would not wait for an answer. He grabbed your wrist and dragged you in the direction of his bedroom. You better hope all those servants right about him being great in bed cause you’re next. Though they seem pretty jealous of you now.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

You’re surprised that Rain was taking it slow with you, if you can call it that. He had you on his lap with your back against him. One hand was shoved into your underwear where two fingers were pumping into your pussy. His thumb pressed down on your clit and rubbed it lightly. His other hand kept your leg open since you kept trying to close them before. Your breathing was shaky and you shivered from his kisses on your neck. He dragged his tongue against the side of your neck just to get you to react more.

“I don’t understand why you would ever hide from me. Do you not find your prince to be charming? Were you afraid I’d capture your heart and you’d never want to leave me?” He actually believed that.

You struggled to answer, occupied with not moaning out loud. You wanted to snap your legs shut to prevent him from continuing but his hand had a tight grip on your thigh. It didn’t help the fact that your body acted on its own. You moved your hips in a way to hopefully get more out of it whether it be his fingers going deeper in your or his thumb pushing down on your clit more. As enjoyable as it was to see you struggle Rain felt like he should push this further. Plus, he was desperate to satisfy himself as well. He stopped and pulled his fingers out of you which made you whine in frustration. Don’t do that he’ll know you like it.

“There is no need to worry, I always take good care of my ladies. Now, be a good servant and undress.” He ordered.

And like the good servant you were you did just that. You got off his lap and started to strip down. Layer by layer you took more off till you were only in your underwear. Your head was down as you felt shame for doing this. You’re not innocent or anything you just don’t do one night stands. You deserve care and love. Don’t feel bad, Rain did say he will take good care of you.

You felt his chest press up against your backside, feeling his skin against yours. You could tell he took his clothes off as well. Rain’s hands roam around your body. Feeling your hips and squeezing them before wrapping his arms around your waist. He’s back to leaving kisses on your neck and shoulders.

“Are you ready to serve your prince? Get on the bed.” He said before placing a kiss on your cheek.

Well, time to get to it. You got on his bed where you felt the silk sheets beneath you. Rain was quick to get on top of you and look down at you. Those pretty lips, those gorgeous eyes, your luscious hair….your fantastic tits. He’s gonna have fun with you.

You took deep breaths as you prepared yourself for what was to come. You slipped the last of your dignity off, which is your underwear, and threw it to the side. Rain loved the sight of your soaking pussy. He spread your legs more just to see it, looking at it like it was the finest meal he’s even seen. His cock twitched from the excitement and the need to be in there. He pulled you closer that his cock rubbed up against your wet folds. The tip pressed up against you before being pushed in. You gasped as you felt every inch going inside you. You didn’t expect him to be so…big. Keep your mouth shut, you’ve already stroked his ego enough.

Oh but don’t think you’re the only one who is amazed here. Rain sure was surprised by how good you felt. So warm and tight, squeezing him so nicely. He even shivered a little from the feel of your pussy. You surprised him thought when you wrapped your arms around his neck. You were only doing that out of natural instincts. Bold move considering no other servant dared to touch Rain without his permission. He’s not complaining though.

He started thrusting into you. The sound of your moans drove him crazy. A vocal encouragement that he was doing fantastic. Your moans weren’t annoying to him which he never realized how bad the other servants sounded. You weren’t screaming like some bad porn but instead letting out these cute moans that brought some sort of primal urge in him. An urge to keep going and spill all his cum into you. A desire to keep you in his bed so you can always serve him whether that means pounding into you or holding you. Someone to return to.

Rain was lost in his own mind at this point but he was still going at it. Your legs wrapped around his waist like you never wanted him to leave you. Your nails were scrapping against his back as you tried your best to control yourself. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt such pleasures so it’s overwhelming to have Rain’s thick cock ramming into your pussy.

You brought him close to your body. Rain was in love with the feeling of your soft skin against him. Body to body as he went deeper into you. In that moment something told you to do something risky. Whatever powerful force was behind this decision would get you killed if it weren’t for the fact you were so into the moment and in need of a way to quiet yourself. You bit down on his shoulder. And what a reaction the prince gave. So surprised and turned on he thrusted roughly into you which made your eyelids flutter and your eyes roll back. Rain stopped for a moment to say something.

“Is that how you treat a god? My dear servant, it’s supposed to go the other way around.” He whispered in your ear before biting down on your shoulder.

You yelped before moaning loudly as he went back to fucking you. Since you want to mark him up he will do the same to you, except way more. He marked your neck with little love bites to show who you belong to. You are Rain’s servant. Loyal and hardworking. All his. His! His! His!

The passion of the moment was getting to him. You were about to cum soon. Your hands, so soft and delicate, took his face and made him look at you. You had no words to say you could barely catch a break in between moans. You were so close at this point and you brought the prince in for a kiss.

When you came it was like the heavens opened up and blessed you with new feelings in your body. Your kisses got rougher and your moans louder. Rain wasn’t a fool he knew he just made you cum hard. Your pussy was squeezing his cock to the point he was about to cum as well. A few more thrusts and soon his cum started filling your pussy. The kiss between you two was passionate and rough. After, the only sound left in the room was heavy breathing. You didn’t let Rain go at first, enjoying his body pressing against yours. But you knew he never lets servants stay in bed with him after he is done.

“Are you satisfied, my prince.” You asked so sweetly.

“Incredibly satisfied. You’ve served your prince well.”

“Should I get going then?”

What are you crazy? You think after that amazing experience Rain is just gonna let you walk away, if you even could. He won’t say it out loud but this has been the best experience he’s had in bed. So much passion and roughness. No one dared to touch him, kiss him, or even get rough with him. You’re a gem in his eyes and that’s rare.

“Like I’d let my pretty servant get away from me again. No, I would prefer if you’d stay.” He answered back before kissing you again.

This was a shock to you. Letting a mere servant like you stay in bed with him. And to kiss you back? Well you just felt like the most special person in this reality. And is that your heart beat going fast? And are your cheeks burning up? This is a confusing time but you will enjoy it to its fullest.

“As you wish, my prince.” You bit your lip to prevent yourself from smiling.

Rain can see though that you are quite giddy about this. He pulled out of you and laid next to you. He grabbed you and basically used your chest his pillow for the night. His muscular arms were wrapped around your waist so tight it’s like he was preventing you from escaping. Wow, Rain sure does like you now. You held him close to you with one of your hands rubbing his back. You’re making all the right moves by giving him attention. And after that amazing sex you two fell asleep quickly and both satisfied.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

The next morning sure was fun. Rain never let you go once! You woke up to him spooning you which restricted you from getting up for another whole hour. When he finally did decide it was time to get up that was another challenge. You stumbled out of his room with his goofy smile on your face. You looked high.

The other servants were shocked beyond belief. You stayed in his bed all night! Not only that but you left scratch marks and a bite mark on him. He sure showed them off with his outfit for the day. You had a good amount of marks on you as well. They asked how you even did that but all you could give them was a shrug. But you did have something to say.

“I think you guys were wrong about him being great in bed. Me personally, I think he’s fantastic in bed.” You walked away, still having that smile on your face. Rain was sure glad to hear that. He’ll have to reward you for praising him. Maybe tonight. And the next night. And the next night. And the next night…

After notes: 🍊👀 HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS KEEP GETTING INTO MY DEN! 👁️👁️ oh you’re back hello! Ah geez I’m sorry I posted this late in the day. I wanted to fix my raccoon tails (the hair thing). Then the minor earthquake happened which I had to think about for a bit cause we don’t get those. And then I struggled to stay awake. Great news my anxiety is gone cause I took Xanax. Bad news is I think it will make me sleepy for a while. Anyways I’m yapping. Well, I hope y’all can enjoy this one. You KNOW I love MK11 Rain that bitch. I’m sorry if it ain’t all that great. I will say I’m working on something for Havik. I’m not abandoning Rain but I do wanna mix it up a little. So enjoy and no earthquakes for anyone. Adiós!

[nikito0x]

RadioApple AU - Forget me not

I am too lazy to write a whole fic of it, but I can't get this plot bunny out of my head so here we go:

This is so AU it will never be canon (obviously) but it's ridiculous enough to be believable.

To start off: We all know the age old story of Lucifer's fall and the way he and Lilith got together. Right? Well forget all about it. In this AU it's all a lie. Let me explain.

