#that will never find any sort of permanent release

[coffin-bird]

..

[toskarin]

hey rin, a friend of mine enjoys composing music digitally and has a lot of respect for you as someone with more experience with that sort of thing. he has a hard time convincing the people around him to listen to the things he makes, in both the "finding an audience" way and "getting the people around him to give him their opinion on something he's working on way," and he wanted me to ask you if you could speak on your own experiences with those problems and how you've dealt with them. less related, he was also curious about your inspirations for the music that you make. i know this is a lot to cover, so if it would be easier for you to speak with him directly then please let me know

so I'll open by saying that, as far as people who can give good advice on this go, I'm probably not one of those. a lot of what I do only works because of some specific problems with my brain that are oddly adaptive to this sort of thing

that being said, this is a bit of the "tough love" kind of advice for surviving as an artist, so I'll make a second reblog for the second half of the question

this is either advice that will work or a ramble that will lead your friend to making his life unbearable, so look before you leap

-

The Easy Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Bit of a Tradie"

let's go over the business stuff quickly before I start rambling at length about the boring stuff

learn to love the work itself. "find a job you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life" is garbage, but creative work really is the one area where you should double down on this. kick back and bump your own album on release day, thinking about how every second of it is something that didn't exist before you put it together. this is what's gonna keep you above water when the wind is dead

get on bandcamp. there is nowhere better for small musicians right now. bandcamp is basically the last remaining website with an effective suggestion algorithm that caters to people who want to actively engage with music and buy it

consider getting on instagram. in the majority of places you're likely to live if you're reading this, the local music scene is on instagram. probably don't use your personal instagram for this

consider getting on soundcloud. you won't make sales through soundcloud, because it's a streaming-focused site (more on that in a moment) with a focus on passive listening, but it's pretty decent for networking, especially with digital music production. soundcloud is linkedin for deadbeats

stay off spotify. streaming generally isn't worth the trouble these days unless you're playing concerts or are otherwise already established. if you aren't uttering the words "you can find me on..." more than once a month, it's probably not worth pursuing a spotify presence to end that sentence with

self-promote. if you have platforms, use them. find the subreddit for your genre and post yourself on the self-promo day. consider posting some bandcamp album codes when you do this, not just so you can get word of mouth, but because someone having an album in their collection means you effectively have a permanent zero-cost advertisement for your music which will only show itself to people who are verifiably looking at something similar. companies pay dizzying sums for ads that couldn't dream of being this targetted. this is a big reason why bandcamp is THE place to be for small musicians

cross-promote and collab. work with your friends. if you don't have musician friends, go make some and then help each other out. "independent" music is a misnomer

blind yourself to the metrics. do not look at engagement metrics. pay them no mind at all. don't look at them unless you're trying to see how effective a specific, deliberate course of action was and already know what you want to find

remember that strangers are unknowable. people do things for arbitrary reasons. if you don't have someone giving you written feedback, don't make any assumptions at all about why they did something. skipped tracks and minimum-price pwyws mean nothing at all

present your stuff in a way that gives it context. why should someone care about your stuff? give them a reason. carve out an hour to really work on a nice album cover, go the extra mile and include track-by-track narrative with your dungeon synth album, or just describe what you're expecting people to buy. I firmly believe that NOMAD/VIRTUE was successful in large part because of its presentation

gimmick. gimmick gimmick gimmick. discount codes are more fun than automatic discounts, free album codes are more fun than free albums, contests are more fun than giveaways, so on so forth. lacking any physical goodies to bundle in, you should still endeavour to give people Something To Do that makes them feel like they're really engaging with your music

zero expectations, zero overhead. do not rely on the whims of complete strangers to justify whether or not you end up in the red. if you ever find yourself saying something like "I can afford to pay for a session musician because I'll just make it back" you can't afford to pay for a session musician. you're probably never getting bailed out if you eat a loss, so try not to put yourself in a situation where you can eat a loss to begin with

someone else's expectations, someone else's overhead. if someone else is paying you to make this music for a soundtrack or something, if (and ONLY if) you have the money in your hand and know you have it, you're no longer gambling. at this point, you can start to look at expenses as investment

now onto the less fun stuff. here's where I ramble for like an hour at you.

-

if there's one thing I've really had hammered in over my decade-odd as a somewhat commercial artist (in all the disciplines I've worked with, which is most of them), it's that you have to be a bit of a bitch about it sometimes

that nagging fear in the back of your head that you're annoying? it's stopping you from doing what you need to do: annoy people

with that being said, this next section is kind of...

The Rough Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Little Hard-headed"

at the end of the day, you'll often find that you are your only advocate, and that means you kinda have to get your foot slammed in a few doors if that means holding them open. this also unfortunately means that you've gotta convince yourself you're pretty good. you don't have to think you're great, but confidence is a trade skill

the last opinion people see before the first time consciously engaging with your work (which here means "the thing that primes them for how they feel about it") is yours

which brings us to the first uncomfy rule

absolutely no cutting yourself down before anyone else even gets a swing

you can be modest if you want (you don't have to), but you absolutely cannot prime people to see the flaws in your work. if 50% of people are discerning enough to notice a flaw, why make that number 100%? what do you gain from that?

if something isn't as finished as you'd have liked it to be, but you've pushed it out the door anyway (which you will sometimes have to do), you absolutely cannot prime people to consider it unfinished

if the thing is still being worked on, there's nothing wrong with being forthcoming about that, but the fastest way to make someone think of something as "inferior product" when they otherwise would never have reached that conclusion is by telling them it is

and that, of course, leads us into a bit of an inversion of the previous rule

absolutely do not take the majority of your validation from strangers

doing this is bad for a million reasons, but I see the worst of this in visual arts, where artists double down on what gets them the most engagements and lay themselves at the mercy of complete strangers who have no actual investment in them

of course, it's normal to desire validation and approval from people you respect, but if you put yourself in a position where it's possible to enter a negative feedback loop that crystallises into you no longer making art from the default response of neutral apathy from strangers, it's not a matter of when: it's going to happen to you one day

so what's the move here? spend 8 years making music you don't release like you're in a compressed time chamber? probably not. I did it that way, but I didn't get much out of it, so you probably won't either

the actual answer is that you've gotta network. you need an inner circle. you need people with shared interests so that you can gas each other's stuff up

just like everyone else, you need your friends

you need to have friends who care about you, about what you're doing, and you need to care about them and what they're doing

this is because, while self-confidence is important...

the majority of your external validation as an artist should come from your friends and peers, not strangers

it's important to have artist friends, because then you can encourage each other in ways that are personally meaningful, but having your friends behind you, whether or not they're musicians, is so incredibly important

if you're motivated exclusively by success, however you're choosing to measure that, what you're actually doing is forming a nightmarish parasocial relationship with the concept of a crowd. not even a real crowd! a fictional group that materialises when you've created "the conditions for success"

there is no such thing as a truly independent artist. if your understanding of artistic success requires competition against others, you're going to lose that competition and then explode (unfortunately common)

finding your audience as an artist (and mind you, art is a social field) is very much a process of networking, but it feels gross to say it that way, so I'll just leave that at "if you want to be known by others, you need to be willing to know others"

anyway, this doesn't really terminate in a complete sentiment. I was just transcribing a train of though

if I were to boil this down to a shorter, snappier answer that I could read comfortably read out, it'd be...

TL;DR

the process of finding an audience is so much less about actually finding one than it is about learning to create happily whether or not you have an audience. developing an audience is the largely incidental byproduct of long-term creative efforts coupled with self-advocacy and interpersonal networking

if you want to be found by a scene, you have to participate in a scene, and if you want to participate in a scene, you need to be in the scene. so on so forth

as stupid as it might sound when I put it into words, the truth is that you can't build any kind of audience in isolation. someone has to find you somehow, and it's a lot easier to be found if you're actually somewhere that people might look

[theepitomeofamess]

ok ok it's theory time bc i'm rewatching mismag 1 as a coping mechanism so potential spoilers ahoy & forgive me if it's rambly i've also had a sedative

the serpent in the storm. the one without a name and only shown as an illumination in the Tome of Nimble Working. is that what was possessing evan? like is it the amalgamation of the "demons" that were haunting him, or even just The Main Guy? i'm not sure if this creature has anything to do with the breaking of magic, I just started thinking about this today at work, but hear me out.

in Class Conflict, the manifestation of the thing haunting Evan when it emerged to protect him was the blood cobra, and the barb that Tallulah hit Evan with after potions class was that all she heard was "hissing noises." so we know that snakes are something evil & monstrous in wizard culture (as much as they were in HP) but not because they're the mascot of the "evil house" Aqarbus. so where did the serpent symbolism come from?

later, in Family on Six when Evan makes the agreement to lean on the demons to save K, the "permanent change" that Brennan describes is that out of the shadow across evan's face "just goes black and is leaking black oil and water." aabira's description of the illumination of this creature was "a mix between a snake and an oil-soaked bird of prey." oil-soaked.

this is kinda what got me thinking in the first place, because what are the things you think of when you think of Evan Kelmp? Bird Facts and Gas Station Parking Lots. this absolutely feels like something Aabria would pull to make Brennan eat the lore he created.

it's also the type of shit she would do because of K's attempts to find any sort of books about what these "demons" might be during the exorcism, only to be met with "you think you're going to find me in a book?" maybe not named. not studied. no anatomical drawings or any sort of understanding as to what it is. but yeah. they'll find it in a book.

i do think that maybe this bird snake entity has been tied to Evan since before his birth---aabria's description in the latest S2 ep: "you feel yourself and the inside of you is empty, and something that was always meant to be poured in is beginning to pour itself back in" tells me that Evan was born to be a vessel for something. now, the demons at the exorcism said that Evan was promised to them. promised by whom? promised by what? maybe by the thing that knew it was going to be held within Evan, and knew that if he were to grow up with a dark enough childhood, if he were to be haunted enough, he might become the Dark One.

now, we don't really know the mythology of the Dark One. we don't know what sort of prophecy was told about it. going off of the general trope of the thing, we've gotta assume that it's something along the lines of "this person will unleash a great terror/darkness/evil upon the world." this likely was supposed to happen as a result of evan's torment like a psychotic break, or maybe as a defense mechanism in a life-or-death situation. either way, this creature and the magic that it represents would have wanted to be released, maybe still using Evan as a vessel and working through him to maintain its unknown, mythological status. this thing isn't Tad, it can't and won't be lulled to sleep.

could this creature have been accidentally released as a result of sam's exorcism? probably, it had to have been a thing or else it wouldn't be on the orery.(besides, this ancient monstrosity would never have anticipated Sam Black). could it be that it was released after K killed Evan? possibly, idk how often gm's rearrange lore behind the scenes to better fit what's happened in the story they're playing through.

whatever the case, I do think that it's not insignificant that Evan only started getting inklings of this sort of repossession leaking in after the events on Seeganpelater. the place where he saw the creature through the serpent's watch (a scene that in illustration implies that, maybe, the serpent could see them, too). the place where he snapped his wand. the place where he killed Boudicca. where we saw him be a magic murderer, where we saw him truly tap into the darkness he's been assigned his whole life. somewhere on cannibal Island, there was a moment of reconnection, and it helps that the very next places they went to were the islands that 1) stressed Evan out beyond belief, and 2) worked with amplification. it was able to strengthen its bond either the minute they landed, or as soon as Evan leaned into his strengths to scratch the tree with his shadow.

maybe this creature is what broke the well of magic. maybe it created the storm and destroyed Gowpenny. maybe this is a version of the Dark One prophecy coming true, breaking the rules of magic to the point that the entire system is broken and the world can never be what it used to. maybe it's not involved in anything and is just reveling in the chaos. I don't know. maybe all of these are coincidences between seasons. fun to think about, though!

[yourfavoritewitchbitch]

Badge Bunny - Part VI - Silver Linings

Home was never a place, until it was with you.

18+ Only! MDNI!

CW: Minimal use of Y/N. Read is referred to as "Bunny" or "Bun". Fluff and sweetness. Gator holds onto his insecurities from the past. SMUT AHEAD! Oral (m and f receiving). Fingering. Unprotected p in v. Reader with a vagina. Creampie.

WC: 7.7K

It seemed only natural. The two of you set off with no particular destination in mind, taking only what you could load in your old beat-up car.

The sun was setting low, casting its last rays of the day across a wide open sky as hues of orange and gold danced beyond the horizon. It was a slower change of pace driving with the windows down, your free flowing locks blowing in the breeze, as you chanced glances his way anytime you could.

There was a shift in him. It was small but it hadn’t been there before. He was smiling, tapping his foot along with the music and humming a lyric or two when he recognized the song that was playing on the radio.

Neither of you seem to have a care in the world, but you're struck with the sudden realization that this was the first time that Gator was free to live his own life and do as he pleased without the constant fear or pressure of living under his father's thumb. The weight of the past was no longer a heavy burden he had to carry.

He turned, as if he could sense your eyes were on him.

“What?” His grin widened, as he tilted his head.

“Just admiring the scenery.” You smirked, reaching over to lace your fingers with his. Your answer seemed to satisfy his curiosity as he chuckled and returned his attention back out the window.

You headed west, crossing the rest of the country heading for the coast, finding yourself in sunny California a few short days later. His skin was more tanned than you had ever seen it. Cheeks and nose dotted with a few more freckles in the process, with a permanent smile plastered to his face.

He was happy. You both were.

The money wouldn't last the way you were hopping from town to town but neither of you seemed to care. You'd make it last as long as he was content, saving where you could with dumpy motels and cheap gas station snacks or dollar menu drive-thru meals.

By the time he had been released, the ranch had been sold along with any of his belongings seized by the government. Karen and the girls were off in the wind, somehow weaseling her way out of any implications in the affairs of her imprisoned husband. He knew he'd never see them again. She'd most likely changed her name much like Dot, trying to make a new life for herself.

He left that prison with absolutely nothing, except you, but that's all he needed.

When it was time for that conversation of what you were going to do and where you were going to go, he brought up your parents who were still in Texas, asking if you wanted to visit and maybe stay a while. He'd never been that far south, used to the unforgiving northern winters and mild summers. You thought it might do him some good.

So, you ended up back in your hometown. Your relationship with your parents was still good, always keeping in touch with them while out on your own. They never understood your need for freedom, but they were supportive anyway.

You were a free spirit. Small towns made you feel caged in, yearning for a freedom you thought you needed, especially this small town. Except when you came back with him, you no longer had that feeling.

They owned a small farm on the edge of town, not nearly as large as what Gator was used to in Lehigh, but it had a few horses he could tend to in his free time. He had said he found it relaxing.

Your parents welcomed him with open arms and never judged him for his past. They were simply thankful their little girl had finally come home, certain that he had something to do with that.

You slept in your old bedroom for a few weeks while you sorted out your plans, cramped together in a twin sized bed, nestled cozy amongst your old comforter. It was surreal to have him here. Something you could have never quite imagined.

“I want to take care of you.” He whispered in the dark one night, as a sliver of moonlight through the curtains shown down on the both of you.

“You do take care of me baby.” Whispering back from the spot your head lay against his chest, listening to the soft thumping of his heartbeat.

“No, I mean I don’t want you workin’ in shitty dive bars to make ends meet. If I'm gonna be your husband you're gonna be taken care of.” He huffed, his calloused fingertips softly drawing patterns onto your side and down your back.

“Gator, I hate to break it to you, but that money isn't going to last forever, and you can't go back to law enforcement. Not to mention the fact that you're now an ex-convict.” Sighing out the last part, as you sat up, the old springs squeaking under your sudden movements.

“I'm sorry,” you quickly added as your chin drifted toward your chest.

“Hey, you've got nothin’ to be sorry for.” Rising up to sit beside you, gently lifting your chin to look at him. “You're just sayin’ the truth.”

He gently presses his lips to yours, pulling you back down to lay with him.

“If you—” trailing off a moment, not sure if you wanted to suggest it. “If you wanted to stay here for a while, my uncle owns an oil rig about an hour south. I'm sure my dad could talk to him about a job for you.”

“He'd do that f’me?” He asked incredulously, as if he shouldn't be afforded any kindness.

“Of course he would. You're family.” Saying it so assuredly, as you began to softly trace the moles dotted across his abdomen and chest.

He wasn't used to this. A family that seemed to care about one another without some ulterior motive at work. Warmth bloomed in his chest at the thought of finally finding a place where he belonged, right here with you.

He tried not to let his thoughts drag him down, but it had been weighing on him since he'd gotten out of prison. Your willingness to stand by him through the entire ordeal only solidified his unending love but he had to find a way to take care of you like he promised.

“I'll talk to him in the morning, baby. Get some rest.” Yawning out, as your eyes began to grow heavy, your hand stilling at his side.

“Okay, sweet thing.” He smiled to himself, kissing the top of your head letting himself drift off peacefully for the night.

-

Much to your delight, your dad was more than willing to talk to your uncle. Even going as far as offering to take Gator to talk to him in person the following day.

He showered, shaving the stubble he'd been neglecting the past few days and pulled on a pair of clean jeans.

“Bun, have you seen my… shit…” he called down the hall, as you moved toward the bedroom to help him.

You came to lean up against the doorframe, as he dug through the suitcase with his back to you, continuing to grumble. You couldn't hold back the grin that lifted the edges of your lips, biting down on your thumbnail watching the way his taut back muscles worked.

“Have I seen what, baby?” Finally asking him with a singsong voice.

“That black button up? I used to wear it t’church an’ for special occasions. I could've sworn it was in here.” Huffing out, as he continued shuffling clothes out of the way to get to the bottom.

“This one?” You gingerly replied.

He turned, unbuttoned pants hanging off his narrow hips slightly, as he looked at you.

You held it up, freshly pressed, with a self satisfied smirk plastered to your face. You'd figured he'd want to dress nice, even if he didn't have to, ironing out the wrinkles and making sure the collar was just right.

His lips curled up into a beaming smile as he crossed the room, taking the hanger from where it dangled on your outstretched finger.

“You're the best, baby.” He stated, pressing a kiss to your cheek, and shuffling over to the bed, laying the shirt down gently and pulling on a white undershirt he had already laid out.

He's tense, you could see the worry etched across his face before he turned back around. You came up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade.