The first humans to have ever been created were Alastor and Lilith. They were acquaintances and simply live peacefully in the Garden of Eden for a while. There is nothing romantic between them.

Lucifer gets assigned to watch over them and at some point witnesses Alastor interacting with some of his creations. So he decides to ask him about his opinion of them.

They start a conversation about Lucifer's other, weirder, creations. Some of which were rejected by the elder angels.

Alastor, as someone who gets easily bored, finds Lucifer's ideas amusing and intriguing. So they become friends, partially thanks to Alastor's pure fascination with Lucifer's mind, and partially thanks to Lucifer having finally found someone who would listen to his ideas and even like them. Not to mention add some of their own to his to create something even greater.

So they become friends. Lucifer starts visiting Alastor more and more often as time passes.

Alastor witnesses how Lucifer isn't exactly treated great by his siblings a lot of the time and tries to soothe the angel or distract him with a new invention that may never be allowed to be created, but would be fun to think about anyway.

Lucifer gets isolated from his siblings because of his "shortcomings" and at some point ends up in a situation where he has to ask for Alastor's help with preening his wings as no one else would.

Alastor notices Lucifer being uncomfortable and asks about it. Lucifer tries to deflect and ignore the problem but Alastor convinces him to trust him with whatever issue he has. And so - wing grooming happens.

Insert typical Wing Fic tropes here.

This becomes a regular occurrence.

Meanwhile Lilith is just chilling and exploring the garden. Nothing much to see here 👀

Michael is going to be sort of a villain in here.

Michael sees the bond forming between his brother and this inferior creature his father has created and disapproves of it. So he decides he will have to seperate them for the good of everybody.

Michael goes to Lilith and convinces her to help him with that task. Lilith would try talking to Alastor and Michael would talk to Lucifer.

Lilith is confused and uncertain about that. She tries asking questions but he rebuffs her and simply reassures her that it's all for the greater good.

In the end Lilith just asks something like: "What if I can't? What if I don't succeed?" And Michael implies that her existence is at stake if this doesn't work.

Remember: Alastor and Lilith are the first ever humans. They haven't eaten the fruit and know very little of the world, only what they've been told and found out for themselves. And since they have committed no sin yet, they are basically immortal as long as they don't injure themselves to a point of no return. And so they don't know pain like a regular human does.

Lilith becomes fearful of Michael's warning and tries explaining to Alastor the importance of not associating with Lucifer anymore. Alastor is confused and doesn't understand her worry, so he doesn't listen. Lucifer is too much fun for him to just abandon him like that. Besides, he's started to care some for the angel. He won't just do something without a good reason for it.

Alastor, in this sense, knows more than Lilith since he's been in contact with Lucifer (who's been explaining things to him) for a while now. Alastor would know more of the world than Lilith and wouldn't just make a rash decision to follow any order he is given like she does.

Michael also fails in convincing Lucifer that Alastor isn't worth his time. The conversation does rather the opposite of what he wanted, as Lucifer is reminded of all the things Michael and the other angels didn't do for him, that Alastor did in their stead.

Alastor and Lucifer talk about it and simply decide to ignore them and continue as they have.

At some point Michael gets frustrated and gives Lilith an ultimatum. Get this done by the end of the week or God will be informed.

"Remember, your existence might be at stake." And so Lilith panics.

Nearing the end of the week, Michael becomes impatient and introduces Lilith to something no human at that point has ever experienced. Pain.

He cuts her hand with an angelic weapon to prove to her what she could feel (if not a 100 times worse) if she doesn't comply. The cut is shallow, barely there and Michael heals it afterwards, but Lilith has never experienced such a horrible thing before. This was pain? And it can be a lot worse?? No, she has to separate Lucifer and Alastor at any cost.

Michael stays in the shadows and observes, satisfied.

Lilith, out of desperation, reaches the conclusion that it would be better for Alastor to get hurt than her, since he is the one who doesn't wish to listen to God's will. And so, in a frantic state of panic, Lilith attacks him.

She doesn't really know what would happen if she hits him hard enough with a rock or sth, since neither of them have ever truly witnessed death at that point; so she tries hurting him to show him the consequences of his actions if he doesn't listen to her.

Alastor ends up accidentally killing her in self defense. Alastor pushes Lilith away but as she rolls away from him she hits her head on a rock and dies that way.

Alastor explains everything to Lucifer and Lucifer goes to find Michael because this situation stinks of his interference.

God finds out about the situation and sends both Lilith and Alastor's souls to Hell.

Lilith starts hating Alastor and Lucifer from then on. So when she and Alastor meet in Hell, she screams at him that if he'd just listened to her, they wouldn't be in this situation. He tries reasoning with her, even as much as he's angry with her, but she just storms off away from him.

The first residents of Hell have been added.

Alastor still gets his deer like characteristics as he spent a lot of time in their presence at the Garden of Eden.

Meanwhile, Lucifer finds out where Alastor has ended up and tries to convince God to change his mind. He doesn't.

So he makes a plan. The new humans have been created. They're supposed to be better than the last ones. Lucifer tries to prove God wrong by getting Adam and Eve in trouble. He tries to prove that just sending every human who has made a mistake in Hell without a chance to redeem themselves gets you nowhere. But his plan doesn't work the way he wished, as Adam and Eve are turned mortal and Lucifer gets sent to Hell as well.

Michael is the last person Lucifer sees as he falls, wings cut off, betrayed and in pain.

Alastor finds him and helps him heal mentally and physically. They end up actually getting together there and they are the most disgustingly adorable couple ever.

They build Hell up and create Pentagram City. They're happy and the people of Hell respect them and appreciate their presence.

Lilith's POV meanwhile: she starts asking questions like: Okay but what if nothing bad would have happened if Lucifer and Alastor stayed together? What if Michael lied to me? Well, he could still have hurt me (for his own agenda) when I was alone, since Alastor spent all of his time with Lucifer. And I don't have anyone else. Well, if I have to be miserable and alone, then I'll make sure they are as well. And I'll take Hell for my own in the meantime.

So now she hates all three of them. Yes, she's a victim but she chooses to deal with the anger and grief she has in a toxic way.

Charlie will still exist in this universe, but for now, she'll be a creation of Lucifer's who somehow combines his and Alastor's energies, and uses whatever powers of creation he has as an angel, to create her.

Even with the depressing circumstances of only being able to see the worst of humanity, Lucifer doesn't fall into depression like in canon, not to that extent at the very least; Alastor an Charlie would be there for him after all.

He ends up ruling hell well, having Alastor's help doing so as he is the more politically savvy between the two of them.

( Spark of Redemption: After being cast down, Lucifer could create Charlie as a symbol of hope. Her creation could combine his angelic power with Alastor's understanding of humanity, creating a being with the potential for good even in Hell. Balancing Darkness: Charlie could be born as a counterpoint to the growing darkness in Hell. Her presence, filled with Lucifer and Alastor's love, could offer a glimmer of light for lost souls.)

( Showcasing the respect Hell's residents have for Lucifer and Alastor can be done through small details: demons seeking their counsel, celebrations held in their honor, or acts of loyalty in times of trouble.)

The Morningstar family is as wholesome as it can get in a place like Hell.

Shared Responsibilities: Charlie, with her inherent compassion, focuses on rehabilitation efforts in Hell, while Alastor manages the day-to-day operations and Lucifer acts as the final authority figure. They respect each other's strengths and work together for the good of Hell.

After a few decades in hell, Lilith disappears. No one knows where she went. She's gone for a long while until she pops up again, more powerful than ever.

In reality, Lilith made a deal with Roo. It is in Roo's interest that Lilith uses her concerts to spread sin and rebellion in order to turn Hell into a domain of evilness to fuel her power. Roo in return gifts Lilith power, she becomes strong enough to affect most with her voice and words, even someone as powerful as Lucifer himself.

No one but the two of them are aware of this deal being made. The deal was made some time after hell establishes a proper society with its own system.

Lilith decides to build her power, by making deals with other demons for their souls, her deal with Roo enhances those deals and gives her a larger boost than it would have given her otherwise.

Lilith decides it's time to enact her revenge.