“You don't have to be so worried. My uncle always needs help, and you're practically family. There's no way he'll turn you down.” He sighed heavily, his shoulders deflating a bit.

“S’not what I'm worried about.” He mumbled, prying your hands away so he could face you.

He clasps his hands at your lower back, to pull you back into him, his honey hued eyes looking down at you swimming with sweet adoration.

“M’worried I won't do good enough. Fresh outta prison, they'll think I'm jus’ some idiot. Some kinda fuck up.”

His words made your heart ache. It wasn't Gator's words you were hearing; it was Roy's. Something he had heard his father tell him countless times. No matter how much distance he puts between himself and the past he still has trouble shaking those false insecurities.

“Baby, they'll teach you how to do what they need.” You soothed, gently laying your hand to his cheek as you spoke. “I have no doubts you're going to do amazing. Fuck anyone who thinks otherwise, my opinion is the only one that matters anyway.”

He grinned at that, pressing his lips to yours. You immediately card your fingers through his damp locks at the nape of his neck, pulling him further into your kiss, parting your lips for his tongue to glide past.

Under different circumstances, you'd ease him back onto the bed and make him forget what he was feeling but he had to finish getting ready.

He reluctantly pulled back and groaned as if he could read your mind, pressing his forehead to yours. You opened your eyes in time to see him frown, pursing his lips slightly, drawing a soft giggle from you.

“Don't pout.” Placing a quick peck to his lips, as an idea crossed your mind. “How long before you head out?”

“Uh, thirty minutes or so. Why?” He asked, as you looked up at him with a devilish smirk.

“I think you should relax, baby.” Moving your hands to his chest, pushing him back as his ass hit the bed, the metal frame groaning under his newly added weight.

“What're you… Oh.” He breathed out, as your hand reached down to palm him through his pants, pushing his thighs apart with your knee, before you began to sink down to the floor.

“Just relax baby.” You cooed, reaching up to pull at his jeans as he lifted his hips, dragging them and his boxers down at once.

His cock was already half hard, kicking up further when you leaned down spitting directly on his length.

“Fuck, you're my dirty girl, huh?” He hissed, as you wrapped your hand around him, watching through hooded eyes as you began to spread the makeshift lube up and down his hardening shaft.

“Just for you, Gator. Always for you.” Replying with a sultry tone, taking your tongue and running up the entire underside of his cock, kitten licking his tip, catching a pearlescent bead of precum before wrapping your lips around him, humming at the taste.

“Oh fuck!” He groans at the feeling when your mouth fully envelops him, his tip already pressing at the back of your throat, pausing a moment, before hollowing your cheeks and bobbing up and down his length, your hand continuing to work what you couldn't fit.

His hand found the back of your head, fingers tangling in your locks helping you move, watching the way your warm mouth and full lips molded around his thick cock, he was mesmerized.

“Yeah, baby. Just like that.” His praise went straight to your core as you hummed against him, rubbing your thighs together for a little friction but you reminded yourself this was all about him right now.

“I'm… fuck… I'm close.” He blurted out, pushing you further down as you tried to relax your throat, eyes watering at the sudden intrusion as you continued to bob and work your hand in tandem.

He bucked his hips upward, suddenly spilling into your mouth and down your throat as a string of expletives leaves his lips.

You swallow around his shaft, causing him to whine out bucking up once more before your hands pressed his thighs back to the bed, pulling off with a gasp, catching your breath as some of the mixture dribbled slightly out of your mouth.

His chest was heaving as he looked back down at you, muttering a quick apology, running his thumb under your eye wiping at stray tears before running it across your chin collecting his cum. You grab his hand holding it in place as you wrap your lips around the digit, swirling your tongue across the pad swallowing down every last drop.

“Fuck, I owe you one.” He grinned, as you pulled off with a pop, standing back up running your hand through his hair before wrapping your arms around his neck.

“You do.” Grinning back at him. “But right now, you need to finish getting ready.” Kissing his forehead, hugging him into your chest before reluctantly releasing him to finish getting dressed.

You were in the kitchen watching the horses in the field lost in your thoughts when you heard his heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and subsequently walking up behind you. His hair slicked back into that usual style you hadn't seen in a couple of weeks.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you into his chest. Leaning your head back against his shoulder, the scent of his woodsy cologne and freshly laundered shirt surrounds you, bringing you a sense of comfort.

“Whatcha thinkin’ bout, sweet thing?” He hummed, lowering his chin to your shoulder, looking out across the same field.

“Nothing.” You giggled, causing him to lift his head.

“What’re you—” He began, before the back door swung open as your dad walked in.

“Oh, good.” He smiled seeing you both standing there. “Ready to go, Gator?”

“Sure, Mr. Y/L/N.” Leaving you with a kiss to your cheek. “We’ll be back soon.”

You watched them go, eyes lingering on the outline of the truck as it left the driveway. You already knew Gator would have a job by the time he left, so you thought you should celebrate when he returned home.

Your mom has gone into town earlier, bringing back everything you needed for a celebratory picnic. A small surprise that would surely bring a smile to his face.

Fresh fruits, along with a couple of sandwiches and his favorite chips were loaded into the old wicker basket before you went back upstairs to get yourself ready.

Heading straight for your closet, you had hidden a dress away just for the occasion, finding it exactly where you left it.

You produced a mid-length floral milkmaid sundress, that you knew would drive Gator absolutely feral, pairing it with your favorite cowboy boots.

-

They made it back around dinner time, and he would surely be starving.

You watched as they rounded the rusty pickup, your dad clapping a hand to Gator's shoulder as they walked to the house, both smiling.

“Hey pumpkin! Lookin’ pretty as a peach.” Your dad beamed as he entered, giving you a quick hug and kiss to the cheek before heading to the living room to find your mama.

Gator stopped and gaped at you. Only his wildest dreams could conjure up an angel as pretty as you standing before him now.

“Hey sweet thing! What'cha all dressed up for?” Eyeing you up and down before finally landing back to your face.

“Well, handsome.” Taking a few short steps between you to stand in front of him as he continued to pour over your curves. “I thought we could celebrate.” You smiled, throwing your hands around his neck.

“How'd you know I got the job?” He narrowed his eyes at you, while moving his hands to your hips, pulling you into him.

You shrugged, feigning innocence.

“I just had a feeling.” You giggled, nails scratching his scalp at the back of his head.

“A feeling, huh?” Raising an eyebrow in question.

“Yeap.” You simply stated, moving out of his grasp to take his hand, pulling him back out the door. “Now come on Mr. Tillman, before it gets too late.”

You'd already loaded the basket and a checkered blanket into the car a few minutes before he arrived, adding a bottle of white wine your mother had stashed away in the pantry.

“Wait, where we goin'?” He asked, obediently following you out.

“You'll see.” Looking over your shoulder as you rounded the car.

His hand was on your thigh as you drove, with the windows down and the radio up.

“So, you gonna tell me where you're takin’ me?” He finally asked about twenty minutes in. You'd been unusually quiet, just letting the music fill the comfortable silence.

“Nope.” You said with an over exaggerated pop and a small giggle.

“Fine.” He sighs, feigning annoyance but loving the sound of your excited laughter.

The car turned down a gravel dirt road that eventually turned into little more than a dirt path with the trees closing in around you.

“Uh, Bun?” He said with a little hesitation to his voice as he turned back to you.

“Trust me, baby.” You assured him so casually. “Look, it opens up ahead.”

His eyes looked out to where you had pointed. Sure enough, it opened up to a clearing, with a creek to the right of the small field.

The creek was picture perfect, just as you remembered it as a kid. An old swing was tied off to the big tree to the right, surely dry rotted by now but you can still remember using it during those hot summer days to stay cool.

On the other side of the bank, it was an open prairie. A few cows were grazing nearby, paying no attention to either of you as you began to spread out the oversized tablecloth.

You chatted as he helped you set out the food. It didn't go unnoticed the way he turned his nose up to the fresh fruit.

“Don't worry, I brought you plenty of chips and cookies.” You laughed, as he planted a wet kiss to your cheek.

“That's my girl.” He hummed, sitting down beside you, stretching his legs out, taking in the scenery as you handed him a sandwich and bag of chips.

He scarfed it down without a second thought, as you leisurely plucked berries from the Tupperware, popping them into your mouth.

He got distracted as soon as you stretched out beside him, kicking off your boots, legs on full display beneath your billowy skirt. The breeze catches it here and there, lifting it just enough for more of your plush thighs to be on display.

“You ready for dessert?” Reaching into the basket beside you pulling out some of his favorite cookies, handing it to him.

“I do want dessert, but I had something else in mind.” His eyes trail your curves, licking his lips, crooked grin on full display as he leaned in. “I think it's time to return that favor.”

He captured your lips, hand trailing up the inside of your thigh reaching the hem of your dress and sliding further still, expecting to find the edge of your panties but was met with your soft, bare skin instead.

“Bunny, you been walkin’ around without any panties on?” He asked, not waiting for a reply brushing his thumb across your slick lips before pressing in a little further finding your clit, eliciting a breathy moan from you.

“Not all day,” you managed to get out before he began to rub slow, torturous circles to the already puffy nub. “Mmphm… just… just took em’ off right before you got home.”

You whined, as he pulled his hand away.

“S’okay, I've got you. Just lay back and look all pretty f’me.” He hummed, as you lowered your upper half to the cloth below.

He crawled over, placing himself between your parted thighs, pressing his already hard cock against your needy core for just a moment with his lips to your neck before he began trailing kisses lower to any exposed skin he could find.

Down the column of your neck, across your shoulder, the top of your breasts as he trails lower still, relishing the feel of his weight, lips wet and warm against your skin. A hand to your thigh, pushing your skirt up as he lowers himself down, breath suddenly fanning across your exposed cunt.

You chance a glance down at him, eyes blown dark and wide with lust. He presses a kiss to your inner thigh, nipping the tender flesh drawing a small squeak from you as you drag the hem of your dress higher. His hands wrap around the tops of your thighs, nose nudging the seam of your slit breathing in your earthy scent.

His tongue darts out, dipping his head down, licking a fat stripe upward nudging your lips apart just barely grazing your clit, moaning to himself as your scent and taste overtake his senses.

Your back arches for him when he suddenly delves back in, tongue prodding at your aching hole making you clench around nothing, so worked up from earlier this morning already teetering along the edge.

“Ya’ taste so fuckin' good.” He mumbles out with a moan, grinding his hips down, searching for friction as his tongue finds your clit once more, circling it deftly before his lips close around you to suck harshly.

“Oh, Gator!” You moan out, fingers combing through his gelled locks, tugging when his ministrations didn't let up, undoing his styled mane.

He continued to switch between sucking and flicking or swirling his tongue, every little movement sending you hurtling toward the edge, as the heat began to build in your core.

You cried out when he added a finger, curling it expertly to find that spot on your frontal wall, then adding another to fill your aching pussy as it fluttered around him.

Your hips chased the feeling, as he drove his fingers in and out, working in tandem with his mouth guiding you further to your impending release.

“Gator, please—ahhh,” losing all coherent thought as your mind went blank.

“C’mon sweet thing,” popping off, letting his thumb replace his mouth so he could watch you properly fall apart. “I want t’feel you let go. Cum f’me.”

His words send you careening over the edge, as white hot heat pools at your midsection, your gummy walls contract around his fingers, squeezing and spasming around them.

“That's it… fuck…” He hissed, watching the way your hole pulsed around his thick digits as he worked you through your high.

Your legs felt heavy, falling further open as he finally removed his fingers, placing them in his mouth, sucking them clean.

“Mmm, so fuckin' sweet.” He laid his head against your thigh, watching your chest expanding and falling, trying to catch the breath he'd just helped take away.

Your face held a blissed out expression in the afterglow, a small smile tugging at the edges of your lips with your cheeks flushed the prettiest shade of pink.

There was no doubt in his mind he was staring up at the face of an angel. He didn't need to enter the pearly gates when his time on earth was over, not when he had heaven right here with you.

Finally coming back to your senses, your hand moved to shield your eyes from the sun as you squinted down at him, your ring catching the light and reflecting back toward him.

It weighed on his mind daily to ask you properly just as he'd promised. He'd been trying to find the perfect time to get down on one knee, do the whole shabang but suddenly in the quiet of this moment it just felt right. He was suddenly overcome with an idea.

“Whatcha thinkin' bout, handsome?” Your sweet voice cuts through his train of thought, your southern drawl that you hid so well beginning to sneak through the more time you spent in Texas.

“You. Us.” Replying without hesitation, as you lift your hand to card through his hair, pushing it back from his face. His eyelids fluttered closed with the tender touch.

You had similar thoughts running through your mind. Lucky you had found something in Gator, when no one else took the time to nurture and see his potential. He was strong willed and fiercely protective, showing you a love like you could never have imagined.

“C’mere baby.” You murmured softly, fingertips tracing his jaw. He laid a kiss to the inside of your thigh before he slowly pulled the hem of your dress back down, crawling up the length of your body, pressing a chaste kiss to the tip of your nose laying next to you. You rolled onto your side to face him.

He didn’t say anything at first, but he was suddenly looking at you with such adoration it made your heart ache.

“Marry me?” He blurted out after a moment, sporting that lopsided grin you’d come to love when he has some mischievous plan.

“What?” You giggled, furrowing your brow at the small outburst. “I am marrying you, Gator.”

He sat up then, taking your hand in his, warm and calloused pulling you to sit up with him.

“Bunny, ugh, fuck… I mean Y/N.” Clamping his eyes shut momentarily while internally scolding himself for already fucking it up. “There’s no reason we should wait, we can drive to the courthouse right now. I just want you to be mine forever.”

“Gator, we– are you sure?” You asked hesitantly, making sure this is what he wanted. You’d never pressure him into anything. You would have married him ages ago, had he already suggested it. The two of you were practically attached at the hip as it is.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I don’t need nothin’ else, as long as I have you. I should’ve wifed ya’ up a long time ago. So, whaddya say sweet thing? Marry me? Make me the happiest bastard in the world?” He smiled, big and bright as he searched your face for the answer.

“What’re we waiting for then?” You shrugged, with a smile mirroring his own. His eyes lit up, as he leaned in pressing his lips to yours, his hand coming to rest at the nape of your neck pulling you further into him. His tongue swept across your bottom lip, but you giggled again, pushing him away.

“Wait, baby, we need rings. We can’t just go get married without them. C’mon.” You quickly pulled your boots on. “I’ve got the perfect idea, but we need to hurry!”

The two of you packed up the picnic, in between kisses and laughs, rushing back to the car. The courthouse closed in roughly three hours. Plenty of time to get what you need.

“You sure ya’ wanna do this?” He spoke up, after you got out onto the road. “I mean, we can wait. Do the whole church thing, invite your family.”

“Gator, when have we ever done anything the traditional way?” Eyes cutting to him briefly, before looking back to the road, reaching over the console to intertwine your fingers with his.

“Yeah, I know. I jus’ didn’t want ya’ to feel like you’re missin’ out on somethin’ because a’me.” The last part came out a little quieter, overthinking the situation.

“Baby, if you’re sure. I’m sure. I’ve just been waiting on you.” A grin lifted the edges of your lips as his head whipped back around.

“Is that so?”

“Yeap! So, Gator Tillman, let’s go make it official!”

Your first stop was a small pawn shop on the edge of town. The place was a little dilapidated but the guy who owned it was pretty trustworthy. It had been around for as long as you could remember.

“Bunny, isn’t there a jewelry store ‘round here?” He asked as you pulled into a space out front, shutting off the ignition, turning to fully face him. His expression was a little crestfallen. “You deserve somethin’ better than some second hand ring.”

“Gator, baby, I would wear a paper ring if it meant being your wife. Just think of these as placeholders if you want to.”

A grin split his face at your admission.

“I love you.” He leaned over the seat, kissing the apple of your cheek.

“I love you too, so come on handsome.” You pushed your door open, rushing out leaving him to hurriedly catch up to you.

Luck was on your side, finding two simple gold bands that fit you both perfectly. You had called them placeholders, however they were anything but. Rings to signify the union that was about to take place. They would forever hold a special place in your heart.

You and Gator had endured so much misery and grief to finally come out the other side together. No, they were much more special than you had led him to believe but you didn't want him overthinking again.

“Hey baby, pull over.” He said, knocking you from your train of thought.

“For what?” Quirking your brow. “Cold feet?”

“Just right over here. Hurry!” He pressed, ignoring your little jab.

You hit the turn signal, coasting the car to a stop to the side of the road. He hopped out quickly without another word.

“What the hell are y—” The words die on your tongue as you watch him reach a small patch of wildflowers. He bent down and began gingerly picking the delicate stems one by one until he had a small bouquet worth.

Raising back up, he dusted himself off and walked back grinning ear to ear.

“Can't get married without flowers, right?” He said, sliding back in and setting them neatly in the cup holder.

It never ceased to amaze you how utterly tender and thoughtful this man could be, regardless of his rough exterior he outwardly shows to others. This gentle side that was never taken for granted, saved only for you.

“Yeah baby.” You replied, smiling as you looked down at them, the simple gesture making your heart swell.

“Come on, Bun.” He softly said, pulling you back to the present, grasping your hand in his as he placed a kiss to your knuckles.

You pulled back out into the highway ready for the next adventure.

Hand in hand, the officiant went through the small ceremony in his office at the courthouse with his secretary to bear witness to your union. Neither of you thought of changing, you still in your sundress and he in his button up and jeans. It was perfect just the way it was. Just the way you were.

“Gator, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you honor and cherish her; love, trust and commit to her, through joy and pain, sickness and health, and whatever life may throw at you both, until death do you part?”

“I do.” Searching your eyes as he says it with no hesitation or waiver to his voice. He’s never been more sure of anything in his entire, miserable life. With you by his side, there’s nothing he can't do. You’re his rock. The one person who has never let him down.

The officiant then turns to you speaking the same words. Vows you plan to uphold the rest of your life because you couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. He finishes as you respond with the same, simple “I do.”

“And do we have the rings?”

“Oh, shit, yeah.” He drops your hand momentarily to dig through the front pocket of his jeans, pulling a giggle from you as he produced the two newly purchased bands, handing you his with a slight tremble to his hand.