She targets Alastor, knowing that without him, Lucifer will crumble under the pressure like what happened in canon with his depression. This would cause Hell to go in chaos once their powerful leader seems to have lost any care for the souls in his domain. This would spread sin and rebellion in Hell even further.

Lilith holds Charlie hostage as she makes a deal with Alastor for both Lucifer and Charlie's safety. She uses her voice/songs to brainwash them into forgetting Alastor's very existence. She does the same to the whole of hell.

Instead, she replaces Alastor with herself in those memories and convinces everyone that she's been the one by Lucifer's side all along. For the safety of his loved ones, Alastor signs away his soul to her. Lilith forbids him from approaching Lucifer, and from telling him anything about the truth of what actually happened between the three of them (Lilith, Lucifer and Alastor).

In the meantime Alastor's powers are severely restricted and he is not allowed to make deals for other demons' souls in an attempt to increase his strength.

Lilith goes to Heaven, making sure that Roo's plans for the yearly exterminations are going well and that her hidden seeds of sin in Heaven continue to grow. Lilith is strong but not strong enough to defeat Lucifer in battle. Replacing his memories of someone with another wasn't easy, but was simple enough to trick the mind to do.

She knows she can't convince him to give her his crown, not now anyway. She is convinced she would rule Hell eventually. As Roo's powers from the spread sin and chaos grow, so would hers - a nice gift from Roo to her, as she's doing such a fine job on their deal. Lilith disappears for seven years.

After all that Alastor tries his best to regain any power he can. He looks for loopholes in his deal with Lilith and realizes that Lilith didn't forbid him from approaching Charlie, so once he feels he can be of help to her in any way, he would approach her.

Lilith didn't forbid him all interaction with Lucifer. Lucifer can still approach him himself and they can talk about other things that don't include the contents of Alastor's deal.

Alastor also figures out that Lilith had made a deal with someone powerful, he doesn't know who, but he knows she can't have gained abilities strong enough to manipulate an angel from just deals for others' souls.

Alastor is convinced, however, that given time and some reminders Lucifer will be able to break through Lilith's deception, as he is still more powerful than she is. (he is right).

For now Alastor has a new goal: Get stronger and get noticed by the king of Hell somehow. That's how he becomes an overlord.

Once radio was brought in hell, he makes it a part of his brand (as it is in canon);

That's how he meets Vox. Here is why they don't get along in this AU. For one, Vox is a clout chaser while Alastor does radio mainly for himself and his own enjoyment; and other such character differences that get in the way of them being truly close.

Alastor one day approaches Vox with an idea: bring others' memories to the screens of their TVs. Vox loves the idea, he imagines he could make a whole lot of profit by exploiting sinners' longing for home by bringing their memories of Earth to their screens.

The project is going well and Alastor finally decides to share his reasons for coming up with such an idea. He tells Vox that someone he loves was attacked by another with the ability to erase his loved one's memory of him. And he wants that person to remember him again.

Vox becomes angry with Alastor, since he has a crush on the Radio Demon and doesn't want to help him reunite with his love. Vox puts an end to that project. Vox and Alastor fight and Alastor manages to win even with the restriction placed over his powers.

Alastor was really powerful before it. Even now, restricted, he will be above average in regards to power even compared to the other overlords.

After that Alastor disappears for 7 years - like in canon. Maybe he's looking for alternative ways to get more powerful. Maybe he finds out that cannibals have just that little bit more power to them than regular demons and joins them as he has nothing left to lose. Maybe he's looking for other demons with the power to affect the mind. Maybe he tries making deals for favors instead of souls. Maybe he gathers allies to fight alongside him against Lilith for the future. Idk.

Alastor uses his weakened powers to subtly manipulate events around the developing hotel, guiding Charlie's path with anonymous warnings or nudges to ensure her safety.

After he comes back, the events in canon from season 1 proceed to happen as they originally did. The only difference being that Alastor cares about the residents of the hotel more than in canon.

He sort of becomes "the dad" of the group, before Lucifer shows up.

Lucifer and Alastor still have their fight in "Hell's greatest dad" with their song. The difference is that Alastor has different motivations for being angry with Lucifer. He intentionally calls Lucifer a dud in their song, because he is angry with how neglectful he had become to Charlie in the 7 years he was gone.

Canon events happen as they originally did until the end of season 1. Alastor still makes a deal with Charlie for a favor. The difference is that this time he plans to use it in a situation like this- example: Charlie's loyalty to her friends might threaten her safety and Alastor plans to use his favor to make her run if needed.

Alastor uses his fight with Adam to test his strength and see if he has managed to get any stronger despite the restrictions he is under. He still loses that fight. Even if some of his strength was returned it isn't anything significant. Alastor learns to use whatever little powers he has as efficiently as possible. Low effort maximum efficiency.

After that first season Alastor and Lucifer start getting along better. Lucifer realizes Alastor was angry with him for his absence in Charlie's life even when he doesn't know where that anger stems from and resolves himself to be better for her in the future. He tells Alastor so and they forgive each other for whatever wrongs were inflicted. They still tease each other often, but that's just a part of their dynamic.

Eventually Lucifer will start getting dreams of things that look like memories but can't be because he doesn't remember ever having done those things with Alastor. He ignores the dreams, dismissing them as wishful thinking as he had started to view Alastor as a close friend after they forgave each other.

Lucifer slowly falls in love with Alastor, and those dreams continue to haunt him.

Alastor never fell out of love with Lucifer to begin with.

There will be a whole lotta angst in regards to Alastor. He will have to realize that during the time him and Lucifer were separated they have become different people entirely and he will have to let go of the past and maybe get used to Lucifer and him being friends because he doesn't know if they'll ever be anything more.

And with how much he's changed - becoming an overlord and a cannibal to boot, he doesn't know if Lucifer could ever accept him. Especially since at the time he just sees him as just another terrible sinner.

Alastor falls in love with that new version of his husband and Lucifer does the same.

Eventually Lucifer breaks through Lilith's enchantment and him and Alastor have a proper reunion. Lucifer will break the enchantment on Charlie soon after.

Alastor writes down what happened and explains why he made the deal with Lilith (he can't tell anyone anything, but he can write it down)

Lucifer will be able to get him out of it with some time.

Eventually they will fight and win against Heaven.

Maybe they'll cause a rebellion in Heaven by it's residents by using both Lucifer's angelic power and Alastor's radio show to broadcast the truth of their pure leaders. The ones that take pleasure in killing and hunting those who are already down.

Whew! Done! Finally! Whoop!

It turned out far longer than I thought it would but here you go ig.

[general-cyno]

ehh it's just me musing but. I do find it a little curious that (depending on who likes whom I guess) cora is usually either seen as some saintly flawless goofy figure or a brainwashed cop who got killed because he refused to try and save his brother. I do think his character is not exactly easy to pinpoint, considering he appears for a very short time and in a flashback nonetheless, plus the fact that he's dead means no further fleshing out of his character - broadly speaking - outside of the people who knew him and are willing to provide insight on what he was like, though that'd still be kinda biased.

however I believe there's actually a bunch of things that were straight up shown and some that can be pieced together from what little panel/screen time he had: ie how he's seemingly more bad tempered, impulsive and violent than he's portrayed as in fanon at times, albeit motivated by his own priorities at the moment (trying to kick the shit out of law to stop him from exposing cora to doflamingo) + his sense of what's right and wrong and to whom it applies (punching medical staff and setting hospitals on fire for mistreating law, whom he'd been trying to help).

specifically about the navy and doflamingo part... it irks me a little, tbh. partly because it removes what little agency cora had during the flashbacks and sort of waters down his motivation to stop his brother. it's not just whatever crimes doflamingo was committing or planning to back then and the navy wanting to put a stop to that - the thing is that cora was influenced, at least to an extent, to oppose doflamingo based on their childhood experiences with (ofc) the more negative ones, which include doffy murdering their father right in front of him, overshadowing anything else. as he tells law, cora can't fathom how their kind parents could've borne someone as evil as his brother. and yet. that's the other thing. cora was very much a child, and younger than doflamingo at that, when the elder DQs chose to leave marijoa and all that it entailed after. between all the traumatic events he lived through and later being raised by a marine (sengoku of all people), I'll be the first to say his perception of those events, of their parents and doffy himself is not really the most unbiased or reliable. we don't see him questioning the existence of celestial dragons (beyond warning law he's in danger when cora finds out about the D) nor the nature of the WG/the marines and the antagonistic role they play in OP's universe. we didn't have him long enough for those things to be put to question deeply anyway, especially not wrt to doflamingo, so imo it makes sense that his focus wasn't on "saving" but stopping him.

that said... he does witness the worst of it, kind of. through law. law is the very reason why I don't agree with the idea of cora being simply a brainwashed cop. this guy watched how people (those who should care) mistreated, dehumanized and demonized a sick child over prejudices caused by the lies the nobles and WG itself relied on to sweep their own corruption under the rug. he saw first hand how all those doctors ran to call the WG to kill the child and how they answered to do that. and what did he do? he lied and betrayed the organization he'd been part of (presumably for more than the years he spent undercover) and the man who'd raised him like a son just to save the kid that everyone, even the so called justice, had turned his back on and would've gotten rid of if given the chance. heck, when he first brought up the topic of law with sengoku, the man basically told him not to favor him too much for it could jeopardize his mission.

but perhaps the biggest proof is that he lied to law about being a marine when the latter directly asked if cora was one. as he later admits, cora lied to him about this because he didn't want law to hate him - and knowing all law lived through (flevance), seeing some of it himself (their hospital shenanigans) and what law told him as well, cora knew he had plenty of understandable and justified reasons to hate anyone ever slightly associated with the marines or the WG, including cora. to me, someone who's completely blinded by the navy/WG propaganda and follows their every order to the letter without thought wouldn't have denied his own affiliation nor been so determined to ditch being a marine and make an enemy out of those institutions (even if that also meant betraying his father figure) just to save, protect and do right by a child who'd been clearly failed by them. at no point did cora ever try to argue that Not All Marines, much less express any other sentiments of that sort to law.

on a similar vein, despite insisting doflamingo was evil and an agent of destruction - law is also the proof cora was somewhat aware that his brother (and people like doflamingo) normally don't pop out of nowhere and do Terrible Things just because. that maybe in other (better) circumstances, doffy might've become someone different and/or made different choices. after all, cora is the one who points out the similarities between doflamingo and law, and eventually does his best to turn law's life around so that he won't follow the same path. should he have tried to save doflamingo as well? when? how? would it have worked? who knows. and if you ask me, regardless of their similarities at that moment in time, doffy was already a grown ass man compared to law and cora himself was just an even younger kid when shit hit the fan in their childhood. I'm not sure doflamingo (as an adult) would've been particularly receptive of "help" either, considering his disdain for the kindness in cora and their father that he saw as a weakness. not to mention waaay too many other factors that come into play also (trebol and co's grooming and influence for example). still, one of them did pull the literal trigger in the end and it wasn't cora, so there's that.

all in all, for a character with such a short lived amount of time in the story - cora is quite the complex one and so very compelling. characterizing him as just strictly one thing or the other can be a little reductive but the fact that his character can be explored beyond that in the first place (once more, despite his lil bit of alive and onscreen moments) is what's fun and says a lot about the writing itself.

[biggest-geo-oogami-enjoyer]

hello >_<!! Since this account made me obsessed with Geo i found the courage to ask a request :3 (imsorryifit'snotcomfortableforyou😭)

Geo x Clumsy GN!reader (like, falling into the thinks you would least expect, so me frfr)

Bumblerbee (Geo x Clumsy! MC/Reader)

First and foremost, welcome to the Geo cult appreciation blog, Anon. Secondly, do not be shy to ask me whatever request you desire, I'm happy to be getting anything, and the fact you entrust me with this is an honorary privilege in itself. ❤️ φ(*⌒▽⌒)ﾉ

Anyway! I hope you enjoy Anon! d=(´▽｀)=b

- Signed by biggest-geo-oogami-enjoyer

Bumbler: someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------

Geo was mildly concerned when you fell down the stairs. Then you smacked into a pole. Then you tripped on a branch.

All in the span of 13 fucking minutes.

It was honestly mildly respectable, how often one can simply bumble, trip and tumble around like you did.

You always seemed to be elsewhere mentally, not focused on your surroundings, or daydreaming away in that gorge- pretty head of yours.

People often made fun of you for it, labelling you as the school's klutz.

Unfortunately, said people who targeted you were also the same girls who liked to pick on Brittney; so when she and Crowe made you the groups' newest appendage (due to the fact Brit felt protective over you), he then began to bear witness to your marvellous collapses every time he saw you at lunch.

He expected you to cry when he first saw you fell, scraping the skin off your shins, but you instead winced and seemed to take in the fact you were an existing, living being; and you'd try to not slip away into your thoughts again.

He decided after a while that your mettle for falling must be sturdy, if you don't simply learn to pay attention to your immediate vicinity after each time it happened.

Eventually you and him held a conversation, and he acknowledged that you were...surprisingly capable.

You were intelligent, witty and even mildly attractive.

And you didn't make him want to commit arson everytime he saw you, so he grew accustomed to your existence.

Then he started enjoying it. A bit too much.

The amount of times you're either reading or otherwise preoccupied and on the verge on slipping, bumping, or falling into/onto something is astonishing.

So he eventually pulls you aside and bluntly tells you to pay attention to your surroundings, lest you one day get hurt. "You're an idiot. What happens if you bludgeon your head in? Get a concussion?" "Ohoho! Is Geo worried about my safety?" "No. I am simply tired of watching you make a circus out of yourself." "So you do care!" "I do not." "Liar, why did you pull me aside then?" "Shut up."

Anyway, he decides if you won't take care of yourself, he's gonna supervise you.

Then he notices the little skips in your step, the faraway glances you give at the sky when you deem it pretty (which is fucking always, to his dismay).

That's when you got stung by a bee.

And also when he started referring to you as a bumblerbee.

His bumblerbee.

People were obviously discombobulated at the fact he was essentially tailing you everywhere you went, but all he had to do was gift them the most malicious side-eye he would conjure.

(Geo would side-eye so hard though holy shit).

If you were distracted, he would make you tell him about your day, desiring for you to start rambling to him so he can take notes find out more about this clumsy bumblerbee that he's invested in.

Eventually your charm gets to him. He starts becoming more and more fond of you (pff, as if he wasn't already).

He now basically is always ready to firmly stop you from falling/bumping into something.

Until he realises you also get pushed down stairs for shits and giggles.

And these people already harmed Brittney, so obviously he already knows their addresses, credit card numbers and their workplaces.

If they end up temporarily disappearing/hospitalised, he had nothing to do with it.

And Geo has no reason to lie, now does he?

(Don't answer that).

Likes to watch you read, or better yet, tell him about your thoughts, he wants to know every single little detail about you what you like, dislike, want to set on fire, etc.

Acts nonchalant, but is secretly trying not to melt into a puddle.

His desire to protect you from other worthless people (and inanimate objects) is inhumanely strong. Expect him to start showing it more often as the months go by.

Asks you out when you give him a potted plant. He didn't even realise he did, he was too excited.

(You said yes. Obviously. I mean, you don't have a choice; but do you care? No! You love him too).

Will probably accidentally call you bumblebee at some point (you never let him live it down, dw). Geo really likes making sure you don't trip, after all, it means he can be close to you for as long as he wants. Which is forever. And you're more than happy with that.

[caltropspress]

Earl Sweatshirt: A Geography of Grief and Growth

I made myself the poet of the world. The white man had found a poetry in which there was nothing poetic….I had soon to change my tune.

—Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

I suggest that we do not necessarily need to hear and know what is stated in its entirety, that we do not need to “master” or conquer the narrative as a whole, that we may know in fragments.

—bell hooks, “Teaching New Worlds/New Words” (1994)

Breakin’ ’em down to micro-fragments.

—Saafir, “Battle Drill” (1994)

What is asked of me is not to ascend but to descend.

—Robert Bly (1990)

1.