He wasn't nervous to get married, ready to give you the world if he could. He was worried one day you'd finally come to your senses and leave him, just like everyone else he'd loved but when he looked back up into your eyes he saw the pure adoration and unwavering love you held for him.

You smiled and mouthed “I love you” as he finally slid your ring on, as he did the same when it was your turn to slide his on.

“You may now kiss the bride!” The officiant finally uttered those last few words, as Gator wound his arm around your waist, with his hand coming to cradle your jaw, pressing his lips firmly to yours.

Any lingering trepidation melted away with the warm glide of his lips across yours, pulling you in tight to his chest. That tiny bouquet of wildflowers long forgotten, crushed between the two of you.

“Alright kids,” the officiant cleared his throat before it got too heated, as you broke away from each other grinning ear to ear and a little out of breath. “I've got to get back to some clerical work. But you're officially Mr. and Mrs. Tillman.”

“Thank you!” You rang out, grabbing the certificate and dragging Gator out the door.

-

He drove you home beaming the entire way.

“Gator, do you feel any different?” You asked timidly, wringing your hands in your lap. Somehow nervous and excited at the same time.

“I feel— well, I don't know. I just know I love you, Bunny. A ring or certificate makes no difference. I knew you'd be my girl the first time I saw ya’.” He genuinely smiles, leaning over to take your hand in his.

“Is that so?” You smirk, with a lift of your brow.

“Prettiest thing I'd ever seen in Lehigh, hell in all o’Stark County. And the way ya’ blew me off. I knew you were gonna be a handful.”

Gator was never one to express his feelings so openly. It has taken a lot to get him this far to be able to open up to you. That first meeting had been memorable.

“Well, I remember a very handsome but very arrogant deputy blowing his vape right in my face as his way of flirting. Who wouldn't blow you off?”

He scoffs slightly, feigning offense.

“It worked though.”

You laughed out, causing him to follow with his own laughter.

“Do you feel any different, Mrs. Tillman?” He asked, lifting your hand and planting a kiss close to your new jewelry.

You smiled at the new last name, matching the man you loved but your smile fell for a moment. It seemed there would always be a feeling of something lurking in the corner, hiding and waiting to come out and ruin your happiness.

“I feel happy and nervous, but— I feel like something bad is waiting around the corner. This is the first time we've had peace since we've been together and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

You didn't want to admit it. Since you've been together you have seen more drama and heartache than most people see in a lifetime. It was hard to somehow imagine a peaceful life ahead of you.

It's not something you could easily put away. It was always in the back of your mind, fearing it would never be put at ease.

“Bunny, it's ok. That's all behind us. We're out of that state and Roy won't be able to do anything behind bars.” He squeezed the hand he still held and you hoped to whatever higher power that was out there he was right.

-

Your parents weren't surprised when you told them the news. You were and always has been their rash, wild child. Though you didn't take things lightly, once something was made up in your mind there was no changing it.

They were happy for the both of you. And suddenly questions and comments were thrown around the room.

Are you staying here? Where are you going to live? You need a house, and permanent roots to settle down.

Very politely, yet firmly you told them that Gator had just gotten a job, and you'll figure it all out. They understood and also let you know you could stay with them as long as you needed to.

When the day had finally started to wind down and draw to a close you both got ready for bed.

You showered and neither of you bothered to redress, laying as close as possible, skin to skin. His heartbeat was in your ear as you laid your head on his chest, listening to his breathing even out before he began to softly snore.

You suddenly envied the way he could fall asleep so easily. It would be one of those long nights of tossing and turning before sleep would find you. Rolling away from him woke him immediately.

“Where d’ya think you're goin’, hmmm?” he hummed with a groggy, sleep ladened voice turning over to press his chest to your back as he draped his arm around your waist.

“Can't sleep. Didn't want to bother you, baby.” Replying, as he placed a soft kiss to your shoulder before nuzzling into your neck.

“Mmmm.” He hummed, pressing another kiss just below your jaw. “I can help with that.”

His hand trailed its way down the soft plains of your tummy, before slipping a calloused digit between your folds that made you gasp his name and grip his forearm when he brushed past your bundle of nerves igniting your core.

You spread your legs a little further apart, letting his fingers slip lower to your entrance, already beginning to grow slick with arousal as he slowly traced the outer edges.

“That's it, Bunny. Just relax, let me make you feel good so you can turn that little brain off for th’night.” He knew you far too well.

He dips his finger in slightly, your chest releasing a heavy sigh as it drifts back up to your clit where he began drawing lazy circles. There were no hurried movements, no reason to rush. You had all the time in the world.

He drew torturously slow patterns, continuously kissing up and down your neck and jaw until your breathy moans and pleas turned high pitched and whiny.

“What is it, sweet thing?” He whispered, withdrawing his hand from you completely.

“Please.” Replying with a pout, rolling over to your back. You could barely make his face out in the dim moon light streaming in from the gauzy curtains but it was enough.

You found the nape of his neck pulling him in to meet your lips. He moved, lowering his body to drape over yours, laying in between your parted thighs, leaning on his elbow to keep from completely crushing you, wrapping your arms around his neck keeping him there.

“Need you s’all.” You hummed, licking into his mouth eagerly, before sucking his bottom lip and releasing it with a slight pop, rolling your hips up into his for emphasis.

His cock suddenly kicked up with excitement, pinned between the two of you, growing with the eagerness you both shared.

He places soft kisses to the underside of your jaw, as you wrap your legs around his waist. His arousal now very evident, pressing up against your core, his velvety shaft against your soft, sensitive skin.

“Gator, I need you, please.” You rushed out, rolling your hips against his once more, loosening the grip around his neck.

He lifts up slightly, never breaking away as your hands trail his sides.

He hisses, pulling away when your hand wraps around his aching cock but he quickly replaces your hand with his to line him up with your entrance. His tip catches a moment later as he pushes himself in with a slow, fluid motion, your pussy giving no resistance from how he had worked you up.

“Fuck… always so goddamn tight.” He says, moaning out when he's buried himself completely, your pussy flutters at the feel of his thick, long cock sitting snugly against your inner walls.

“I love you, Bunny.” He whispers out, lifting his face to look at yours.

“I love you too.” You reply softly, all breathy and wanton, your hands trying to search and find purchase to pull him closer.

“Love you more than anything, baby. You're fuckin' perfect.” He says, removing himself almost entirely before plunging back in, somehow feeling deeper than before, taking your breath in the process.

Moans push past your lips, as he moves languidly, taking his time to work you up, watching all the subtle movements of your face contorting with pleasure. A pinched brow and slack jaw, eyes closing with unshed tears, each thrust of his hips pulling small gasps from you as he pressed you into the mattress below.

He reaches back, pulling your hand from him as he threads his fingers through yours, connecting and grounding you both.

“Can't believe I get to call you mine. Make you the happiest housewife out there… mmph… fuck Bunny. I felt that pussy move. You like that? Wanna be a little housewife?” He continues to thrust slowly, unbothered with changing the pace, relishing the way you feel wrapped around his cock.

“Yeah, Gator. I… ahhh… Always yours.” You moan out, when his tip grazes that sweet spongy spot as your eyes roll back from the pleasure. He buries himself impossibly deeper on the next thrust, pubic bone grazing your clit on the upward drive.

“Fuck! Right there.”

“Yeah? That it, sweet thing?” He coos, driving in and out, a pleasurable but unhurried pace. Grinding his hips with each thrust, working you toward climax.

You nod, suddenly rendered speechless, gripping his hand a little tighter as he pushed you toward the edge.

“Can't believe you're my wife. I'm fuckin’ my wife.” He rushes out, in seemingly disbelief but utter delight.

You couldn't help the laughter that bubbles up at his statement, that he paid little attention to as he continued to mumble, stilling his hips.

“My wife. My beautiful—” pausing to place a soft peck to your lips. “Sexy, way too smart for me, adorable—” another peck to your cheek. “Spit fire, sometimes crazy—” a peck to your nose.

“Hey, watch it.” You chide.

“You're amazing, Bunny. I love you.” Mumbling against your lips, pushing his hips back into yours with a groan.

“I— mmmm— I love you too.” Managing to breathe out before he sits up and pulling your hips into his, fingers digging into the sides of your waist to set a now brutal pace, chasing both of your highs.

“Ahhh— Ga— Gator!” You scream out, before he pushes your knees into your chest. His cock plunging in and out of your soaked pussy, hitting so deep, practically folding you in half with his weight pressing into you.

“Gonna— mmph— fuck. Gonna fill this tight little cunt until she can't take anymore.” His filthy mouth always did you in, pussy fluttering at his words.

“Then I'm going to fill it up again, fuck it back into to that tight hole.” He lets go of one of your legs, suddenly toying with your now aching clit making your hips jolt at the contact.

“Cum on my cock, baby, so I can fill this pussy full.” You clench around him, unable to control the way he was affecting you.

“That's it baby. Want me to fill you up? Go from housewife to stay at home mommy?” He chuckles, when he feels you clench again.

“Mmmhmmm… Ba—baby I'm—” You couldn't get the words out before you were coming undone. Unraveling beneath him as he continues to work you through your orgasm making sure you felt every inch of him, as he was hanging on by a thread to make sure you were satisfied.

You screamed his name, throwing your head back against the pillow as his thrusts became more erratic, the feeling of you wrapped around his cock was too much as he spilled inside of your tight channel.

“Fuckfuckfuck,” he hissed, trying to catch his breath as he stilled and collapsed on top of you, letting himself slide free as his legs stretched behind him out on the bed. He wound his arms under you, laying his head to your chest listening to your heartbeat steadily decrease as you came back down to earth.

“Are you trying to kill me?” You finally asked, running your fingers through his hair.

“Just tryin’ to show my wife a good time.” He says, placing a kiss between your breasts before looking up at you, laying his chin there lightly. His eyes had returned to their shade of muted gold and green, unhindered by the pure lust that was there moments ago.

“Mmhmm.” You hum. “My husband really knows how to drive me wild.”

“Yeah?” His grin grows wide, as he starts shifting to move beside you. “Say it again.”

“What? You drive me wild?” You ask teasingly, pulling the sheet up over the both of you before he wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you into his chest.

“No baby,” he huffs, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Oh,” You release a giggle. “My husband likes his new title?”

“Mmhmm,” He mumbles into your hair, placing a soft kiss there. Sleep was already starting to pull him back under.

“I love you, Gator.” You softly whisper as he faintly hums his acknowledgement.

A year ago, the thought of being exactly where you are now was nothing more than a dream that always seemed out of reach. Laying here, safe and content in the arms of the man you loved was almost overwhelming.

As you finally drift off to sleep, the many thoughts of what is yet to come wash over you with a sense of comfort. No longer dreading what tomorrow may bring, instead looking forward to what possibilities life had in store because no matter what happens, he'd be by your side.

[ann1-wr1tes]

Catch these hands!

Synopsis: Leon is your mentor. At first he was apprehensive and not too happy about it. But now he realizes he may like you more than he thought..

Warnings: None!

Word Count: 1,382

A/N: So here's another repost. Hope you all enjoy!!

-------

You pant as you shift your stance from foot to foot. Sweat dripped from your brow and down the back of your neck as your eyes narrowed in concentration and slight nervousness as the man in front of you seemed to not even break a sweat.

Then again you weren't surprised. It was Leon Kennedy we're talking about here. So of course it looked like he was having just another normal Tuesday but for you, a rookie that was new to the D.S.O, you could feel your anxiety creep up your spine. You'd be lying if you said that your mentor didn't make you a little nervous.

Since the first moment you met Leon you knew about his history with the government and the D.S.O. He started off as a rookie cop in Raccoon city, survived a horrible outbreak, then got recruited to the D.S.O where he very quickly became a huge name and even saved the President's daughter. Of course now he is different. He is older and more jaded.

You can tell by the way he carries himself, how he always has some sort of bottle in his hand that holds an alcoholic beverage, how his eyes look at you but at the same time it looks like he's looking right through you. It was a distant look that was glassy and dull.

You could also tell that he didn't intend on ever having to mentor anyone. Though that changed when the agency decided that Leon could use a little side project, a little distraction from all the harsh missions he was assigned to. So you were dumped on him.

Despite all the alcohol he drank and how he didn't take care of himself in the least bit, you could see that there was someone lying under the surface that would peak out every once in a while. You could see this mystery person every time you improved in a skill or took some of his advice and applied it to your learning.

It was almost enough to make your flutter when you'd turn to find him looking at you with an endearing smile. Though it wouldn't last long and he'd soon be back to his scowling grimace that seemed to be permanently stuck on his face. Despite this, the small smiles you'd catch him flashing in the corner of your eye or the small chuckle that escaped his lips on occasion was enough to make you want to learn more from him, learn more about him.

But right now you were learning hand-to-hand combat. Sparring to be specific.

You remember when you had first started to spar with Leon. It was nothing short of being humiliating. You'd swing one and he'd already have you twisted around and pinned to the floor. You'd try to catch him by surprise, he was always two steps ahead of you. It was almost like he could read your thoughts, like he could expect just exactly what your next move was.

As time went by you slowly improved but it was never enough to beat Leon and while it was frustrating and a little intimidating at times you took it all in stride.

"Don't take your eyes off me." Leon warned as he lunged forward towards you. "And don't forget what I taught you."

He pulled back slightly before making a sudden swing at you. You blocked it easily, blocking the other attacks coming your way. His strikes were quick and precise, always with no hesitation. Its like it was all second nature to him, his body moved instinctively with his mind. It was like a dance. But he never showed any emotion. It was always hardened stares and pursed lips.

As Leon throws another punch you grab his wrist and twist, trying to force him to the ground with a wrist lock. In response Leon yanks his wrist forward, pulling you along with it and as soon as you collide with his chest he spins you around and has an arm wrapped around your throat.

Quickly you tap his upper arm, signalling that you give up and he lets go. He releases your neck and backs up to keep a distance between both of you, watching you carefully, his arms folded across his chest. You take a deep breath as you wipe your face of the sweat.

"Again." He says. And without missing a beat you take a defensive position ready to attack and begin again.

This continued on until you reached your limits, your stamina dwindling rapidly and your movements slowed considerably due to exhaustion. Still, you were determined to win.

Leon waits for you this time. His eyes are trained on yours, waiting for an attack as he prowls around you slowly. As you reach to strike the first blow you watch a faint grin appear on his lips and then suddenly he lunges. The next thing you know you feel yourself fly forward, hit the mat hard, and then Leon is on top of you.

Struggling to get to your knees, you shove Leon off of you before he can pin you and you settle yourself on your knees, having both hands out ready to block or grip his wrists or a hand.

Leon goes to grip the collar of your shirt and he tugs you forward. He twists you around so you lay on your back and then goes to pin your wrists. Your mind scrambles to try to find a way out until suddenly a light bulb goes off in your head.

You buck your hips up and arch your back up, causing Leon to stumble forward and almost on top of you. Thinking quickly you hook a leg around his and you shift your weight, pushing him and you to the side so you can roll on top of him.

As soon as his back hits the mat you straddle him and plant your forearm right against his neck, making it a little hard to breathe and even harder to escape when you plant your foot down on his other hand to ensure it stays down.

You look into his blue gaze with determination and he gives you a smile. There it is. There's that pretty sight that you rarely get to see.

A rare smile directed solely at you. It almost makes your heart flutter but you have to remind yourself that he's your mentor. He'd never see you in any different light…right?

To solidify your victory, Leon taps out and you quickly roll off of him. You can't seem to contain your own smile as he sits up and looks at you with a look of pride.

"Not bad Rookie. Keep fighting like that and you may just take my job." He jokes and gets to his feet, offering you his hand. You accept it gladly and allow him to help you up.

"Any improvements? Or tips?" you ask, looking at him expectantly. That was the thing about you that he couldn't help but love so much. You were always willing to learn, always wanting to know more and improve. It was admirable, it was endearing. It reminded Leon of himself in some ways.

Without saying anything, Leon's hand comes up and tucks a stray hair behind your ear.

"Take it easy, you did good and you have more to learn but for now i'd say you're fine." He says and you smile wider. A real smile. One that reaches your eyes as well. Your cheeks redden a little and you look away.

"Thank you." you say with a genuine smile.

Leon waves you off and turns around, grabbing a water bottle and tossing it to you.

Despite how badly Leon would like to ignore it, he knew that there was some part inside of him that liked you a little too much. But as he watched you grow and improve and get stronger that feeling intensified. It was becoming more apparent to him every day that there was something special about you. But he'd ignore it…or try his best to.

But what he couldn't ignore was the swelling sense of pride that bloomed in his chest as he watched you drink some much needed water.

He was proud of you, so incredibly proud of you.

[orchidyoonkook]

To What We Were Before, And All The Things After | JJK | Ch. 1

Title: Assembly’s and Introductions 

Pairing: Prince!College Student!JK x Fine Arts Major!(F)!Reader

Series Rating//Genre: (M) | College AU, Smut, Angst, Fluff, S2F2L, Mild Indiffernce to lovers, sloooowwww ass burn

Summary: There’s a new kid at your prestigious university, he’s tall, tattooed and muscular, and oh yeah, he’s the Prince. 

Warnings: PG13, mild swearing, a general ‘lets get the ball rolling’ first chapter

Word Count: 5410

Release Date: January 26, 2023, 12:40PM

A/N 1: I’ve been working on this since September 2022, got 80K in, and have accidentally taken an extended break from Dec 1st until now. I need a kick in the pants to continue writing it so here’s the first chapter. I hope you enjoy as I have read this about 400 times and I’m sick of editing it.

A/N 1.5: it’s pronounced ‘Nehl” not “Neal”

“Come on, come ooooon!!” Yuri says as she drags you by one arm down the corridor, the other filled with books and study notes. You’re being dragged from your mid morning study session and she's starting to stretch your favourite sweater from how hard she’s pulling.

Slipping from her grasp to save it from any permanent damage, Yuri uses her new freedom to take the lead.

“Not everyone cares as much about this as you do,” you say, rolling your eyes. “I get you’re here because your parents put you here but I worked for it. I can’t just abandon my study plans for some guy,” voice echoing in the corridor as you succeed in keeping up with her quick pace.

Yuri mocks your words in gibberish, matching your tone, just more nasally.

She’s heard this hundreds of times since becoming your best friend in first year after being assigned your roommate. She may force you to go to places and parties you don’t find nearly as important as she does, but you also know she’s the only reason you’ve had any fun since starting university.

That doesn’t deter you though.

“I’m serious,” you insist, refusing to back down.

A look you know well flashes over her face. One that’s a mixture of absurdity and exhaustion— specifically at you.

“You know, sometimes I can’t even believe we’re friends. He’s not just some guy YN,” she looks over her shoulder to make eye contact. “He's the prince.”

Ah yes, the prince.

How could you be so foolish?

The fancy name given to the poor bastard who doesn’t get to decide his future—or work for it for that matter. Just has it handed to him because he was born at the right place, right time.

The prince who’ll be king to the biggest nation in the west one day.

The prince everyone freaks out over.

Sure, he’s cute enough, and will eventually have lots of money and power, because those are so important for someone like him.

But what’s money and power if you’re miserable or an asshole or you don’t know what to do with it? What’s money and power for someone who’s never known poverty and helplessness?

The title of Prince means nothing if you don’t earn it. Means nothing if you don’t know how to use it properly.

Who knows if this one does? So why should you particularly care?

Unfortunately, most people can’t get past the ‘young, handsome, future king of the Western Shores, hunk-a-hunk of dreamy’—blah, blah, blah, the media splatters over every magazine cover they possibly can, earning the prince a hefty social following of adoring, screaming—slightly brain dead if you had any say about it— ‘followers’ aka fans.

And Yuri, like every other girl on campus, is one of them. Minus the brain dead and screaming.

Well…Sort of minus the screaming.

She has screamed, in the past at least. So maybe just minus the brain dead part…

Anyways, she’s grabbing your wrist and you sigh, wringing yourself free of her near iron grip, again. But you can’t blame her.

Yuri’s focused on one thing, and one thing only.

And it’s beginning in 15 minutes.

“Plus I want good seats!”

You scoff.

“He’s just a person, Yuri. I get he’s got an important title and fancy job, but that’s all that separates him from us.”

She glares at you as you reach the courtyard of your school.

Trees surround the perimeter in evenly placed lines, a large running fountain at its center. There’s plenty of open grass space the students use to study, picnic or throw a ball around on. And its cobblestone walkways are currently covered in rows upon rows of filled up seats.

Most of those filled seats are in the middle though, which surprises you. You would’ve thought girls would be lining up at the front row to see their prince.

“Yeah, just the title and fancy job,” Yuri says, taking her turn to scoff and opens her hand to count on her fingers. “Let's not count the fact that he’s insanely hot—have you seen his body? His face? Or what of the land he’ll inherit on top of the land he already owns? And money! Can’t forget that. Or clothes. Not enough? I can keep going,” she switches to her other hand. “How about control over the largest kingdom in The West? They don't call him ‘Prince of the Western Shores’ for nothing, Sweets. Also the mass of adoring fans, security and advisors following his every move, nice cars, fancy vacation houses…should I keep going?”

You’re pretty sure she only stopped because she ran out of fingers and you don’t deign her with a reply. Yuri seems content to have made her point and she did. 

But you’d never admit that to her. Instead you keep walking, taking in the sights around you.

Your school is The Royal Academy of Business and Fine Arts. Anyone can study here if they have the cash, or the brains, though one method is much more abused than the other.

It’s one of the most prestigious schools in the world because it’s where nearly every royal on this half of the continent goes to university. Hence the “Royal'' in the title.

Ladys, lords, dukes, duchesses, princesses and yes, princes all go here—are most of your classmates, actually. But there is only one prince everyone cares about. The one who, in the next few short years, will not only be at your school for whatever it is his father deems appropriate for him to study in his post secondary education, but the one who is also first in line and heir to the biggest kingdom in The West—if it hadn’t been mentioned before.

His Royal Highness, Prince Jeon Jungkook.

Okay… look.

It’s not that you don’t like him, he hasn’t done anything to make you hate him, and you’re sure he’s a decent guy once you get to know him.

It’s just that you don’t really feel any type of way about him, positive or negative. And that confuses so many people around you.

Which in turn, confuses you.

Most people seem to think he’s some sort of god sent angel carved by the hands of whoever created the universe. Fawning over him and thinking he can do no wrong. But what they all fail to see is that he’s just like them.

Got a bit more of a leg up on life than most, sure, but still human. Like you, or Yuri.

He eats and showers and uses the bathroom. He gets a runny nose and puffy eyes when he’s sick. He has bad hair days and ties his own shoes… you think.

He’s just a regular guy with an irregular job. So no, you had no opinion on him other than disinterested neutrality.

But if you had to feel something? You guess you probably felt pity.

You worked your ass off in highschool to get where you are. You and your mom screamed until your voices were hoarse when you got your acceptance letter two and a half years ago. One of 25 scholarship students accepted on a full ride every year.

You were doing a major in fine arts and a minor business, wanting to milk your education for all it’s worth on their dime. Lucking out that your two areas of interest were not only at one school, but at one of the best schools in the world for both subjects.

You chose what you wanted for your life and you worked for it for years. And now you sit comfortably at the top of your class in both fine arts and business, not taking your opportunity for granted for a second.

Jungkook though? He’s expected to go here. Doesn’t have much of a choice about it, and he doesn’t have to work for it either.

A small part of you that has yet to mature envies him for how easy he has it, for the privileges he is given simply because of one six letter word in front of his name. That he didn’t have to put in 60 hour weeks and give up his teenage years just to prove he was good enough to be here.

He was born good enough.

But that’s a small part of you, and you can ignore it if you try hard enough.

The point is you felt pity because he’s probably never had to work for something a day in his life. He doesn’t know the satisfaction of working towards something, to not only succeed, but to be the best.

To earn what he has.

He won’t know what to do when real life hits him.

Yuri lets a baby scream loose as she spots her desired seats and yanks you out of your thought spiral. 

The front of the courtyard is still relatively empty, middle still filling up faster than anything else.

“Yes! Score! First row, left side, that’s perfect! He'll definitely see us.”

She grabs your arm a third time and it’s an effort not to drop your books and groan at her.

Yuri’s like you in the sense where she is not royalty, but unlike you she—or should you say, her parents—are loaded.

Family business perks.

She’s here because she can be, because her family can afford to send her and make donations, not because she wants to be or because she worked for it.

But don’t misunderstand that, Yuri works hard. She just happens to party more than she studies most days. That and plan her future with a very rich and handsome guy who has yet to be determined.

You’d jokingly deemed her a royalty hunter after about an hour of meeting her for how badly she wanted to ‘marry up.’

“See you,” you correct, or has she forgotten about Nel, your boyfriend of 5 years? Your high school sweetheart and who is currently, much to your dismay, at school about 5000 miles away.

“I’m sure Cornelius wouldn’t be mad if the prince charms his girl just once, seeing as his royal highness can do that to most people just by breathing near them,” she quips. ”And even if he would get mad, Jungkook can just have him thrown in a dungeon for being overprotective and jealous.”

“The royal palace doesn’t have dungeons, but they do have a series of interrogation rooms on the third lower level,” you inform her. You did a project on the history and architecture of the royal palace in tenth grade—and Nel really wouldn’t care, he knows where he stands, just like you do.

“How do you just know that!”

Yuri didn’t know you in highschool and you used that to your advantage every single time you could, laughing bright and loud.

She starts dragging you down the walkway again, a habit of hers. Like she’s worried you’ll try to slip away if she isn’t forcing you where she wants you to be.

It’s a good instinct on her part.

You're nearly there, so you focus more on the trees just starting to turn colours overhead, casting slightly pigmented shadows on the ground. Fall is just starting to creep up on the heels of summer, the days of sunscreen and chlorine slowly being replaced by pumpkin spice and crisp apples.

She sits exactly where she wanted too, and you plop beside her, glad you’re wearing a light sweater and tights. They are just warm enough to keep the slight breeze from giving you chills, but also keep your legs from sticking to the plastic seats.

For such an expensive school to go to you’d think they’d have better assembly furniture.

You notice a news camera off in the distance and suddenly understand the empty front seats. No one wants to publicly embarrass themselves on national television from seeing the prince, rewindable and replayable, forever seared into the internet.

It’s times like these you’re happy you’ve never been one to get starstruck. They’re all just people, why be shocked or surprised when they exist near you?

Opening up your books on your lap, you figure you can kill the next ten minutes in a productive way, considering what happened to your original plans for the mid morning.

And as you do, you feel the seats around you begin to fill, not a single one empty by the time the event starts.  Not even the ones up front.

A jerked movement catches your eyes and you see that two seats closer to the pedestal from Yuri is Adaline.

Great.

Adaline Dupree is basically a princess from the Eastern Shores. ‘Basically’ because she’s not, but she certainly acts like she is. A fake princess, an even bigger royalty hunter than your best friend and your not so secret arch nemesis.

She’s in your fine arts classes—all of them, unfortunately—her proper title being ‘Duchess of…’ some province you never bothered to learn the name of, and she’s one of the most well known people on campus.

Tall, with beautiful blonde hair, hazel eyes, freckles, a slim figure and quite the socialite. You’re surprised she went into fine arts and not modeling. She’s got the ego part of the job down pat.

Good for her for being pretty. But anyone could be beautiful on the outside with enough money and a surgeon. That’s not why you considered her your nemesis, you don’t give a shit about any of that.

She was your nemesis in the academic world. Because not only was she beautiful, she was also brilliant at her craft.

Which happened to also be your craft, and it pissed you off to no end.

Where you were first, she was second and where she was first, you were second. Always neck in neck with one another, always trying to one up each other.

You only considered yourself better than her because unlike her, you hoped at least, Adaline was a complete and total bitch. She took what she wanted without remorse and she wasn’t above sabotage to get it.

You learned that the hard way in your first year. And you’ve always wondered if that was her privileged upbringing speaking or if she’s just like that naturally, so unused to not getting what she wanted that she’d take it.

Therefore, it is of absolutely no shock to you that she’s sitting as close as she possibly can to where the prince will be standing. Directly in front of the pedestal at the base of the fountain in the center of the courtyard.

A door opens to your right followed by a couple screams, and you can only assume the man of the hour has arrived. A red camera light flicks on in your peripheral vision and you take that as your confirmation and cue to close your books.

The Dean of Schools, a few advisor looking people, a good handful of terrifyingly large security guards, and a head of black hair you conclude to be the prince all make their way towards their destination.

A smirk graces your face at all the girls batting eyelashes or screaming his name, as if that would get his attention. You’re about to mention that exact thought to Yuri, but you notice her eyelashes looking awfully similar to those around you and can’t help failing to stifle a laugh.

She catches it. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say. “You might just want to pick your jaw up off the ground.”

Her response gets cut off when a voice comes over the speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for such a warm welcome,” says the Dean, calm and assured. She knew exactly the welcome they'd receive. “I’ll keep my introduction short. Today, I present to you not only the newest addition to The Royal Academy of Business and Fine Arts, but the future King of our great nation. He has requested to formally address the student body before he starts classes this fall semester, so without further adieu: His Royal Highness, Prince Jeon Jungkook.”

Riigghht. Did you mention he was the prince of the country you’re living in?

Well…he is.

The crowd soars in volume once more, a couple “I love you’s” thrown in for good measure as the prince steps up and you zone out.

From your angle, you can see his whole body from the side, and that even though he’s holding cue cards, he doesn’t use them, placing them face down on the pedestal.

His dark hair is swept back in a suave styling and he’s wearing a simple navy long sleeve button up, black dress pants and matching leather shoes.

The outfit makes him look ever so princely and very much not like a student. More like one of the faculty.

However, what you don’t expect are the small patches of ink on his arm peeking out of his right sleeve. Or just how tight the clothes he wears are on his apparently very muscular form.

You remember Yuri’s words from earlier, only now registering. You knew he had muscles, no one ever shut up about them. But seeing them in person… wow.

You kind of want to sketch him—for anatomy practice, of course.

The prince begins his address to the crowd and an eerie silence replaces the roars from earlier. You take a quick look around and notice that not one person isn’t completely transfixed on him. Even the dean can’t keep her eyes off him.

You give him credit for not balking under the intense gazes of literally everyone. You know you sure as hell would have, never being one to like being the center of attention. At least, not like this.

You clue into his speech as you look back at him. He’s talking about how he found himself as a teenager thinking of what he wanted his future to look like and what he wanted to do with his schooling, which is not only why he took a couple years to explore the continent before enrolling, but why he will be doing a major and a minor at the school.

One for his career, and one for his heart.

You won’t admit to yourself that the sentiment very closely resonates with you.

He continues.

“All that said, I asked to address you all today for one very simple reason, being that, for my time here at the academy, I wish to be treated like any other student. I am not unaware of my celebrity and how I am seen to the outside world. It is not lost on me my place in the world and who I am to become. I know for some that it may be… difficult to see me for anything other than who I am, and this is why I ask you humbly, just for the short while that I’m here, you all treat me no differently than you already do one another,” he pauses for a moment. “I extend my request most deeply to those who will be studying alongside me in my business administration major and photography minor, as I don’t want it to affect my studies.”

Yuri slaps her hand down onto your leg causing you to jerk forward and you clamor to not drop any of your books. Business administration is her major. Her parents want her to take over the family biz after school.

That was probably why she partied so much. Living as much as she can before being thrust into a job she doesn’t want for the rest of her life.

Pity creeps back up your throat at the thought.

Jungkook notices your jerking movement, but only for a second. His eyes meet yours and you hope yours convey ‘sorry for interrupting’.

You may not care about him, but just like him you are not unaware of his status in the world outside the walls of your school.

Yuri, of course, thinks he’s looking at her and not only does her grip on your leg tighten to the point of circulation cut off, she returns to her earlier routine of batting her eyelashes.

You roll your eyes away from her sight, but unbeknownst to you, well within the gaze of Jungkook.

He suppresses a smile at your response to your friend's clear attempts to gain his attention.

You, on the other hand, seem indifferent to him. He has the entire student body watching his every move with hawk-like precision, enraptured. Normal, for him.

But you?

You just seem to… not care. Like he wasn’t anyone special. Like the word in front of his name meant nothing.

And if it wasn't the most freeing feeling he’s felt in a long time.

“Thank you so much for your time, and I’ll see you all around campus,” he finishes before stepping down, security wrapping around him again until he’s barely visible. The dean pops up to conclude the gathering but you aren’t paying attention anymore, too busy trying to peel Yuri’s hand off your thigh.

“Yuri, retract the claws please!” you whisper-yell to your friend. And she does in fact, retract instantly.

“Shit, sorry. My brain is running a million miles a minute,” she says as she pinches herself, shaking her head and smiling. “I’m three years ahead of him in his major. His major YN! But he’s still older than us, which is so hot. I'm so glad he did that tour in the east and whatever else that kept him back for a couple years, it makes this whole situation even better,” you start to worry at the look in her eye as she continues.

“What if he needs a tutor? What if I become his tutor, and we fall in love like a cliche romance movie. I could be the future queen. YN, this could actually happen for me. I could actually get the prince, it’s not some wild dream anymore. I could talk to him and he would talk back and this could happen.”

You can feel that she’ll just keep spiraling, nothing being able to stop her train of thought at this point, so you try your best to at least have her do her thinking in her head.

“Maybe! I wish you nothing but luck!” And you mean it. You don’t think it will happen the way she does, but you never know. And you don’t want to give her false hope.

You’ve always been the realist to Yuri’s optimist.

With the assembly over, most of the crowd files out of the courtyard quickly, prior plans calling to them or classes starting soon.

Only a few stragglers are left behind. You and Yuri are two of them, as well as Adaline, and a couple more you don’t know.

Security starts to spread out and you watch as Jungkook makes his way to the people farthest from you, much to their delight.

It’s a group of guys, all of whom look muscular enough to be varsity athletes. Maybe Jungkook will want to do sports while he’s here. You know that he’s an accomplished rugby player, greatly to his fathers dismay, but to the pleasure of anyone who has about $10 and has access to magazines or wifi.

“Oh my god he’s making his way over. Do. Not. Move. I want him to come to us,” Yuri says, forcing you to stay in your spot. It would be fruitless to try anything anyway. Another lesson you learned the hard way in first year.

She starts fluffing her hair and asking you to check her teeth. You do. She’s in the clear.

Unfortunately, you two would most likely be the last people he greeted, so you had to watch as he made his way down the line of people.

He greets the guys with a handshake and a clap to the back, and the girls with a kiss to the top of the hand.

One thing you notice as he meets more and more people is that everyone still calls him ‘prince’ or ‘your highness.’

It’s automatic for them, they’re not even thinking twice about it, but it’s also completely besides the point of half of his whole speech. He wanted to be treated like everybody else.

It especially irked you when it was Adaline’s turn and she put on her most feminine, formal, and ridiculously overly flirty, “Hello, Prince Jungkook,” before curtseying, blasting her full facade of charm and courteousness.

Ever the dainty, prim and proper duchess, she’s all small laughs and less than subtle flirting, never impolite, and never speaking out of turn.

You wanted to gag, and you’re quite sure that’s exactly what your face conveyed. But Jungkook smiles wide for her, and is as kind to her as he was to everyone else prior. He even flirts back a little bit.

Yeah, you definitely want to gag. What a match those two would make.

But just as soon as he greets Adaline and her friend, he politely steps away and moves on to you and Yuri.

“Hello ladies, what might your names be?” he asks ever so formally.

You gently laugh at being called a lady and Yuri shoots you a look. Jungkook doesn’t appear to take offense though.

“Hello, your highness!” Yuri chirps in the most ‘I'm trying to flirt but trying to not sound like I’m flirting’ voice you’ve ever heard her use. “My name is Yuri Yeun, and I’m actually a business admin major too, just a few years ahead.”

Jungkook lifts her hand to his mouth, giving it a light kiss and she looks like she’s about to explode.

“It’s lovely to meet you Yuri, I’ll look forward to seeing you around the halls,” he says in the same tone he’s used for everyone else. He’s about to face you, but Yuri cuts in quickly.

“If you ever need any help with your studies, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you with anything you might need help with. Having already been through it, I may be able to give a students insight versus a professors.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future. Thank you for your generosity.” Again that same tone, you mentally dub it his ‘greeting the public like the ever so good royal I am’ voice.