Earl Sweatshirt’s arc, swerving and dervishy, isn’t difficult to see, as we’ve witnessed it with him—we’re either interlocutors or interlopers, both with questionable motives. So when Earl looks back on school daze, as he does on “OD,” we look back with him (though ours is often an imperial gaze [HOW COULD IT NOT BE?]). We tee-hee and titter as we hear that “somebody tooted in the student commons,” tooted being the most puerile word for gas he could have chosen. An array of scatological options were ignored. It’s a deliberate gesture toward juvenilia. He doesn’t want his expression to be too mature, ha. He wants to welcome you to the romper room, ha. Remaining a kid until the moment he expires, apparently. So he sets the adolescent scene: the student commons. “The bell rang,” and the accused student was spared the prolonged opprobrium. In about four seconds, the student will begin to post. He “went home and argued in the comments,” channeling his embarrassment elsewhere, talking shit (shit) on the internet behind the safety and quasi-anonymity of a screen—an odd facade. He can walk right up to your avi and diss you. That’s his philosophy. The public humiliation replaced with a private self-possession. The discomfort of the crowd exchanged for the solace of solitude.

2.  DID AN ANGEL SPEAK?

The sonics of “tooted” and “student” are twee, giggle-inducing. We laugh along with the concatenation of m and n phonemes [somebody | student | commons | rang | went | home | then | in | comments]. The near-homophonous commons and comments scan hysterical. With “OD,” it’s easy to confuse adolescence with adulthood. That “somebody” committed this social transgression seems defensive. Maybe it was him—the subject, Earl, Thebe—seeing as how the rest of the song is delivered in the first-person. Embrace the Age of Immaturity. Channel the Fat Boys: Darren Robinson’s flatulent beatbox. Place it beside the disorderly lyrics that Bobbito spits: “I write my own shit from finish to start, / Diminish the heart, / I eat a knish and then I fart.” Like the Cenobites, Earl kicks a dope verse, and only that. “I keep my sentences short,” he says on “EAST.” Beauty is brevity, brevity beauty. A “brevity pack,” as Earl has referred to the Feet of Clay songs. He strives to be live ’cause he got no choice. He runs his own business like James Joyce. In A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, a similar flatus incident unravels. At Clongowes Wood College (Stephen Dedalus’s Coral Reef Academy), a “stout student who stood below…on the steps” by the name of Goggins “farted briefly.” Sonically, the sentence shares much with Earl’s opening line. Dixon asks, in a “soft voice,” “Did an angel speak?” But the others react with bellicosity and name-calling (stinkpot; flamingest dirty devil). Goggins doesn’t retreat home; he simply asks, “It did no one any harm, did it?” You still bet that you can harm me, but you don’t alarm me, Goggins might say another way, reprising Del the Funky Homosapien, echoplexing Masta Ace. 

3. 

Earl “watched the doppler move,” the wavelength shift—the siren song of the “toot,” something insidious—or maybe it’s just the tremors we’re feeling. Woop, woop: that’s the sound of the beast, KRS would say. The frequency shivers. The shift, the movéd doppler, means Earl is immediately older, he’s the child who “get[s] introduced to violence,” even if he acknowledges the line was inspired by his nephew on a playground in South Africa, experiencing apartheid reincarnate as a whiteboy cuts him in line for the slide. Cranly, bullying Goggins, “shove[s] him violently down the steps.” The doppler moves. It slides into violence—like the violence visited upon the MOVE compound located at 6221 Osage Avenue in Philly in 1985. Gradations of black/white. ELUCID mentions the “gray on [his] face showing age” on his Osage (2016) project. Isn’t it strange—how the youngins can turn cold, hoarfrosty, in an instant? The grayscale cover to ELUCID’s tape is graced by a photograph of Birdie Africa, the sole child survivor of the siege. The bone fragments of the MOVE children have since been used in anthropology courses at UPenn and Princeton—case studies. It’s a good trope. Fascinating stuff.

4.  TRYIN’ TO TRANSFORM YOU BOYS TO MEN LIKE DAYCARE

When JuJu of the Beatnuts asked, You want pain?, he wasn’t referencing the dramatical-traumatical pain Earl negotiates—JuJu’s question posed a ruffneck and ruffian pain on “Watch Out Now.” Somewhere closer to Marcy, where Jay-Z’s streets was watching. Earl clocks minutes, anaphoric with what he watches (I watched the doppler… / I watched a child…), much like Dylan’s portentous hard rain in which he saw endless racialized visions: “I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it”; “I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’”; “I saw a white ladder all covered with water.” For Earl, the ladder is a slide. The saw is watched. Witnesses all.

5.

In “Theory as Liberatory Practice,” bell hooks writes that she “came to theory because [she] was hurting”: “I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing.” hooks says that she “came to theory young, when [she] was still a child,” citing Terry Eagleton who argues that “[c]hildren make the best theorists.” Children, Eagleton insists, possess “a wondering estrangement.” No wonder, then, that “since a jit” Earl has found no use in “giving up.” He rather make it make sense. 

6.

I beat you to the point. Having gained experience, there’s nothing you can tell Earl that he doesn’t already know, that he hasn’t already seen. He’s seen enough, had enough. He doesn’t await the mob’s pursuit; he places the noose on himself, he RE: DEFines it within his own lexicon. His noose, therefore, “is golden.” He’s a young youth, rockin’ the gold [noose], DEATHWORLD goose. He speaks with criminal slang, with a split tongue like ELUCID. Where ELUCID was “true and living, actual—no dull axes, owner of all heads,” Earl is “true and living, lonesome,” with no skulls to keep him company. He has to square up with the “pugilistic moments” on his own. 

7.  I AM OLDER THAN I ONCE WAS AND YOUNGER THAN I’LL BE

I’m thinking of “The Pugilist at Rest” (1991) by Thom Jones, whose epileptic protag describes a “grainy black-and-white photograph” of the bronze statue called The Pugilist at Rest. The pugilist, with a pocketful of mumbles, has “slanted, drooping brows that bespeak torn nerves” and a forehead “piled with scar tissue.” Torn nerves and scar tissue—sounds like the physical manifestations of grief. And, yes, Earl has grieved, and he continues to grieve—as listeners, we’re accustomed to his grief pedigree, as per Ka. In the past, Earl was “panicking a lot”—he just “want[ed] [his] time and [his] mind intact.” That’s a cold fact.

The narrator of “The Pugilist at Rest” readies himself for a cingulotomy—a psychosurgical procedure that will “cauterize a small spot in a nerve bundle in [his] brain.” In other words, he wants to keep his mind intact. The neurosurgeon promises the operation will lift “the heaviness of a heart blackened by sin,” which is what convinces the narrator to agree to it. Good grief, he thinks, he’s been reaping what he sowed. He “can’t go on like this,” barely living “with a deadening sense of languor,” a phrase which calls to mind Earl’s lethargic, slugabed flow. Feeling insane in the membrane, like he’s a Soul Assassinated, exploring the depths beneath his whooligan behaviors. 376 was a brothel. “Good and evil are only illusions,” Jones writes. In anticipation of the surgery, the protag considers the worst-case [so what, so what] scenario: “If they fuck up the operation, I hope I get to keep my dogs somehow.”

8.  MOURNING & MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLIA

Grief carries its own antidote along with it.

—Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

“Grief is the door to feeling,” Robert Bly says. But Earl, on “Grief,” told us he “ain’t been outside in a minute”—and that minute, whether we’re speaking with criminal slang like Nas on “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” or not, is an eternity. Earl hadn’t crossed that threshold, hadn’t kicked in that door. MIKE would realize it much later on “No Curse Lifted (rivers of love),” how you “had to walk through the grief,” even if it “was the worst feeling.” In 2015, though, Earl found these passageways distorted. Like the undulating photograph on the cover of his first mixtape. Like the blur-obscured selfie on the cover of Some Rap Songs. Like the static-scrambled cover of I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside. Earl’s dealt in fragmentary confuzzled noise for a full career. He’s been standing on the corner, red burnt, moving down alien lanes paved by GBV, greenthinking to himself. It ain’t hard to tell that Earl “don’t act hard” and yet is a “hard act to follow.” The density or opacity of his exterior notwithstanding, grief don’t come easy. “As men,” Bly says, “we’re taught not to feel pain and grief as children.” So Earl spits somnolent, numb-tongued and slack-jawed. Like he said on “Cold Summers”: muffle my pain and muzzle my brain up. 