He turns to you and extends his hand for yours.

You reach for it, twisting it so that instead of a hand turned upright to be kissed, it’s a regular handshake. If he wanted to be treated like anyone else here, you sure as hell were going to.

“I’m YN, it’s nice to meet you Jungkook.” At the mention of his name untitled, he pauses, eyes widening ever so slightly. It’s not a bad pause, just a surprised one. And by the looks of the small smile on his face, a good one.

Yuri's eyes, on the other hand, almost bug out of her skull at your informal greeting.

“Likewise,” he manages to get out, completely unlike his usually composed self.

You're the only one who hasn’t addressed him with his title, and it’s the most like him he’s ever felt.

Twice in one day—in one hour—you’ve managed to make him feel more human and more like himself than he ever has. With your distinct indifference to him of all things.

Jungkook decides then and there he’s very sure he wants more of it in his life.

He still hasn’t stopped shaking your hand, and you don’t know why that’s the only thing you can focus on. His hand is firm and calloused, the kind that can only be built over years of hard work.

Releasing you the second you think it, he looks as if he hadn’t realized he was still holding on too.

Quick to step back into his princely role, Jungkook says, “Pardon my forwardness, but I just have to say that the two of you are beautiful, and that it’s been lovely to meet you both.”

You swear you see Yuri’s soul ascend from her body at his words. “Thank you, Your Highness! That means so much coming from someone as well met as yourself,” she nearly fawns, and you roll your eyes out of her sight for the second time today.

And for the second time today, Jungkook does not let the gesture go unnoticed. How you hold no fear in showing how you feel in front of others, even those you’ve just met. As if it holds no consequence. 

It doesn’t for you, he realizes. 

You can freely show how you feel without worry of anyone over-analyzing your every facial tic. No fear that a slight misuse of a lip quirk or eyebrow raise could give away national secrets or offend a visiting diplomat.

He envies you for it. For having that freedom he so rarely does.

“You’re most welcome, Yuri. I’m glad you hold my opinion in such high regard.” He flashes her that well practiced bright smile and you already know what she won’t be shutting up about it anytime soon.

“I’ve always been told I have my fathers bone structure but my mothers beauty. I’ll be sure to let them know their Prince thinks the combination is worth complimenting,” you respond, not braggadocious or sarcastic in the slightest.

You know it would make your mom so proud to hear the future king found you pretty, even if you knew the compliment was given to every girl here.

Your father wasn’t in the picture, but that didn’t matter and the prince didn’t need to know.

“I hope they won’t mind a stranger's compliment on their daughter then,” Jungkook says, ducking his head slightly and giving you a smaller smile.

This one felt genuine, like he wanted to hold it back but couldn’t. So you return a small one of your own, to let him know this was an even exchange. You may not feel any type of way about the prince, but you were raised to be kind.

“Any praise for their daughter from the future King would be welcomed any day, I’m sure,” Yuri cuts back in, killing his smile along with it.

You’re sad to see it go.

“I’m relieved to hear it,” he responds, princely public persona back on. Stupid flashy smile back on. “What will you two be heading off to do now?”

“What I wanted to be doing for the last half hour in the first place before being hauled down here by this one,” you point a thumb at Yuri. “Finishing my study hour at the library,” you add quickly, before Yuri can get out her answer. You almost wish you hadn't because the hand that had your thigh in a death grip earlier now only somewhat playfully swats your shoulder.

“YN!”

“What!? I’m just being honest. He wants to be treated like anyone else right? That comes with people being honest to you instead of glazing over their answers with pretty little white lies to appease you.”

Yuri looks ready to rip you a new one, but she’s cut off again before she can open her mouth. This time by the prince.

“No, no it’s okay,” Jungkook says before she can swat you again. She stops mid swing at his words, eyes as wide as saucers at being stopped. “YN’s right, I appreciate the honesty, and I apologize for the interruption. I hope your studies will not be too greatly affected because of it.”

“Guess we’ll find out during midterm season,” you say with a smirk that turns into a genuine smile as you see Jungkook look panicked, like he actually thinks he messed up your education by disturbing your study session.

Relief quickly replaces the panic when he sees your smile and realises it was a joke.

Being treated like a regular person also meant being joked with at their expense, and he takes it in stride as his small smile from earlier makes a comeback.

“Well I have class in half an hour,” Yuri says, finally answering his question, “So probably grabbing a coffee from the cafe near the biz-admin building… I could show you if you want?”

“That sounds great actually, I’m still trying to figure out where everything is.”

“Great! Let’s go.”

Jungkook, ever the gentleman, lifts an arm for her to take and you watch them walk off, Yuri absolutely beaming as she glances back at you. You give her a thumbs up before collecting your books and heading back in the direction of the library.

Chapter Two: Unknown Numbers and Sharp Tongues

A/N 2: and so it begins.

[lowkeychenle]

labyrinth [ZCL] (M) fic teaser

Description: Chenle was more complex than you originally gave him credit for, and unfortunately for you, that would be your downfall. Lost in the labyrinth, you’ll always struggle to find your way out when the rose-colored glasses don’t let the light shine through.

Genre: Smut/Angst/Fluff (non-idol!au)

Content Warnings: Situationship vibes (rip), reader is upsetti spaghetti; explicit, unprotected sex; oral sex (f receiving); alcohol consumption; maybe more i'll let y'all know

Release Date: 9.11.2024

Expected Word Count: 10k (maybe less? maybe more?)

Teaser Word Count: 270

Taglist: Open!! Please let me know if you'd like to be added.

Permanent Taglist: @sunnybutcloudy @neozon3nha @waffleuvs

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x fem!reader (featuring random Dream members & Giselle from aespa)

Juliet's Masterlist | Tell me what you think? :)

He’s like a puppy. You decided that the second you saw him. He greeted you with the world’s biggest smile, hugged you, and walked you into the cafe he picked to meet at. You were skeptical at first—it’d been a very long time since you’d felt comfortable enough with a man to allow any sort of physical contact.

You’re not sure how he snuck into your life, but just days after you met him over coffee, you went out with him to a bar—along with two of your friends. He laughed and smiled with your friends. When Ningning and Giselle got up to go dance, you stayed back in the booth with him because you wouldn’t dare move that warm, daring hand on your thigh.

Everyone went back to your apartment, and you fell asleep on his shoulder. Chenle didn’t leave until well past one in the morning, after the girls had fallen asleep. He texted you when he got home safely as you requested, but you were out like a light within the fifteen minutes it took for him to get there.

The next morning, he met you and your friends for breakfast. Then, two days later, he came over to your apartment again to watch a movie with you. He kissed you, and it felt like everything fell into place. Like this is exactly where you were supposed to be and exactly who you were supposed to be with.

But he warned you—loud and clear, and you never once took heed of those warnings.

What goes up must come down.

And what goes up quickly can’t ever last.

[lokisprettygirl]

Rain to his Fire (Modern! Daemon Targaryen x Female Reader) (Non Canon 80s Au) (18+)

Series Masterlist

Chapter 1

Summary: In 1985, you were assigned as a custodian in the King's Landing Psychiatric inpatient and wellness center after your mother's passing. Your job was mundane and boring, but that was until a new patient arrived, a young man with a wild and eccentric personality, harbouring a secret that will change your life forever.

Warning: 18+, discussion of mental health (it's a fic based in a mental health facility), the fic would contain several mentions of several disorders like mpd, did etc, if something triggers you don't read, smoking.

“Room 393 needs cleaning up, new guy is coming” you heard your supervisor Mona so you sighed and quickly nodded. Working as a custodian in a mental health facility wasn't ever really a dream job for you but you didn't have any option at the moment. Your mother had worked all her life for the center and when she passed, as per her request beforehand, the job was immediately offered to you, and you had debts to pay so you couldn't really deny that offer.

At thirty you didn't really see your life heading towards anything better anyways and you didn't really despise working here. Helping people feel good at times. Your job wasn't limited to cleaning services, you would often get assigned to patients who needed a caregiver for physical and emotional needs.

King's landing psychiatric inpatient and wellness center was a six floor building at the outskirts of London, it was established in 1955 and your mother had started her job the same year, it's been thirty years now and two years since she had passed, she was living nearby because she was married and had a child, you on other hand didn't want to travel back n forth so you chose to live here itself as a permanent live in staff of the wellness center.

You were accustomed to seeing patients coming in for various disorders, most were delusional at worst or suffered from some sort of dysphoria. However, the patients at the King's Landing Wellness Center were not usually considered dangerous and you had never felt threatened by any one of them except a few women who lashed out at you and pushed you around last year. But with time, you had learned to provide them with the care and attention they needed instead of judging them for the outburst.

“Are you listening y/n?” You snapped back to reality as Mona called your name and gathered your cleaning cart to go fix room 393, there was this girl that had just gotten released from the facility, Tanya, she was a shy, quiet girl in her mid twenties with a debilitating case of multiple personality disorder.

You mostly kept to yourself at the facility as you didn't want to get involved or too overly attached with the patients.

The moment you took the mattress off to deep clean the bed, you discovered a piece of paper underneath. Curiosity got the better of you, and you decided to open it. Once you saw the writing on the paper, a feeling of unease coursed through your body, the words seemed almost ominous

“They are going to hurt me. I know, I'll never get out of here, if you find this please make sure to check up on me please”

You sighed before you folded the paper and placed it inside your apron quickly before it would get lost. What did she mean you wondered? The centre was under the supervision of three doctors. Doctor Vis was a man in his early forties and he was the most feared of all three because of his unorthodox methods of treatment but the other two doctors, Lisa and Darren seemed more approachable.

As you made your way out of room 393, you saw Doctor Vis standing in the hallway, having a conversation with another man. The other man stood with his back against the wall while Doctor Vis stood uncomfortably close to him, he was handcuffed so you assumed that he was being aggressive in his therapy session, as you walked past them you looked at the man briefly and normally you'd have looked away but this time you couldn't for some reason, he had a shiny silver hair that you had never really seen on a man before and it caught your eye immediately. The uniform he had on wasn't a surprise as it was a dress code for the patients, a white shirt and same coloured trousers.

His eyes met yours briefly and he smirked so you looked away immediately ,

“You didn't tell me you hired such beautiful chicks around here to be your servant-” Daemon had barely finished his sentence before Vis grabbed his collar to warn him. Vis looked as you walked past them and turned to make left into the hallway, disappearing out of their sight.

“Don't make this more difficult than it already is you moron”

Dr. Vis escorted Daemon into the room where he was immediately uncuffed. With the doctor now gone, Daemon let out an angry roar before throwing the chair into the room's window, shattering it into pieces.

“New guy is here” you mumbled as you reached the canteen. The rest of the staff members, including those from the pantry and cleaning services, were already gathered at the table. Shyla, who was the same age as you approached you. But in contrast to you, Shyla appeared to have a backup plan in mind after her tenure here.

“Oh god have you guys seen him, he's really hotttt in a really weird way”

You gulped as she said that, she always lived on the edge, it was unprofessional and unethical to talk about patients this way. Besides, he wasn't hot at all.

“Cut out with the heart eyes girl he must be a cuckoo to be here”

Another woman, Dina , intervened as she whispered very quietly, you didn't appreciate her language but then she wasn't wrong, sane people didn't come here.

“Hey y/n, new patient broke the window in 393, clean it up”

Mona suddenly entered the canteen so you sighed but then you were left feeling confused.

“How did he break it? Those windows are supposed to be unbreakable” you asked her curiously as the windows in the patient's room were specifically designed to withstand extreme conditions and were built to be unbreakable for security reasons.

“Don't question what's and how's, do your job girl” she glared at you so you picked up your cleaning cart again.

As you entered room 393, you spotted the new patient on the bed, seemingly engrossed in a book. Your brow furrowed as you took in the sight of the debris of shattered glass scattered around the room. Quickly, you grabbed a broom and began the cleaning process, starting from the corners to ensure that you picked up every last shard. As you swept, you couldn't help but feel puzzled as to how the window was broken in the first place,

“You shouldn't be doing such things, they are not afraid of sending violent patients to the lone ward” you mumbled so he looked up from his book and then glanced at you from top to bottom before he let out a snicker.

“Awnnn do you get paid to offer advice around here or cleaning is your only area of expertise?”

You glared at him as he said that but you remained calm, you couldn't raise your voice with patients even though you had been wanting to do it for a long while now.

“Sir im just-” you cringed internally as you addressed him as sir, it wasn't a norm but then you didn't really know his name yet. He had changed out of his uniform so you couldn't even read the name tag.

“Do your fucking job girl and get out”

You cut back on your words as he spoke rudely to you, perhaps he was admitted for extreme anger issues, whatever it was you just wanted to get out and not see him at least for a day.

You missed Tanya, she was a sweet girl, and you hadn't forgotten the note you had found under her bed this morning but then she wasn't exactly stable in her mind, people often scribbled down their most intrusive thoughts in their free time, and there was abundance of that around here. Besides you had bid her goodbye, she had hugged you warmly and she seemed happier for once.

During the lunch service you saw his smug face again as he sat down in the corner of the cafeteria, his eyes met with yours and he gave you a small smile but you didn't return it. Though you didn't want to take his words personally, he was dealing with something and that's why he was here.

“Mrs Rodriguez, are you finished with your food?” You asked the elderly lady so she snapped out of her thoughts and nodded but as you raised your hand forward to pick up her plate she grabbed your hand,

“Simon thinks i should eat less” she mumbled almost fearfully and your heart clenched for her, Simon was merely a figment of her imagination.

“Well he's wrong because you are eating as much as you should” she let go of your hand and smiled as you said that to her. When you reached around his table you noticed that he hadn't even touched his food,

“Are you going to eat sir? Your half an hour is almost over” you asked him so he chuckled. New patients in the center had strict rules and regulations to follow during the beginning of their treatment.

“Who should I be asking around here for a smoke?” He asked you and your brows furrowed.

“That's not allowed, i will help you with a nicotine patch if you're feeling restless -” he rolled his eyes as you said that.

“I don't need that shit” he grumbled under his breath so you looked at the time. Looking at him you couldn't really tell what actually was wrong with him, well besides the anger issues obviously, he seemed almost normal, almost self aware which really wasn't usual around this place.

“Please finish your food, dinner service is around 8 and a man of your size won't get any nutrition from the snacks we offer during tea time” you spoke a bit sternly and the corner of his mouth curved into a small smile.

“What's your name y/n?” He asked you so you looked at him baffled, he clearly read your name on the badge and he said it as well.

“I don't know your name either” you mumbled politely so he gave you a smile

“Daemon”

“Have an easy day Mr. Daemon, first few days are always difficult” you ultimately grabbed his plate as you left because he didn't seem to be in any mood to eat at the time.

Around evening as you finished your shift you made your way to your room at the fourth floor to take a shower and relax a bit. You took out the note you had found under Tanya's bed and placed it inside your cupboard safely, a part of you continued to feel uneasy about this thing, another was thinking about Daemon.

Why was he there? What had he done? You were not allowed to enquire about these things unless or until you were told the information by the authorities.

Daemon couldn't really sleep at night, how could he? He was locked up in here and was being treated as if he was crazy but he knew what he was and he wasn't delusional about it either. Even as sleep came for him he had a horrible nightmare that had him tossing and turning in his bed again so he woke up and stepped out of his room quietly as the room was starting to suffocate him. That's when he found the window at the end of the corridor and that was all he needed.

Around 2 at night, you were enjoying a peaceful moment to yourself on the terrace of the building, taking a break with a cigarette. As you were absorbed in your own thoughts, you heard a loud thud sound from behind you. Startled, you jumped and quickly turned around, only to find the new patient, Daemon, standing there. You couldn't believe how he had gotten there, he didn't have the key to the door and you clearly remembered locking it when you had gotten in. The terrace was strictly off-limits to patients for obvious reasons.

“What..are you doing here, you can't be here mister” you almost sounded frantic and kind of scared to be honest. And why didn't he have a shirt on? It was freaking cold out here. And why was he so freaking ripped?

“Hooking me up with a bloody nicotine patch when you got this sweet thing right here?” he asked you as he approached you so you took a few steps behind you until you had hit the ledge. You quickly threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under your flip flops before he could attempt to steal it from you.

“Now that's a waste of a good cigarette” he almost seemed offended with his brows furrowed and scowl on his face.

“Look, don't come near me alright?” You warned him so he crossed his arms and stepped closer to you despite your warning.

“I'm not going to harm you, I can, don't get me wrong.. but I won't”

Was that supposed to make you feel better?

“Please come with me, let me take you to your room .. please”

As he heard your gentle voice his teeth gritted together. “Please just listen to me ..it's only best for you” You brought your arm forward to grab his forearm but you flinched away as soon as you had touched his skin.

“Are you sick? You're burning like a furnace” You asked him worriedly so he scratched his scalp before he looked around and took a deep breath “And how did you get here?”

“I'm not sick, do I look sick to you?” He asked you so you shook your head but that was pointless, if he was a regular smoker, perhaps he was feeling the withdrawal.

“Just one puff, I'll be indebted to you forever darling, please, what do you want me to do beg? I can beg on my knees .You want that?..”

“Ohhh shut up for god's sake -” You cut him off mid sentence as he started to ramble but the stupid smirk on his face was still there. “I'll lose my job Daemon -”

“Nobody will know”

“I can't do it.. please understand please..”

He sighed and the pleading look on your face made him willing to listen to you ultimately.

How did he even come up here? You had come via the main entrance and it was locked from inside. As you escorted him back to his room, you mumbled a quick good night but he suddenly grabbed you by the shoulders and pushed you against the door, your heart was right into your mouth at the moment for several different reasons, you had been pushed over by several women at the facility but never a man, especially not a man like him who seemed so strong and so unstable. If worse comes to worse you knew you wouldn't be able to defend yourself.

“Daemon let go of me” you mumbled sternly but his hands were on your upper arms, holding you tightly still. He wasn't hurting you, not yet at least.

“Shhhhh shhh shhhh” as he whispered in your ear you were going to scream but nothing came out of your throat, not even a squeak, you feared that he was going to touch you inappropriately, if this wasn't inappropriate as it was, but then he placed his nose on the crook of your neck and took a sniff. Like a wild animal he sniffed you, literally.