“I’ve been alone in my shit for the longest,” he spit on “Grief,” and in work as recent as “Vin Skully,” he’s still figuring out “how to stay afloat in a bottomless pit.” Bly says that “we receive something from our father by standing close to him—something moves over that can’t be described in material terms.” Bly speaks of being in a “conspiracy with his mother” from early on. Earl finds himself “thinking ’bout [his] grandmama” while he wallows and lies in a bottle. “Grief” catalogs all the things his mama taught him. Earl’s work, of late, is autodestructive. He peels away and pastes back haphazardly. He vibes with this Bly shit: “If you can deny something so fundamental as grief in the whole family, you can deny anything. And then how can you write poetry if you’re involved in that much denial?”

Bly goes on to quote Alice Miller, the psychoanalyst who gave us The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979): “When you were young, you needed something you did not receive, and you will never receive it. And the proper attitude is mourning.” Mourning is the proper attitude, not blame—mourning. Mourning makes its way through moaning and mumbling—Earl’s current intonation. On “Grief,” he “cut the grass off the surface [and] pray[s] the lawnmower blade catch the back of a serpent.” Philip Larkin’s poem “The Mower” (1979) leans more literal: “The mower stalled, twice; I found / A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, / Killed. It had been in the long grass.” Larkin’s speaker genuflects before the innocent critter, recalling how he “fed it, once.” Now, he mourns how he has “mauled its unobtrusive world, / Unmendably. Burial was no help.” Earl, of course, is less forgiving of the serpents in the grass. They’re threats, not friends. Still, a void opens up when the mower—(and let’s not forget the lawnmower is a modernized scythe)—does its mowing. Grief is the door to feeling, and on the other side:

Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

9.  NOBODY KNOW WHO MADE THIS WELL, FOR IT WAS HERE WHEN I WAS BORN

“Come get to know me at my innermost…”

Riveting, Earl raps. Earl raps are riveting. We fix to the flow—riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s. We’re invited to know Earl, to become familiar, and his “innermost” is a constant vacillation between optimism and [afro]pessimism. The sudden switches—these switches on bitches like fixed with hydraulics—establish what Danny Schwartz, writing for Rolling Stone, called an “uneven terrain.”

Earl’s “family business [is] anguished,” and that’s recognizable. We’ve known Earl (on “Chum”) with the “pendulum swinging slow” and low. He holed up, hostage-like, in his “heart’s bottomless pit.” Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842) brand of captivity. “I was sick,” that narrator says, “—sick unto death with that long agony.” Something tells me there should be an exclamation point there (SICK!). Earl Sweatshirt was down, down, down. “I was in the fucking pits for like 10 months post my pops dying,” he said in an interview. The Spanish Inquisition ain’t shit.

But for these countless downs, “OD” tracks the ups like naloxone in the nasal membrane. “Now I need atonement,” Earl notes—he makes a case for reparations. He “sets the goal[s]” like some motivational speaker. If “half [his] wings is broken,” he can “spread the other for [his] brodie OD.” Somewhat circumspect as he’s “tiptoeing,” yet the approach is laden with “too much love.” Even when his “sister showed in a rut,” he’s joining arms with her and “getting over, sending up.” That rut she walks—like Eudora Welty’s worn path (1941)—is a path through the pinewoods, and she’s suddenly Phoenix Jackson. “She was very old and small,” Welty writes, and she moves “with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock.” Even with her pentium processing and pendulum low, she swings back up—the rise of her namesake. She screams phoenix, her feathers and flames are one skin. “Living in the moment,” Earl raps, and his craft is bars. “You been corrupt”—and, sure, who hasn’t?—but you recover with “some ginabot.” Welty’s Old Phoenix surveys a spring “silently flowing through a hollow log.” She bends and drinks and says, “Sweet gum makes the water sweet.” It’s the equivalent to Earl putting “shilajit in his sippy cup,” which is “healing cuts revealingly.” And, yes, from a “sippy cup,” so we’re back to toddling around again (“Since a jit,” he says). “I can’t give enough,” Earl raps, his last winding-sheet made of nard and myrrh. 

10.

We crouch and teeter, caterwauling along the ledges, for we’ve got these clumsy feet of clay. This is the intended effect[/defect]; this is the rubble of what Earl calls the “crumbling empire.” This is us feeling the violent vibes of the “death throes” he speaks of. Why would we expect anything to resemble traditional song or rhyme structure when the earth quakes, civilization trembles, and Earl’s dungeon shakes? His chains have fallen off. The tenor is tremors. He’s living the trife life—hell on earth—but still living. Earl’s done trying to not look down—he embraces an outer appearance which scans dour; he deliberately gazes into the pit, inviting the vertigo, for it “haunts the whole of existence,” as Fanon says. But Frank B. Wilderson III promises a “vengeance of vertigo.”

11.

Gallons of rubbing alcohol flow through the strip, and Earl’s lips. He’s “refilling the pump”—his heart, yeah—but with a sawed-off shotgun, hand-on-the-pump posture. There’s “no concealing it,” not even with a concealed carry permit. He brandishes right back at “the enemy up in arms bearing snubs.” The mood swings; been down so long it looks like up to him. The turns require tourniquets. This is some Battle of Dak To torture—somewhere between Retaliation and the Heavenly Divine. Emotional turmoil seems violent by design, and Earl’s “memory [is] really leaking blood.” Fear not, the blood is “congealing, stuck.” Like Havoc says, “The Mobb rollin’ thicker.” Prodigy cites it, too: “This ain’t rap—it’s bloodsport.” But Earl has known that all along—he’s been “mobbin’ deep as ’96 Havoc and Prodigy did” since 2013.

12.

HipHopDX’s Kevin Cortez referred to listeners having to “sift through the muddle” in order to appreciate the bars, but where muddle suggests a disorderly conduct, a kaos network, Earl’s style, more appropriately, models. The woozy, wavy, and inner-conflict-war-torn vocals model an abstraction that anticipates the listener’s loyalty. This is what I’ve got, brief and cryptic as the gesture may be, the model says. Writing for NME, Dhruva Balram described Earl’s lyrics as “slurred,” but slurry is the form.

13.

If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression, its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side…

—Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (2005)

So if we’re giving ourselves over to the woozes and waves, we’ll just as well find ourselves lost. Let’s go—like those tourist books run by students—and let’s wander eastward. Follow our napkin-scrawled directions and disorientations to a somewhere elsewhere. Let’s go east for a second, for a spell, on a lark, in the dark (word to AKAI SOLO). Earl’s bloodwork contains “pieces of slums”—or more aptly, [sLUms]. He’s hand-to-hand with that Jungle Boy MIKE, but also the god Mike Davis. “[T]he cities of the future,” Davis wrote, would be “constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood.” Just the same as an Earl Sweatshirt verse is built—under the tutelage and overstanding-sharing, symbiotically, with MIKE. Davis says our cities aren’t “cities of light soaring toward heaven,” but a world that “squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.” Smells like somebody tooted in the student commons. Smells like a slum village, something we’ve smelled before—possibly coming straight from the slums of Shaolin. 

14.  ACID EASTERNS

Earl trekked to the East and squinted into “one beacon in the dust weaving”—like Clint Eastwood arriving out of the hazy horizon ether of High Plains Drifter (1973). But Earl is heading to the East, blackwards. And though Brother J claimed you can’t define what’s direct from the East, Jeru told us on The Sun Rises in the East that you can’t stop the prophet either. So on “EAST,” Earl traverses a tricky terrain—it’s tricky, tricky, tricky because it’s an acid western landscape: an acid eastern.

The path isn’t direct or linear—it zigs and zags like rolling papers, and stimulates the same. “Double back when you got it made,” Earl says at the start of his journey “EAST.” The objective is to talk sense condensed into the form of a poem like Special Ed once did on “I Got It Made.” Instead, Earl’s poems—his L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poems—skew [non]sense, go form[less], and vaporize rather than condense. Lyn Hejinian in cinnamon Timbs: “constant change figures / the time we sense.” The narrative is hallucinogenic (note: “how the story careen against the bars”). Earl’s bindle contains “thirty racks and weed [with] no fat in the collard greens.” That’s how he gets funky on the mic like an old batch. That’s how he gets sincerity on the mic: “Off top it’s me—no cap, / I don’t bottle things.” That buck that bought a bottle could’ve struck the lotto, maybe. But Earl’s “canteen was full of the poison [he] need[s].” He gets where he’s going like El Topo, bereft. The “trip was long and steep”—that being an acid trip—so let me see you try to ride a horse into the chasms of the canyon.

“EAST” is a death meditation, a grand duel between Dantean and Donneian lyric voices [he damn-near well should’ve double-tracked the vocals]. In a 2015 interview with SPIN, Earl is asked about the worst thing he did that year, to which he replies: “Umm…acid?” He elaborates: “I took it at a time when I really didn’t need to be taking acid. I had like a fucking existential crisis at, like, four in the morning. But it was tight. We reeled it back.” Jodorowsky called El Topo (1970) an “eastern” in that it “incorporat[ed] ancient eastern wisdom in the materiality of American cowboys.” For Earl, it’s more a rhinestone cowboy—he holds the cold one like he holds an old gun (as evidenced in the “EAST” music video). DOOM was no stranger to grief, of course, and the rumors persist regarding the bad acid that precipitated Subroc’s early demise (“Bad Acid” also being the original title for “December 24”).

Estranged Earl, alienated—a high plains drifter (not Clint Eastwood, though) who rechristens a town “Hell” through a baptism of blood. Like the Beastie Boys’ version, Earl pulls out a pair of pliers and pulls a bullet out of his chest. He pulls through, true and living. “I’m long distance from my girl,” Mike D raps, so he’s “talking on the cellular,” but Earl is more alienated than that—beyond racking up roaming charges, immersed in dead zones. He “lost [his] phone and consequently all the feelings [he] caught for [his] GF.” Relationships can’t be sustained in these bleak and barren locations. All the blood has been drained from the ruddy faces—sanguine scenery. In his essay “On the Acid Western,” Jonathan Rosenbaum discusses how the subgenre “refuses to respect or valorize bloodshed.” Memory really leaking blood. Congealing. Stuck. To paraphrase Rosenbaum, Earl’s acid eastern “formulat[es] a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify [his] hallucinated agenda—a view at once clear-eyed and visionary, exalted and laconic, moral and unsentimental, witty and beautiful, frightening and placid.” Earl’s “innocence was lost in the East,” and obsessives speculate whether this refers to Samoa or New York City—how far east we going? Countless spirit-questers pit-stopping at ashrams, searching for that Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal guide. 

“I wait a beat,” Earl says. His canteen stays filled, auto-replenishes. His “cognitive dissonance shattered” and the “necessary venom restored.” Jodorowsky reportedly once taped snakes to his chest for an experimental theater performance. As if it matters if you think it matters anymore. Or, as ELUCID says, “Words mean things but don’t have to.” Acids and bases. Occident and Orient. Western and Eastern. Up is down.

15.  NOTHING LIKE US EVER WAS

Earl’s “EAST” accordion beat—or whatever Orkes Gambus Al Fata instrumentation is at work—is more madcap than madvillainous. In my head is Erick Sermon, though, speaking about how “the flow slow…like a jazz player, or someone on the accordion” on “Knick Knack Patty Wack.” But I’m less concerned with the flow of air through bellows—compressing and expanding—than I am with Earl’s rendering of wind. (Somebody tooted.)

“Let the dead be dead,” Carl Sandburg says at stanza’s end in “Four Preludes on the Playthings of the Wind” (1920). Later, he reports, “The only singers now are crows crying.” And so Earl, a lonesome crow, reminds us—and himself—that “the wind get the ashes in the end” on “December 24.” The whining, wheezing consonance of /-nd/ in “wind” and “end” manages to evoke both the wind itself and the circularity of life. The bar whooshes and whips until we’re at our end, the terminus. That circularity, that full circle: ashes to ashes. “We are the greatest city,” Sandburg repeats, “the greatest nation: / nothing like us ever was.”

Global winds be blowin’—[Of the Soul]—and so billy woods cites that same line on “Haarlem”: “Thebe said the wind get the ashes in the end, bruv.” Check the configuration of the rhime: 

The wind | gets | the ashes | in | the end   {birth}                    {life}                {death}

Even that get does work—whether it’s the violence of Death Grips’ “get got”; Too $hort threatening you to “get in where you fit in”; or the satirical sadism of Keenen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. The wind wins out—it gets what it wants. On “EAST,” the wind—infinitely personified—“whispered to [Earl], ‘Ain’t it hard?’” It ain’t hard to tell that it is. How about some hardcore? Yeah, we like it raw like M.O.P. But those burns yield ashes. In Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” (1989), she struggles with the words she uses, knowing “[t]his is the oppressor’s language / yet [she] needs to talk to you.” I know it hurts to burn, she writes, but writing is no less ardent. “The typewriter is overheated, my mouth is burning.”

Let me bring it back to Robert Bly. “In the ancient times,” Bly says, “the movement for the men was downward—a descent into grief. It’s referred to in the fairytale as ‘the time of ashes.’” Ashes, he explains, is the “code word for the ‘out of it’ time.” 

We know what it is like to take ashes in our hands. How light they are! The fingertips experience them as a kind of powder… Ashes, we note, find their way into the whorls of our fingertips, cling there, make the whorls more noticeable, more visible, more clear to us. We can take our own fingerprints with ashes.

Ashes, then, aren’t simply for the wind’s taking—ashes are for us, are necessary for us to transcend the grief the boys, the men, and the man-child experience. Bly points to the various cultures that have used ashes in initiation rites: “Ashes Time is a time set aside for the death of that ego-bound boy.” Ready to give up, so you seek the Old Earth. The elders cover your face—even your whole body—with ashes “to make [you] the color of dead people and to remind [you] of the inner death about to come.” Consider Earl’s ashen white face produced in the negative imagery of the “Grief” music video.” “The word ashes contains in it a dark feeling for death,” Bly says. “Ashes when put on the face whiten as death does.”

Earl Sweatshirt is a far cry from knocking blunt ashes into caskets.

16.

Feet of clay, hands of light…

—Moor Mother and billy woods, “Furies” (2020)

For Cheryl I. Harris, Earl’s mother, the feet of clay refer to a vulnerability we all possess no matter how formidable we may appear to become. Earl invokes the King of Babylon’s dream, a dream of an idol “meant to represent all the empires of the world,” echoing Sandburg’s imperious “greatest nation.” Earl believes “we at the feet of clay right now…We posted up live from burning Rome.” Imagine the ash pile. So Earl is here, ostensibly, to turn the disco into something dismal—how Mtume becomes “MTOMB” with its entombed sonics, as if he’s rapping from within a wall, the victim of some Poe immurement. 

17.

“I remember woods,” Earl raps on “OD.” “I remember Endom when he wasn’t remembering much, / I remember love healing the ruptures.” I remember is also the refrain and title of Joe Brainard’s poem-memoir, a term which aptly describes much of Earl’s recent output. Brainard’s memories bum-rush into the present:

I remember a dream I used to have a lot of a beautiful red and yellow and black snake in bright green grass. I remember painting “I HATE TED BERRIGAN” in big black letters all over my white wall. I remember liver.

If Earl recalls love “healing the ruptures,” then he also likely recalls Fanon: It is essential to convey to the black man that an attitude of rupture has never saved anyone. But Fanon also speaks of young Black men “maintain[ing] their alterity. Alterity of rupture, of conflict, of battle.” Earl, “feeling rushed, grew up quick.” He echoes Biggie, who “grew up a fucking screw-up,” and Raekwon, who “grew up on the crime side” (though Earl’s mama taught him, as we know from “Grief,” how to avoid the pigs, persecution, and prosecution). Eyes on the clock, Earl acknowledges this “trip around the sun” is his “25th,” so “give it up”—his survival alone deserving of a standing [on the corner] ovation. He celebrates life with “gin and rum.” Again, notably not gin and juice—murder was never the case. The only death is the inner death, the death of the ego-bound boy, that Bly describes. Earl’s gin is the drink of be[gin]ning, of genesis (“Light them Phillies up then…”), of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead-broke, man… “We wasn’t supposed to be alive,” Earl says, yet here he stands.

18.  RUMINANT

Stare at the Feet of Clay album cover—an evocation of folkloric imagery: a Grimm forest with gnarled tree branches—and the enchanted, diabolic goat lying in wait. Earl’s parasocial following speculate G.O.A.T., of course, but I’m more inclined to mythopoeic possibilities. The Feet of Clay goat glares like Baphomet but frolics like a faun over fractured beats. “OD,” Earl has stated, “brought [him] up out of [his] little wreck”—a wreck of wracked nerves. Adrienne Rich encourages “diving into the wreck” (1973).