One sniff, two sniff, and then one two three at once, you couldn't help but wonder why you weren't feeling as uncomfortable as you should have in a similar situation.

“What are you doing?” You asked him gently to not aggregate him so he looked you right in the eyes before he cupped your cheeks and stared at your lips, his nose rubbed slightly against yours before he closed his eyes, grunted a little and finally stepped away from you. His chest was heaving from breathlessness, same as yours as you both stared at each other for a moment. What the hell was that?

“Get out lady”

He mumbled so you immediately got the fuck out of there, you were looking behind every step of the way to see if he was following you but he wasn't. At the end of the corridor you stopped as suddenly, your feet came in contact with a piece of fabric on the floor, and when you bent down to investigate, you realized it was Daemon's shirt but it was completely shredded in several pieces - the same shirt he had worn this evening.

The realization left you feeling even more puzzled and disoriented. How had he managed to enter the terrace when it was locked from the outside. It seemed impossible. It was impossible. Or perhaps there was another way? Or maybe you were going crazy yourself? Now that was possible.

As your head hit your pillow you ran your fingers over your neck, right where he was sniffing, he seemed so...so primal in that moment, so animalistic, if that was the right choice of word. Did you atleast smell good? God you hoped so. Or not. He was a patient, you had to keep that in mind, he had issues.

The next morning while Daemon was away for his therapy session with the doctors you decided to clean up his room, he had left you feeling a bit unnerved last night with his strange behavior but you weren't really scared of him and then you wondered why you weren't scared of him after what he had done.

The iron bars on his window were the first thing you had noticed as you had entered the room. As you heard loud footsteps approaching the room you quickly collected your stuff to prepare to leave.

As Dr. Vis entered with Daemon he looked at you and spoke politely “Will you please step out ?” Vis asked you so you nodded immediately.

“Yes doctor, I'm almost done” you grabbed your cart and walked past them, your eyes met with Daemon and he seemed angry, but also really sad? His eyes were read and teary, such a contrast from his snarky demeanor yesterday.

As the door slammed shut, you found yourself in a state of morbid curiosity. So instead of minding your own business as you should have, you pressed your ear against the door instead, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside. Why did he look so sad?

“You had promised you wouldn't start with the absurdity right off the bat” Dr. Vis yelled at Daemon and that bothered you. Why was he yelling at a patient like this on his second day?

“Absurdity? You think me speaking of my true self is absurd?” Daemon asked the doctor and you didn't understand what was happening, what was he suffering from?

Dazed and confused as you reached the staff area Shyla walked around the table with a smirk on her face so you finally gave in.

“What?”

As you asked her she slammed her hands on the table in a dramatic manner.

“I found out why the new guy is here”

You weren't the one to gossip but you really wanted to know why Daemon was there? Why was he here? What was hurting him?

“How did you find out?” You asked her to seem disinterested as you didn't want to make your interest apparent.

“I have my source girl” she patted herself on shoulders so you crossed your arms together.

“Uhuh and what did your source tell you?”

“Well you're not ready for this-"

“Just spill it already” you chuckled as you spoke but the way she was stalling had only gotten you more curious.

“He thinks..now listen to this..he thinks he's a dragon” she mumbled excitedly so you stared at her all perplexed.

“What?”

“The new guy believes that he's a human dragon hybrid or something like that.. unbelievable right?”

Oh well!! That was a big problem huh.

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

[zero-ek]

As soon as Yuu was released the first thing i did was to listen to her voice lines, not only because of who is voicing her (the Sailor Moon!!) but because i was very curious as to what sort of dimension her voice would add to her character.

And it's particularly interesting the way that her voice sells how... empty she is, like not only in that losing her memories destroyed her sense of self and her morality (like i had initially expected), but in that she doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of anything beyond the ideas of "Yuu", Shii, the list, Magical Girls and Witches. Like, it's like she doesn't even know what being a human even is.

That much is obvious just in the way she speaks, like she keeps switching back and forth between multiple voices and running over her own words, like she speaks out of muscle memory and can't control the sounds that her mouth makes. But also, some of the stuff she says is... concerning, here's a few lines:

(I got these from her F*ndom quotes page i didn't know where else to find them)

"We're together today too... is that the same as yesterday? Does that mean tomorrow's gonna be the same!? And two days ago too? I guess after tomorrow too... wait so even today too!?"

From her first login, notice how by the end of the sentence she forgot about whay she said at the start completely. Also it's hard to convey through written text but, not only her sense of object and spacial permanence is nonexistent, she seems to genuinely have a hard time undertanding the concept of time:

"Did you just say good morning? Oh that must mean it's morning nowiseewaitdid i... did i sleep? I'm bummed... no i'm not, aha! Morning!"

Her morning login.

"Did you just tell me good night...? 'Good night' is what you say when you're done for the day!? So if we keep repeating 'good night' forever, can we stop tomorrow from coming...?"

Her night login

A couple of her lines showing her extremely short memory, and how it affects her fundamental understanding of things:

"Man, i'm so hungry... WAIT! I think i was just full...! Which was it! Doesn't it really suck how you can never tell what's inside of your tummy?"

Noon login.

"Sorry! I...! What was i thinking about? Do you know? Can you tell me? What a bummer, what a bummer... Wait, what was i bummed about?"

Her standard login (honestly same).

"I gotta get goinghmm...? Where was i going again?"

Story end 3

"If your arms or your legs get really old, then why not just rip 'em off? It's gonna grow new ones so it's okay, here, lemme help you!"

Tap 4.

"Nagisa-chan loves cheese, meanwhile i have 'someone'... 'someone' is me! So don't forget about cheese and 'someone' even when tomorrow comes, alright?"

Magical release 1

"Y'see, ghosts only come from the past, they don't be coming from the future! So why... can i only go to tomorrow?"

Magical release 2

Also this one is just, man...

"No matter how many times time turns back, i'll keep doing the same thing! 'Cause i don't wanna pretend that all the times i messed up and all the times i was sad weren't real!"

Tap 8

It's also extremely unnerving how genuinely childlike and innocent her "main", higher pitched voice is, like i can't explain why but it really sells that she does what she does all because she genuinely doesn't know any other way to live, not least because it seems she wholeheartedly doesn't seem to be able to think beyond the current moment, like she just goes with the flow of time without having anything to ground herself on.

I think that, while having a fully fledged design added to her "inhuman" factor in a creepy manner, like, compounding to the idea of this beastly Magical Girl that rips people's organs off, her voice made her "inhuman" in a much crueler and sad way, in that it served to illustrate that she is the way she is because it's quite literally the only way of living that she knows.

[mmyrrhh]

Eyes on the road

Summary: A car ride with your favourite lieutenant.

Relationship: Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader

Word Count: 648

Notes:

Fluff

Mr. Riley strikes me as the kind of person who will listen to country music while driving and tapping the steering wheel rhythmically in the process.

My sideblog got shadowbanned so I’ll be posting my fics here until the issue gets resolved (if it gets resolved).

————————————————————————

You’ve been driving for two hours straight, and the silence between you grows longer as the miles pass. Despite your efforts to engage him in conversation, he appears content to remain silent, responding only with brief, cryptic remarks.

“Where are we going?”

“That’s confidential information.”

“How long until we arrive?”

“We’ll get there when we get there.”

Touché.

He was deep in thought, with his right hand steady on the steering wheel and his left arm resting casually on the open window. He had an air of confidence about him, seemingly able to take control of anything that life may throw his way; missions, injuries, cars, you. Oh boy, the power he has over you.

Every time he had to shift gears, he did with such poise and grace, releasing the wheel but securing it with his thigh so it wouldn’t drift away. You watched him every time he did that, anticipating the moment he’d place his hand on you instead.

His mask obscures his face, but you know there is concealed road rage lurking beneath. Now and then, a reckless driver would surpass you, and he would mutter a curse under his breath as his gaze followed the car. Other times, he would instinctively put his hand in front of you, inches away from your chest, acting as a human seatbelt.

Inches away...

The scenery is, well, nothing: an endless expanse of dirt, as far as the eye can see. And with the quiet between you, the boredom begins to set in. You figured a little music would lighten up the mood, maybe even spark a discussion of some sorts. You turn on the radio, shuffling through the stations until you find one that works. You turn up the volume and turn your attention back on the road. Ghost doesn’t comment on your action but has a lot to say about your taste in music.

“It’s shite,” he mutters under his mask.

“It’s the only one that works,” you comment back.

“It’s still sh*t,” he repeats.

“We don’t have any other option, Lieutenant.”

“There’s always another option, soldier,” he explains. “In this case, you could always turn it off.”

Is this an order or a suggestion? Better go with the safe option. You move your hand towards the radio button, but he catches it mid-air, his touch sending shivers down your spine.

“Don’t; let it play if you like it,” he whispers, his eyes still focused on the road, “my preferences should never dictate yours.”

In that moment of unexpected kindness, you turn to look at him.

You become immediately drawn to his profile and begin to examine any characteristic you can distinguish beneath his balaclava.

His brows appear sparse and washed out; is that genetic or permanent damage from a fire? His dark brown eyes are half-closed, emitting a sense of melancholy; that, or he’s tired from all the driving. He suddenly lets out an audible sigh. Your eyes travel to his lips; you can distinguish a faint outline through the stretched fabric. His Adam’s apple moves with vigour every time he swallows. His collarbone, chest, arms, abd-

“Eyes on the road,” he commands. Shit; caught red-handed once again.

You lightly cough in embarrassment and obey. Neither of you speaks.

As you continue driving down the road, he suddenly takes his hand off the wheel and goes straight for the volume button, turning it up.

You turn to look at him in confusion.

“It’s Johnny Cash,” he explains, shrugging.

“Johnny Cash, huh? Any relation to… John Price?” you quip, trying to lighten the mood.

“You and your fucking jokes,” he says with a hint of a chuckle in his voice.

And with that, the silence between you settles once more. But this time, it’s no longer oppressive, no longer boring. It’s a comfortable silence, with Johnny Cash speaking volumes about you and your lieutenant’s silent bond.

————————————————————————

[fereldanwench]

A Personal, and Final, Reflection on A Certain Fandom

Having spent the past week and a half away from the Tumblr side of the C*b*rp*nk community after a resurgence of old wank (not hashing out the details–IYKYK), I heavily weighed the pros and cons of saying anything else. Ultimately, I decided for my own peace of mind and ability to fully move forward, I do want to say a few things (or a lot of things, given how long this is). This blog is my personal archive first and foremost, and I think writing a “final chapter” will help me find closure. I’m also choosing to publish this because, at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I think my mistakes and subsequent revelations might be good learning experiences for others, too. 

Like many of us, just by the nature of when this game was released, I entered this fandom during a very fragile, tumultuous time in my life–Well, sort of, let me back it up a little: I actually initially entered it during a great time in my life. It was July 2021, I had just enjoyed about 6 weeks off from work after quitting a demanding job that had sucked the life out of me for almost 10 years, and I had started a promising new job. I even bought the game with the first paycheck from said new job!

Unfortunately, while I had been told that this position was temp-to-hire, not only was it not a path to a permanent role, but because I completed all the work in my contract over a month sooner than they anticipated (early September vs late October), I was being let go early because they had nothing else for me to work on. I was literally told over the phone, “You did amazing work, you got us caught up through November, but we don’t have anything else for you.”

Cue about 6 months of recruiters ghosting me, exhausting interview processes, demoralizing rejections, and scam upon scam upon scam, all culminating in me returning to the job I had been so happy to leave a year earlier. And while my old coworkers were ecstatic to have me back, I couldn’t help but feel like a complete failure. I took what I thought was a calculated risk, I thought I could do something better for myself, and I couldn’t. It’s something I’m still struggling with today, honestly.

On top of this, I also experienced a debilitating physical health episode in January 2022 which led to me being effectively bedridden for about 3 weeks. [CW: Menstruation, sexual health] I’m not sure of the exact cause–maybe a bad reaction to emergency contraception, maybe unsafe menstrual underwear, but it resulted in menorrhagia so severe I fainted from blood loss. My insurance had literally just ended, another wave of COVID was hitting, and I didn’t want to risk getting infected sitting in an ER for hours only to rack up a few thousand in debt to get a blood transfusion. So rest, iron supplements, and lots of meat and spinach and orange juice was the best I could do.

All of this led to my world becoming very small. I wasn’t working, I could barely do my hobbies or see my local friends, and simple everyday tasks like showering drained me of all my energy. When I was stuck in bed and could barely keep my eyes open for more than a few hours at a time, gossip was a welcome, low-effort distraction from the physical pain and fear that I might either have to put myself in thousands of dollars of medical debt or risk lifelong damage (or worse) from the blood loss.

I also found myself having groups of friends in a way I’ve never experienced before. I’m extremely introverted (even online, though less so than IRL), I have social anxiety, and the handful of times I have been “in” a group I was never really in it. I was always on the outskirts and usually just close to one or two people, max.

Regretfully, this set the stage for me to get caught up in the culture of rumors and speculation that permeates this fandom more than I think it has any other fandom I’ve been a part of.

Academically, I know about things like groupthink and tribalism, and I could see how those influenced the groups developing in the fandom, but I had no direct, personal experience with those phenomena. I think in conjunction with the other struggles I was dealing with, I ended up being incredibly susceptible to an us-versus-them mentality, which led me to feel justified in being unkind to people I knew had been unkind to my friends, even if deep down I knew what I was doing was antithetical to who I strive to be. 

I don’t share any of this for sympathy points or to smear anyone else or to avoid accountability–I still chose to act like an ass on a couple of occasions, and regardless of what I was going through, that was still inappropriate. I’m still responsible for my own behavior no matter what’s going on. 

But I do want to contextualize my fuck-ups for two reasons:

The first reason is ego-driven, full-stop. Not even gonna gloss it over. I can’t defend being an asshole nor do I want to, but I think it’s normal and healthy to look back on your mistakes and go, damn, why the hell was I acting like this? 

Even on my best days, I can be very stubborn and self-important and pedantic and judgemental, and I certainly can’t say that I’ve never inadvertently offended someone–Sometimes a joke might not land as I hoped. Sometimes I get tangled up in my own thoughts, burdened by an excess of nuance and details, and I express things poorly while I try to account for all sides of things. Sometimes I can get a little too opinionated about blorbo stuff. Sometimes there might just be a full communication breakdown or an insurmountable personality clash–But I can also confidently say that I have acted with good intentions in this fandom far, far more than I have with spite or because of petty rivalries.

And when I did get caught up in the drama and gossip and the wank? I was literally at the lowest point I’d been in a very, very long time. 

Again, because I feel like I can’t say this enough, that doesn’t make acting like a dick in a Discord server any more excusable, that doesn’t mean I didn’t hurt anyone, and that doesn’t mean that someone I hurt during that time has to forgive me or stick around for me to grow. Hurting someone because you’re hurting is still not okay. But I’m pretty sure every single one of us has had a bad day (or two or three or 365 or–) and made an isolated bad decision (or two or three or–) because of it–None of us deserve to be wholly defined by those moments or denied a chance to learn from those mistakes and be better.

And I think the most important takeaway for me personally is that I have learned from these mistakes and I have not repeated them. Some of these mistakes even helped me realize that I needed professional support for my mental health, and they played a role in my seeking medication and therapy last year. I still have a lot of work to do, but the silver lining to all of this is that I am in a much better place today than I was 2 years ago (even if this year also fucking sucks for non-fandom reasons and I would still very much like a goddamn break.)

The other reason I wanted to share my journey of navel-gazing and healing a wounded ego ~*self-discovery*~ is I think there’s a very good chance my story might sound familiar to others in the fandom. Maybe someone else can learn from my hardships and mistakes, too. Maybe you too were dealing with chronic fatigue or mental health issues or financial stress or isolation or all of the above and then some, and it led you to fixate on things that were harmful to you, to form unhealthy relationships with equally hurt people, and to act in a way that you know doesn't reflect who you are. The past several years have been so hard on so many of us, and I think we’ve all brought a lot of pain and misery into the community even if we weren’t trying to.

A somewhat shameful realization I had last year was I could recognize that kind of behavior in other people, but I completely missed it in myself. I could see how people were making this fandom their whole world and how it was so damaging to them, but I was doing the exact same thing and I just let it go completely unchecked because I thought I knew better. It was a brutal lesson in the pitfalls of pride. 

--------

So I was initially thinking at this point, I would take the time to address a few specific lies, rumors, and insinuations that have been said about me over the past couple of years. Because while I was a jerk in a couple of situations, most of the things said about me are exaggerations, if not outright fabrications.

And I did start writing a lot of that out, but as I was doing it, I was just overcome with a huge feeling of OH MY GOD I just don’t fucking care anymore. As one of my dear, long-time fandom friends has pointed out, there’s a great line about just this kind of thing from one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite games: “Why should it [bother me]? They don’t know me. I know me.”

I also really don’t want to run the risk of pulling anyone back into the fray (especially if they’re not even in the fandom anymore or if we’ve talked privately about certain issues) by even alluding to shit that happened years ago.

Instead, I would like to offer three of my big takeaways from the experience of being falsely accused of awful things:

You do not know nearly as much as you think you know about people’s fandom relationships. The one semi-specific thing I will mention is that I had been explicitly named a few times as being in cahoots with people I don’t think I ever even spoke to or that I had already drifted away from–Just because you saw two people existing in the same public space doesn’t mean they’re besties, bestie. Also, friends don’t always have to agree with each other, nor should we be expected to participate in a public spectacle of shaming if we do have a disagreement. People are allowed to resolve their differences privately.  

Not all conflicts/disagreements are inherently abusive or toxic. When you are hurting or dealing with unresolved trauma or starting to confront uncomfortable truths about yourself, the slightest disagreement can feel like a personal attack, but that doesn’t mean it is. Sometimes differences might be irreconcilable, but sometimes they might not be if you don’t automatically assume the worst of someone with a different perspective than you. Sometimes we just need to give the other person a little grace and the benefit of the doubt that they’re doing their best. And sometimes we might need to consider that it’s actually our own behavior driving the conflict and not the other person.

Even in situations when someone has clearly been unfairly targeted/victimized, that doesn’t mean they can’t also be a perpetrator of harassment/abuse to someone else. Victim and abuser are not mutually exclusive roles. I would wager a lot of us are familiar with the cyclical nature of abuse, and to quote a line from one of my favorite movies (admittedly a bit of a flippant line in the context of the film, but it still rings true): hurt people hurt people. Accountability for shitty behavior is never conditional, regardless of the pain we’re experiencing. 

--------

I titled this my final reflection, and I want to clarify what that means:

First of all, I’m not leaving this fandom (don’t everyone clap at once ha ha ha). I’ve been in various online fandoms since the early 00s, and while this has been one of the more challenging communities for me to navigate, it’s not enough to make me give up something I love this much. My blorbos are my perpetual muses, and I feel like virtual photography is the creative outlet I’ve been searching for my entire life. I love this game and hobby too much to stop creating and sharing.

I’m also not leaving Tumblr. While I’ve had this specific account since 2016, I’ve been here since 2010–Tumblr is not just this fandom for me. I have many friends (some I’ve known since my original account in 2010!) from other fandoms, and I’m not losing the best place to hang out with other people who are special to me just because one fandom got a little unpleasant. (I mean, look, I weathered the DA fandom here circa 2012-2015–This ain’t my first rodeo.) I also have a lot of hope for the Tumblr Communities feature, and I’m really hoping the VP community we’ve set up can continue to grow and flourish.

But I am no longer addressing any of this wank. If you have a problem with something I’ve done or said to you and you want to address it with me directly (preferably in a private space just so we don’t keep putting this shit on people’s dashboards), I am open to conversation and apologizing where needed.

Otherwise, this is the last time I’m talking about it anywhere. Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, publicly, privately–I’m done. I’m washing my hands of it. I don’t want to hear anything else about what other people have done or who they’re friends with or who they’re following or what they’re saying about me or my friends or any of it. This bullshit has taken up too much of my time and energy, and I have very important smutty shots to take. 

And I am probably going to continue to be less active in the fandom on Tumblr, at least for a while. You probably won’t see me here much until September at the earliest. This time away has been really good for me, and I think I need to continue with limited Tumblring and making the time I am here more structured. Plus, with some of my other fave video game series returning this fall, my blog will probably shift back to a more well-balanced multi-fandom space. 

I’m also going to need to diversify my dash a little bit more, which means I will likely end up unfollowing some mutuals, particularly if we don’t interact often, if you don’t tag, or if I see any mention of fandom drama–It’s nothing personal, but I know breaking mutualship can hurt a little, so if following me after that makes you uncomfortable in any way, please don’t feel like you have to stick around. I totally get it. Similarly, if it would make you uncomfortable for me to continue to interact with your posts after unfollowing (because I probably will if you post in certain tags), please feel free to block me. 

Okay. Christ, that was long. Shut the fuck up already, right? This is why I can't do social media with character limits. ghdfjgjhkfdgkfdg

Seriously, though, that's it. People are welcome to comment on this post if they want, but I really have nothing else to say about any of this so please don’t be offended if I don’t reply. I’m not ignoring you, I’m just… Well, done.

[fan-goddess]

Ettore and public sex????

He seems like the kind of kinky bastard who likes that shit

Bonus points for face slapping cos I'm a dirty feral slut 👌

Authors Note: Same girl, same….. I hate how short this is but this is what has typed out from my thumbs and my brain. So enjoy

Warnings: P in v sex, public sex, slapping, choking, blood kink sort of, masochism, sadism, forbidden relationship, not entirely sure how to describe this whole thing but it’s got some angst here (if I’ve missed anything you think I should add, then let me know)

Taglist: @sofiyathecunt, @marvelgirl123, @sylasthegrim, @mochi-rose, @valeskafics, @humanpurposes, @watercolorskyy, @blue-serendipity, @omgbrcat

When you first begun sneaking around with Ettore, you were weak.

The way his eyes made you feel so inferior when they looked at you. The way his hands would flex and strain to hold you as he rutted roughly into you against the wall. Even the way his tattoos stood out under the blue light of the hallways made you so weak in his arms.

It made the act of caring for him easier, somehow. Even though you knew you’d never do so properly or truly. He was unable to love.

That much was obvious with how he marked you so ruthlessly and carelessly. His teeth leaving permanent marks in the skin of your neck.

Since you’d begun your strange relationship with him, it’s been obvious that Ettore couldn’t even comprehend the meaning of subtle.

Especially as he fucked you against the wall right now, in the empty dark hallway.

“Such a fucking good pussy…” Ettore groans, his sighs and groans being all you can hear apart from the sticky sounds of his cock entering you, and the slight faint hum of the overhead lights.

You’d stayed silent, yet it seemed Ettore wanted an answer. Some kind of wanton beg or something like that. As his hand releases from your waist and harshly slaps your face without any hesitation.

Yet it’s strange as you hear yourself gasping and feel yourself clenching hard on his cock as you feel the slight stinging where he hit you, you realise how much you liked it.

Huh… who knew you was such a dirty feral slut… you muse. Smirking slightly as you found amusement in the situation.

“What are you laughing for?” He snarls. His hand that is seemingly still warm from his hard he hit you curls around your throat harshly to force you to look at him.

“Nothing at all…” You say, moaning slightly when you feel Ettore hit you again. This time on your other cheek.

“What a dirty bitch…” Ettore grins, resuming his harsh thrusts into you that leave you gasping for air as his hand grasps tighter on your neck. Only you don’t try and fight him to get away. If anything, you begin to smile in a haze of pleasure as your thoughts go dull.

Yet when his hand moves away your almost whine in disappointment when the blood rush flows to your head.

Your own hands that so desperately held onto his arms, now dig deeply into Ettores back. You can see the way the blood that begins to flow to the surface contrasts against the blue light of the hallway, and you find it so oddly beautiful your nails dig even more inside of him so it can drip more.

It’s even better for you when Ettore groans from the pain. Maybe he’s the same sort of sick you are?

The thrum of the hallway lights does nothing to conceal yours and his moans and groans. The sound of which rings in the empty hallway. You almost wish for someone to walk down and find the two of you, the thrill overpowering the overwhelming sense of danger you get whenever you visit Dr Dibbs for one of your many ‘checkups’.

As you think of it, you can suddenly feel Ettores hand that clasps around your neck once more tighten possibly in a warnings manner, and your cunt clenches wantonly around Ettores cock as the slight tinge of pain and pleasure mixes.

“Seems like I’m fucking the biggest whore on this ship…” Ettore groans, taking his hand from your throat to quickly slap at the skin of your cheek three times in quick precision before going back to tightly holding your neck.

Your eyes feel like they roll to the back of your head as the stinging on your cheeks flares, and you can almost practically feel your juices trailing down the skin of your arse as your legs tighten around ettores waist.

Maybe you were the biggest white on this ship… You needed to be to be after willingly agreeing to sleep with Ettore of all people. Especially after knowing his unique history to a certain degree…

Yet your mind is casted away from such thoughts as Ettores cock begins to pound into your rough patch deep inside of you, and suddenly, it’s all over.

The hand on your neck prevents you from sharply intaking, and instead your left only with shallow gasps that leave your head almost blurry and your whole body nearly collapsing.

You can however, as you’re on the verge of consciousness, feel the sudden rush of warmth of Ettores cum as he groans and floods your cunt. Your own cum spilling out of you with his own leaving a crude stain on your black underwear you cannot help but smile at.

“Fucking whore…” Ettore grins as he stalks you back to your room, and watches you collapse into your bed.

“Hmmm yeah…” You groan, getting yourself comfy as your eyes begin to droop from tiredness and pure fatigue.

“But I’m your whore…”

You can only hear the bluntness of a grunt before footsteps begin to echo, and your eyes fall and sleep overtakes you.

When you dream that night, it’s of you and Ettore living in the nuclear family home. You cook the Sunday dinner while Ettore reads the paper at the table, your son and daughter mindlessly chattering to him whilst he murmurs small responses in return.

It makes your heart clench at the memory of it when you find yourself waking up, but you knew what you signed up for the moment you nodded in agreement for his proposition that day. You would never ever get that life.

The next night, when he fucks you against the hallway wall again, your mind can’t help but turn to that dream. That fantasy. Your mind goes fuzzy as Ettores hands leaves red handprints on your neck and cheek, and yet even still, you know you’ve come to accept this as his love. No matter how fucked up it all is, the sex and the doctors unethical experiments included. As he’ll never change.

Ettore will never love you the way you want him too.

[damianbugs]

please share your dick and bruce fic recs, both sad and fun stuff

–someone who thinks about them a normal amount

OHHH my friend my dearest friend i will totally share the best most crazy brainworm inducing bruce and dick fics i have ever read. i wish i was exaggerating when i say this dynamic changed me as a person, but it is the truth i fear. THE troubled father and son blueprint.

DICK AND BRUCE FIC RECS ON AO3

a pointless resistance by emavee

It starts with a news report running in the background of a greasy little diner, but it ends with Dick dead. Except, it doesn't stop there. It keeps on ending, over and over. Bruce's son keeps dying, and nothing he does seems to make any sort of difference.

MY NOTES: whenever i stumble upon an emotionally repressed individual i imagine a little cartoon person in my head shouting SEND HIM TO THE TIME LOOP because it truly does fix all problems. wonderful bruce and dick writing and the dialogue was so real to me i have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. it is also set during the robin jason era!

Making Time by CaptainOzone

Bruce does not remember anything leading up to this moment. He does not remember teaming up with Superman recently, nor does he remember being anywhere but Gotham proper. He does remember having Robin at his side. Robin, it turns out, is not there any longer. God does he hate magic.

MY NOTES: you'll notice a common theme with these recs and that is bruce needs to be having a horrible time and then is forced to confront his emotions and express them accordingly to dick. there is something very bittersweet about this yet it was handled so wonderfully. again, tears in my eyes.

Catch and Release by snackbaskets

There's a tradition among the family: when in danger, you grab the smallest Robin and hang on tight. But like all traditions, this one had to start somewhere, right? Alternately: three times Dick bodily attacks his father (with love)

MY NOTES: ohhh i think about the last part of this fic like all the time. something so sweet and precious about it to me. such a fun and comforting read.

Afraid of the Dark by WrongLeverKronk

The wind whispered outside his window and the dim moon failed to provide comfort. He was embarrassed. Richard Grayson sat on his bed, above the covers, with his arms wrapped firmly around his knees that were tucked against his chest. He thought everything would be fine when he parted from his friends for the evening, that his confidence would follow him in solitary. He regretted parting as soon as he turned out the lights in his bedroom and became enclosed by the eerie atmosphere. (Or: the aftermath of the episode in which Robin hallucinates Slade. He calls Batman)

MY NOTES: can u hear the sounds of me screaming crying sobbing. one of my first ever dick and bruce fics. fun fact i have never watched teen titans but watched this episode specifically just for fun and then read this and now it is seared permanently into my mind forever. anyways read this.

in the dark of the night by fanfictiongreenirises

“I already have a dad, y’know? So you don’t have to be my new dad. I don’t really want you to be my dad, anyway. We can be friends. Partners.” Bruce seems to sigh in relief, having stiffened up halfway through Dick’s speech. “Friends and partners, then.” And they were in agreement. Bruce and Dick and a series of steps and leaps and jumps.

MY NOTES: sometimes im okay and then i remember how many times dc COULD have made bruce adopt dick and DIDNT because they SUCK and so this fic is here to warm the hearts of all those who need it. so lovely.

After the Wake by nighhtwing (divineauthor)

Fathers should not bury their children. —•— When Jason dies, Dick comes home, and Bruce muses on being a parent.

MY NOTES: a shorter one, but man does it pack a real punch to the heart. i find bruce and dicks dynamic immediately after jasons death the most fascinating and this was a wonderful spin on it!

You Are My Reflection (As I Am Yours) by Fairy527

A rope snaps. A collective scream echoes in the tent. (A threatening low voice. A sinister metallic click.) The Flying Graysons fall, and Bruce is sent back to that fateful night in Crime Alley

MY NOTES: clutches my heart screaming OHH. OH THE PARALLELS. there is just something so personal about the night the graysons fell and the night the waynes died being referenced with one another AND THIS GOT IT SOOO WELL. tears. tears forever.

i can't promise (it's not written in the stars) by konan_konan

Batman is following him, surely, but he’s smaller and faster and he’s not going to let someone take him and lock him up again. Wayne Manor, he’s learned, is just another kind of prison. It may be big and fancy but it is also empty and cold and he’s not going back. Tony Zucco dies tonight, he tells himself. It is the only thing that matters. or: dick loses two soulmates, and gains three.

MY NOTES: oh this fic. i need a moment. soulmate aus can be a real hit or miss sometimes but the way it was portrayed in this literally surpasses all expectation it was just SO GOOD. the dick introspection is honestly one of my favourites like. ever.

In This or Any Other Universe by wildsofmarch

There was a new vigilante in his city: a man who smiled too much and talked too loud and knew his way around a fight a little too well. Bruce wasn't bothered by his antics. Except the man also seemed to know a little too much about him. Who was this Nightwing, anyway? ------ OR: Dick Grayson (DCU) accidentally lands himself in Battinson’s Gotham.

MY NOTES: here it is. my favourite bruce and dick fic of all time forever and ever. im so serious. the tears are not in my eyes because they are streaming down my face. the idea of battinson with a robin was lovely and now that this gives us battinson with NIGHTWING i am just inconsolable. MUST READ.

[fictional-orphan-smackdown]

BOOK ORPHAN VS BOOK ORPHAN, GO!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut (tw for suicide mentions in Harrowhark's propaganda)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb)

She is literally so powerful okay. Like she's a huge bitch and I love her. She knows how strong her necromancy powers are. To be able to control not one but TWO adult corpses for YEARS from the time she was like? 9 years old!? There is so much more to her but I don't wanna get too spoilerly but uhg I love this little gay necromancer

IS SHE REALLY IN LOVE WITH A CORPSE??

Harrowhark is a necromancer and nun on Pluto where they pray about a tomb remaining closed and not releasing the body inside that could kill their god, but Harrow opens said tomb when she was 10 so her parents commit suicide and help her tie her own noose. They die in front of her and she doesn't follow through, so seven years later she's still alive to torment the only other child around (also an orphan) while running the planet through the puppeted corpses of her parents, who the rest of the population are led to believe are alive (but no, it's a 10-17 year old doing incredibly advanced necromancy, this is fine)

Unlike most orphans, Harrow has been keeping her status secret. After her parents committed suicide, she told everyone they had taken a permanent vow of silence and started puppeting their bodies around with her necromantic powers. She has been doing a Weekend at Bernies for the past eight years.

The Baudelaire Orphans (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

The epitome of orphans, they’re the best

“I’m having a very terrible childhood right now”-Klaus

The story deadass begins with them being told that their parents died in a fire and that they're orphans now. They then bounce from guardian to guardian who tend to always meet a gruesome fate at the hands of Count Olaf. Not only have they been orphaned once, but have been orphaned multiple times and are called "The Baudelaire Orphans" by not only characters in the book but by the narrator himself. They're called "The Baudelaire Orphans" so many times that it might as well be a defining character trait of theirs, and honestly it sort've is. The series doesn't even end with them finding a home or guardians of any kind, it ends with the Baudelaires fate being completely ambiguous with them literally sailing away from the island they were stranded on in the final book (yeah this series is quite the journey, I highly suggest it). These poor three kids are probably the most orphaned kids of all time since their orphaned in a new way almost every book and they deserve at least one win in their unfortunate tale.

These guys are like the poster-child of orphaning, we open the series with them finding out that they're orphans and also have no access to their money so now they hop around from place to place from weirdo caretaker to another weird/crazy/murderous caretaker and it's all fun and games and murder and decieving and surviving and thriving and---my point is, these three are a wonderful trio of siblings who love and rely on one another through all their trials and tribulations.

Literally every single one of their problems come from being orphans. They’re continually referred to as orphans and the plot of the first half of the series is them being shuffled around to guardians.

These kids are so orphaned they never even get a found family outside themselves. At least most stories featuring orphaned kids see them fulfill some sorta epic destiny or have them find a new home or set of loved ones of sorts. The Baudelaires? They're thrown from one fucking failure of a home into the next, ignored, hunted, etc.. It's been years but like, even in the end, they still have to set sail alone. As individual characters, they aren't bad either. Violet's the dependable big sister who's knack for inventions comes in handy, Klaus is a well-read chap and Sunny is a lovely gremlin. They make a good trio.

Every single guardian they try to obtain throughout the series turns out to be someone who wants the large inheritance left for them and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it.

They basically fend for themselves the whole series when no adult will listern to them. The whole series is them being resourceful and clever the whole series despite the misfortune. Violet is a brilliant inventor, Klaus reads and collects knowledge, and Sunny learns to be a good cook over the series

their parents die tragically in a fire and then everything awful proceeds to happen to them

I haven't read these books in years but if any orphans deserve to win a smackdown it's these fools, they are constantly in the trenches in those books goddamn. Also that baby is like a shredder they have that on their side, I think that beast literally solo'd a snake?

(This one was specifically for Klaus, but I'll put it here still) He and his sisters being orphans is kinda the point. As in many books, it's the trigger for them to change lives and navigating hardships. The thing is, their hardships just grow worse and "unfortunate" (read "dreadful") events keep happening to them as they stick together instead of the story getting better. Klaus and Violet become Sunny's subtitute parents and get through their more and more miserable lives together keeping hope things would eventually get better

Arguably more famously orphaned than Bruce Wayne, if not for how their story happens while they’re orphaned children versus an orphaned adult. Definitely have the most famously tragic post-orphaning story. All three are incredibly brilliant in their own way, including the literal baby. Pursued relentlessly by the leader of a maniacal theater troupe and letdown by a slew of adults, so it’s all the more impressive how amazing they each turned out to be. Book series was so good it got turned into a pretty great movie and then a successful TV show years later. Also can’t forget how these three are orphaned repeatedly as the distant relatives who take them in get killed off in increasingly inventive manners. Let’s be honest, ain’t no characters out here orphaning like the Baudelaire orphans.

this series taught me so many cool words and phrases and I love each of the 3 main characters so much

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are peddled from caretaker to caretaker over the course of 13 books, always being chased by the evil Count Olaf who wants to steal the Baudelaire fortune that the children are meant to inherit once they reach a certain age.