I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power.

Earl’s right there with her, submerged and blacking out, but still surviving: Really leaking blood, but refilling the pump.

In her essay “Teaching New Worlds/New Words,” bell hooks invokes Rich’s struggle to navigate the “oppressor’s language.” For hooks, as a Black writer, managing that is even more difficult and historical. “I think now of the grief of displaced ‘homeless’ Africans, forced to inhabit a world where they saw folks like themselves, inhabiting the same skin, the same condition, but who had no shared language to talk with one another, who needed ‘the oppressor’s language.’” hooks explains how Black folks have “remade that language so that it would speak beyond the boundaries of conquest and domination.”

Earl Sweatshirt, especially in his later work, has “altered [and] transformed” English, just as “enslaved Black people took broken bits of English and made of them a counter-language.” The emotional wreckage is also a linguistic heap of fragments—micro-fragments, if we’ve learned anything from Saafir. Earl, in the tradition of his ancestors, “put[s] together [his] words in such a way that the colonizer ha[s] to rethink the meaning of the English language.” “The grammatical construction of sentences in these songs” by Earl, just as by the spirituals of hundreds of years prior, “reflect[s] the broken, ruptured world of the slave.” That crumbling empire Earl mentions was faulted by feet of clay.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2019, sharing a dais with his mother, Cherly I. Harris, Earl spoke to this lineage directly: “Rap music is slave music—the modern-day iteration of it. Slave communication had to be encrypted. You got a code.” He shifted: “If I know what I’m saying…I can teach it to you.” On Feet of Clay, Earl is teaching to transgress. “I’m cracking my own code,” he says to an audience member during the Q&A, “how it comes out garbled…,” and then he trails off, as if making a deliberate effort to keep his answer cryptic.

hooks always saw language as “a site of resistance.” This included the incorrect usage and placement of words—she called such practices a “rebellion.” Weaponizing syntax. hooks recognized rap music as a continuation of this fight—the latest [sound]clash, hip-hop artists as rebels without a pause—while still acknowledging the collateral damage it might cause.

Rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen—to hear—and, to some extent, be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is the speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined.

Or, as Earl once said on “Chum,” “Too Black for the white kids and too white for the Blacks,” an axiom he’s come to loathe. Perhaps Fanon had the better bar on this subject: “The white man had the anguished feeling that I was escaping from him and that I was taking something with me. He went through my pockets. He thrust probes into the least circumvolution of my brain. Everywhere he found only the obvious. So it was obvious that I had a secret.”

Despite the pitfalls (and, yeah, the pit is bottomless), Earl’s words play [wordplay] a part in retraining minds, all while exorcizing his own demons through a steady diet of ashes and fractures. hooks promises us that “in the patient act of listening to another tongue we may subvert that culture of capitalist frenzy and consumption that demands all desire must be satisfied immediately.” Through his embrace of a language that indulges in passion and cerebral coding, Earl “heal[s] the splitting of mind and body�� so common within Western metaphysical thought. Earl Sweatshirt speaks “words that do more than simply mirror or address the dominant reality”; he builds blips into a reality that is worth the rewind.

Images: Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot) | Teen at 1990s computer photograph, Unknown (c. 1996) | James Joyce, Age 2, Unknown | ELUCID, Osage album cover (2016), photo by Michael Mally, Philadelphia Inquirer | The Boxer at Rest, bronze statue, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, Italy (330-50 BC) | Alphonse Legros, The Pit and the Pendulum, second Plate (1861) | High Plains Drifter, dir. Clint Eastwood, 1973 (screenshot) | Subroc on an Apple IIc, Unknown (c. 1987) | Earl Sweatshirt, “Grief” music video, 2015 (screenshot) | Arthur Rackham, The Water of Life, Grimms Fairy Tales (1916) | Dead Man, dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1995 (screenshot)

[loveless-in-nowheresville]

I’ve been thinking about Bruno Bucciarati so much lately, and a friend has inspired me to share this little Bruno thing I wrote here, which I’m hoping to turn into a full fic eventually since I like the idea

Notes/content: Excerpt from my A03 stuff, Bruno Bucciarati x reader, honestly kinda angsty, a bit suggestive at moments, reader is not part of Passione, Bruno acknowledged as the parental figure of his team

Bruno Bucciarati in:

“JUST GO FOR IT ALREADY!!”

Bruno and you had always seemed close. Something that was a bit too intimate to be considered just good friends, and honestly the first time anyone in his team watched him interact with you they genuinely believed you were their boss’s flame…but he would casually wave off such a silly theory, claiming that the two of you were just close friends and nothing more.

Some “close friendship” you two had though…with the way you practically sat in his lap when him and his team visited your place, and seemed to have all sorts of inside jokes and secrets with each other…you had a sort of understanding of him no one else even came close to having.

Not to mention how he almost visibly dropped his guard around you. He smiled more, laughed more, relaxed more…simply because you were near enough to calm his heart.

And of course the incident where you both hadn’t noticed a few pairs of eyes on you, and you may have shared a very passionate goodbye kiss that was MEANT to be completely private. Safe to say, very awkward for Bruno’s handful of traumatized team members…kinda felt like they were watching their parents kiss.

It just really seemed like you were the one. His true love, soulmate, sweetheart…in the rare occasions where you spent a few nights with them in their moments of respite, you would even share a bed with him, just the two of you alone, your bodies intertwined in the ever elusive peace and quiet, the rare moment when he didn’t have to be a strong and fearless and confident leader and could instead just try and lay his soul bare to you. He usually struggled to share his burdens with you, as they weren’t yours to carry and he would never want to needlessly burden you, but you always welcomed him to share his anxieties. You carrying even just the knowledge of that weight made his immense stress seem more bearable. Of course he wishes he could spend his days with you, and all you need to do is call and he will come, but even with how blatantly romantic the two of you are with each other he continually holds off making the relationship truly official.

Because, frankly, you’re not part of the mafia, and it is a life he never wants to subject you to. He’ll use his power and authority within the mafia to protect you, of course, but getting you seriously involved with him…it’s like painting a target right on your back. If he made a powerful enemy in Passione’s boss, and he ever learned about you…he can’t even imagine what awful things might happen to you in an attempt to send him a message to those who defy the boss.

He’s practically a husband to you already; devoted to you no matter how long you’re apart, always willing to take care of your needs…he has many responsibilities, and he is loyal to those under his care, but if you need him he will do most anything to help you.

At this point you’ve probably resigned yourself to the fact that Bruno would never build a real life with you. He was never going to marry you. He would never even officially start dating you…that was just how it had to be.

He will always have a place in your home and heart. You could be satisfied only seeing him once every few months. Could handle keeping your love for him secret, the darkness of your bedroom being the only witness to the true intensity of your love and passion for each other.

But you want his wedding ring on your finger. You know he’s your one and only, but you secretly longed for the physical evidence of his commitment to you. You wish you could share a home with him, share your life with him, and build a real future with him by your side.

You never had to hide how you felt from him. He didn’t ever raise his voice or get frustrated at you, because you weren’t like his brats who needed a firm hand and tough love. You knew better than to act or speak without thinking.

-

Your head was in his lap, the two of you curled up on your bed, and he’s gently tracing his fingers along your arms and back while you simply enjoy each other’s presence after months apart.

“I wish you could stay…” you muttered, reaching up your hand and touching his cheek. You can’t see the details of his face through the darkness, but you can feel how his expression softens at your quiet plea.

Soon you feel the pads of his fingers lovingly pressed against your cheek. He traces your cheek so gently. He’s telling you he wishes he could stay too. “I will do whatever I can for you,” is how he says it, kissing the palm of your hand on his cheek. This is how Bruno showed his love. Through his protection, his unwavering devotion…anything he could give you, he would, but please…don’t beg for him. He simply cannot risk putting you even remotely in harm’s way. It is not a gamble he is willing to take.

But rest at ease knowing he will always love you, you are the one he dreams of when you’re apart, and yours is the name engraved on his very soul, and it makes him the happiest man in the world.

He knows it’s unconventional, but he will always appreciate your endless patience with him.

It might drive his team a little crazy though, knowing the man they all look up to is holding himself back from someone who makes him the happiest they’ve ever seen him.