Spoilers ahead, the Baudelaires siblings story starts with them going from being the Baudelaire kids to the Baudelaire orphans, after their parents pass away in a mysterious fire. But they arent the only paternal figures that they lost, they go from tutor to tutor, almost all the good ones dying in front of them, and even the ones that survive at first their future is uncertain since the last time the kids see them they are blindfolded in a burnind building, and we never found out who make it out alive and who didnt. Even the main villian, Count Olaf their first tutor, and the only constant adult in their life after their parents death ends up dying in front of them. These three are orphans ten times over.

They are THE orphans. They have lost not only their parents but multiple guardians that they went to live with as well.

They're THE Orphans. The childhood book orphans we all read, Orphans Prime if you will. They lose their parents, every caregiver who's ever kind to them, then say fuck it and live on a deserted island on their own to raise themselves abd fully embrace their orphan status. On the island, they learn their parents survived the shipwreck then died again - double orphaning even.

OH MY SWEET LITTLE CHILDREN THAT FUELED MY LOVE FOR READING AND THE MACABRE Violet- Won her first of many invention competitions when she was five with an automatic rolling pin (comprised of a window shade and six pairs of roller skates). Extremely innovative and genius, foiled by her kindness to others. And she knows how to make a Molotov cocktail. Klaus- Absolute monster of a bibliophile, conducts research for fun, and has a photographic memory. He is known to want nothing more than "a good book, a comfy chair, and the warm glow of a reading lamp". He also is a Herman Melville fan, which is points for him in my book. Sunny- Most people know her only for her penchant for biting, but Sunny is a distinctly distinguished character. She has sharp wit (as long as you can read it through her babbles), her poker skills are phenomenal for a baby, and she has quite the knack for cooking! Also yeah, the teeth. She climbed an elevator shaft with them once.

They are constantly going through it, give these kids a break for real

[covermeindinsbeskar]

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: no real warnings, very brief mention of sex, fluff, slow burn, established relationship, romantic fluff, domestic fluff

A/n: I wanted to write something where reader admires Din’s scars, but it turned into whatever this is lol enjoy my ramblings!

Not edited

Your lungs feel twisted, each breath strenuous and painful, any feeling in your legs is completely gone and your feet are on fire. You've been sprinting around the razor crest for what feels like hours. This scorching, barren planet you've been trapped on isn't doing you any favours, The ship has become suffocatingly smoggy. you push your body forward rounding the sharp corner and proceed down the ship's hallway. Your feet gradually weaken, and your body slowly starts to shut down. You feel your shoulders drop and your upper body collapses in half, your hands grasping at your knees to support yourself. You try to level your breathing; you should not be feeling this winded. You shakily pull yourself up and lean against the wall finding the tiniest bit of relief from the cold metal.

The Crest betrayed you on a long journey back to Nevarro, having to pull an emergency landing on the planet Bespin. As you both desperately tried to guide the ship as it plummeted towards the planet. He faced you. Voice steady, body poised and confident. “We’ll be safe here; you’ll be safe here.” your eyes are drowning in worry; all you could do was nod. The mandalorian gave you a single nod back as a silent promise. The thought of landing somewhere unknown and without any sort of plan terrified you. Your whole existence has been spent in concealment, and each action has been calculated. At least now, you had a companion. A lover, a family.

after a shaky landing, Din assured you once again that this planet was safe and undisturbed by any galactic affairs. You trust him. Of course, you do, he never gave you a reason not to. You were and still remain a sought-after bounty. He found you almost immediately after you came out of hiding. Finally, once you thought you could slip away to another planet, His intimidating armoured form emerged through the shadows, blaster raised to your chest, you swung your leg around kicking it out of his hand. You attempted to sprint in the opposite direction in hopes of losing him through some alleys. Your plan failed as he quickly took notice to your fleeing attempt and released his fibercord wrapping it around your torso making your arms became permanently fixed to your sides, your limp body dragged off and thrown onto his ship ready to sell you for a few worthless credits.

You helped him with a few bounties along the way before your eventual hand off to, maker knows, what prison or person that wanted you, only to discover you both work well together. Really well. You got to know each other on those missions. He learned about your petty crimes to stay alive that grew into bigger crime’s eventually racking up into a hefty bounty. In return, you learned about the way of the Mandalore and you admired him for it. To grow up in a close community, strong in body, mind and heart. The more you two talked the more you opened up about your past, telling him about your family- now long gone. One evening while sharing meal with you, he gave you, his name. Din Djarin. Your practiced it a few times in front of him with a smile. It made him feel uneasy, not in a bad way. His name naturally falling from your lips was something he never thought he could get addicted to. He wanted to hear you whisper it, to scream it, to repeat it like a prayer for him and only him. That’s when he decided not to hand you over and introduced you to his son, Grogu. Tucked away in his makeshift bed, hidden away from you for weeks. How could something so cute be hidden away from others?

Meeting Grogu was like love at first sight. You both became attached at the hip, literally, as he was always tucked at your side everywhere you went. You became a crew member with the Mandalorian and his small green child a little over a year now. “I could really use a crew member like you...” taking your hands in his “we would like you to stay.” You agreed immediately, with a big smile on your face. A bed to sleep in (his bed), food in your stomach (always prepared and shared together), and credits in your pocket (he used his credits to buy you gifts. Mostly weapons but, every once in a while, he’d come back with cute little gifts from a planet that made him think of you) it was a great deal. Better than any other ‘jobs’ you seem to get yourself into. Not to mention staying beside Din’s side. You still weren’t sure if that was his way of you asking you to be his and only his, but you devoted yourself to him long before he asked you to stay.

You would end up caring for Grogu most of the time, not that you minded. He was a bundle of joy! You were told about his powers and observed them growing stronger by the day. It was something you only ever heard stories about. Tales of Jedi’s your dad would tell you about before bed as a child and that’s exactly what you thought they were, tales. Stories that gave children hope for peace and balance in such a chaotic galaxy. Seeing it in person was incredible! So much power in a tiny body, you wanted to protect him at all costs. It’s the reason why you’re out breath and body giving up on you now. The kid has been running around the ship due to Din being preoccupied with the repairs, he’s bored and has decided to play a game of chase for the last hour.

For the sake of trying to recover what little breath that remains in your lungs, you push yourself off the wall. Your focus is drawn to the open door of the crest by the sounds of laughter echoing off the walls. The blur of large ears is all you see as you head towards the door, your mouth curved into a smile. “gotch’ you now!” You take one last sprint out the door and dive to the ground, encasing a small green ball of giggles. “Do you think this is funny?” You can’t contain your laugh as Grogu babbles incoherently trying to wiggle his way out of your arms. “Batuu” is the only thing you can make out as he looks at you with big, beautiful eyes. You’re going to take that as a yes, he does find this game very funny.

You let him go, your heart brimming with joy as he laughs his way back towards the crest, expecting you'll chase him again. You pull yourself up off the ground, brush yourself off, and take a moment to marvel at the scenery. Your senses are immersed by the aroma of flowers and grass, warmth from mild winds on your skin, and lush-looking, deep green forests which extend for miles. If it weren't for the power tools that silence every sound on this planet, you'd think you could hear nature itself.

You hum to yourself as you walk around the ship, the noise getting louder as you look for Din. His form comes into view making you stop dead in your tracks. The view of Din kneeling while he works on repairing the siding on the ship, his helmet still on, bare torso, He’s glistening. His muscles tensing with every little movement, you can’t help but marvel at his chiseled back. He looks like he’s made from stone. a living sculpture. Until now, you’ve never seen him without his armour- or shirt for that matter. You’ve felt him though, cloaked in complete darkness. You’ve felt his toned muscle, every scar, every vein under your fingertips. Always painting a mental image that your fingers have memorized. Heat washes over your cheeks, whipping your body around hoping he hasn’t felt your eyes boring into his back. It almost felt like you were betraying his trust. You’ve never seen any part of him, besides his hands. When alone, he’d take his gloves off and rub his thumbs across your cheeks, cradle your jaw, feather his fingertips down you neck, swipe his knuckles down your shoulders, then slide his fingers up and down your arms, to end their journey softly intertwining his fingers with yours.

A few months into working with each other, one mission went wrong. Horribly wrong. Allies turned on your clan getting you shot in the process. You truly didn’t think you’d make it back it back to crest. You silently wept in Din’s arms. You never feared death, you were always alone. but now you didn’t want to go like this. Not in the arms of a man who didn’t know you loved him. He carried you back to crest “it’s okay, you’re okay, we’re gonna get you all fixed up” he was panicking. you could sense it even in and out of consciousness. If only you could see the tears that stained his face. He knew you wouldn’t make it; all he wanted to do was bring you home. He wanted the last thing you see was him and Grogu at your side. You don’t remember much of anything that night. You remember your two favourite people hovering over you, soothing you best they can. You smiled at them and thanked them. Thanked them for always being there, for saving you in more ways than one, for giving you a sense of family and giving you a home. With your last breath you muttered your truth “I love you… Din Djarin…”

A few days later, your eyes flickered open, and you were greeted by Din. He extended his hand to take yours as you grin at him. You panicked and shot up, asking "Where's Grogu?" as you scan the room in search of him. “He’s sleeping mesh’la…” he whispers. That was the first time he’s ever called you that. He gently pushed you back down. “He… he saved you. I don’t know how… he’s still sleeping, he’s been out for days. I- I thought I lost you…” he chokes out. You squeezed his hand “hey I’m ok now… I’m here.” your eyes searched his visor; you desperately wanted to reach out for him and feel his lips on yours in that moment. Even though you know it’s something you’ll never get to feel. You can at least hug him, right? You sat up in bed and wrapped your arms around his waist, and squeezed him tight, fearing he might push you away. But he pulls you in closer his hand stroking the back of your head. “I love you too, mesh’la.” he whispers. You smiled, tears filling your eyes. You look up at him “I wish I could kiss you…” you confessed. “Hold on…” he whispered back, pulling you away from him. He walked over to the door shutting it tightly and turning out the lights. You were both enveloped by darkness barely able to see each other's silhouettes. You heard the hiss of his helmet coming off, sucking in your breath waiting for him. “Mesh’la?” He called out. You reached your hand out finding his and pulled him closer “I’m right here,” you giggled. His hands found your face pulling you closer, you can feel his breath against your lips, you inched yourself closer not able to wait any longer. He leaned in, his lips finding yours, soft as silk against yours. you sighed at the feeling. Your heart burst as he deepened each kiss. Each one getting sloppier and hungrier, “I need more mesh’la… let me feel you. Please…” he whispered against your lips. You nod as he lightly nipped at your bottom lip, you were desperate for the same thing.

That was the first time you both felt each other, Unable to keep your hands off each other ever since. You smile at the memory coming back to reality. He must’ve known one of you would find him like this… right? You slowly turn back around drinking him in again. He’s still distracted with the crest as your eyes trail down his back. His muscles prominently displayed as well as littered with scars. You’ve felt the bumps under your hands and asked about them while cloaked in the dark. He told you about each battle that left their permanent mark on his skin. Seeing it under the sun, you can finally see how sloppily they were tended to. Each mark proving his strength and survival. They look beautiful to you. Din still being unaware of your presence You slowly approach him, dropping to your knees behind him. your hands finding his shoulders and rubbing them gently. All noise stops, the sounds of nature over taking your sense just like you thought they would. “Mesh’la?” Din calls out. You hum to him, pressing soft kisses on his shoulders that trail down his back. You take the time to kiss each scar admiring every single one display to you. He chuckles softly, “what are doing?”

“no one has ever kissed them better before, so I’m doing it now.”

[star-girl69]

Ember in Your Hands

Jake Sully x Neytiri x Fem!Reader

—-

a/n: i hope you all enjoy!!

warnings: death, bows and arrows, bombs, mentions of fire, kidnapping, tell me if i missed anything!!

Chapter Six- Birds

—-

As long as you’ve known Neytiri, you’ve always thought of her like a bird. She flies around in the background, only emerging from the tree line when she wants to. So, it makes sense as to why she’s perfected a bird call.

It’s the call she uses in battle, high and loud enough to break through the commotion and make you listen to her. She uses it to simply get someone’s attention, or to save someone’s life.

Most importantly, your children know it.

You can just barely see Neytiri through the darkness and the rain you have to blink away, the bark of the tree rough against your back.

The trek through the forest was quiet, the only sounds being the pattering rain and soon — soft voices. Voices that you didn’t recognize.

After climbing a tree, a few yards away from Neytiri, with a view of a few of the recoms, you draw your arrow. Neytiri will fire the first shot, but right after her, you will rain down arrow upon arrow until they regain themselves and start shooting at you.

You keep your eyes fixed on your children, fists clenching when one of them pulls particularly hard and Kiri’s queue. Tuk whines next to her, shifting anxiously.

Then, a bird call.

The recoms don’t take any note of it. It is just another sound of the forest to them. But to your children, it is safety, it is a rescue, it is their parents.

Tuk gasps and whips her head to the source of the sound. Kiri looks around frantically, and you almost think she can see you — but the foliage is too much, and she looks away. Lo’ak turns slowly, nodding to Spider.

Another bird call.

You look over, and Neytiri is drawing her bow.

Kiri looks to be muttering something, some sort of prayer. It’s hard to tell from where you are, but you pull your bow back, thinking Neytiri has a good shot.

Then, the Avatar pulls on Kiri’s hair and whispers for her to shut up.

More silence in the forest, but Kiri keeps praying, her lips moving almost silently.

Finally, the man moves his head from behind Kiri’s, and an arrow sinks into his eye.

He falls over, and there’s barely one moment before they are scrambling to get into position — so you let one arrow go, then another — and the bullets come just before you can fire the third.

It rings in your ears, and you hiss and you press your back flat against the thick tree. The trunk will protect you, and there’s suddenly more screaming as you wait for a small ceasefire.

The smell of gas starts to fill the forest, the sound of footsteps, of your children and Spider running.

You hear an arrow release, Neytiri, and the bullets slow for a moment so you peek out around the edge and find your target. His gun slightly lowered, looking through the trees, searching for you — but your arrow sinks into his neck before he can find you.

More bullets rain down on you, but then they start to slow down like the end of a rain. For a moment, it feels like it’s over.

Then, his voice comes through the forest.

A voice you do recognize.

You don’t know how or why, but Colonel Quaritch has risen from the dead. Why must it be him, you wonder, and not your father? Your mother?

“Is that you, Mrs. Sully?” he let’s out a dry laugh. “I recognized your calling card. And I would bet… you’re there too, you little Augustine traitor.”

You suck in a breath. It’s weird to hear that name after so long, remember how many dead women it carries with it. No one calls you that here. No one talks about them.

“Why don’t you come on out? The three of us seem to have some unfinished business.”

Rage boils inside of you. You have no unfinished business than killing him a second time, permanently, so he will never take your family from you again. He will never make you lose again.

“Demon!” Neytiri yells. “I will kill you as many times as I have to!”

“You’ve been pretty busy, haven’t you? Got yourself a whole liter of half breeds.”

Your teeth bite down into your bottom lip, but this isn’t the time to feed into his cruel words and give him what he wants. He wants a reaction, and you will not give him one. You will not endanger your family like that.

Suddenly, a body falls. You can barely see an Avatar fall, arrow sticking out of his chest — but there’s another figure standing behind him.

“Neteyam!” you shout, as the Colonel shouts, his gun in position, and suddenly another figure collides over Neteyam and they slam to the ground, just a second before the bullets come.

You can’t tell if the wetness falling down your face is the rain or your own tears.

You nearly slip on the slick roots, but soon Neytiri is right ahead of you, the sound of gunfire in the air and something blasting behind you.

You’re knocked onto the branches for a quiet second, thrown onto Neytiri’s legs, and you only let out a small hiss as you stand and help her do the same, before running side by side farther away from it all.

Another bomb bathes the forest in red and orange, black smoke at the edges. It burns away all the green plant life.

Neytiri jumps from one branch to another, and you follow her without question, too busy focusing on the ground.

“Spider!” Kiri shouts, and when you look up, Neytiri is pulling her to stand and you see why she’s come this way.

“Come!” she pleads when Kiri won’t budge, and you run forward and look over the edge — but it’s too dark, the rain so heavy, you can see nothing but the faint outline of plants and rocks. No humans.

“But- Spider- he-” Kiri shouts, and then you rush forward and push her, away from the lost child, from the smell of smoke and away from the danger.

Then, you finally follow the slope of a fallen tree trunk to the ground, running through the hanging vines and dodging trees. You can hear Kiri crying, but at least she is alive, so you ignore the rocks and sticks hurting your feet and run faster and faster until you break through into a clearing.

There people here, in this small clearing, and your eyes flick to the thick log you could jump behind for cover.

“Mom!” someone shouts, and you look up and drop your bow.

Lo’ak forces himself into your arms, burying his face against your neck and breathing heavily against your damp skin.

It takes a second for the adrenaline to wear off, before you press a shaky hand to the back of his head and let what you know now are tears fall onto his hair.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Jake keeps asking everyone, and Lo’ak finally let’s go of you a bit to lean his head against your shoulder.

“Mama!” Tuk gasps when Lo’ak moves, hugging your legs, and you wrap your other arm around her as tight as you can, before Neytiri drops to her knees next to you and Tuk runs into her open arms.

Neteyam crosses through it to press his forehead to your other shoulder, Jake not far behind as he wraps his larger arms around all three of you.

“Thank you,” Neytiri sobs. “Thank you, Great Mother, thank you,” she cries.

Lo’ak turns away from you, his voice coming out a little broken. Kiri is next to you on the ground, half pressed against your leg so Neytiri can hug her.

“Where’s Spider?”

Kiri turns to him. “They took him. They took him,” she breathes, and your heart breaks for the little boy who has always been the spider on your wall.

“Take it easy, babygirl,” Jake whispers, bringing her into a hug as she dissolves into quiet sobs. “He’s gonna be okay,” he says, louder this time. “We’re all gonna be okay.”

Neteyam’s breath hits your shoulder, and Lo’ak turns back to your neck to hide from the world.

“He’s a tough kid,” Jake continues, and he’s right.

Spider is a kid.

—-

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